As someone that doesn't live in an area with lots of VC funding and investment activity, I disagree that there is no shortage.
It's always been very difficult to find talent but lately it appears to have gotten harder. It hasn't been considered a good idea to study CS for the past decade and we've only churned out about a third of the CS graduates that we did in the previous decade. Thats starting to turn around now, but it will be a while before we get caught up.
I do agree that the startup craze has reduced the talent pool, but I think thats a local phenomenon in Silicon Valley and NYC. In other areas with more traditional employment sectors, it's just not as prevalent. There are certainly some talented devs that have relocated to where the startups are (I have contemplated it myself) but I don't think it reflects the majority at all.
First off, everywhere (with respect to the talent pool) has lots of VC funding and investment activity. I can say without knowing where you live that with almost complete certainty:
1. there's more interest in ability to get companies funded there than ever before.
2. people are leaving your town to work in the bay.
That said, I was pretty lazy when I spat out a list of problems earlier. There's lots of other interesting reasons it's getting harder to find good talent... I'm just not convinced that it's because there are fewer developers (which is the only thing that would define a 'shortage' in my estimation).
If we assume that there are plenty of engineers (you know, to humor me).. then there's only two reasons that you (or I!) would have trouble hiring:
1. They don't know we exist.
2. They don't think our job is better than the one they have.
The bottom line is that both of those things have gotten WAY harder in the last, say, five years. I don't think I could do it justice ranting about why and how I think that is in an HN comment but I think there have been a lot of interesting changes in the way software developers perceive their jobs, find them, etc.. and I think the way most of us hire is lagging well behind these shifts.
It's generally all really good, though. I think during my career (since '97) we've mostly gotten away hiring developers the way you might hire accountants, or anesthesiologists. Software development is a craft, and if you look at the way artisans in other crafts work and find work, you'll see a stark difference. My guess is that paying more attention to industries like architecture, graphic design, or even tattooing is likely a window into what hiring software developers will look like five years from now.
It's always been very difficult to find talent but lately it appears to have gotten harder. It hasn't been considered a good idea to study CS for the past decade and we've only churned out about a third of the CS graduates that we did in the previous decade. Thats starting to turn around now, but it will be a while before we get caught up.
I do agree that the startup craze has reduced the talent pool, but I think thats a local phenomenon in Silicon Valley and NYC. In other areas with more traditional employment sectors, it's just not as prevalent. There are certainly some talented devs that have relocated to where the startups are (I have contemplated it myself) but I don't think it reflects the majority at all.