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Ask HN: Any advice on navigating this job market or pivoting out of tech? (US)

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Re: Ask HN: Any advice on navigating this job market or pivoting out of tech? (US)

#81

Post by MattPalmer1086 »

I can only speak from my experience of losing my job during the dot com crash. The market was flooded with people and the opportunities were slim.

I was actually in a very senior position before and I ended up in a much more junior one, as that was all I could find. It was depressing as hell at the time. I spent some time doing another degree in a related field while in the junior role.

But, as ever, things picked up, and went on to exceed anything that had come before. Now, that doesn't mean this will happen exactly the same way this time round.

I can't tell from your post if you were doing a CS degree because you really like it or just saw it as a ticket to a high earning job. What I would say is try to find work in something you fundamentally like. You might find it hard initially, and finding exactly the right role might not just fall into your lap.

Perseverance is what makes the difference in the long term, and that's hard if you don't like the thing you're doing.

Re: Ask HN: Any advice on navigating this job market or pivoting out of tech? (US)

#82

Post by xetplan »

It isn't that bad. Look at the Nasdaq after the dotcom bust:

2000 -36.84%

2001 -32.65%

2002 -37.58%

If you think now is bad imagine trying to get a job in 2002 in tech. Tech was deader than dead.

This is just a normal job market now. You went to college but you don't know shit or have any experience. It sucks but you have to grind and eventually opportunity will find you, you just have to not squander it when it does.

Opportunity will find you in ways and in things you won't even expect.

The reason you should not worry is because you are young and have all the time in the world. If it takes 5 years so what? I would gladly trade my account balances to be young and fresh out of college right now. Figuring out how to become not broke after college is the most fun game of your entire life. The more it wears on you and gets you down the better the payoff feels.

Re: Ask HN: Any advice on navigating this job market or pivoting out of tech? (US)

#83

Post by dijit »

nmca wrote: post #50

Few counterpoints: * AI is better for juniors than seniors. It doesn't do legwork; it just provides knowledge. * Blind is a toxic hellscape and redditors are broadly pretty dim. Plausibly AI is a problem for your employment in like ~2 years; so I'd speedrun into SWE somewhere where you can make as much use of AI as possible (e.g. ask about whether the firm allows copilot, etc). There's no better industry to be in tha…

> AI is better for juniors than seniors. It doesn't do legwork; it just provides knowledge.

no, that is exactly the opposite of true, AI is brilliant at boilerplate and finding relevance if you know the right terms, just like search engines, it makes your existing knowledge more useful but it definitely does not provide knowledge.

you have to be able to fully comprehend the right answer with AI for it to be useful..

Re: Ask HN: Any advice on navigating this job market or pivoting out of tech? (US)

#84

Post by Clubber »

cleandreams wrote: post #4

Why not try working for local government. Around here those jobs are secure and have pensions. I've also been broke and financially insecure and it will better once you can pay your bills even if it's not your fave. Go for whatever your experience is for the first job.

When I was growing up in my career, private sector jobs were considered much better than government jobs. I feel the private sector has been squeezed so hard the last 20+ years that public sector jobs are on par with private sector jobs and sometimes better. Most government jobs also have a pension, so once you work there 20 years or so, you can go find other work while collecting your pension.

If you have or can get a security clearance, you've just removed a bunch of competition.

Re: Ask HN: Any advice on navigating this job market or pivoting out of tech? (US)

#85

Post by Clubber »

vvanders wrote: post #12

If you think the current market is bad pivoting into the game industry is not the direction I would go. The baseline for that industry is... bad and the latest round(s) of layoffs in that industry has made it worse.

Also the pattern as I understand it is game companies work devs to death then let them go once the release is out. The advantage game companies have is people tend to like games therefore there are a lot more people who are interested or default to game development.

