Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

291–300 of 579 posts

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

#291

Post by somenameforme »

inglor wrote: post #49
nathias wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ghosting is pretty standard in my experience, 1-2 months of interviewing and testing then nothing is pretty standard in the industry

Here (Israel) it's illegal, you can reject a candidate for pretty much any (non discriminatory) reason but you have to tell them about it pretty promptly. It's weird there are US states where it's not a requirement.

One practical problem is that there are a fair amount of people who are simply unstable, and if told why they were rejected (in very neutral to positive framing) they will actively challenge it and even go pseudo-stalker mode over it.

Dealing with just a handful of these guys is enough to do away with providing any sort of feedback. Like many things, a few bad apples ruin nice things for everybody.

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

#292

Post by mrcartmeneses »

f1shy wrote: post #123
mrcartmeneses wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Why do you want freelance? You can apply to any job... AFAIK the headaches of tax declaration and setup for freelance are not worth it.

I just hate being “employed”. All of the politics and incompetence in other people’s businesses reminds me too much of the Russian communist party. Every large capitalist company ends up like a low-stakes episode of the Netflix series Chernobyl. Perhaps I’m just grumpy but that’s who I am. I’d much rather just code some stuff and get out before I start having to “assassinate” my managers. If I could find a place that allowed workers to vote out managers then maybe I’d be happy, but until then I’ll just come and go. Like politicians, managers are only as good as your ability to fire them. You’ll love my code, your customers will be happy. Let me go before I make you cry.

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

#293

Post by bitL »

SpeedilyDamage wrote: post #273
bitL wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's true, I know the guy. He's an outlier for sure, but he exists. Moreover, he moved from the toughest FAANG to more relaxed ones.

Well, if I didn't believe you before, why do you think "It's true!" would sway me?

You said "it's not true" and not "I believe it's not true", i.e. a fact vs opinion, so I reacted.

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

#294

Post by the_jeremy »

nonethewiser wrote: post #175
the_jeremy wrote: post #171

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.

Years of experience?

5

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

#295

Post by mathverse »

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…

Certainly not. You are just underpaid and speak from your experience.

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

#296

Post by bradlys »

wickedsickeune wrote: post #266
tarokun-io wrote: post #257

Interviewed with about 28 companies for almost 3 months, without a single offer! I was starting to get really worried about money and burned out from interviewing. In the past I've never interviewed with more than 2 or 3 before getting an offer I now this is incredibly privileged. I'm not humble-bragging, just observing the change in the market. As things usually turn out, during the last week of the 3-month search I…

Thanks for sharing. If I may ask, when was the last time you looked for a job? I'm saying this because maybe you're having trouble due to ageism that you didn't encounter before.

I think age-ism isn’t that relevant when you’re under 40. There will be limited positions for someone who wants staff+ compensation though.

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

#297

Post by bitL »

spbaar wrote: post #274
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.

Im guessing an IC position? Still, being that senior I'd expect he's in quite a few meetings. I would love to hear how he manages his schedule and comes up with novel excuses. If he really is coding 90% of the time though, more power to him.

There are some strategies one can use, e.g. work for one company on the East coast and one on the West, then being an early starter at the first one and late starter at the second one. Perhaps have some known medical issue that occasionally requires skipping some meetings if there is a conflict. I am honestly monitoring him and I hope he'll share his stories, tips and close calls for some added amusement. He's definitely using two computers to keep any monitoring system at bay.

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

#298

Post by the_jeremy »

buro9 wrote: post #148
olah_1 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

If we assume they started both on the same date, then they wouldn't have had to lie or mislead prior to that point. Then the question is only whether it's legal (contractually) to be employed by more than one employer at a time. But to that... would it be legal for a company to own every waking hour rather than just your employed hours? I've not seen anything that says someone has to be exclusively hired, but they wo…

My contract says I can't be employed anywhere else. Part of it is for IP reasons, because they want to own everything I create.

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

#299

Post by bradlys »

ryandetzel wrote: post #154
a-bit-of-code wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For that kind of seniority/experience, what fraction of companies asked LeetCodey stuff? Was it easy or medium/hard problems? How much time did you have to spend preparing/practicing?

I went out of my way to not do leetcode so I only had one because Glassdoor was wrong. I would ask the recruiter during the initial call where I also talked about salary so as yo not waste everyone's time. I cancelled a few interviews that I later found out were leet code, not because I don't want to do them but more I think the people you end up working with are better at testing than coding, from my experience.

Was the comp comparable to FAANG and other public companies in the end or did you take a paycut?

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

#300

Post by haspok »

fxtentacle wrote: post #102
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>salaries seem to be too low. You are often getting low-balled because "it would not fit within the salaries of the other team members". Preach it! CoL in German cities is far too high for how low skilled dev wages are. 100k at 15 years work experience is an insult when you look at Munich/Berlin house prices and that new grads can get 60k. And DW posted a YouTube video yesterday about how Germany has a shortage of so…

I strongly disagree. Here's a family home with garden in the Berlin area that you can rent-to-own at 1900€ per month: https://www.immobilienscout24.de/expose/135035667 So with a 100k€ annual salary, one working parent alone can buy the house and feed the entire family. You consider that an "insult"?

I don't think that is how it works. In the ad the Kaltmiete is €1900, which is simply the rent without utilities. It does not mean that a. you are eligible to buy that property b. the buy-to-rent price will be the same.

And even if it was, the legal costs alone add up to a few tens of thousands of EUR for a property like this (eg. if the property is worth €500k, you are looking at at least in the order of €50k of legal costs and taxes...). But I don't know of any bank that would lend you 100% of the price of the property you want to buy, if you do please introduce me to them...

If it really was so easy, everyone would be buying these properties. But the upfront costs are simply prohibitive.

Post reply on HN