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?

#391

Post by nfriedly » Tue, Dec 06, 2022, 8:36 PM UTC

FlyingSnake wrote: post #366

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.

I'm not in the USA so I'm not sure how the W2s and SSNs are tied to job/healthcare/401k etc, but how does this double timing work? Won't the Tax office/Finanzamt (IRS) know about this?

The individual will end up overpaying on social security and underpaying on most other taxes. When they file their taxes for the year, they will most likely owe some additional money to the government. As long as they pay it promptly, I don't think the IRS will have any issues with the situation.

They can also request that the employer withhold additional taxes; this is fairly common because of situations where both spouses work.

They likely have two healthcare plans, but that's generally not an issue - again, it's fairly common if both spouses are employed.

For the 401K, the individual will just have to make sure that their total contributions between both companies are under the federal limit.

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

#392

Post by htrp » Tue, Dec 06, 2022, 8:37 PM UTC

nsxwolf wrote: post #242

nbaugh1 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll get scared when someone shows me an actual deployed, running, and maintained app by something like chatGPT. Solving problems with code snippets is a tiny part of the job

I'll get scared when a chat bot can log into JIRA, take a ticket, read the requirements, say "Hmm, there's not enough details in here and a couple things seem ambiguous or contradictory..." Then it schedules a meeting with the biz dev and a QA resource and they all hash out and improve the ticket. Then it goes and implements the code and puts it out for review, addresses any comments, works with QA to clarify how to…

I'll be ecstatic when that happens..... Jira is like the worst part of my day

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

#393

Post by oneplane » Tue, Dec 06, 2022, 8:40 PM UTC

throwaway5231 wrote: post #383

WrtCdEvrydy wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't teach pass by reference these days. Anyone you find in the real world under ~30 years old may not even be aware that you can pass a reference and modify it directly without having to make a method return a value. It's super cool to have someone explain to you side effects yet you show them a method with a null return and run it for them showing that the value has changed and they are mesmerized.

This is false and ageist. I got a computer engineering degree at a non elite state school very recently and this was covered in the first c++ and c classes. For that matter c# has an “out” variable that mimics this functionality, and the intro Java class covered primitive types vs. reference types. While reference types in Java aren’t the exact same thing, they do allow a void function to modify the state of the call…

I doubt that you can make an absolute "this is false and ageist" statement in any context, but here on HN, I would have at least expected you to supply information on what location in the world and level of institutional schooling you have.

Here in north-west EU C and C++ haven't been a part of the core curriculum for over 25 years (unless you do embedded work), and code with side-effects in desktop-class systems has been frowned upon for nearly as long due to the need for more cookie-cutter engineers to fill positions and write code that might still be OOP but has to be almost as side-effect free as functional code.

Basic/core languages are still (last time I checked when doing guest lectures ~ 6mo ago) Java, C#, Python and the mixed bag that is web languages.

This is also influenced by the core program required to be an accredited institution and the large amount of consultancies people end up working at straight out of college/school/uni. This even still happens in infrastructure-centric programs where you do lean a bit about TCP/IP and OSI layers, but then essentially get dumped into Juniper/Cisco/vmware/microsoft school which almost always gets them vendor-locked and unaware of the actual concepts and abstractions they implement.

So no, not knowing the difference between passing references or values, or pointers and dereferencing them is not as strange as you seem to think it is. It is not a piece of knowledge or experience that is seen as valuable enough by the people that create the curriculum or the companies that employ the largest quantities of inexperienced workers in this part of the world.

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

#394

Post by FlyingSnake » Tue, Dec 06, 2022, 8:40 PM UTC

xii23 wrote: post #275

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 can get way more than 100k if you’re applying to tier 1 and tier 2 companies in Berlin. I’m at around 160k (6 yoe); but I agree with you, we are getting paid less for the same work as our American coworkers

I’m having a hard time believing it, so pardon my skepticism but which company pays €160K for a 6YoE in Berlin?

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

#395

Post by llanowarelves » Tue, Dec 06, 2022, 8:43 PM UTC

somenameforme wrote: post #291

inglor wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Then we have a right (and moral right) to ghost companies without any notice, too.

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

#396

Post by clumsysmurf » Tue, Dec 06, 2022, 8:44 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.

During the turn of the year, do you think its better to wait until January to apply? I imagine people coming back from the office and just purging the last 30 days of resumes :(

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

#397

Post by SoftTalker » Tue, Dec 06, 2022, 8:45 PM UTC

y-c-o-m-b wrote: post #303

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.

I believe you. People that doubt these things are usually projecting some kind of insecurity. "It's impossible!"... no actually, not only is it possible but it happens all the time and yes it happens with FAANG workers too. It's funny, when this topic comes up, the people that are juggling multiple jobs are usually stuck in this weird place where they want to convince people it's true but at the same time not draw to…

I can believe it happens, but not with two jobs paying $600k each.

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

#398

Post by remh » Tue, Dec 06, 2022, 8:46 PM UTC

pizza234 wrote: post #344

icedchai wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't believe this. Almost all mainstream languages use pass-by-reference by default. Java, python, javascript all pass objects by reference.

Passing a reference is semantically different from passing by reference (the latter being a functionality of the language); doing the former (behind the scenes) doesn't imply that the language supports the latter (if one wants to be rigorous, not even C supports pass by reference). The canonical example is a function that swaps the variables passed to a function: a, b = 10, 20 swap_fn(&a, &b) a == 20 # true Since the…

In python it actually depends on the data type!

    Python 3.10.8 (main, Oct 13 2022, 09:48:40) [Clang 14.0.0 (clang-1400.0.29.102)] on darwin
    Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
    >>> def f(d):
    ...     d['foo'] = 'bar'
    ...
    >>> a = {}
    >>> f(a)
    >>> a
    {'foo': 'bar'}

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

#399

Post by kleinsch » Tue, Dec 06, 2022, 8:47 PM UTC

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 just did a job search with ~15 years experience for a Staff+ position in Feb of this year, got interviews at most places I applied, multiple offers. From speaking to friends, the situation today is completely different. Multiple places I applied or had offers have locked down hiring and/or done layoff rounds. Those who are still hiring can be a lot more picky - either lower comp, higher skill bar, targeting underrepresented groups, etc.

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

#400

Post by rdoherty » Tue, Dec 06, 2022, 8:47 PM UTC

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…

I had the exact same experience about 5 months ago. > 40 applications, ~30 responses from recruiter, did at least 1 phone screen at 20 of them and around 10 full interviews (4-6 modules each). It was brutal and I don't recommend it.

Almost 20 years of experience at great large & small companies in the SF Bay Area. I like to think that I'm relatively intelligent and competent, but man, some of the interviews were torture. Even interviews for what are mostly CRUD web app development positions were doing l33tcode interviews (literally, I googled them afterwards) of moderate CS algorithms.

After 2 months of interviews I did get 3 offers at the same time. I've interviewed around here since ~2005 and I have to say it's still a crap shoot of if you'll get a good interview process. Some companies were great and had well rounded modules, focused on leadership, communication, design and just a little bit of programming. Others threw multiple l33tcode puzzles at you and had no idea what they really needed. Very frustrating.