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Ask HN: Is the Market Recovering?

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Re: Ask HN: Is the Market Recovering?

#71

Post by whynotminot »

reportgunner wrote: post #69
whynotminot wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's the optimistic take for the future of AI programming. Something like, hire a junior, give them an orientation on using the company AI code assistant. Let them become more productive by having that "AI senior" answer their questions and guide them through their work. Pull Requests still approved by your real senior and mid-level engineers (who also have help from the AI). But my fear is that what actual…

This is why I think AI won't replace coders or have big impact - juniors can't verify it's validity and seniors don't need it.

It’s already having a big impact. I use it almost every day. It’s generally faster to give a relevant answer than googling / stack overflow.

Re: Ask HN: Is the Market Recovering?

#72

Post by [deleted] »

huijzer wrote: post #54
kypro wrote: post #49

Reminder to please state your location if giving anecdotes. 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 2…

> It's quite possible 2021-2022 was the best it was ever going to get for our profession. People probably said the same in 2001 (after the dotcom bubble). More generally, I think averages are extremely misleading; especially for job salaries. Salaries follow a power law. So maybe the average salary for new jobs is lower, the people in the top of the power law still sign 300k+ contracts. To see this, look at vacancies…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Is the Market Recovering?

#74

Post by jFriedensreich »

I am in the german/ european job market as senior fulllstack dev and i see a slight reason to be optimistic but only for the last week or so, but this week might just be an exception we'll see. During the pandemic job opportunities were maybe at 5% and started to recover to maybe 15% mainly fueled by companies that profitet from the change in user behaviour. During the start of the war, the reality check for companies realising users are starting to go back to normal and companies feeling the war effects and supply chain issues combined to basically comopletely destroy the market and offers went to 0%. Since then it was nearly total 0%.

But in addition i noticed also a change in jobs for the few exceptions: Offers include either AI or much more traditional tech, more java / python, much less js. This is to be expected as VC money drying out leads to less new projects and more old and profitable businesses in relation. But also applications are handled differently. Before the pandemic i could nearly always go stright to a conversation with someone and talk about development and cultural fit, now there are probably so many applicants per role, that companies check for university degrees, obsess over CVs showing multiple projects with exact same tech and having worked at FAANG or at least big known successes. Also no part time or reduced time opporties have survived as far as i can tell. Also there are nearly always weird formalities that i did not have to deal with in the boom phase, such as requesting formal pdf cover letters explaining why you want to work for that specific company or having to record a video to proof you can talk on a camera, i even saw IQ assessment tests.

I dearly hope we go back to the good old times or i find a new niche.

Re: Ask HN: Is the Market Recovering?

#75

Post by treprinum »

7thaccount wrote: post #73
treprinum wrote: post #29

Anything related to AI is going absolutely crazy right now. I doubled my comp recently and had to reject multiple offers.

Is that still going on? I figured things would be saturated by now.

Seems strong to me which I suspect is one of the factors why other tech jobs aren't recovering as cognitive task automation is taking place.

Re: Ask HN: Is the Market Recovering?

#76

Post by Aachen »

Findeton wrote: post #48
Aachen wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Inflation is going down and that means less consumption. That means worse profits. That means less jobs. We'll see but there's a reason even the FED models are predicting a recession in Q4/Q1.

I'm not saying there will not be a recession, specifically I wrote:

> The size of any market correction is not something I'm qualified to comment on

The person above me said that it might still get much worse, basing that on a rather different situation. All I said is that I would not use this specific reference data for setting future expectations in the current situation

Re: Ask HN: Is the Market Recovering?

#77

Post by obscurette »

obscurette wrote: post #31
trabant00 wrote: post #12

As long as the war in Ukraine lasts I don't think we are going to see any improvement. A lot of money is going there and so the value of the money remaining for investing, development, spending, is diminished. As for the war I initially guessed 3-5 years, now I'm guessing 10. So I'm quite pessimistic about the near future.

As someone living nearby and having relatives in Russia ... I don't see a way Russia is able to fight years. They just don't have resources for that. The war in Donbas since 2014 was a tiny and very different one compared to the war since 2022. This doesn't mean that Ukraine will stop to get resources from West if war is over though. Ukraine needs a lot of help years and even decades after the war is over.

