Ask HN: Has the tech recession affected you?

I've done some searching. 30 years experience, I've been writing Java and Python since the 90s. I was working in .NET since Beta 1. I'm very much a generalist, but I can't even get a call back from a company that looked ideal - I had worked at a successful startup that invented the space that company was in, I had demonstrated experience in all the relevant tech on the posting, I'm local and have no problem with the commute... does my resume suck that badly?

My theory on this is that X created a bit of a chill that became a full blown cold front. While the high profile layoffs at the FAANGs, percentage-wise it wasn't that big and most of these companies are still above pre-pandemic staffing levels, but it affected job seekers profoundly.

While those numbers are true in aggregate, a layoff is disastrous to an individual. There's no more "take this job and shove it, I'll have a new one by the end of the week". My current employer has a moribund stock price, and is nowhere near a prestige name, has suddenly stopped complaining about not being able to find qualified candidates. On recent data engineering position that opened had 350 applicants. I can't imagine what the FAANGs are getting. It must make navigating the pipeline that much more challenging. I've had 2 recruiters tell me that you really need a referral, or better a champion inside the company to get you seen.

I've heard some tales from recruiters about how aggressively recruiters poach job listings, it seems companies now feel empowered to play recruiters off against each other.

For my part, I'm out of market for another job for now, barring something extraordinary. I've made my peace with my situation: it's not awesome, but it's OK and it's time to focus on other things in life than landing a dream job.

I personally know a half dozen people laid off last fall and 2 were at startups than ran out of money. Fiscal tightening has a lot to do with it, investment funds are now competing with 5% guaranteed returns on short term investments.

Why would they have a lot of savings?

I've been a software engineer for around 15 years. I've got good experience working both perm and as contractor, both in the public and private sector.

I think because I have quite broad appeal in my experience I tend to find it reasonably easy to get interviews, and I've always felt I have an above average hit rate of getting the jobs I apply for when I get interviews.

Early last year I lost my job and it was scary how quiet the market was. I managed to find a job in the end (I think I got quite lucky to be honest) but it was a contract role so recently I've been looking around again as I will be out of work fairly soon.

I've sent my CV out for ~30 positions over the last couple of months and I've heard absolutely nothing back. Well, one recruiter said I had been shortlisted weeks ago, but then I heard nothing back.

I'm actually stunned at how bad the market is right now. I've had two previous colleagues contact me this week alone asking if I know of any work going because they've been out of a job for a while.

But not only is the market bad right now, I'm also noticing that rates for many engineering roles have tanked. A recruiter reached out about a React developer role recently which had an advertised day rate of £200 ($250), for comparison in 2021 your average React developer day rate might be around £500-600. So even where people are finding roles in many cases they're taking significant cuts in pay. Lead developer and very niche roles seem to be holding in a little better, but from what I've seen they've still come down quite a bit in recent months.

Additionally because so many talented people are out of work right now even if you find a job at a significant pay cut you're going to struggle to get it because in some cases these roles are getting 50-100 applicants – many of whom have many years of experience.

What worries me is that some people I'm talking to still seem to think that it's not that bad out there, saying things like, "I've always found something", or "there's always someone hiring", but I'm telling you this time is different. I know multiple people struggling to pay rent and feed their families right now. Tech did reasonable well during the GFC, but right now it's dire out there for tech jobs. Anyone reading this needs to be prepared to lose their job and be out of work for at least a year, and even if you find a job you need to be prepared to take a significant pay cut. If you can't afford to be out of work for a year you need to save and prepare – especially if you have a family dependant on your income.

I'm based in the UK, so perhaps it's better elsewhere in the world, but I have never seen the market this bad before – not even close. I wouldn't bet on a rebound any time soon either. Work from home, higher interest rates, large numbers of new tech talent graduating, and increasing automation in software development workflows may keep the market cool for a long time.

You're right, but higher energy costs has a larger impact on manufacturing and a relatively low impact on services where energy costs make up a smaller percentage of total costs.

The reason tech is struggling right now (imo) is that Covid dragged forward a ton of demand in tech hiring and in late 2022 this pull forward started to reverse as companies faced facing reopening (less digital demand), higher interest rates and inflationary cost increases. Many companies either had plenty of tech talent so paused hiring, others had too much and needed to cost cut so did layoffs. The result is a market full of talented engineers but no one looking to hire.

I think it may also be partly that the AI hype has pulled capital from labour to compute. The largest expense an AI startup has is compute, not tech talent. Previously a newly funded startup would hire a large team of engineers, now they'll use that funding to bring in a few AI researchers and spend the rest on compute.