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

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

#181

Post by hbn » Tue, Dec 06, 2022, 2:17 PM UTC

bityard wrote: post #125

j33zusjuice wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If I ended up at Google I'd probably keep my head way down, only showing up and getting the work done because everything about it seems like a toxic work environment these days.

But I can't help but think it's worth leveraging an offer like that, if not only as a favor to your future self. Go in planning to work for like a year, near the end start looking for a jobs and I have a feeling there will be a ton of companies drooling at someone wanting to leave Google for them.

But you do you!

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

#182

Post by mkl95 » Tue, Dec 06, 2022, 2:17 PM UTC

donkeyd wrote: post #152

mkl95 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> That sounds low to me and attainable in Europe if you have 5+ YoE at the right places. It sounds to me like you are being lowballed. I'm getting similar offers with way less experience. Where you at? In the Netherlands getting anything over €70k is incredibly hard. There are very few companies offering close to that and those are often for architecture roles. Lead dev is usually €60-70k, with some €70-80k exception…

My country is lower income than the Netherlands and Germany. 70k is upper management money here and a bit more than what I make.

I have talked to some companies in Ireland and the UK in the last few months, and their ranges usually start at 80/90k. The most famous example is probably Google. Entry level (L3) is 100k-ish and L4 starts at ~120k. Even if OP was placed at a below average level for someone with 15 YoE, they should be getting 150k+ offers.

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

#183

Post by binarydreams » Tue, Dec 06, 2022, 2:17 PM UTC

nonethewiser wrote: post #172

binarydreams wrote: post #165

Software 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?

I did some hands-on contract work last 10 months but the rest was "no work" yeah. So 3+ years of being out of a full-time role.

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

#184

Post by badpun » Tue, Dec 06, 2022, 2:18 PM UTC

olah_1 wrote: post #134

bitL wrote: post #128

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.

Is that legal? In the interview, you basically have to lie about your employment situation, right?

You don't have to lie if you're unemployed during both of the interviews and then accept two offers simultaneously.

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

#185

Post by base698 » Tue, Dec 06, 2022, 2:18 PM UTC

hansjan wrote: post #31

base698 wrote: post #19

Earlier 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…

Have you tried doing this yourself? On Twitter etc. you see some really cool cherry-picked examples that are quite easy to break when replicating them yourself. It is often confidently incorrect. Which is easy to spot if you know the subject matter, but nearly impossible if you are not familiar with the subject.

These were all examples I tried myself.

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

#186

Post by hoherd » Tue, Dec 06, 2022, 2:19 PM UTC

matwood wrote: post #32

Layoffs make news, but if you look at the numbers they are relatively small compared to all the hiring the last few years. We have gone from the best time ever in history to be in IT, to a great time to be in IT. There are a lot of jobs if you step outside big tech (and targeted jobs in big tech with certain skills).

Yup. Even with Meta's huge layoff, they still have more employees now than they did a year ago. https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/yqweue/oc_...

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

#187

Post by betterthanlast » Tue, Dec 06, 2022, 2:19 PM UTC

Arubis wrote: post #140

If you're having trouble finding new work, know that the turn of the year is _always_ slow, every year. Hiring tends to pick up mid- to late January.

I'd like to second this.

Hang in there, we're probably going to be hiring starting in January. Right now things are kind of on ice because of the holidays.

Even if we wanted to get started today (and it's tough with our own department's senior people taking time off), it's hard to move the HR people and get the budgets approved, it's hard to get the GM sign off on a hire if we want them (though that's kind of a formality, frankly), etc.

In January the world starts turning again and those things get easier.

Hard as it is, try to hang in there, it will get better in a month or so.

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

#188

Post by binarydreams » Tue, Dec 06, 2022, 2:19 PM UTC

trentnix wrote: post #180

binarydreams wrote: post #165

Software 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 peo…

Could you elaborate on "other warning signs"? Maybe others could learn a thing or two.

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

#189

Post by UweSchmidt » Tue, Dec 06, 2022, 2:21 PM UTC

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

You are likely to be successful going this route.

Some advice (some of it obvious if you've dont it before and not specific for Germany but maybe it's useful):

Have a profile on Linkedin and Xing, upload to sites like freelance.de and maybe to a bunch of agencies. Be ready to send a profile, listing as many projects as possible, i.e. different roles in a company could be separate projects. Make sure all relevant search terms (languages, frameworks, tools) appear for each project even if repetitive. English-only is ok in many places, German-speaking projects can be a little better though.

It's all through intermediaries, which means you can (and should) negotiate rates hard without worrying about burning bridges. No call with a recruiter that didn't go pleasantly ever led to anything so if it feels weird just hang up. Expect to be placed 3-6 months min, 2 years max in a project. Research a little on "Scheinselbständigkeit" but it's not a huge issue these days. If you want 100% remote it should be possible.

Good luck and welcome to Germany :-)

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

#190

Post by teux » Tue, Dec 06, 2022, 2:22 PM UTC

nemo44x wrote: post #143

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…

You’re being ripped off. I’m paying guys in various parts of Europe well more than this with probably less experience. European software developers are grossly underpaid across the board but 100k is very low. I’m paying around 120-130k in Amsterdam which has a similar CoL to Berlin.

Can I ask if you know how average costs in Scandinavia hold up to that? Working in Norway atm making ~90k€ equivalent after some time, but I took the paycut from the US because of quality of life/healthcare/state pension, etc. Still, it’s a very good salary here, I’m in the top few % of all Norwegians.

But it was a huge paycut. I’m definitely happier than I was in the US but I have been considering moving a bit further south. Bumping up to 120k and getting more sunshine would be very nice.