Tech employment now significantly worse than the 2008 or 2020 recessions

Post by unselect5917 » Sat, Mar 07, 2026, 2:23 AM UTC

Lammy wrote: post #502

BoorishBears wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're incorrect, and my reply to a sibling covers why in detail. But to reword it: if you think the reason 0 to 1 work is typically a duct-taped mess is because of a lack of experience or understanding from greenfield devs, you'll probably fail at 0 to 1 work yourself. Not that a noob developer great at selling has never landed 0 to 1 work, crapped out a half working mess and left with a newly padded resume... but…

You must be “that person” who joins a team, creates IMPACT!!!, reaps the review-time award, and fucks off to some other new team to do it all again before any of the difficult maintenance issues arise. I've spent far too much time cleaning up after people like that to ever tolerate it again.

Post by ipnon » Sat, Mar 07, 2026, 2:35 AM UTC

darth_avocado wrote: post #241

teagee wrote: post #10

The chart in the tweet represents year-on-year growth. Based on these figures alone the actual number of people employed in tech is still really high, and the numbers can't just go up forever. Also this only captures 6 industries, which is a narrow view of what would define "tech" these days. Not to say that the job market isn't tough but this graph is a very narrow view

> The chart in the tweet represents year-on-year growth. Can’t believe how many people are commenting without looking at what the chart means. We’ve lost 50k jobs last two years after decades of adding 100k+ every year including the pandemic highs of 300k+ per year. Total employment remains way above 2000s, 2008 and 2020 unlike the title suggests.

Post by alephnerd » Sat, Mar 07, 2026, 2:37 AM UTC

pm90 wrote: post #532

alephnerd wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There absolutely are remote first roles in the US, but the competition is also extremely intense. The median SWE and HNer wouldn't make the cut. It also requires a level of maturity, clear thinking, self-starterness, and independence that is hard to come by without a proven track record and experience. My advice is for the median/average SWE and HNer, not for the truly exceptional. Spending a 7-10 years in a hub and…

7-10 years is too much. 2-4 is around the range I would give. Its also nothing new; new grads gravitated towards these hubs anyway. Previously, they would settle down in the burbs. Now they're migrating anywhere in the US.

Post by brightball » Sat, Mar 07, 2026, 2:40 AM UTC

gtowey wrote: post #235

layer8 wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm very much a "builder" type dev that has more fun going from 0-v1 than maintaining and expanding scalable, large systems. Maintaining and expanding is more challenging, which is why I’ve grown to prefer that. Greenfield and then leaving is too easy, you don’t learn the actually valuable lessons. As experience shows that projects won’t stay in the nice greenfield world, building them can feel like doing illusory…

Yup. You learn the most valuable information from watching how things break and then fixing them. It's kind of like when the FAA does crash investigation -- a stunning amount of engineering and process insights have been generated by such work to the benefit of all of us.

Post by b3ing » Sat, Mar 07, 2026, 2:43 AM UTC

crystal_revenge wrote: post #92

mjr00 wrote: post #15

In my experience, tech employment is incredibly bimodal right now. Top candidates are commanding higher salaries than ever, but an "average" developer is going to have an extremely hard time finding a position. Contrary to what many say, I don't think it's simple as seniors are getting hired and juniors aren't. Juniors are still getting hired because they're still way cheaper and they're just as capable as using AI a…

I generally tend to interview every year to see what's out there in the world (sometimes I find something worth switching for, other times not). I'm not even looking very hard but have had 4 interviews in the last month. Personally I think it's a bit more nuanced than senior vs junior (though it is very hard for juniors right now). What I've seen a lot of hunger for is people with a track record of getting their hand…