5 ms·

I am feeling the chill in the circle of companies I know. Other thing that should be mentioned: a lot of initiatives at a lot of companies over the last two ye

I am feeling the chill in the circle of companies I know. Other thing that should be mentioned: a lot of initiatives at a lot of companies over the last two years just didn't work. Feels a bit like we are at the tail end of a pretty big macro cycle of tech companies green lighting big initiatives with optimistic mindset and now a few years later the due bill is coming and the bets just didn't pay off. Maybe a big example would be Twitter: a few years ago they were straight up hoarding engineers; fast forward to now, what did all this amazing engineering talent get them? Maybe nice code but the engineering they've done hasn't been able to increase users. The reason engineers get paid well is because of their extreme leverage: just a few engineers can pull off amazing results. But you eventually need the results. And if the results are not there, broadly, then there will be a reentrenchmet.

jknoepfler 10y ago
I really don't mean to be rude or disrespectful, but how it "feels" isn't really interesting or relevant to the question of "is tech hiring actually down". The OP presented data to support its claims. The data was (imo) very flawed, but at least it provided something to start a substantial quantitative conversation. I think the OP's argument should be praised for "failing fast." By contrast, the internet of hunches is more or less immune to scrutiny. I don't know which way the prevailing winds are blowing in tech. I could swap anecdotes with you (a tech investor I had a beer with recently seemed very happy? my giant tech employer and its competitors are doing great!), but I don't think it wouldn't get us any closer to the ground truth.
- pc86 10y ago
  One thing that piqued my interest is that he said they've been tracking their competitors' job ads "for a few years." I would have liked to see his competitors' numbers from '15 or '14.
- erehweb 10y ago
  But remember, the plural of anecdote is data http://blog.revolutionanalytics.com/2011/04/the-plural-of-anecdote-is-data-after-all.html http://blog.revolutionanalytics.com/2011/04/the-plural-of-an... If your giant tech employer and competitors are hiring apace, that is a useful data point.
  - gmarx 10y ago
    The guy who originated the quote is clearly wrong (at least in medicine where it matters)
- p4wnc6 10y ago
  Data, even if only qualitative, about the psychological experience of technology workers seeking employment is very interesting to me. It may have fewer direct applications to policy adjustments, but provides insight into the overall mood and sentiment around tech hiring and employment. The psychological and sociological aspects of tech employment are not discussed as much as they should be and it is a disservice. Again, I love data-driven policy as much as the next Bayesian, but positive description is not the only thing that has value. Sometimes normative description also has value, even if it emerges from a sparse set of qualitative descriptions. I personally would like to see much more anecdotal data about how people feel about tech employment, because I think at this moment in history the interface between organizations and employees represents one of the most significant moral problems on the planet, that has wide-ranging effects stretching from income inequality to PTSD or depression to stagnation of innovations that could alleviate poverty or diseases, etc. In the same way that some claim that governmental regulations stymie tech progress, I feel it's perfectly analogous and perhaps even more critical to point out that organizational bureaucracy in the form of anti-human treatment of workers, candidates, and the unemployed, is just as much of an impediment to collective progress, but is much less talked about because it's fashionable to hate on government but taboo to hate on ethical failures of companies in their treatment of workers, candidates, or the unemployed.
  - jknoepfler 10y ago
    I don't disagree with you that "how it feels" is an important aspect of our lives. It is not, however, an important aspect of answering the question "is tech hiring down 40%". If someone says "pneumonia diagnoses are down 40%" and someone replies "I disagree, it doesn't feel like doctors are diagnosing less pneumonia to me," nothing of substance has been added to the conversation. That said, I also think that I interpreted the purpose for posting the article too narrowly. Edit: to be clear, I don't intend to diminish the concerns you listed. The argument "A is irrelevant to B" is not the same as "not A" or "A is irrelevant"
    - p4wnc6 10y ago
      I agree with you. I think I am saying that I don't mind if discussions about "is tech hiring down 40%" also include discussions about "tech hiring sure feels like it's down because here's my experience ...". They are "relevant" in the sense that it provides a logical repository for information about how the job market feels, both factually and emotionally. I don't see much benefit in asserting such a need to keep the topics separate that even a comment thread on Hacker News cannot mix the two kinds of assessments together.
- calinet6 10y ago
  It feels that way to me too, based on my direct experience with my company and several friends' companies. There you go, 2 data points.
  - cmdrfred 10y ago
    The plural of anecdote is anecdotes not data.
- vasilipupkin 10y ago
  Agree, which is why it's relatively straightforward to look at this link http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t17.htm http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t17.htm Best I can tell, all software related sectors still hiring
