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Hard truths I learned when I got laid off from my SWE job

• isatty 4y ago
  Not a lot in here about being on a visa: you can do everything right, but your life can be uprooted by work authorization being artificially limited to x days after you’re laid off. Getting on a more permanent visa isn’t actually possible for a lot of devs.
• xyzelement 4y ago
  This is good, and/but is one dimension. A few from me: - Have perspective. Several years down the line when you're in a new company/career/life, you will recognize this layoff was a necessary thing to happen for you to "get there." - It's going to take a while. Every job I ever got, took waaaay longer than it should have. Things happen. Roles get filled internally, headcount goes away, etc. Job finding is inherently filled with friction, so if it takes 6 months or more, don't interpret that as "I am bad/this will never work" - it's just the nature of the beast. - Be in sync with your family on what matters. My wife was very clear that she was going to be fine if it took me longer to find a role I was really excited about. We were lucky that we could afford that, and it's good to be explicit. - There's no stigma in layoffs but you can generate your own stigma in how you talk about it. Don't be bitter and do provide some color. My answer why I was looking was "the company took a big revenue hit with COVID and had to reduce headcount. The strategy was to cut from areas that were further along in technological maturity, such as (my area.) We lost a lot of senior tech talent, including myself. I am really grateful having worked there, though!" This is 100% true to what happened and how I feel, and it's a great answer because it makes is clear I wasn't fired because I was bad, and shows some maturity and perspective. - Be aware that your next job may not be your perfect job. It should be good enough that you MIGHT want to stay there, but at the very least can be a launching pad for your real next role. When you are laid off, the question isn't "do I see myself here the next 10 years" but more like "am I pretty sure this will be an interesting / worthwhile year and a half" - Don't be negative. The author posted some spreadsheet about how rough his job search was and then was surprised that a company wasn't interested in him. I don't think this is the same as "truth can hurt you" - more like "companies are on the lookout for red flags, and if you are the kind of person who complains in public, maybe you are going to be a negative culture fit." That's doesn't mean they want yes-men, but there's a big difference between people who feel an obligation to dissent (strong positive) to perceived complainers. Complainers are poison.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • swang720 4y ago
    Speaking from personal experience the "there's no stigma in layoffs" bit is not always true. Many places have asked me why I was laid off upfront with an assumption that it was due to performance reasons unless I'm able to prove otherwise.
• cheschire 4y ago
  > Very few of us are going to bat 1.000 during our careers, especially with the industry reshaping itself under our feet. This feels like it may be an iceberg. Could you expand more on what "reshaping" you're seeing? Are you referring to the mass layoffs specifically or is there some broader context to this comment?
  • bruce343434 4y ago
    I think SWE is a very young field. Just 50 years ago GOTO was commonplace (apparently?). In any case I think the future hold some interesting prospects, with copilot and gpt and all.
    • SonOfKyuss 4y ago
      GOTO is still perfectly acceptable and common practice in the Linux kernel and other widely used codebases. https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/v5.0/process/coding-style.html#centralized-exiting-of-functions https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/v5.0/process/coding-style.ht...
      • ghostpepper 4y ago
        If anyone is curious, it's not just used to make unreadable spaghetti code. There are certain common paradigms, eg. int do_stuff_in_order(void) { int ret = init_a(); if (ret != success) goto out; ret = init_b(); if (ret != success) goto error1; ret = init_c(); if (ret != success) goto error2; return 0; error2: teardown_b(); error1: teardown_a(); out: return ret; }
  • stcroixx 4y ago
    Not OP, but the significant change I see is FAANG can't hire simply to keep talent away from their competitors anymore. Not sure what overall percentage of people working in those jobs were hired for that reason, but they'll likely never see that kind of salary again.
• doix 4y ago
  I'm guessing #7 contributed to the fact that it took the author 1 year to find another job. If you're desperate, you can most likely find an _okay_ job in 3 months. If you don't have the luxury to wait for a "good" job, finding a job tends to happen faster.
  • ThePadawan 4y ago
    I'm in similar shoes to the author here, and am glad to hear you show some understanding for this. I interviewed with a quite promising company beginning of December, only to immediately get the written feedback (after the first call) of "Well I know a lot of SWE in this town and none of them are struggling to find a job - so if you've been looking for X months, surely there's something wrong with you - and anyway, we've already signed a contract with someone else in the 5 days since we last spoke." (To be fair to them - I had mentioned how frustrating it was to simply get "no" as negative hiring feedback and asked them to elaborate if at all possible) I take it as a "well, bullet dodged" moment, but I am not going to lie and say it didn't sting.
    • jacquesm 4y ago
      This sort of thing is pretty common. It happens in both directions, if you're employed job offers line up, if you're available there must be something wrong with you. Highly frustrating. A couple of takeaways: unemployed < freelancers < has a job < has a prestigious job. So if possible and you're on the job market at least fill the time freelancing so you don't end up with the 'unemployed' status because hiring managers are going to see that as a way to excuse themselves, from that point forward they look at employing you as taking a risk, which, as a rule they are trained to avoid. VCs suffer from the same disability: the start-up that has a deal on the table will have multiple parties trying to get in on the deal, the start-up that is just pitching is probably somehow faulty or someone else would have given them a terms sheet long ago. They see no inconsistency in this. Also, you don't necessarily have to inform them of your feelings and the fact that you've been rejected more than once. Best of luck there!
      • ThePadawan 4y ago
• sbuccini 4y ago
  Hey everyone, author here. Thanks for taking the time to read this post. I decided to spend Christmas break in CDMX[0] by myself in order to reflect not only on the past year, but just how far I've come since I got laid off. This is the result. Thanks for making all those hours at the café (instead of at a museum or bar or whatever) worthwhile. [0] I'll be here for a few more days if you'd like to meet up!
  • europeanguy 4y ago
    > Only in retrospect did I understand the connotations that post broadcast to potential employers. So, you wanna share with us what the connotations were? Is it just that the recruiter read "oh, you're failing a lot, you must suck"? Or is there something else more interesting to this? I'm disappointed that this post is somewhat vague on specifics. But on the one situation that is set up very specifically, we don't get the punchline.
    • mgkimsal 4y ago
      Not OP, but I'll take a guess that it makes the OP look like a troublemaker. Someone who has the nerve/gall/gumption to be so open as to name/shame other companies may not pull any punches when it comes to naming 'company X' in the future after something bad goes down. Posting "here's a list of companies that haven't got back to me" (which is possibly implicit in an open spreadsheet sort of post) is likely perceived as a troublemaker.
