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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

#271

Post by [deleted] »

andai wrote: post #239
SoftTalker wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ability to reverse a b tree on the whiteboard I can never get over how this became a thing. Was listening to a Brian Cox video on YouTube the other night (something about his voice helps me sleep). He said "I don't memorize formulas, it's easy to look them up." If you ever need to reverse a b tree (in 30+ years of writing code, I never have) it's easy to look that up. It tells me nothing about your ability as a dev…

I'd always heard inverting a binary tree thrown around as some kind of absurdly hard problem. I took a look at it and it was trivial. I was able to do it on the first attempt with no preparation. (And the point of these interviews is that you study for them, right?) It's a contrived scenario, but the whole point is that it measures min(a,b) where `a` is your ability to think, and `b` is your ability to prepare (and m…

[deleted]

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

#272

Post by schmichael »

jlhawn wrote: post #117

Here's the same post on Bluesky for those who prefer that platform: https://bsky.app/profile/josephpolitano.bsky.social/post/3mg...

Thank you! Could HN switch the links? bsky doesn't require a login to view replies. bsky is just a superior viewing experience.

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

#273

Post by hyperpape »

teagee wrote: post #10

The 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

Yes, but...

The health of the market is not a function of the total number of jobs alone, it's a function of the number of jobs and the number of people to fill them.

The number of total jobs going up year after year meant that there were increasing numbers of candidates, new people entering the field. If the job growth stops, then there still we be candidates coming in. There will also be the new hires from the last decade moving into increasingly senior roles, and there won't be space for them (unless you devalue the meaning of "senior" even more).

So the year over year change matters a lot. If it plateaus, or even declines slightly, it's more than enough to make a terrible market.

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

#274

Post by raincole »

cmiles8 wrote: post #252

Not dismissing that it’s a tough market for some but folks also need to learn how to read a chart. It shows a slight decline following a massive expansion. The primary thing going on in the market right now is a lot of companies simply over-hired during the post Covid boom and they’re correcting for that.

Things look crazy around 2022 in hindsight.

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

#275

Post by mariopt »

dimgl wrote: post #251
mariopt wrote: post #171

For the last 2 years I can't even get an interview despited having 14 years of experience and being up to date with development trends, libraries, languages, AI tooling, etc. I don't think the market is flooded with new devs as many state, I think we are in a deep silent crisis

Are you based in the U.S.?

EU/UK

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

#276

Post by [deleted] »

oblio wrote: post #82
teagee wrote: post #10

The 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

Asked Gemini quickly for 2000 and 2025 numbers. Tech employees: 5.5m vs 9.9. Software developers: 0.68m vs 3.2m. Different ball game.

[deleted]

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

#277

Post by hnthrow0287345 »

lowkey_ wrote: post #55
mjr00 wrote: 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…

This stupid industry doesn't have the wherewithal to actually make a good credential and training process like medicine and law, and instead lets everyone come up with their own process to vet people. We could even do it as an apprenticeship model, not like that hasn't served humanity throughout the ages.

I should have a credential I have to maintain every few years, one or two interviews, and that should get me a job.

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

#278

Post by phil21 »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #104
phil21 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and if that's the case, what other explanation is there than "ghost jobs." You didn't pass some arbitrary ruleset given to an AI or machine learning algorithm. Companies can be very selective now, and usually implement this selectivity fairly stupidly. There also is the problem of being genuinely swamped with bullshit applicants for positions, so the false positive rate is likely quite high at the moment. I've foun…

If you don't have the time to sort them through, there's not much urgency to actually find someone, is there? It also might point to a filtering mismatch of your get a high false positive rate.

Oh definitely. And our hiring practices are not exactly state of the art. I'll be the first to admit they need a giant amount of improvement.

Most of the good folks have come in via word of mouth and networks, as they typically do.

For those outstanding positions they are "very nice to haves" but obviously not critical. When the right candidate gets matched we'll jump on the opportunity, but it's not an existential problem for the moment.

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

#279

Post by cucumber3732842 »

crystal_revenge wrote: post #92
mjr00 wrote: 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 hand…

>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.

You've been interviewing forever. You're the well practiced pickup artist of job searching. Of course you'll be getting the call backs over the other 1000 applicants who don't have the same experience level applying. You "just know" how to read between the lines and tailor a resume, whip up a cover letter, etc whereas they're making mistakes.

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

#280

Post by robryan »

volkl48 wrote: post #160
Aurornis wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Companies have also adopted your strategy: interviewing candidates "to see what's out there" - there's a job I've interviewed for that's still open after 10 months When I was doing a lot of hiring we wouldn't take the job posting down until we were done hiring people with that title. It made a couple people furious because they assumed we were going to take the job posting down when we hired someone and then re-pos…

I assume that this means you're sending out rejections that include a mention of "we've hired someone else for this role". If your hiring model is hiring multiple people through one posting, then you will probably get a lot fewer angry ex-candidates being weird (because they think you've lied to them since the posting is still up) by just sending out rejections that don't say that and just get the "we're no longer in…

From applying places recently I'd much rather get these fast. One company sent me them, the rest either reached out or I never heard from them.
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