Chicago Tech Talent – What’s the Problem?

There have been a few articles recently about the lack of available developer talent in the Second City.  Spurred on by the newly created demand from a now thriving tech start-up community, everyone seems to be looking for developers.  Not only developers, but really good rock-star developers!

I can attest to this issue firsthand as the company that I have been interning for all summer could always use more talent.  Good talent is really hard to come by for entrepreneurs who already have 34 hours of work to fit into their 24-hour days.  Hiring a good, dependable team (especially developers) ranges from tricky to downright impossible.  I was at the first Tech.li Thursday One  last month and during the “sharing” session many of the start-ups talked about needing developer talent.

I am relatively new to the Chicago start-up scene and am by no means a developer but I thought I would write about the situation from a different point of view.

There IS Developer talent in Chicago! Right?

Chicago is home to several top notch universities that produce brilliant minds and a lot of those brilliant minds are getting computer science or related degrees.  DePaul and Columbia College have game developer programs.  IIT and Roosevelt University both offer Computer Science programs.  To the north and south, Chicago is home to two of the finest universities in the country (arguably the world) with Northwestern and the University of Chicago. They produce top level talent and both offer computer programming tracks with many different flavors.

For me, the issue doesn’t seem to be one of scarcity, it seems to be one of miss-matched supply and demand.  As someone interested in working for a start-up, I lucked out by having a personal friendship with someone who had a start-up.  If I didn’t have that relationship, I likely wouldn’t be where I am right now.  I know that much in life comes back to relationships and networking but there should be some solutions as a start-up “community” that we can put in place with a little effort to bring these two groups together.  Interestingly, there is a start-up that came to life recently, hirebrite, which is trying to solve this very problem of matching top-tier students with start-up companies looking for talent.

Are the Schools are to blame?

Earlier this summer I was looking for people to participate in a hackathon my company sponsored along with Tech.li, the Illinois Technology Partnership, and Built in Chicago to coincide with TechWeek.  I decided to reach out to two schools (which will remain unnamed) to see if they could put the word out among the student and alumni communities about this opportunity.  Guess how many people I got from this effort? Zip, Zero, Nada!  Even worse, I didn’t even get a response from the people at the schools that I reached out to.  What do I say to that — Shame on you educators and the people in career services, you aren’t doing your students and alum any favors by ignoring opportunities for them to demonstrate their skills.

I admit that I am writing without specific numbers to support thi,s but are the schools courting the right prospective employers for their students?  I would love to hear from the schools to find out where they are placing their talent and how we could better direct some of these folks to smaller companies and start-ups in particular (See the calls to action below).

Are the leaders in the Tech Community, and those looking to build Chicago into a hub for technology with a thriving start-up scene that isn’t just Groupon, responsible?

Maybe?  But that’s a completely different article……..

Is this a Chicago start-up problem or a Chicago community problem?

While the individuals that are starting companies are responsible for building their companies (which includes hiring the dev teams), the people who invest in these start-ups and take pride in calling Chicago home should look for ways to nurture the Tech and start-up ecosystem.   Maybe some of the initiatives that are coming out from City Hall (Thanks Mayor Emanuel for ThinkChicago) and Springfield are starting to address the issue but I don’t want the government to tackle this, this should be a community project.

So how about this for my recommendation – Let’s crowdsource a solution for this sucker!

I am not a developer and am relatively new to the start-up scene so maybe I’m wrong?

But here are my calls to action:

  • Tell me I’m wrong!  But please tell me why and in a pleasant tone if possible.
  • Share stories about how you land good talent!
  • Connect us to the people at the schools that can engage in dialogue or better yet — can hook us up with a talented kid that is itching to write code for a cool start-up!
  • Share ideas on how we can bring these groups together!
  • STUDENTS and talented developers tell us how we find you!
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Randy Anderson: Randy is a (mid life) MBA student at Chicago Booth in the process of changing careers. Randy grew up a Cubs fan in the heart of Cardinal country – Springfield, IL. After four awesome years in the US Navy, Randy got his undergrad in Accounting from Northern Illinois. He is leveraging his MBA to move into a Marketing and Business development role at a smaller company (can you say start-up) after spending the last several years auditing (yuck!). Randy is interning at 5Degrees helping them launch their new mobile contact management system. Randy also wants to give back to his community – most recently he was co-president of the Associates Board at a Chicago not-for profit. When he isn’t interning, volunteering or going to class, Randy likes to hang out with his wife and three kids (and 4 dogs and 3 cats!) and cook the edible stuff he grows in his Hyde Park back yard. He really wants to get rid of his cable but Bears, Cubs, Blackhawks and to a lesser degree Bulls games have made that nearly impossible!

