41–50 of 104 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
wait till full impact of reasonably capable AI coding engines hits juniors will be basically unhireable :/
Why? If anything, they will become instantly more productive, so they may even be more in demand?
The view seems to be right now this macro environment is very similar to what we had during 1940s, where we had persistent (with fluctuations but upward trend) inflations due to fiscal spendings (war in 1940s vs Covid this time).
By this theory, this is just a “pause” before inflation sticks again and shows a persistent outlook. BoE already acknowledged this.
Part of the issue is of course war in Europe causing energy and manufacturing crisis in EU that countries like Germany hasn’t recovered from and there is not much hope it will in near future. The other part is persistent fiscal spending, a big part of which is driven by debt servicing due to rising interest rate causing some kind of vicious cycle.
If you follow Fed speak, they are also more using cautious words like “pause” and not saying we are out of the woods yet.
Market is of course forward looking, bond market thinks there is not much Fed can go before breaking something as you can see in the spread of interest rate between 10Y vs 2/3Y.
I don’t think anyone really knows but Wage growth is persistent and productivity is clearly down. I bet the market will look much gloomier once the Q2 numbers start coming out and show margins are clearly down.
Can't speak for startups, not a big employer in my market (possibly this is the cause of the mitigated impact here), but as for job seekers: 2021/2022 were insane here. Recruiters trying every angle to get your attention, companies doubling in size. It feels like here (Ireland) though, the retreat was much less pronounced. It feels more like 2019/2020 than any kind of crash. I know people who have been laid off, they…
Europe-based companies probably did a lot less junk hires and that's why things appear to be more stable here.
One thing is many basically tried to encourage people to leave put them on performance plans, etc and do everything they could to avoid layoffs. So companies have been downsizing but not annoying any layoffs because they just worked people out instead.
I also, suspect there may be quite some way to go before it's all said and done.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
wait till full impact of reasonably capable AI coding engines hits juniors will be basically unhireable :/
Why? If anything, they will become instantly more productive, so they may even be more in demand?
But my fear is that what actually happens is that we see our mid-level and senior engineers get even more productive with the help of AI, to the point that juniors are seen as so comparatively unproductive as to not be worth the investment. With this job attrition moving up the experience ladder as AI improves.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> "compensation packages people are talking are still like a quarter of what was typical a year ago if that" You mean much less stock? I can't imagine a senior engineer getting a $50k in annual salary, only in the cash component.
I have less intuition for how equity packages are working because that tends to happen a little later in the conversation at least in my geography and at my tenure. Broadly people seem to be signaling looser equity purse strings to go along with massively tighter cash purse strings YoY. I’m sort of L7/L8 with an ML infra focus in California and total cash a year ago seemed to be ~300-400k and now people are seeming t…
That was probably an unsustainable bubble on the long run, inflation adjusted, unless you hold exceptionally rare skills that can't be replicated or taught. It was simply the result of a severely unbalanced market. I'm sure some people still make 400k+, but I'm also sure their performance and contribution is scrutinized quarterly and they are the first on the chopping block unless they hold internal political clout or are famous.
One anecdote here: for me personally the job/funding market collapsed in maybe December of 2022. In November I got ~10 inbound pings from credible recruiters or HR folks at credible shops a week, and that was typical of probably the last 5 or 10 years. In December it was zero and has stayed zero until this month when I’ve had 2. Outbound resumes and pinging the network was pretty much “I wish I could help you” all ye…
> "compensation packages people are talking are still like a quarter of what was typical a year ago if that" You mean much less stock? I can't imagine a senior engineer getting a $50k in annual salary, only in the cash component.
Anyway, just letting you know that we’re out here.
One anecdote here: for me personally the job/funding market collapsed in maybe December of 2022. In November I got ~10 inbound pings from credible recruiters or HR folks at credible shops a week, and that was typical of probably the last 5 or 10 years. In December it was zero and has stayed zero until this month when I’ve had 2. Outbound resumes and pinging the network was pretty much “I wish I could help you” all ye…
I applied to the Dutch equivalent of a SF scale-up, looking at promises of five figure incomes; I didn't get the job at the time (early / mid 2022), but if I did I would probably have been one of the wave of layoffs they had in Q4.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f3/NA... If you look at nasdaq around the dotcom crash it also had a fake bounce before the real crash. Past doesn't predict the future but also no reason we couldn't be in a fake bounce now.
I think one difference with the dotcom situation is that everyone is now deeply reliant on digital and networked systems. The size of any market correction is not something I'm qualified to comment on, but I'm not sure that this particular single historic data point is going to have predictive power
I'm from the UK. I was looking for job in January. I have never seen the market so quiet. I found a role (contract), but according to recruiters I was quite lucky to do so.
It's picked up a lot since then in terms of total number of jobs, but I've noticed rates have significantly dropped from 2021 / 2022 levels. I'd say on average rates have dropped around 20% so a £500/day contract in early 2022 will now be around £400.
I've noticed certain sectors of the economy seem to be a little strong. Government, health care, AI and luxury goods / services have been a common theme among roles I've noticed.
In terms of when it will make a full recovery I have no idea. I think here in the UK things will only continue to get worse as rates continue to rise, the government is forced to continue to raise taxes on individuals and companies to fund its increasing levels spending, and the economy continues to slow as a result.
I'd give it at least a year to recovery fully, but it's hard to project too far out right now given AI trends. It's quite possible 2021-2022 was the best it was ever going to get for our profession.
One anecdote here: for me personally the job/funding market collapsed in maybe December of 2022. In November I got ~10 inbound pings from credible recruiters or HR folks at credible shops a week, and that was typical of probably the last 5 or 10 years. In December it was zero and has stayed zero until this month when I’ve had 2. Outbound resumes and pinging the network was pretty much “I wish I could help you” all ye…