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Ask HN: Is the job market brutal? or is it just me?

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Re: Ask HN: Is the job market brutal? or is it just me?

#81

Post by rr808 »

TylerE wrote: post #38
SassyGrapefruit wrote: post #22

I don't know man. I am employed but I still get 64 recruiting emails a day. Seems like business as usual. FWIW I have never had luck with applications. The last time I was unemployed I sent out 10 or 15 and heard nothing. I reached out to a recruiter and was drowning in interviews within a week. As for the other side, I do hiring on my team. We posted a Senior SRE on linkedin and got 30 applicants within a week. That…

Feels like there's just a chasm... they want CHEAP people, not GOOD people.

My experience may be off, but FAANG salaries the last 5 years have been so huge maybe normal looks cheap now.

Re: Ask HN: Is the job market brutal? or is it just me?

#82

Post by skyyler »

howmayiannoyyou wrote: post #64
wunderland wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Damn this is the most depressing comment in this whole comments section

Yeah, would be great to live in a magic land, where the US has no competitors, adversaries and sworn enemies. But this isn't magic land. US defense contractors are very much for profit and deliver a product that deters or kills some very bad people, more and more discriminating between collateral damage and intended targets - far more than can be said of Russian in Ukraine, for example. There's an entire generation i…

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/19/us/politics/afghanistan-d...

Anyone that gets into defense because of this thread, remember that the technologies you develop will be used to slaughter the innocent.

Re: Ask HN: Is the job market brutal? or is it just me?

#83

Post by eschneider »

moosedev wrote: post #62
gumballindie wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> FAANG experience Probably the reason. Most companies need people with experience in more than just one layer of a stack. Hard times for those who cant own a full stack, unfortunately.

Would you reconsider the stereotyping if I told you I’m a generalist who has worked up and down many kinds of stacks? It’s proving hard to sell generalist-ness to recruiters this round. They often lock on to the most recent specific domain I worked in. If anything, they seem to be filtering for people with very specific experience in a specific layer of a specific stacks - because they are getting so many application…

T-shaped is a good way to go, career-wise. Being a generalist with deep knowledge in some specific area (in my case video processing/computer vision/firmware) turns out to be very marketable if you apply to places looking for the area you've got deep knowledge in. The fact that you're ALSO a good generalist make you a very attractive candidate.

If you can, look at new jobs/companies as opportunities to get deep experience in a new area since over time, stuff you're good at now will sometimes go away.

Re: Ask HN: Is the job market brutal? or is it just me?

#84

Post by sph »

0zemp1c wrote: post #20

during a previous downturn, I just took six months off if the market is lousy, its lousy...even if you get something, the offers could be lowball or inferior positions no one judged me or questioned this, it seemed sensible to take a time out during a crappy market not everyone can swing a "sabbatical", but if you can, I doubt anyone will judge you for it

My issue is that I've taken an 18 months sabbatical, worked on my mental and physical health, and was ready to get back in the market, pumped, with the worst possible timing.

So now I'm broke and still without a job after 3 months of looking. I am honestly terrified.

Re: Ask HN: Is the job market brutal? or is it just me?

#85

Post by linuxftw »

USA, remote. I recently (Feb) found work. I did about 10-15 company interviews at various stages, lots of recruiter calls. I screened out easily 3x the amount of companies due to position requirements or salary. During my job search I probably had 100 or more messages from recruiters on linkedin. Got to the final round on 6. Received 3 offers, accepted one of them.

Not a lot of equity in the comp packages this time around (real equity anyway, plenty of funny money from startups). I accepted a salary of $200k, 20% annual cash bonus, small signing bonus. My overall comp is lower, but my cash is a touch higher and the stress is a lot less.

My background is Linux, k8s, golang, and python. I also write C/C++ occasionally. Don't really ever touch front end work or databases anymore. I don't have FAANG experience, but I have contributed to some large open source projects here and there. No degree.

Re: Ask HN: Is the job market brutal? or is it just me?

#86

Post by vehementi »

1differential wrote: post #18

It's extremely brutal. I'm a staff engineer and a tech lead of ~12 engineers, I've either been getting low ball offers, or ending the last round of interviews to get no offer. I've employed but have been looking for a job for ~6 months with terrible results. I graduated from a T5 school, have worked at a "unicorn" startup, and have an average of 3 years at every role. My conversion rate is a little better - 3 intervi…

> have an average of 3 years at every role

Better than people who job hop every 1-2 years but maybe they're looking for someone with longevity?

Re: Ask HN: Is the job market brutal? or is it just me?

#87

Post by 0zemp1c »

moosedev wrote: post #6

Not just you. I would guess, optimistically, I’m averaging a 5% conversion rate of applications to recruiter chats/“stage 0 interviews”. That is, ~95% of applications yield silence or a generic email rejection without any human contact. ~15 YOE, FAANG experience, usually only applying to roles I feel I’m at least a halfway good fit for (i.e. not a complete scattergun approach). I’m (financially) fine for now, which i…

I don't doubt that the market is tough...I wonder if some recruiters are shying away from FAANG resumes due to the implicit expectation of high comp

Re: Ask HN: Is the job market brutal? or is it just me?

#88

Post by irrational »

1differential wrote: post #18

It's extremely brutal. I'm a staff engineer and a tech lead of ~12 engineers, I've either been getting low ball offers, or ending the last round of interviews to get no offer. I've employed but have been looking for a job for ~6 months with terrible results. I graduated from a T5 school, have worked at a "unicorn" startup, and have an average of 3 years at every role. My conversion rate is a little better - 3 intervi…

When you say low ball, do you mean compared to what FAANG companies pay (paid?) or do you mean compared to what non-tech Fortune 500 companies pay?

Re: Ask HN: Is the job market brutal? or is it just me?

#89

Post by pkaler »

Hiring manager here with open REQs. I've been doing multiple phone screens daily, and it's been brutal on my end, too.

I structure the hour-long phone screen to be 1/3 coding, 1/3 behavioural questions, and 1/3 career growth and questions for me.

We rarely get out of the coding question block. It's a fairly simple question that ChatGPT solves easily. The tightest solution is about 10 lines of code. It can be answered either with iterative, recursive, or functional code. There is a general case, an empty case, and an exceptional case. It's the type of code I was able to write after completing CMPT 101. I had to change the question since it was so easily solvable by ChatGPT.

Engineers with years of experience at FAANG and similar companies cannot solve this straightforward problem. It's like, what have you been doing with your life? Did everyone do nothing during ZIRPy times and have accumulated years of rust that they now need to shake off?

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