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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?

#201

Post by antisthenes »

thefreeman wrote: post #121
adamcharnock wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

For me it was opening up on LinkedIn and making myself "Open to work", recruiters were reaching out daily (or close to it).

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

#202

Post by clnq »

a_bonobo wrote: post #119
clnq wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If anything, we'll need more engineers to help GPT-3.5/ChatGPT eat most receptionist, customer support, and similar customer-facing entry level jobs. That itself could become a very healthy and large industry.

This feels kind of arrogant? People working in many customer-facing entry level jobs do emotional labor within organisations that no AI-training has even taken aim at. If glorified chatbots could do their work receptionists would've disappeared a long time ago.

Emotional labor is a problem, not a feature. A receptionist only needs to be polite with the guests. But unfortunately, receptionists are often subject to emotional abuse.

We've never had glorified chatbots like GPT-3 or GPT-3.5. I'm not just praising GPT; I've myself casually run through a few simulations with a hotel chain receptionist and an executive. The technology looks very competent, and aside from cost savings, there's also the customer service quality aspect (consistency particularly) and the element of removing staff from abuse.

The biggest challenge is integrating language models with live data. Making customer data accessible to them is not a problem technically (prepending prompts), but it could be a GDPR problem if a third party like OpenAI is involved (having to hand over data to a third party might make the AI receptionists unappealing to some customers -- maybe, needs to be tried). The other aspect is letting the AI make changes in a data model. But there are ways to solve that as well. When these obstacles are resolved - and there is a lot of incentive to fix them now - a lot of customer-facing reception-type work can be outsourced to AI.

By the way, some hotels are already very interested in chatbots for reception work. There has been a lot of talk about that in some chains since about 2020. Old-style NLP bots, too. But of course, GPT-3 capabilities are very appealing.

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

#203

Post by nemo44x »

teux wrote: post #190
nemo44x wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 furth…

I’m not sure about Norway but Sweden/Stockholm is in the same class as Berlin, Amsterdam, etc. I feel like Norway would be higher but I’m not certain.

Premium areas are London and Paris. But even these salaries are closer to a middle rate USA city.

Super-premium (on par with more expensive USA salaries like SF or NYC) is Switzerland. Very expensive to hire there and easily the highest salaries in Europe in my experience.

This is just based on a CoL ratings at a single place.

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

#204

Post by nocman »

reilly3000 wrote: post #136
foldr wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Would have to learn coding in earnest after I pick up algo design techniques from CLRS. You're almost certainly better off learning to code first and then learning about algorithms once you've got a decent coding level. In a typical entry level coding job you can easily go a whole year without implementing any algorithm more complex than a binary search (if that).

Agreed. I would even say this is the order of importance for being effective in a real job: 1. Domain knowledge (understanding the problems you are trying to solve, for who and why they need solving) 2. Full stack awareness (understand computer hardware, networking, OS, HTTP protocols, UI etc. AND whatever the core components of your domain are. This is crucial for being able to reason about and debug a running syste…

> GPT-3 has taken away the need for programming acumen for most creators.

I strongly disagree. GPT-3 is impressive technology, but it isn't even in the same universe as a team of sharp experienced developers. It is a valuable tool for them to use in some contexts, but it won't be replacing them anytime soon (at least not at a company I would work for).

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

#205

Post by godtoldmetodoit »

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…

I will never again interview for Amazon unless I am about to be evicted and they are the only one left in town. Interviewed for a senior dev role, went through all the rounds, took days off of work to be available, and after the final round they just ghosted me.

I had to follow up to find out they had chosen someone else.

The amount of time I put into those interviews was absurd, reading up on all their principles, coming up with stories from my career where I met their principles etc. To then get ghosted at the end was a real slap in the face.

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

#206

Post by nixgeek »

bluGill wrote: post #149
hawski wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most certainly not, because they would not work long enough.

since amazon has a policy to layoff the bottom 6% every year (numbers may be off), any good manager will be constantly looking for someone to hire into the bottom 6% role so they can keep their good people. Since they are not actually looking for someone who can do a good job they don't care if they treat you well.

A couple things:

1/ Managers particularly for SDE roles don’t usually have >10-12 people. In reality the URA (Unregretted Attrition) goal is mostly managed at the L8+ level where organization sizes are usually hundreds. Far more likely you have some underperformers in an overall organization of 300, even if an individual team is all awesome.

2/ Interviews at Amazon involve a Bar Raiser who almost certainly won’t work in the Hiring Managers span of control, and the debrief attempts to answer “Is this a bar raising hire?”, meaning is this applicant better than 50% of people in the role/level.

I can really only speak for AWS and Engineering roles, but I never saw any “Hire to Fire” behavior at Amazon, and most every Bar Raiser that I saw took the role seriously and was not a “rubber stamper”.

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

#207

Post by Bluecobra »

binarydreams wrote: post #183
nonethewiser wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So you spent roughly a quarter of your career not working? That's likely a red flag for a hiring manager. Why would they risk hiring you and you quit when they can hire someone with no gaps in their history? Should they care about this? No, but that's just the way it is and employment gaps are not a protected class.

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

#208

Post by tgflynn »

chlmtt wrote: post #2

I 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…

> 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.

That seems like a rather bold claim to make. I don't think anyone could really do that without having studied those subjects deeply. Did you study mathematics at a University and just didn't complete a degree or are you completely self-taught ?

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

#209

Post by sandos »

teux wrote: post #190
nemo44x wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 furth…

I think Sweden might be worse in all of Europe though. 90k€ is unheard of here for developers, unless you are managing a team or a middle manager or something. Well ok, maybe its a thing in Stockholm actually. Living in a slightly smaller city, now way Jose.

I am applying currently, don't know how that will turn out, but he manager even said that Swedish developers are cheaper for the company than people from Germany, Switzerland and I think even Poland was getting bigger wages.

So Sweden has this low-wage aura apparently.

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

#210

Post by atraac »

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.

I'm not looking for anything right now but just out of curiosity you'd care to share a name? Even privately?
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