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Ask HN: Is the Job Market Actually Bad?

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Re: Ask HN: Is the Job Market Actually Bad?

#101

Post by porridgeraisin »

alephnerd wrote: post #30
yolo3000 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you even hire in Europe when the smartest people are in the Bay Area?

In some subindustries within tech (eg. Cybersecurity), the best engineering talent is now in Eastern Europe, Israel, and India and not the Bay. Additionally, diaspora engineers whose parents are growing old are starting to move back to the old country to be close with them.

I see you read the srinivas narayan article :P

He's moving back close to where I stay.

Many others from the big labs are moving back to their core EE field into stuff like optical networks for data centers and so on by the way. That is a lot of the attrition.

Re: Ask HN: Is the Job Market Actually Bad?

#102

Post by Noumenon72 »

tim-tday wrote: post #88

Having them reach out to you is key. Most job postings get thousands of applicants. I don’t think it’s possible to screen them. I just waded through the first 20 till I found someone who would work and hired him. I most certainly could have done better if I wanted to do a lot of filter and screen legwork. When they reach out you’re skipping the hardest 13mo of the job search. To anyone considering quitting, search fi…

I took your point to be "hirers would rather that job seekers contact them directly than look through resumes", but then your example is one where no one contacted you and you hired without looking through many resumes anyway. That doesn't really prove your point, and makes it sound like advice for people who don't much care who they hire.

Anyway, if people start to follow the advice of reaching out directly, that channel will become exactly as clogged as the job postings.

Re: Ask HN: Is the Job Market Actually Bad?

#103

Post by grantith »

confidantlake wrote: post #87

Ragebait. Haven't been contacted by a single recruiter in years. The only time is someone trying to sell me their shitty interview course/grad school program.

And yet, there are other people prepared to say they continue to be contacted by recruiters currently.

Re: Ask HN: Is the Job Market Actually Bad?

#106

Post by alephnerd »

porridgeraisin wrote: post #101
alephnerd wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In some subindustries within tech (eg. Cybersecurity), the best engineering talent is now in Eastern Europe, Israel, and India and not the Bay. Additionally, diaspora engineers whose parents are growing old are starting to move back to the old country to be close with them.

I see you read the srinivas narayan article :P He's moving back close to where I stay. Many others from the big labs are moving back to their core EE field into stuff like optical networks for data centers and so on by the way. That is a lot of the attrition.

> I see you read the srinivas narayan article

Nope.

At his level and position I doubt that is actually the primary reason simply because at his level, a way would have been found to retain him despite family issues (eg. opening an OpenAI tech office in Bangalore, Hyderabad, or Chennai or make him GM for OpenAI in India). Something else is going on with Srinivas' departure - either pushed out by Fidji or planning on starting his own thing.

That said, in my peer group I would say around 25-35% of people left for the family reason - especially after how COVID was handled in India. At one point, Google leadership was offering to match MTV salaries for engineers and PMs who Google wanted to retain but who decided to shift back to India to care for family during and slightly after the pandemic.

> Many others from the big labs are moving back to their core EE field into stuff like optical networks for data centers and so on by the way. That is a lot of the attrition.

My hunch is he is probably leaving to work on something like this or an adjacent space, but admitting as such would leave him open to litigation. That said, given his age I'd assume family decisions are also somewhat playing a role.

Ofc, some Indian diaspora types do leave for other reasons (eg. Sridhar Vembu and his divorce).

On the EE and optical side, diaspora founders are actually serious about leaving the US for Hyderabad simply because the Indian vintages of American deeptech funds plus the RDI are giving ridiculously competitive funding terms for startups in that space.

Re: Ask HN: Is the Job Market Actually Bad?

#107

Post by FireBeyond »

x3cca wrote: post #43

Candidate discovery is absolutely miserable right now. For a lot of people standing out is their resume and their LinkedIn page and the processes that exist just plain aren't getting the right eyes on those. If you're getting recruiters continually its probably less about your qualification (not to downplay them, I'm sure they're lovely) and more about being on a handful of company's candidate and talent banks. Every…

You can also tell how garbage a pipeline ATS screening and other such shit is by the sheer number of positions you see that are advertised for four to six weeks, go off-market only to re-appear 2-3 months later.

You know what's even more exhausting for an employer than having to invest energy into the top of your hiring funnel? Having to redo it every few months because an ATS filtered much of the cream off the top and sent you keyword stuffers to choose between.

Re: Ask HN: Is the Job Market Actually Bad?

#108

Post by devinprater »

noprocrasted wrote: post #66

It's primarily a discovery problem, on both sides of the market. Candidate-wise, everyone is slinging ChatGPT'd resumes left and right, which just leads to an arms race where the other side has to use LLMs to filter them, which just makes the situation even worse. The bar for "senior software engineer" is insanely low right now (and no, Leetcode doesn't count - I'm talking more pragmatic skills like being able to use…

Wait, you mean there are senior software engineers who don't know how to use a *nix terminal? I've been using them since I was like 16 or so.

Re: Ask HN: Is the Job Market Actually Bad?

#109

Post by pierrekin »

grantith wrote: post #103
confidantlake wrote: post #87

Ragebait. Haven't been contacted by a single recruiter in years. The only time is someone trying to sell me their shitty interview course/grad school program.

And yet, there are other people prepared to say they continue to be contacted by recruiters currently.

I get one a week minimum, hundreds per year. I don’t follow up often enough to know whether they are real and separate etc though.

Re: Ask HN: Is the Job Market Actually Bad?

#110

Post by alephnerd »

multjoy wrote: post #97
alephnerd wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why do you want to have non-complaining worker drones We want opinionated engineers. But we want engineers who will respond to a slack message after 5pm during a P1 escalation. > I'd more guess it is that there is a severe income tax advantage Somewhat but not enough to move the needle because depending on the local government, they are matching cross-EU subsidizes. > older people from those countries are good at k…

>But we want engineers who will respond to a slack message after 5pm during a P1 escalation. Then you're going to have to pay, aren't you.

We do. €130K-€170K TC is at the top of the range across ALL of Europe outside of HFT. Even London Investments Bankers don't make that much outside the 75th percentile and above.

Money ain't a problem, attitude is.

The Western Europeans with the right attitude either move to America (eg. I'm sponsoring the O-1 of 2 founders who are shifting from London to SF for that reason) or end up becoming leadership for American companies in Western Europe.

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