Ask HN: Have you been laid off? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Have you been laid off?

#191

Post by ratsimihah » Wed, Mar 18, 2020, 10:01 PM UTC

boring_baduku wrote: post #153

I have been told I will be laid off this month end. I am on H1B and am completely freaking out because I have only 1 year experience and a student loan. To be honest, I kind of saw this coming a month ago and started applying. But, I have had no luck. I even submitted an ask HN yesterday to discuss and get ideas.

The good thing is you already have the H1B, so it's easier than having to go through the lottery.

My advice would be to hope for the best but expect the worst. In other words, keep applying to jobs super aggressively, but at the same time, start packing to leave, if there aren't other options.

Re: Ask HN: Have you been laid off?

#192

Post by dathinab » Wed, Mar 18, 2020, 10:02 PM UTC

My predictions:

DISCLAIMER: I'm not a expert wrt. any of this. Don't listen to me ;=). It's all just speculation.

Companies which plan to downsize since a will will do it now, using COVID19 as a excuse.

Companies who have shifted some "bad consequences" into the future might now book them using COVID19 as a excuse for why they exist.

Companies who are already on the last straw will end now, (Such which without COVID19 might have survived a view more month up to a year but didn't see a chance for long term survival without a wonder).

A bunch of companies will go insolvent because COVID19 or following marked situation.

Because of this investors will be a bit more careful then normal, for most kinds of "fresh"/"new" startups it likely will not be a good time.

A small number of startups will have massive opportunities.

Marked will recover after at most 5 Years more likely 3.5 Years. At least if no further crisis happens (like WW3 or one of the massive Vulcan's going off).

Unrelated tip: Be a software engineer not "just" a programmer.

Re: Ask HN: Have you been laid off?

#193

Post by pnathan » Wed, Mar 18, 2020, 10:03 PM UTC

eropple wrote: post #125

Rebles wrote: post #44

At the beginning of the year, I decided it was time to find a new job after 10 years with my employer. I spent February doing interview prep and conducting interviews. Back then, the COVID-19 was mostly limited to China, markets and governments weren't terribly concerned about COVID-19. I accept a job offer, put in my two weeks notice, and my last day at was last Friday. Hardly anyone was seriously concerned about CO…

> But in February, there wasn't any sign of an economic downturn. Everyone was enjoying the bull market. First: I’m super sorry about what you’re going through and I hope things work out with your new employer. Second: I worry that “nobody could have known” will be the narrative. A very large portion of my circles was aware that COVID was about to explode and that the prevention measures would either drastically slow…

>Second: I worry that “nobody could have known” will be the narrative. A very large portion of my circles was aware that COVID was about to explode and that the prevention measures would either drastically slow the economy or not be taken and the impact would be worse. Super uncontroversial. And like, I’m just a guy.

Big same. I'm just another software engineer, albeit one with a taste for international news and a few China-focused specialists & one or two PRCs citizens that I follow on Twitter.

This was predictable in early-mid Jan. Once the pics and discussion of the overloaded Wuhan hospitals and the measures the PRC had to take hit the English language world, it was pretty bloody obvious. The news had hit the popular English language papers by Jan 27[1], although I was reading about it somewhat earlier - Jan 12 at the latest[2]. A timeline can be found in [3]. Anyway, by Feb 1, institutions with a specialty in disease control should have been going full bore to address the incoming wave.

Our public health officials, the officials they advise, and other health institutions should be held up to scrutiny and not covered with glory dust just because they had to act by the pace of events.

[1] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7933719/Incredible-... [2] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/11/china-mystery-... [3] https://www.who.int/csr/don/12-january-2020-novel-coronaviru...

Re: Ask HN: Have you been laid off?

#194

Post by conductr » Wed, Mar 18, 2020, 10:04 PM UTC

mercutio2 wrote: post #171

Rafuino wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, resuming business and being OK with the death toll is certainly an unpopular opinion. If you have hospitals overwhelmed because business just has to continue, business will suffer regardless. I also don't quite understand how a $300M (assuming revenue, not valuation) company can run out of cash in 6 weeks. You're saying you can't make payroll in 6 weeks at the current trajectory?

Neither valuation (which I assume was what they meant) nor revenue tells you much about a formerly-growing company's fixed costs or its reserves. Rapidly growing companies frequently have very limited reserves. When revenue collapses, as it has for many industries, your fixed costs dwarf everything else and most businesses will be in trouble.

Bingo. Our whole business was debt fueled M&A. So opex along with interest are big nuts. Shoveled every dollar back to M&A not much safety net.