      • sbuccini 4y ago
        The connotations I had in mind (although I obviously cannot be sure what the recruiter thought): - what mgkimsal said - "This employee is applying to really big companies. I'm not sure they know what they are really looking for. This is a mission-driven company, and we want people who want to be here" - "This person has applied to 30+ places and hasn't landed a job yet? Must not be that great after all" - "Someone who posts this information publicly has low EQ, I wouldn't want to work with them"
• addaon 4y ago
  > You will have to interview for jobs where you will use a language you despise. Maybe even Java. Definitely Javascript. No. Or rather, maybe? I have been fortunate enough that in a couple decades in this industry, including two major downturns, I've never been in a position that I /must/ find a job on a particular timeline to pay the bills. While my life situation helps with this, I do recognize that luck is a major part of it. As a result, this line in particular fails to resonate with me. If I take a job doing something that makes me miserable, I will be miserable. Maybe I can put up with it for six months, but what's the point? During those six months, between working full time and being miserable, I will not be effective at looking for a long-term role I enjoy. Better to take a personal bridge loan and keep looking for something that works for me. We're software engineers. If, like me, having someone pay you to build cool shit is about as good as it gets -- hold out for that, don't settle for doing what you "despise" instead.
  • sabujp 4y ago
    I started programming c/c++ then perl/python and i hated java initially, but it actually taught me CS. Java has very mature and powerful libraries, e.g. rxjava and guava.
  • mgkimsal 4y ago
    I think you're in a more fortunate position than many. > Better to take a personal bridge loan You often won't be able to get a loan without verifiable steady income. > Maybe I can put up with it for six months, but what's the point? To bring in income. Pay for living expenses. Pay off debts. Provide for family. Start/increase/replenish savings. > hold out for that, don't settle for doing what you "despise" instead. People with families and multiple financial responsibilities beyond their immediate needs often have to do things they "despise", if even/only for a short while. Your post, while not having anything specifically 'wrong' in it, comes across as a bit privileged. You recognize that luck is a part of it, and you recognize your own life situation helps, but you still tell people to 'hold out' for 'building cool shit'. Not everyone can hold out, for a multitude of reasons.
    • addaon 4y ago
• uka 4y ago
  If you have to be an employee- nobody is forcing you to make the job your whole life. Whether you are at risk of getting laid off or not - not having friends outside work is a bad idea.
• GoodJokes 4y ago
  [dead]
• mikestaszel 4y ago
  Coincidentally(?), "Laid off tech workers quickly find new jobs" (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34161528 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34161528) is also on the HN front page right now.
  • AdrianB1 4y ago
    It very much depends on their specialty. Some niche position are available once a year or less, in my country, while regular developers are hired by the thousand every month.
• nijave 4y ago
  >Do not disclose the current status of your interviewing process Not sure exactly what this means but it's pretty common for recruiters to check your timeline and try to work around it. For instance, they'll try to expedite you if you already have offers on the table or relax the timeline so it fits with interviews.
  • anon50118810 4y ago
    I strongly recommend only sharing minimal information about your job search with employers. Don't share when you started looking, because if it's been a while then you'll look bad. Don't share that you think you're far along in the process at some other place, because if that falls through then you'll be embarrassed if it comes up again or it might look like you were lying to put pressure on them. The fact that an employer could speed things up for you if you have active prospects elsewhere is a little insulting because it's the flip side of saying we know we can put you on the backburner because you're unemployed and struggling. You can say whether you're actively or passive looking, or if you have a firm offer on the table, or if you're especially interested in employers in some particular area if it makes you look good with this employer. Otherwise don't bring your search up and politely deflect questions if you can.
    • dinosaurdynasty 4y ago
      There's a big difference between telling (third-party) recruiters and employers these things.
• pronlover723 4y ago
  #1 it's lonely? April 2020, 1 month into the pandemic. I found the pandemic lonely. I saw less than 1 person a month for the first 14 months of the pandemic. And i find WFH incredibly lonely. I haven't recovered. I'm utterly alone most weeks. I see no one. Even if I go to work, no one is there. I moved cities a year ago and have only 1 friend and 2 acquaintances in the new city. 2 of those 3 are married and I see them maybe once a month, if I'm lucky. The 3rd I haven't seen since August. The pandemic as killed meetup.com. It used to be full of activities. I don't think there is 1/20th of the activities there used to be.
  • sbuccini 4y ago
    Hey, author here. I get it, trust me. This post meant to encapsulate my feelings during the one year I spent unemployed. During that entire time, I was alone. I had a falling out with my parents. I moved to a foreign country where I knew no one in order to stretch my savings. I totally get it. If you need to chat with someone, I'm happy to lend an ear. Contact info is in my profile.
    • petesergeant 4y ago
      > I moved to a foreign country where I knew no one in order to stretch my savings I have found NomadList (nomadlist.com) and NomadSphere (nomadsphere.io) invaluable for meeting up with people when abroad, although usually people who are there to work remotely.
  • psychphysic 4y ago
    Loneliness is a killer[0]. And we're doing ourselves no favours with the way increasingly we meet people through apps and not face to face. I'd be lost without the friends I made in education settings. This might sound silly but any chance you could swap a meetup group with some sort of class? Art, writing especially something that involves discussion? [0] https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/loneliness-is-harmful-to-our-nations-health/ https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/loneliness...
  • brightball 4y ago
• mildweed 4y ago
  > Hard Truth #1: Getting laid off is a profoundly lonely experience. When I was laid off, it was very comforting to rebuild community with others who were laid off at the same time. We started a Slack instance where we: * shared resources with each other * complained and vented and healed together * celebrated each other's new jobs * continued the network for years after
  • kyrra 4y ago
    100%. My last layoff was in 2011, but at that time they closed the entire office I was in at the time (50 of us laid off). We helped eachother find places to interview and met up once a week to have lunch. I ended up working remotely with 3 of my old co-workers.
• nobodyandproud 4y ago
  I’d take #7 with a grain of salt: You’re far more desirable once you secure a job, than when you’re unemployed. If the company is mid-size or better AND it’s not a sweat shop, take it while you assess your next move. Don’t make the mistake of staying put, however, unless the team or company aligns with your interests. Context: I took a break, got married, and started looking for SWE work just when the “great recession” was looming. It took me six months and some unpopular niche skills just happened to open some opportunities. Just barely.
  • spikej 4y ago
    What were those niche skills, if you don't mind?
• Koshkin 4y ago
  > Maybe even Java. Personally, I'd love to get to work with Java, after (many) years of C++. Such an amazing technology and ecosystem.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • eddsh1994 4y ago
    Grass is always greener!
  • kagakuninja 4y ago
    I switched from C++ to Java 20 years ago, and never looked back. Although I've been using Scala the last 7 years.
• sillysaurusx 4y ago
  > Don’t discount the physical aspect of loneliness either. If you’re like me, work is the primary shaper of your life. Work gives your life rhythm. It is the gravitational center around which the other activities in your life revolve. Then, one day, poof—it’s gone. Exhibit A of why not to take your day job too seriously. Be professional — but that’s as far as it goes. > Come up with a more, uh, positive reason for why you’re interviewing instead of disclosing that you were laid off. There’s nothing wrong with being laid off. I was, last week. Saw it coming from a mile away. Told my new employer about it. Here’s the secret for getting a job you’re happy with. Try to have competing offers. I would have had to take over a 60% reduction in salary if I hadn’t had one. But I did, and so it was merely a 37% reduction. I’m very happy with it. This is an area where I have to give tptacek lots of credit. I sort of shuffled from job to job until he posted this nugget of wisdom, and it’s quite true. None of the points in the article applied to me because of a fundamental shift in mindset. It happened around 7 years ago. I think the loneliness aspect is intertwined with the reason why most people don’t try to go interview while you already have a job. You see your job as something more. It’s not just a job; it gives your life rhythm. Maybe so. But in my experience, the way to be happy is not to care so darn much about it. Do a good job. But try to get a better one. And when you’re on the market, try to get multiple. The recent thread about the engineer who got their offer rescinded from two different YC companies is exhibit B. They mentioned that they stopped looking for new jobs after things seemed to be going well during the pre-offer phase. Don’t do this. You should be doing a breadth-first search of all possible opportunities: talk to as many people as possible, and spend your time weighted by expected outcome.
