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Ask HN: How are you dealing with the job market anxiety?

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Re: Ask HN: How are you dealing with the job market anxiety?

#61

Post by edw519 »

I have been a professional programmer for 44 years and have NEVER had "job market anxiety". Why? Because I sincerely believe that there is zero correlation between the job market and my ability to find work.

I don't pay attention to what anyone says about the economy, the market, or anything else macro, especially on the internet. And I have gone through times that were much much worse than now.

I never worried about losing any job because I was certain I could find another. The longest I've ever been out of work was for a few weeks.

A few tips:

  - Have x months expenses in the bank. Take the pressure off.
  - Have multiple resumes ready to go, programmer, analyst, sys admin, manager, even data entry.
  - Stay in touch with your network. Not to get a job. Just to stay in touch.
  - Keep your skills fresh. Always have a side project.
  - Remember we're not in energy, education, or manufacturing. Their cycles are killers. Our in tech are not. Everyone else depends on us.
  - Fuck anxiety. We build stuff out of nothing. We're stronger than bad news.

Re: Ask HN: How are you dealing with the job market anxiety?

#64

Post by htrp »

KptMarchewa wrote: post #22

Short term: zero anxiety, I'm at top 5 (very optimistically) to 20% of software engineers and have good visible achievements, speaking, etc. Mid term: this is where I have the most difficulty predicting. AI might get good enough to put most devs in 5 to 8 years. I give that 20% of chance but it's not 0. In that case only thing I could realistically do is management (lol), work in construction or gastronomy. Long term…

Ai can definitely put most middle management out of work too.

Jira tickets, status updates, and meeting summaries are all going to be relatively low hanging fruit for lm apps.

Re: Ask HN: How are you dealing with the job market anxiety?

#65

Post by jcpst »

danielvaughn wrote: post #12

I thankfully still have a job, but even I'm a bit nervous. I've got a baby on the way and if something were to happen to my job, I'd be in a tight spot financially. I'm doing a few things to help prepare: 1. I'm actively working on this side project of mine, and I'm considering giving a talk about it at an upcoming conference. 2. I'm trying to practice leetcode and system design. I say "trying" because I find it's an…

> I find it's an incredible waste of time, and I hate it.

Then maybe it is a waste of time?

I’ve been a dev for 10 years, mentored juniors, led massive projects, interviewed hundreds of candidates and don’t even remember ever going to leetcode.com until reading this comment.

I think hacker news is the only place I’ve ever seen the word “leetcode”.

But maybe I just live under a rock or something. Just making the point that maybe it is just a waste of time.

Re: Ask HN: How are you dealing with the job market anxiety?

#66

Post by [deleted] »

blitz_skull wrote: post #29

Idk, lots of folks have been talking about “downturns” but I’ve been in the industry for 8 years now and I’ve never had to look for more than 2-3 weeks to get a job—and that’s while I was already working so I’d imagine I could find one even faster if I dedicated all my time to it. I’m not trying to be contrarian or suggest that other folks don’t struggle finding a job. I’m just offering an alternate viewpoint. Maybe…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: How are you dealing with the job market anxiety?

#67

Post by moneywoes »

paolomaffei wrote: post #4

Personally I've seen quite a few of up and downs in my market (UK contracting), this might be a bit longer than usual, but not a permanent situation. An encouraging sign I'm seeing is that there's more permanent positions advertising higher salaries than in the past (maybe just the +20% of inflation from march 2020, but still!). The market will change again... software is still eating the world, there will be shortag…

may i ask how you landed your first contracting role

Re: Ask HN: How are you dealing with the job market anxiety?

#68

Post by andyjohnson0 »

kemiller2002 wrote: post #13

I'll let you in on the secret to finding a job. It's not about your skills really (maybe some), it's about who you know. If you're relying on only your skill to carry you through to finding a job, you're going to have a rough time. It's about who you know. You're looking for a job? Go to meetups, code and coffees, free tech seminars by companies etc. That's your job now. Connect with people on LinkedIn. There are ver…

I dont know anyone with recruiting responsibilities. I potentially onow people who might be asked to recommend, but how to get to that point where you're shortlisted?

Re: Ask HN: How are you dealing with the job market anxiety?

#69

Post by kaashif »

yurishimo wrote: post #10

I don’t think it’s actually too hard to find a job right now unless your only acceptable offer comes from FAANG or adjacent. Yea, making 250k might not be an option while the market is down, but once things pick back up, you’re free to look around again. Where I live (Netherlands), we still have an insane shortage of qualified developers. Some of the vendors we work with are overloaded with work because all of their…

> The jobs are out there if you want to do honest work for a fair wage.

If a company is making hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue from your work, I think it's totally fair to want a bigger slice of that.

I do realise "fair" can also mean "considerable though not outstanding in size or amount" - in that case I agree, but I'm not sure about the word "honest" here.

Re: Ask HN: How are you dealing with the job market anxiety?

#70

Post by lacrimacida »

nerdponx wrote: post #42
jmye wrote: post #9

If you’re willing to take a pay cut* or a title cut, it’s still not a particularly tough market, even with what’s seemed like worse job postings and… stringent ATS requirements (at least in data-adjacent roles). Aside from that, I’ve worked on my network and reconnecting with folks, in case I need favors. I’m batting 1.000 on referrals-to-interviews, so I’ve been working to maximize that potential/reach. * My thinkin…

Companies won't hire senior people for junior roles because they don't want someone who will leave soon.

They could upgrade the hire to senior if the hire was competent.
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