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Software engineering job openings hit five-year low?

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Re: Software engineering job openings hit five-year low?

#261

Post by cudgy »

ben_w wrote: post #215
cudgy wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like maybe you’re from Europe? And have a frustration with foreign companies in the US. This further demonstrates that globalism as we’ve seen it with “free” trade is largely coming to a new era with strong headwinds, and it’s not just the US citizenry that wants that. The people that are pro H1B in the US, even given that more than half of the positions hired are foreign-born, are ignoring a stark reality tha…

That description is painting me with primary colours, but yes, I'm from Europe. Chose to stay in the EU, post-Brexit, rather than stay in the UK or to move to the US. I think that the internet is incompatible with late 20th century models of national sovereignty. Globalisation itself isn't the problem, it's that services performed across an international border have a very messy relationship with legal obligations, e…

Interesting points. Totally agree with you on big tech companies simply treating fines as cost of business instead of operating in good faith within the confines of the legal requirements in the countries where they do business.

The EU is fine with tariffs as well though. It’s not a US only activity. However, the US has a history of tariffs as income tax wasn’t even in existence until early 20th century. I’m interested to see what impacts tariffs are going to play as it does seem a reasonable tool for sovereign nations to utilize. Otherwise, how else do they prevent the hollowing out of their working class in countries that do not provide the cheapest labor? Libertarian types will simply say pick up your bootstraps and compete, but that’s not realistic against labor that is a fraction of their cost. Protectionist measures may be the only logical response for the working class to be protected.

Re: Software engineering job openings hit five-year low?

#262

Post by ozim »

dyauspitr wrote: post #222
ozim wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If capital gains tax is 15% that 5% on let’s say $1mil is $50k that is not „almost as much” if you can pay 10%. You are not getting rich by throwing $50k to trash.

10% compounded which means it gets much closer to 15%

Not going to argue back and forth - as I don’t have any knowledge on those deals.

But I don’t believe they get 10% more like 2-3% and most likely they pay back any amount as soon as their stock value goes up to cover the loan not to accumulate compounding.

They have deals normal people don’t get. For banks those are free and sure money deals as well.

Re: Software engineering job openings hit five-year low?

#263

Post by ben_w »

cudgy wrote: post #261
ben_w wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That description is painting me with primary colours, but yes, I'm from Europe. Chose to stay in the EU, post-Brexit, rather than stay in the UK or to move to the US. I think that the internet is incompatible with late 20th century models of national sovereignty. Globalisation itself isn't the problem, it's that services performed across an international border have a very messy relationship with legal obligations, e…

Interesting points. Totally agree with you on big tech companies simply treating fines as cost of business instead of operating in good faith within the confines of the legal requirements in the countries where they do business. The EU is fine with tariffs as well though. It’s not a US only activity. However, the US has a history of tariffs as income tax wasn’t even in existence until early 20th century. I’m interest…

> The EU is fine with tariffs as well though. It’s not a US only activity.

Indeed, I don't wish to imply otherwise, I'm just saying it's a bit hypocritical to complain about something being taxed when also implementing a tax of the kind being complained about — even if the thing being complained about is actually a fine rather than a tax, complaining about it as if it were a tax makes it hypocritical. (Also, it's not like the US doesn't fine businesses for not following laws).

I, too, have no idea how this will play out. Even just from what you say, and ignoring the potential bull-in-the-China-shop that would be the economic impact of AI performing useful cognitive labour at below-subsistence-farming wages.

Re: Software engineering job openings hit five-year low?

#264

Post by addicted »

dyauspitr wrote: post #117
jjeaff wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Returns are no longer the actual goal. The actual goal is the perception of far reaching future returns. The perception of those returns is much more valuable than the actual returns. Because the wealthy don't want profits and dividends that get taxed. They want ever increasing stock prices so they can continuously grow their asset base to borrow against so they can never sell said assets this triggering capital gain…

The 10% interest they would have to pay on the loans is almost as much as the capital gains would be.

An ordinary person with decent credit would not pay 10% on a loan.

A reasonably rich person with good credit is paying nowhere near that.

And a very rich person with great credit and who will put their assets up as collateral is paying low single digits in interest, if even.

Re: Software engineering job openings hit five-year low?

#265

Post by johnnyanmac »

addicted wrote: post #264
dyauspitr wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 10% interest they would have to pay on the loans is almost as much as the capital gains would be.

An ordinary person with decent credit would not pay 10% on a loan. A reasonably rich person with good credit is paying nowhere near that. And a very rich person with great credit and who will put their assets up as collateral is paying low single digits in interest, if even.

