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Tell HN: Job interview canceled due to looming recession

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

#531

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where the hell are you working where someone can come in and challenge you for your job? I’ve been working for over 30 years and this has literally never happened.

Where do you work exactly and what do you do for a living? Because new hires vying for more influence in the office has been a staple of the modern workplace and organizational politics for a long time now.

Of course there are always people who are trying to one-up or push ahead up the career-advancement ladder... but I've never ever seen a better candidate appear and challenge someone's position directly. If someone started a new job and starting calling someone out for not doing their job as well, they'd be fired pretty quickly. That's just outright hostile behavior.

Granted I've always worked outside of the valley, I guess FAANG positions can be more hostile.

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

#532
Unfortunately for you being a recent graduate but the rest of us experienced folks knew that a recession was looming. Anyone thinking we'd get out of the pandemic without a recession isn't that familiar with business or economics.

Kudos to them for not ghosting you and letting you know they're not hiring. That's being up-front, honest, and respectful. Don't expect that from everybody.

As for advice - recessions make for tough markets for inexperienced people. Companies tend to hire fewer people and the people they do hire they prefer they have a proven track record. Your bargaining chip is your price. Your inexperience makes you cheaper and if you can somehow demonstrate you can do the work you may find people willing to take a chance on you.

Good luck!

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

#535

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…

> Imagine living paycheck to paycheck working as a software engineer Is that supposed to be hard to imagine ? Most of the population don’t have entitlement about this.

In a world where new grads can easily make 6 figure salaries as software engineers, yes. I mean, everyone I tell literally has a hard time believing I was making a poverty-level wage as a programmer.

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

#536

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You get SV compensation and have to pay SV prices for everything. Not sure the level of living is better than getting non-SV payment while paying non-SV prices.

> Not sure the level of living is better than getting non-SV payment while paying non-SV prices.

SV prices apply to housing. Everything else you buy -- cars, computers, phones, clothing, food, etc. costs about the same everywhere. A Honda Civic or Tesla Model S, or an iPhone, or anything you see on Amazon, costs about the same in California and anywhere else in the country.

On an SV engineering salary, you end up in a situation where your housing is expensive but almost everything else feels very cheap. And you end up putting more money in savings, even after paying for housing, than most people could ever do. Early retirement is definitely achievable too.

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

#537

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have never once in my career seen someone with an MS get hired over someone with a BS because they had a MS. If you're doing it purely for return-on-investment, it's a massive waste of time and money.

You may be underestimating the number of job descriptions which demand a masters degree to even be considered. This is especially the case for data science roles for tech/fin/blue chip. From experience OMSCS is perfect for this.

That's a small number of jobs and they are in niche areas.

Also, the degree requirements on job descriptions are usually flexible. If you are qualified, apply anyway.

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

#538

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This attitude where employees sit like bags of potatoes waiting for knowledge to permeate their brains via osmosis is awful. I think you misunderstand. A person who is getting paid is already useful. That is why they were hired. By studying you want them to be more useful and that is an extra demand over their contract.

But if things changes and you no longer need their services then should you just fire them? Telling the employee that they can keep their job if they update their skills is a nice thing to do, it is much better than just firing them without giving them a chance.

If you need more services than you initially contracted for, then you give them time to learn. Why is this so hard to understand?

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

#539
post #462

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on your definition of good. 50k+ is above average (almost?) everywhere and is more than twice the EU average.

The median wage in the US is like $35k, but that does not mean $70k is a high dev salary..

That apples to oranges comparison is hardly relevant in this context.

For better or worse, Europe has much less income inequality than in the US, so European dev wages are a lot closer to the median wages, than in the US where devs make several times over the national median wage.

If you remove the big tech hubs like London, Amsterdam, Berlin, etc. then median European dev wages plummet, coming to party with the rest of the white collar jobs.

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

#540

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You get SV compensation and have to pay SV prices for everything. Not sure the level of living is better than getting non-SV payment while paying non-SV prices.

> Not sure the level of living is better than getting non-SV payment while paying non-SV prices. SV prices apply to housing. Everything else you buy -- cars, computers, phones, clothing, food, etc. costs about the same everywhere. A Honda Civic or Tesla Model S, or an iPhone, or anything you see on Amazon, costs about the same in California and anywhere else in the country. On an SV engineering salary, you end up in…

Correct.

People are also completely missing the entire point of what I'm saying too. SV attracts a different kind of person. Your colleagues, neighbors, and peers are just wildly different than what you'd find in a midwestern governmental position.

Again - it's like comparing doctors to electricians. They are a very different set of people. If you don't care about those things then fine - but for those of us who want to be surrounded by those who are similar to us... Living in SV is kinda the only option.

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