the 2020 ‘recession’ wasn’t really bad for tech employment at all
I think 2001 and 2002 were worse than 2000. I was lucky to find a job in 2002 after graduating. There were hiring freezes and layoffs everywhere.
Tech employment now significantly worse than the 2008 or 2020 recessions
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Re: Tech employment now significantly worse than the 2008 or 2020 recessions
#52The chart in the tweet represents year-on-year growth. Based on these figures alone the actual number of people employed in tech is still really high, and the numbers can't just go up forever. Also this only captures 6 industries, which is a narrow view of what would define "tech" these days. Not to say that the job market isn't tough but this graph is a very narrow view
Thanks for pointing this out - title is extremely misleading. Total tech jobs is not lower than 2008 just because YoY is down.
Re: Tech employment now significantly worse than the 2008 or 2020 recessions
#53Purely anecdotal, but I'm a senior engineer with about 15 years of experience and a decently impressive resume. In the past, I almost always get to at least the interviewing stage, and have frequently received multiple offers at the same time. Recruiters used to spam me constantly.
I haven't heard from a recruiter in probably 6 months. I recently put my feelers out and applied to a handful of positions I was qualified for, and got rejection letters from all of them.
Re: Tech employment now significantly worse than the 2008 or 2020 recessions
#54Anyone else's inbox slammed with recruiters, more than it ever has been in the past? Feels like there's 10x the jobs available, but perhaps it's just that LLMs have automated a recruiter's job and they're letting the slop fly
Mine is too. Absolutely no outreach from the major players however. Mostly AI startups with a few larger/older SaaS startups sprinkled in.
Re: Tech employment now significantly worse than the 2008 or 2020 recessions
#55In my experience, tech employment is incredibly bimodal right now. Top candidates are commanding higher salaries than ever, but an "average" developer is going to have an extremely hard time finding a position. Contrary to what many say, I don't think it's simple as seniors are getting hired and juniors aren't. Juniors are still getting hired because they're still way cheaper and they're just as capable as using AI a…
Agreed on the bimodal, but I don't think this is junior vs. senior - I think it's just competence being rooted out.
The majority of engineers, in my hiring experience, failed very simple tests pre-AI. In a world where anyone can code, they're no better than previously non-technical people. The CS degree is no longer protection.
The gap between average and the best engineers now, though, is even higher. The best engineers can visualize the whole architecture in their head, and describe exactly what they want to an AI - their productivity is multiplied, and they rarely get slowed down.
While this could be done by junior or senior, I think junior usually has the slight advantage in being more AI-native and knowing how to effectively prompt and work with AI, though not always.
Re: Tech employment now significantly worse than the 2008 or 2020 recessions
#56How’s it compare to 2000 though? Tech was ascendant in 2008 so not surprised to hear it didn’t do too badly then and in 2020 while people panicked tech again had a much easier time keeping people on remotely. EDIT: posted below as well https://xcancel.com/JosephPolitano/status/202991636466461124... There’s a longer term graph in the thread. We’ve got a long way to go before we hit 2000 numbers which is what I’d expec…
I was working in 2000 in Atlanta GA at boring old enterprises companies with 4 years of experience back then. If you were working for/targeting profitable non tech companies, the world was your oyster.
I was working at a company that printed bills for utility companies and had offers from banks, insurance companies etc. The world didn’t stop buying Coca Cola, flying Delta or stop buying stuff from Home Depot because of the dot com crash
Re: Tech employment now significantly worse than the 2008 or 2020 recessions
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
> and they're just as capable as using AI as anyone Wouldn't the assumption be the opposite, in that AI is magnifying the decision making of the engineer and so you get more payback by having the senior drive the AI?
For a good senior, yes you get massive returns, which is why those good seniors are in incredibly high demand right now. For average to low-performing intermediates/seniors... there's not much difference in output between them and a good junior at this point. Claude really raised the skill floor for software development.
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Re: Tech employment now significantly worse than the 2008 or 2020 recessions
#58Hm what about the Citadel rebuttal that showed growth?
https://www.citadelsecurities.com/news-and-insights/2026-glo...
Re: Tech employment now significantly worse than the 2008 or 2020 recessions
#59In my experience, tech employment is incredibly bimodal right now. Top candidates are commanding higher salaries than ever, but an "average" developer is going to have an extremely hard time finding a position. Contrary to what many say, I don't think it's simple as seniors are getting hired and juniors aren't. Juniors are still getting hired because they're still way cheaper and they're just as capable as using AI a…
> they're just as capable as using AI as anyone
They're just as capable of typing prompts into AI, but what they don't have is good judgement of what good work/code looks like, so what's the point of asking a junior engineer to do something vs asking the LLM directly?
Re: Tech employment now significantly worse than the 2008 or 2020 recessions
#60In my experience, tech employment is incredibly bimodal right now. Top candidates are commanding higher salaries than ever, but an "average" developer is going to have an extremely hard time finding a position. Contrary to what many say, I don't think it's simple as seniors are getting hired and juniors aren't. Juniors are still getting hired because they're still way cheaper and they're just as capable as using AI a…
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