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How much have tech layoffs affected engineers vs. other departments?

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Re: How much have tech layoffs affected engineers vs. other departments?

#331
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the Senior market is saturated? this is an early sign companies are getting nervous about bloat. After the '08 recession many companies rushed to ditch Architect titles as they found that the role did not serve the interests of their productive engineers or the companies higher ups. Companies that had gone heavy on such talent might find themselves stuck. I recall seeing talks on "Staff Engineer" and thinking that…

More and more senior engineers are non-coding or practically so. I see it everywhere. As industries have matured, people have matured into higher level management roles and there hasn't been enough people to replace them. There's still plenty of fresh blood, software engineering actually looks a lot like the labor shortages do in the rest of the market—there's a lack of people who actually want to do the work. Everyo…

I'd be glad to know about these $200-300k positions. I must be applying to the wrong places - I keep hearing that my current base of 187k as a Senior SWE is out of their range.

Re: How much have tech layoffs affected engineers vs. other departments?

#332
post #277
post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$150 per hour is very low.

I've never seen anything close to $150/hr -- I'd jump on that if I did. $63-$80/hr is actually about what I'm seeing, which is less than I'd made from my last FTE gig (I have 16 yoe, mind you). When you consider those rates don't include PTO and benefits, it's even worse. Contracting is the thing you do when you're between permanent jobs and you do it because it pays better than slinging coffee and keeps your resume…

contracting is being in business for yourself which means you need to learn how to sell and negotiate. if you don’t do that then yes, you will work for a low rate.

Re: How much have tech layoffs affected engineers vs. other departments?

#333
post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$150 per hour is very low.

That's 130,000-150,000 annually if you clock 40 hours 5 days a week, not hourly. I don't know in what universe you think $150 per hour is low, I've never seen anything near that rate. Maybe for highly specialized work but not any general purpose development.

cost of living in US metros is extremely high. and you need to pay for the cost of being self employed.

Re: How much have tech layoffs affected engineers vs. other departments?

#334
post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yeah, so buying more from overseas than you sell overseas is a net drag on the economy. Queen Elizabeth I called; she wants her 16th Century mercantilism back.

Bro I’m here fighting for my life trying to convince people that a trade deficit financed by asset sales is a good thing. I meant a net drag on GDP. Please chill.

I don't think I'm the one who needs to chill, bro.

Re: How much have tech layoffs affected engineers vs. other departments?

#335

The fact that snap's web3 team being cut is one of the listed examples is pretty comical IMHO.

> The fact that snap's web3 team being cut is one of the listed examples is pretty comical IMHO. We're seeing a huge influx of applicants who are coming from failed web3/blockchain projects. It was very much a gold rush that attracted a lot of people looking to strike it rich. Now that the momentum has disappeared, the employees of those projects are all running for safety.

The interesting question to be answered now is if "web3" skills are an effective substitute good (in the pure economic sense) for employers looking for developers.

I suspect a lot of pure web3 devs won't actually make a more competitive market beyond incentivizing yet another fizzbuzz-like hoop in the interviewing process to weed out people who learned about blockchain tech and otherwise can't code themselves out of a wet paper bag.

On second thought... I should acknowledge my elitism in that last sentence and maybe be more cautious. Good grief, I got my last 4 years of professional experience working on IoT, which I bet was looked down upon in a similar manner by others when it started.

Maybe the takeaway is that we should all to the best of our abilities keep at least a casual hand in the water of tech so we have a general idea of the current.

Re: How much have tech layoffs affected engineers vs. other departments?

#336
post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bro I’m here fighting for my life trying to convince people that a trade deficit financed by asset sales is a good thing. I meant a net drag on GDP. Please chill.

I don't think I'm the one who needs to chill, bro.

It was a joke?

I'm aware I'm not 'fighting for my life'

Re: How much have tech layoffs affected engineers vs. other departments?

#337
post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bro, what you are not understanding is that equating a recession to a decrease in production is pointless. It’s why you won’t answer my C+I+G question. What is happening is that Americans are selling debt/assets in exchange for goods/services (that’s what a trade imbalance is). They are still able to consume and invest an increasing amount of goods/services and there’s no signs of that ability to finance those activi…

equating a recession to a decrease in production is pointless I didn't equate a recession to anything. In fact, I never even used the word recession in any post, I don't have a framework, and not trying to push a political agenda. Literally, all I want to do is help you understand the GDP equation, which is often misunderstood as to how imports are excluded. (production is not the economy my guy, trade imbalances hav…

>Might be true, but we were talking about GDP. GDP is production. Imports are not included in GDP, so an increase in imports doesn't cause GDP to go down.

Imports cause GDP to go down relative to C+I+G. Full stop. I'm sorry I didn't say "relative to economic activity which should be the true measure of a recession" but again, that's why I call you a pedant.

>Wrong, because math. Spending is up equal to the amount of imports increasing, so there is no effect on GDP.

Yes, but GDP is down relative to C+I+G because of imports. Why are you being so stubborn about that? And honestly, what's the Venn diagram of people who bring up D-K and those who suffer from it? Like ad hominen is a universal sign of intelligence, right?

>You are conflating an increase in imports with a decrease in domestic spending. Trade is not zero sum.

Answer my question about selling debt/assets please. Are those in GDP? Or can you sell things that aren't "produced" by GDP?

Re: How much have tech layoffs affected engineers vs. other departments?

#338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it were Amazon they would have just said FAANG.

Amazon is not part of FAANG

F - Facebook A - Apple A - Amazon N - Netflix G - Google

Source: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/faang-stocks.asp

Re: How much have tech layoffs affected engineers vs. other departments?

#339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are barely in the early stages of automation and digitalisation. There may be a temporary bump but we are nowhere near where we should be in terms of automating things. Let alone the existing code that needs maintenance. Large and boring companies, the Chryslers of the software world, will undergo a slowdown. There will be new tech and process coming around. We still have trains driven by people, planes flown by p…

This: "We are barely in the early stages of automation". I would disagree from the perspective of manufacturing. Most people do not realise how much automation has occurred in the last 30 years. The labour cost per unit of manufactured product continues to fall at an incredible rate. The future feels like a bunch of 99% automated factories in the middle of nowhere. It seems scary to imagine the day when someone can m…

There's also a lot of automation to be done before a factory begins producing something. There are large capital costs, and even larger opportunity costs, to the really slow testing setups for all kinds of industrial goods.

For the area I'm most familiar with, batteries, a novel chemical composition for a battery can take 5-10 years, to hit market (leaning towards the latter end of the spectrum). IMO this could be brought down to 6-12 months with much lower capital costs.

Re: How much have tech layoffs affected engineers vs. other departments?

#340
post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think I'm the one who needs to chill, bro.

It was a joke? I'm aware I'm not 'fighting for my life'

And I'm likewise aware that a centuries-old English monarch didn't call me to discuss the economic theories of her time (though it'd be pretty cool to see how accurately or inaccurately we've reconstructed Elizabethan-era English pronunciations).
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