  • librish 4y ago
    > Exhibit A of why not to take your day job too seriously. Be professional — but that’s as far as it goes. People spend 8 hours + lunch and commuting every weekday on their job. It's almost 50% of the time you spend conscious during a week. Most people want more out of that than just a chore that needs to be done.
    • dj_mc_merlin 4y ago
      Embrace distributed WFH and you can spend 4 hours in the morning, have a nice picnic, play some basketball, have a couple beers, then retire to your room to do another 4hrs. Or just fuck off some days and counterbalance it by doing hyper focused 12hrs days some other time. Also: unless you're genuinely curing cancer or flying food to starving African villages or something, 95% of software companies are pretty damn useless and any impact a SWE imagines is basically just a mental fantasy that helps one keep working. No one is genuinely happier because another API is created or some rich person has a better way of managing which products he's selling to other rich people. It's all basically useless and just a way to make money.
• ptkanchi 4y ago
  Getting laid off absolutely sucks and it could potentially happen to anyone, thus it's important everyone has some sort of nest egg. And please... network, network, network! I know not everyone has this opportunity, but if you leave a good lasting impression and make friends with strong coworkers, over time they will get promoted to higher and higher positions making it incredibly easier to find a job when needed.
• wklm 4y ago
  > when all the talking heads were saying a recession was inevitable. Sound familiar? This is the very same recession we've been talking about :)
• bickett 4y ago
  This is a high interest rate phenomenon. They'd be writing a very different article if written in July 2021.
• tester756 4y ago
  >You’re going to have to grind Leetcode. Yes, even the dynamic programming problems. Why there isn't this much problem with having to learn yet another JS framework, get familiarity with database of the month, learn some tool like docker/k8s/ansible/vagrant/blabla or yet another proprietary toolchain like AWS/Azure/GCP but foundational cs/programming knowledge is top hated thing, that people even call it "discriminatory for people with families" or something like that
  • throwawaysleep 4y ago
    Because companies tend to let you learn those on the job. Nobody complains if I don't quite know Flask in interviews if I know Django. Certainly nobody cares if you know the details inside out or want to refer to docs. Algos is a skill you do not use on the job and companies are extremely picky about you getting the correct answer.
    • tester756 4y ago
      How can you use algos if you aren't aware which places in your code you could significantly improve if you had that algo intuition?
      • rajin444 4y ago
        You’re hired for your problem solving ability which includes being able to learn and apply specific algorithms if needed. Asking questions that chat GPT can easily answer gives 0 insight into problem solving ability.
        • tester756 4y ago
          Sounds cool in theory, but the question stands How are you going to improve existing codebase / new code if you aren't aware of the foundations, tools and basic primitives? How many problems could be solved by just usage of z3 if you were aware of it? How many problems could be solved by applying most popular combinatorial optimization methods/approaches instead of writing something times, times slower, but eventually hacked enough to make it work?
• jt2190 4y ago
  > Come up with a more, uh, positive reason for why you’re interviewing instead of disclosing that you were laid off. I don’t understand this assertion, unless “laid off” now means “fired with cause”. People are laid off all the time, for no reason other than the company wants to reduce their labor costs. Perhaps the author is assuming that the company is also making a judgement about their skills, e.g. that they’re somehow not up to some arbitrary standard? (I think that it is very easy to make this assumption, especially when laid off the first time.) Anyway, there should be no need to give a potential employer a reason about why you were let go other than the position was eliminated.
  • ejb999 4y ago
    yes and no - unless companies laid off everybody, or an entire division/location for example, they already made some sort of decision on who would stay and who would go - if you find yourself in the 'let go' category, than someone likely made a judgement about you already and found you less desirable than the 'keep' category - thats just the unfortunate reality.
    • anon50118810 4y ago
      "Laid off" should be one of the safest reasons to give for leaving an employer, right up there with giving birth to a child or taking care of a sick loved one. Layoffs from big companies are in the news now and there's rumors about how employees were chosen, but by and large saying you were laid off from some random company shouldn't mean anything other than that employer restructured and you had bad luck. Certainly you as a job applicant are under no obligation to speculate during an interview about why you specifically were let go.
    • jt2190 4y ago
      > ... than someone likely made a judgement... Of course someone made a judgement, you just don't know what criteria they used, so it could be anything from "didn't like his face" all the way to "had the highest salary". Furthermore, how does it help in any way to assume that the reason for the layoff was because of a personal shortcoming? And why should we assume in advance and without evidence that a potential employer won't consider us because of this?
• jayceedenton 4y ago
  > Hard Truth #6: Honesty can only hurt you I think the author has come away with the wrong lesson here. Many engineers, particularly those that don't pay too much heed to social mores, think they have some God-given right to share details of all their private interactions publicly. Every tech test they do is pushed to GitHub with an accompanying blog post. Every interview has a transcript (somewhat one-sided) published and shared to Twitter. This is typical oafish behaviour displayed by mamy engineers and frankly, it annoys people. It's often considered a red flag when hiring. Understanding when to be discreet is an important skill for any employee. Lying about why you're looking for work is a bad idea. That small lie will escalate, you'll have to start stringing together more lies, and when you get found out it won't reflect well. This has nothing to do with radical honesty. I'm not suggesting you air all your dirty laundry during an interview. But don't lie. And don't publish all private interactions because you're a fan of free software. It's not the same thing.
  • jacquesm 4y ago
    If a company asks you about stuff that isn't any of their business you have my permission (not that you need it) to lie your ass off if you think it will help you. The power asymmetry is such that unless the counterparty is extremely careful about abusing that power that you will end up being cornered and taken advantage of. If you present yourself as more desirable than you are based on your current situation and it lands you a job at a higher salary than you otherwise would have: more power to you. But don't overdo it and realize that there is some risk involved.
    • anon50118810 4y ago
      I think it's healthier to instead develop the social skills and confidence needed to answer any questions confidently while enforcing boundaries about what you will and won't answer. Outright lying can come from a place of weakness and fear which isn't good to encourage.
      • jacquesm 4y ago
        Let me give you an example: you're gay and your employer has a thing about gay people. They will not ask you outright 'are you gay?' because that, while legal might result in an anti discrimination suit upon rejection of the candidate which they could very well lose. Lots of other situations and questions like that which are strictly speaking none of the employer's business. When given the option between telling the truth, evading the question, enforcing your boundaries or lying the only one that might result in you getting the job (assuming you need a job and wouldn't mind working for a bigot because a paycheck is better than no paycheck) I'd be fine with you lying. That is still problematic, but you don't have any moral responsibility towards your employer if they transgress themselves. The same goes for questions about unionizing, wanting children, having chronic diseases and so on.
