Say Hello to Full Employment

It really is in deed. "Node" or "Java" or "Rails" engineers are a dime a dozen. There are exceptions and it's more complicated than an explanation on Hacker News can do justice to, but generally speaking, the places you'd want to work for, including (but not limited to) the likes of Facebook, Google, and other smaller but worthwhile companies are hiring for general skills, not tech du jour knowledge.

No Java shop worth its salt gives a flying duck if you know Java's syntax. They care if you understand how to build systems. Caching, queuing, service to service communication, algorithms, performance, debugging etc. If you learnt that stuff in Go instead of Java, who cares? Yes, the job reqs and lazy recruiters will come at you with a list of keywords, but that's usually not what the hiring manager truly cares about.

(I can’t reply to your second comment directly)

Whats harder is finding a job you'll love with great career advancement opportunities, using the tech stack you like, with a manager you "click" with, and where you're appreciated.

What does “career advancement” look like to someone who doesn’t care about management? Career advancement for me means keeping up with the most marketable tech stack and getting paid as much as I can in my local market and still staying hands on.

“The tech stack I like” is whatever stack pays the most and has a reasonable amount of opportunities. By definition, a popular tech stack will have plenty of openings where you can stay current.

I choose to work for small companies with highly technical managers. A small company can’t afford to silo you. As far as “clicking with the manager” that kind of just happens with more technical managers when they trust your judgement. The only “appreciation” I need is to be paid market rates based on my skill set. I’ve had managers “appreciate me” verbally but didn’t push for the salary I wanted - I left.

I’ve been offered signing bonuses by recruiters who really wanted to get thier cut of my first years salary. I’ve turned them down. Out of my three requirements for a job - right technology, right environment, and money. Money is the least important as long as I’m making the median for my market/skill set.

Most of the worlds developers aren’t working for FAANG companies. I would even say that many aren’t working for software companies. They are working for corporate America writing bespoked apps that just want to get stuff done and want to hire someone who can hit the ground running. If you are coming in at a senior level to a C# position with prior knowledge of Java. You’re going to waste a lot of time. It’s not about the language. It’s about the ecosystem, knowing the popular third party packages that will make your life easier etc.

How many Java developers would come in knowing how to use LINQ efficiently and know the difference between

customers.Where(c => c.Age > 65).ToList()

And

customers.ToList().Where(c => c.Age > 65)

when using Entity Framework or the Mongo linq driver? They would both give you the same result but one is much more efficient.

You can’t imagine the number of times I’ve seen people use a Func instead of an Expression> and wonder why their code is so slow in production.

How many Java developers would migrate toward log4net because they have heard of log4j instead of using the much better Serilog?

How many would come in knowing how to efficiently use ASP.Net Core and plug things in the pipeline?

Knowing the language is the easy part. Knowing the frameworks and the ecosystem takes time.

No one would hopefully ever say a Windows system admin could function at the same level with Linux as someone who had Linux experience.

That’s just like the “AWS Architects” who translate all of their knowledge of on prem deployments to AWS without knowing AWS best practices and wondering why the same infrastructure costs more.

I’ve been a hiring “manager” - more like the architect. I’ve got deadlines and deliverables. Why am I going to hire a Go developer when I can find perfectly competent C# developers that have the skill set I need? Why would I learn Go knowing that the local market wants C#, Java, and Node developers?

The market went flat the year after Obama's big tax increase.

The market started rising promptly after Trump's election, presumably in anticipation of the coming tax cut.

When a recruiter reaches out to you on LinkedIn, check to see whether the company they work for is local to the area.

I just picked a random city -Boston - and Google’d “Boston software recruiters”. I found two or three just now.

Even with the job boards, recruiters post jobs thier and instead of sending your resume, talk to them. If you have the skills, and interview well, they will be more than happy to work with you. They get a 20% finders fee from the company you are eventually hired through and it doesn’t affect your salary.

If they won’t give you the information for the hiring company when you ask - don’t deal with them. Also, don’t be shady. Don’t go behind the recruiters back, make sure you aren’t being submitted by more than one company and make sure they always ask before they submit your resume.

The general rule of thumb is not to tell them your current salary. I’ve never gone by that rule. I always tell them the minimum salary I want - and no “target compensation” and bonuses don’t count - and don’t waste my time discussing any company that can’t meet my requirements.

I’ve had them negotiate on my behalf after a company was interested for more than the salary the company offered. The more I make the more they make.