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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?

#151

Post by ReDeiPirati »

It's hard out there. I was laid off in January, and still I don't see signs of ending this job search soon.

Context for you: I'm a mid-level Growth PM based in Europe who worked mostly in early stage B2B YC startups.

How am I doing? This is my 11th week in job search, 96 applications, 10 interviews (1 still active), and 0 offer.

My insights so far:

- there's definitively no rush from employers to close their openings, and for the first time in a job search (this is my 4th) I got 2 interviews suspended because they decided to prioritize another leadership hire before closing for the role that I was interviewing for;

- most of the mid level openings are masqueraded senior roles;

I feel so bad for people early in their career, for the first time I think I've never encountered an entry level opening... I was trying to also help my wife to get a job in tech (she is very early in her career), but currently it doesn't seem possible.

Luckily we are financially ok, which is the main thing that allowed me to stay positive, in relatively good mood, and don't feel overwhelmed with the daily rejections.

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

#152

Post by leet_thow »

aborsy wrote: post #146

I wonder if finding a job was easier in 90s and 2000s. It feels like finding employment is getting harder and harder. There is much more specialization required nowadays (so many YOE in exactly the same field and software frameworks), rapidly shifting trends (that can leave out many people who are not lucky working in an area that is in demand), elevated expectations (see the number of the rounds of interviews) and i…

It was definitely easier in the 2000s. At that time there was so much to build and not that many people to compete with.

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

#153

Post by ardit33 »

throwaway5959 wrote: post #121
__float wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As you get more senior, it takes time to understand your sibling teams, the business itself, etc. If it takes 6+ months just to get "up to speed", are you really having much impact when you leave 6 months later?

I’m a principal software engineer. If it takes me more than a month to get up to speed with an organization (I usually work with small-mid sized companies), I consider that a failure. Six months to first contribution is insane.

First Contribution and Up to full speed ramp up are completely different things.

Expectations at FAANGS is that it might take a month or two for the contribution to start (one week, if you count bootcamp tasks at Meta), but it takes about 6+ months to full ramp up at the Senior+ level.

At small startups, it is very different.

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

#154

Post by [deleted] »

taylodl wrote: post #147
skyyler wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Cold War Kid here. I grew up in a neighborhood where a significant faction of the fathers were engineers working for a major defense contractor. The Tomahawk Cruise Missile, the Aegis Anti-Missile System, the Abrams Night Vision system - those are just a few of the projects our dads were working on. Everyone in the community, us kids included, considered this to be serious and vital work for defending the US from the…

[deleted]

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

#155

Post by TradingPlaces »

Large non-tech companies and government agencies still hiring.

Walmart has 1278 job openings with “software” in the title https://careers.walmart.com/results?q=software&page=1&sort=r...

CVS has 458 https://jobs.cvshealth.com/job-search-results/?keyword=softw...

UnitedHealth has 625 https://careers.unitedhealthgroup.com/job-search-results/?ke...

WSJ just wrote about this https://archive.is/2Ll06

Go down the list https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortune_500

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

#156

Post by freeplay »

throwaway5959 wrote: post #121
__float wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As you get more senior, it takes time to understand your sibling teams, the business itself, etc. If it takes 6+ months just to get "up to speed", are you really having much impact when you leave 6 months later?

I’m a principal software engineer. If it takes me more than a month to get up to speed with an organization (I usually work with small-mid sized companies), I consider that a failure. Six months to first contribution is insane.

Regardless of how good you are, you're ramp up time is very dependent on the place.

If you're walking into a place with very little in the way of documentation and process, it could take a while to learn enough to be effective (ex: 50 different microservices and 5 different stacks, nuanced environments, etc.)

On the other hand, if everything is very standardized and well documented, you can jump right in.

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

#157

Post by granshaw »

fatnoah wrote: post #139
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 went through the process in the fall (starting about a month before being laid off, as it turns out) with almost 25 YOE. My background includes significant startup experience at all levels, plus FAANG and some bigger companies. It took me about 3 months to find a role. The process itself was unlike anything I'd ever experienced before. I've always been very targeted in applications, so prior to this the largest num…

> A not-so-fun fact is that all but one large-company recruiter I talked this has since been laid off.

So 9 out of 10 were laid off? That's pretty shocking and dire if so...

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

#158

Post by granshaw »

jacknews wrote: post #130
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 wasn’t even laid off - I quit voluntarily and took a sabbatical while the good times were rollin’. " Did the same. Boy do I feel dumb now.

Employers wanted to regain the upper hand and it's working – bye bye great resignation

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

#159

Post by icpmacdo »

sph wrote: post #84
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.

I am in exactly the same position, if our experience are the same though at least we aren't burned out anymore. I am uncertain what the next move is though. The timing indeed couldn't have been any worse lol.

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

#160

Post by tim333 »

skyyler wrote: post #82
howmayiannoyyou wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

At the moment America's opponents are leading the slaughtering.
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