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Finding a new software developer job

henrikwarne.com

231–240 of 322 posts

Re: Finding a new software developer job

#231

Started looking late November and started tracking my applications in January. I have applied to a total of 46 positions within a month. This has led to six interviews, several of which I received no response, 13 formal rejections, and one job offer which I declined (The decline was due to the position being advertised as a developer role, yet the recruiter mentioned that about 50% of the duties would involve support…

Junior engineer. Hundreds of applications across 3 months. Nothing but silence and automated rejections. It's got me feeling so down that I'm just going to leave the private sector for military. Get some training, have some job security, benefits, and hopefully wait out the horrible market.

Re: Finding a new software developer job

#232
post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The discrimination in Europe works slightly differently than in the US, as having a native sounding name is just as, or even more, important than having a "right" skin color. So to be certain you'll avoid discrimination, you'd need to omit both the photo and the name from the CV, and that's not common at all.

Should we also hide the names of the universities we went to and the names of former employers we worked at?

You do for the UK Civil Service

> Please ensure you remove references to your: ... educational institutions

https://www.civil-service-careers.gov.uk/ipo-recruitment-sup...

Re: Finding a new software developer job

#233

>> The second problem is that it is not possible to get only the latest ads (in LinkedIn) for example ads that are less than a week old. So I ended up having to page through a lot of ads I had already seen This is by far the worst thing about searching for jobs in LinkedIn. It is horribly inconvenient to simply find the most recent jobs posted in the past 24 hours because all of the old promoted jobs are taking up 90…

For me it is the second worst thing. I'm trying to look for jobs that can be done from NZ. I don't care where the company is based.

Searching for remote jobs brings up jobs that can only be done by people living in [UK, US, NL, DE, etc]. There just doesn't seem to be a way to filter jobs by "will they employ people in my location".

Infuriating!

Re: Finding a new software developer job

#234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can confirm. Energy is about the only way I could rely on myself to crack open a totally foreign job market with less than a year of experience under my belt when I was starting out. I set myself the goal of 10 applications a day, every day, anywhere in Finland was acceptable -and within 3 months I had my first offer.

Applying to Finland from where?

Technically still from Finland, I was already physically there. But legally, from the US.

Re: Finding a new software developer job

#235
post #179
post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The discrimination in Europe works slightly differently than in the US, as having a native sounding name is just as, or even more, important than having a "right" skin color. So to be certain you'll avoid discrimination, you'd need to omit both the photo and the name from the CV, and that's not common at all.

how is that discrimination other than signaling you know the language, have a job permit and so on.

Because you’re assuming just from the name or photo thay someone knows the language and have job permit.

This means children from immigrant families growing up in Europe would be discriminated against simply because of how they look and what their last name is.

That’s classic discrimination.

Re: Finding a new software developer job

#236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fully remote would be a pretty nice perk, ever since our companies forced us back to the office. I believe this alone might be one of the easiest ways for smaller companies to poach talent these days. Other than that, I enjoy working in hard and impactful problems. I'm privileged that I was able to do that in FAANG, but it's unclear how long this will last. I know that is very trite to say that your company has chang…

Where have you heard that ML engineers are in high demand? I don’t think they are immune from the tech slowdown that’s affecting the industry. Of course, LLMs and AI are all the rage, but the demand for that is in the services/APIs not necessarily the demand for ML engineers

I suspect we'll see a broad slow down in classic ML approaches. If I just need a basic classifier -> GPT-4 can do an OK job. Spending an afternoon prompt tuning is vastly cheaper than a dedicated team of scientists and engineers curating datasets and running experiments. For many SMBs, this effectively eliminates the ML function.

Re: Finding a new software developer job

#237
post #55

I don't question that is takes hard work, even for more senior devs like the author, but 30 apps leading to 3 offers is a dream. Most early-career people are probably at >100 app with maybe a few interviews and hopefully one offer.

The author has 30+ years of experience and was applying to jobs paying less than 6 figures a year (USD). His expectation were modest, compared to the average US developer.

This is so sad. If I ever had to get paid 5 figures after 30 years I worked literally switch careers.

Re: Finding a new software developer job

#238
I've never felt as stuck in a job as I have this past year. I've been searching for about ten months so far. During the great resignation, it felt like there was so much career portability and possibility. Want that dream job in another state and to stay in the home you bought at 3% interest? No problem. Want a 40% pay bump? Sure, you should have asked for 50%.

Today, most roles in my field of expertise would be a pay cut to half of my total compensation if I am lucky. Sure, I can live on just a base salary number, but it's a mental hurdle to accept, especially with all the inflation and price increases everywhere. Also, most roles want you on-site or hybrid, many in HCOL areas. Making a move like that means giving up a 2020-era interest rate and completely uprooting my family for a 50% pay cut.

I'm in an engineering subspecialty at a FAANG. Our service is built on industry-standard tools and technology, so I hope my skills will be portable. But with the poor prospects in the market, I may be more inclined to start my own company vs. trying to get in with another BigCo. Plus, all of the FAANGs are fully succumbing to enshitification and aren't that interesting to work for anymore YMMV.

Re: Finding a new software developer job

#239

I believe the current hiring woes in the US are more nefarious than just being picky. First, I believe US companies are figuring out how to hire foreign teams at lower cost. I get multiple emails per week from companies offering us their team at low rates. South America and India are common places. I personally witnessed this at my last company where they drastically cut US/North America staff in favor of Indian team…

This is not a conspiracy anymore. Just open top 100 companies, compare 3 years back locations with this years. You will see a rise of non-US locations.

Re: Finding a new software developer job

#240

I'm a ML Engineer at FAANG and I have been passively looking for the last half year. Common wisdom might make you think that I should be having companies throwing wads of cash at me, but my experience has been very different. * It's true that my profile attracts many messages from recruiters. However ghosting is the name of the game. More than half of recruiters have ghosted me at different stages of the process. Ove…

> In terms of salaries, most companies tend to top out around half of my current comp.

While, I am not in ML or ever worker in FAANG, here in EU my experience is also the same recently. Infact, I’d say I am fairly underpaid given my experience & responsibilities but the latest openings are disaster in terms of comps and benefits. Also, unlike what my EU brethren will parrot, most opening cite “hybrid” & “flexible” but then they reluctantly share much late in the interview that yeah need to be in office at least 3-4 days a week, and we prefer in-person meeting because “collaboration”! Sadly, watching the wages going down(despite all the touting of inflation adjustment), EU is slowly catching up to US fever without catching up to the wage levels.

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