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Ask HN: Are you unable to find employment?

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Re: Ask HN: Are you unable to find employment?

#31
post #29

Anecdotally.. but not really. I was worried about the job market but this was unfounded, for me... I started applying in October and had four offers from large tech companies by end of November. A lot of this was through networking to be fair, not “cold applying” (1 was through cold applying, the other 3 through networking). reach out to former coworkers or friends and ask for referrals. YMMV, but I do not think it i…

How old are you? I'm curious about demographics

32 - interviewed only for senior IC positions in hybrid and remote roles. Also do want to nuance, I applied to many more positions than I ended up getting interviews for.

The only guaranteed way for the interview stage was through referrals.

Re: Ask HN: Are you unable to find employment?

#32
post #24

It's not anecdotal. There's no doubt there is a massive downturn in tech and in general right now. There has never before been such large revisions to job numbers. The latest is that massive print of 653k jobs in Q2 was all a lie. > The massive downward revisions to jobs data are set to continue: latest from PHL Fed has early benchmark indicating jobs DECLINED in Q2 of this year while the initial monthly job reports…

Terrible. I've turned to making video games while my wife works. Rough times.

Re: Ask HN: Are you unable to find employment?

#33
post #11
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like its a problem everywhere, not just the states.

And it's not just in programming-related jobs either. Parts of industry and the blue collar market are shitting themselves in Germany right now. Two people I know have been let go (pumps and wood sectors resp.). Another (metal construction) is getting barely more than minimum wage. There's only one dude (chemical engineer) who is doing well (nearing 100k at 5 years work experience). The others are getting by. Politic…

> Fachkräftemangel

Why is this German word thrown in without any explanation? I’ve noticed this is a common trend whenever a Germany-adjacent topic is discussed.

Re: Ask HN: Are you unable to find employment?

#35
The "white males" bit is not useful/helpful. But US resident vs non is probably a bit.

There are several layers to this.

Layer one is that SW Eng work has always been both multi modal and that it's never been easy to get out of the trash distributions (e.g. $40-$60k "analyst" or "programmer" gigs, etc.) if you end up there. And it's also never been easy for someone to get a degree and find a job w/o having internships, years of part time work or other experience, or connections.

Anecdata, but a solid number of my CS graduating class more than a decade ago who were more than good enough to work in CS struggled to figure out how to find a first position if they didn't happen to have gotten internships, worked in the field before graduation, etc. While the best off got Google or MS internships that the majority of my class didn't even apply for. And even then, the majority of the jobs were for 4+ years of experience.

Add to this over the past decade many outfits have started to hire substantial numbers of overseas remote workers. For the most part, I think many companies fill their junior and slightly up roles with outside of the US remote workers. This has mixed results, but it's usually cheaper to hire several foreign remote workers over one domestic worker, and particularly in cases where time consuming grunt work is needed it can work reasonably. In some ways the H1-B doesn't matter because you can always hire remote foreign workers. The main issues I've seen relate to there being a substantial management load to deal with the amount of stuff lost in translation. I've personally had a better experience w/ South American contractors than Russian/Ukrainian/Slavic or Indian, I think because the timezones match better, English/Spanish/Portuguese seems to be easier to navigate linguistically, and the workers have seemed to better understand what we've needed and been better at showing initiative for some reason.

Then layer AI on top of this and relatively reduced hiring.

I do not think it's a good time to be looking for work, and with every year that's gone by over the least decade it's been worse for junior/early career roles especially.

I haven't seen white males being let go in favor of foreigners, but I have seen a lot of limiting hiring to a few seniors and filling the rest with overseas to save money. AI is only exacerbating. As is the fact that nobody really seems to have money for hiring. So is the desire to hire people who are magically already perfect and spun up for a role, no matter how niche.

In general, I think "white male" is a red herring.

Re: Ask HN: Are you unable to find employment?

#36
I haven't been able to get a job since the pandemic.

The problem is that I work best as a lone wolf, and that's not how software is done nowadays. For good reason, I might add, so I am not complaining.

Don't make my mistake and learn your soft skills.

https://gavinhoward.com/2024/06/my-programming-journey/

Re: Ask HN: Are you unable to find employment?

#37
I’m 65 and I have tenure. If I didn’t, I would leave the country. If I couldn’t, I don’t know what I would do. You do not want to be on the open market in the 2020s, that’s for sure.

it is nearly impossible for people with CS degrees (especially white males) to get an interview let alone a job.

My friend, if you think it’s bad for white men, just wait till you hear what it’s like for black women. 2+ year job searches, for black tech workers, were the norm even in the pre-COVID economy.

It’s terrible for everyone who isn’t in a position to take advantage of geographic arbitrage. And even that, for a worker, is unstable… look at how fast the bastards RTO’d people as soon as their real estate holdings took a hit.

Re: Ask HN: Are you unable to find employment?

#39
The market definitely sucks in EU too. A couple of years ago I could choose where to work as a junior dev. These days as a senior I'm happy to cling into my current job, and probably couldn't find anything if I got laid off.

Fresh grads in most other fields aren't doing either, but at least they aren't oversaturated as badly as CS is. Only ones doing fine are medical and social work professionals.

Re: Ask HN: Are you unable to find employment?

#40
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And it's not just in programming-related jobs either. Parts of industry and the blue collar market are shitting themselves in Germany right now. Two people I know have been let go (pumps and wood sectors resp.). Another (metal construction) is getting barely more than minimum wage. There's only one dude (chemical engineer) who is doing well (nearing 100k at 5 years work experience). The others are getting by. Politic…

> Fachkräftemangel Why is this German word thrown in without any explanation? I’ve noticed this is a common trend whenever a Germany-adjacent topic is discussed.

I had to look it up; for others, it means "skilled worker shortage".
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