Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 274 posts

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

#101

Post by [deleted] »

jzb wrote: post #31
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…

I keep seeing things that suggest recruiters are keeping active to look active but not much going on beyond that. That is, people may be getting hit up for things that aren't going to pan out for any of the people they touch - they just want full schedules. Or you may be super in demand, too!

[deleted]

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

#102

Post by bilsbie »

qntmfred wrote: post #26
echelon wrote: post #4

I know this probably isn't helping, but have you ever thought about building a startup? This lull might be a good chance to launch something or find a scrappy team to join. Hardly advice if your situation demands something more stable. I just wanted to speak to the possibility.

Seems like a great time to take this route. I've been looking for something new the last 2 months and haven't found any great fits yet. 2 weeks ago I signed up for https://www.ycombinator.com/cofounder-matching and got 30+ messages so far.

Wow I had no idea that existed. What a great service.

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

#103

Post by moosedev »

eschneider wrote: post #83
moosedev wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 exper…

Thank you. I think this is actually already me, but I need to get better (and/or more confident) at selling/marketing the “leg(s)” of the “T”. Particularly when it’s something I did more than a few years ago, but I know I still have expertise and good instincts there.

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

#104

Post by dmarble »

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…

Very similar story here on the PM side in the US.

~15 YOE (FB/Meta most recently), ramping up a search after a sabbatical, targeted job search to roles where I have non-trivial experience and domain expertise, customized cover letters, leveraging my network, open to relocation, open to hybrid or remote, etc.

I'm seeing 3-5% response rate over the past few months. It's rough out there. No response for seemingly great matches. Slow moving recruiting process, even at early-stage startups. Rejections after screenings and first round interviews where the mutual fit seemed excellent.

Hiring manager friends and talkative recruiters tell me that in contrast to the past decade where they'd routinely screen people who met most of what they're looking for, they're now dealing with a massive volume of very qualified applicants (and trudging through a massive volume of unqualified applicants). Deciding who to screen and who to do a first round of interviews with is taking a lot more time and effort. And the first round of interviews might include 6-8 unicorn (i.e. perfect) candidates, where in the past they'd be elated to find 1 unicorn.

I've been through a couple down cycles, so I'm focused on grinding away till I find something. I think every level is feeling the pain in some proportional way. Big sympathy for early career folks. Even if we reset compensation expectations, it'd be a shame if the sector ends up losing out permanently on a range of talent. There's no way tech needs are going to decrease on a medium-term horizon (though they may shift).

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

#105

Post by 1differential »

BoorishBears wrote: post #59
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…

> I've either been getting low ball offers Are they all junior IC level low balls, or is this accidentally revealing why staff level+ engineers aren't getting calls? I'll be honest and say if tomorrow morning I get laid off, I'm not expecting my current pay to get matched.

Sorry for the confusion, I'm trying to interview for only staff/senior staff level roles. This company just had a job listing for "Software Engineer" to build out a new initiative so I decided check it out. And yeah, not getting the 20% pay bump between job hops that I'm looking for.

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

#106

Post by neilv »

1attice wrote: post #43
gautamdivgi wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why - if I may ask? What’s wrong with pointing out potential employers?

Well, I can't speak for parent, but those of us that aren't U.S. citizens are already having a hellish time. To those of us with work visas, this is like saying, "if you're homeless, just go to your vacation home," and then being surprised that people without vacation homes express feelings of despair.

I think most people realize that people on visas can be in an additionally tough situation during layoffs.

I think the commenter's helpful suggestion has an implied "Unfortunately, this doesn't help everyone, but..." In an attempt to help the people it can help.

For people currently in certain especially difficult or unfair situations, it might hurt less to know that people are sympathetic, though they might feel powerless to help right now.

Knowing that, maybe some of the people getting the short end of the stick would prefer not to have that constantly articulated. I can only guess at when is the right time to articulate, and when to leave it implied.

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

#107

Post by tomashertus »

dangwhy wrote: post #12
tomashertus wrote: post #5

I've not been actively looking for a new role, but the number of inquiries in my LinkedIn inbox has dropped from 6–10 per month to 1–2. I think there is an overall slowdown in hiring, especially in FAANG, and given how many open positions they were hiring for, it's a significant drop that can be felt, especially in the Bay Area. I believe that with the recent news coming from Twitter and Facebook (cutting middle mana…

> believe that with the recent news coming from Twitter and Facebook (cutting middle managers), there will be significantly fewer open positions in middle management roles. This still hasn't materlized at META though. There have been no middle managment layoffs at meta. Reamins to be seen if mark was just bluffing.

Interesting insight, thanks for sharing that.

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

#108

Post by 1differential »

irrational wrote: post #88
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?

non-FAANG - I'm familiar with Disney's salary levels, and would say I'm getting offers at a level below what I would expect (or 40k-60k below on base).

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

#109

Post by eschneider »

moosedev wrote: post #103
eschneider wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 exper…

Thank you. I think this is actually already me, but I need to get better (and/or more confident) at selling/marketing the “leg(s)” of the “T”. Particularly when it’s something I did more than a few years ago, but I know I still have expertise and good instincts there.

Sometimes the marketing is looking through the job description/requirements and thinking 'Oh, I know something that'd really help out in this situation' and tailoring your resume to that. (That sort of tailoring is somewhat reusable, too. :)

And cover letters are really good for this sort of thing as it lets you lay out some specifics that make you the type of person who can really help them out.

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

#110

Post by 1differential »

q7xvh97o2pDhNrh wrote: post #47
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…

Oof. Are you going out for L6? Is the goal a big company, or a startup? Reading all the comments in this thread, I wonder if there's some correlation to specific areas of the tech industry. e.g., Are people working in the AI space (or even something like ML infra) just inundated with job offers right now?

fwiw I'm a backend engineer - primarily building out services in Java/Scala/Go. I would say the market probably isn't as good as someone with a Masters/PhD looking for ML engineering roles, but that would be anecdotal after chatting with friends.
Post reply on HN