• ptero 4y ago
  Good thoughts, but (not as a criticism of the author), some of the pain points are at least partially self-inflicted: To minimize post-layoff loneliness (and not only for that!) make sure you have a life outside of work: the people you like to spend some time with and things you like to do. To minimize money-driven stress of the layoff, build up a cash cushion that can last at least 6 months; with unemployment, vacation time and any severance it can probably be stretched for a year. And #7, "think whether you want to work for that company after getting an offer" seems off the mark. Sure, reject an offer that is not the best and stretch time on a safety offer until you get a better one. But do not go through the motions of getting an offer with a company you have no interest to work for. If you do not want to work for a company at all, do not apply there. My 2c.
  • throwawaysleep 4y ago
    > But do not go through the motions of getting an offer with a company you have no interest to work for. Strong disagree. In this economy, you regularly want to hip pocket job offers.
    • alocasia-1 4y ago
      This, and interview practice is a plus too.
    • erikpukinskis 4y ago
      There’s some truth to what you’re saying, but it can be taken too far. If you have the posture of “I’ll take anything I can get” I think that actually puts you at a disadvantage in an interviewing situation. In my experience employers can tell who is actually trying to evaluate fit themselves, and who is just saying what they think needs to be said. I find it’s easier for both parties to make an offer, if they know the counterparty has done their due diligence. For me when accepting an offer I’m also doing the same, evaluating whether I think the company has actually vetted me properly and has reason to think I will be a good fit. There is so much mystery in the hiring process, I really need the other party to be doing their half of the work. And that means saying no to opportunities that don’t feel right. That doesn’t mean I walk away from anything that’s not perfect. It just means I am looking out for reasons to say no, in addition to the reasons to say yes. I think interviewers pick up on that and it helps me get offers.
• throwawaysleep 4y ago
  > Hard Truth #6: Honesty can only hurt you Honesty really has no place in corporate interactions. The author is way too old to be learning this lesson. The reason you are applying is that you "are passionate about X because of Y" even if you don't give a flying crap about what the org does.
• Chris2048 4y ago
  Why are these universalized as if they are true of all layoffs? > Hard Truth #2: It’s gonna take longer than you think I was laid off once and had a new (higher paid) job before gardening-leave was over (two weeks) - OP doesn't say what offers they turned down..
• debacle 4y ago
  I disagree with some of this greatly. Some of it is 100% spot on. 1. Getting laid of is usually pretty liberating. Everyone knows the company isn't generally doing well, the air is hot with friction, and you probably know you're working yourself into a corner. Getting laid off has happened to me two and a half times now. The first time was in the 2007 crash, and the company was hemorrhaging money and everyone knew it but didn't want to admit it. The second time I happened to quit the same week the CEO was planning layoffs. He teared up thanking me for saving him from having to fire anyone. The third time was one of the worst work experiences I have ever been in, but I didn't realize it until it was over. I called my wife and was excited, not downtrodden. Every day for the next two weeks was full of lunches and drinks and I had to insist on being allowed to pay every time. 2. This is just good advice. The only things you should spend money on when interviewing are dry cleaning and resume paper. I think my longest stretch was about 9 months, and my wife was forced to go back to work during that time despite just having a baby. 3. Yes and no. Some people don't interview well. Based on the author's other writing, he seems like the kind of person who might not interview well. In my career I think I have a close to 30% offer rate on interviews (but I'm very picky about applying for jobs). Yours may be higher, or much lower. 4. This is just always good advice. Set a bar for yourself, be willing to negotiate, and realize that work environment is about 500x as important as what technology you are using. I once got a job at a perl (yay!) shop where I worked for literally 1 day because the environment was so toxic. 5. Most offers for help come from people who don't know how to help. The author's approach here of direct asks is fantastic. Most will flake on you, but those that follow through are true friends. 6. Yeah this was a bad move. Don't talk about your exes on a first date, and definitely don't bring up the ones that swiped whichever direction the bad one is before your first date. 7. If the economy keeps going the way it is headed, ditch this advice in its entirety. Take that job, grasp it tightly to your breast, and don't let go no matter what happens. The job market in a down economy could be romantically described as falling somewhere between a chop shop and a meat market, and the hiring incentives for managers can be pretty twisted. 8. This has taught me to have a healthy relationship with my career. That post-layoff feeling should be bottled and sold next to the stickers that neophyte programmers put on their macbooks. There's nothing more seductive than confidence, and the clarity that a layoff brings is the best test of confidence there is (up there with a cold sales call, a VC interrogation, etc). If you can internalize a realistic understanding of your own skill level and marketability, you'll be an attractive hire, teammate, leader, etc.
• k__ 4y ago
  "If you’re like me, work is the primary shaper of your life" It's sad to see people again and again sell their life.
  • ejb999 4y ago
    >>It's sad to see people again and again sell their life. Why? I don't find that sad at all - some people really enjoy their work, and it becomes a big part of their identity. What better way to spend you life than doing something you truly enjoy and provides you an income to be comfortable and take care of your family/friends? I know a lot of doctors, they have spent their entire lives taking care of people, saving lives and generally doing good things. Most of them have a very, very hard time retiring when the time comes - it is who they are. I know several in their eighties who continue to practice because it brings them joy. While not an MD myself, if I won the mega-millions tomorrow, and was set for life, I would still write code for someone or something.
    • eat 4y ago
      I'd still interact with computers in some way shape or form if I were a millionaire, but I also hope that such an amount of money and free time would expand my scope of personal fulfillment to some other unknown areas of life and consciousness beyond IT work. Ironically, I think your MD example provides the exact sort of comparison that should trigger some critical introspection for most tech workers. Most of us are not exactly saving lives with the time we spend in front of the keyboard.
    • k__ 4y ago
      There is a difference between having passion for your profession and selling your life to one specific company. If you have passion, you don't need to care where to follow it. But OP seemingly traded a fulfilling privat life with friends for a company with coworkers.
    • chinabot 4y ago
      Plenty do, difference is they just write code and do projects they like so no tick-tock add-ons unless that floats your boat.
• revskill 4y ago
  Luck is vital in the interviewing game, from moment you apply for a position after finding a company, to the multiple rounds of interviewing. My thought is, don't rush. Keep and spend more time on learning and doing what you wanna do, go deeper on the holes of knowledge (not for the sake of interviewing). Good things need time and patience. It's the only thing that i can do, and i can't do more about it about the interviewing game.
• sjellen 4y ago
  Being laid off can and will forever change your career risk tolerance. When I got laid off in 2008, I stayed at the next job probably 10 years longer than I should have because of effects of being laid off.
  • the_only_law 4y ago
    On the other hand, the aftermath of this layoff is making it pretty clear to me that going I got this field was a mistake and I was trying to get a career going for five years that was just going to end up nowhere. This might be what I need to get out for good.
