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Ask HN: Has anyone else been unemployed for over two years?

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Re: Ask HN: Has anyone else been unemployed for over two years?

#351

Post by orblivion »

it_is_beautiful wrote: post #186

Throwaway, to do away with the polite fiction that I usually present. Kicking around on a piece of ground in your hometown / Waiting for someone or something to show you the way At 11 I started writing software, with entrepreneurial aspirations helped by my parents. Over my teen years I must have designed a dozen sites I never published. I did alright in school, but I was never on time. At 18, out of high school, I g…

> Kicking around on a piece of ground in your hometown / Waiting for someone or something to show you the way

If it makes you feel any better, this song about the fleeting nature of time is fifty years old and Roger Waters is still touring.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone else been unemployed for over two years?

#352

Post by [deleted] »

mgh95 wrote: post #166
richardlblair wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact you're being questioned about this is insane. There used to be a 0% chance of being tossed on a plane and deported somewhere else in the world when visiting the US. That chance is now non-zero, which is an unacceptable level of risk for many. That and everything else going on. There's a reason Canadians have stopped traveling down south...

Business travel from CAN to US has remained stable (see: https://globalnews.ca/video/11436758/business-travel-to-u-s-... ). It's leisure that is declining. Meanwhile, total spending in the US from int'l visitor tourism is up in the US (see: https://www.hotel-online.com/press_releases/release/internat... ). Honestly, I think macro factors -- namely, poor Canadian household finances due to increasing cost of living and…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone else been unemployed for over two years?

#353

Post by yard2010 »

bix6 wrote: post #190
pluc wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's something that I've really wondered about too, since I can't count the number of people I hooked up with jobs I asked myself why the pendulum wasn't swinging back. I relocated "to the countryside" a few years ago and lost my big city tech network, where I was very active and even central. Not being on social media means I have very few ways to reach back out these days.

You live in the country with zero LinkedIn connections. Do you even want a tech job?

No need to be snarky, dude is going through a rough time, can use some empathy

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone else been unemployed for over two years?

#354

Post by martin-t »

nosefurhairdo wrote: post #225
martin-t wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't say it's an abusive employer but an abusive company. It always fought against open source. Embrace, extend, extinguish. It always stifled innovation. Internet Explorer 6. And now, it bought GitHub and then plagiarized all public and private projects hosted on it. GPL cannot exist in a world where you can build a statistical model of the code and mechanically reproduce its functionality while somehow losing t…

> I didn't say it's an abusive employer but an abusive company. A confusing distinction to make in a thread about employment. > It always fought against open source. They've since admitted this was a mistake, and in 2020 were cited as the single largest contributor to open source projects: https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/18/21262103/microsoft-open-s... > And now, it bought GitHub and then plagiarized all public and p…

> They've since admitted this was a mistake

Don't anthropomorphize organizations. It was no longer beneficial for them to openly fight open source so instead the people in charge decided they needed to get developer mindshare by changing their public signaling. The sad thing is many people fell for it. They can just as easily switch back at any time when it becomes beneficial.

BTW, the phrasing "Microsoft has embraced open source" is very ironic and given my previous paragraph, it is a nice foreshadowing or what can come next at any time.

> Are you claiming Microsoft/GitHub used or sold private source code for training LLMs?

I have not seen it denied in any official communication. After skimming this question[0], nobody else could either and the phrasing in their FAQ is oddly specific about Business and Enterprise. So yes, given their patterns of behavior, it's very likely and I will consider it true until proven otherwise.

But that's not the biggest issue. That is that every LLM or LLM-adjacent company (Microsoft included) seems to suddenly argue that a mechanical transformation of input data is enough to erase licensing and attribution.[1] Free software licenses like GPL simple cannot exist in this environment. In fact, any licenses would have exactly 0 meaning.

See a program you want with a license you don't want? Just run it through a sufficiently complex black box and out the other side you have an identically behaving program which according to big-tech has no relation to the input. You can even do this with closed source software if you run it through a decompiler first.

I recall a MS CEO shouting something about developers when developers were the thing they needed most. Now they can train NNs on the devs' own work to imitate and replace the devs so devs are no longer valuable and get thrown under the bus.

Oh and MS employees are apparently forced to use LLMs by management...

[0]: https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/135400

[1]: This is a convenient 180° turn after for example people who had ever seen windows source code could not contribute to wine.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone else been unemployed for over two years?

#355

Post by scarface_74 »

radley wrote: post #344
scarface_74 wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How else would someone know about me and how would I connect with them? I can change my status to “Open to Work” and have 1200 people see it My specific niche is strategy consulting along with hands on keyboard work for smaller projects and before that, I was hired at 3 separate companies by a new to the company director/CTO to lead initiatives. At that level it’s all about knowing how to “influence” and communicate.…

> My specific niche is strategy consulting I think that's the key difference. For strategy folks, it makes sense to demonstrate this kind of work through that kind of channel. But LinkedIn posts aren't relevant for non-networking roles.

