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Ask HN: How's the job hunt going? (For those laid off)

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Re: Ask HN: How's the job hunt going? (For those laid off)

#231

Post by rootusrootus »

ryandrake wrote: post #187
rootusrootus wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A good friend of mine spent his life being pretty frugal. Saved up a nice chunk of change, too -- his wife is also a software developer, they both made good money. Got cancer early last year and was dead 10 months later. 55 years old. Ugh. Not saying you should run out and spend your nest egg. On the other hand, I'd be reluctant to suffer too much during my prime working years scrimping and saving for a retirement th…

Sorry about your friend. My wife also had a friend in the same boat. Made it to 59 and heart attack. Statistically they are outliers, though. For every one of those cases there are probably 10 that make it long past a normal retirement age and 2 that make it beyond 90 years or so. Given the choice, I’d rather be prepared for a 30 year retirement and unluckily die early than be prepared for a 5 year retirement and liv…

Right, I wouldn't advocate spending it all. Just a bit of moderation. It does help that by the time you're within 10 or 15 years of retirement you should mostly not need big contributions to investments, the interest ought to be doing the heavy lifting. Doesn't always work out that way of course.

Re: Ask HN: How's the job hunt going? (For those laid off)

#232

Post by bartimus »

skeeter2020 wrote: post #192
abadger9 wrote: post #7

I'm not laid off but actively looking to change after spending a couple of years at my current employer. Despite being a staff engineer, managing 12 engineers, and having a solid revenue stream tied to my current team - I've mostly gotten rejections without interviews, 1-2 low ball offers, or radio silence. I cannot imagine how hard this must be for those laid-off, hopefully this storm passes soon. EDIT: you cannot m…

>> Despite being a staff engineer, managing 12 engineers, So this is actually a warning to me as a hiring manager. Good staff developers absolutely are technical leaders but if they have day-to-day people management skills I'm at best confused, at worst skeptical. Managing 12 engineers is a full time job before you even get to staff developer responsibilities.

I'm also confused. It's my understanding that staff engineers are responsible for taking the software into a certain technical direction. "Upper management" related to engineering. Wouldn't that automatically involve managing those engineers who are involved with the project(s)?

Re: Ask HN: How's the job hunt going? (For those laid off)

#233

Post by sn9 »

poulsbohemian wrote: post #210
ummonk wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're not saving money on a software engineer salary, you're being very frivolous with your spending.

Or you’ve got sick parents, a sick kid, your own health problems, day care costs, student debt, a non-working spouse…

Fair, but lots of people without anything close to a SE's salary have those problems, too.

Software engineers still have a much harder time justifying having a low savings rate when you compare them to the rest of the population.

Generally, there's some degree of frivolous spending going on.

Re: Ask HN: How's the job hunt going? (For those laid off)

#234

Post by userulluipeste »

300bps wrote: post #20
that_guy_iain wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've not been laid off either. I'm currently taking a break from jobs. I'm starting to think that it's time to go back to full-time employment. But I'm looking at the job market and think it might be better to give it 4-6 months. Let all the companies that are going to do layoffs have their layoffs and then join a company still looking for new devs in a few months.

>But I'm looking at the job market and think it might be better to give it 4-6 months. I'm fascinated by this. How does one do this? Two options I can think of are being independently wealthy and being dependent on another. Are there other ways to accomplish being so comfortable with, "eh, gonna be unemployed another 4-6 months and see what happens"?

Although I see a lot of sibling comments, their message is about managing the money obtained from previous burst of (one's specialty related) activity, so I'd add something different. There are also cases when one may have another source of income (passive or whatever alternative active type may be at hand, there always is) or means of supporting oneself (say, having the needs covered by enrollment in a volunteer program). It's not great, but bearable. In that state a return to employment could mean in fact just getting back to one's previous quality of life and regaining access to resource levels that allows one to plan/dream long term. The trick is to plan ahead for such situations and not get over-leveraged.

