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Ask HN: Have you been laid off?

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Re: Ask HN: Have you been laid off?

#651

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crypto seems like the replacement for casinos gambling away your life savings at a desperate time. I was thinking the same about the stock market. Most launderers use overseas bank accounts.

Not quite. Stock market has real value. People buy things, consume goods, sell tangible useful things. The market is a reflection of that. Crypto crapto is the reflection of a giant random number generator that is operated by both VCs and nefarious entities at the same time. It's a competition to see who wins this random number generator...

Being able to launder money is valuable. You've just shown your mental deficit.

Also, the crypto market reflects its value as well. You're playing yourself with your own argument.

Re: Ask HN: Have you been laid off?

#652
I work as a PM in a pretty big tech company, and I’m a cofounder of PrepTick (an interview prep startup).

Here’s a rundown of what we’ve been seeing in the tech job market. Situation’s super fluid, so it’s quite likely a lot of this might be inaccurate a week from today.

  -Big companies (FAANG, Microsoft, Uber etc) continue hiring unabated. It looks like any contracts made are being honoured.
  -Medium and smaller companies seem to be pausing hiring. A lot of scheduled interviews cancelled. Some candidates told us they were informed these companies would get back in 6-8 weeks.
  -The majority of venture funded startups seem to have entirely stopped hiring, or seem to be on the verge of doing so. Some relatively urgent roles still remain open. Anecdotally, reasons seem to be either runway extension (defensively, or rarely - explicit guidance from investors), as well as a sheer lack of time, too many key people involved in firefighting expected changes in revenue/demand
Some incidental observations we made that might be useful for recently unemployed engineers/analysts: Lots of Banking tech roles still open, inspite of the pounding their stocks have taken. Banks pay decently, work environment is rarely as awesome as Tech but it’s a living. Accounting tech and Consulting tech seem relatively unaffected.

As an interview prep company, we know we can do a lot to help folks affected by this situation. Up until now we’ve focused on 1-1 coaching/practice simply because it’s proven to be incredibly effective. We really want to do something that can help a winder audience given the situation - and until things stabilize, we’re probably going to do it for free (think webinars, interview content, videos - we’re brainstorming a bunch of ideas)

If anyone has thoughts, or might be interested in helping/collaborating, drop me a note at [redacted]. We’re going to do whatever we can :)

PS - first post here, bad formatting, edited to try and fix it.

Re: Ask HN: Have you been laid off?

#653

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How is the post an attack? Perhaps by asserting the OP is trying to "exploit" the situation by not wanting to pay Google wage rates at their small business? I'm not sure I understand why the business owner "deserves" to take the financial hit for the sake of a new employee. The market will sort it out.

He doesn't have to pay Google wage rates. He also doesn't have to wait it out for a bigger candidate pool so he can 'negotiate' lower baselines. Business owner is using a turtle strategy. Opportunistic yes but also seeing people as numbers on a spreadsheet. OP stated that he feels fear. Fear is a reasonable reaction when a Business Owner closes doors for conversation to wait out catching google 'talent' at a bargain.…

>but also seeing people as numbers on a spreadsheet.

Looking at numbers in spreadsheets is how you stay in business.

>Some people are in a situation where they need work now or very soon.

Then they should lower their rates until they find a market clearing salary.

I'm flabbergasted at the argument that a business should pay a potential employee whatever they demand, because that person "needs work". It flies in the face of all logic.

Re: Ask HN: Have you been laid off?

#654

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Start interviewing again. Seriously. Worst case scenario your new job works out. That's pretty good downside.

A lot of companies have stopped travel, interview, vendor visits.

Some companies are doing interviews fully remotely right now.

Re: Ask HN: Have you been laid off?

#655
post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you have a layoff, the former employee can file for unemployment. Which is money that comes from the company (through a circuitous route). So it's cheaper to go "mandatory unpaid leave".

So this is a scumbag move by the employer then? They don't want to lose the employee, they don't want to pay them, and they don't want to pay for unemployment?

The unemployment has already been paid for (in most states it comes out of every paycheck).

Re: Ask HN: Have you been laid off?

#656
post #501
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.

https://github.com/lukasz-madon/awesome-remote-job There is an issue in my repo with a really good spreadsheet contaning a lot of companies. I was planning to import that but havent got time and now im stuck in Japan with just my phone.

Woah, that's great resource. I just added https://remoteleaf.com and created a PR -> https://github.com/lukasz-madon/awesome-remote-job/pull/628

Re: Ask HN: Have you been laid off?

#657
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.

I would love to manual curate every remote job going to get posted on this new thread and release it for free just like I did for an earlier thread. https://remoteleaf.com/whoishiring

Re: Ask HN: Have you been laid off?

#658
post #610

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I glanced over your LinkedIn profile, to me it looks like you need to add more 'modern' tech skills to your profile. It sucks, but the industry moves to new tech quickly and unless you are an enterprise Java developer, your skills get pretty much outdated in few years and you need to catch up at a fast pace. I would learn (or highlight it if you already know) React.js and Node.js immediately, along with Postgres and…

I have "hobby" experience in React, Vue and Node if that counts. My resume contains a Github link plus one open source contribution on a React-based project. I just don't put them in my LinkedIn profile because it would be confusing to say "I know XYZ" in a professional profile but cannot list XYZ for something I did at work. I think I've seen that roadmap diagram before and I notice that in every place I've worked/c…

You can put hobby experience in LinkedIn summary. Also you can make a real world project like for e.g. Covid019 tracker in React and can post it even as a professional experience.

Re: Ask HN: Have you been laid off?

#659

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am in a similar boat. Resigned just before this hit. I am still working out my notice at my current job and my new employer assures me everything is fine, but I still feel like I picked the craziest possible time to finally move after eight years at one company! Oh well, fingers crossed for both of us.

Dejavu. I'm in exactly the same situation.

Best of luck to you; we should remember to sync up in a few months to see how things went.

Re: Ask HN: Have you been laid off?

#660
I'm a French freelance developer - working from France - and until now I had an Australian company as my main client. I got a call at the beginning of the week from the CTO telling me that after almost 2 years that was it. The company suffered a lot from the economic situation because of the COVID-19 crisis and thus could not longer afford my services. The R&D team was split-up between remote contractors and based in Sydney people. All the remotes have been laid off. My situation is not that bad currently: I still have another client I used to work for 1 or 2 days a week, I hope they will have enough work for me to work 3 or 4 days a week. I have some savings as well. I'll wait for the end of all of this before taking any decision (go back to a classic full time job maybe ?). Cheers
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