The parent poster has “25 years of exp, director of engineering managerial/technical type”. He should be selling himself as a strategy person. In today’s market you have to be networking regardless especially for remote work. Even before I started doing the BS influencer mess, two of my last three jobs were based on internal recruiters reaching out to me.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone else been unemployed for over two years?

#356

Post by WarOnPrivacy »

shinryuu wrote: post #337
WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My milage does vary. I swore off caffeine for a decade. Then I discovered that stims restore some cognitive function that I had written off. The difference is that my anxiety is more interesting (to me) than distressing. I can sometimes leverage it as a mechanism for change. Granted - this also possible because my anxiety (currently) falls within a range. Turn it up a ½doz notches and I probably won't be mining it fo…

Have you tried tea instead? Its effect is markedly different from coffee. THere should be no anxiety, but still contain that cognitive benefit.

I don't drink coffee. I use a drink mix. The anxiety is probably history derived. I'm rolling with it.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone else been unemployed for over two years?

#357

Post by guiambros »

ethbr1 wrote: post #264
craftkiller wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do people still do endorsements on LinkedIn? There was an initial flurry when that "feature" launched but I haven't been endorsed for anything for I think the past decade. Really the only things I do on LinkedIn are update my job history and accept connections from coworkers.

Imho, anything past where you've worked on LinkedIn is a waste of time. And arguably even a negative signal. Productive people have jobs to do instead of grinding Monopoly karma. Yes, this absolutely includes LinkedIn thought leadership. I know MS and recruiters love to push the 'it matters' line, but I'd ask the reader -- who would you rather hire: someone who wow'd in an interview or someone with LinkedIn flair?

> who would you rather hire: someone who wow'd in an interview or someone with LinkedIn flair?

Who would you rather interview: someone who has a great resume, and a strong LinkedIn profile, and connections to a strong peer community who can endorse them, or a faceless rando that shows up in your inbox with a PDF, amongst thousands of others, with zero referrals?

I'm not endorsing LI grind -- I too hate it, but ignore at your own peril. OP seems to be in a rather precarious situation, so maybe it would help being a bit less dogmatic.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone else been unemployed for over two years?

#358

Post by bradlys »

Yes but I took the time off somewhat intentionally. I spent 3+ years not working. I tried finding work in NYC for a couple of those years but it never manifested. It got to me in the end and I got tired of some issues I was having in NYC.

I ended up having to come back to the bay area prematurely. I want to live here long term but it wasn't the right fit for where I'm at in life. (Single mid-30s male - dying alone) I'm working at a FAANG. I've studied well over 1000+ LC problems, paid for professional tutoring/mocks in LC and System Design, dozens of free mock interviews, and several hundred actual interviews over the years.

The way I coped was working even harder at studying and having an otherwise busy life in other aspects. When I looked for jobs in the past - it was a full-time job just from the studying aspect.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone else been unemployed for over two years?

#359

Post by SoftTalker »

dmoy wrote: post #47
SeanAnderson wrote: post #15

I've been unemployed for almost three years. It's somewhat intentional - at least leaving my last job was and I've been dragging my feet. Hopefully will have a job in upper management at the start of next year if things work out. Coping by trying my best to become the type of person that I aspire to be. Quit weed, alcohol, caffeine. Lost 20lbs of fat and put on some muscle. Run 6 days a week, lift 3-4 days a week. Me…

Making games in rust in retirement is my plan. Not, you know, good games (zero game dev experience), or games that anyone would realistically want to play, but seems like it would be interesting to learn.

I'll see how I really feel when it happens but when I retire I don't want to look at a computer for a very long time. I suppose after some time I might get drawn back but I plan to de-tech my life as much as I can.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone else been unemployed for over two years?

#360

Post by JackFr »

pluc wrote: post #59

Lost my job in early 2023. Couldn't find anything (25 years of exp, director of engineering managerial/technical type, great at what i do by past coworkers/bosses admission). By EOY I had to sell my house, figured I could use the (significant) profits to buy time or I could travel and make the time a little more enjoyable, so I set out to explore most of Europe thinking, well I'll for sure find a job before I run out…

1) as the child of a parent who was a smart, hard working accountant/financial analyst who was out of work for 2 long stretches in my youth, I have learned when you lose your job, you do not fuck around — you attack it with the same urgency as if the house was on fire as in immediately; 2) after 25 years, you’ve got to have some network — swallow your pride and use them.

I have been there, and I saw my father — there is nothing good about it. You have my sympathy and I wish you the best.

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