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What SWE job hunting is like right now

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Re: What SWE job hunting is like right now

#31

Post by gustavus »

garlandkey wrote: post #23
cj wrote: post #16

As a hiring manager for a relatively small company, a major problem is misaligned salary expectations. Real world example: I recently interviewed an engineer hit by layoffs at Shopify/UPS. The candidate had 4 years of total work experience, and was making $175k in the role that she was let go from, and they won’t accept anything less when looking for a new role. With 4 years of total experience in the workforce. I wo…

4 years experience at 140k is an insult IMHO. You claim you can easily find ppl w 5+ years experience, but I find that claim dubious. What you're willing to pay and what value we add seem to be vastly different.

Wow that's quite the high and mighty response. I have about 10 years experience across multiple domains and can program across a dozen languages. You know what my salary sits around 150k.

You're attitude reflects part of the problem. There are a bunch of still relatively new people or especially boot camp grads that were sold on the always unrealistic expectation of making $150k right out of the gate. That was always a bubble that wasn't sustainable, but now a bunch of tech workers feel entitled to it rather than being willing to adjust to reality and be grateful for the fact that most of us can make over $100k relatively quickly. Compared to most other jobs in the US tech is still one of the best places to get into, I have a friend who has her master's degree and has been teaching for close to 15 years who is estatic about recently getting a raise to $75k. I have another friend that works as a project and procurement manager in the construction field and after 4 years and with a degree he was still making When all that is considered some new "full stack developer" (which really means "I can do JS so I can do full stack if you're backend is mongo your app server is Node and your fronted is React, no I can't do jQuery that was never covered in our 2 weeks on frontend") acting insulted at $140k sounds spoiled, whiney and entitled.

Re: What SWE job hunting is like right now

#32

Post by anonreeeeplor »

I have been interviewing. Everyone is confused right now. Hiring companies are confused. Recruits are confused.

My opinion is we are at a severe dislocation period.

I have noticed massive changes in the emerging skills, tools and platforms. Pretty much no code, low code and AI.

Everything else looks useless or outdated.

Meanwhile, tons of startups and big tech companies are dying and laying off.

The skills those people have are dramatically out of whack with what the market actually wants.

They are also dramatically out of whack compensation wise from what the current market will tolerate.

It means we have a flood of garbage and ultra talented people who can’t plug in anywhere.

The ultra talented person will laugh at the offers that employers are willing to make right now and turn them down.

Employers are not staffing senior or skilled hires and want to low ball the ultra talented people who want nothing to do with these corny offers and companies.

So basically employers think they will get someone “good” and underpay them and people who are actually good are not yet willing to capitulate.

And salaries are dropping by like 20-30%.

And anyone in the market who has seen their bills going up due to inflation will not tolerate a salary drop on top of a downlevel / demotion.

People who have debt and a family think the idea of a salary cut is crazy.

So with all the dead and dying startups, tons of people flooding the market, interview process going to hell, people getting upset about the salary and skills disconnects, rapid change in which projects are getting funded and which skills are in demand.

If you are unemployed right now you are likely to be in pain for six months and you will likely need a salary or career reset and you will likely need to reskill and possibly relocate.

That’s where we are.

Re: What SWE job hunting is like right now

#33

Post by danwee »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #28
cj wrote: post #16

As a hiring manager for a relatively small company, a major problem is misaligned salary expectations. Real world example: I recently interviewed an engineer hit by layoffs at Shopify/UPS. The candidate had 4 years of total work experience, and was making $175k in the role that she was let go from, and they won’t accept anything less when looking for a new role. With 4 years of total experience in the workforce. I wo…

> I would have loved to hire them at $120-140k, but for $175k I can easily find people with 5x more years of experience. Where are you easily finding someone with 20 years experience for 175k?

Europe probably.

Re: What SWE job hunting is like right now

#35

Post by CoastalCoder »

I'm 7 months into unemployment, so I've been doing a lot of job searching as well.

I too have noticed multiple, unrelated recruiting agencies advertising for the same position. This is the first time I recall seeing that. No idea what changed.

Location also seems to matter more than it did a few years ago. There definitely seem to be fewer employers open to fully-remote work.

Re: What SWE job hunting is like right now

#36

Post by anonreeeeplor »

cj wrote: post #16

As a hiring manager for a relatively small company, a major problem is misaligned salary expectations. Real world example: I recently interviewed an engineer hit by layoffs at Shopify/UPS. The candidate had 4 years of total work experience, and was making $175k in the role that she was let go from, and they won’t accept anything less when looking for a new role. With 4 years of total experience in the workforce. I wo…

My opinion is DEI hires are way out of whack with the market.

Low skilled / low talent in many cases and lower competence but in a ZIRP environment I saw so many situations where women and minorities were hired and given leadership roles, with massively streamlined hiring processes.

When the bottom line doesn’t matter these kinds of hires really proliferated.

I wonder if we will see a hard reset back to competence as the most in demand quality.

And yes I am assuming she is a DEI hire, $180K for four years of experience unless she was like a backend or ai engineer is crazy.

Re: What SWE job hunting is like right now

#37

Post by cj »

danwee wrote: post #33
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would have loved to hire them at $120-140k, but for $175k I can easily find people with 5x more years of experience. Where are you easily finding someone with 20 years experience for 175k?

Europe probably.

US remote node/react. I updated the original comment

Re: What SWE job hunting is like right now

#38

Post by ckdarby »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #28
cj wrote: post #16

As a hiring manager for a relatively small company, a major problem is misaligned salary expectations. Real world example: I recently interviewed an engineer hit by layoffs at Shopify/UPS. The candidate had 4 years of total work experience, and was making $175k in the role that she was let go from, and they won’t accept anything less when looking for a new role. With 4 years of total experience in the workforce. I wo…

> I would have loved to hire them at $120-140k, but for $175k I can easily find people with 5x more years of experience. Where are you easily finding someone with 20 years experience for 175k?

While they put 5x I think they meant to put 5

Re: What SWE job hunting is like right now

#39

Post by thry48593 »

Somewhat related, I heard from a contact that Accenture needed consultants with my skills in the US/Canada. I got a referral, and put was contacted by someone in HR.

I said I wanted to work in the US. They told me that they aren't sponsoring visas in the US right now. I was thinking, they're Accenture, how can this be possible?

Re: What SWE job hunting is like right now

#40

Post by CoastalCoder »

anonreeeeplor wrote: post #36
cj wrote: post #16

As a hiring manager for a relatively small company, a major problem is misaligned salary expectations. Real world example: I recently interviewed an engineer hit by layoffs at Shopify/UPS. The candidate had 4 years of total work experience, and was making $175k in the role that she was let go from, and they won’t accept anything less when looking for a new role. With 4 years of total experience in the workforce. I wo…

My opinion is DEI hires are way out of whack with the market. Low skilled / low talent in many cases and lower competence but in a ZIRP environment I saw so many situations where women and minorities were hired and given leadership roles, with massively streamlined hiring processes. When the bottom line doesn’t matter these kinds of hires really proliferated. I wonder if we will see a hard reset back to competence as…

I haven't checked the statistics, but I suspect you're mistaken about the DEI angle here.

Until about 1 year ago, I think many companies were paying new-ish software developers well north of $150k. Especially VC-funded companies.

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