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Ask HN: How is the job search coming along for people who got laid off?

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Re: Ask HN: How is the job search coming along for people who got laid off?

#121

Post by thefreeman »

adamcharnock wrote: post #15
a-bit-of-code wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For that kind of seniority/experience, what fraction of companies asked LeetCodey stuff? Was it easy or medium/hard problems? How much time did you have to spend preparing/practicing?

Not the OP, but with similar experience levels and I’ve never done a LeetCode interview, and even regular interviews are pretty light. I mostly contract though, and they generally offer me full time after a little while if I want it.

How do you find contract opportunities? Is it the same as regular job searching? Do you use a firm? Do you apply to full time job posts but say you prefer contract to hire once you have an interview?

Re: Ask HN: How is the job search coming along for people who got laid off?

#122

Post by f1shy »

mkl95 wrote: post #104
throwaway908365 wrote: post #71

Have not been laid off and I am not living in the bay area, but in Germany. Still wanted to offer some perspective. ~15 years fullstack and DevOps experience, visited top local university, no degree. Mostly Python + some other languages. Have been interviewing for Lead SE/DevOps/SRE roles as well as some architecture positions. My findings about the German job market for developers: - Remote-work is here to stay. Alm…

> Landing lead/lower management roles seems to be difficult if you have limited experience leading people. Those seem to be mostly staffed internally. Because at most places lead/lower management is another word for yes men that have proven their blind loyalty to the CTO, usually for 2 or 3 years. They don't wanna hire a manager who may question the status quo, especially when it comes to architecture and best practi…

Specially in Germany middle management is all about contacts (they call it "B-Vitamin" because of the german word for "relationship" starts with "B") who do you know and who knows you is the most important thing... Technical background is relegated to a second plane (to say the least) because you are "not supposed to solve the problems, but to manage the people who actually solve the problems".

Re: Ask HN: How is the job search coming along for people who got laid off?

#123

Post by f1shy »

mrcartmeneses wrote: post #120
throwaway908365 wrote: post #71

Have not been laid off and I am not living in the bay area, but in Germany. Still wanted to offer some perspective. ~15 years fullstack and DevOps experience, visited top local university, no degree. Mostly Python + some other languages. Have been interviewing for Lead SE/DevOps/SRE roles as well as some architecture positions. My findings about the German job market for developers: - Remote-work is here to stay. Alm…

Do you have any advice for freelancing in Germany? I’ll be moving to Berlin in January, aber ich spreche nur Englisch und ich lerne Deutsch. Ich habe die EU-Staatsbürgerschaft und meine Frau kommt aus Berlin. I am a senior front end dev who has experience leading teams

Why do you want freelance? You can apply to any job... AFAIK the headaches of tax declaration and setup for freelance are not worth it.

Re: Ask HN: How is the job search coming along for people who got laid off?

#124

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

fxtentacle wrote: post #118
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are talking about someone with 15 years experience though. 100k @ 15 years is too low when new grads now start at 60k. So you hire someone who has 14 years of extra experience and brings a lot more value to the company and only pay them 40k extra? That's why I'm saying it feels like an insult.

15 years of experience might also mean they are excellent at PHP+jQuery but have never heard of Rails+React ;)

Sure, we are getting into semantics now. 15 years experience could mean knowing how to lead and bring up a team and product form scratch or it could also mean 15x 1 year experience if that person was constantly switching stacks/companies.

It's why we should compare salaries for positions rather than YoE.

Re: Ask HN: How is the job search coming along for people who got laid off?

#125

Post by bityard »

j33zusjuice wrote: post #91
tfsh wrote: post #36

Wasn't laid off (end of contract) but spent ~3 months looking and interviewing for jobs. Applied to about 30 positions, heard back from 3 and received 1 offer for Google. Didn't exactly give me confidence about the future when I may be looking for another job... YOE: 3

Dude. You got an offer from Google. How do you not have confidence for the future?! Google took you! Who cares what the places that didn’t take you think? *GOOGLE* thinks you’re good. That’s a hell of a statement. But getting a job at Google tells you that your overall skillset was not the problem. You just didn’t match the other positions as well as some others for some reason. FAANG level jobs are always hard to ge…

Google may pay well and look good to future employers, but the internet is littered with stories about Google's weird promotion-driven-development culture and the stress/disappointment it can cause.

