71–80 of 93 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've stopped doing cover letters entirely and have had more luck. I've heard the same from others too. I do have a few separate resumes with different focuses, and tweak a one sentence summary at the top.
That's a good idea. My summary is way too long.
At a more macro level, for the United States, I looked at U.S. unemployment data, for the last 80 years. Starting from 1945 until today Jan 2025. All jobs, not only Technology. What jumped out immediately is a clear cyclical pattern: Unemployment peaks occur, on average, every 7–8 years, with some variability.
- Shorter Gaps (3–5 years) showed up in the 1950s and early 1960s, often tied to small recessions.
- Longer Gaps (10–11 years) happened before the early 1990s recession, again around the early 2000s, and more recently between 2009–2010 and 2020.
- Outliers include the early 1980s (double-dip recession pushing unemployment above 10%) and, the 2020’s pandemic spike, which briefly soared past 14%.
Overall, the business cycle hasn’t radically changed over 80 years: Expansions that push unemployment down to historic lows, followed by recessions that create sharp spikes in unemployment.
Assuming 7–8 years is a decent rule of thumb, and based on US history of the last 80 years, we are in for a next continued peak into growing unemployment, until at least 2027–2028.
At a smaller scale, local trends in geopolitics, tariffs, AI adoption, and political dysfunction reflect (or confirm) the broader macro trend.
Plan accordingly...And hope I am wrong...
[1] Software Development Job Postings on Indeed in the United States: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/IHLIDXUSTPSOFTDEVE
[2] Software Development Job Postings on Indeed in Canada: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/IHLIDXCATPSOFTDEVE
[3] Software Development Job Postings on Indeed in Germany: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/IHLIDXDETPSOFTDEVE
[4] Software Development Job Postings on Indeed in the United Kingdom: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/IHLIDXGBTPSOFTDEVE
2021 was such a bizarre year in so many ways. It feels like a post COVID fever dream in retrospect, and seeing that massive jump in job listings that year is a reminder of how weird it was.
The market was so insane.
IPO market is still dead. VC companies are all stuck in PE purgatory. AI was a bright spark but now Deepseek is killing that dream too.
does this account for all the listings? or is there a mystery "other" category that's rising as these ones fall?
I know this doesn't make things better, but it bears repeating: much as the media would like it to be, this is not caused by AI. Two major things happened in 2022 that everyone knew would cause this if they stuck around: * The Section 174 changes went into effect, requiring all software to be expensed as R&D, which means it can't be deducted from profits directly and instead has to be amortized over 5 years [0]. * In…
> * The Section 174 changes went into effect, requiring all software to be expensed as R&D, which means it can't be deducted from profits directly and instead has to be amortized over 5 years [0]. I get the short term initial issue. I don't see why it would be an issue to stick current level of staffing until it normalizes 5 years later. I'm not sure this was ever a major issue. It just seems like a convenient excuse…
I know this doesn't make things better, but it bears repeating: much as the media would like it to be, this is not caused by AI. Two major things happened in 2022 that everyone knew would cause this if they stuck around: * The Section 174 changes went into effect, requiring all software to be expensed as R&D, which means it can't be deducted from profits directly and instead has to be amortized over 5 years [0]. * In…
I really don't understand why nobody is talking about it anymore. It's a big deal for startups.
Trends? Start your own business because nobody is hiring. That's the trend i'm seeing... sigh.
Web 2.0 came out of the dotcom bust. As a HN oldtimer, I really wish I was seeing more posts on HN about people partnering up to build cool stuff right now given there’s ton of collective idle bandwidth out there. Maybe it’s happening somewhere else and HN is not the place for that these days?
As lolinder stated, one of the main causes of this is Section 174 where software is now amortized as R&D over 5 years which means companies can't treat is as a regular expense. This leads to companies hiring less. There is a bill that is stuck in the Senate which aims at reversing this (among other things): https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/7024 Please reach out to your senators and tell them to…
I know this doesn't make things better, but it bears repeating: much as the media would like it to be, this is not caused by AI. Two major things happened in 2022 that everyone knew would cause this if they stuck around: * The Section 174 changes went into effect, requiring all software to be expensed as R&D, which means it can't be deducted from profits directly and instead has to be amortized over 5 years [0]. * In…
> * The Section 174 changes went into effect, requiring all software to be expensed as R&D, which means it can't be deducted from profits directly and instead has to be amortized over 5 years [0]. I get the short term initial issue. I don't see why it would be an issue to stick current level of staffing until it normalizes 5 years later. I'm not sure this was ever a major issue. It just seems like a convenient excuse…
> It may not be caused by AI, but it is going to affect hiring numbers from now on.
That remains to be seen. I can say with high confidence that we did not have tech that was capable of reducing the need for engineers from 2022 to 2024. It's hard to predict the future.