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Ask HN: Who has been laid off?

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Re: Ask HN: Who has been laid off?

#81

Post by frompdx »

Not laid off, but in limbo. I accepted a new job at the end of February that was originally supposed to start on 3/30. Unfortunately, my start date is now up in the air due to logistical issues getting my hardware so I can start work. I no longer have a confirmed start date.

It's a bummer because I resigned from my previous position on 3/13 so I could have time in between jobs. Now I'm getting a lot more time than I planned and I'm hoping my new job doesn't evaporate. I'm excited to work with this company and team so I am keeping my fingers crossed for now.

If my new job does disappear, I would really like to find an opportunity working with Clojure(Script) and/or Kubernetes.

Re: Ask HN: Who has been laid off?

#82

Post by lb1lf »

cammikebrown wrote: post #62
ithrow wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just curious, how does a bartender ends up staying reading HN?

I have a physics degree. It turns out a bachelor’s degree doesn’t help much, and I was too burnt out at the time to go to grad school. I took a few introductory programming classes and I’ve been trying to get back into it lately. Try talking to a bartender sometime, you may find out they’re not as dumb as rocks.

-Irrelevant, but I chuckled at your last sentence.

One of the all-time smartest people I’ve ever met worked a bar in Bergen, Norway; autodidact in anything which caught his fancy, he could give you a lecture on what brought down the Scythians, serve a new guest and striking up a conversation on advances in semiconductor fabrication with him, picking up where he left off the lecture on the Scythians before heading out to see if any of the patrons outside wanted anything, having a quick word on the Poincaré conjecture with the math postgrad having a beer in the backyard...

He had studied for a while at the university before figuring out that he’d have more time to study if he didn’t have to concern himself with exams, quit, kept his uni library card and got down to it.

Re: Ask HN: Who has been laid off?

#83

Post by [deleted] »

cableshaft wrote: post #47

I haven't personally had a change yet, although things have been a little slow here lately, so who knows. My wife, on the other hand, was reduced to 3 days a week at her job for the next 90 days, with a reduced salary to reflect that, so 40% reduction in salary. At least she wasn't in the group at her office that was furloughed. So things are still tighter for us, although we're still a lot better off than most peopl…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Who has been laid off?

#85

Post by pmiller2 »

novask wrote: post #14

I left voluntarily before I had something else lined up. We weren't really doing anything we were hired to do (pentesting), so I wanted something else. I got really restless and it's why I'll stay away from government contracting positions in the future unless desperately needed. 4 months ago this wasn't a completely bad idea as tech was known as a seller's market and taking time off to learn new things was normal. I…

My company isn't doing layoffs (yet), but the next year or so is precisely what I'm worried about. I've been at my company for about 1.5 years, and, absent coronavirus, I'm very confident I'd be in no danger of losing my job.

Right now, taking the risk of jumping to a new company doesn't sound appealing. But, if this goes on too long, I'm sure we'll end up doing layoffs at some point. We're already on a hiring freeze, and there are a lot of cost counting and cost saving projects going on right now.

If layoffs do come, though I may be better off than my many coworkers on visas, a job search in the middle of a recession does not sound like any fun. And, layoffs can tend to come in waves, so, even if I make the first cut, there could very well be another round coming in a matter of weeks or months. In that case, I would rather not be around for the second wave of layoffs. I think this scenario is the only one in which taking the risk of switching companies makes any sense.

Re: Ask HN: Who has been laid off?

#86

Post by notabee »

Ididntdothis wrote: post #66
topherPedersen wrote: post #31

I landed my first job as full-time professional software developer doing React-Native development right before the Coronavirus pandemic struck. By the time I finished filling out all of the hiring paperwork, drug tests, etc., they reneged on the offer. Was pretty upset about it at the time, but I guess it's hit everyone else just as hard.

My advice is that if another offer comes up, take it even if the salary is not what you expect. If there really will be a big recession then very soon it will be very hard to find anything. You may end up unemployed for a long time and by the time things pick up, companies will prefer the new grads. In 2002 I made the mistake of being too proud to take underpaid work and it hurt me quite a bit.

This is also why people need to push back hard against the typical recruiter habit of asking for your old salary in order to lowball your offer. Many people go through struggles like this.

Re: Ask HN: Who has been laid off?

#87

Post by vitorbaptistaa »

Ididntdothis wrote: post #63
3pt14159 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry to hear that dude. Haskell is a demanding language, so you're almost certainly a pretty senior dev. If so, consider volunteering to help organizations during the downtime. Worst case, if you can't get that dream gig back it will certainly make your resume stand out when you're looking for your next thing. Best of luck.

Where can people volunteer with tech skills? Is there a demand for it?

Also, for data-related tasks, there's the DataKind group. Their UK chapter is very active: https://www.datakind.org/chapters/datakind-uk

Re: Ask HN: Who has been laid off?

#88

Post by lb1lf »

-I just got laid off after 15 years at an engineering company, the last couple of which I was an engineering manager/technical authority.

Prospects aren’t too bleak - the local engineering scene is pretty sound and I’ve heard encouraging noises from a couple of companies I’d love to work for - however, while the country is in lockdown and everybody is burning through their cash pile, not much hiring gets done.

On the upside, I have a few weeks at a minimum to spend more time with my kids and bring my Russian and Portuguese skills back up to speed.

Re: Ask HN: Who has been laid off?

#89

Post by unemphysbro »

Not laid off but I did just finish my PhD in computational biophysics and the three companies I was interviewing at paused/stopped interviews. I was frugal during my PhD but I decided it was best to move back in with my parents in San Jose (I was crashing on a buddy's couch in Champaign). My sisters lost their service sector jobs two-weeks ago.

I've been applying non-stop so if anyone has any refs for data science positions that would be quite helpful; it's a weird time transitioning from Academia to industry.

Here's my linkedin: https://bit.ly/2UYJbbf

That said, my heart goes out to those that are in a tough situation.

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