There are positions that took us 6-12 months of full time interviewing to staff. Finding good engineers is hard.
And this is the real problem in the tech industry if you are looking for a job. Unlike other industries, there are no externalities forcing companies to hire a poorer employee.
Speaking as a farmer, there the job has to be done on time, no matter what. If not, the food will spoil, or the animal will die, or what have you. I see other farmers offering pretty decent wages (around $50/hr) for skilled talent. If you're not skilled, you will be paid closer to minimum wage because your contributions end up costing more to the farmer. But the job has to be done, so in the absence of skilled labour, which is hard to find, you pick the unskilled labour and do your best to make it work.
In tech, as you've highlighted, it doesn't really matter if the job gets done and is often better if not done at all, if it was going to be done poorly. If it takes a year for the very best to become available, it is worth the wait. This puts us in a situation where only the top N% of talent is employable, no matter how many have a degree of skill necessary to do the job.
Being able to operate heavy machinery with precision is a one. When talking machines that cost half a million dollars, often with low operator visibility, a simple mishap can cost a fortune to repair.
*When talking machines that cost half a million dollars*
Base unit, no accessories. A brand new John Deere combine can list for around $450-500K--not including heads, precision ag systems, etc. Tack on a couple hundred thousand more for those.
All for a piece of equipment used 3-4 weeks out of the year.
New tractors are running around $150-$250K. Even 30+ year old tractors with good hours on them run about $27-30K at auction.
Some ag dealership labor rate for repair will make you wish you were paying car dealership rates.
Having a commercial applicator's license (herbicide/pesticide).
Trained implement mechanic.
Certified manure applicator (for commercial manure applicators and certain classes of confinement operators, and different from the commercial applicator license aforementioned).
And this is the real problem in the tech industry if you are looking for a job. Unlike other industries, there are no externalities forcing companies to hire a poorer employee.
Speaking as a farmer, there the job has to be done on time, no matter what. If not, the food will spoil, or the animal will die, or what have you. I see other farmers offering pretty decent wages (around $50/hr) for skilled talent. If you're not skilled, you will be paid closer to minimum wage because your contributions end up costing more to the farmer. But the job has to be done, so in the absence of skilled labour, which is hard to find, you pick the unskilled labour and do your best to make it work.
In tech, as you've highlighted, it doesn't really matter if the job gets done and is often better if not done at all, if it was going to be done poorly. If it takes a year for the very best to become available, it is worth the wait. This puts us in a situation where only the top N% of talent is employable, no matter how many have a degree of skill necessary to do the job.