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Ask HN: Laid off folks, are you getting hired?

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Re: Ask HN: Laid off folks, are you getting hired?

#451

Post by iExploder »

jjav wrote: post #443
iExploder wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly on point, Europe is feudal and always have been. It is actually the reason why USA was "invented", when people who were fed up with the system left to start anew. I studied, lived and worked in high demand field all my adult life in Europe, am in my mid 30s and have nothing really to show for it. Salaries are lower than USA, the taxes are ridiculous, (progressive up to 50%), reasonably new house prices in rea…

> Salaries are lower than USA, the taxes are ridiculous, (progressive up to 50%), reasonably new house prices in reasonable locations are in millions. Marginal tax rates in California are also around 50% as well (above or below, depending on income). Houses are certainly in the millions. But on top of this you get to pay separately for extremely expensive health insurance and education, things that in most countries…

I'm not an expert on this but a quick check online and I found tax brackets for California:

$35,000-$80,000 [25%] $80,000-$170,000 [28%]

I'm just going to let you know that in Europe (Austria) personal income of 32,076 to 62,080 is taxed at 42% rate above 60k is taxed with 50%. And this does not include social and health insurance that is mandatory...

To give you TLDR of the European experience, you look at the gross salary, multiply by 0.45 and this is the real money you would see landing in your account, .. enjoy .. :)

Re: Ask HN: Laid off folks, are you getting hired?

#452

Post by renewiltord »

dangwhy wrote: post #220
renewiltord wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who did this for "low-latency min-allocation Java", the answer is that I have the need for this X now but I'm confident they can adapt to whatever comes later. The truth is that anyone on my team can become proficient in this given time, but I'd rather get someone who can juice the machine by showing up with existing knowledge and we'll all get ahead faster with them. I wouldn't fire someone in order to ge…

> rather get someone who can juice the machine by showing up with existing knowledge This doesn't feel like a sustainable way to build engineering org. You only get N chances for such 'juicing', what do you do when you need to juice but don't have open headcount. You have to come up with a strategy for that anyways, so why not implement ' want juice but no headcount' strategy and expand your hiring pool. I've also fo…

We're a small prop shop. I don't need to do sustainable in the way you're thinking. And I think we might be speaking at cross purposes. I want someone with a skillset. I'm going to hire them for that skillset. That doesn't mean they only have that skillset but that's the thing that provides utility.

Re: Ask HN: Laid off folks, are you getting hired?

#453

Post by masterj »

hikawaii wrote: post #301
paganel wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people going after "wealth" are a minority. The majority of us are salaried people who go to work in order to have a roof over our heads, to pay the bills and put food on the table and maybe to have enough money to have some kids. The majority of us don't actually know what we "have", because it isn't that much anyway. We do know though what we need to pay in the next 10 to 15 days(and if we somehow forget there'…

Given that the average mid level developer makes a salary and stock grant putting them well into the 1% (in USA) I find it questionable that the majority of people are "just" trying to keep a roof over their heads.

Top 10ish%? Yes. Top 1%? No

Re: Ask HN: Laid off folks, are you getting hired?

#454

Post by ericmcer »

elif wrote: post #186
ericmcer wrote: post #21

I took 8 months off voluntarily, just started applying again last week (full stack dev): 10 applications, 2 rejections, 1 initial phone screen Anecdotally I see very few junior/low level positions open, most jobs seem to be senior+. Salary ranges are all a bit higher than I remember them being 3 years ago. I am still a long way from being scared enough to take something I don't like or that doesn't pay well, still op…

i'm curious, from what you can tell, has anyone cared about your voluntary break or is it all the same to them? i quit/retired about 4 years ago and often wonder if i applied places how much it would be held against me wanting to have control over my life like that.

4 years is a long time, so you should have some explanation, but there is really only one way to find out! No one has asked about why I took 8 months off yet.

Re: Ask HN: Laid off folks, are you getting hired?

#455

Post by cableshaft »

pschuegr wrote: post #433
shyn3 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

March it heats up. Check your resume over. If I can get a job without any big tech you will be fine. Make your resume focus on numbers and maybe have someone review it for free.

What do you mean by "focus on numbers"?

- Wrote feature that saved the company $X millions of dollars.

- Automated manual process that saved the company X hours each time they do this process.

- Built a website that served X00,000 customers over the span of Y months.

- Managed X number of people on this project.

Instead of:

- Was responsible for making this software, filling out forms, talking to client, etc.

- I built a website with a database.

- I used X, Y, and Z technologies on this project.

Focus on bullets that show real numbers in metrics that companies care about (saving time, money, gaining customers, number of reports), wherever possible.

The others can be useful too, but shouldn't be what you highlight (list of tech doesn't hurt for hitting buzzwords, though).

Re: Ask HN: Laid off folks, are you getting hired?

#456

Post by dathanb82 »

jokethrowaway wrote: post #431
greedo wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps your assumption that all "mid level developers" make FAANG income is a bit inaccurate? There are tens of thousands of developers across the US not making big bucks. And to be in the 1%, you need to be making north of $800K. The company I work for employees roughly 100 developers, and not one of them makes more than $150K (we don't award RSUs either).

Incorrect, it was 320k$ in 2021 You can filter out by other characteristics here: https://igotstandardsbro.com/

Just shy of $600K in 2022, based on data from IRS and BLS: https://smartasset.com/data-studies/what-it-takes-to-be-in-t...

Re: Ask HN: Laid off folks, are you getting hired?

#457

Post by biinui »

jaxomlotus wrote: post #66

Here's the flip side: I was hiring (at a stealth vc-funded startup). I reached out to every designer and coder laid off from Twitter and Amazon (one of my investors sent me a spreadsheet that those laid off folks added their contact info to). I didn't receive a single interested response to my reach outs. Now granted, I'm sure they were bombarded with lots of startup offers and being picky what company/stage they wer…

May I know what these eng message boards are? :D

Re: Ask HN: Laid off folks, are you getting hired?

#459

Post by kirso »

jaxomlotus wrote: post #66

Here's the flip side: I was hiring (at a stealth vc-funded startup). I reached out to every designer and coder laid off from Twitter and Amazon (one of my investors sent me a spreadsheet that those laid off folks added their contact info to). I didn't receive a single interested response to my reach outs. Now granted, I'm sure they were bombarded with lots of startup offers and being picky what company/stage they wer…

How was your experience with job boards compared to LinkedIn? Was it effective?

Re: Ask HN: Laid off folks, are you getting hired?

#460

Post by timtas »

ryandrake wrote: post #116
dixie_land wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My observation is that recent layoffs affect engineers with different seniority very differently. Senior devs I know who got laid off are just enjoying their time off (with pay! if you consider the severance) after the rocketing market in 2021 (and maybe even H1 22) made them whole and financially secure. And they won't be entertaining a startup unless significant equity or big leveling up (eg Principal or Director).…

Furthermore, some very senior employees are in this boat: They kinda have enough savings to just retire, but were hanging on to their jobs to save maybe 10% more or whatever. Now that they're out of a job they are simply saying "Whelllp, I guess I'm now retired." and not really feeling the need to look anymore. I know someone who refused a forced return to office, and when his company tried to call his bluff, he just…

Moreover, the typical interview process is so ridiculously energy sapping (and poorly predictive), many of us senior devs are just done with it.

When I bail (or get axed) I’m gonna just do some indie hacking or maybe scratch up some 1099 work.

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