  • shade 4y ago
    That's a good point, and I had a similar reaction. I got laid off from my first job out of college in late 2006. Unemployed for 3 months, found a role with a new company 2 hours away, moved, and stayed there over 12 years because I didn't want to take the risk of moving. That, and I let myself be too intimidated by the interview process. I eventually got laid off from there and found a new job after a ~2 month stint of unemployment; stayed with my new company for about 18 months and then changed to my current job of my own volition to find something I was happier with rather than sitting around being miserable.
  • rr808 4y ago
    7 years later after getting laid off and I'm still paranoid about performance reviews and layoff rumors in the press. I never used to be nervous about talking to people about my work but it really affected me.
• Octokiddie 4y ago
  > Companies may be looking to reset expectations around compensation and working conditions. Offers are extended, but with extremely unpalatable terms compared to prior jobs. For unsavvy candidates, this won’t become apparent until late in the interview process. This seems like something that will become especially prevalent this time around given the much higher level to which salaries were pushed during the bubble.
• blagie 4y ago
  My advice: Have one or more side projects going all the time. If you get laid off, immediately start doing a startup, open-source project, or volunteering full time. A year of unemployment? Lonely, depressing, and not good on a resume. A year of launching an unsuccessful venture? Running coding classes for the underserved? Focusing full-time on contributing to pytorch? That's a lot better, both at the time and in retrospect. Side projects are also a good way to get hired. You meet people. You also learn stuff, and stuff of the type you can't learn in a job. You can also do the equivalent of an acquihire. If you want to work for the world's #1 drubble maker, and you spend 6 months developing a drubble startup, guess who'll come out the most knowledgeable and passionate about drubbles at the interview? And perhaps even bring in some helpful IP? Your back story is "I tried to go it alone; I think I can do a lot more good with the backing of a company."
  • scarface74 4y ago
    This is a statistically horrible idea. The chance that your startup is going to replace even the compensation of entry level grad in any large city in the US doing enterprise development is almost 0. The “story” that has worked for me is that “no I’m not going to reverse a binary tree on the whiteboard while juggling bowling balls riding a unicycle on a tightrope. What we can do is talk like adults and we can discuss your real world business problems and see if I can bring my skills and experience to the table to help you solve those problems in exchange for money” I’m not going to spend 40 hours a week working and more time on the side working on a side project.
    • itake 4y ago
      Just wondering, what is your TC? My understanding is that story works at Tier 3 companies that lack a structured interview process and are desperate for candidates (e.g. startups).
      • scarface74 4y ago
        Seeing that I work at the alphabetically sorted first “A” in FAANG, I don’t think it could be considered a “tier 3” company. When a recruiter from Amazon Retail reached out to me about an SDE position, I wasn’t interested in either relocating, working as a software developer at any large company or doing the prerequisite DS&A monkey dance. We kept talking and she suggested that I apply for a fully remote role consulting (yes it’s a full time position) in AWS Professional Services. I specialize in “application modernization” which is a fancy term for cloud enterprise application development + “Devops” + the standard type of work architects do at other companies. But as far as the startup I worked for being “desperate”. I got hired at my previous company because of an informal lunch with the then new CTO who needed someone to lead the effort to make the company more “cloud native” and help them pivot toward a micro service architecture because they wanted to sell the services as backend to large health care companies. Hint: I did that well enough to go from never opening the AWS console in mid 2018 to working at AWS two years later. My interview was all behavioral where I talked through some of my previous company changing successes at a startup and a company where I led the integration effort when they were on an acquisition spree. My “TC” is fine. It would be better if my unvested AMZN RSUs didn’t drop by half since I got hired. (Yes I knew the gatekeeping was going to start when i wrote the first post above)
• clutchdude 4y ago
  > You’re probably going to have to fake enthusiasm for the AI-enabled TikTok outfit generator you will be working on. No, it’s not going to make the world a better place. Yes, it might even make the world a worse place. This is how the world becomes a worse place - perhaps if working for the company developing this is life or death for you or a loved one, I can see why. But otherwise, consider doing something else.
  • dml2135 4y ago
    Thank you for posting this. I really dislike how not wanting to work for companies that are actively harming the world is often portrayed as some sort of selfish luxury.
• btrettel 4y ago
  The author mentions the "diamond-in-the-rough" strategy used by organizations, which in my experience can be particularly disrespectful of the interviewee's time. One thing I try to figure out how before applying to a job is how many applicants the organization is considering for the position. If they're interviewing a ton of people for one position, it's probably a waste of my time to apply. This is particularly true for organizations that use marathon interview sessions (doing a series of interviews over an entire day), and/or organizations that expect the interviewee to give a talk of interest to the organization (common in research positions). Customizing an old talk I have takes several hours. I know that I could use an old talk without modification, but I feel that I'd be at a significant disadvantage to do so.
• autotune 4y ago
  I have gotten laid off, fired, or otherwise managed out so many times in the last year or so I am writing off the whole year on my resume and calling it a “personal development” year and not listing any short term positions on there. 2021-2022 was just a complete disaster for job stability relative to most of my previous career where I was doing 2-3 years minimum in a role. My personal recommendation in addition to TFA is enroll in COBRA and get an in-network therapist. I thankfully managed to survive off of credit cards, debt, and help from the parents, but if the recent role I landed ends up being a dud not sure what is next for me. Thankfully it seems to be going relatively well.
  • BuckyBeaver 4y ago
    COBRA is outrageously expensive. If you have no (or little) income, the ACA is a no-brainer I think.
    • autotune 4y ago
      My parents paid for it for me and refused to consider anything cheaper, so I was lucky, but yeah, it is something like $700 a month.
      • rr808 4y ago
        For my family COBRA is about $2500 a month, which is a lot when you aren't working!
        • BuckyBeaver 4y ago
          It's a lot when you ARE working!
• gregfjohnson 4y ago
  Stepping back for a moment from the content, I think it is worth noting what an exceptionally well-written essay this is. Being able to write well is a super power for engineers. It is a reflection of the lucidity and clarity of one's mind, and the ability to understand the needs of the reader. Writing well is an exceptionally useful and powerful skill that can be improved with consistent practice. I would be tempted to add that as hard truth #9!
  • ericmcer 4y ago
    He is a good writer and clearly a thoughtful individual, which further reinforces truth #6 (honesty can hurt you). I subconsciously approached the article with a bit of negative bias around the fact he had been laid off. His writing has more clarity than many successful CEOs though so who knows.
    • pclmulqdq 4y ago
      As someone who also writes and thinks a lot, truth #6 applies particularly to us. People REALLY don't want to hear hard truths from people who think about what they are saying. If you are saying something that is less thought out, honesty can be a good policy - after all, they have probably heard whatever you are saying before.
      • lazide 4y ago
        I will say - most people don’t like hearing that. And you’ll certainly not be a hit at parties if that’s your style. There is a high correlation between specific types of high performer and people who do like (and benefit) from hearing that type of truth though. At least unless it hits too close to home. Which is why the article is getting upvoted.
    • theteapot 4y ago
      How charitable of you for the poor laid off person.
    • jonathankoren 4y ago
• phibz 4y ago
  Hard truth #9. People won't stop clicking on listicles, so writers keep using them.
• beej71 4y ago
  At the first round of layoffs from a startup, we (the laid off, not the company) started a Slack for those affected. Subsequent rounds added more people. It made the whole thing less lonely and kept up a decent network.
