Ask HN: How bad is hiring going to be within the next year?

I anticipate looking for a software engineering job starting ~next month (see below for what I am currently doing). If this were a year ago, I'd feel good; grind some leetcode, get hired at a big tech company for a good salary.

Now, of course, such companies seem to be laying off people way more qualified than me, freezing hiring, etc. Am I fucked?

I can provide whatever details people want, but I am not sure my personal circumstances are relevant except that I am not an exceptional dev with an enviable resume. The overall question is one many of us have: how bad is the hiring situation going to be in tech over the next year?

I also understand it's not one most people can effectively answer, but would like to know peoples' thoughts.

I used to be a software engineer. Then I went to law school, and now work in biglaw. I am a year out of law school, and have been working on a legal tech startup with a friend. If we cannot raise in the next couple months, I wish (almost need, really) to bail on the biglaw job and go back to being a dev.

I don't know your personal situation, but the way I interpret things is kind of like this:

- FAANG got bloated during the bubble and anticipated growth that isn't materializing as fast, so they're cutting headcount. Similar for other big non-FAANG public companies.

- Down stock market means that public companies can't get as much capital for new investment by selling shares.

- High interest rates increase cost of debt, meaning nonprofitable companies relying on debt to grow will not grow as fast and may cut costs to become profitable or cash flow positive.

In other words, I think the impact will mostly be on "growth" companies that are not profitable, and companies that got bloated in the past few years.

I think companies will still hire software engineers, but the places with the most headcount are going to pay less. They didn't become bloated during the COVID bubble because they pay less. Think lower growth, stable, profitable, private companies that need folks to keep the lights on, where engineering is a cost center and not the company's focus. The places that pay top dollar will be more limited because growth prospects have narrowed. Entry level folks that can code will probably find a job, but it might not pay well.

I don't have a crystal ball, but I don't think it's going to be as bad as 2000 or 2008. We'll see though. The next 2 quarters will be informative.

Hiring for FAANG and other publicly traded companies will be slowing down, if not mostly frozen for a year, but there should be sectors that are still seeing growth, need talent, and are willing to pay for it. It will be a matter of searching for those opportunities or creating your own within those markets. Every economic downturn is an opportunity to innovate, find real problems, and create solutions for them. Turnover doesn't stop (although it may slow) so there could also be opportunities filling roles that were vacated.