Re: Ask HN: Have you been laid off?

#195

Post by dathinab » Wed, Mar 18, 2020, 10:05 PM UTC

dathinab wrote: post #192

My predictions: DISCLAIMER: I'm not a expert wrt. any of this. Don't listen to me ;=). It's all just speculation. Companies which plan to downsize since a will will do it now, using COVID19 as a excuse. Companies who have shifted some "bad consequences" into the future might now book them using COVID19 as a excuse for why they exist. Companies who are already on the last straw will end now, (Such which without COVID1…

I forgot: Small non-software companies with 1-2 People will have a large hit, and likely many insolvencies.

E.g. it looks very bad for professional flea-marked trader or the small shop around the corner.

Re: Ask HN: Have you been laid off?

#196

Post by ayberk » Wed, Mar 18, 2020, 10:05 PM UTC

benttoothpaste wrote: post #130

maerF0x0 wrote: post #11

Does anyone have advice from 2000/2008 about what happens to immigrants on visas? When the work dries up do we all just have to leave and go home?

If you are on H1 then once you lose your job you'll be immediately out of status. Now being out of status is not a very big deal, but it does mean you'll need to find a new employer willing to sponsor you as soon as possible. USCIS is generally forgiving if your out of status period is not too long (they might require you to leave and then re-enter the country to get back to status though). Also living out of status…

IANAL.

This is not correct. If you leave/lose your job, you have a 60-day grace period where you're not considered out of status. You need to find a new employer willing to petition a new I-129 for you.

Please check the specifics with a lawyer. Immigrations laws keep changing in very subtle ways.

Re: Ask HN: Have you been laid off?

#197

Post by jon-wood » Wed, Mar 18, 2020, 10:05 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #158

isbvhodnvemrwvn wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Read up on COBRA I first read it as "read up on CORBA", but I think we aren't that desperate yet.

One of those heavily overloaded acronyms - in the UK it's Cabinet Office Briefing Room A, which is where all the emergency briefings are done from. So "cobra committee" gets mentioned on the news a lot.

Totally off-topic, but the COBRA panel is now too big to fit in Briefing Room A, and use Briefing Room B now, hence the occasional references to them as Cobr in the press now.

Re: Ask HN: Have you been laid off?

#198

Post by popup21 » Wed, Mar 18, 2020, 10:07 PM UTC

dathinab wrote: post #192

My predictions: DISCLAIMER: I'm not a expert wrt. any of this. Don't listen to me ;=). It's all just speculation. Companies which plan to downsize since a will will do it now, using COVID19 as a excuse. Companies who have shifted some "bad consequences" into the future might now book them using COVID19 as a excuse for why they exist. Companies who are already on the last straw will end now, (Such which without COVID1…

All of your speculations seem entirely rational to me. Good analysis.

Re: Ask HN: Have you been laid off?

#199

Post by stephenr » Wed, Mar 18, 2020, 10:10 PM UTC

At least partly because of the current “situation”, I’m actually looking for a person/people who can help bolster a client’s (very) small team (to clarify: I am the tech lead of the team, not a recruiter)

For the backend, PHP & SQL experience is a must, and realistically some ops/infra is pretty essential too.

We “self manage” most parts of our stack so some experience with at least some of keepalived/haproxy/stunnel/percona cluster/redis/shell script would be very beneficial.

For the front end, it’s essentially just HTML, CSS and some ‘vanilla’ js w/jquery. Moving to SCSS is on the roadmap so knowledge there may be helpful.

We’re completely remote, but mostly (except me) in US time zones.

If either of the above sounds like you, and you’re looking for work, drop me a line. My email is in my profile.

Re: Ask HN: Have you been laid off?

#200

Post by sqs » Wed, Mar 18, 2020, 10:10 PM UTC

Sourcegraph CEO here. We build universal code search for developers. Our team is all-remote (all countries and timezones OK). We're hiring for engineering, design, and product roles (+ others):

https://github.com/sourcegraph/careers/blob/master/job-descr...

and https://github.com/sourcegraph/careers#readme for a full list of roles.

We are growing quickly and have not slowed down hiring pace (and don't plan to do so based on the Covid-19 crisis). The limiting factor for us is just ensuring we're adding engineers, PMs, designers, and managers in the right ratios.

If you are interested in joining our team, we would love to hear from you. Understanding the financial stability of the company you'll join is crucial, and as CEO I always walk all late-stage candidates through our internal metrics, burn, cash on hand, etc. We are doing very well and just announced a $23M Series B 2 weeks ago (https://medium.com/craft-ventures/why-we-invested-in-sourceg...).