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- dang 10y ago
  There is nothing wrong with people sharing anecdotes, experiences, feelings, impressions, idle thoughts, and speculations in HN threads. On the contrary: HN threads are conversations, and those things are the life blood of good conversation. True, the article title made a factual claim about data, but that doesn't mean commenters aren't welcome to share their related experiences, or deserve to be chided for not presenting rigorous evidence or treated as if they don't know the difference between the two (which does seem a little disrespectful, though I appreciate that you were trying not to be).
Spooky23 10y ago
My leading indicator is that my employer (big, slow, enterprise) is hiring like crazy after a few years of low hiring of new headcount. We're actually hiring good people in entry positions, which is an indicator that smart people are looking for stability, good benefits and mediocre compensation. That usually happens ahead of poor macroeconomic conditions for a variety of reasons.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- siscia 10y ago
  Just out of curiosity, what are those reason that you mention? Even a link explaining is enough :)
  - chiph 10y ago
    Simply put: Better to be getting low pay at a stable job where you can wait-out an economic down-turn, than be unemployed because all the cool employers that you'd rather be working for have had layoffs and aren't hiring.
  - Spooky23 10y ago
    It's a .gov. Budget is driven by business and income tax (i.e. profits and bonus) both tend to peak before things go south. This .gov uses archaic cash accounting, so they always focus on current cash flow. So if we have cash to burn, that means things were great last year. :) Businesses in particular always invest in growth, so lots of revenue means that growth prospects are tightening, even though things look great in the present.
  - manyxcxi 10y ago
    I generally agree that the brightest and most enthusiastic engineers I've ever met hated big enterprise tech teams, but it doesn't mean that someone isn't good at their craft because they've spent a long time in enterprise. In general the popular reasons for disliking enterprise tech: - The tech is generally years behind what people are doing now and risk aversion is generally above all else. No new and shiny, which means you're generally not that attractive to other companies that are doing pretty cool stuff. - Everything is slow. Things require approval from people who have no idea who you are and what you're trying to accomplish. - Apathy. You are but a tiny cog in a very large machine. Your Herculean efforts may not even cause a ripple anywhere outside of your team (if that) so why? Punch the clock, do your job, go home. - Beauracracy. See risk aversion and apathy. Your novel idea is but a flight of fancy that could cause a middle manager with no technical expertise a bonus. I spent my first four years out of university working for very large companies and I was so very bored and stifled I was crawling out of my skin during the work day. I also found that I could get a month's worth of work done and be so far ahead of my peers in a week that I could basically check out, show up just for meetings, then go to a coffee shop/"work from home" and work on my own projects or consult for other companies. I definitely learned things about process and organization that could be scaled to smaller teams and companies that continues to help me today, but I could never go work for a huge company again.
mathattack 10y ago
Very true. The number of companies that can hoard talent without high leverage projects is small. I can only think of Google. And even there, they are retrenching in some of their moonshots.
RickS 10y ago
> Feels a bit like we are at the tail end of a pretty big macro cycle of tech companies green lighting big initiatives with optimistic mindset and now a few years later the due bill is coming and the bets just didn't pay off. Exactly my perceptions as well. It seems like VCs and the tech scene in general put growth over profit in a big way for the last 3 - 5 years. That's a fine way to be for a lot of businesses, but my feeling is that companies and the hivemind got a little to comfortable with it, and rather than delaying profits for growth in the short term as an explicit strategy, began to take it for granted as an acceptable way to operate a business in the early days. The days when "Ramen profitable" mantras abounded and everybody praised 37signals have definitely quieted down, including on HN. And now it's been long enough that the tide's going out and we're seeing who's still got trunks on. I don't think the whole thing is going to crash into the ground, but I think "peak easy money" occurred in the past 24 months and has passed. I expect companies to have to work harder to prove they're actually bringing in cash. IMO, this is just as it should be and the market is correcting for valid reasons. ---- Semi-related anecdote: SF's insane rent prices have mostly plateaued in the last 9 months, especially compared to past growth, and I hear the occasional whisper of them falling. Most news orgs get SF rent prices way wrong (by extrapolating bedroom prices from home purchases, not rentals, for example), but as someone who's lived in the city for a few years and changed apartments annually, I've got a decent calibration for the market. This is a trailing indicator, and to me signals that tech workers are less financially risk tolerant, and perceptions of "my financial situation is stable or poised to improve" are on the decline. Nearly all of my friends express worry over finances, despite making north of 100k.

