Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Is the Job Market Actually Bad?

news.ycombinator.com

51–60 of 232 posts

Re: Ask HN: Is the Job Market Actually Bad?

#51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you even hire in Europe when the smartest people are in the Bay Area?

Why even post such an absurd comment?

I find it absurd how she generalized that Western Europe is complaining a lot and less pragmatic than whatever. The same for working remote but not having the chops like the 'Bay Area'. Could have been a serious question as well, why do you find it absurd?

Re: Ask HN: Is the Job Market Actually Bad?

#52
From my non objective, not looking but I try to stay as informed as possible across South Africa, Europe, US perspective and regularly talk to people on both sides and ask them directly

- it's not as bad as it was in the last several months

- it's still very hard to get noticed, get interviews, etc there's so much noise on both sides that personal references are much more important than front door applications. This was always the case but much more now

- there were previously a lot of jobs for low agency people who were good at doing what they were told and meeting specs, AI is taking these as if you are willing to spend hours per week writing specs and checking results then tokens are better bang for buck than freelance devs now

- approximately all the demand now is for directly AI related plays and even people who get them don't feel secure because the whole industry feels so unstable and bubbly, but there's no money in anything not AI now

Re: Ask HN: Is the Job Market Actually Bad?

#53

It's K shaped, like the economy.

Not sure why you are being downvoted. This is my experience as well. If you have experience at FAANG doing “foundational work” (read: datacenter engineering, core software infrastructure, multi zone computing, point of presence management) you are still in high demand. Many of the people I know in such areas are going to the big hyperscalers to build the infrastructure to run AI inference. There are not a lot of people who have experience doing this stuff and that domain is in very high demand.

Re: Ask HN: Is the Job Market Actually Bad?

#54
post #15

You didn't give a lot of info How much are you getting paid? Going into the office is important too, are you in sf?

I'm not in SF. I'm making mid $100k and interviewing for remote jobs in the $170k+ range.

I say the following not to brag but to offer up some more perspective for you: you’re comp is in the lower-mid range of the market. Comp was there for remote, startup eng positions back in 2017.

As you move up in comp, the market actually gets more difficult, not just because the market is more competitive but because some companies won’t even interview qualified engineers with FAANG on their resume because they don’t believe they can afford them.

So I can understand why you might have an easier time compared to other engs.

Re: Ask HN: Is the Job Market Actually Bad?

#55
Hiring is now by filter. Corporations do not try to hire good people, they just avoid hiring questionable people. In other words they are looking for the lowest common denominator.

If you do not think this is true, then ask yourself whether the company is attempting to use AI. THAT IS WHAT THEY WANT AND VALUE. The safer and easier you are as hire the better you will be.

So yes. You were probably hired because you are not a super genius and because you don't have a fancy company name. Not despite it, but because of it.

The question I have is why do I now think many corporations are "too stupid to succeed"? I know they will not fail, but the panicky rush for the supposed safety of AI is stunning.

Re: Ask HN: Is the Job Market Actually Bad?

#56
post #15

You didn't give a lot of info How much are you getting paid? Going into the office is important too, are you in sf?

I'm not in SF. I'm making mid $100k and interviewing for remote jobs in the $170k+ range.

OK shitty job market means different things to different people.

For my self, I was making over 300k, took a job (remote) at a little over 200, and now struggling to get that much and considering jobs at 170-180. I think the job market sucks, those jobs paying 300+ would normally respond to me aren't.

Re: Ask HN: Is the Job Market Actually Bad?

#57
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not in SF. I'm making mid $100k and interviewing for remote jobs in the $170k+ range.

What did you do to start getting traction for senior positions? You were struggling in the beginning of the year.

I've never had a problem getting contacted. I've done some self reflection, and practice and now I'm much better able to communicate technically. It also helped that my last project before I was laid off was pretty wide reaching and impressive and being able to talk about that has made things a lot easier. I still haven't gotten a job I want, so I don't have a lot to offer you, but I'm getting better at interviewing.

Re: Ask HN: Is the Job Market Actually Bad?

#59
I'll bite: 15.5 years tech experience across SRE, SWE, PM, PGM, & strategic initiatives-adjacent things. Last roles was Director/Principal level. Last projects were driving hundreds of millions of dollars worth of portfolio acquisition integrations (successfully) at a $5B public company. NYC metro area but I've been remote for 13 years. No degree, self-taught, first real tech role acquired when I was recruited after hacking a company back in 2010. Laid off in Feb, though garden leave ran through April.

I've had mixed results overall. Primarily looking at senior+ TPM, TPGM, SI roles. My network is hard to leverage due to being remote for so long. Lots of cold applications. 25% of applications got recruiter responses within a day, 25% within a week, 50% blocked at ATS, ghosted, or hiring being re-evaluated. Not as many direct recruiter outreaches as I've received in the past.

From the JD side, salaries seem to be more stratified and requirements, even for lower roles, seems to be higher than before. I've seen quite a few requests for 10+ years experience for mid-level PGM roles. In loose convos with friends, everyone wants a big name on a resume but no longer will pay a premium to get it.

No degree seems to be a bigger gate now than it was the last time I was searching. Being a generalist also seems to be more of a risk but I'm sure that's at least partly a fault in my own framing. I do not play the LinkedIn game well. My major contributions have been either inside a company (internally-focused, hard to share publicly or company-specific), mildly popular open source dev work (>100 stars), or things actually used everywhere but no one cares because it's not "real" dev work (created puppetlabs-firewall module, 10M+ downloads, adopted as part of Puppet Enterprise, used globally, no one cares). Without a strong public profile in a specific direction, I've been told I read as too hard to quantify.

Overall, it seems "bad" in that everyone is battling uncertainty about where things are going and being more vigilant to avoid the wrong hire. Credentials and resume pedigree seem to matter more than ever and roles are much more vertically aligned than I've seen them in the past. If you're good, with some amount of credentials, and a lot of vertical ownership then you'll probably be fine though it might take longer. If you're a generalist who's hard to pin down, you might be in for some pain.

Re: Ask HN: Is the Job Market Actually Bad?

#60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone maybe in group (2). What kind of stereotyping is this? And why do you want to have non-complaining worker drones? Maybe older people from those countries are good at keeping their head down in soviet style work configurations, but is this the kind of company you want to have? I'd more guess it is that there is a severe income tax advantage, B2B contracts are also easier in eastern Europe.

> why do you want to have non-complaining worker drones We want opinionated engineers. But we want engineers who will respond to a slack message after 5pm during a P1 escalation. > I'd more guess it is that there is a severe income tax advantage Somewhat but not enough to move the needle because depending on the local government, they are matching cross-EU subsidizes. > older people from those countries are good at k…

It's idk 10% for B2B in Poland and more than 50% in western Europe. Of course if you pay someone 135k vs 70k real income the first person will put in more effort.

In western Europe you'd just have to specify the availability requirements and they'd do it there as well. You'd just have to pay for it.

Edit: If you pay someone 150k€ in Germany what they see after-tax is just not that much. They are going to compare this with the 9-5 IGM position (when it is available...). Why not just admit that you don't want to pay equivalent wages for accessing the western european market?

Post reply on HN