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San Jose and Oakland area job markets tumble

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Re: San Jose and Oakland area job markets tumble

#41

Post by jsmthrowaway »

enjo wrote: post #39
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, I am quite positive I heard that statement many, many times during the original dot com bust of 2000/2001.

I simply have to believe that cloud services have taken a big bite of the sysadmin market. We currently employ zero admins (~25 employees, moderate traffic). In my previous ventures that'd be unthinkable, but we've effecticely outsourced the position to Amazon.

That just means you've elected not to hire an operations person, not that Amazon is doing it for you. You're still doing it, you just don't realize it.

Re: San Jose and Oakland area job markets tumble

#42

Post by russellbeattie »

dmix wrote: post #15

> “Right now it’s tough to find a job in I.T.,” said Steve Satariano, a San Jose resident who has been working in contracted, temporary information technology jobs in recent years. “I’d prefer to find a full-time, permanent job, but in I.T., beggars can’t be choosers. It’s a little frustrating because tech companies always want to try before they buy.” The numbers don't really back the first part of the statement up.…

Ageism. I'd bet that Steve isn't in his 20s or early 30s, or he'd already be hired perm.

Re: San Jose and Oakland area job markets tumble

#43

Post by rubiquity »

mcguire wrote: post #20
platz wrote: post #16

> Some experts suggested the Bay Area’s slump in venture capital funding has contributed to the sluggish job trends in the region’s tech sector. Can safely ignore bubbles created by VC funding cash-flow injection and focus on business that bootstrap in a healthy way.

" During 2016, the VC sector provided $24.9 billion in financing, down 27.6 percent from the $34.4 billion in venture investing in 2015, according to the MoneyTree Report by PricewaterhouseCoopers and CB Insights. " $10B and 28% are hard to ignore.

Could be that there were very large rounds in 2015 for companies that didn't need to re-raise in 2016?

Re: San Jose and Oakland area job markets tumble

#45

Post by protomyth »

philip1209 wrote: post #19
dmix wrote: post #15

> “Right now it’s tough to find a job in I.T.,” said Steve Satariano, a San Jose resident who has been working in contracted, temporary information technology jobs in recent years. “I’d prefer to find a full-time, permanent job, but in I.T., beggars can’t be choosers. It’s a little frustrating because tech companies always want to try before they buy.” The numbers don't really back the first part of the statement up.…

Correct - if tech is still getting H1B visas, that means there are jobs that the companies claim were unable to be filled by US citizens. They have to go so far as to post two conspicuous notices of the application for visas in their workplaces [1]. https://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/FactSheet62/whdfs62M...

When people end up training their replacement H1B worker (ask the Disney employees for one example), I don't think companies are following the spirit or the letter of the rules. The ease of skirting the issue shows up anytime someone looks at the top 10 H1B companies.

Re: San Jose and Oakland area job markets tumble

#46

Post by dmourati »

enjo wrote: post #39
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, I am quite positive I heard that statement many, many times during the original dot com bust of 2000/2001.

I simply have to believe that cloud services have taken a big bite of the sysadmin market. We currently employ zero admins (~25 employees, moderate traffic). In my previous ventures that'd be unthinkable, but we've effecticely outsourced the position to Amazon.

Good luck with that.

Re: San Jose and Oakland area job markets tumble

#49

Post by toomuchtodo »

woah wrote: post #36
toomuchtodo wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For sure. As a sysadmin/network admin/IT manager, it's a buyers market. As a DevOps/infrastructure engineer, it's a seller's market. I think training is part of the problem. More importantly, workers need consulting help around how to take existing skills and use them to apply to upmarket jobs with higher pay.

DevOps/infrastructure engineer is basically a programming position, which sysadmin/IT types may not have strong skills in.

I wouldn't call Ansible and Terraform programming languages. In two and a half years at a well known startup, I've written less than 1000 lines of code in a senior DevOps/Infra role.

DevOps/infrastructure is knowing how to glue together off the shelf tools and understanding how everything works. Great that as a dev you can probably bolt these tools together with docs, but your lack of context with the underlying fundamentals will eventually bite you.

Re: San Jose and Oakland area job markets tumble

#50

Post by planteen »

bante wrote: post #40
johansch wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unpopular opinion: Nah, it's an IQ issue. It's really not a (short-term) training issue, at least.

It's weird that people who claim unpopular opinions, often at the expense of others, so rarely can find the time to argue their excellent ideas. I have a number of friends that works in "IT" in Europe. The difference between working for a US and European "IT" company is night and day. It simply has very little status as a field in the US. If you had ever seen the things a systems administrators have to deal with from…

I've had the pleasure of working with some great a Linux sysadmins. I had a great relationship with them as a developer. Another developer hated them and treated them poorly. Do you think they would help him out after hours if they weren't on call? Same thing for EEs who treat technicians poorly. A tech might tell them a rework is impossible. If they like you and you buy them a beer from time to time, they might say, "That's going to be really tough, but I'll give it a shot and we'll see what happens."

I think a great piece of advice for life is, "Never assume you are the smartest person in the room." Remember that everyone brings something to the table.

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