Ask HN: Have you been laid off? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Have you been laid off?

#481

Post by crooked-v » Thu, Mar 19, 2020, 5:45 AM UTC

Miktor wrote: post #349

This is probably a long shot - and I'm sure you'll see quite a few posts like this over the coming weeks - but I'm going to swallow my pride and ask nonetheless. I've been a data entry clerk for the past twenty years, working for a major bookmaker in Northern Ireland. With the coronavirus pandemic hitting recently, many businesses have decided to lay off large numbers of staff. I've just become one of the unfortunate…

To go with JavaScript and PHP, definitely pick up some SQL (doesn't matter much which variety, they're all similar enough). That can get you a foot in the door for "mostly premade CMS with some custom extension" jobs. It's not glamorous, but it's what a lot of local businesses are looking for (often even if they don't know it yet). My tool of choice for such work is Craft CMS (https://craftcms.com).

Re: Ask HN: Have you been laid off?

#482

Post by ArtDev » Thu, Mar 19, 2020, 5:46 AM UTC

Cyberdog wrote: post #34

I'm a contract full-stack web developer. I've been "laid off" in that my last remaining client, who was already behind on her bills, told me to stop all work and she has no idea if/when she'll be able to pay her outstanding bills. I have no idea where next month's rent is going to come from. If anybody needs some contract web dev done, check out my info at https://albright.pro/ and reach out ASAP. I will cut you one…

Hey I am also a Drupal developer. Check out drupalcontractors.com.

They got me a really good long-term contract at my dream Drupal job a few months ago. Good luck!

Re: Ask HN: Have you been laid off?

#483

Post by trimbo » Thu, Mar 19, 2020, 5:51 AM UTC

ma2rten wrote: post #323

lamberciak wrote: post #138

Really sorry for everyone affected by the current situation. We have open roles at DuckDuckGo for SREs and director level hands-on engineers (in mobile and frontend). There should be a senior frontend engineer role coming up soon too. Check out all open roles at: https://duckduckgo.com/hiring/#open . We're a fully distributed team of 85 aiming to raise the standard of trust online and have been profitable for over 5…

What are "director level hands-on engineers"?

Something like "Principal Engineer" is usually the term for this.

Re: Ask HN: Have you been laid off?

#484

Post by vertis » Thu, Mar 19, 2020, 5:51 AM UTC

meritt wrote: post #441

dang wrote: post #391

All: a user emailed with the brilliant suggestion that HN do a "Who Is Hiring Right Now?" thread. We'll do that soon; maybe tomorrow. This will specifically be for jobs that are ready to hire, and able to onboard, quickly. If any of you have suggestions for how to make this most helpful under current conditions, please share them. I'll check this thread later tonight.

As the owner of a fully remote, revenue-funded, and profitable startup that wants to hire, my concern is one that won't be particularly well received. I don't want to hire people, yet , because they're still thinking that https://levels.fyi is realistic. I'd rather wait a few rough months, have the pool of talent grow rapidly and people will start realizing that maybe paying $350k to a green React dev isn't very sust…

Those numbers are insane.

Re: Ask HN: Have you been laid off?

#485

Post by DeathArrow » Thu, Mar 19, 2020, 5:53 AM UTC

Peretus wrote: post #6

DeathArrow wrote: post #4

I've lost my job as an Unity game programmer 2 months ago. I've found another one working as a C#/ASP.NET core developer for a big multinational wholesale chain. I work here since a month ago. Payment is 2x better and I find Web stuff being more interesting and rewarding than game programming. Also it's less stressful and it's better to do something mainstream than working in a niche. It means more opportunities. I'v…

Thanks! And fantastic job on increasing both your salary (by 2x!) and your job satisfaction.

I stayed 6 years until the company closed. I did wanted to switch jobs since 2 years ago but I kept finding excuses.

Lessons learned both from my experience and from talking to other game programmers: working on games would not fit exactly your pre-made image of it, most jobs in gaming industry will be underpaid (my case) and require overworking (as others told me), it's fine to switch jobs if you are underpaid or bored, it's good to get out of your comfort zone, working in a large company is not as bad as it can seem for someone who only worked in small teams and the best way to get a raise is going to job interviews and trying to sell your skills the best you can.

