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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

#91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True but there is also a massive proliferation of ghost jobs. Dirty secret for a bunch of Series A places

I see everyone say this but what is the point of making a fake job opening? Are companies just doing that to see if a unicorn applies?

[deleted]

Re: Tech employment now significantly worse than the 2008 or 2020 recessions

#92
post #15

In 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…

I generally tend to interview every year to see what's out there in the world (sometimes I find something worth switching for, other times not). I'm not even looking very hard but have had 4 interviews in the last month.

Personally I think it's a bit more nuanced than senior vs junior (though it is very hard for juniors right now). What I've seen a lot of hunger for is people with a track record of getting their hands dirty and getting things solved. I'm very much a "builder" type dev that has more fun going from 0-v1 than maintaining and expanding scalable, large systems.

From the early start of the last tech boom through the post-pandemic hiring craze I increasingly saw demand for people who where in the latter category and fit nicely in a box. The ability to "do what you must to get this shipped" was less in demand. People cared much more about leetcode performance than an impressive portfolio.

Now reminds me a lot of 2008 in terms of the job market and what companies are looking for. 2008-2012 a strong portfolio of projects was the signal most people looked for. Back then being an OSS dev was a big plus (I found it not infrequently to be a liability in the last decade, better to study leetcode than actually build something).

Honestly, a lot of senior devs lose this ability over time. They get comfortable with the idea that as a very senior hire you don't have to do all that annoying stuff anymore. But the teams I see hiring are really focused on staying lean and getting engineers how are comfortable wearing multiple hats and working hard to get things shipped.

Re: Tech employment now significantly worse than the 2008 or 2020 recessions

#93
post #15

In 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…

I’m not sure it is just that, I don’t even see positions listed where I would like to work. For salary ranges, I see lower upper limits than my second best offer three n half years ago. Considering the high inflation, that’s crazy. I would not mind switching but 1. I don’t see interesting positions 2. they don’t pay well, and only 3. they might not even want me. It might also be just my niche, but finding a good posi…

> than my second best offer three n half years ago

3.5 years ago was peak ZIRP hiring craziness.

It wasn't a normal reference point.

Re: Tech employment now significantly worse than the 2008 or 2020 recessions

#94
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see everyone say this but what is the point of making a fake job opening? Are companies just doing that to see if a unicorn applies?

As a hiring manager, I have to write the job description. HR is responsible for posting the damn thing where people can see it, then into the ATS you go. We also know recruiting posts can be a source of competitive intelligence and signal for investors. We don't want it used that way, but we're aware of it. Bit of a dirty secret. That means, alas, the only people hurt are the applicants looking for work. I'll work th…

https://www.bls.gov/k12/teachers/posters/pdf/how-bls-collect... This says statistics, i've seen unsourced articles saying that they pull Unemployment Insurance numbers as part of it which are part of the payroll process, but BLS seems to say sampling and surveys.

Re: Tech employment now significantly worse than the 2008 or 2020 recessions

#95
This is the plot of the first derivative of employment. It shows a comparatively small but lasting dip after a massive, prolonged, and unwarranted boom between late 2020 and early 2024 that coincided with the dying breaths of ZIRP.

I have no idea about what's coming, but I wouldn't pay a whole lot of attention to people who are looking at the plots of a highly volatile and cyclic industry that goes through constant boom-and-bust cycles, and are trying to position this as proof that AI is or isn't having an impact.

Re: Tech employment now significantly worse than the 2008 or 2020 recessions

#96
post #37
post #15

In 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…

Relating it to performance is just silly. Most companies barely understand the performance of their employees much less candidates. The market has shrunk but not catastrophically so. Most people haven't been majorly affected but that doesn't mean they're automatically the most deserving or best performing. People with experience and/or credentials desired by companies in areas of growth (i.e. AI) are always in high d…

> People with experience and/or credentials desired by companies in areas of growth (i.e. AI) are always in high demand

This is tautological.

Re: Tech employment now significantly worse than the 2008 or 2020 recessions

#97

Purely 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 qualifie…

Try only including your last 2 positions, as most senior staff tend to scare insecure brogrammers. They probably still won't hire, but you will get more interviews.

There are also a lot of people posting fake jobs for feeding LLM datasets, running scams, and bidding down labor costs. =3

Re: Tech employment now significantly worse than the 2008 or 2020 recessions

#98
post #55
post #15

In 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 engin…

[deleted]

Re: Tech employment now significantly worse than the 2008 or 2020 recessions

#99
post #55
post #15

In 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 engin…

> The majority of engineers, in my hiring experience, failed very simple tests pre-AI

Did you consider tech whiteboard / leetcode interviews are unnatural stressful environments ? Have you gone through a mid/difficult technical appraisal yourself lately ? Try it out just to get an idea how it feels on the other side...

Re: Tech employment now significantly worse than the 2008 or 2020 recessions

#100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True but there is also a massive proliferation of ghost jobs. Dirty secret for a bunch of Series A places

I see everyone say this but what is the point of making a fake job opening? Are companies just doing that to see if a unicorn applies?

There's a dozen different angles all coming out at once. I'll try to summarize some.

- really wants to hire H1B, but needs to pretend to interview first for compliance. These usually have absurd requirements to make it viable to reject anyone.

- really wants to do an internal or referral hire or promotion, but needs to interview for HR compliance. These usually have such specific requirements that only the person they want qualifies.

- posts jobs because a company wants to look like its growing, even when it's not.

- posts jobs to either signal to an employee that they are replaceable, or to try and relieve a stressed employee that more help is coming. Either way, it's a bluff

- yes, sometimes you want to hold out for the perfect unicorn and are not in any way in a rush to find them. There's no distinction for this, but job posts are cheap so why not?

- outdated posts that still stay up because There's no rush to take it down.

- a technique used to lower compensation. They post a job, see how many applications it gets. If it's more than enough, they take it down (with no interviews) then put it up once more at a lower rate. Repeat until not enough people apply. This may or may not lead to interviews because the actual goal is market probing.

-purely to advertise the company instead of actually hire. Usually done at career fairs where you talk and realize there's no actual open positions.

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