It's not as nice as it just was. Since after COVID hiring resumed I've had no problem getting jobs. Just tested the waters and they are chilly. I can't get past intro emails whereas previously I had trouble scheduling the amount of interviews I was getting. It should recover in the new year.
Ask HN: How bad is hiring going to be within the next year?
41–50 of 63 posts
Re: Ask HN: How bad is hiring going to be within the next year?
#42> If this were a year ago, I'd feel good; grind some leetcode, get hired at a big tech company for a good salary. This dynamic is one of the reasons we're seeing such large layoffs right now. Even many of the companies that are rolling in cash simply got too aggressive with hiring in recent years. Anyone who knew the drill could grind leetcode, study interview guides, apply to enough FAANG companies and get a job eve…
That's an important point that a company might think that an economic slowdown is a time to let go of the bottom 20% of workers but it has the paradoxical effect that the better people see things getting worse and they are the first to go.
Re: Ask HN: How bad is hiring going to be within the next year?
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
but healthtech is doing pretty well!
Very well, but people don't seem to want to apply to jobs in Healthtech. I say this as my company has many active openings that we just don't get many applications for.
Given the highly regulated nature of healthcare, would it be a meaningful plus if a software engineering applicant had a legal background as well, or is basically irrelevant?
Re: Ask HN: How bad is hiring going to be within the next year?
#44> If this were a year ago, I'd feel good; grind some leetcode, get hired at a big tech company for a good salary. This dynamic is one of the reasons we're seeing such large layoffs right now. Even many of the companies that are rolling in cash simply got too aggressive with hiring in recent years. Anyone who knew the drill could grind leetcode, study interview guides, apply to enough FAANG companies and get a job eve…
>In your case, "used to be a software engineer" is already going to put you at a massive disadvantage relative to all of the experienced engineers who were recently forced into the job market by layoffs. No doubt. Luckily, I did actually do some job searching for dev jobs from March - May this year, and I did get interviews, etc., so hopefully the situation for me isn't that dire so long as I can perform. Whether my…
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Re: Ask HN: How bad is hiring going to be within the next year?
#45I am hearing a lot about layoffs at "FAANG", Intel, Twitter and a few other employers that are notoriously bloated. (e.g I wouldn't take layoffs at Intel as an economic indicator because Intel seems to lay 10,000 engineers off every few years because of its own perversity) More normal sorts of employers are still reporting extreme problems hiring people. For instance I was late for work this morning because the bus w…
I had a friend who would say that 10% of the workforce keeps the company running, while another 10% support them; whereas, the remainder role-play giving presentations to each other.
Sounds like your friend got burned for some reason. Resentment breeds such fallacy.
Re: Ask HN: How bad is hiring going to be within the next year?
#46My advice is to get 'ML' on your resume, some way, somehow, along with some selection of: TypeScript, React, Python, C#, Java, Linux, and Kubernetes.
Start with a good online free course like https://www.coursera.org/specializations/machine-learning-in...
You don't have to be a full-bore data scientist to benefit from the surging interest in ML -- for example, I've made my current focus 'UX for data scientists', I focus on trying to make interfaces that are pleasing to people working in ML, and this, I am pleased to say, just got my ass hired.
It's also salient to know that, over the next decade, while tech salaries will likely trend down (esp. as CoPilot, nocode/lowcode, etc continue to make our lives easier and hence less lucrative ;D) the *amount of addressable work* in ML specifically will almost certainly offset this change.
YMMV in other tech specializations, but I'd still rather be in our industry than most others. Again, there's plenty of work in MLOps that does not require being a data scientist.
Finally, if you can physically live in a geolocation with lower cost of living (or better yet, a currency that is weaker than USD) you can be the lower-cost option that everyone ditches Fancy McSanFransiscoPants for in 2023. Be sure to blog and show your work on GH ;D
Re: Ask HN: How bad is hiring going to be within the next year?
#47> If this were a year ago, I'd feel good; grind some leetcode, get hired at a big tech company for a good salary. This dynamic is one of the reasons we're seeing such large layoffs right now. Even many of the companies that are rolling in cash simply got too aggressive with hiring in recent years. Anyone who knew the drill could grind leetcode, study interview guides, apply to enough FAANG companies and get a job eve…
Companies like Facebook often hire bodies just because. They don't have actual positions for them during interview as it's more about leveraging them when they start, which might be months away. They're generally not hiring to fill open positions.
Re: Ask HN: How bad is hiring going to be within the next year?
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
but healthtech is doing pretty well!
Very well, but people don't seem to want to apply to jobs in Healthtech. I say this as my company has many active openings that we just don't get many applications for.
Try posting in the monthly who's hiring, and freelancer posts. You might get some bites
Re: Ask HN: How bad is hiring going to be within the next year?
#49I think we are exaggerating. I started a new position 5 months ago (with a significant raise of around 20% my previous salary). Within these 5 months the company fired a significant portion of their employees (some techies, but mainly non-techies like HR); it made it to HN (not the front-page I think). Hiring freeze for around 3 months... but since about a month ago they started to hire again. Now on Linkedin you can…
Most of those EU remote jobs will not even glance at your resume twice if you don't have x years of experience in their stack. I know this because I just ended a two month long interview loop for remote positions within EU as a senior developer who only has C# experience(on paper). There were literally two companies that would give me time even though I didn't have experience in JS and Go respectively, one of them also offered very much under market average salary. European job market is retarded like that, still living in ages where companies think you can't learn any other web framework in a week even if you worked with another one for years. I actually hated interviewing these last two months, granted I didn't even try to approach faang level companies, still, most processes are terrible, long and even disrespectful. Also for the LinkedIn "remote+EU" search you mentioned, a lot of companies on LinkedIn will list remote but in fact will not hire outside country they're in. You will only find out if recruiter graciously tells you that, most will just ignore you. I found it baffling considering that you can simply invoice them within EU but suddenly it's a problem.
Re: Ask HN: How bad is hiring going to be within the next year?
#50I don't know how so many people tolerate the BS of going through the interview process where they can switch jobs every few years.
I've never been successful with it. I've only gotten hired as a dev by a very strong reference or because an eccentric boss gave me a contract-to-hire opportunity. That boss posted an ad on Craigslist... I joked about it saying it was a scam, and he said you know it's legit because he also wrote the job posting on park benches and bathroom stalls. My favorite boss.
Lately I just save money because HR keeps threatening to fire me for being unvaccinated. I've been breaking company policy for a year, and saving money for a year, I don't give a shit about the job market anymore and I hope they finally grow balls and fire me. My startup only has $200 MRR but if they don't fire me before end of the year I'm out. And I don't want another job either, I've survived an 8 year gap without a real job before. I'd rather live off of rice/soup than deal with corporate software dev another year. And interviewing is the worst, way worse than the day to day, I don't know how you guys do it.