• jorblumesea 4y ago
  This is why people do LC problems daily and interview regularly. You will find that you need to constantly play the game if you want to stay in the game. It's a sliding scale of preparedness. Those out of step with the interview meta and out of practice will find it more painful. The biggest mistake is losing your job, then having to prep to get a new one.
  • clutchdude 4y ago
    Biggest mistake is thinking you have to grind in leetcode outside of work to edge out others. If your job right now isn't preparing you for your next job, then you are in the wrong job.
    • jorblumesea 4y ago
      That's not how the interview process works. Leetcode is completely different from the daily job. Almost no one does LCS daily.
• drpossum 4y ago
  Hard truth #9: Bad grammar will erode your credibility
• mathattack 4y ago
  Another hard truth… You learn who will help you in a crisis, and it will surprise you. People you thought had your back become scarce, while some weak connections really go to bat for you because of some small courtesy you did years prior. Going through the experience once makes you more empathetic to folks in a similar boat.
• drdunce 4y ago
  In short, the SWE job market is not healthy.
• stcroixx 4y ago
  I was laid off once and didn't find much in common with anything in this article. I had two offers, not interviews, within a day or two of being laid off. Then 2-3 years later, after their outsourcing strategy imploded, they called me offering me that job back - this was the best part. Knowing they were making a mistake from day one and finally confirmation when the Cap Gemini losers were all shown the door. Maybe this is all different if your skills are more niche, but if you know something common like Java, I don't see any reason to have any break in your employment after a layoff unless that's what you want.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • kagakuninja 4y ago
    Yes, that was me during the dotcom boom. When I decided to get a new job, I had 2 offers after an intense 2 weeks of interviews. However, once I was in my 40s, it became considerably harder to get a job. I'm now 59, and my career has never truly recovered (and yes, I have reasonably up to date skills). All I can get are contract jobs. Part of the problem is that I am introverted and on the autistic spectrum. I have never interviewed well, and for various reasons, have not maintained a network of people who I can contact to get interviews. And even when an old acquaintance does come thru with an interview, I still have to get thru the leet code questions. Being highly recommended by an employee usually has little influence on whether I get hired. At my age, I actually handle the social part of interviews better than ever, but now I have to deal with age discrimination.
    • rr808 4y ago
      I agree, I think so many teams are filled with 20 somethings with a 30 yo boss, no one really likes hiring someone twice their age.
• axetheone 4y ago
  As someone recently laid off, I strongly ressonate with points #1 and #5 and the amount of platitudes and empty words (but to be honest, some people were truly earnest/helpful on helping me get through this) involved in this makes the whole experience almost feel like being gaslighted by (almost) everyone. I was already quite aware on how unaunthentic and fake things are in the corporate world but this layoff (and several others in the industry right now) was really something else. And then companies wonder why employees are more and more "mercenary"...
• oldstrangers 4y ago
  Getting laid off is a great introduction into class solidarity with your fellow workers. We have literally nothing in common with the capitalists at the top. You are closer to homelessness than you are to being a billionaire.
  • bilvar 4y ago
    Most capitalists are not billionaires or even millionaires, the divide you are creating is outdated and frankly asinine.
    • dragonwriter 4y ago
      > Most capitalists are not billionaires or even millionaires, Yes, they are, if one is referring to the capitalist class (the haut bourgeoisie), those who relate to the economy primarily through capital to which other’s rented labor is applied, not “everyone with some, however incidental, capital”. Heck, even most of the middle class (petit bourgeoisie, who either apply their own labor to their own capital or who otherwise are supported significantly by both labor and capital) are at least millionaires. The working class, who obligatorily depend on renting out their labor to capitalists may have some incidental capital and not be millionaires, but they very much are not capitalists.
      • bilvar 4y ago
        I'm referring to the capitalists as thought of in 21st century economics, not some outdated 19th century Marxist/extreme left-wing echo chamber (lol, 'haute bourgeoisie', are you even listening to yourself?). People who deploy and risk their capital to produce services or products are capitalists. e.g My local grocer is a capitalist or my grandfather running a family farm is a capitalist. I can tell you for sure my grandfather is not a millionaire, I'm not so sure about my local grocer, but I doubt it.
    • oldstrangers 4y ago
      Reading your other comments, you've aggressively decided to dismiss the historical definition of the capitalist class because it doesn't suit your worldview. In that case there's essentially no conversation to be had because you're already operating from an alternative reality.
• jchw 4y ago
  Regarding #6: I've found through experimentation that it's totally OK for me to just be opaque about my identity online. I'm not anonymous at all, just that if a prospective employer were to Google me, they'd not find my meager internet presence. It's not that I'm hiding anything, but in the spirit of #6, not hiding something doesn't mean you have to advertise it either. I've never had an employer give enough of a shit to see my social media accounts. And while I admit this is probably a position of privilege in some ways, I feel like almost anyone in SWE or wanting to get into SWE is better off this way anyways. Again, it's not about deception. If I were asked, I'd say I don't have any professional internet presence (which is true, I don't. This is me as a person here, not me as an employee.) I of course will link my GitHub, but links from my internet presence only point in the direction of my GitHub, and not the other way around. So if you were really curious, you could dig. Nobody cares to do that, though. I think employers that search are mostly just looking for blatant red flags to try to simplify their lives, and thus it's mutually beneficial to keep a lower profile online even if you don't do anything wrong. Of course, in my case, it also helps to have a super common name :) But still. Being "just" a pseudonym most places is fine.
  • chinabot 4y ago
    Though I don't actively hide my presence on-line as my professional email address and sarcastic writing style never changes, I do love the shock of some co-workers when they find I have no accounts for linkedin, twitter, facebook, github etc and generally create new throwaway accounts every time I get a new laptop. It comes as quite a shock when I find an old comment or post that I recognise and now don't agree with and because of this rarely judge others history, lets face it we have all posted comments we wish we could take back in hindsight.
• georgeburdell 4y ago
  I can relate to #2 the most. My job search was 11 months, and this was in 2021 during the supposedly ridiculously good market. I think I had 50 applications and 7 on-sites before getting an offer
• throwaway85858 4y ago
  I'm about to get laid off, there's sliver of hope that something might come through before the end of the week but we all pretty much know now that the company is finished. I dedicated the last 7 years of my life to this and I'm disappointed that the investors don't share our optimism and confidence in the future of the company. I've been laid off before and I share the OP's perspective that it can be a cathartic singular moment in life that presents an opportunity for re-invention.
• inthepipe 4y ago
  I was laid off four months ago. I haven’t started my job search in earnest yet, so maybe my opinion will change, but being laid off has been amazing for me. Here are my thoughts: 1) You should not be broke if you’ve worked a few years as a software engineer. You’ve been earning good money and it is important to save during the good times so you’re prepared for the bad. I’m not saying this necessarily applies to OP, but it’s generally good advice to keep some money lying around for a rainy day. 2) If you feel secure financially and get laid off, it’s a great time to do something time consuming. I have a toddler, so it’s been a lot of fun to hang out and bond with her. Friends have made video games or picked up a new hobby. Most people I know who got laid off who felt secure financially love it. 3) Your network is your best asset. After the layoff, multiple old contacts reached out with job offers. I was very grateful for these, but declined them for the reasons above. TLDR: being laid off can be a blessing if you’re financially prepared.