jknoepfler 10y ago

I really don't mean to be rude or disrespectful, but how it "feels" isn't really interesting or relevant to the question of "is tech hiring actually down". The OP presented data to support its claims. The data was (imo) very flawed, but at least it provided something to start a substantial quantitative conversation. I think the OP's argument should be praised for "failing fast." By contrast, the internet of hunches is more or less immune to scrutiny. I don't know which way the prevailing winds are blowing in tech. I could swap anecdotes with you (a tech investor I had a beer with recently seemed very happy? my giant tech employer and its competitors are doing great!), but I don't think it wouldn't get us any closer to the ground truth.

pc86 10y ago
One thing that piqued my interest is that he said they've been tracking their competitors' job ads "for a few years." I would have liked to see his competitors' numbers from '15 or '14.
erehweb 10y ago
But remember, the plural of anecdote is data http://blog.revolutionanalytics.com/2011/04/the-plural-of-anecdote-is-data-after-all.html http://blog.revolutionanalytics.com/2011/04/the-plural-of-an... If your giant tech employer and competitors are hiring apace, that is a useful data point.
- gmarx 10y ago
  The guy who originated the quote is clearly wrong (at least in medicine where it matters)
p4wnc6 10y ago
Data, even if only qualitative, about the psychological experience of technology workers seeking employment is very interesting to me. It may have fewer direct applications to policy adjustments, but provides insight into the overall mood and sentiment around tech hiring and employment. The psychological and sociological aspects of tech employment are not discussed as much as they should be and it is a disservice. Again, I love data-driven policy as much as the next Bayesian, but positive description is not the only thing that has value. Sometimes normative description also has value, even if it emerges from a sparse set of qualitative descriptions. I personally would like to see much more anecdotal data about how people feel about tech employment, because I think at this moment in history the interface between organizations and employees represents one of the most significant moral problems on the planet, that has wide-ranging effects stretching from income inequality to PTSD or depression to stagnation of innovations that could alleviate poverty or diseases, etc. In the same way that some claim that governmental regulations stymie tech progress, I feel it's perfectly analogous and perhaps even more critical to point out that organizational bureaucracy in the form of anti-human treatment of workers, candidates, and the unemployed, is just as much of an impediment to collective progress, but is much less talked about because it's fashionable to hate on government but taboo to hate on ethical failures of companies in their treatment of workers, candidates, or the unemployed.
- jknoepfler 10y ago
  I don't disagree with you that "how it feels" is an important aspect of our lives. It is not, however, an important aspect of answering the question "is tech hiring down 40%". If someone says "pneumonia diagnoses are down 40%" and someone replies "I disagree, it doesn't feel like doctors are diagnosing less pneumonia to me," nothing of substance has been added to the conversation. That said, I also think that I interpreted the purpose for posting the article too narrowly. Edit: to be clear, I don't intend to diminish the concerns you listed. The argument "A is irrelevant to B" is not the same as "not A" or "A is irrelevant"
  - p4wnc6 10y ago
    I agree with you. I think I am saying that I don't mind if discussions about "is tech hiring down 40%" also include discussions about "tech hiring sure feels like it's down because here's my experience ...". They are "relevant" in the sense that it provides a logical repository for information about how the job market feels, both factually and emotionally. I don't see much benefit in asserting such a need to keep the topics separate that even a comment thread on Hacker News cannot mix the two kinds of assessments together.
calinet6 10y ago
It feels that way to me too, based on my direct experience with my company and several friends' companies. There you go, 2 data points.
- cmdrfred 10y ago
  The plural of anecdote is anecdotes not data.
vasilipupkin 10y ago
Agree, which is why it's relatively straightforward to look at this link http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t17.htm http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t17.htm Best I can tell, all software related sectors still hiring
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
dang 10y ago
There is nothing wrong with people sharing anecdotes, experiences, feelings, impressions, idle thoughts, and speculations in HN threads. On the contrary: HN threads are conversations, and those things are the life blood of good conversation. True, the article title made a factual claim about data, but that doesn't mean commenters aren't welcome to share their related experiences, or deserve to be chided for not presenting rigorous evidence or treated as if they don't know the difference between the two (which does seem a little disrespectful, though I appreciate that you were trying not to be).

