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Panic at the Job Market

matt.sh

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Re: Panic at the Job Market

#271

Post by codr7 »

trogdor wrote: post #228
morgante wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's absurd. He has no concept of market rates (and frankly I'm unsurprised that he's not getting hired if his expectations are this out of whack). His resume even confirms this[0], because he seemingly thinks the appropriate level at FAANG would be L10 which is extremely rare . There is a 0% chance that his experience would level him that high. The entire article can be chocked up to a massively inflated sense of en…

Oh. My. God. His resume starts with a quote of himself stating that he has “seen things you people wouldn't believe.” It goes on to highlight that he purchased a domain name in 1997. He claims to have developed “the highest performing in-memory database in the world” but complains that “nobody really wants to buy it when free worse performing choies [sic] exist.” The part about nobody wanting to buy his product is in…

Any reasonably observant individual could claim the same at this point.

The rest sounds like high flying BS to my ears, isolating yourself has consequences.

Re: Panic at the Job Market

#272

Post by UncleOxidant »

jldugger wrote: post #168
evrimoztamur wrote: post #23

I will add my two cents for people who believe that this might be related only to the SWE and tangent industries: It's really not. I have many friends (in Europe) who are trying to get through to different jobs in unrelated industries ranging from finance to fashion, or just trying to get promoted vertically (or horizontally), failing rather miserably. Most jobs are now hoops after hoops, not taking into consideratio…

> I have many friends (in Europe) EU kind of in a recession though. And there's a well known link between interest rates and unemployment. So it's really not surprising to hear that employment in the EU is harder after the ECB raised rates. And good news: they're lowering them now. What really needs explaining is why, despite the unusually strong general US job market[1] for several years now, the US tech market spec…

> If you do three years worth of hiring in one single year, eventually you need to pause

Yep, a lot of demand (for tech labor) was pulled forward. The other aspect to consider for the last year or so is that some higher up folks who make decisions to hire people seem to have become convinced that AI is going to (or already is) enable them to get by with fewer engineering heads.

Re: Panic at the Job Market

#273

Post by codr7 »

cellis wrote: post #132
LordDragonfang wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>At one point he’s claiming that a stable non tech company like a tractor manufacturer is paying 5k-10k For anyone that came to the comments before the article, it claims that number is per day

He claims further down that some make 50k per day. I've met a lot of cashed out founders. I've even met someone who could be called a billionaire. None of them were pure software engineers that made "50k per day" at any point in their career. If you amortize what becomes a 50m grant over 4 years it's about 35k per day, but how many software engineers have done that?

Yeah, smells more like wishful FB BS to me.

Re: Panic at the Job Market

#274

Post by matwood »

jldugger wrote: post #168
evrimoztamur wrote: post #23

I will add my two cents for people who believe that this might be related only to the SWE and tangent industries: It's really not. I have many friends (in Europe) who are trying to get through to different jobs in unrelated industries ranging from finance to fashion, or just trying to get promoted vertically (or horizontally), failing rather miserably. Most jobs are now hoops after hoops, not taking into consideratio…

> I have many friends (in Europe) EU kind of in a recession though. And there's a well known link between interest rates and unemployment. So it's really not surprising to hear that employment in the EU is harder after the ECB raised rates. And good news: they're lowering them now. What really needs explaining is why, despite the unusually strong general US job market[1] for several years now, the US tech market spec…

> proper explanation (which I didn't find skimming the article) needs to cover why tech is more influenced by that than say travel & leisure sectors.

It's really about the difference between the Risk Free Rate (RFR) and return. Increasing interest rates increases the RFR. A few years ago the RFR was ~0% and even went negative in some places, and now it's ~5%. For an investor to invest in a company the risk premium now has ~5% added. This means even companies like Google, Apple, Meta, etc... must cut costs in order to maintain their current stock price. Since most costs are labor, that's what gets cut.

It impacts startups the same way. Sitting on cash is earning 5% now, so the potential must be that much better to get someone to invest.

The reason tech is more impacted is that the multiples are higher. You can think of a multiple like leverage. Every dollar invested in tech might move 5x-10x more than every dollar in travel. It's great when things are going up, but not great during a correction.

