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Panic at the Job Market

matt.sh

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Re: Panic at the Job Market

#821

Post by kwere »

FrustratedMonky wrote: post #125
evrimoztamur wrote: post #23

I will add my two cents for people who believe that this might be related only to the SWE and tangent industries: It's really not. I have many friends (in Europe) who are trying to get through to different jobs in unrelated industries ranging from finance to fashion, or just trying to get promoted vertically (or horizontally), failing rather miserably. Most jobs are now hoops after hoops, not taking into consideratio…

All of his analysis about financial markets, can apply to all jobs, all hiring. Don't think he explicitly states that, but all hiring is down. Or at least all entry positions it seems like. From a SWE perspective. Doesn't it seem like systems are falling apart? You can only cut back programmer/tech jobs for so long, someone has to know how it all works. This is what I don't get, all around me, people don't know how t…

outsurcing to India or similar cheap places has been the "solution" to most big non-tech firms for decades now, smaller ones hire local or "same continent" contractors (latam or eastern Europe), keeping a small team onsite for operations / reliability

Re: Panic at the Job Market

#822

Post by dzonga »

ajkjk wrote: post #190
caesil wrote: post #53

>According to all the interviews I’ve failed over the years (I don’t think I’ve ever passed an actual “coding interview” anywhere?), the entire goal of tech hiring is just finding people in the 100 to 115 midwit block then outright rejecting everybody else as too much of an unknown risk. As a (now) senior/staff-level engineer back out on the job market for the first time in a while, I'm begrudgingly coming to accept…

Imo, there are two kinds of programmers: people who can write code to build stuff, and people who can write code to build stuff and are also conversationally fluent in the theory behind writing code. The second group is 5x more useful than the first, and coding interviews are testing which group you're in. Often the first group doesn't think the extra skill of fluency is important, which is fine, think what you want,…

plenty of mechanics or other professions get by using "mechanic" or "engineering" know how vs know what that you're describing group B to be.

let's look at empirical evidence: old building - do you think masons back then understood compression forces ? but those buildings still stand. what they knew was simply a matter of probability that doing a->b->c results in this predictable outcome based on what they had done or what others had done.

scientism is not engineering. scientism is knowing why things work. engineering is knowing how things work or don't work.

Re: Panic at the Job Market

#824

Post by badpun »

putzdown wrote: post #806
CM30 wrote: post #801

The big problem is that all the issues in tech hiring have been amplified by a thousand in the last year or so. We previously had problems with unrealistic tech requirements and companies looking for unicorns, now we have almost every company operating under those same insane requirements if not more. We previously had issues with interviews asking way too much of the applicant, now they're seemingly twice as long fo…

It is insane. But it leaves the question: why are companies doing it? They must believe it’s working for them, or they’d change it. God knows companies are motivated to hire good people. Maybe someone in HR or even a technical manager in one of these companies can answer: on what theory are these processes believed to be effective?

Possibly those companies don't really need more people right now, but won't say no to a unicorn.

Re: Panic at the Job Market

#825

Post by __0x01 »

"October 2008

The economic situation is apparently so grim that some experts fear we may be in for a stretch as bad as the mid seventies.

When Microsoft and Apple were founded." [1]

"A programmer can sit down in front of a computer and create wealth. A good piece of software is, in itself, a valuable thing." [2]

These words give me hope.

[1] https://paulgraham.com/badeconomy.html [2] https://paulgraham.com/wealth.html

Re: Panic at the Job Market

#826

Post by chanux »

bmitc wrote: post #249
evrimoztamur wrote: post #23

I will add my two cents for people who believe that this might be related only to the SWE and tangent industries: It's really not. I have many friends (in Europe) who are trying to get through to different jobs in unrelated industries ranging from finance to fashion, or just trying to get promoted vertically (or horizontally), failing rather miserably. Most jobs are now hoops after hoops, not taking into consideratio…

> Most jobs are now hoops after hoops, not taking into consideration your particular profile or the contributions you can make. This is really key. I have applied for jobs before, and then get questions like: "what's your experience with C++ or advanced graph algorithms?". Only that, none of that shows up in my profile or resume. But they act surprised and completely shrug off how a decade of software and other relev…

Spot on.

I have been interviewed for X (as they do), got hired and ended up doing completely different Y in almost all of the jobs I've had. Yet, most of the job interviews I've had felt like they are looking for a very specific things and if I don't have exactly that, I am not good.

Re: Panic at the Job Market

#828

Post by dennis_jeeves2 »

avidphantasm wrote: post #812

If you look outside of “tech” companies, you can find pockets of high demand for software engineers. I work in hydrography and private companies and government agencies in this field are starving for good software engineers. The pay is decent (though not as good as FAANG or maybe even some start-ups of yore), but more importantly the work is really interesting.

>If you look outside of “tech” companies, you can find pockets of high demand for software engineers.

List them please, I cannot find them.

Re: Panic at the Job Market

#829

Post by kwere »

cjbgkagh wrote: post #334
quasse wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At least now I no longer have to argue with ‘inflation is good for us’ people. Who has been arguing this?

I know, hard to imagine now but a few years ago it really was a popular theory that wage inflation would exceed price inflation - the continuing rise in tech salaries being the case in point. A belief often held by those with unserviceable student loans that they would rather inflate away. Plus the whole MMT thing which was disturbingly close to becoming official policy is predicated on inflation being hard to start…

with a compounded growth of 3% yearly, USA would be able to double its GDP every 24 years. thats where most people expect the extra revenue to come from, somewhat naively

Re: Panic at the Job Market

#830

Post by paulcole »

voiceblue wrote: post #715
weatherlite wrote: post #701

Sometimes I feel really bummed out I am getting 1/2 (or less?) of Google compensation. But then I open my eyes - see the workers in my daughter's kindergarten slaving away taking care of 30 toddlers for less than half what I make, nurses and doctors working in conditions I wouldn't be able to tolerate for more than a few months without mentally collapsing, the people in the supermarkets, gas stations, police, fire de…

As a Xoogler, I have to say Google isn’t what it once was. You pay for your high salary with the fact that the one thing you can be sure most people you work with care about is how much money they extract out of Google and how they could get more. Taking care of toddlers is ostensibly a better use of the one life you get.

> You pay for your high salary with the fact that the one thing you can be sure most people you work with care about is how much money they extract out of Google and how they could get more.

Dang, must be rough. I know somebody who only pays for their high salary with long hours and hard work.

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