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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

#411

Post by zmxz »

ornornor wrote: post #392
eastbound wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At risk? We’ll just stop having overinflated salaries. The current situation is insane for employers: - Employees are not willing to put a little extra (paid extra, I mean - and we’re at the 35hrs week here), - Not willing to study afterwork to improve their career, - Not willing to work on legacy products where we pay them 40% more. - In the first 2 years, I can pay someone 35 -> 50 -> +10k bonus, and they’ll leave…

> - Employees are not willing to put a little extra (and we’re at the 35hrs week here), > - Not willing to study afterwork to improve their career, Some of your points make sense but these two…

What's wrong with those two? I'm genuinely interested, software engineers are overpaid as is with benefits that nearly every other industry can only dream about and you're upset about not being able to put extra 5 hours of time a week to improve your skills related to something that's your career?

And we wonder why quality of everything is awful and why people are unreliable and entitled.

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

#412

Post by chopsuey5540 »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #402
eastbound wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At risk? We’ll just stop having overinflated salaries. The current situation is insane for employers: - Employees are not willing to put a little extra (paid extra, I mean - and we’re at the 35hrs week here), - Not willing to study afterwork to improve their career, - Not willing to work on legacy products where we pay them 40% more. - In the first 2 years, I can pay someone 35 -> 50 -> +10k bonus, and they’ll leave…

Where are you located that you have a 35h week while enjoying such great benefits like employer investing in your training? I'd like to move there. In my EU country the working hours are 38.5 which isn't as good as 35h, but it isn't that bad, but no employer hires you to invest in your training. Every company wants only seniors, preferably for junior wages, and scream there's a shortage while offering no WFH because…

Probably France

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

#413

Post by rtpg »

zmxz wrote: post #409
kortilla wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the first 2 years, I can pay someone 35 -> 50 -> +10k bonus You pay them such terrible wages and you’re surprised they leave? You can make $35k at in-n-out shilling beef on a bun.

What a terrible person, doesn't have access to infinite money and can't afford to overpay underskilled staff.

Perhaps their business model is not good?

Acting like companies deserve underpaid labor (let's not even get into the combination of that with an expectation of fealty + coming to the office every day to avoid managers being lonely) gets us to situations where people out of college with shitty negotiation skills end up losing 5 years of their life in miserable situations.

Unless you are a business owner, having everyone be paid reasonably is a net win, but it's also the right thing to do, and shows a minimum of respect to people doing work.

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

#414

Post by rtpg »

zmxz wrote: post #411
ornornor wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - Employees are not willing to put a little extra (and we’re at the 35hrs week here), > - Not willing to study afterwork to improve their career, Some of your points make sense but these two…

What's wrong with those two? I'm genuinely interested, software engineers are overpaid as is with benefits that nearly every other industry can only dream about and you're upset about not being able to put extra 5 hours of time a week to improve your skills related to something that's your career? And we wonder why quality of everything is awful and why people are unreliable and entitled.

It's easy: if you want your employee to do something, all you have to do is pay them for their time.

Not willing to? Then I guess it's not important to you.

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

#415

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

kortilla wrote: post #403
eastbound wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At risk? We’ll just stop having overinflated salaries. The current situation is insane for employers: - Employees are not willing to put a little extra (paid extra, I mean - and we’re at the 35hrs week here), - Not willing to study afterwork to improve their career, - Not willing to work on legacy products where we pay them 40% more. - In the first 2 years, I can pay someone 35 -> 50 -> +10k bonus, and they’ll leave…

> the first 2 years, I can pay someone 35 -> 50 -> +10k bonus You pay them such terrible wages and you’re surprised they leave? You can make $35k at in-n-out shilling beef on a bun.

Maybe they're in an European country where that would be a good wage.