Spooky23 10y ago

My leading indicator is that my employer (big, slow, enterprise) is hiring like crazy after a few years of low hiring of new headcount. We're actually hiring good people in entry positions, which is an indicator that smart people are looking for stability, good benefits and mediocre compensation. That usually happens ahead of poor macroeconomic conditions for a variety of reasons.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
siscia 10y ago
Just out of curiosity, what are those reason that you mention? Even a link explaining is enough :)
- chiph 10y ago
  Simply put: Better to be getting low pay at a stable job where you can wait-out an economic down-turn, than be unemployed because all the cool employers that you'd rather be working for have had layoffs and aren't hiring.
- Spooky23 10y ago
  It's a .gov. Budget is driven by business and income tax (i.e. profits and bonus) both tend to peak before things go south. This .gov uses archaic cash accounting, so they always focus on current cash flow. So if we have cash to burn, that means things were great last year. :) Businesses in particular always invest in growth, so lots of revenue means that growth prospects are tightening, even though things look great in the present.
- manyxcxi 10y ago
  I generally agree that the brightest and most enthusiastic engineers I've ever met hated big enterprise tech teams, but it doesn't mean that someone isn't good at their craft because they've spent a long time in enterprise. In general the popular reasons for disliking enterprise tech: - The tech is generally years behind what people are doing now and risk aversion is generally above all else. No new and shiny, which means you're generally not that attractive to other companies that are doing pretty cool stuff. - Everything is slow. Things require approval from people who have no idea who you are and what you're trying to accomplish. - Apathy. You are but a tiny cog in a very large machine. Your Herculean efforts may not even cause a ripple anywhere outside of your team (if that) so why? Punch the clock, do your job, go home. - Beauracracy. See risk aversion and apathy. Your novel idea is but a flight of fancy that could cause a middle manager with no technical expertise a bonus. I spent my first four years out of university working for very large companies and I was so very bored and stifled I was crawling out of my skin during the work day. I also found that I could get a month's worth of work done and be so far ahead of my peers in a week that I could basically check out, show up just for meetings, then go to a coffee shop/"work from home" and work on my own projects or consult for other companies. I definitely learned things about process and organization that could be scaled to smaller teams and companies that continues to help me today, but I could never go work for a huge company again.

mathattack 10y ago

Very true. The number of companies that can hoard talent without high leverage projects is small. I can only think of Google. And even there, they are retrenching in some of their moonshots.

RickS 10y ago

> Feels a bit like we are at the tail end of a pretty big macro cycle of tech companies green lighting big initiatives with optimistic mindset and now a few years later the due bill is coming and the bets just didn't pay off. Exactly my perceptions as well. It seems like VCs and the tech scene in general put growth over profit in a big way for the last 3 - 5 years. That's a fine way to be for a lot of businesses, but my feeling is that companies and the hivemind got a little to comfortable with it, and rather than delaying profits for growth in the short term as an explicit strategy, began to take it for granted as an acceptable way to operate a business in the early days. The days when "Ramen profitable" mantras abounded and everybody praised 37signals have definitely quieted down, including on HN. And now it's been long enough that the tide's going out and we're seeing who's still got trunks on. I don't think the whole thing is going to crash into the ground, but I think "peak easy money" occurred in the past 24 months and has passed. I expect companies to have to work harder to prove they're actually bringing in cash. IMO, this is just as it should be and the market is correcting for valid reasons. ---- Semi-related anecdote: SF's insane rent prices have mostly plateaued in the last 9 months, especially compared to past growth, and I hear the occasional whisper of them falling. Most news orgs get SF rent prices way wrong (by extrapolating bedroom prices from home purchases, not rentals, for example), but as someone who's lived in the city for a few years and changed apartments annually, I've got a decent calibration for the market. This is a trailing indicator, and to me signals that tech workers are less financially risk tolerant, and perceptions of "my financial situation is stable or poised to improve" are on the decline. Nearly all of my friends express worry over finances, despite making north of 100k.