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Ask HN: Laid off folks, are you getting hired?

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Re: Ask HN: Laid off folks, are you getting hired?

#111
post #93

I just got back into the market after taking a hiatus to write a novel (finished it, deleted it afterward cus I'm not proud of it) and work on my music,(more success but I'm not good enough to think I can make a career out of it). There's a definite hiring slowdown due to current market circumstances and the fact that "Senior" really doesn't mean what it used to, so there's a lot more competition for those roles now.…

Should release the novel anyhow.

Re: Ask HN: Laid off folks, are you getting hired?

#113

With all the copy-cat layoffs going on, I wonder how many people have been laid off, found a new job only to be laid off _again_!

I have heard of a company in the Bay that did this! Reliable Robotics had people start on a Monday only to lay them off later that week.

That's why I think the hiring freeze that took place at FAANG is the right approach. Companies should not play with people, and it reflects poorly on the decision makers.

Re: Ask HN: Laid off folks, are you getting hired?

#114
I was laid off in early December. I applied to a couple hundred positions, interviewed with around 10%, and received two offers at the beginning of this month.

The market is pretty rough. I had a lot of good interviews fizzle out into rejections after the final round. I assume this is because I was competing with several other recently laid off engineers. My new salary is 33% less than my previous and I’m getting much less equity. It sucks but I’m happy to be employed.

Re: Ask HN: Laid off folks, are you getting hired?

#115
post #88
post #38

We're hiring at our company. We've had a lot of people come through from the recent waves of layoffs, and usually so far there has been a mix of too high expectations, remote work mismatches as well as just lots of people not making the bar (we are a small company). Still on the lookout for senior rust engineers who want to work at a company that's remote-first with a minimal-meetings culture. You can message me on t…

> lookout for senior rust engineers Interesting how companies have trouble hiring for hyper specific tech that they might abandon in a few years. Then what happens to these "rust engineers", do they get laidoff for the next hiring of "X engineers".

any reasonably good eng culture recognizes that the language is often the least important aspect of engineering a solution.

A rust engineer that knows why the borrow checker exists and can safely do unsafe operations likely will do fine in C,C++, Go, Java and many others.

Re: Ask HN: Laid off folks, are you getting hired?

#116

Here's the flip side: I was hiring (at a stealth vc-funded startup). I reached out to every designer and coder laid off from Twitter and Amazon (one of my investors sent me a spreadsheet that those laid off folks added their contact info to). I didn't receive a single interested response to my reach outs. Now granted, I'm sure they were bombarded with lots of startup offers and being picky what company/stage they wer…

My observation is that recent layoffs affect engineers with different seniority very differently. Senior devs I know who got laid off are just enjoying their time off (with pay! if you consider the severance) after the rocketing market in 2021 (and maybe even H1 22) made them whole and financially secure. And they won't be entertaining a startup unless significant equity or big leveling up (eg Principal or Director).…

Furthermore, some very senior employees are in this boat: They kinda have enough savings to just retire, but were hanging on to their jobs to save maybe 10% more or whatever. Now that they're out of a job they are simply saying "Whelllp, I guess I'm now retired." and not really feeling the need to look anymore. I know someone who refused a forced return to office, and when his company tried to call his bluff, he just said "I guess I'm retired now!"

Re: Ask HN: Laid off folks, are you getting hired?

#117

I was a senior dev at a big tech and got laid off in November. I have applied to hundreds of places. Not a lot of responses. I have been doing interview preps the whole time. It has been very demoralizing and I am thinking of switching careers to something else. I have been considering skilled trades. I like carpentry in particular.

I moved to France at 60. For more than 20 years, I have developed software in vb and SQL, don't laugh. Two years ago, I found a job as a freelancer. It seems that my client is happy, month after month the contract is renewed. The daily rate is not among the highest but let me have a good life in France. I don't know how long this will last. The only problem is that I don't have time for my passion, woodworking with manual tools. Conclusion, there, there must be a solution for you as well.

Re: Ask HN: Laid off folks, are you getting hired?

#118

I was laid off in november, in vc. Looking for PM/Ops roles. Applied to a ton of stuff where I was a great fit, no answer or immediate rejection lol. I'm 8 years out of school and am not applying for roles that are unrealistic. I think the entire hiring/search process is so broken. Different applications, formats. Don't get me started on having to fill out sections in a form that are just resume sections (work experi…

>"Don't get me started on having to fill out sections in a form that are just resume sections"

I haven't been laid off but I've been dipping my toe in the past few months because I'm a bit bored in my current role.

The process is much more fiddly than it needs to be. When I run into those 'fill this out again for our system' forms, often times it's after a long day and I will just save it to come back to it later...and I never do.

I wonder how much talent mobility there'd be if someone really solved the issues of repetative job search data entry and just proving to strangers that you can excel in a role without running through an obstacle course that may or may not represent the actual job.

Re: Ask HN: Laid off folks, are you getting hired?

#120
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone with more carpentry experience (paid) than dev experience, but strong interests in both worlds, I’m curious how you would reconcile taking an approximate 50% reduction in comp. Don’t know the numbers for your area but knowing Bay Area salaries, senior devs make 2-2.5x journeyman carpenters.

I did that to work for a non-profit in a field I was a bit interested in. It's okay in the beginning but I soon started to regret the huge paycut. Wouldn't recommend.

Not to mention the toll it takes on your body.
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