Tech Shops, Hungry for Brains, Face the Google Factor

SAN FRANCISCO -- Research-and-development money is sloshing around Silicon Valley, and it's spurring a new ruthlessness for talent among competitors in enterprise software and search.

"Are you ready, SAP?" a menacing job posting at Oracle(ORCL Quote) asks in reference to its enterprise-software arch-competitor. It's just one of 224 ads Oracle has posted since July 1 seeking software engineers -- mostly in the Bay Area -- for R&D.

As tech companies ride a wave in enterprise software growth, they've ramped up hiring. What's at stake in the bidding war for talent? It's a race to deliver next-generation software as a service over the Web.

Silicon Valley companies are trading coding wizards like baseball cards. Companies are handing recruiting firms wish lists for software developers from competing firms. And in a buyer's market, the engineers are turning the demand into lucrative salaries.

"We're seeing a return to 2000 in terms of the competition for talent," said Glenn Itliong of the mid-level recruiter Futurestep, a subsidiary of Korn/Ferry. The hiring started to "shoot up in the last two months."

The big names competing head-to-headcount to deliver on-demand software include Oracle, Adobe(ADBE Quote) and Salesforce.com(CRM Quote). And all have to contend with the deep-pocketed and ravenous growth monster, Google(GOOG Quote).