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Global Economy Approaches Soft Landing, but Risks Remain

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Re: Global Economy Approaches Soft Landing, but Risks Remain

#101

Post by cj »

AlotOfReading wrote: post #23
cj wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the flip side, tech was booming during Covid when a ton of people in retail, restaurants were affected. All industries and all sectors can’t always be booming without there being a perpetual bubble. We have trouble finding good engineers to hire, so I’m skeptical when I hear people having trouble finding engineering jobs. My assumption (could be wrong) is a lot of people having trouble getting work haven’t adjuste…

What do you consider "unrealistically high", because I find that hard to apply to what I'm seeing. For example, I was recently contacted about a bay area principal engineer spot for 150-190k. To give some context, a fast food place near my house has signs in the window offering 160k+ for managers. Maybe fast food is paying exceptionally well these days, but I have my doubts.

> What do you consider "unrealistically high“

Sorry, poor choice of words. I should have said “salary expectations above current market salaries”.

I’ve interviewed people is 2 yrs experience (2 yrs out of college, or 2 years after doing a bootcamp) asking $160k fully remote outside Bay Area.

Basically anyone that entered the tech workforce during the COVID boom has really high expectations around compensation and benefits that are unlikely to be met in future jobs now that the market has cooled/stablized.

Re: Global Economy Approaches Soft Landing, but Risks Remain

#102

Post by cj »

carlosjobim wrote: post #54
cj wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the flip side, tech was booming during Covid when a ton of people in retail, restaurants were affected. All industries and all sectors can’t always be booming without there being a perpetual bubble. We have trouble finding good engineers to hire, so I’m skeptical when I hear people having trouble finding engineering jobs. My assumption (could be wrong) is a lot of people having trouble getting work haven’t adjuste…

> We have trouble finding good engineers to hire > unrealistically high salaries That's expected if you don't want to pay the salaries your candidates want. Admitting to not being able to find qualified workers is admitting fundamental incompetence as an employer and as a business. Hiring and retaining workers is the foundation of any business that employs people. Haven't it struck you that maybe you are unrealistic…

The reality is many people are taking pay cuts especially on the junior side of the spectrum.

People were hiring devs straight out of bootcamps with zero experience for $160k a couple years ago.

Sorry but I can’t hire someone and match their previous salary (from a company that fired them) with a total of 2 yrs experience.

Re: Global Economy Approaches Soft Landing, but Risks Remain

#103

Post by mech422 »

cj wrote: post #12
ulfw wrote: post #6

Soft landing except for us in tech who have been unemployed for months or years

On the flip side, tech was booming during Covid when a ton of people in retail, restaurants were affected. All industries and all sectors can’t always be booming without there being a perpetual bubble. We have trouble finding good engineers to hire, so I’m skeptical when I hear people having trouble finding engineering jobs. My assumption (could be wrong) is a lot of people having trouble getting work haven’t adjuste…

yeah - I think people just didn't realize tech has cycles like all industries, because this is literally the first 'down' in like 14 years...

Re: Global Economy Approaches Soft Landing, but Risks Remain

#104

Post by oldgradstudent »

photochemsyn wrote: post #22

IMF economic forecasts are of little value, as everyone should have learned from 2008. Let's see what the IMF forecast in 2007... https://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2015/09/28/04/53/sores1... forecast: "World growth to slow in 2008, but still expected to remain solid at 4¾ percent " reality (Fed report 2013): "From peak to trough, US gross domestic product fell by 4.3 percent, making this the deepest recession sinc…

As long as the chairperson of the Federal Reserve doesn't say that the economy is fundamentaly sound[1], I think we'll be OK.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2007/03/01/fed-chief-economy-...

Re: Global Economy Approaches Soft Landing, but Risks Remain

#105

Post by mech422 »

bboygravity wrote: post #57
oytis wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We have trouble finding good engineers to hire > while I might have been open to hiring a digital nomad in 2021, I’m not open to that anymore Might be related?

From what I've seen freelancing for more than 10 years, most companies will rather go bankrupt than allow remote working. The only thing that can explain this perfectly well in my opinion is: manager ego. As simple as that.

I've had the opposite experience as a contractor and FTE... I've been remote for 20 years, and every year it seems to get easier / more normal...

Re: Global Economy Approaches Soft Landing, but Risks Remain

#106

Post by mech422 »

themagician wrote: post #34
cj wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the flip side, tech was booming during Covid when a ton of people in retail, restaurants were affected. All industries and all sectors can’t always be booming without there being a perpetual bubble. We have trouble finding good engineers to hire, so I’m skeptical when I hear people having trouble finding engineering jobs. My assumption (could be wrong) is a lot of people having trouble getting work haven’t adjuste…

Things are different now. The reality is that probably close to 80-90% of self-described software engineers face permnanet unemployment as they will be replaced by low paid "prompt engineers", likey from India. It's already happening and it's happening at scale. The top 10% will see enourmous income gains as they will be the only people left who actually know what they are doing and how to correct mistakes that can't…

Yep - Offshoring to india replace me in 2002 and I've been out of work since /s

oh - and AI replaced me in late 1980s just like Doctor Dobbs predicted /s

basically, every 10 years _someone_ is claiming programmers will be obsolete - and its been that way for 40 years. But usually that just means the market cools for a year or two, then comes roaring back...

Re: Global Economy Approaches Soft Landing, but Risks Remain

#107

Post by roughly »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #99
roughly wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> while I might have been open to hiring a digital nomad in 2021, I’m not open to that anymore because there are more “normal” candidates out there The folks who took advantage of the ability to leave the city and get a house somewhere other than the Bay or one of the three other cities tech was hiring in are older folks for whom moving back to be near family had some resonance. They've now had 4 years to build a lif…

Hmm. The way you put that, it sounds like you could to some degree "pay" talent by allowing WFH rather than with dollars. I wonder to what degree that is true.

It is absolutely the case that working conditions are part of the overall negotiation for talent. You start offering folks $1M/yr cash and I promise they'll move back to the city and RTO for you. You let them keep working remote and enjoy the work/life balance, and you can get 'em a whole lot cheaper than that.

Re: Global Economy Approaches Soft Landing, but Risks Remain

#108

Post by ulfw »

cj wrote: post #100
pm90 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We have trouble finding good engineers to hire And then > while I might have been open to hiring a digital nomad in 2021, I’m not open to that anymore because there are more “normal” candidates out there who aren’t asking for special treatment or unrealistically high salaries. Maybe these things are related. “Normal” has changed. The engineers I know have moved away and are very happy with the flexibility of their…

> And they will refuse to work for organizations like yours that continue to hold regressive views on WFH. Which is 100% their right! (But don’t then go on tech forums complaining about how difficult it is to find a job) PS. My company is fully remote (and was remote pre-Covid) so I definitely don’t have “regressive” views on WFH. I rejected a candidate recently who said they wanted to work out of a van while driving…

What an arbitrary limitation.

So you don't hire on merit or what your candidate is able to deliver. You hire on desk space

Re: Global Economy Approaches Soft Landing, but Risks Remain

#109

Post by Enginerrrd »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #58
Enginerrrd wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's complicated because the forecasts of the system themselves can have some effect on the system they're forecasting. Because of people chasing alpha in the markets, any forecast with too much predictive power will tend to alter the system in ways that reduce its predictive power

So do the forecasts of climate scientists, and in many other fields, this not an excuse.

That is just not even close to a fair analogy.
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