Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Are you unable to find employment?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 625 posts

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

#221

Post by akmarinov »

w4ffl35 wrote: post #178
maeil wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The comment is mostly talking about Silicon Valley big tech, of which exactly 100% operates in many countries.

Having worked for a startup and lost my job to remote workers in a foreign country because they were cheaper and being told "we can hire 3 or 4 of them for the price of you" has left a bitter taste in my mouth.

Getting the most product for the least amount of money is Capitalism 101. Companies don’t owe you anything past that and you should follow the same principle.

Do the least amount of work that’ll get you as much money as possible and always look for a better offer.

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

#222

Post by m_ke »

misiti3780 wrote: post #90
m_ke wrote: post #86

It's not just you. I have an Ivy league degree, worked in deep learning since alexnet at a leading startup in the space, was a CTO of a startup that got acquired and have referrals from very senior people at the top FANG companies and still struggled to get interviews. I also have research scientist friends with Neurips papers, ones that solved long standing open math problems and even they are struggling to get hire…

My company is hiring in ML, the position is remote, can you send me your resume?

Thanks, I’m actually pretty far in the interview process with a bunch of companies now but would be open to learning more.

My contact info is in my bio.

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

#223

Post by w4ffl35 »

TypingOutBugs wrote: post #180
w4ffl35 wrote: post #97

[flagged]

What should be illegal, specifically? What concrete action should be made illegal? These are people hired locally within their respective countries by local corporations owned by holdings in the US. How can you make it illegal for a company to hire people legally in other countries through their legal non-US incorporations?

> many of them are no longer hiring in the US, but in India, Poland and Brazil instead

to reiterate what i've stated throughout this thread: passing up US workers in favor of hiring foreigners should incur heavy penalties. There is no shortage of American workers. If a foreigner wants to work for an American company, they should get a greencard and work in America.

If a company has a foreign office, of course it makes sense to hire people in that country, but that wasn't stipulated in the comment I replied to. Many companies are NOT based in foreign lands and still hire foreigners remotely, passing up Americans in the process, because those foreigners are dirt cheap by comparison. This should not be allowed.

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

#224

Post by segatti »

m_ke wrote: post #86

It's not just you. I have an Ivy league degree, worked in deep learning since alexnet at a leading startup in the space, was a CTO of a startup that got acquired and have referrals from very senior people at the top FANG companies and still struggled to get interviews. I also have research scientist friends with Neurips papers, ones that solved long standing open math problems and even they are struggling to get hire…

Can confirm. I am brazilian. Did a few onsites this end of year. Guess the only one I passed with flying colors? Uber, Brazil office. TC for mid level around 80k dollars. Now that the real devalued even more, maybe 75-70?

Most of my brazilian friends living abroad also cleared said onsites, absolute majority rejected their offers(because they live elsewhere with a currency that has any sort of value).

As a matter of fact, Uber is struggling to fill their vacancies around Brazil. Everyone that can clear said interview are already in Europe/US. So you're only left off with the people that actually want to be closer to their families.

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

#225

Post by phendrenad2 »

If you're good, and you can demonstrate that you're good, you should have no problem finding a job. There are still many more job openings than there are skilled candidates.

And I don't think there's any discrimination against white males, that's certainly a popular talking point from the far-right, but it's simply not true.

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

#226

Post by stickfigure »

w4ffl35 wrote: post #97

[flagged]

Have you considered that the bitterness that drips out of your posts here might be part of the reason you're having trouble finding work?

Half the interview (ideally) measures technical competence. The other half is "would I like to work with this person?" I don't know what you're like in person, but if I looked you up and found your HN comment history, you'd be a no hire. Sorry.

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

#227

Post by LouisSayers »

I live in New Zealand, applied for 5 jobs in March 2024, got 2 offers (Atlassian, small startup - both Aus based remote jobs), the other 3 companies didn't move me past resume.

I have a CS degree and over a decade of experience as a full stack dev.

Maybe I just got lucky, but there have always been people out there that seem to apply for hundreds of companies and land nothing. I've also helped some of those people land a job.

IMO it mostly comes down to understanding and preparing for the interview process, and tailoring yourself for the position you're applying for. Sometimes people also need help with blind spots - little things like correctly referring to technologies in their CV, small talk and being personable etc.

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

#228

Post by radiator »

nicbou wrote: post #3

I’m self-employed so I don’t have personal experience, but all around me (in Berlin) people are struggling to find work. I have more unemployed friends than ever and they stay unemployed for longer than ever. Others are afraid to risk their job in any way. Employers got bolder in their demands and English-speaking workers are fighting for scraps. The UX industry is absolutely cutthroat right now. I work in immigratio…

Germany always was an importer of energy, and a couple of years ago it decided to replace energy imports from Russia with imports from other countries. Many had warned that this would hurt the country's economy. Even those who were, and still are, in charge acknowledged the fact. But they prefer it this way.

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

#229

Post by MrMan »

w4ffl35 wrote: post #193
maeil wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great! US tech is by far the biggest benefactor of it (and it isn't close), so you'll be much, much worse off, but good luck. Those in Denmark that you don't care about will rejoice.

It sounds like those in Denmark who are rejoicing over this are also anti-globalization, so its a win for everyone then.

Being anti globalization means everyone loses which you will find out more about soon

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

#230

Post by betaby »

microtonal wrote: post #121
betaby wrote: post #88

Low pay offers. In Montreal there are plenty of offers paying ~90k CAD/year ( 62k USD/year ) for 15+ years of experience. There are lot of job listings in Montreal, and those positions are real. Problem is that the pay makes those positions undesirable. The second problem is that no one hires junior developers. My friend's kid finishing CS studies in May 2025 and prospect for jobs are not good.

I think this is an important factor. Developer salaries have been bimodal or trimodal [1]. I have really good former colleagues who have difficulty finding jobs, but they are looking for 120k+ USD/Euro jobs (remote, outside SV). I also have friends owning companies, having difficulty filling positions, but they are in the 50k-70k USD/Euro range. It seems like the difficulty of finding a job is in the second mode. But…

That kind of makes sense, but doesn't. I'm aware of the fact of the bi-modal / tri-modal distribution of the software dev. salaries. However, in the case of my friend, software is not the only option for him. My friend refuses to get lower paying software eng. position ... because he can make the same lower money by doing the thing he likes, in his case - working as a luthier. Another friend also were refusing to get lower paying software jobs and instead were working 1+ year as secretary for a wealthy person. My point is that some lower paying jobs won't be filed ever, even if there are plenty software developers without jobs. It's more wise for some people to leave field temporarily or permanently.
Post reply on HN