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Ask HN: How are the current layoffs affecting non-US developers?

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Re: Ask HN: How are the current layoffs affecting non-US developers?

#41

Post by freetinker »

cfothowawayy wrote: post #23

it should only affect USA. most companies depend on investor money (some to live, like tsla, uber. some because of bonuses tied to stock prices) those companies know that investor money is directly related to FED rate. if its zero, they get invested, if its high, people will put money to work elsewhere. they only lever they have to control fed rate is unemployment. they know they are hurting their business by laying…

Great comment, spot on. Incentives drive behavior. This explains it correctly and cogently.

Re: Ask HN: How are the current layoffs affecting non-US developers?

#42

Post by yodsanklai »

outside1234 wrote: post #9
Aeolun wrote: post #6

Why would they shut down offices in western Europe? That must be the absolute cheapest (western) region to hire for. In Japan it doesn’t seem to have affected much, though our parent US company went through a significant round of layoffs.

Europe is actually "net expensive" because there are high payroll taxes in some countries, and then, of course, in some countries it is virtually impossible to fire.

> in some countries it is virtually impossible to fire.

Compared to the US, it may seem to be virtually impossible, but people are fired here too.

Re: Ask HN: How are the current layoffs affecting non-US developers?

#43

Post by noslacknoops »

yen223 wrote: post #11

Don't want to jinx it, but I haven't heard of any Sydney-based startups doing layoffs. I have heard about Sydneysiders from Microsoft, Google and such who were hit by layoffs though.

Sydney-based seed round startup, ~40 people. From last month some folks started getting cut (mostly permanent senior engs) to be replaced with temporary 6-12 month junior/mid-level devs. Rumor is it's done to reduce the headcount "on paper". Might be just a "regular" optimization, we do payroll automation and with these AI tools popping up every day we might get out-competed soon.

> Don't want to jinx it

I think it's coming. Australia is always lagging behind. All indicators (RBA rates, etc) point that it will hit. Might be closer to winter.

Re: Ask HN: How are the current layoffs affecting non-US developers?

#44

Post by defrost »

allanrbo wrote: post #32
speeder wrote: post #27

Brazilian here: for laid off in November by an UK based startup and still unemployed. Local companies seemly are willing to hire but because the flood of fired workers they are offering really bad wages. I got offered work as embedded C dev for 300 USD month... I didn't accept back then because I was still working in my old job. I regret not taking that job now. 300 USD at least is more than 0 USD.

300 per month, 300*12=3600 per year, seems a lot lower than median for Brazil: https://www.levels.fyi/t/software-engineer/locations/brazil . Guess there must be a huge span between companies then.

I'm thinking that was meant to be $3,000 USD per month ~ $36K annum in Brazil (which is circa Brazil median dev salary).

Re: Ask HN: How are the current layoffs affecting non-US developers?

#45

Post by paulkrush »

AYBABTME wrote: post #3

The amount of spam I get from recruiters in the US hasn't decreased either, and yet I'm at ground-zero of the layoffs.

Recruiters are always selling and networking, regardless of the number of openings to fill. If there are few jobs every reference call is vital sales call to fill the account managers funnel. This is why, especially in slow times like this, you don't give references until after the technical interview.

Re: Ask HN: How are the current layoffs affecting non-US developers?

#46

Post by solution-finder »

thundergolfer wrote: post #21

Australia has been fine. Amongst the big software engineering hirers (Google, Atlassian, Canva, big banks, WiseTech, AWS) only Google Sydney is known to be doing layoffs. Zendesk (Melbourne) did layoffs last year, but this was small scale I think, and mostly driven by their company-specific troubles.

A few layoffs in Microsoft Sydney too.

Re: Ask HN: How are the current layoffs affecting non-US developers?

#47

Post by mbo »

thundergolfer wrote: post #21

Australia has been fine. Amongst the big software engineering hirers (Google, Atlassian, Canva, big banks, WiseTech, AWS) only Google Sydney is known to be doing layoffs. Zendesk (Melbourne) did layoffs last year, but this was small scale I think, and mostly driven by their company-specific troubles.

Layoffs in Amazon Brisbane.

Re: Ask HN: How are the current layoffs affecting non-US developers?

#48

Post by htag »

cfothowawayy wrote: post #23

it should only affect USA. most companies depend on investor money (some to live, like tsla, uber. some because of bonuses tied to stock prices) those companies know that investor money is directly related to FED rate. if its zero, they get invested, if its high, people will put money to work elsewhere. they only lever they have to control fed rate is unemployment. they know they are hurting their business by laying…

I think another component is that lowing costs will have an immediate impact on quarterly financial reports while firing devs will mostly have a delayed impact on revenue.

When many companies are juking the stats by lowering costs with layoffs then it puts pressure on all other companies to do the same because they are all competing for finite investment dollars.

Re: Ask HN: How are the current layoffs affecting non-US developers?

#49

Post by medler »

cfothowawayy wrote: post #23

it should only affect USA. most companies depend on investor money (some to live, like tsla, uber. some because of bonuses tied to stock prices) those companies know that investor money is directly related to FED rate. if its zero, they get invested, if its high, people will put money to work elsewhere. they only lever they have to control fed rate is unemployment. they know they are hurting their business by laying…

Rising interest rates is not just an American phenomenon. The European Central Bank is raising rates as well, as are many central banks around the world.

Re: Ask HN: How are the current layoffs affecting non-US developers?

#50

Post by jayzalowitz »

fnbr wrote: post #5

They shut my office down in Canada. Lots of jobs. Most are remote for US companies though. Very few recruiters spamming me, but companies are very receptive to inbound inquiries from me. I’m a senior eng in AI research though, which is obviously having a big moment right now.

ping me. i may have something..
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