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Tell HN: I'm having the worst career winter of my life

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Re: Tell HN: I'm having the worst career winter of my life

#91

Post by mariogintili »

rvz wrote: post #79
mariogintili wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

hmm it depends really, I go below and above my "market rate" I've come to learn that your salary as an engineer is more directly tied to your company's success rather than your personal outcomes as an engineer. I've seen people padding buttons for £700/day working for large brands I've seen people train open weight models for £350/day trying to ship an MVP. The last permanent role I negotiated had a TC of £160,000/ye…

> The last permanent role I negotiated had a TC of £160,000/year. If you want that £160k+/year, you might as well either go to a quant firm like Citadel or Jane Street (But there is a 0% chance it will be remote) or build your own startup. > I'm open to go down to £90,000/year or even less for the right opportunity £90k is not bad, but not the best either, but anything higher than 120k in the UK means you lose 45% of…

> But the risk is that someone else will go even lower than your offer until the role can be done internally by another person using an AI agent.

I have assessed various AI models & agents. I don't think I can be replaced by them, so I feel safe on that end.

That being said, I don't think my potential employers fully understand that.

> The point is, most businesses that are non-quant and non-big tech, non-big AI do not want to pay the extortionate level of taxes in the UK and it makes SWEs in the UK look very expensive and the jobs + office move off-shore.

Yes, this is where contract work came particularly handy. But the government made a big deal about taking them offshore due to IR35 pushing them out

Re: Tell HN: I'm having the worst career winter of my life

#92

Post by andyjohnson0 »

mariogintili wrote: post #60
andyjohnson0 wrote: post #42

If the op is looking only for remote roles then I'd emphasise that competition for these is extremely high. My advice would be to broaden your search to include hybrid and-in person roles. I wish that rto was being handled with more flexibility and empathy, and I appreciate that travelling to work can be very difficult to reconcile with location and parental/caring responsibilities, but this is unfortunately where we…

> I'd also recommend looking beyond startups and pure software/tech companies. There are many businesses in eg manufacturing, or in less mainstream locations, that struggle to hire decent devs. That's where I'm aiming for. I know there's a million companies that would benefit from my work and can pay well, but they're just not the ones that find you on Linkedin, or post on Hacker News

Maybe look for specialist tech-adjacent recruiters on Linkedin: rail, engineering, electronics, etc. Sometimes they get given dev roles to fill because the business is used to dealing with them.

Good luck, really. Its a whole new year.

Re: Tell HN: I'm having the worst career winter of my life

#93

Post by 9rx »

mariogintili wrote: post #88
9rx wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can afford it, carry on! But your other comments suggest otherwise. Hypothetically being able to afford something if things were hypothetically different is not an indicator of what is affordable in reality.

> Hypothetically being able to afford something if things were hypothetically different is not an indicator of what is affordable in reality. unemployment is an extraordinary circumstance for me. Extraordinary circumstances affect affordability in an extraordinary way. even with employment far below my usual pay I can afford where I am.

I admittedly missed that you found a job. Congratulations!

Re: Tell HN: I'm having the worst career winter of my life

#94

Post by piva00 »

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #89
piva00 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read it again, I said: It's a cheap shot because the religious explanations to suffering are cheap, they are retconning a fundamentally flawed logic that is not possible to exist unless you invent a yet more convoluted reason. They still do not explain why the suffering can only be abated by being more pious, a good being wouldn't make you beg on their feet to show you deserve to be spared from the suffering it creat…

Your argument assumes that an all-powerful being that permits suffering must be the source of suffering and must be sadistic. Those are both specific metaphysical claims that require their own defenses. As one example: Do your parents, who allow you to suffer learning in school, not care about you? You're treating it as self-evident when there's nothing self-evident about it. The free will defense, soul-making theodi…

My parents aren't all powerful, it's not a remotely close analogous to the force supposedly responsible for everything there is.

Soul-making theodicy uses one of those cheap cop outs: suffering is necessary because humans need to learn.

Basically all defences use the cheap excuse "you don't understand because you are human", leaving no logical argument left for us to find and requiring just to accept that the all-loving being creates suffering for reasons we cannot know. Which, again, is sadistic.

