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

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

#371

Post by bradlys » Wed, May 25, 2022, 5:01 AM UTC

scarface74 wrote: post #335

bradlys wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do people really even try to compare FAANG/SV-companies with random government org? In my experience and from talking to peers - random eng job in most parts of the country is less than or equal to $150k even for people with 10+ years. If you’re at FAANG with 10+ years - clearing $500k+ is reasonably accomplished. Sure - one of those is markedly higher than the average random person in the US - the other is in th…

Maybe because out of the 2.7 million developers in the US, most are “dark matter developers”? I know plenty of developers who “only” make $150K-$160k a year and are living in their nice house in the burbs with 2.1 kids, the white picket fence in the “good school system” with a spouse making decent money and don’t have a care in the world.

I think these folks are often very different than FAANG crew tbh. That’s why I say - why bother comparing. It’s not the same even remotely.

People I work with at FAANG-etc tend to be top 10 school, upper class upbringing, want to go even higher, etc.

It’s different. It’s what you’d expect from doctors. I think different types of personalities are attracted to SV than to rest of the country. We’ve built the stereotype around the Midwest developer than the SV one though. The SV ones are just so different in background and ambition.

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

#372

Post by tomatowurst » Wed, May 25, 2022, 5:04 AM UTC

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…

Unfortunately this will be a 3-sigma recession. Once every 100 year type of thing. The last one lasted 10 years followed by a major world war.

If you want to look at what happened to advanced economies that got a taste of credit bubbles Japan is a very good example. 40 years later and still have not reached their ATH.

So if that dot com bubble lasted 2 years, this recession will last a lot longer.

In addition the door is closing on entry level junior SWE positions other than FANG. Many businesses do not want fresh grads or bootcamp coders. The tools have gotten so good that they have automated/replaced much of the grunt work. So it is down to experience.

Generation Z is utterly screwed and its sad because they live in the product of the world created by our generation and the previous.

We are witnessing the beginning of the end of small governments. The only path to stability is no longer the markets but a large government that struggles with growing wealth gap, aging population, healthcare.

As in the past, 3-sigma recession was always followed by a global armed conflict. George Soros talk at Davos confirmed this.

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

#373

Post by mostertoaster » Wed, May 25, 2022, 5:17 AM UTC

skinnymuch wrote: post #295

PheonixPharts wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But would’ve they predicted the that value of those 300B US dollars would be worth so much less?

Many tech companies during COVID gained legitimate value, just like many housing markets, but most the increase in their US dollar price was simply the value of the dollar being less.

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

#374

Post by mise_en_place » Wed, May 25, 2022, 5:23 AM UTC

I’ll give you the same advice my father gave me when I was graduating. Be persistent. Don’t give up after one rejection. I’ll also add my mixin - be smart about how you network. That’s how I landed my first job, rather than blindly applying, though I did that too.

Being on the other side of the interviewing table, we really want to give you the job. Don’t give us a reason not to. I’m willing to let some syntactical things slide when doing the code interview if a candidate is a good behavioral fit (communicate!).

One thing you have to realize is that rising interest rates has led to a decrease in liquidity, especially when it comes to fundraising. So look for companies that have an ample runway, and ideally are profitable. Worst case grind out the leetcode and look for a FAGMAN job, a lot of teams are still hiring, but don’t bank on it.

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

#375

Post by scottlamb » Wed, May 25, 2022, 5:23 AM UTC

loeg wrote: post #277

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…

> On the bright side, it's rare for profitable large tech companies to lay off software engineers, so if you get in, you're pretty safe. Many profitable tech companies have small scale, approximately annual layoffs, even in a strong economy. That said, I agree in general.

Ahh, maybe you're right for other big tech companies. It was rare at Google. The only cases I remember involved "remote offices" (i.e. not Mountain View). In a couple cases, they closed whole offices (Atlanta) and folks had to relocate or leave. Similarly, sometimes offices gave up whole projects ("defragging"), so folks had to find a new project or leave.

(btw, it would have been easier to meet diversity goals if they'd kept the Atlanta office open, but that's a whole other thread.)

