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What SWE job hunting is like right now

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Re: What SWE job hunting is like right now

#81

Post by scarface_74 »

mathgeek wrote: post #79
scarface_74 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn’t mathematically logical. Every month that you are out of a job, you need to make 8% more once you are hired to make up the difference in loss pay. While I wouldn’t have taken just any bullshit low paying full time job after getting Amazoned (full time in the cloud consulting division), I was more than willing to take a contract job and just to keep interviewing while I’m working - especially now that jobs a…

Apologies, but can you clarify what “this” is when you say something isn’t logical? Unclear to me if you mean taking a lower paying job, choosing to stay unemployed, using savings to cover income while unemployed, something around contracting, something else perhaps. Contracting between full time positions can certainly replace the need for savings, if that ties into what you were arguing for.

“This” is holding out for the perfect paying job instead of taking the first thing that comes along temporarily and keep looking.

Say I’m looking for a job paying $200K and it takes me 3 months to find it. Now just to make $200K over the year, I need to have a job paying $266K.

Why hold out for the job, go through savings, and then when I finally get the job need to replenish my savings instead of just sucking up my pride taking a lower paying job and keep looking?

In my case, when I got Amazoned with a more than $40K severance package. My goal was to have some money coming in before I had to touch it.

I was willing to accept any old enterprise dev remote contract to keep the money flowing. I said in a previous reply that I did spam jobs left and right as a backup plan.

I ended up getting two offers with the type of job I wanted and my desired compensation target before even my 10 days of paid PTO (on top of the severance) was depleted. But that was dumb luck and having contributed to a few official open source “AWS solutions”

Re: What SWE job hunting is like right now

#82

Post by lylejantzi3rd »

scarface_74 wrote: post #81
mathgeek wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apologies, but can you clarify what “this” is when you say something isn’t logical? Unclear to me if you mean taking a lower paying job, choosing to stay unemployed, using savings to cover income while unemployed, something around contracting, something else perhaps. Contracting between full time positions can certainly replace the need for savings, if that ties into what you were arguing for.

“This” is holding out for the perfect paying job instead of taking the first thing that comes along temporarily and keep looking. Say I’m looking for a job paying $200K and it takes me 3 months to find it. Now just to make $200K over the year, I need to have a job paying $266K. Why hold out for the job, go through savings, and then when I finally get the job need to replenish my savings instead of just sucking up my…

> But that was dumb luck and having contributed to a few official open source “AWS solutions”

Was it dumb luck, though? Your situation reminds me of the concept of "luck surface area." You contributed to "a few" open source AWS solutions. You've said in the past that you network well, so I imagine you have lots of other little things you do that get your name out there.

This is something I've been horribly negligent of this far in my career. I thought it would be enough just to do good work and that I would be recognized for that work via osmosis or something.

Re: What SWE job hunting is like right now

#83

Post by flandish »

cj wrote: post #16

As a hiring manager for a relatively small company, a major problem is misaligned salary expectations. Real world example: I recently interviewed an engineer hit by layoffs at Shopify/UPS. The candidate had 4 years of total work experience, and was making $175k in the role that she was let go from, and they won’t accept anything less when looking for a new role. With 4 years of total experience in the workforce. I wo…

I don’t understand some of the dynamics sometimes. For instance, I am 44, been coding professionally since 18. Zero college.

I make 106k in CT in a position focused 75% with Java/Spring for modbus/motion control. (Industrial automation) My other 25% is in what I could label “big data” but is really ETL for a crap ton of near real time transactions.

I enjoy it. I would love to make more money; 106 is hard with a family and such.

But when I look and align my skills, history, and ability to speak in front of anyone - I see listings for 150k+ - and I totally don’t feel “worth” that at all.

Not just because I’m self taught, or have a history doing almost all “it roles”, it’s because I’ve spent 90% of my time in the gloriously underpaid healthcare sector. (Still there.)

What is it like making an offer to someone for 150k for a fully remote position? I could never imagine.

Re: What SWE job hunting is like right now

#84

Post by solardev »

I can't speak to St. Louis, but about the tech stack, my personal experience is that the bigger the company (outside of formal tech companies), the older/slower/more bloated the stack. They tend to choose stability and longevity over modernity, so a lot of Oracle, Microsoft, etc., and whatever their people were using ten years ago. It kinda makes sense at their scale. It's not the core of their business, and they don't like change for change's sake.

If you want a more nimble tech stack, small companies are where it's at -- the ones who don't have much to lose, who are often working on greenfield projects and have both the personnel and the lack of legacy baggage to be able to explore more modern stacks. But even then, you're probably just catching them at the start of a cycle, and if they survive 5-10 years, they'll probably be using an old (by then) tech stack.

