161–170 of 451 posts
I can't find another job even with a FAANG background. The market is brutal. Maybe my only choice is to start a startup.
The biggest reason I've seen FAANG candidates (mostly Google, FB, and Amazon) get rejected is too much experience with proprietary technology, esp. if they've been there a long time, like 5+ years. I've even spoke to some FAANG candidates who think their internal proprietary tech is widely known or commercial products.
I can't find another job even with a FAANG background. The market is brutal. Maybe my only choice is to start a startup.
Are you expecting a salary similar to the one you were getting at a FAANG though? Because that seems to be the main issue - FAANG people thinking they're worth way more than they actually are.
I find your tone concerning, considering there's something driving wages down (which if you're a wage worker should make you squirm regardless of how much you make). I feel some resentment against fellow workers (because it doesn't matter how much you make, if you MUST work to live, you're a worker), but it doesn't matter. Wages aren't tied to worth, or the value added to the business. If this was true, extrapolating from the sheer amount of money FAANG companies make, these compensation ranges should actually be higher.
Wages are tied to the 'market', basically what companies are willing to pay. If they cartelize (like they did with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L...) they can drive wages down. I wouldn't be surprised if we find out in the future that something similar is happening today, but I'm not wearing my tin foil hat yet..
Edit: Just to be clear, I don't work in a FAANG company.
> John Deere, an American tractor-maker, has been snapping up fired tech workers to help it make smarter farm machinery. Oh yay. Who wants to work for a company that is actively antagonistic against its own customer base?
One thing that is very important to realize after being laid-off from a very big company during a recession is that you need to adjust your salary expectations for the new reality. And the other thing is that you should have been prepared for this a long, long time ago. Economic cycles are a thing, it is in all history books, there's no excuse for not being aware of them. I have always been very very conservative wit…
Actual wealth comes from having ownership in wealth generating assets.
You can act rich for a season off of a big paycheck but you'll soon be back to poverty if your money isn't converted into value generating assets.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The most shocking thing to me I’ve observed during my career is how many good technologists lack empathy. I hazard it’s because the same neurological structure that optimizes for what makes a good dev/technologist is also what makes empathy and social skills lacking, very broadly speaking. You can learn/fake it with enough time and practice (I’ve met those who do), it just doesn’t seem to be that common of a hack. ht…
A lot of people discover that they can get respect despite being an asshole if they're skilled enough. You see this pattern of behaviour in all disciplines, but in tech it seems that social skills are less important than elsewhere so those types are attracted to the field, and we've also cultivated a culture that glorifies people who are assholes but are also visionaries - Jobs/Musk/Zuckerberg etc.
We actually tracked every laid off individual from Google to understand the story behind the layoffs. Here's the summary: - 747 out of the 2,762 laid-off Googlers have since updated their profiles to indicate a change of employment status in the last 4 months since November 2022. - Only 56.7% of these people joined a tech company. - 1/3 of these ex-Googlers joined startups. See the full blog post here: https://nubela…
> Only 56.7% of these people joined a tech company. There’s a very good chance that their new jobs are similar to their former jobs. Unfortunately, the term “tech” has become diluted to the point of worthlessness. Every company of any size needs programming, statistics, and such. Conversely many companies swept under the “tech” term don’t develop any technology at all. It’s so bad that actual technology development i…
But since there wasn't any good words to use to describe the practical application of computer science and other skills related to computers, we just used the term "information technology". Because, it's relatively descriptive. Computers are technology to leverage information. Everything related to getting computers to exchange information would be considered technology related to that.
But then it gets shortened to "IT" and just "tech". Networking is "tech", software is "tech", hardware is "tech".
I've come to disregard anything that bills itself as simply "tech". It's smoke and mirrors. You're looking to gussy up something that would otherwise be banal.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm running into this with increasing frequency, particularly people coming from Amazon. For example, they know nothing about something like Kafka because they've been using some Amazonified version of something similar instead. They of course we'll never be able to match what they used to make and it would be more risk than I want to take to have them use us as a stepping stone while they try to get back to that lev…
You can learn everything most devs need to know about Kafka in a couple hours. I can't imagine why companies would ever hire based on current knowledge rather than problem solving skills and ability to learn.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Zero of my friends laid off from google are even looking for a new job. My wife was always asking me to retire, but after a year or so she’d say “it would be good for you to have a job”. Then repeat. Retiring isn’t that fun when you’re in your 30s. So I suspect a bunch of them will be back in the job market eventually.
> Retiring isn’t that fun when you’re in your 30s I would kill to retire. All I want to do is make art, music, cook, hike, kayak, and travel on the cheap. I have about.... 1/20th of the savings needed.
We actually tracked every laid off individual from Google to understand the story behind the layoffs. Here's the summary: - 747 out of the 2,762 laid-off Googlers have since updated their profiles to indicate a change of employment status in the last 4 months since November 2022. - Only 56.7% of these people joined a tech company. - 1/3 of these ex-Googlers joined startups. See the full blog post here: https://nubela…
“every laid off individual” should be “every laid off individual with a LinkedIn account”.
Finally the market is correcting themself. Software engineers aren't worth more than any other engineers.
I kinda agree with this sentiment, I've certainly known plenty of software engineers who weren't half what they were getting paid, mostly juniors but also a few seniors. But I've also known plenty of software engineers who were worth every cent. However, I'd argue the bigger problem is other engineers are underpaid, especially considering many types of engineering require a strong grasp of advanced mathematics and ph…