I'm Backend / DevOps engineer with 12 years of official professional experience. Have been looking for a job for about half a year. Went through about 15-20 interviews, passed ALL technical ones. But in the end I hear almost the same things all the time: "we really liked your technical expertise, but there was no personal fit with the team", "we appreciate deep knowledge you have, but decided to proceed with another candidate", etc.
Are tech companies even hiring right now or most of them have just dummy openings for internal procedures/investor reports? Anybody with the same/different experience?
P.S. I'm based in the Netherlands, picture in France looks the same.
Are tech companies even hiring?
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Re: Are tech companies even hiring?
#2I know well the EMEA market and work in several languages. No companies are hiring and all jobs are fake. I can guarantee you. The few that take somebody are doing internships for young graduates, or government subsidized employment programs, notably in France and Spain.
Sometimes, some companies, will hire if they find a interesting candidate but few are able to evaluate what a suitable candidate is.
Agencies simply collect data and will consume your time with intake interviews. This keeps their metrics up and allows them to claim they have such and such number of CVs, on their databases. The less scrupulous just do it, to sell your private data.
Also upskilling or workforce skill development has grounded to a halt. Companies assume you are supposed to become a Rust expert or do your AWS certifications on your own time and cost...
Dont know your background but particularly in Belgium and the Netherlands if you get too many: "...there was no personal fit with the team..." it just means you are not blonde and are too ethnic for their environment.
Re: Are tech companies even hiring?
#3I know well the EMEA market and work in several languages. No companies are hiring and all jobs are fake. I can guarantee you. The few that take somebody are doing internships for young graduates, or government subsidized employment programs, notably in France and Spain. Sometimes, some companies, will hire if they find a interesting candidate but few are able to evaluate what a suitable candidate is. Agencies simply…
Yeah, by all signs this is how hiring works (or actually doesn't work) right now. I have info from Datadog (France) that they don't hire anybody right now despite lots of openings on their career board. And yeah, originally I'm from Russia, though in EU for almost 8 years by now...
Re: Are tech companies even hiring?
#4I'm not looking at the moment, but I did notice I haven't gotten a ping from a recruiter in a long time (at least six months, maybe a year at this point). In the past I'd usually get at least one a month, but lately it's been nothing.
Doesn't make me eager to jump back into the job search even though I probably should start looking for something else soon, I've been at my current role for almost five years now, and have been getting the itch. But I suspect it's going to be a pain to find something new.
Re: Are tech companies even hiring?
#5Have you thought about building your own business?
Re: Are tech companies even hiring?
#6Have you thought about building your own business?
Yes, I have such thoughts. I'm building something constantly, have a history of attempting different projects, some of them got into startups fueled purely by passion and lasted for years, but didn't attract investments. Currently I'm working on MASS - Modular AI Scheduling System, basically it's a scheduler and package manager for AI-native applications/services. As I see a huge part of future AI as dedicated small fine-tuned models, local to user and on-site programs and services. But it's another story :)
Re: Are tech companies even hiring?
#7Certainly HR wants you to think so, otherwise even they are not safe. So, you'll see jobs and interviews for vacancies that don't exist so those still left in HR can seem busy, because they are next in masses.
Re: Are tech companies even hiring?
#8Have you thought about building your own business?
With the quality of code that claude generates. Everyone now, even non-tech background is trying to build a SaaS. I wonder if everyone is building then who is consuming ?
Re: Are tech companies even hiring?
#9Re: Are tech companies even hiring?
#10Not really. Lots of companies are cutting traditional SWE roles though...
I think there are roles available for other types of skill-sets, For example, "Product Engineer" seems to be the new full-stack. Now anyone with some technical background can vibe code anything in a few hours companies are starting to merge product and engineering into one, cutting those who can't or are unwilling to do both.
There's also some demand for skilled AI Engineers.
Anyone whose just a frontend or backend guy is going likely going to really struggle to find anything in this new world. I'd consider trying to rebrand your skills a little and seeing if you have any luck.
I've been saying this since late 2022 at this point, but people need to assume this is their last SWE job. You might still be able to find work in tech, but you'll struggle to find traditional SWE jobs going forward.
Also, being unemployed for 6+ months is stupid unless you genuinely don't need the money. You're better off just taking a job for 50-60% of your previous salary if you're going to be out of work for the majority of the year.