Ta all replys above – although economics matter, it doesn't matter too much. It's about people – Russia is already running out of people who are willing to die in Ukraine. I can't see it to last years.

Re: Ask HN: Is the Market Recovering?

#78

Post by cuttysnark »

rprospero wrote: post #63
cuttysnark wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Everyone in my department is making the same, my boss included I'm curious—how does this work? More responsibility ought to mean more compensation—what incentive is there to be a boss if you'll make the same as your reports?

I am at the max salary band for my position. His position can admit a higher salary band. After a few years, he’ll have a track record proving his competence in the new position and can apply to be raised to a higher band. I believe the theory is to avoid the Peter principle. If someone is promoted into a position for which they are not competent, then they can be transferred back to their old position without loweri…

This makes perfect sense now, thanks for explaining.

Re: Ask HN: Is the Market Recovering?

#79

Post by lisasays »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #61
marcinzm wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US sent something like $100 billion to Ukraine last year which comes out to a grand total of 1.5% of the US budget and 0.4% of the US GDP. Large in absolute terms but not relative terms. That is also about how much the US spent on Afghanistan per year and that was sustained for over 20 years.

Except that it's $100Bn more "printed" and against a high interest backdrop. The fed had to create that $100Bn to loan it to the US govt. The US government has to pay going interest rates for debt. It's a very very expensive choice for something that is not our war. It's something like $1200 per tax payer[1]. I do not support us funding Ukraine's war to the tune of $1200, personally. [1] - https://taxfoundation.org/p…

Fun chart. Let's take your math up a notch, shall we?

Because you know - the share of taxes paid also has a distribution within the upper 50 percent. Using that fun table you posted, let's see how 100b splits across the following 3 segments:

  Top 5%     - [95,100)  62 billion
  Upper 45   - [50,95)   35 billion 
  Bottom 50: - [0,50)     3 billion
If you're in the top 5% - screw you, I don't want to hear your whining about having to pay your fair share to support matters of this nature.

If you're in the upper 45 - I can see how $1200 would start to hurt. But that's not what the math says. Which is that there are 157.5m of you pooling together for a 35b share of the tab. Which comes out to $222.22 per head.

Is that what you're so indignant about?

Re: Ask HN: Is the Market Recovering?

#80

Post by cmrdporcupine »

rcarr wrote: post #53
trabant00 wrote: post #12

As long as the war in Ukraine lasts I don't think we are going to see any improvement. A lot of money is going there and so the value of the money remaining for investing, development, spending, is diminished. As for the war I initially guessed 3-5 years, now I'm guessing 10. So I'm quite pessimistic about the near future.

I reckon the war will continue, even if it’s massively scaled back, until Putin is either deposed or dies. When that happens, whoever takes over will end it and will lay all the blame on Putin. The Western governments and media will be happy to go along with this because it means Russia as a country is allowed to save face and everyone can scapegoat it on the madness of one tyrant. If that’s the case there’s probably…

If the Russian people have been told constantly (and apparently believe) for the last 10-15 years that Donbas & Crimea is Russian and that Russian speakers are being brutally oppressed and its the Russian Federations "historic mission" to unite all Russians and/or defend them... do you really think that they'll just be like "ok, let's withdraw and go home peace is nice" ? Esp once revenge/reprisal actions against Russian collaborators happen in territories that Ukraine liberates?

The Wagner incident a couple weeks ago seems to show there's no alternative to the Putin regime that isn't worse. Prigozhin got on the blowhorn and talked about the action in Ukraine in very negative terms, but mainly he seemed to want to execute it more efficiently (and probably brutally), he never truly questioned the underlying rationale of it.

Ethno-Nationalism is one hell of a drug, it's omnipresent in that region, and it seems like even the "opposition" in Russia is hyper nationalist. Worse, a defeated Russia has extremely poor economic prospects. In many ways they have "nothing to lose" by just grinding on and on.

There doesn't seem to be a real opposition in Russia that isn't ideologically bought into a pro-war position.

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