I have to say, this comment section is wonderfully full of very specific (low-bullshit) responses about projects people work on, both LLM-enhanced and otherwise.
It has been a pleasure to read.
Thank you for sharing.
Tech employment now significantly worse than the 2008 or 2020 recessions
571–580 of 720 posts
Re: Tech employment now significantly worse than the 2008 or 2020 recessions
#572In 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…
> 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.
what an interesting way to say most programmers find it extremely difficult to get a job. you sound like you have some kind of insight, but is there anything notable about jobs drying up for people who aren't cheap enough or who aren't valuable enough? that's just how jobs dry up. anytime it's a bad job market for workers it'll be like that.
it is a great way to frame the coming tech crash. it allows whoever remains to fancy themselves as top talent.
Re: Tech employment now significantly worse than the 2008 or 2020 recessions
#573Earlier quoted context omitted.
Damn, never thought about it like that. That seems a lot more practical and relevant than the Big Mac Index.
Yeah I think housing is the real index. CPI doesn’t make sense for individuals unless you build your own index.
I don't understand why. People spend money on other things besides housing. Because people spend money on multiple things, it doesn't really make that much sense to say that our index of inflation should track be one thing. I mean, if the price of food and healthcare tripled, I think you would probably say that the inflation metrics should go up.
Ofc, focusing on just one thing is very convenient for people who want to tell a particular story. (inflation is so bad! look at housing! there's so much deflation! look at food and TVs!)
Re: Tech employment now significantly worse than the 2008 or 2020 recessions
#574Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
>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. You've been interviewing forever. You're the well practiced pickup artist of job searching. Of course you'll be getting the call backs over the other 1000 applicants who don't have the same experien…
And even then, getting interviews is one thing, but getting offers is something completely different.
And there's also the advantage of having a current job, instead of an increasingly larger jobless gap that not only decreases your chances over time, but also contributes to the cycle of "less chance -> wider gap -> increased anxiety -> less chance".
Fumble the first few months due to a combination of a lack of interviewing practice, and of job postings that never intended to hire anyway or that are looking for someone that checks literally all their shopping list of boxes, all while still dragging you for a 4-8 journey, and suddenly your position is not that good anymore.
Re: Tech employment now significantly worse than the 2008 or 2020 recessions
#575Earlier 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…
Soooo agree. I've had to clean up the messes of people that did the 0-1 in my field and going from 1-unconditionally stable was a lot more work than the 0-1 part.
Having been in both roles, I believe it is important that each side of the “1” give the other a little grace.
When you are going from “1” to stable, there is some breathing room because you have a 1 that works, mostly. Sort of. Dealing with it may be a slow slog of sordid substitutions, but the pressure is different.
Going from 0 to 1 may involve working 80+ hour weeks with little sleep and enormous stress. It may mean meeting deadlines that make or break the product in a mad rush to fulfill a contract that saves or dooms the company. It may mean taking minutes to decide designs when days or months of consideration would have been more appropriate. And it may mean getting a lot of things wrong, but hopefully not so wrong that a version 2 is impossible.
As a final note: often v1 has substantial problems, that’s true. But sometimes it’s actually not that bad, and v2 fails because it was trying to shove the tech de jure (k8s cough cough) where it wasn’t needed so someone could get that shiny architect promotion.
Re: Tech employment now significantly worse than the 2008 or 2020 recessions
#576In my very humble view, the mythical 10x developer can now be a 100x developer, and the 2x developer usually stays a 2x developer. We live in two parallel worlds right now. Some run an army of agents and ship somehow working and testable code, and some try to prove AI is not as good as them.
> somehow working and testable code,
And then 1x developer comes and rewrites it to actually work.
Re: Tech employment now significantly worse than the 2008 or 2020 recessions
#577In 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…
interviews aren't the problem, you know full well that "getting a call back" means nothing in this space, but the insane and unresolved technical round process
and sure, lots of people can't get a call back too, but starting the process means nothing
should say how many offers did you get, that's a better way to normalize it
Re: Tech employment now significantly worse than the 2008 or 2020 recessions
#578Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's typically easiest to find a job when you have a job.
Maybe. Probably? But I also sense a fallacy here. I could get a new job tomorrow. Maybe it took me 8 years to find that job and I didn’t realize that because I was employed the whole time. Does that make sense?
People wonder why something was picked over before committing to it, that's all it comes down to
Focus on what you can control, and you can control the perception of that. If you are interested in money, professional validation, and corporate structure, go that way.
You can try to alter the cultural fundamental assumptions when you're done.
Re: Tech employment now significantly worse than the 2008 or 2020 recessions
#579Here's the same post on Bluesky for those who prefer that platform: https://bsky.app/profile/josephpolitano.bsky.social/post/3mg...
Thank you! Could HN switch the links? bsky doesn't require a login to view replies. bsky is just a superior viewing experience.
You can easily make an account or replace x in the url with xcancel. You can do the latter automatically with https://github.com/einaregilsson/Redirector
Re: Tech employment now significantly worse than the 2008 or 2020 recessions
#580Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If you earned your CS degree (or any degree) before 2022 or so, the value of that degree is going to grow and grow and grow In my experience, target schools are the only universities now that can make their assignments too hard for AI. When my university tried that, the assignments were too hard for students. So they gave up.
What university is assigning undergrads assignments too hard for AI?
Funnily enough, my Science Fiction class graded like that.
If you didn't have high information density in essays you were torn into. AI was a disadvantage due to verboseness.
Most people dropped the class and prof went on sabbatical.