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

#376

Post by UncleEntity » Wed, May 25, 2022, 5:25 AM UTC

giaour wrote: post #285

daxfohl wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think what's looming feels worse than 2000. 2000 was just a hype bubble of the previous 2-3 years that burst. That actually worked out great for me, as my company just offered unpaid-but-full-benefits sabbaticals. This feels like the debt bubble that was launched by Reaganomics is now imploding, we're reeling back into the 70s stagflation with lame-duck / impeached leaders, increasing inner-city violence, race riot…

I don't know about your experience, but 2008 was devastating to people just starting out in their careers. So far, the current economic situation feels mild in comparison.

Just before ‘08 fuel prices sharply rose because OPEC was fucking around.

Currently, fuel prices sharply rose because Russia is fucking around which is also causing food prices to rise due to fertilizers and a lot of grain not able to make it to market.

I can tell you from the last time when people couldn’t afford to buy gas to get to work and they were interviewing truckers on national news programs on how they will have to park their trucks if fuel prices go any higher things are definitely heading in the wrong direction.

Add in inflationary pressures eating away at peoples’ reserve savings (those lucky enough not to be living paycheck to paycheck) and things are probably not as mild as they seem if you have some cushy job sitting behind a computer screen — just saying to put it in perspective not trying to insult anyone, the “view from the trenches” is vastly different IMHO.

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

#377

Post by foobiekr » Wed, May 25, 2022, 5:34 AM UTC

tick_tock_tick wrote: post #226

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #93

I'm not surprised (unfortunately, and I am truly sorry for this). Don't look to the 2008 recession for an idea of how things may go. Look to the 2000 (Tech Bubble Burst) recession. In that one, the bottom dropped out of the tech market. Web designers were especially hard hit. I have family that works for Intel, and they say that Intel tends to actually increase hiring in bear markets. I suspect that's because they ar…

Biggest difference between now at 2000 is companies have real customers and revenue. 2000 was a completely different beast and conditions that set that off aren't anywhere close. Doesn't mean it can't get bad but 2000 is not the place to look for a playbook.

This is true. The biggest issue imho is people expecting their comp to be unimpacted. A company like DoorDash or Uber has a ton of revenue, for sure, Uber just loses a ton every quarter. They won’t go out of business but they may drop another 90+% in value from here.

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

#378

Post by DeathArrow » Wed, May 25, 2022, 5:39 AM UTC

I am still finding in my inbox lots of job proposals almost daily. But I don't live in US.

We don't know yet if are living a crisis or a recession. Until many people lose their jobs, sales of goods and services take a big hit and real estate colapses hard, we don't experience a crisis. But even if that is true, if we are experiencing the start of a crisis, I guess hiring for SWE roles will might slow a bit, but that won't make finding a job very hard.

Startups, unicorns and multibillion companies which had inflated stock prices might be more prudent now when hiring.

But apart for that there is a huge number of companies with an even greater need for SWE.

If you think a crisis might come, just ask yourself what industries/corners will be affected. What will people do in a crisis? Would they watch as much Netflix? Probably no, since they have to pay money. Will they still buy food, search google, use facebook and twitter, need insurance and banking? Probably yes.

Will old, "boring" industries, which are not hi tech, but are now on the rise such as oil and financial services need to hire SWEs? I am sure they will need.

IT is much more than startups, unicorns and FAANGS. These are just a drop in the ocean.

And if you want a great job security, you might find out that your national and local governments and state owned institutions are hiring SWE roles, too.

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

#379

Post by dragonwriter » Wed, May 25, 2022, 5:40 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.

> > 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. T

If you think its hard to find, I suspect you haven’t worked in or around government much.

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

#380

Post by DeathArrow » Wed, May 25, 2022, 5:43 AM UTC

sulam wrote: post #310

Solvitieg wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. The demand for software engineers was driven partly by zombie app and saas companies all competing for "top talent", dependent entirely on free cash but without sustainable business models. On top of that, the "demand" n…

There are risks, yes, but fundamentally we are still an industry that has a lot of upside, vs many others. In a recession many businesses will contract, but it's a rare large tech company that will do more than pause some forms of spending. Even when you hear that hiring is paused at the big tech companies, they will usually still be backfilling departures, and they won't be doing significant layoffs. The exceptions…

>The exceptions are companies with large service-based businesses that may or not qualify as tech companies based on your definition.

Like Amazon and Netflix? And if companies are spending less for online ads, that can hit Google and Facebook, too.