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Panic at the Job Market

matt.sh

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Re: Panic at the Job Market

#371

Post by -mlv »

emptysongglass wrote: post #71
Matticus_Rex wrote: post #15

Wild that explanations of the tech job market like this are still being written without referencing the tax consequences of Section 174 changes.

On the other hand, how would anyone have heard about this? This is the very first time I'm hearing anything about Section 174. Plus, this doesn't really explain Europe's tech sector dumping, since from a quick search this is entirely an American thing. So maybe you're just as wrong as anyone else?

Lots of European tech work is just offshoring/outsourcing for US companies. S174 affects them to an even higher degree since foreign software development has to be amortized not over 5 years, but over 15 years.

Re: Panic at the Job Market

#372

Post by bostik »

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…

> 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.

I am fully aware that this may sound emphatically void, but what the devs in the rest of EU are going through right now looks a lot like what the hiring scene was in Finland back in the 1990's and 2000's.

And yes, it is f##king brutal. If the outcomes are anything close, the eventual survivors will be cynical enough to make current HN look like kindergarten full of delusional optimists.

Re: Panic at the Job Market

#373

Post by downrightmike »

Stratoscope wrote: post #370

The best part of this piece is the link to the Wired article about The Melt: https://www.wired.com/story/how-the-trendiest-grilled-cheese... If you hit a paywall, clear the site cookies and reload, or read it here: https://archive.is/GmXWM Oh, The Melt has a location in Stanford Shopping Center near where I live. I am almost tempted to try it. Almost. Nah, I am certain I can make a better grilled cheese at home. Here…

"Stuck a feather in his hat and called it macaroni" level vibes coming off of this.

Re: Panic at the Job Market

#374

Post by chiefalchemist »

The problem is twofold

1) Companies aren't anticipating growth and therefore aren't creating new positions.

2) People aren't switching jobs. In order for there to be a (non-new) job opening, someone has to move.

My sense is, even in the best of times, most job openings are from the latter. Yes, perhaps sometimes created by the former. But in general openings reflect employees confidence in moving or not.

Re: Panic at the Job Market

#375

Post by electromech »

Terr_ wrote: post #277

> 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-…

> what about actual employment? That's a lot more even-keeled and boring looking.

Does it? Source [2] ends on 2019-01-01, 5.5 years ago. I agree that we want long-term comparisons, but I'd be very very surprised if the last 5.5 years shows the same "up-and-to-the-right" trend like the previous 10 years from the recession to 2019.

Re: Panic at the Job Market

#376

Post by ufmace »

geraldwhen wrote: post #178
scottLobster wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's coding interviews and coding interviews. Asking basic questions that will be directly applicable to the job? Sure Filtering for basic knowledge to make sure the candidate isn't lying about their experience? Sure. Examining my thought process and producing working code is a nice-to-have? Sure. Asking me to solve an extremely esoteric problem that has zero relevance to my day-to-day and if the solution I come u…

I run coding interviews. I would never give an esoteric algorithms question, or even really an algorithms question. I have prompts that test very basic concepts and nearly everyone fails. Resume fraud is rampant.

Yup, I've developed a workflow that starts with writing a brain-dead easy fizzbuzz and gradually adds features and complexity. The way I've done it, it gives you a way to judge levels as well as basic competency.

If you can't, or can just barely, complete fizzbuzz in the allowed interview time with a lot of coaching in your language of choice, then you definitely aren't ready to work as a SWE. If you breeze through all my extra sections in half the time, then you're great. Partway through, and you're probably a decent junior to senior engineer.

Re: Panic at the Job Market

#377

Post by spamizbad »

FrustratedMonky wrote: post #125
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…

All of his analysis about financial markets, can apply to all jobs, all hiring. Don't think he explicitly states that, but all hiring is down. Or at least all entry positions it seems like. From a SWE perspective. Doesn't it seem like systems are falling apart? You can only cut back programmer/tech jobs for so long, someone has to know how it all works. This is what I don't get, all around me, people don't know how t…

I predict that in a few years we're going to see a lot of these companies get "disrupted" by new entrants who eschewed current trends and actually make proper investments in technology, allowing them to build things people actually want to use.

What's interesting is the tech industry itself made a big deal about how it disrupted dinosaurs who under-invested in technology only for them slowly fall into the same trap. Everything feels so much like it did in the early aughts.

Re: Panic at the Job Market

#378

Post by ThrowawayR2 »

funemployd wrote: post #310
Aurornis wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most jobs are now hoops after hoops, not taking into consideration your particular profile or the contributions you can make. I’ve done some mentoring of CS grads for the past few years. We some times get people with unreasonable interview demands, like companies asking them to make an entire app or website for the interview process. We advise them to decline the really excessive ones. However, it’s rare to see tha…

4-5 hours... per job. Do you think most people apply to a single job and just get it?

For what developers get paid and how cushy the job is? A few hours per application is easily worth it.

Re: Panic at the Job Market

#379

Post by dakiol »

geraldwhen wrote: post #178
scottLobster wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's coding interviews and coding interviews. Asking basic questions that will be directly applicable to the job? Sure Filtering for basic knowledge to make sure the candidate isn't lying about their experience? Sure. Examining my thought process and producing working code is a nice-to-have? Sure. Asking me to solve an extremely esoteric problem that has zero relevance to my day-to-day and if the solution I come u…

I run coding interviews. I would never give an esoteric algorithms question, or even really an algorithms question. I have prompts that test very basic concepts and nearly everyone fails. Resume fraud is rampant.

Would you consider inverting a binary tree a basic question? Some may, but many developers have never inverted a binary tree in decades (because it’s something that doesn’t pop up in a normal job).

Just because it’s such a classic topic in CS, that doesn’t mean I need to remember it after decades of seeing it in uni.

Re: Panic at the Job Market

#380

Post by electromech »

mortenjorck wrote: post #74
thegrim33 wrote: post #22

[flagged]

You probably have a job right now. To me, laid off twice in 18 months, currently three months unemployed, engaging daily with the Sisyphean madness that is finding a tech job in 2024, the author's darkly humorous, off-the-cuff style resonated deeply. Given the attention it's getting here, I can only presume I'm not alone.

So much this.

I 100% understand how the article could be off-putting to some, but to unemployeds like me it was cathartic.

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