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Tell HN: Job interview canceled due to looming recession

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Re: Tell HN: Job interview canceled due to looming recession

#251

Post by sorry_outta_gas »

oblio wrote: post #99
saos wrote: post #79

Can someone do a story time of the last recession and how it impacted tech? Start, middle and end Just want to understand what to look out for and just prepare.

2008? Not much. Some hiring freezes, maybe some salary freezes, but overall quite reduced impact. Of course, this is very location dependent and domain dependent. New grads were probably hit the hardest, as they usually are during recessions. 2000 was much worse from everything I hear, but I wasn't there at the time.

a salary freeze might as well be a firing right now

Re: Tell HN: Job interview canceled due to looming recession

#252

Post by Solvitieg »

scottlamb wrote: post #196

> I hope some experienced people in the industry can give some hope and advice. Is demoralizing to find out I spent 4 years in school just to get into a really harsh job market. First pandemic, then recession? F... Overall, I'd say relax a bit. You're still in a good situation. Recessions are hard for many, but software engineers were among the best off during the last one and I expect will be this time also. > I wan…

> Overall, I'd say relax a bit. You're still in a good situation. Recessions are hard for many, but software engineers were among the best off during the last one and I expect will be this time also.

The demand for software engineers was driven partly by zombie app and saas companies all competing for "top talent", dependent entirely on free cash but without sustainable business models.

On top of that, the "demand" narrative led to an influx of new software engineers that will mature over the next 1-3 years.

These two factors I believe put our industry at risk if there's a recession.

Re: Tell HN: Job interview canceled due to looming recession

#253

Post by dodobirdlord »

jeffreyrogers wrote: post #219
ghostly_s wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Salaries at FANG have been cut 50% in the past 12 months? I have to give that a massive Citations Needed.

They mean total comp, which is probably true since lots of people include their stock price appreciation when they talk about their total comp.

Even so, a 50% decline over the last 12 months is impossible. Of the FAANG companies, only Netflix is down more than 50%, and Netflix is notable for compensating people in mostly cash. Someone's compensation would have to be 100% stock and even then it wouldn't be down 50%.

Re: Tell HN: Job interview canceled due to looming recession

#254

Post by [deleted] »

michaelrpeskin wrote: post #98

I bet the non-profitable, feeding-on-VC startups are getting worried and we'll see more of this. I work at a non-VC-funded, profitable, stable, small place and we're desperately trying to hire. I've never made FAANG/startup income, and I've always felt a little left-out because of that. But we've been stable for nearly 30 years, and have never had the big layoffs or hiring freezes including, dot-com bust, 2008, 2020…

[deleted]

Re: Tell HN: Job interview canceled due to looming recession

#255

Post by calvinmorrison »

technothrasher wrote: post #204
michaelrpeskin wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, forgot boring! We're kind of boring. Our customers are boring, our technology is boring (Java 8!), but the problems we solve are actually pretty exciting - we just solve them in a boring way :)

Right there with you. Small manufacturing company, been going steady for 51 years, boring as can be (20 year old PCB layout software and straight C on bare metal Arm Cortex), but we've found a good niche solving problems for customers that nobody else will. Being able to attract workers is definitely difficult though, as we cannot pay what the big guys around here can.

There are an incredible amount of jobs, niche jobs, that exist at companies like this all over. Small companies, in great niches, that have good industrial customers, that will continue to exist and will not be easily optimized away by some SaaS startup.

There's also good existing small companies that are in more exciting tech spaces, that are hiring, that are not startups.

Shout out to Fastmail, my former employer, as they are one of those nice small companies, seem to get lots of love here, and they're lovely people. And last I checked, they're hiring as well.

Even in the 'SaaS' space there are boring but profitable small comapnies that fulfill automation for niche use cases. I just picked up on that we are using for our CDN that cloudfront doesn't being to cover. The pricing is good, the company is small, stable, and I'll continue to use them as long as I can.

So... they're out there, but they certainly aren't FAANG and a lot of times, they aren't wild startups either.

Part of this leads to less "popularity" for potential employees. You've never heard of ABC Bearings & Co, and they haven't manufactured Bearings in 100 years, but they fulfill important roles in the roller industry. Not Boeing, but just as important.

I think this is because startups spend incredible amounts of time trying to grow and to find customers, so naturally they advertise, are in the news, on HN, etc. In a more boring economic sphere (IE: no exponential growth, a few solid players that often times are more cordial than cutthroat competitive) you may never hear of these places.

