Tell HN: Job interview canceled due to looming recession • Hacker News Board

Re: Tell HN: Job interview canceled due to looming recession

#291

Post by evrydayhustling » Wed, May 25, 2022, 1:47 AM UTC

- All companies will be impacted, but smaller ones more and unprofitable high growth ones more. YC companies are at the extreme of both of these and aren't your gauge on the larger market. Figure out which kinds of larger and more secure businesses you can enjoy and learn something from working for during your first years out of school.

- Make a plan for how to reset expectations for your career (your and others!) in three years. You don't want recession decisions and salaries to define your career. You can clean the slate by getting and advanced degree, actively pursuing a management track, or developing an on the job specialty

- You are going to be fine. Having a four year degree and SWE training puts you ahead farther than the recession puts you behind. This sucks relative to your plans, but you can broaden the perspective and feel fortunate that you're not someone with less demand and mobility in the same environment. This timing isnt fair but others have been here and still prospered -- you will too!

Re: Tell HN: Job interview canceled due to looming recession

#292

Post by ge96 » Wed, May 25, 2022, 1:50 AM UTC

Solvitieg wrote: post #278

iepathos wrote: post #242

This is not the situation for any startups who have already secured funding with a decent runway for expansion. As a software engineer, you're living in a golden age for your profession. Most tech companies are offering significantly higher salaries and bonuses now than pre-pandemic. There are not nearly enough engineers to fulfill the needs of all the successful tech companies. Best advice I can give you is to make…

This post comes off as dated. What you're describing is how the market was in summer 2021. Not spring 2022. The paradigm shift occurred in March and the sentiment continues to chill each week. Any signs of a "golden age" are the remnants of decision making that occurred sometime in 2021.

> The paradigm shift occurred in March...

Where can I watch to see updates on this topic? Stock market I guess? Is this due to Ukraine/China (production reliance) or just the aftermath of pandemic?

Re: Tell HN: Job interview canceled due to looming recession

#293

Post by kabdib » Wed, May 25, 2022, 1:51 AM UTC

30944836 wrote: post #236

jedberg wrote: post #223

I dropped out of school in 1999, and got laid off in 2001 at the start of that recession. I couldn't get a job in 2001 or 2002, so I went back to school and got scholarships to live off of, and graduated in 2003. Recession was still ongoing but I got lucky and had a friend from the first job help me get a job, but other than that, I wasn't getting a lot of interviews. I had friends who were getting hired and then lai…

>had a friend from the first job help me get a job This is the part of the story that OP needs to key in on. OP: Network. Network Network Network. I've been at 2 FAANG in 7 years. I don't write code. I make good money. Friends got me jobs both times. Do whatever you have to do to make friends with people in the industry where you want to work. Go to the bars they hang out in. Go to meet-ups. Go to lectures open to th…

All but one of the jobs I've had in my 4+ decades of mucking with computers have been through networking. (Even the gig I had as a dishwasher in high school was a referral through a friend).

That one job that I got at a generic Silly Valley job fair? It was the place where I learned the term "Train Wreck".

Network, network, network. Oh yeah.

Re: Tell HN: Job interview canceled due to looming recession

#294

Post by xyst » Wed, May 25, 2022, 1:54 AM UTC

if all goes to shit, just apply to work at fb/google/amazon/apple. These companies are recession proof. Rotate through many teams until you find one you like.

Re: Tell HN: Job interview canceled due to looming recession

#295

Post by skinnymuch » Wed, May 25, 2022, 1:55 AM UTC

PheonixPharts wrote: post #275

scottlamb wrote: post #196

> I hope some experienced people in the industry can give some hope and advice. Is demoralizing to find out I spent 4 years in school just to get into a really harsh job market. First pandemic, then recession? F... Overall, I'd say relax a bit. You're still in a good situation. Recessions are hard for many, but software engineers were among the best off during the last one and I expect will be this time also. > I wan…

Software will be fine for people who are in an unknown top X% of developers out there. Depending on how bad this is that might be the top 80%, it might be the top 1%. The industry is so crazy now because of the last recession. Investors didn't know where to put their money after the real estate collapse and they decided to pour it all into funding startups hoping, at all costs, to catch the next Facebook. We're start…

Most people in 2010 would’ve taken a $500B or even $300B market cap FB as a major tech company right now without any expectation of getting too much bigger than that ever. $300B, $400B, $500B are still top 25, 15, and 10 in the world today.