Re: Ask HN: How's the job hunt going? (For those laid off)

#235

Post by ryandrake »

LouisSayers wrote: post #215
ryandrake wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, the power of compounding interest over time. Take time off and eat away at your savings for a year when you are 25, and that probably adds 5 years to your retirement age. Better make that year really worth it!

Yeah, but how much would you be willing to give up when you're old and decrepit to have one year off in the prime of your life? And that's assuming you even live long enough to get to retirement...

I think there is an assumption hidden in your words, that years earlier in life are in some way more valuable/fun/important than years later in life. I get it, HN's demographics skew really young, and I bet a lot of people here believe that.

Even as I approach elderliness, I still feel that every year of my life has become much more joyful, exciting and enriching than the previous year. I would absolutely not trade away multiple retirement years for a single year of fucking around in my twenties.

Re: Ask HN: How's the job hunt going? (For those laid off)

#236

Post by ghaff »

czbond wrote: post #101
cmckn wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re totally right; but I’m nervous for my laid-off friends that will burn through 80% of their severance over the holiday season. :(

After that there is unemployment insurance for a while. They'll be fine.

Depending on the state, unemployment can be a few hundred dollars per week.

Re: Ask HN: How's the job hunt going? (For those laid off)

#237

Post by molsongolden »

bartimus wrote: post #232
skeeter2020 wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Despite being a staff engineer, managing 12 engineers, So this is actually a warning to me as a hiring manager. Good staff developers absolutely are technical leaders but if they have day-to-day people management skills I'm at best confused, at worst skeptical. Managing 12 engineers is a full time job before you even get to staff developer responsibilities.

I'm also confused. It's my understanding that staff engineers are responsible for taking the software into a certain technical direction. "Upper management" related to engineering. Wouldn't that automatically involve managing those engineers who are involved with the project(s)?

It’s frequently a high level IC role that is more technical leadership than people management.

Re: Ask HN: How's the job hunt going? (For those laid off)

#238

Post by mbernstein »

abadger9 wrote: post #7

I'm not laid off but actively looking to change after spending a couple of years at my current employer. Despite being a staff engineer, managing 12 engineers, and having a solid revenue stream tied to my current team - I've mostly gotten rejections without interviews, 1-2 low ball offers, or radio silence. I cannot imagine how hard this must be for those laid-off, hopefully this storm passes soon. EDIT: you cannot m…

Red flag for me immediately re: your current company is a staff engineer (no offense meant at all, but staff is not a people leadership role typically) managing 12 people (which is far too many for any individual to manage).

Re: Ask HN: How's the job hunt going? (For those laid off)

#239

Post by userulluipeste »

est31 wrote: post #41
teraflop wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Software development pays incredibly well by the standards of the average American. You can spend that money on lifestyle inflation, or you can save/invest it and buy yourself an enormous amount of financial freedom. Whether you call that "being independently wealthy" is a matter of semantics.

Yeah there is a lot of space between "has savings for 8-12 months" and "is independently wealthy, i.e. can live off interest of their own savings". Former is extremely easy to achieve if you can save significant portions of your salary. If you can save 30%, you can achieve it after 3 years. Latter takes a bit longer.

There's a lot of range of what constitutes "independently wealthy, i.e. can live off interest of their own savings" when one gets there. Say, you may live a single life of relative leisure for the rest of your days, but if you plan to start a family and have kids (with all it implies) - nope, you'll still have to get back to work! Or want to live large and not have to worry that much about material side of life (i.e. when money is just for keeping score)? Well, you'd better find out ways to make most of your current financial independence to get there, which in itself is work (although just investment related kind, but still).

Re: Ask HN: How's the job hunt going? (For those laid off)

#240

Post by icedchai »

sokoloff wrote: post #209
jxhdkdhdks wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

never mind that anyone following mr money mustache advice to date, would be under water and strugling more than people that just saved in safer assets all that while.

Not if you’ve been following that advice for more than 3 years. The broad market is around the same price as 18 months ago.

Yup. I'm basically back to early 2021 levels, still up almost 60% since things bottomed out in March/April 2020. The big drops seem concerning in the short term, but if you look at it over the long term... well... I'm not too worried.
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