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Chiming in here with a bit of data on the hiring side of things. I'm the cofounder of SharpestMinds, an ISA-powered mentorship marketplace for data scientists.

Chiming in here with a bit of data on the hiring side of things. I'm the cofounder of SharpestMinds, an ISA-powered mentorship marketplace for data scientists. For all the obvious reasons, we track the hiring rates for our grads very closely and have been keeping close tabs on the pandemic's effects on the tech job market. Our observations so far: 1. Hiring in tech has definitely not gone to zero, even for the junior-level roles we skew towards. 2. We're seeing more like a 60-70% drop in hires compared to our original (pre-COVID) projections for the month of March, so far. 3. Companies least affected seem to fall in two major categories: A) BigCos with deep pockets; and B) SaaS businesses with predictable revenue streams and some degree of economic insulation from the "meatspace" economy. Many software businesses (e.g., Zapier, GitLab) are already run partly or fully remotely, so their hiring workflows can take quarantine in stride, to an extent. Many others (e.g., Stripe) are quickly adapting to these new constraints. The effects of a global quarantine and pandemic are almost certain to propagate to all companies eventually. But some are less affected than others, economically and operationally. We're fortunate in tech that it's still quite possible - albeit measurably harder - to get hired under current conditions.

mkagenius 7y ago
> 60-70% drop in hires compared to our original (pre-COVID) projections for the month what was your original projection
dickeytk 7y ago
60-70% drop meaning if it was 100 roles last month it's 30-40 this month?
- edouard-harris 7y ago
  Correct.
TAForObvReasons 7y ago
> SaaS businesses with predictable revenue streams and some degree of economic insulation from the "meatspace" economy Those are most likely lagging by a few weeks or a month. Monthly subscriptions are arguably the easiest to cut and companies are looking to cut non-essential services.
- Aeolun 7y ago
  They’re likely also the smallest possible thing that a company can cut. I doubt anyone will save their company by cutting Slack.
  - TAForObvReasons 7y ago
    There are two possibilities: either this is a storm to be weathered or an existential crisis. In the former, cutting run-rate is important but you also need to look at the aftermath. Firing people now hurts you later on when the storm clears, whereas cutting Slack and switching to open source self-hosted alternatives is a cost savings that won't impede the future growth. Obviously cutting slack won't save a company with zero revenue.
- blihp 7y ago
  With the majority of companies not at all well positioned for work-from-home, I would bet that many business-oriented SaaS companies (that do something useful) are going to be picking up new customers. As a result, they'll probably be hiring people esp. related to operations/customer support.
- skissane 7y ago
  Subscription models vary across SaaS vendors (and even across different offering tiers at the same vendor). At the low end of the market, monthly subscriptions are the norm. As you move up to bigger deal sizes, annual subscriptions become more and more common.
geggam 7y ago
>1. Hiring in tech has definitely not gone to zero, even for the junior-level roles we skew towards. This always makes me curious. Why do companies look for junior levels instead of senior ? It seems to me that with the choice you would want experience if it was an option. Disclaimer : am employed not looking for work simply perspective
- henryfjordan 7y ago
  Experience costs $$$, and there is always some more basic or straight-forward work to do in addition to the cutting-edge stuff. If a junior-level engineer can work with the senior, they can do those lesser tasks for less money and let the higher-payed people tackle the harder tasks (and get some experience!)
  - geggam 7y ago
    I am experienced and biased because of that obviously but I have seen so many train wrecks created with this method. The amount of waste in corporate american and startups is insane. IMO There are solutions experienced folks know that save so much money when you look at the big picture it always baffles me when I see that.. The other thing that baffles me is when a CIO makes choices based off of things he has read online instead of taking the business need and finding the most economical solution If you are interested in making money finding technical solutions with known failures is the key. Experience always knows those. Just a perspective and comment to an opposing. Not arguing.
    - henryfjordan 7y ago
      It's all a fancy optimization problem. Each project can be broken into tasks that take X amount of skill/experience and you have workers with varying skill. If you only have high-value workers, you'll be wasting a lot of skill/experience on the menial tasks. If you only have low-value workers then some projects will fail because none of them meet the skill thresholds. As a company you want a diversity of workers to allow you to better optimize.

mkagenius 7y ago

> 60-70% drop in hires compared to our original (pre-COVID) projections for the month what was your original projection

dickeytk 7y ago

60-70% drop meaning if it was 100 roles last month it's 30-40 this month?

edouard-harris 7y ago
Correct.

TAForObvReasons 7y ago

> SaaS businesses with predictable revenue streams and some degree of economic insulation from the "meatspace" economy Those are most likely lagging by a few weeks or a month. Monthly subscriptions are arguably the easiest to cut and companies are looking to cut non-essential services.

Aeolun 7y ago
They’re likely also the smallest possible thing that a company can cut. I doubt anyone will save their company by cutting Slack.
- TAForObvReasons 7y ago
  There are two possibilities: either this is a storm to be weathered or an existential crisis. In the former, cutting run-rate is important but you also need to look at the aftermath. Firing people now hurts you later on when the storm clears, whereas cutting Slack and switching to open source self-hosted alternatives is a cost savings that won't impede the future growth. Obviously cutting slack won't save a company with zero revenue.
blihp 7y ago
With the majority of companies not at all well positioned for work-from-home, I would bet that many business-oriented SaaS companies (that do something useful) are going to be picking up new customers. As a result, they'll probably be hiring people esp. related to operations/customer support.
skissane 7y ago
Subscription models vary across SaaS vendors (and even across different offering tiers at the same vendor). At the low end of the market, monthly subscriptions are the norm. As you move up to bigger deal sizes, annual subscriptions become more and more common.

geggam 7y ago

>1. Hiring in tech has definitely not gone to zero, even for the junior-level roles we skew towards. This always makes me curious. Why do companies look for junior levels instead of senior ? It seems to me that with the choice you would want experience if it was an option. Disclaimer : am employed not looking for work simply perspective

henryfjordan 7y ago
Experience costs $$$, and there is always some more basic or straight-forward work to do in addition to the cutting-edge stuff. If a junior-level engineer can work with the senior, they can do those lesser tasks for less money and let the higher-payed people tackle the harder tasks (and get some experience!)
- geggam 7y ago
  I am experienced and biased because of that obviously but I have seen so many train wrecks created with this method. The amount of waste in corporate american and startups is insane. IMO There are solutions experienced folks know that save so much money when you look at the big picture it always baffles me when I see that.. The other thing that baffles me is when a CIO makes choices based off of things he has read online instead of taking the business need and finding the most economical solution If you are interested in making money finding technical solutions with known failures is the key. Experience always knows those. Just a perspective and comment to an opposing. Not arguing.
  - henryfjordan 7y ago
    It's all a fancy optimization problem. Each project can be broken into tasks that take X amount of skill/experience and you have workers with varying skill. If you only have high-value workers, you'll be wasting a lot of skill/experience on the menial tasks. If you only have low-value workers then some projects will fail because none of them meet the skill thresholds. As a company you want a diversity of workers to allow you to better optimize.