I will say this: You can have a lot more sway about the stack once you're hired, especially if you're a full employee. I've convinced several companies to modernize their stacks only after working with them for a year or two, doing good work on their old (terrible) stacks, and then showing a demo of how much easier a new stack could be for the people involved. On the other hand, if I go in swinging during an interview and say "your stack sucks, I want to rewrite it right away" they'll never hire me. Makes sense, because I don't know their pain points and workflows yet; I'm not in a position to make that sort of judgment call from the outside.

Just my 2¢.

Re: What SWE job hunting is like right now

#85

Post by scarface_74 »

lylejantzi3rd wrote: post #82
scarface_74 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“This” is holding out for the perfect paying job instead of taking the first thing that comes along temporarily and keep looking. Say I’m looking for a job paying $200K and it takes me 3 months to find it. Now just to make $200K over the year, I need to have a job paying $266K. Why hold out for the job, go through savings, and then when I finally get the job need to replenish my savings instead of just sucking up my…

> But that was dumb luck and having contributed to a few official open source “AWS solutions” Was it dumb luck, though? Your situation reminds me of the concept of "luck surface area." You contributed to "a few" open source AWS solutions. You've said in the past that you network well, so I imagine you have lots of other little things you do that get your name out there. This is something I've been horribly negligent…

Maybe?

I knew the reputation of Amazon before I started working there and did start laying the groundwork from day one for my next job.

It’s just part of what I do to always be prepared to look for another jobs

Re: What SWE job hunting is like right now

#86

Post by altdataseller »

cj wrote: post #16

As a hiring manager for a relatively small company, a major problem is misaligned salary expectations. Real world example: I recently interviewed an engineer hit by layoffs at Shopify/UPS. The candidate had 4 years of total work experience, and was making $175k in the role that she was let go from, and they won’t accept anything less when looking for a new role. With 4 years of total experience in the workforce. I wo…

Did you post a salary range in the job posting?

Re: What SWE job hunting is like right now

#88

Post by dangus »

scarface_74 wrote: post #63
mathgeek wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s a tough pill to swallow but it is possible to get offers, but they might not be at the salary levels from 2-3 years ago. This goes both ways. People teams will prefer to pay less than they have before, and engineers should usually ask for more than they currently make. Anecdotally as a hiring manager, I would always encourage folks to have savings to cover the time it takes to avoid settling for lower salaries…

This isn’t mathematically logical. Every month that you are out of a job, you need to make 8% more once you are hired to make up the difference in loss pay. While I wouldn’t have taken just any bullshit low paying full time job after getting Amazoned (full time in the cloud consulting division), I was more than willing to take a contract job and just to keep interviewing while I’m working - especially now that jobs a…

Well, not quite.

Laid off people do get paid unemployment benefits, and they also get the non-monetary benefit of not working. I don’t really consider that lost money to be 1:1 in value when considering you aren’t beholden to a work schedule.

If you have a working partner I would say it’s a no brainer to take your time. Jump on their healthcare and chill.

Oh yeah, if you have kids, you can put childcare costs on hold so you aren’t really losing 100% of your salary when you’re put out of work.

Re: What SWE job hunting is like right now

#89

Post by klipklop »

flandish wrote: post #83
cj wrote: post #16

As a hiring manager for a relatively small company, a major problem is misaligned salary expectations. Real world example: I recently interviewed an engineer hit by layoffs at Shopify/UPS. The candidate had 4 years of total work experience, and was making $175k in the role that she was let go from, and they won’t accept anything less when looking for a new role. With 4 years of total experience in the workforce. I wo…

I don’t understand some of the dynamics sometimes. For instance, I am 44, been coding professionally since 18. Zero college. I make 106k in CT in a position focused 75% with Java/Spring for modbus/motion control. (Industrial automation) My other 25% is in what I could label “big data” but is really ETL for a crap ton of near real time transactions. I enjoy it. I would love to make more money; 106 is hard with a famil…

You don’t earn what you are worth, you earn what you negotiate. Unless you are unusually terrible, you are worth more than $106k even in CT.

Re: What SWE job hunting is like right now

#90

Post by analognoise »

and0 wrote: post #50
gustavus wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow that's quite the high and mighty response. I have about 10 years experience across multiple domains and can program across a dozen languages. You know what my salary sits around 150k. You're attitude reflects part of the problem. There are a bunch of still relatively new people or especially boot camp grads that were sold on the always unrealistic expectation of making $150k right out of the gate. That was always…

The market is the market, for better or worse. I do think SWE are overvalued socially/monetarily, but I don't see why you're so emotional over someone saying they deserve what they can get. Or if they make more than you if they can swing it.

A lot of people are actually anti-worker but don't realize it explicitly as such; it's also the "Crab effect" (pull down those trying to escape the pot).
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