Not laid off, but got an offer this month. All I did was turn on "open to work" on LinkedIn, respond to >400 recruiters, ~3% of which were offering good enough compensation. Had 4 on-sites, 2 rejections, 1 I rejected before offer stage, and 1 offer. Senior SRE, no leetcode / system design, but they did have a take-home project.
Ask HN: How is the job search coming along for people who got laid off?
171–180 of 579 posts
Re: Ask HN: How is the job search coming along for people who got laid off?
#172Software engineer with 10+yrs experience and was on a break for 3+ yrs. I haven't done outbound yet ("applied" to companies). Mostly got referred to companies/startups through folks in my network. Remote work is an important requirement for the time being. So I spoke to 15 (remote-friendly/first) companies through my network (could've been more if I were up for onsite work), 4 started the interview process (rest had…
When you say on break for 3+ years, do you mean that you didnt work for 3+ years leading up to these interviews?
Re: Ask HN: How is the job search coming along for people who got laid off?
#173I 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…
I sat through Amazon's process twice. Both times was 9 total hours of interviewing. Both times ghosted at the end.
Re: Ask HN: How is the job search coming along for people who got laid off?
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
I assume because I've seen ChatGPT successfully: - write a Gitlab ci job that tests python code and outputs a junit test report. - can you add code coverage? - write a sql table that has users, age, and a biography - write python that parses the above output from the table - now use a lexer and parser - create a unit test to verify it's correct. - write a perl one liner that parses a list of users and phone numbers I…
On being able to replace a real programmer I'd say ChatGPT is about the same distance lane assist is from FSD. Why you ask? Well it's because most of what a programmer does is more complex than the AI can handle right now. For example my job involves the following: a) multiple interacting systems and management of the relationships between them b) > 90% of my work does not involve writing new code c) the programming…
The most important, I think, is talking to the customer, and understanding what they want... even when they do not know it...
Re: Ask HN: How is the job search coming along for people who got laid off?
#175Not laid off, but got an offer this month. All I did was turn on "open to work" on LinkedIn, respond to >400 recruiters, ~3% of which were offering good enough compensation. Had 4 on-sites, 2 rejections, 1 I rejected before offer stage, and 1 offer. Senior SRE, no leetcode / system design, but they did have a take-home project.
Years of experience?
Re: Ask HN: How is the job search coming along for people who got laid off?
#176I used to work at a hardware store. As in literal bolts and nuts type of tech, not software related:) Recently lost my job. Originally from Kazakhstan. Thinking of going back if I can't find anything else. No credentials to speak of other than the fact that I could probably think my way out of an undergrad level abstract algebra or real analysis problem if cornered. Maybe topology, too. Native speaker of both Kazakh…
And what is it that you want to do remotely? Sell nuts and bolts? It’s unlikely someone would read your post and think “oh yeah, you’d be great for our company working remotely”. You didn’t outline a single capability other than selling nuts and bolts.
Resume tip: "x years of experience working at the hardware level. Implemented stacks and queues on bare metal."
Re: Ask HN: How is the job search coming along for people who got laid off?
#177I 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…
That is just Amazon being Amazon. When they interviewed me the first time, the interviewer didn't show to work, so they asked another guy to interview me, he ended interviewing me in a language he didn't knew, to a position using another language entirely, the whole thing was a farce. Some years later Amazon recruiters contacted me, asked me to go interview in person. Then during the interview in their offices, they…
I'll add to the Amazon interview complaints (early 2021 so remote). The recruiter prepped me ahead of time that I would have only 4 interviewers, and the next day they would be sending me an approval or some feedback. Having done interviews before I knew this was nonsense, and sure enough 2 or 3 days after my five calls, he called back genuinely surprised that there was no feedback. The interview itself was genuinely interesting but complicated by this team not having hired a frontend eng before.
Re: Ask HN: How is the job search coming along for people who got laid off?
#178Software engineer with 10+yrs experience and was on a break for 3+ yrs. I haven't done outbound yet ("applied" to companies). Mostly got referred to companies/startups through folks in my network. Remote work is an important requirement for the time being. So I spoke to 15 (remote-friendly/first) companies through my network (could've been more if I were up for onsite work), 4 started the interview process (rest had…
When you say on break for 3+ years, do you mean that you didnt work for 3+ years leading up to these interviews?
To me, break implies it was chosen for personal reasons. But I'll let GP answer for sure.
Re: Ask HN: How is the job search coming along for people who got laid off?
#179I'm regularly getting enquiries but I do DevOps (AWS, Kubernetes and Istio) so I guess my skillset is still in demand. I guess what's more important for me is the type of work. I'm looking for startup work that's a bit more secure now, if that's possible, lol! Doesn't seem so easy to find.
Bunch of companies migrate their stack to Kubernetes or other orchestrators (side effect of moving to microservices even when not needed) so you are safe and in demand for long.
this might pick up even more given the VMware/Broadcom acquisition, so you are likely good
Re: Ask HN: How is the job search coming along for people who got laid off?
#180Software engineer with 10+yrs experience and was on a break for 3+ yrs. I haven't done outbound yet ("applied" to companies). Mostly got referred to companies/startups through folks in my network. Remote work is an important requirement for the time being. So I spoke to 15 (remote-friendly/first) companies through my network (could've been more if I were up for onsite work), 4 started the interview process (rest had…
> One thing I noticed (although small sample set) was that the interview processes are very slow (like 1 round per week).
Yep. And almost everyone is hiring by committee now. Because if the committee hires the wrong person, nobody hires the wrong person.
And with all of these people involved, now you are subject to the calendars of the various very busy “stakeholders”. One company I engaged with had me talk to 11 people between individual interviews and panel interviews. That’s 11 calendars to coordinate, with illness and PTO and holidays and on and on to sort through.
I had one situation where I had to wait two weeks for one of the interviewers to have a spot open on their calendar. “She is so busy”, I was assured. They eventually extended an offer, but this and other warning signs made it clear it wasn’t a fit, so I respectfully declined.