Re: Ask HN: Any advice on navigating this job market or pivoting out of tech? (US)

#86

Post by Clubber »

WhiteNoiz3 wrote: post #51

I wouldn't count yourself out just because you are a junior. Companies love hiring junior devs because their salaries are the lowest. It's senior devs that should be worried. I've yet to see any programming jobs replaced due to AI. Writing code is only half the job; understanding a company's existing tech stack, API's, internal struggles, business needs, etc, and figuring out how to implement what the business wants…

>I wouldn't count yourself out just because you are a junior. Companies love hiring junior devs because their salaries are the lowest. It's senior devs that should be worried.

This sounds right but it isn't, at least in my experience. Most fresh junior devs need a whole lot of hand holding to get even the basic stuff done; particularly in a codebase that isn't that great. There are some junior devs that are just natural stars, but they are few and far between.

Re: Ask HN: Any advice on navigating this job market or pivoting out of tech? (US)

#87

Post by Clubber »

xetplan wrote: post #82

It isn't that bad. Look at the Nasdaq after the dotcom bust: 2000 -36.84% 2001 -32.65% 2002 -37.58% If you think now is bad imagine trying to get a job in 2002 in tech. Tech was deader than dead. This is just a normal job market now. You went to college but you don't know shit or have any experience. It sucks but you have to grind and eventually opportunity will find you, you just have to not squander it when it does…

>If you think now is bad imagine trying to get a job in 2002 in tech. Tech was deader than dead.

After 6 months of unemployment (with 4 years experience) I had to move to another city to find work and it was definitely a pay downgrade. As you remember not only did the dot bomb happen but shortly after: 9/11. This was also when outsourcing really started to take off. Prospects were certainly grim. Fortunately I landed a job with a codebase that needed a lot of help but was very cool. I learned a lot and proved to myself that I was a lot better than I thought I was.

>Figuring out how to become not broke after college is the most fun game of your entire life.

Lol I'm not sure I ever felt that way. I wouldn't want to do that again in a million years. Certainly one of the most stressful times of my life.

Re: Ask HN: Any advice on navigating this job market or pivoting out of tech? (US)

#88

Post by jasonjmcghee »

dijit wrote: post #83
nmca wrote: post #50

Few counterpoints: * AI is better for juniors than seniors. It doesn't do legwork; it just provides knowledge. * Blind is a toxic hellscape and redditors are broadly pretty dim. Plausibly AI is a problem for your employment in like ~2 years; so I'd speedrun into SWE somewhere where you can make as much use of AI as possible (e.g. ask about whether the firm allows copilot, etc). There's no better industry to be in tha…

> AI is better for juniors than seniors. It doesn't do legwork; it just provides knowledge. no, that is exactly the opposite of true, AI is brilliant at boilerplate and finding relevance if you know the right terms, just like search engines, it makes your existing knowledge more useful but it definitely does not provide knowledge. you have to be able to fully comprehend the right answer with AI for it to be useful..

Not to mention hallucinations/ wrong answers. If your mental compiler / familiarity with referenced libs is the same as reading, you can respond "no xyz doesn't make sense / doesn't exist etc"

Having to incorporate an execution / compilation / test loop is going to slow that way down

Re: Ask HN: Any advice on navigating this job market or pivoting out of tech? (US)

#89

Post by jasonjmcghee »

hifromLA wrote: post #80
15457345234 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> * Blind is a toxic hellscape and redditors are broadly pretty dim. Reddit is, at this point, a literal mirror held up to reality. Everything you read there isn't happening. Maybe people want it to happen and think if they spam it enough times people will believe it is happening and report that it is happening, but it isn't. If you read something on reddit, believe the opposite.

I don’t disagree with this, but when did this happen? About a decade ago I remember Reddit being pretty decent. Did Reddit change or did I change?

Ha. A decade and a half ago I remember the community similar to today. Some people are helpful, some people aren't. Some people are decent and some people aren't. And those two groups often don't overlap.

The platform itself is a much worse experience though.

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