The feds interest rate is still 4.5% right now. And a lot of companies are preparing for a headwind (which also means very rich people don't want to put assets up). Despite people trying to pretend otherwise, we're not in a very flowing economy right now.

But yes. If you're very ambitious and very rich, you can probably find a decent loan for your idea. This odd economic situation is ripe for uncontested disruption, but has an extremely high cost of entry (hence, being unconstested).

Re: Software engineering job openings hit five-year low?

#266

Post by johnnyanmac »

selcuka wrote: post #12
andro_dev wrote: post #7

The number of job postings means nothing. 75% of the job postings are either scam or ghost postings.

Also the same jobs are advertised multiple times, with completely different wording, by multiple recruitment companies.

I had an interview process frozen because of a hiring freeze a few months back. Then news of layoffs occured, predictably.

Last week I see the exact job I applied to posted yet again. Ghost jobs really need to be punished. If you aren't actively talking to candidates within X days of posting or are reposting a job before Y days, there needs to be some disincenive to not do that.

Re: Software engineering job openings hit five-year low?

#267

Post by johnnyanmac »

willmadden wrote: post #72
addicted wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any H1B related postings are a tiny fraction of the postings by recruiters and recruitment agencies trying to build up their databases, and companies wanting to look like they’re continuing to grow.

I follow this topic closely and I disagree that it is a tiny fraction.

I'm a part of the circus, and I don't think many of these have h1-b code smells to it. Companies just wanna hype up AI or whatever and make less people do more work.

If this has general ghost jobs caught in the crossfire too, that'd be amazing. Just don't waste my time on something you already know doesn't exist.

Re: Software engineering job openings hit five-year low?

#268

Post by johnnyanmac »

senordevnyc wrote: post #233
andro_dev wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not a Trump supporter and I didn't vote for him, but the fact is that Biden's BLS numbers were always manipulated to portray the former president as successful. These statistics are unreliable, in addition, the underlying premise of relying on job postings was flawed from the start which was my initial argument. Take a look at this, the previous administration hired hundreds of thousands of gov workers to inflat…

Doesn't pass the smell test since the chart for government employees clearly includes more than just Federal. The Federal workforce is about 3mm, but that graph shows 23mm [1], so it clearly can't just be Federal employees. EDIT: here you go, just looking at Federal employees [2]: Jan 2021: 2.89 million Jan 2025: 3.02 million The Federal government added ~130k employees over the four years that Biden was in office, a…

Yeah, I know FRED is a legit source, but I have absolutely horrible experiences everytime some internet rando is trying to interpret their charts. Just two random FRED charts with marker ink on them already was sending red flags.

Re: Software engineering job openings hit five-year low?

#269

Post by johnnyanmac »

DanielHB wrote: post #234
noahjk wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Feels a bit chicken-and-egg - if I live in, say, Brazil, and I know that there isn't a great market for good devs here, will I put in the effort to become a good dev? If I really have a passion for dev work, will I try to move or work freelance? Not that you're implying it, but I think it's fair to point out that people in ex. Brazil aren't worse at dev work, just that there is probably lower incentive to be good.

My point was, there ARE opportunities in Brazil that don't involve working in a slave outsourcing factory. Even individual remote dev contracts are not always the top tier of talent. The real good talent working remotely from Brazil is probably working for startups in silicon valley not your average mid US company. Just as you compete for top talent locally you also compete for top talent globally when hiring remote.…

I think GP's point was that the best devs don't stay in Brazil, even if some can pay decently for Brazil. Whether those people not staying in Brazil are signifigant is only guesswork.

Re: Software engineering job openings hit five-year low?

#270

Post by johnnyanmac »

_fizz_buzz_ wrote: post #131
xienze wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And now since WFH has become the norm in the US, employers are realizing there’s no need to pay to keep employees in the U.S. and outsourcing to significantly cheaper locations instead. “Whoa we can do this cheaper in another country???” is not a new phenomenon. Companies have been trying to do this for literally decades at this point. The reason so many jobs still exist in the US is because it doesn’t end up worki…

The work force abroad has caught up a lot though. Online learning has made it much easier to improve skills and their English has also improved. And since everyone has become more used to remote work, communication is also much better now. One reason a lot of outsourcing efforts in the early 90s failed was also because the Indian teams weren't properly kept in the loop.

Core issues haven't changed, though. major timezone differences, still some communication gap for technical discussions, and (for some cultures) a different approach to how to work and deliver on tasks. And of course, American suits still go for the cheapest bid instead of focusing on quality and efficiency.
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