When the job search becomes impossible • Hacker News Board

Re: When the job search becomes impossible

#431

Post by astura » Wed, Sep 17, 2025, 10:15 PM UTC

monkeyelite wrote: post #385

squigz wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All non-student Americans on HN are making 6 figures or something, I guess?

In software? Yes - no matter which part of the country. Maybe a few hold outs in the 90k.

The jr's in my company are making $60-$70k.

Anyway, the government actually compiles this information

https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/...

>The median annual wage for software developers was $133,080 in May 2024. The median wage is the wage at which half the workers in an occupation earned more than that amount and half earned less. The lowest 10 percent earned less than $79,850, and the highest 10 percent earned more than $211,450.

Re: When the job search becomes impossible

#432

Post by triMichael » Wed, Sep 17, 2025, 10:19 PM UTC

My wife is on phase 3.

She graduated with a computer science degree in January, and then her dad passed away. The estate was a mess so she ended up spending time figuring that out. Then, we found and fixed a medical issue that had been draining her energy. She's doing a lot better now, but as a result she has an 8 month gap on her resume. She also never took an internship so that she could finish a semester earlier with summer classes. So now she's absolutely screwed for phase 1.

She switched to phase 2 recently. She got a hit for software support. She got rejected, but the person was like "Why aren't you applying for programming jobs, since you like programming?" They set her up for an interview for an actual programming job, and said her lack of experience wasn't an issue because they had a lot of pull, and that they would offer her a test where she could prove herself. She spent the next several days preparing non-stop for the interview, only for the same guy to be angry at her for not having multiple significant projects on Github and refused to even give her the test.

After that we thought about continuing phase 2, but we both felt like it was just a waste of time, especially after the last experience. She's had previous experience tutoring and I've written some instructional books, so we've now just decided to ignore the job market and form an LLC related to teaching. She'd be a great programmer, and it's really stupid that no one wants to give her a chance, but at some point you just figure the job market is so irrational that we should be able to beat it by doing it ourselves.

Re: When the job search becomes impossible

#433

Post by reaperducer » Wed, Sep 17, 2025, 10:30 PM UTC

ezekiel68 wrote: post #213

I've lived through the recessions of 1990-91 (in my 20s, not tech), the Dotcom bust and the Great Financial Crisis. I can tell you that it's always been this way when its' a "buyer's market" and the employers can afford to be picky. I can also tell you that this is not some game-changing phenomenon[0]. The jobs will return when it is once again a "seller's market" -- which it surely will be. This applies to non-tech…

Substitute "church secretary" for driving a hack, and "soldering heart monitors" for hazmat work, and you're me!

You do what you have to to pay the bills. If that means going outside your field for a while, so be it.

When the Great Recession hit, 90% of the food truck operators in my neighborhood were very recently bankers and finance people.

Re: When the job search becomes impossible

#434

Post by reaperducer » Wed, Sep 17, 2025, 10:34 PM UTC

autoexec wrote: post #404

carlosjobim wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, obviously that's what you have to do. And also thank God that you have that asset to sell to give you emergency cash.

In may cases that'd be very foolish since mortgage payments are often way lower than rent.

Until you factor in maintenance, utilities, taxes, etc…

Depending on where you live, renting is often cheaper than owning, but real estate agents who make money off selling houses will never tell you the full cost of owning a home.

Re: When the job search becomes impossible

#435

Post by reaperducer » Wed, Sep 17, 2025, 10:37 PM UTC

antonvs wrote: post #221

roadside_picnic wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Homeless" is not the same as "living on the street". People living in hotels, temporary trailers (in some places even tiny homes count), living with a friend temporarily, etc are all homeless . Plenty of Americans are much closer than this than you might think working in tech. 50-60% of Americans currently live 'paycheck-to-paycheck' which means the second work stops they're on a timer for missing bills to start com…

> People living in hotels … are homeless Does that include digital nomads who don’t have a permanent residence?

Does that include digital nomads who don’t have a permanent residence?

Since they're not even a rounding error, it doesn't matter.

Re: When the job search becomes impossible

#436

Post by Balgair » Wed, Sep 17, 2025, 11:36 PM UTC

carlosjobim wrote: post #426

Balgair wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The manager is responsible for $X but only gets paid their salary. I'm their day to day, hiring is a pain. They need the extra hands, but they have to go through more work to get that person onboard. The activation energy is high, higher now with AI and automated job applications clogging things up. Then you have onboarding and the continued costs of management of that person. Honestly, most managers would want the s…

As I see it, hiring people is the most important part of running any business - by a large margin. And if you have a lot of employees, then hiring people who are good at hiring becomes your highest priority. > The manager is responsible for $X but only gets paid their salary. That's why somebody higher in rank makes sure the manager gets the time he needs to make the best hires. Somewhere up the line there is somebod…

I'm not trying to be glib here, but I'm not entirely certain that you have worked for a long time in a large corporation, right?

If you have not, I would like to introduce you to one of the best pieces of writing on corporate workings that I have ever come across: The Gervais Principle.

https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-...