View Comments (16)

  • As with most things in this business, my guess is its an issue of funding.  Rockstar developers want to get funding for their own ideas, so they go to the coasts where they can get that funding.  

    In Chicago, how many startups founded by technologists get funded, vs startups founded by entrepreneurs with a background in business or some other non-technical discipline?  How many Angels and VCs in Chicago are willing to back college grads, or people who do not have management experience?  Contrast this with Google, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, Twitter, etc, where the company was founded by the individuals who developed the initial product.  Its a different model compared to entrepreneurs who see an opportunity and need to hire technologists to execute it.  Its not bad, just different, and as an entrepreneur you have to recognize that and adjust.  Recognize that super-star developers willing to take the risk to work in a startup environment need a pretty good reason to work on your idea rather than leave Chicago and pursue their own idea.  

  • As with most things in this business, my guess is its an issue of funding.  Rockstar developers want to get funding for their own ideas, so they go to the coasts where they can get that funding.  

    In Chicago, how many startups founded by technologists get funded, vs startups founded by entrepreneurs with a background in business or some other non-technical discipline?  How many Angels and VCs in Chicago are willing to back college grads, or people who do not have management experience?  Contrast this with Google, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, Twitter, etc, where the company was founded by the individuals who developed the initial product.  Its a different model compared to entrepreneurs who see an opportunity and need to hire technologists to execute it.  Its not bad, just different, and as an entrepreneur you have to recognize that and adjust.  Recognize that super-star developers willing to take the risk to work in a startup environment need a pretty good reason to work on your idea rather than leave Chicago and pursue their own idea.  

  • I can't help answer your questions regarding the identification of the talent-flow roadblocks... but I can tell you that there are very few channels through which a start-up can broadcast job notices effectively. The matching between developer talent and start-ups will be best when both sides of that "network equation" have become frequent users in the channel. If we purely focus on the goal of matching these two sides together, then the best solution will be a single centralized channel for Chicago matching that is visited by students, job-seekers, career services professionals, and hiring managers. I'd love to see such a channel ASAP. By the way... Monster, Dice, and Career Builder do not count. Neither does paid placement recruiting services. We're talking about start-ups here, folks. Get real.

    • That is a great point Kilton and techli.com is working on a solution for that as we speak- we want to feature job notices.

      Now that I've plugged US, ha- I also think there is somewhat of a different mentality in Chicago- many developers get jobs with large companies.  We don't have as many developer/entrepreneurs as, say, San Francisco.  Chicago is great but we still aren't the center of the Universe- also failure isn't as celebrated here and neither is so-called "job hopping."  In the Bay Area, developers may last 6 mos to a year at a position and then be lured away to another startup.  Tough on the startups? Yes, of course.  But talent cross-pollinates in the Bay Area and is a net positive for the culture.  In Chicago job hopping is frowned upon and not looked at as a generally accepted pattern of employee behavior- nor do the new grads realize this.

      When a 22 year old graduates and joins a company, they tend to drop off the radar.  I think developer/entrepreneurs combine great skill sets but not every entrepreneur is a developer and not every developer an entrepreneur.  Add to that a less than stellar Angel/seed community here and it shrinks the pool yet further.  There are in capital here for a $1M + raise, but less and less startups need a million or more to get going.  Chicago needs more Angels in the sub $1M range which goes to the comment by Joe above.

      Developers are rare enough...and then when we shrink the pool due to these other factors it gets smaller yet.