Re: Ask HN: Have you been laid off?

#486

Post by eropple » Thu, Mar 19, 2020, 5:53 AM UTC

smnrchrds wrote: post #423

eropple wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assure you I am not talking about the aggressive curve-fitting community. Just...normal people. Nobody famous, not even any Chinese nationals. Just...fairly normal, if tech-worker-y, Americans and Europeans.

By and large, both the general public and organizations were caught by surprise. If most people knew, the stocks would have tanked in January, not these past few days. Which brings an interesting question: how many of all the people you know who knew, yourself included, put their skin in the game and are now rich from the options they bought in January? If it is not many, I would argue it is better to say people susp…

It's a real big stretch from "certain enough to take personal precautions" to "is a stock head and wants to throw down puts". You get that normal people don't really give a damn about the stock market, yeah? Put a gun to my head and I can't tell you how a put works and I don't really care--I'm too busy buying a house.

I did, however, rebalance almost entirely out of stocks three weeks ago and while I am not "now rich", my portfolio is doing a hell of a lot better than most folks'.

Re: Ask HN: Have you been laid off?

#487

Post by danbmil99 » Thu, Mar 19, 2020, 5:53 AM UTC

Running a small consulting firm. Taking the financial temperature of the startups we service.

If this turns into a many month or year long downturn, I suspect many of our contracts which are on a monthly basis will come to an end. Trying to re-enter the job market at my age is going to be extremely difficult.

Re: Ask HN: Have you been laid off?

#488

Post by bfung » Thu, Mar 19, 2020, 5:56 AM UTC

inlined wrote: post #476

ccajas wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have been laid off just before 2015 and I haven't found any stable work since then. I have been under-employed for a long while before the outbreak, and I don't even know what new change-ups in job hunting I should be doing now. For a long time, many people have said that my years of experience make me valuable so that I should have gotten offers very quickly, but the reality hasn't shown that. Heck, even the found…

“Under qualified for your years” is ageist bullshit. You’re either a capable L3,4,5,etc. Any coupling of those achievement brackets to age ranges (which cannot be completely detached from experience level) is discrimination.

It also depends on the level the GP is applying to. Is GP willing to take a L4 position although applied to be a L5? Of course usually that will come with comp expectations too.

Re: Ask HN: Have you been laid off?

#489

Post by morenoh149 » Thu, Mar 19, 2020, 5:58 AM UTC

SeanAppleby wrote: post #422

jee1shi wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the difference between a software engineer and "just" a programmer?

IMO engineer implies the same direction of thing it implies anywhere else: a deep understanding of the fundamentals of what you're building, an ability to rigorously model and optimize for the key aspects of your problem space and turn them into a solid design that meets them (whether that's performance, scaleability, reliability, latency, throughput, memory use, etc) Programmer moreso implies just making things work…

To me software engineer means being able to translate business requirements into working solutions. That would be programmer by your definition. But I think it takes more than coding to do this well. Agile prescribes a conversation between the customer and the implementor.

Re: Ask HN: Have you been laid off?

#490

Post by mkagenius » Thu, Mar 19, 2020, 6:03 AM UTC

inlined wrote: post #476

ccajas wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have been laid off just before 2015 and I haven't found any stable work since then. I have been under-employed for a long while before the outbreak, and I don't even know what new change-ups in job hunting I should be doing now. For a long time, many people have said that my years of experience make me valuable so that I should have gotten offers very quickly, but the reality hasn't shown that. Heck, even the found…

“Under qualified for your years” is ageist bullshit. You’re either a capable L3,4,5,etc. Any coupling of those achievement brackets to age ranges (which cannot be completely detached from experience level) is discrimination.

> is ageist bullshit

True. As if they expect every 80 year olds to be nobel laureates. The thing is those with power to hire are hardly smart people, they just happen to have the power to hire, by chance.