It is a very good lens, but a very cynical one, to look at the corporation.

In general, shows like The Office, though satire, are close, I feel, to reality than what you are espousing here.

Not that I disagree with you at all. There should be people that are all about hiring. There should be managers that see their paychecks as adequate compensation. There should be consumers that are that reactive to internal staffing decisions.

But in my limited experience, the things that should be there, typically are not.

Re: When the job search becomes impossible

#437

Post by hn_throwaway_99 » Thu, Sep 18, 2025, 12:45 AM UTC

Bukhmanizer wrote: post #314

jppope wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The process is so broken right now that we're 100% back to nepotism Just want to comment on this, because I think think favoring unknown candidates is a mistake we make too often, and in fact the "normal" process is a disaster on both sides for this reason. Nepotism or Cronyism is granting resources, patronage, jobs to someone you know instead of a qualified candidate. In many industries this is how they function b…

I think you’re just arguing for nepotism in a roundabout way. My senior staff engineer can’t code at all. He got hired because he was friends with our engineering manager. You might say “well that’s nepotism then since he’s under qualified”, but I’m sure he would make the argument that he got the job because of his “stellar reputation and extensive network”. It’s an abhorrent situation to be in. Everyone knows he can…

This situation is very weird to me. In my experience, referrals got your foot in the door, but you still always had to pass the same hiring screen/interview process as everyone else.

I recommended an engineer once who I thought was great - he was a total "get shit done" kind of guy. But he did poorly in the interviews (I won't say they were leetcode-type problems, but you did have to have some algorithmic skills - I warned him beforehand to brush up on some of those types of programs.) As much as I liked the working with the guy, we couldn't hire him because he was a pretty solid "no" from the other interviewers.

I've never worked in a company that hired people based on the referral of one person, and honestly that sounds like a pretty f'd up company.

Re: When the job search becomes impossible

#438

Post by infecto » Thu, Sep 18, 2025, 1:05 AM UTC

smegma2 wrote: post #430

infecto wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again I don’t think that means what you think it means. It says “value of all financial assets” which includes banking accounts, cds, stocks, bonds etc. that is not liquid. The next exact line it calls out those bank accounts and the mean at $8,000. That is not a lot of liquid emergency savings for a household let’s say of 3. So I don’t think your point stands.

Everything you listed is liquid. CDs can be withdrawn early for a small penalty, and most likely without even losing any of your principal.

Again that number is inclusive of retirement accounts, hard to say much without knowing the breakdown but we do know $8k is the closet cash number. I would suspect the majority of the rest are in retirement accounts. Sure bonds and stocks are liquid but not like cash is. Using Fred is not that useful for these type of exercises as I don’t think those datapoints do a great job on topics like this.

So I don’t see what you are trying to point out. Most surveys I have seen put something like a quarter of Americans without any emergency savings.

Re: When the job search becomes impossible

#439

Post by hnfong » Thu, Sep 18, 2025, 3:44 AM UTC

Bukhmanizer wrote: post #314

jppope wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The process is so broken right now that we're 100% back to nepotism Just want to comment on this, because I think think favoring unknown candidates is a mistake we make too often, and in fact the "normal" process is a disaster on both sides for this reason. Nepotism or Cronyism is granting resources, patronage, jobs to someone you know instead of a qualified candidate. In many industries this is how they function b…

I think you’re just arguing for nepotism in a roundabout way. My senior staff engineer can’t code at all. He got hired because he was friends with our engineering manager. You might say “well that’s nepotism then since he’s under qualified”, but I’m sure he would make the argument that he got the job because of his “stellar reputation and extensive network”. It’s an abhorrent situation to be in. Everyone knows he can…

I think you're projecting your negative past experiences and trying very hard not to understand the GP's point.

It doesn't matter what the person hired thinks. The important part is whether those making hiring decisions are hiring people with "stellar reputation".

In your case, "everyone knows he can't code", so he doesn't have stellar reputation. If we apply this scenario to what the GP said, no company would have hired a person where "everyone knows he can't code".

You said "He got hired because he was friends with our engineering manager." That's nepotism.

GP says hire somebody with stellar reputation. That's a totally different situation.

Re: When the job search becomes impossible

#440

Post by mixmastamyk » Thu, Sep 18, 2025, 5:26 AM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #198

lovich wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Referrals by hiring managers who I have previously worked with and want to hire me aren’t even getting me a phone screen from their recruiters. The majority of employment in tech is with large, corporate firms, and unless you are in the executive tier they all have implemented a massive amount of process to prevent bias in hiring which means that even networking has low impact on getting a job, beyond letting you kno…

Yea, whenever someone says "Just network, bro!" they never actually fully connect the dots between networking and walking into the office on your first day of work: Step 1: Just have coffee with a hiring manager Step 2: Hiring manager says go check out job #41102, and submit your resume. Good luck, bro! Step 3: [???] Step 4: You've got an interview to ace! Nobody ever explains the [???]. They just assume that by magi…

The ATS systems everyone outsourced to a few years ago are a big part of this problem.