Where have all the laid-off tech workers gone? • Hacker News Board

Re: Where have all the laid-off tech workers gone?

#371

Post by Eisenstein » Sat, Apr 01, 2023, 1:19 AM UTC

adra wrote: post #329

barry-cotter wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$20,000 a year income puts one in the top decile of income worldwide. At $50,000 you are richer than 98.5% of the global population. That’s less than the median American worker ($54K) or the mean ($74K). A lit more than any investor class are rich by any historical or global standard.

Until you actually start equating cost of living and buying power. You may be making much more raw money than a 17th century monarch was, but that doesn't mean a hill of beans if everything costs more and you aren't afforded the same liberties that they had. If you're willing to move to a rural Indian slum, you're sure to live the most regal life one can afford there, but you will lose out on a lot of the value that…

You are arguing that your standard of living would increase by living in a slum because you would have more purchasing power? What?

I think you much overlook how great it is to have (somewhat) functional law enforcement, infrastructure, and access to goods and services and healthcare. This is what makes us rich, not the ability to buy cheap things.

Re: Where have all the laid-off tech workers gone?

#372

Post by mixmastamyk » Sat, Apr 01, 2023, 1:24 AM UTC

blindriver wrote: post #315

shams93 wrote: post #252

I turned 50, you hit middle age and then there's a huge negative wall of discrimination. This layoff hit me after I had been unemployed in the same year so I got no unemployment. I had moved in with my mom to help her during covid so I have been basically turned back into a child after having been forced to spend 478k for my education.

I'm in my 50s, I got 6 job offers in the last round of job interviews I had last year. I haven't felt the age discrimination yet, maybe at some point but hopefully I can retire before that.

Am well employed currently, but haven't received six job offers in the last two decades combined. Consider yourself exceptional.

Re: Where have all the laid-off tech workers gone?

#373

Post by wyclif » Sat, Apr 01, 2023, 1:26 AM UTC

wonder_er wrote: post #276

sjf wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not first one I have heard from.

Tech workers in Bali? Yeah, no doubt. There's lots of tech people there, but I was kinda trying to avoid them/us.

I'm in the Philippines. Backend dev still working from home, but not making the kind of money I want to make and probably will not be able to make given the current state of tech. Maybe I need to think about a career change. Not getting any responses to applications at all.

Re: Where have all the laid-off tech workers gone?

#374

Post by AndrewKemendo » Sat, Apr 01, 2023, 1:35 AM UTC

Ancalagon wrote: post #311

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #233

This whole debacle really made it clear that there is no way to be an ethical success in capitalism at the highest levels (CEO, Board, C-Suite generally, SVP). It is literally impossible to be a public company CEO or senior manager for that matter, which is the goal of most founders in this sphere, and not be slavishly devoted to maximizing profit margin at all costs and irrespective of anything else. Why? You'll be…

this really resonates with my observations as well. thanks for sharing this, taking a look at your website rn

Thanks!

Re: Where have all the laid-off tech workers gone?

#375

Post by chalcolithic » Sat, Apr 01, 2023, 1:43 AM UTC

JanisErdmanis wrote: post #333

than3 wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its actually not that unexpected, a big contributor is inflation. If you've any experience with Argentina, or other hyper-inflationary events, there comes a point where your labor is more valuable to you than what others are willing to pay you for. When the store of value is degrading rapidly, and wages in general always lag, those with options will do something else. Most companies I know simply are unwilling to adj…

This was actually my thought process to postpone job searching among many other things after my physics PhD graduation last year. I had managed to make substantial savings during the Covid period. I didn’t find ethical to invest them in stocks and the interest rates for government bonds were not close to match the inflation. So I took a time off to allocate time for spending/investing, learning new skills and working…

> I didn’t find ethical to invest them in stocks

Please elaborate

Re: Where have all the laid-off tech workers gone?

#376

Post by tnel77 » Sat, Apr 01, 2023, 1:56 AM UTC

rcarmo wrote: post #191

tnel77 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I saw a quote (I think from HackerNews) talking about how during good times, there’s lots of startups getting money. In tough times, there’s lots of money going to a handful of good startups. Just work hard to find yourself a promising startup!

One word: Europe.

That’s fair. While there’s obviously a limited number of positions, how hard is it to get a remote job with an American company? My American company currently employs one guy from Europe, but I’m not sure how common that actually is.

Re: Where have all the laid-off tech workers gone?

#377

Post by raydev » Sat, Apr 01, 2023, 2:12 AM UTC

freeone3000 wrote: post #5

Answer: "Working somewhere else mostly, but some started their own company."