Re: Tell HN: Job interview canceled due to looming recession

#296

Post by blindmute » Wed, May 25, 2022, 1:57 AM UTC

travisgriggs wrote: post #222

I have felt that for some time we are headed for a market over saturation situation like the 80's when everyone got Electrical Engineering degrees, and then it all collapsed. I know lots of people who have quit other careers to go the BootCamp route to get in on the movement. I've worried for some time this can't be sustainable.

You just have to work at any sub 200k job to realize that while we are oversaturated with devs, we are by no means saturated with skilled ones

Re: Tell HN: Job interview canceled due to looming recession

#297

Post by heavyset_go » Wed, May 25, 2022, 1:58 AM UTC

gruez wrote: post #272

heavyset_go wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interest rates were raised and there seems to be a concerted effort to blame inflation on higher wages and low unemployment, so those are being dealt with with hiring freezes: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/why-the-fed-wants-corporate-a...

...except the fed doesn't have the authority to enact hiring freezes. They can raise interest rates which might cause hiring freezes, but it's also a policy tool with wide ranging effects so saying inflation is being "dealt with with hiring freezes" is still a bad characterization.

The article is about leadership in financial institutions choosing to interpret the Fed's policy and rhetoric about inflation as "hiring freezes to reduce inflation caused by rising wages and employment rates, please". I didn't say that the Fed is forcing anyone to do anything, just that there is a concerted effort to portray a cause and a solution to inflation in a certain way, seemingly coming down from the Fed.

Re: Tell HN: Job interview canceled due to looming recession

#298

Post by chipgap98 » Wed, May 25, 2022, 2:00 AM UTC

ge96 wrote: post #292

Solvitieg wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This post comes off as dated. What you're describing is how the market was in summer 2021. Not spring 2022. The paradigm shift occurred in March and the sentiment continues to chill each week. Any signs of a "golden age" are the remnants of decision making that occurred sometime in 2021.

> The paradigm shift occurred in March... Where can I watch to see updates on this topic? Stock market I guess? Is this due to Ukraine/China (production reliance) or just the aftermath of pandemic?

You can also read the news of tech layoffs and hiring freezes

Re: Tell HN: Job interview canceled due to looming recession

#299

Post by tjr225 » Wed, May 25, 2022, 2:00 AM UTC

angarg12 wrote: post #280

I always get flak for this but here we go anyway: the key is to manage expectations in the short term. First realize that the market you know is far from the norm. We were at the end of the longest bull run in history and the hottest tech job market in memory. These are things you can kiss good bye for a while: eye popping salaries with little experience, kombucha on tap and Prosecco Friday, headcount doubling every…

Of course, there will be winners and losers in any situation.

Re: Tell HN: Job interview canceled due to looming recession

#300

Post by twblalock » Wed, May 25, 2022, 2:04 AM UTC

rhexs wrote: post #262

dragonwriter wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Software companies, even FAANGs, can be very relaxed and comfortable places to work And government can be very not relaxed, in both the same and different ways to high-pressure industry jobs.

Sure, but that's going to be about as rare as finding a mythical high pay, low stress, 0 pip job in famously negative companies. They absolutely exist, but there's almost no point in talking about them.

This is untrue in my experience.

I know several people who have worked as software engineers for local governments in California for the better part of a decade. Both of them had previously worked for large tech companies which you have definitely heard of. They both preferred the work environment of the private sector and there was a lot of stress in their government jobs over the same things that stress people out anywhere: interpersonal relations, bad management, deadlines, projects going off the rails, etc.

That stress was harder to deal with than it should have been, at those government jobs, because the environment is less flexible and a lot of the coworkers are, shall we say, not exactly top talent and underperformers stick around until they retire -- a PIP process would have been very handy! The level of drama at those jobs, over things that would be considered minor issues where I work, was unreasonable.

On the contrary, I have been at a large tech company for almost 5 years and I usually stop working between 5 and 6pm. I see the parking lot empty out around the time I'm leaving, so I know it's not just me. I've worked on a weekend twice, and one of those times I volunteered to do it. I have never been on call. I work in an org that employs hundreds of engineers and I know that most of them have a good work-life balance too -- and those who work on the high pressure teams have chosen to do so.