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

#416

Post by DeathArrow »

eikenberry wrote: post #140
ineptech wrote: post #121

If you want to be recession-proof, get a job at a non-software company (or in academia, state/city government, etc). In theory, "programmer" is the same job whether you work for a startup or the Minnesota Dept. of Transportation, but in practice they feel like completely different industries. In one, you can make fantastic money but the interviews are famously difficult, the culture can be borderline abusive, and lay…

I'd recommend the opposite approach and go for stable software companies as the best employers. Non-software companies usually see software as a cost that is often at the top of the list when layoffs come up. IMO working for a software company means not only better treatment (eg. see the recent discussions on staff vs. line jobs) but you get better stability as you are core to the business. None of this applies to st…

Not sure about that. Let's say you work for a bank. ATMs still need to work, wiring money still need to work, accounts still need to be tracked and new legal regulations still need to be implemented. I guess they aren't going to fire their IT department.

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

#417

Post by kergonath »

cryptica wrote: post #190
bnt wrote: post #2

Their honesty should be applauded. Imagine they hired you and then had to fire you in 6 months. Keep in touch with the PM if you liked them and see how they perform in the next 12 months.

How is that a good thing? You can earn good money in 6 months. One time I took a 2-week web development job to stand in for someone who left for a holiday while a project was overdue. It was an interesting experience. I wish the economy was more like this; more unpredictable and more focused on deliverables than hours worked.

> I wish the economy was more like this; more unpredictable and more focused on deliverables than hours worked.

That would be fine for single people or couples without children and enough savings to relocate or live on whilst job hunting, but absolutely devastating for everyone else.

As if there weren’t enough uncertainty already…

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

#418

Post by manmal »

spixy wrote: post #405
WoodenChair wrote: post #399

This is totally anecdotal, but earlier this month, in a two week period, I interviewed with 8 different companies. None of them pulled out or hinted they were pulling out. I wrote about the experience here: https://www.observationalhazard.com/2022/05/my-experience-wi... I bring this up to present a counter to your experience and encourage you to keep applying. While I'm doubtless many companies have/will pull back, t…

Thanks for you submission. I think it is not up to HN standards to draw conclusions from n=1 as OP did.

Extrapolating from one negative experience could be a sign of anxiety. I‘d focus on that.

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

#419

Post by DeathArrow »

bradlys wrote: post #371
scarface74 wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe because out of the 2.7 million developers in the US, most are “dark matter developers”? I know plenty of developers who “only” make $150K-$160k a year and are living in their nice house in the burbs with 2.1 kids, the white picket fence in the “good school system” with a spouse making decent money and don’t have a care in the world.

I think these folks are often very different than FAANG crew tbh. That’s why I say - why bother comparing. It’s not the same even remotely. People I work with at FAANG-etc tend to be top 10 school, upper class upbringing, want to go even higher, etc. It’s different. It’s what you’d expect from doctors. I think different types of personalities are attracted to SV than to rest of the country. We’ve built the stereotype…

You get SV compensation and have to pay SV prices for everything. Not sure the level of living is better than getting non-SV payment while paying non-SV prices.

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

#420

Post by onion2k »

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…

I remember Google's recruiting slowed down in ~2008. [edit: 2009? Maybe not right at the start of the recession.] [1] So sometimes yes. On the bright side, it's rare for profitable large tech companies to lay off software engineers, so if you get in, you're pretty safe.

I don't think Google has seen the impact of a recession yet. It was 4 years old in the dot.com era, and insulated from the effects of the recession by a steady stream of VC money. It was 11 years old in 2008, 5 years out of its IPO, and growing insanely fast on the back of an internet boom where every business was struggling to understand how to utilize online advertising to get the best possible results. Businesses believed that online ads would protect them from the 2008 collapse, so Google were in a position to grow despite the downturn.

The same is not true now. If there's a serious long term recession it's very likely to impact companies with advertising derived revenue far more than it has in the past. In Google's case it'll probably mean little more than repatriating the cash reserves it has offshore and spending them to weather the storm. We all know that some of the higher ups will want to use it as an excuse to 'trim some fat' because that's what higher ups do though. No one will be safe.

The same is probably not true of other companies that are less cash-rich though. There's no reason to assume that tech will be fine this time because tech was fine last time.

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