Pondering a Hole In The Market: Developers
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Where the hell are all the good developers in Denver? We know Factory, Xylem, FL2, CP+B and The1stMovement have a handful of the best locked up, but where is everyone else? No one’s moving to town. No one’s graduating from the schools. In fact, the schools are completely clueless—directing very few into this career—a career that, by the way, pays a shit-ton the minute you graduate and instantly gives you a career. There’s so much need and so little talent to go around. Where do you find quality developers? How do we bring more of them here to Denver? Do you have to pay to school people to mold them to your needs? That sucks, but it may be the answer. We gotta solve this as a city in order for us to compete at the next level. Your thoughts.
Comments
Justin Simoni January 31, 2009
I’m personally just hangin’
I’m personally just hangin’ out.
F. C. January 31, 2009
As long as agencies in Denver
As long as agencies in Denver and Boulder want to attract top-level art directors with a salary that hits the ceiling at $65K/yr, they are going to have an incredible hard time getting people to relocate. Also, the gap in pay needs to narrow down a bit, seen that they pay their creative directors anywhere from $100K/yr to $180K/yr.
In Dallas, TX, the same art director could make $73K/yr in an Omnicom agency—with a lower cost of living and no state taxes—and actually make upward to $82K/yr in an indie agency. To aggravate the situation, very few agencies in Denver are willing to hire professionals from other states (or countries) to work from their home offices.
Andrew Hoffman February 1, 2009
Maybe this will help answer
Maybe this will help answer your question: http://www.alistapart.com/articles/elevatewebdesignattheuniversitylevel
Also, when I worked as a designer in higher-ed, one of my colleagues was the Webmaster for the school and is the most talented developer I have ever met. We were both very young and still working on our degrees at the time, when we both parted ways from the school he took a job Lockheed Martin, I took a job at a small design firm.
Moral of the story…there are super talented web developers in Denver, but unlike designers (for the most part) and copywriters, developers have options outside of the advertising and design industry. Thus, our industry’s market place is not over saturated with developers as it is with designers.
Greg February 2, 2009
The reason you don’t get many
The reason you don’t get many good developers in the ad/marketing/web space is because few places want to pay developers a good salary to work in the ad/marketing/web space. IEEE reports that average starting pay for a BS in computer science is ~$60k. That means you have to pay some 20 year old kid who may not be able to dress himself the same salary as a designer who’s been in the industry for a decade — and that’s just to get someone average. The reality is that for most ad/marketing/web firms, good developers probably aren’t worth the investment, for better or worse.
Jameson Watts February 2, 2009
I reckon we snagged a few of
I reckon we snagged a few of the best here at Vermilion. We’ve got a pretty vibrant software community in Boulder; if you can offer a decent salary and a viable alternative to Crispin, you can find good people.
Sherm February 3, 2009
They are around, you just
They are around, you just have to dig a bit. I have worked with a few smaller shops in town and have had the best experience working with 303 Software.
They are a local shop in the Golden Triangle and have great developers.
Check ‘em out: http://www.303software.com
BTW, local shop the400 designed their new logo and site. Good stuff.
/sherm
x February 3, 2009
I was a lone developer for
I was a lone developer for about 7 years in Denver. It is a very good market if you know what you’re doing and have the engineering mind for development and the creative mind to work quality designers. The design machine around here churns up the business and dumps it in your lap once you’ve got a portfolio.
I was snapped up by one of the aforementioned agencies not too long ago. One less lone dev in a pretty deserted market out here. Still, does the Denver design/advertising market know what to do with developers when they find them? How many $1m+ projects even exist out here (that aren’t just imported by CP+B et. al.)? Does configuring WordPress for yet another inane blog even count as a project?
kevin February 4, 2009
check out this small but
check out this small but up-and-coming agency for web development. Some of the best in town and great guys to work with. http://relishstudio.com/
BK February 4, 2009
Ditto that: 60K for starting
Ditto that: 60K for starting pay is a bit high, but institutional salaries range from about 75-120K.
It’s more than money, though. The fast-churn, short lifecycle of the ad/pr world seems the antithesis of even the most agile development methods. I can’t speak from personal experience, but agencies seem to burn through talent pretty quickly.
Besides, do they really care about quality? The majority of ad/pr campaign sites are just pretty faces without much substance or concern for web standards.
Dev February 5, 2009
It’s simple. Agencies, for
It’s simple. Agencies, for the most part, don’t get the jokes, don’t know the first thing about web technology, don’t know what to pay, and don’t have projects that are interesting to developers. And, all they care about is how the thing looks and not how it performs, converts, or whether it is usable.
SH February 5, 2009
If you were looking to get
If you were looking to get started in web development right now, what skill sets should you be learning. Also, since technologies are continually evolving, what could you educate yourself on now that may be more applicable down the road?
Hawker February 10, 2009
Daffy Duck said it best:
Daffy Duck said it best: http://www.stuporduck.com/sounds/DS295.wav
The agency I work for has had the same core group of amazing developers in place for 3 years. We have had agile tools and practices in place for at least the last 7 — not just in our proposals. From Trac to CruiseControl CM to McConnell’s best practices…From product-grade enterprise CMSes to home-grown pattern-based MVC one-offs in Flex, .NET, PHP, Ruby, CF. We get it. We have got something special going on (even after all these years), and we keep evolving and growing despite the economy. It’s our little secret.
Wish you were here,