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Job trends of HN Who Is Hiring?

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Re: Job trends of HN Who Is Hiring?

#81

Post by shubb »

conductr wrote: post #52
CalRobert wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I tried to do something cool but I had rent to pay and kids to feed so I needed to get a day job (I was very fortunate to find one, on an HN who's hiring thread no less). However, I don't have the savings a lot of people here seem to, perhaps because I'm in Europe.

Doesn’t sound like you have the idle bandwidth I mentioned, are you just venting?

I think it's pertinent. Ppst 2008 was essentially disinflation economy whereas inflation has been high running into this and people are struggling a bit. To launch something you gotta be hungry but not too hungry. Maybe people are either retiring on thier 401ks or uber driving 24 hours a day to make rent. That or the demo here got old and acquired responsibilities.

Re: Job trends of HN Who Is Hiring?

#82

Post by aprilthird2021 »

meragrin_ wrote: post #70
aprilthird2021 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If anything, AI hype is actually helping keep many of us employed. And if/when it bursts, there will be more layoffs. Interest rates have an effect, but we also couldn't have survived with NZIR and Federal money printing like during COVID.

> If anything, AI hype is actually helping keep many of us employed. AI is also going to keep many of us unemployed. I'm running a small version of Deepseek R1 locally and it does an extremely good job of predicting of where I'm going in a number of situations. I went to pull out some code into another function. As soon as I finished typing the name of the new function, it immediately suggested the exact code I was p…

Yeah, I'm not worried about that. I don't get paid by the line of code, and an auto complete that can make me faster will only help me, tbh.

Re: Job trends of HN Who Is Hiring?

#83

Post by meragrin_ »

lolinder wrote: post #80
meragrin_ wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> * 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…

The Section 174 changes are terrible for startups, but yes, they're only inconvenient for established companies. Many startups won't even last long enough to amortize all of their dev expenses, especially if they owe taxes on "profits" earned during those first few years. The whole startup ecosystem (which is what this set of job listings is largely measuring) relied on being unprofitable and therefore untaxable. > I…

How many developer jobs are due to startups? I can't imagine enough to really affect the job market all that much. There's a lot of people out there looking.

>> 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.

If I can run some small models locally which helps me significantly right now, I don't really think it is hard to make the jump to needing fewer engineers overall. I've seen people paying for the big models do even more.

Re: Job trends of HN Who Is Hiring?

#84

Post by conductr »

shubb wrote: post #81
conductr wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn’t sound like you have the idle bandwidth I mentioned, are you just venting?

I think it's pertinent. Ppst 2008 was essentially disinflation economy whereas inflation has been high running into this and people are struggling a bit. To launch something you gotta be hungry but not too hungry. Maybe people are either retiring on thier 401ks or uber driving 24 hours a day to make rent. That or the demo here got old and acquired responsibilities.

There's still some large enough percentage of laid off folks that perhaps are looking but living on reserves instead of 24hr gig work. This is the pool of idle bandwidth I'm speaking of. G'parent that found another job; not idle bandwidth. Someone that had no reserves and is flipping burgers; not idle bandwidth. Refreshing Indeed, LinkedIn Jobs, etc. daily after about a week or two while living on savings, moving back with parents, living off spouse's income only, and an infinite number of other possibilities; idle bandwidth.

I find if funny you mention economics of 2008 but don't also mention how tech salaries changed over that same time. At a high level, this is the exact population of people that should have some dry powder in the keg and be able to weather this storm. I'm not saying that to be dismissive of how dire prolonged unemployment is to one's personal finances, even with savings. But I am being dismissive of the idea that most of these people are doing gig work so much they can't hack on something.

I do also think the demo here has changed a lot and you're onto something with that comment.

Re: Job trends of HN Who Is Hiring?

#85

Post by conductr »

harimau777 wrote: post #78
conductr wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I mean, I'd love to do that. I just don't have the money.

Neither did they? If you have time and skills, you just build and share to try to gain traction and/or partner up with people that can cover your skill gaps.

I feel like your comment is the root difference in what I see here. You must not be entrepreneurial at all if you think money is the barrier to building something people want. Sorry if that's harshly worded but I've started a business with a $5/month DO droplet and $15/year domain as have many others.

Re: Job trends of HN Who Is Hiring?

#86

Post by conductr »

myth_drannon wrote: post #57
conductr wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

It's more visible on twitter and build in public trend. But we are still far from the dotcom crash desperation, not sure if we ever will reach it.

Ah, I didn't know this was such a trend on twitter as I've never used it. Probably makes most sense to do it that way. I suppose I used to see it manifest as a "Show HN" and hope perhaps there's a wave of that coming

I should caveat that "Show HN" has turned more into "look at this github repo" and I'm talking about actual businesses as HN used to be a bit more entrepreneur oriented and has become a bit more maker oriented in this regard

Re: Job trends of HN Who Is Hiring?

#87

Post by aaronblohowiak »

holyroller wrote: post #79
phyzix5761 wrote: post #63

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…

This is effectively a subsidy for the tech industry, why is this incentive necessary here? It's not specifically targeting startups from what I can tell and potentially just a kickback to large employers and investors.

Why is forced amortization of payroll a subsidy?

Re: Job trends of HN Who Is Hiring?

#88

Post by lolinder »

meragrin_ wrote: post #83
lolinder wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Section 174 changes are terrible for startups, but yes, they're only inconvenient for established companies. Many startups won't even last long enough to amortize all of their dev expenses, especially if they owe taxes on "profits" earned during those first few years. The whole startup ecosystem (which is what this set of job listings is largely measuring) relied on being unprofitable and therefore untaxable. > I…

How many developer jobs are due to startups? I can't imagine enough to really affect the job market all that much. There's a lot of people out there looking. >> 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 t…

> How many developer jobs are due to startups?

Out of the Who's Hiring thread on Hacker News, which is what this chart in TFA is measuring? I don't know, but I'm assuming a pretty big chunk.

Re: Job trends of HN Who Is Hiring?

#89

Post by coolThingsFirst »

conductr wrote: post #85
harimau777 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, I'd love to do that. I just don't have the money.

Neither did they? If you have time and skills, you just build and share to try to gain traction and/or partner up with people that can cover your skill gaps. I feel like your comment is the root difference in what I see here. You must not be entrepreneurial at all if you think money is the barrier to building something people want. Sorry if that's harshly worded but I've started a business with a $5/month DO droplet…

Where do you find and and how do you validate ideas that can be even remotely profitable?

Re: Job trends of HN Who Is Hiring?

#90

Post by phyzix5761 »

holyroller wrote: post #79
phyzix5761 wrote: post #63

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…

This is effectively a subsidy for the tech industry, why is this incentive necessary here? It's not specifically targeting startups from what I can tell and potentially just a kickback to large employers and investors.

All software jobs, including those in startups, are affected by the amortization rule. It makes it harder for startups to afford more software engineers because they have to pay taxes on cash they don't actually have.

The only companies the new amortization rule helps is big established firms that can afford to amortize because they have excess cashflow.

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