      Great post Randy, thanks

      • Ed – You make alot of great points – I especially like your comment about failure not being celebrated in the Midwest!
        Thanks for the opportunity! In the words of my man #Flounder...Oh Boy is this great!

    • Thanks Kilton! You hit the nail on the head - We need to come together as a community to solve this issue, especially since there is a unique financial dynamic with start-ups.

  • There is a startup working to solve this problem in Chicago- Code Mountain who won $100,000 from Spark Chicago and was incubated by Pathfinder.

    Would love to see an article about these folks trying to solve the problem, but calls to action are all good too :)

    • Great idea Joone - A series is in the works! Thanks for the Code Mountain idea! Oh and thanks for the shout out to @SassyCEO!

  • I just had this same conversation with Fred Hoch from the ITA the other day.  I look at this from various perspectives having worked in government, marketing and the film industry here in Illinois before becoming an entrepreneur.  There are many reasons for this, networking being one of the major ones.  So here is a general overview of my own pov.

    Talented Developers - Chicago has a number of freelance developers who work with many of the digital marketing agencies and big brands around town.  They, like those working full-time, are often looking for cool and exciting projects.  But many are unaware of what's happening in the tech startup scene.  So if you don't know what's going on, it's hard to get involved.  One way to solve this is to fish where the fish are.  Network with many of the recruitment firms around town.  Sponsor some non-entrepreneurial events.  Get involved with digital groups outside of the entrepreneurial ecosystem.

    Groups Outside Startup Ecosystem - okay, I can already hear some saying they don't know what organizations I'm referencing.  So here's a quick list of where I've found/spoken to some developers:

    Chicago Interactive Marketing Association (CIMA)
    Social Media Breakfast Chicago (SMBC) 
    Chicago Interactive Social Club (CISC) 
    Young Professionals of Chicago (YPC)
    SocialDevCamp - though not an organization, they too have developers

    Yep, not all developers hang out at tech events.  There are some who have other interests in additional to development.  So look in some of these places.

    Talk to Recruiters - Get to know Veronica Ludwig (often organizes hackathons), Camille Fetter, Judi Wunderland and a number of other recruiters out there.

    Schools - also look at colleges in Indiana.  Purdue is right across the border and has a number of branches close to the border. Hold recruiting events at top-tier schools and promote internships early on.  I know, after talking with a professor from one of the colleges in town, that right now is a good time to find interns.  The best way to do this is to go directly to the computer department and ask for the individual who manages the internship program.  Be sure to have your internship program in place though first.

    Talent Lost to West Coast - Okay, so we lose some talent to the west coast.  Well, we aren't the only ones.  Finance loses them to the east coast, and Film to the west coast.  Despite this, both industries have done well here in Chicago.  One thing the film industry does to keep Chicago front-and-center, is to host a party for Chicago alumni out in LA called Sweet Home Chicago.  They know who are Chicago alumni because they work closely with the college Alumni Relations offices here in Chicago.  This is something the tech community could look at doing.  When you keep the city front-and-center, it's harder to forget what's here.  If Chicago's tech scene were to do something similar to the Film Industry's Sweet Home Chicago event, I'd recommend asking Mike Evans and Matt Maloney of GrubHub to serve as ambassadors for the community. They would be good ambassadors.

    So these are just some of my thoughts.  I have more, but if you're interested in hearing what those are, please email me at marian@sassyceo.com

    • Marian - Holy cow THANKS for the detailed response I am definitely going to take you up on the offer to talk more!

  • I think the best place to recruit talent is definitely hitting up the Chicago tech hangouts. Hackathons, socialdevcamp, ruby meetup, jelly, etc. 

    Personally, I am a business person who participated in the Hackathon at SocialDevCamp. Not only did I get three qualified developers to work with me on my project, but we ended up winning the award for 'Best Design' for Edit Huddle @edithuddle:twitter . Given feedback, we are now launching our business...still on the hunt for a good designer though. 

    • haking away That is great advice! In the post I mentioned the hackathon I was recruiting for........While we didn’t have a big turnout, the folks there were awesome! @Passinggreen, @gegere, @trustmuse, @LeapNToast. I'll contact you to get more details on where to get more info on these type of events and how we can get the word out!

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