Re: Tell HN: I'm having the worst career winter of my life

#95

Post by apothegm »

mariogintili wrote: post #80
apothegm wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The massive rounds of layoffs in the US over the past 3 years mean there are a ridiculous number of software engineers looking for jobs. AI has compounded this by automating applications such that a single opening might get multiple thousands of submissions. Your best bet to find a job in this market is to have some connection to the hiring manager. It might be a friend of a friend of a former colleague. Or both havi…

yes, so when I see an opening I try to message the key people around the role first, not just fill out a form. Any other approaches are well welcomed

The other thing I had to realize before I could get an offer in this market is that there are so many overqualified candidates it’s almost impossible to get a stretch role and very difficult to get one at the same level you were last working at. If you just need an income for now, consider looking for something you’re significantly overqualified for but that gives you exposure to something new in a different dimension (new industry, for instance). Then once you’ve got that job and have restored your savings, you can look for something with more growth while still employed. Maybe some day the market will even bounce back, tho I wouldn’t count on it.

Re: Tell HN: I'm having the worst career winter of my life

#96

Post by xboxnolifes »

TekMol wrote: post #35

Why is Hacker News so interested in regular software jobs? Isn't the idea of the site to "hack" as in thinking outside the box, building your own projects and companies, doing things in interesting new ways?

Do you have 1 of these 2 things?

1) No family to support 2) A set of assets to support not having income?

Re: Tell HN: I'm having the worst career winter of my life

#97

Post by [deleted] »

mariogintili wrote: post #27
jbs789 wrote: post #21

I understand that the market in the UK is particularly tough now, across many sectors. Is there a particular specialisation you have, and then how does someone who needs that specialisation find you? Particularly if the job is 100pct remote, you’re participating in a global market. Or if there’s a local company that needs you… even if the work isn’t the most challenging… Can at least leverage the real-world relations…

> Is there a particular specialisation you have, and then how does someone who needs that specialisation find you? Being a generalist and having experience delivering products all the way its what makes me stand out. That being said, I've done some cool pieces with backoffices and dev tooling and developer experience > Or if there’s a local company that needs you… even if the work isn’t the most challenging… Can at l…

[deleted]

Re: Tell HN: I'm having the worst career winter of my life

#99

Post by gjsman-1000 »

piva00 wrote: post #94
gjsman-1000 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your argument assumes that an all-powerful being that permits suffering must be the source of suffering and must be sadistic. Those are both specific metaphysical claims that require their own defenses. As one example: Do your parents, who allow you to suffer learning in school, not care about you? You're treating it as self-evident when there's nothing self-evident about it. The free will defense, soul-making theodi…

My parents aren't all powerful, it's not a remotely close analogous to the force supposedly responsible for everything there is . Soul-making theodicy uses one of those cheap cop outs: suffering is necessary because humans need to learn. Basically all defences use the cheap excuse "you don't understand because you are human", leaving no logical argument left for us to find and requiring just to accept that the all-lo…

At this point, I find it interesting that for never mentioning what religion I follow, and for merely suggesting that prayer may be beneficial; your reaction is stronger than if I had simply blamed speaking to crystals at 2 AM after 5 glasses of wine in an attempt to manifest a job. If I had even suggested going to a My Little Pony Convention in an attempt to do networking, you would’ve scoffed less, which hardly implies good faith even with yourself.

Also, your arguments are hardly original. They are 2,300 years old, originating with Epicurus, older than both Christianity and Islam. Regurgitation of them with such certainty is Reddit 2013-era levels of uninspired; as though both religions did not address these arguments from their foundation. I also find it astoundingly arrogant, because it implies that religious people have never witnessed or endured intense suffering, lest it be self-evident.

Re: Tell HN: I'm having the worst career winter of my life

#100

Post by sam_corgi »

mancerayder wrote: post #71
sam_corgi wrote: post #40

email sam@corgi.insure hiring full stack engineers in london disclaimer: we are 7 days a week in person

>7 days a week in person Is this sarcasm?

It is not. We respect it's not for everyone but enjoy hacking and building & do it in our free time anyway.
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