Another answer: still just vibing and living off their generous 4 month severances and maybe planning to take the entire year off.

I know a lot of these people, many are just now starting up their job search, if at all.

Re: Where have all the laid-off tech workers gone?

#378

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Apr 01, 2023, 2:27 AM UTC

jjav wrote: post #266

gumby wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Only 56.7% of these people joined a tech company. There’s a very good chance that their new jobs are similar to their former jobs. Unfortunately, the term “tech” has become diluted to the point of worthlessness. Every company of any size needs programming, statistics, and such. Conversely many companies swept under the “tech” term don’t develop any technology at all. It’s so bad that actual technology development i…

> Unfortunately, the term “tech” has become diluted to the point of worthlessness. Indeed. Nearly every so-called "tech" company is not actually in the business of selling technology products, so they aren't really tech companies. Of course they create technology (sometimes very nice ones) internally in support of their actual business, but tech isn't the business the company board cares about. Netflix is a movie pro…

[deleted]

Re: Where have all the laid-off tech workers gone?

#379

Post by JeremyNT » Sat, Apr 01, 2023, 3:17 AM UTC

mrweasel wrote: post #63

elzbardico wrote: post #41

One thing that is very important to realize after being laid-off from a very big company during a recession is that you need to adjust your salary expectations for the new reality. And the other thing is that you should have been prepared for this a long, long time ago. Economic cycles are a thing, it is in all history books, there's no excuse for not being aware of them. I have always been very very conservative wit…

Last year I took a $15.000 a year pay cut, for a job I really wanted, and that's more aligned with my ideals. It didn't effect our home economy in any meaningful way and I wasn't making anything close to the salaries I've seen people on HN expect (closer to $100K). If we get to a point, and I'm not sure we're quite there yet, where the big tech companies, startups and other VC funded ventures can't absorb the layoff,…

HN is such a bubble sometimes. Hearing the problems of 250k/yr+ programmers is so completely strange.

I know there are a lot of us programmers and tech workers working in non profits, government, education, or in small but sustainable businesses.

I'm resigned to making well under what HN would consider a junior level salary, but in exchange I get to work at a place with a mission I can believe in, and I still have a comfortable lifestyle.

Maybe we're doing it wrong? I could probably double my salary at some VC funded company, after all. But in threads like this I do wonder if mo money means mo problems.

Re: Where have all the laid-off tech workers gone?

#380

Post by wonder_er » Sat, Apr 01, 2023, 3:17 AM UTC

Adraghast wrote: post #360

wonder_er wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How to make money: Offer this as a service to a business. The service (which I'm charging for, but don't yet have customers) is: 1. Paint some scooter parking lines in a reasonable spot, and add a signage explaining why the org wants to incentivize scooter usage. 2. The scooter parking would make use of existing nooks and crannys in the parking lot, so it wouldn't take away existing car parking. 3. Work with the staf…

The pitch is that businesses can reduce parking congestion (is there a dollar value you can pin to this?) by paying you to act as a personal scooter consultant for their employees? During research did you come across any mass-market applications of this sort of concierge service? It sounds very niche/upscale. I can’t think of any purchase I’ve made where I could have even found someone to hold my hand through it that…

There is indeed a dollar value one can pin to the extra parking availability. It's business dependent, but absolutely it can be tied to additional revenue.

And yeah, 'personal scooter consultant' is the pitch.

It's concierge and not traditional, but so am I.

As far as mass market application of this concierge service, I don't think there needs to be a mass market adaptation. Once there's some minimum buy-in, scooters will be normalized and more and more people will default into using them.

Its way more likely you would buy a scooter once you'd ridden on a friend's scooter from the gym to a local park for throwing a Frisbee. If, however, you didn't know anyone who owned a scooter, maybe you'd never own your own.

So... I'll hand-hold and concierge whatever is required to get critical mass.

I've already got two friends that have bought scooters, and they love it. I have four more friends now about to take the plunge. Scooters spread through friend groups, it seems.

Once you see how many problems they solve, and how much more fun and convenient they are, it's hard to unsee.

But it's damned hard to be the first person to make that choice.

I, too, don't know that I have seen this exact model before, but each scooter purchase saves a parking spot for another customer, so the businesses I work with will be invested in the results.

It's fun to work on, and everyone I've talked to has been super interested. Parking issues dominate the lives of general managers/directors/owners of Denver area businesses.

They'll try nearly anything to make those problems be less of an issue.