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Employers bow to tech workers in hottest job market since the dot-com era

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Re: Employers bow to tech workers in hottest job market since the dot-com era

#151

Post by mahathu »

So I'm a recent computer science grad from Germany with some side projects. Nothing spectacular. I haven't actually graduated yet because I fell sick just before my last exam, so I had to reschedule it to some time later this month.

It's been a few years since I've been on the "I'm gonna move to the US after graduating and become a techbro" train. So I'm not up to date on the latest H1-B regulations etc. Does this mean it might be easier for foreign workers to find a job as well?

I don't want to stay in the computer science industries and have made plans to go to uni again for something entirely different, so I'm mostly just looking for a job for a year or two max, until then.

Re: Employers bow to tech workers in hottest job market since the dot-com era

#153

Post by kyledrake »

hereforphone wrote: post #88
kyledrake wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think I was being literal about the radioactive code too?

I don't understand, so you didn't literally get diagnosed with ptsd? Edit: I see you edited your post.

I was not literally diagnosed with PTSD and I apologize. It is not my intention to belittle actual PTSD like you have experienced. A better description is probably "burned out" and I'll change it now.

Re: Employers bow to tech workers in hottest job market since the dot-com era

#154

Post by hhjinks »

derwiki wrote: post #2

> But now, these technical interviews are often being waived Huh? First I’ve heard of that

A friend of mine had job offer with a 24-hour deadline on hand. A past colleague of ours gave him a referral at his company, and he received an offer with ~80% higher TC an hour later after a quick phone screen. Happened in Norway.

Re: Employers bow to tech workers in hottest job market since the dot-com era

#155

Post by throwanem »

kaczordon wrote: post #144
throwanem wrote: post #22

> He likened it to what’s happening in the real estate market. In other words, make your moves now, and with an eye toward the crash that's coming.

We're technically in a new bull market now.

I'm an engineer, not an economist. So the best I guess I can say to that is, I hope it's true, and that it means what it sounds like it does.

Re: Employers bow to tech workers in hottest job market since the dot-com era

#156

Post by caeril »

the_only_law wrote: post #100

I hate that the market is so great right now because I really can’t take advantage of it. I would love to start the process, to try and get a salary increase anywhere from 30%-100% but unfortunately I’ve stagnated sharply skills wise. Don’t qualify for the jobs I see I think I’d enjoy, and don’t even qualify for the jobs that meet my salary preferences that I’d otherwise dislike. I also would have to be looking at im…

> I’ve stagnated sharply skills wise

I'm sorry, but what does this even mean?

Nothing has changed in a significant way since 1996, other than ops per second and memory bandwidth. If you're an old school C programmer who knows how pointer arithmetic and memory allocation works, you're better than 99% of the total trash new-school Node.js/Django/Rails/React developers who think JSX is some sort of "innovation".

Having "stagnated" is definitely a hiring plus. It means you're less likely to slow down my systems with eight quadrillion layers of dynamic dispatch and abstraction, and you're not going to agitate for infecting my systems with Kubernetes specifically because I now need to orchestrate ten times more production machines to run the ensuing inefficient bloatware.

I can't imagine anyone being more highly sought after than a "stagnating" programmer.

Re: Employers bow to tech workers in hottest job market since the dot-com era

#157

Post by lr4444lr »

yosito wrote: post #89
warent wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This may sound weird but it's easier to do this when you don't need it. When we're negotiating, people can smell desperation. If you can easily walk away from a negotiation/offer, you're suddenly in a much more powerful position. Once you're there, figure out how much sounds like a lot and ask for even more. Either they'll surprise you and accept the terms, or you will negotiate "down" to the amount that sounded like…

This negotiation tactic works fine if you don't have to do full day coding challenges to get to that phase, while also working a full time job.

I think just the opposite: the best time to pounce on them with salary expectations is as late as possible, after they've already invested the interview time on you and seen you excel.

Re: Employers bow to tech workers in hottest job market since the dot-com era

#158

Post by gavinray »

the_only_law wrote: post #148
gavinray wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of a fairy tale is this -- 400, 500, 800k? I make ~110k, and I have no hobbies but code + contribute to a variety of OSS projects in my freetime. What sort of software do you have to be writing besides magic money printing machines for it to be worth that amount of money?

> What sort of software do you have to be writing besides magic money printing machines for it to be worth that amount of money? My understanding is that you have to get into FAANG or be in certain roles at certain HFT firms. I’m also pretty sure these are TC numbers are large chunks of those numbers are stock options.

Even in FAANG I have a hard time understanding how any developer is worth that amount of money though.

I know a solid number of FAANG and ex-FAANG devs -- the stuff they work on (from what I've heard) isn't much different from the sorts of software I assume most people in SaaS startups work on. Outside of scale (which is significant). A lot of it is internal tooling though, which never hits absurd amounts of scale.

I do know that there are x100 devs at FAANG that put out the groundbreaking projects that change landscapes -- but that's generally these well-known outlier developers for which there are a tiny handful in the world.

HFT and quants I understand, that's money-printing business, FAANG I don't. But also, I've never worked or applied at FAANG, so I can't really form a valid opinion I suppose.

Re: Employers bow to tech workers in hottest job market since the dot-com era

#159

Post by sirmike_ »

warent wrote: post #92
yosito wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This negotiation tactic works fine if you don't have to do full day coding challenges to get to that phase, while also working a full time job.

These days I just immediately turn those down without a second thought. It's a joke of an interviewing system and your time is way too valuable for that. Happy to do coding questions, but not 8 hour long take-home projects. Those have screwed me too many times

This is very, very true. I refuse to do coding based interviews. I'm flexible on certain homework. Hell will freeze over before I have to sit through a multi-hour panel and coding session. Like for free? Hit the bricks. Who can just take 4-6 hours out of your normal work day to swing into something like that? Not even germane to my role.

The fastest way to avoid companies like that is to set boundaries on what you will do and will not do. Good recruiters LISTEN and respect this. I do not want my time wasted and likewise for the recruiters and companies I am talking too.

Re: Employers bow to tech workers in hottest job market since the dot-com era

#160

Post by neilv »

chronic2703 wrote: post #14
rejectedandsad wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have FAANG on my resume and this is definitely not the case lol. Then again, it’s Amazon which most people regard to have the dumbest engineers so…

Amazon is absolutely a red flag on the resume. Many hiring managers (like myself) do not want to import the toxic, backstabbing, PIP culture from Amazon into our org. Also I’ve noticed the quality of Amazon engineers is lower, on average, compared to Google, ByteDance, FB, Stripe, etc. My advice is to work somewhere not-Amazon for a year or two. Then you’ll get more bites.

Apparently I'm not plugged into all the industry chatter.

All of the big, well-known companies have imperfect reputations. (And I suspect my own ideas about which companies are better wouldn't quite fully agree with an HN sentiment index.)

When interviewing someone from a company that you believe to be a concern/ambiguous, it might be very valuable to ask, "So, why did you first go to ___?" "What do/did you like about it?" "Why don't/didn't you like about it?" That might answer any concerns pretty quickly.

(But if they give interview-prep-book answers, or seem to be trying to tell you an answer that you in particular will agree with, that's also valuable information, IMHO.)

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