Re: Tell HN: Job interview canceled due to looming recession

#256

Post by Tao332 »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #92
bergenty wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t that pretty great? Get paid for 6 months of relatively light ramp up time and then a few months worth of severance for some time off once fired?

> Isn’t that pretty great? Get paid for 6 months of relatively light ramp up time and then a few months worth of severance for some time off once fired? Not great at all. For anyone reading your resume in the future, it's impossible to know if you were let go due to no fault of your own, or if you were let go for cause after a probationary period expired. I personally don't hold a single short job against people, but…

> For anyone reading your resume in the future

Then don't list it.

Re: Tell HN: Job interview canceled due to looming recession

#257

Post by smugma »

dghlsakjg wrote: post #218
ghostly_s wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Salaries at FANG have been cut 50% in the past 12 months? I have to give that a massive Citations Needed.

Total comp has likely come down, not salaries. If a significant part of your comp is in stock, then yeah, that portion of your pay is down potentially 70% or more in six months (Netflix). There’s probably some employees at FAANG that are negative on their equity.

AAPL still up 10%+ YoY. Msft not technically FANG (MAGA?) and also up YoY.

Re: Tell HN: Job interview canceled due to looming recession

#258

Post by calvinmorrison »

bradlys wrote: post #185
michaelrpeskin wrote: post #98

I bet the non-profitable, feeding-on-VC startups are getting worried and we'll see more of this. I work at a non-VC-funded, profitable, stable, small place and we're desperately trying to hire. I've never made FAANG/startup income, and I've always felt a little left-out because of that. But we've been stable for nearly 30 years, and have never had the big layoffs or hiring freezes including, dot-com bust, 2008, 2020…

> I've never made FAANG/startup income > we're desperately trying to hire Do you wonder why people aren’t joining?

for FAANGers, how does everyone feel about their wild comps now that the stock prices have come back to earth?

Re: Tell HN: Job interview canceled due to looming recession

#259

Post by Tao332 »

ramesh31 wrote: post #101
bergenty wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t that pretty great? Get paid for 6 months of relatively light ramp up time and then a few months worth of severance for some time off once fired?

>Isn’t that pretty great? Get paid for 6 months of relatively light ramp up time and then a few months worth of severance for some time off once fired? Nah that'll torch your resume for years. Unless you're a total rockstar otherwise, I'd be terrified to explain a 6 month stint.

Then don't put it on your resume!

Re: Tell HN: Job interview canceled due to looming recession

#260

Post by quickthrower2 »

30944836 wrote: post #236
jedberg wrote: post #223

I dropped out of school in 1999, and got laid off in 2001 at the start of that recession. I couldn't get a job in 2001 or 2002, so I went back to school and got scholarships to live off of, and graduated in 2003. Recession was still ongoing but I got lucky and had a friend from the first job help me get a job, but other than that, I wasn't getting a lot of interviews. I had friends who were getting hired and then lai…

>had a friend from the first job help me get a job This is the part of the story that OP needs to key in on. OP: Network. Network Network Network. I've been at 2 FAANG in 7 years. I don't write code. I make good money. Friends got me jobs both times. Do whatever you have to do to make friends with people in the industry where you want to work. Go to the bars they hang out in. Go to meet-ups. Go to lectures open to th…

This can be hit and miss so needs some persistence. For me, not living in SF or even the USA, there is not really a tech culture to the point where the Pizza delivery person wants to talk about Monads (a story I read somewhere...).

However if you are not in a tech city, and don't want to move to one, then online is great. Here is what you can do.

1. Find stuff on Show HN or HN (or Reddit etc.) generally that you are super excited about. Genuinely. For example with me: I probably should be excited about self driving cars, but I am actually way more excited about that self-hosted wiki in a single HTML file, for example.

2. See how to connect to the people. You could send a cold email, but it is a bit sucky and desperate. It is better if you "do" something fun online with them. Maybe help them on the Github, submit or review PRs, join the chat server and talk, build something and let them know about it, use it for free (maybe using their thing, or complementary) etc. This should be effortless because remember you are super excited.

3. That's it. Be a human, see where it goes. You may or may not find out about jobs. You might get bored. But doing 1 and 2 enough a great job or opportunity will be found out.

This is more like: build and connect with people for their coolness, and let the occasional job opportunity present itself. You still need to do interviews, and come across like a good worker and will add a lot of value and all that jazz. But this is about finding stuff that may not even be advertised. And also most advertised jobs are a bit shit. So it acts as a filter.

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