I genuinely wish GP the best but it's not a company I would want to work for if I had another option.

Re: Ask HN: How is the job search coming along for people who got laid off?

#126

Post by trentnix »

throw_aws_inter wrote: post #16

I interviewed for 1.5 months (!!!) for AWS for a senior position, went through all the stages through the end. Then silence. I kept emailing the recruiters responsible for my interview, I kept getting out-of-office replies. Then I contacted some higher ups I found, told me they assigned my interview to other recruiters. No replies from them though. I have emailed them a bunch of times including the higher up. Then th…

Sounds familiar! Not to mention the interview itself being a never ending stream of “tell me about a time when…”

Eventually you’ll get a “No” along with a message that, per policy, they don’t provide feedback. And then you’ll get several emails insisting you send your feedback, because they really want to “improve the process”. *facepalm*

Unfortunately, despite assurances to the contrary, I was generally unimpressed with the quality of the people doing the interviewing. One of them was in his kitchen, while family members moved about behind him. Another didn’t share video, because reasons, making every silence while they made their notes that much more awkward. And another would spend 2+ minutes typing in silence until finally asking the next question, ruining any opportunity for flow or conversation.

Judging by Amazon’s recent growth (prior to the recent layoffs), I’m not sure anyone has had time for any engineering. They’ve all been stuck doing interview “loops”.

Re: Ask HN: How is the job search coming along for people who got laid off?

#127

Post by newaccount2021 »

negamax wrote: post #41

Based on a small sample set. Seems like hiring is picking up. Most tech companies are still at higher valuation then pre pandemic times. They were profitable and hiring. Bold statement: Tech will pick up first. And companies who are making noise based on Elon's move at Twitter will strave for good workers and die

No post body was provided.

Re: Ask HN: How is the job search coming along for people who got laid off?

#128

Post by bitL »

I know a guy that left one FAANG recently which was laying off people, interviewed at two other FAANGs, got offers for senior remote roles for over $600k, accepted both and is now working two jobs at the same time. Given he was doing the previous FAANG together with a tough grad school, I think he'll be fine.

Re: Ask HN: How is the job search coming along for people who got laid off?

#129

Post by khet »

I've been looking for a remote design + engineering role, but it really seems like most companies are not hiring or just have way too many options to choose from!

I've got 10+ years as a design who is also a full stack engineer (node stack). If you're hiring for a role that is well-rounded product, please message me, I'd love to talk.

Portfolio link in my profile.

Re: Ask HN: How is the job search coming along for people who got laid off?

#130

Post by throwaway908365 »

fxtentacle wrote: post #99
throwaway908365 wrote: post #71

Have not been laid off and I am not living in the bay area, but in Germany. Still wanted to offer some perspective. ~15 years fullstack and DevOps experience, visited top local university, no degree. Mostly Python + some other languages. Have been interviewing for Lead SE/DevOps/SRE roles as well as some architecture positions. My findings about the German job market for developers: - Remote-work is here to stay. Alm…

100k€ for 15 years of experience seems about right for me. If you factor in all the freebies and tax refunds and stuff, that's roughly equivalent to earning 1000€ per billable day as a German freelancer, or the equivalent of about $150 per hour in the US. Typical freebies in Germany include: - 13th salary as a Christmas gift (so +8.3% salary) - only half of your health insurance costs are included in the nominal sala…

> - 13th salary as a Christmas gift (so +8.3% salary)

My 100k number is all-in.

> Also, with a bit of searching, you can rent a house with garden for €2000 per month even in large cities like Hamburg or Berlin. As a result, an 100k€ annual salary will be enough for you alone to comfortably bankroll a family of 5 - something that's almost impossible in the bay area due to high rents and insane costs of living.

That is true. But you have to say goodbye to any romantic dreams about owning any property big enough for children (within a nice area of such a city), if you and a similiarly well-doing partner do not want to work for it for the rest of your life. If you have not come across FIRE, that might be okay as well.

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