Re: Panic at the Job Market

#275

Post by [deleted] »

Peroni wrote: post #86

Hiring people (mostly engineers) has been my full-time job now for about 15 years and I found myself emphatically agreeing with a lot of Matt's criticisms of modern hiring. Most tech interviews are as relevant to job performance as if hiring a baker required interviewing them about how electron orbitals bind worked gluten together then rejecting bakers who don’t immediately draw a valid orbital configuration. Matt's…

[deleted]

Re: Panic at the Job Market

#276

Post by codr7 »

wnolens wrote: post #154
masterj wrote: post #39

There might be some good points buried in this post, but all I get is bitterness without much self-reflection. They seem like they'd be difficult to work with and would blame you for it.

I stopped at (paraphrased): "I've never passed a coding interview. Coding interviews hire the wrong people!"

I actually agree, all coding interviews I've been though were a complete waste of time for everyone involved.

Re: Panic at the Job Market

#277

Post by Terr_ »

> By the power of drawing two lines, we see correlation is causation and you can’t argue otherwise

Pretty sure author is being tongue-in-cheek, but I went and checked and that's the maximum range of the job-postings-by-indeed dataset (Early 2020 to present) so it's not possible to do a longer-term comparison. [0]

This is unfortunate since the other chart [1] has more history and some interesting changes right-before-then, which could have either helped confirm or explode this correlation.

That said we don't have to look at "job postings", what about actual employment? That's a lot more even-keeled and boring looking. [2]

[0] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/IHLIDXUSTPSOFTDEVE

[1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DFF

[2] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LEU0254477200A

Re: Panic at the Job Market

#278

Post by xtracto »

masterj wrote: post #39

There might be some good points buried in this post, but all I get is bitterness without much self-reflection. They seem like they'd be difficult to work with and would blame you for it.

Right, I started reading but felt the bitter tone of the 115k word rant early on.

It seems to be basically rambling to the point of showing a picture of himself to prove he exercises??

To each their own but, I wonder if his failure in interviews is not a skills issue but an attitude one...

Re: Panic at the Job Market

#279

Post by fallinditch »

The current state of the tech job market, as discussed here, highlights a significant opportunity for grassroots innovation. While we're focusing on the challenges, we might be overlooking the potential for creating new, more resilient models of work and business.

Consider the rise of digital cooperatives or platform co-ops. These could provide an alternative to the traditional tech company structure, offering workers more control and stability. Imagine a software development co-op where members collectively own the platform and share in its profits, or a data analysis cooperative that serves multiple industries while ensuring fair compensation and work-life balance for its members.

Another avenue could be the formation of tech guilds or collectives. These could function as support networks for freelancers and contract workers, providing shared resources, negotiating power, and continuous learning opportunities. This model could be particularly effective in emerging fields like AI ethics or sustainable tech, where collaboration and knowledge-sharing are crucial.

We might also see the emergence of "tech for good" startups focusing on solving social and environmental issues. These could attract talent disillusioned with Big Tech and looking for more meaningful work.

The key is to leverage the current market disruption to create structures that prioritize worker well-being, sustainable growth, and societal benefit. Instead of waiting for the next big company to hire us, maybe it's time we started building the future of work ourselves.

What do others think? Are there other innovative models we should be exploring in response to the current market conditions?

Re: Panic at the Job Market

#280

Post by electromech »

JohnMakin wrote: post #238

Agree with a lot of this and have seen a lot of similar stuff as a former developer gone cloud infra guy for most of my career now. The core problem, as he gets to in a lot of this, is that if you work on infra, you are seen as a pure cost, and not adding anything to "revenue" or "product" (which is of course false). One of the most common patterns in hiring I see now is so exasperating it drives me to despair someti…

I had that experience this week, but with $X as a job title instead of a technology.

Hiring manager: "I see your resume doesn't list 'Frontend Developer'."

Me: "I haven't had that exact title, but I have years of experience building front-end applications using the tools you listed."

Hiring manager: "Hm, it seems like you might not have enough experience as a 'Frontend Developer' for what we need."

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