• burntalmonds 4y ago
  This is why striving for financial independence is important.
• deeptote 4y ago
  The lesson here is to be overemployed, do at least one interview process a quarter, and understand that companies don't give AF about you.
  • rr808 4y ago
    That is a big lesson I learned. I worked at a job for 8 years without looking elsewhere and when I got laid off I was really stuck because the market and interviewing circuit had completely changed.
    • anon50118810 4y ago
      I'm not sure it's a good trade-off to interview constantly even when you have a job just to remove a bit of the learning curve if you lose your job unexpectedly.
      • raydev 4y ago
        I recommend it. For me, unused skills will become inaccessible relatively quickly, and interviews require a specific set that aren't used at all in any of my jobs over the years. Once, I did heavy interview prep because I was bored with my job at the time, I got good at it, and landed another better job. A year later my company deleted entire orgs of people, and I quickly realized that I was in bad shape when my third rejection rolled in. Interviews are high pressure situations. Better to be used to the flow, coding, and conversation style (again, think "sales") than to be caught off guard, worrying about whether you've solved a Leetcode question fast enough to satisfy another human with their own grading quirks. Oh, and that person is standing between you and a steady paycheck. That's the part I have to practice anyway, solving stupid university final problems when my livelihood is on the line.
        • anon50118810 4y ago
          It's a good idea to practice if you're trying to get up the nerve to make the jump to a better job. But during a job search, you'll either get so many rejections that you'll get back up to speed quickly enough without needing to also obsess about it while you're employed, or you're hireable enough that you didn't need to worry about it either way.
• dadoge 4y ago
  Contrary opinion: If feels very very very wrong to compare a search during April 2020 and now. Why? The year after April 2020 was a booming job market for SWEs. Hiring managers were competing for talent, 2021 was a boom year of low interest rates, euphoria in private and public markets. This blog post _should not_ be considered a response to the WSJ article. And sorry, grinding away at leetcode should only take about 2 months tops if you don’t have to worry having to balance leetcode and your job, and not a tall ask for a 250k+ job in tech. if you don’t need that high a salary, smaller companies generally are more lax about leetcode
  • dadoge 4y ago
    Ok looked the guy up: https://www.stevenbuccini.com/about/ https://www.stevenbuccini.com/about/ - Studied at Berkeley - worked at Apple and Uber And I’m supposed to feel bad for you not wanting to spend a few weeks grinding at leetcode? This reeks of someone who is very well off, and not an “Everyman” engineer.
    • bobkazamakis 4y ago
      I actually agree with the parent here; grinding leetcode is some dumbshit waste of time that I'm not going to bother with -- I've got code to put in production and this simply is never a good use of my time. When you have an obnoxious hiring process that will take multiple hours for your special company, why would I even waste my time? I can click a few more buttons and have offers elsewhere anyways...
      • ummonk 4y ago
        Well the guy who wrote the post had the same opinion as you and his job search took a year as a result…
      • 1270018080 4y ago
        > dumbshit waste of time that I'm not going to bother with You're leaving hundreds of thousands of dollars on the table. The hours/money ratio of studying leetcode is pretty good. > for your special company At least 1 round of leetcode questions is a requirement for every company I have interviewed with. > I can click a few more buttons and have offers elsewhere anyways... If that's actually true, then nevermind. I hate leetcode too, but I think it's unwise to not conform.
• bigpeopleareold 4y ago
  I wanted to get back into more hands-on work on something. Being laid off (well, not like a usual one, but I do not want to talk about that here) was not part of that plan, of course, but I still wanted to move on anyway. It opened me to accept dealing with the interview process more, which I always found unpleasant and tedious in the past. With that, compounded with not having to go through that for 8 years, sort of stuck with me. I started interviewing before being laid off. After getting through a few of them already, I feel a little more comfortable of the process itself, even if it meant I ended up with rejections. At least with a little boost of confidence around it (that and seeing my financial runway), at least now pushing myself on this has changed my attitude. For what it is worth though, my own interest is to work with something that I can improve on what I improve on. Except for a couple of industries, I'd do anything almost, hopefully with an emphasis on Java, as I think the space is a bit more exciting than the many years before now (or that I stopped caring over trends and just want to write programs :))
• Tao3300 4y ago
  I've been in that loneliness before, and don't want anyone to have to suffer it. One thing we can do to help is have each other's backs by providing references. I've made it clear to colleagues who get laid off that I don't care what the corporate policy says: I'll give you a reference. It's a moral duty.
• periram 4y ago
  Would anyone here find it useful if I offered to teach algorithms and data structures, specifically catered towards leetcode kind of problems. The approach would be (writing it from memory, will revise it if there is any feedback): First master the basic data structures and be able to manipulate them rather quickly. We will write many small programs to ensure that a one can perform most of the common operations on a given data structure straight from memory. Then we will write transformations, i.e. being able to convert one data structure into another. Next up with be problems that requires a combination of data structures. We will spend a good about of time in graph problems, the usual data structures used to store / manipulate them and understand some of the basic graph algorithms ( MST, Traversal, Shortest Path, etc.) We will briefly spend some time on sliding window problems. Dynamic programming, Greedy and divide and conquer techniques are rather simple, but we need to distill it down to a science so that we can code them eyes closed :-) Order complexity, how to think about it by looking at an intermediate step and calculating how many operations are needed to get to next step. We will dig a little into the mathematical aspect of it.
  • Ancalagon 4y ago
    I've got a couple hundred LC's under my belt but I would still definitely appreciate something like this. Do you have a discord in mind or something else? Currently gainfully employed still, not sure if being laid off is a requirement but I'd like to keep my skills sharp just in case.
    • periram 4y ago
      Discord would be great. The parent comment was -1'ed perhaps because it came across as selling. Was trying to help folks here as I have recently gone through the ordeal of getting into a FAANG company.
      • Ancalagon 4y ago
        Yeah do you have one setup?
  • mvcatsifma 4y ago
• trinsic2 4y ago
  Good article. Well written and to the point. It's sad how bad the employer / employee world is today. I have been providing computers services independently since 2007, but had a cerebral hemorrhage in 2017. Which I wrote short book about(It needs some work still)[1]. My NDE came without the typical experiences that you read about, but something within me had changed, I had a really hard time being dishonest and hiding parts of myself from the world (this is how I see it, others might see it differently). During my recovery, I didn't know if I could return to providing services independently, and had some interviews after being out of the work world for about 15 years, and man, had it changed. My brutal honesty about myself and the world didn't go over to well in those interviews. But it made me realize how messed up parts of the world are, and how the employer/employee relationship is really slavery to forces outside myself. A good book on this is "The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity"[2]. Obviously, its not so easy to extract oneself from this relationship, I had something to fall back on as I redoubled my efforts to continue my services independently. Obviously, not all employer/employee relationships are slavery, but the corporate world and the politics behind it feels like slavery to me. It feels like we are gradually moving away from centralized systems like these as more and more people realize whats important. COVID seemed like a big wake up call for many. It's important, now more than ever, that people find what's important to them and start taking small steps in that direction as it seems like concentrated industries that are too big to fail are starting to collapse. [1]:https://www.scottrlarson.com/books/book-most-improved/ https://www.scottrlarson.com/books/book-most-improved/ [2]:https://www.amazon.com/Dawn-Everything-New-History-Humanity-ebook/dp/B08R2KL3VY https://www.amazon.com/Dawn-Everything-New-History-Humanity-...
• ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
  I liked this quote: > “When faced with two choices, flip a coin. When it’s in the air, you’ll know which side you’re hoping for.” —Former gangster Arnold “The Brain” Rothstien Basically, you'll know which direction to take, after taking your first step (or you'll learn to fly, after being pushed from the nest). In my case, this was exactly that. I got laid off from my previous job (after almost 27 years). It was entirely expected (for years), so I'd had a lot of time to prepare. When I learned Hard Truth #9 (If you are over 40, it will be rough. If you are over 50, prepare to be humiliated -and not get a job), I was fairly panicky, at first, then, I realized that I had plenty of savings to retire early, and I already knew of some nonprofits that could use my expertise, so I didn't need to stop working. I really wanted to retire -not to play golf, but to work harder than I ever have, in my life, doing stuff that is appreciated, effective, and untainted by bad management and "fuck it -let's ship." So I was forced into it. A number of companies didn't get my work, but I seriously doubt they miss me. They certainly didn't seem as if they would, during the recruiting process, and I probably would have been laid off again, tout suite. It's actually been an amazing five years.
• adamwong246 4y ago
  Gosh it's so hard these days. So much of the past 10 years was easy speculation and I have certainly let that go to my head. Even as a fresh grad, I had people beating down my door. Suddenly, it's all quiet. I'm reduced to working at the grocery store- a humbling experience for sure.
• deepzn 4y ago
  I would just add one thing here, aside from echoing the comments on the great writing. Everyone needs to focus on saving when they have a job for uncertain times. I've found it incredibly helpful in the last year with some savings in the bank, to ward off the uncertainty and chaos around not having a job, and taking it a bit easy so to say. Saving at least 20% or so of every paycheck is good standard advice for rainy days. But, also not to keep any debt. Lastly, it's not that terrifying these days to not have employment in the software industry. Things will turn around as long as you work on developing your skills. Staying positive is good advice for the short and long-term. Because everything will work out, and we usually stress a lot more than we really should.
• JackFr 4y ago
  I was laid off in April 2020 as well, and while some of my experience matches the author's some of it was very different. Being laid off was not a relief -- it was terrifying. All indications were that a severe recession was coming. Frankly, it was quite surprising to me that companies were hiring at all given the uncertainty. It was not obvious at the time that broad sectors of the economy could seamlessly move to 100% WFH. It was also my first experience in fully remote interviewing. I am a software engineer over fifty. I also have three children two of whom were in college, and my wife works in a travel related industry which was very much affected by the pandemic. Given those things I approached my job search aggressively and with a sense of urgency, and I made it out OK. I was out of work for about two months and accepted a role at flat comp. Being laid off is profoundly lonely. I was part of a mass layoff (approximately 2/3 of my company was laid off.) So while I was not alone in that sense, we were all very much alone together. Where you had been a team, you were now five people looking for jobs, each with their own problems and constraints. My wife could not have been more supportive, and yet the process of interviewing and landing a job is one you have to do by yourself. One of the hardest things is to maintain an upbeat outlook, and yet it is so necessary because no one is going to hire a miserable sad sack. On the other hand, I had no stigma whatsoever attached to the fact that I had been laid off. Part of that might have been that the size of the layoff was such that anyone with any glancing familiarity with the place I was at would know that 2/3 of the company were laid off. One thing that I would emphasize would be maintain your professional network in good times and in bad. I got a number of good leads that way.
  • tnel77 4y ago
    I have a bit to go before I’m a software engineer over fifty, but I have a lot of anxiety about it primarily from an ageism standpoint. I don’t really want to go into management because I love coding and solving problems, but I fear that one day I’ll will struggle to find work due to my age. What has your experience been with this issue?
    • Fr3dd1 4y ago
      I myself lead a software development team. I am 31 and the last two people I hired were almost 50 and they are very good devs. In my opinion age alone isnt a reason not to hire someone. What is the "common reason" older people are not considered to be hired? I guess because people think they cant adapt or are stuck in some ways in theire thinking. If your future you can show that this is not the case, I guess you are fine :) Only "REAL" age related reason is (and I have to admit that I myself didnt hire someone because of that) if the person wants to retire in the near future and you think you want to invest your time in someone who will, hopefully, stay longer.
• xutopia 4y ago
  I just got laid off and I went through a layoff in the early 2000s and it was brutal. Had to do contract work with tech I didn't like and now with the added pressure of having kids that I have to care for financially it's definitely more stressful. One thing I'm doing different this time around is that I'm building a project that could be useful for some friends and might actually scratch an itch. It allows me to get back in the latest technologies and adds something to my portfolio.
• tayistay 4y ago
  > You’re going to have to grind Leetcode. Yes, even the dynamic programming problems. Really? I would think contributing (significantly) to an open-source project would look better than spending time on leetcode, though I've never tried leetcode.
  • sixstringtheory 4y ago
    In my experience interviewing, nothing on github or your resume will be read. The only thing that will be read is what you type into coderpad during your interview.
  • ok123456 4y ago
    That would require the hiring staff being able to evaluate your contribution. Unlikely, unless the job you're interviewing for is interviewing because you made a useful contribution to a software that they use themselves.
• Jiocus 4y ago
  What a refreshing and reassuring read of an intimidating topic, Thank you ~
• hintymad 4y ago
  > dynamic programming problems Truth be told, most of the dynamic programming problems in Leetcode are relatively straightforward: find the recursive relation or state transition equation in general, identify the initial condition, and then build up the transition from bottom up. What's much harder, at least to me, are those ad-hoc LeetCode-Hard problems that require insights or clever tricks.
  • ctvo 4y ago
    You're already ahead of most people interviewing. My advice if you're currently prepping: Don't worry too much about hard problems. They're much more rare. While true you may get an interviewer who hasn't properly calibrated their question, but more often than not, it's easy or mediums. Invest your time into telling a convincing story about your previous experiences, the impact you made at companies, and how great it'd be to work with you. During a downturn, Big Tech doesn't send out a memo to increase the difficulty of algo / DS questions. It's being more picky about culture fit, skill match, prior experience, recommendations from current staff, etc.. It's more do we hire Bob who is qualified and could learn embedded software for hardware devices or hire Jill who is just as qualified but has experience in the space. Previously we'd hire both. Now we hire Jill.
    • hintymad 4y ago
      Thanks for the advice!
• TheRealPomax 4y ago
  Don't overstep the learning, though. Hard rule #6 in an environment with normal, real people, who actually care about what they work on, is a toxic rule.
• trashface 4y ago
  Plan for early retirement even if you don't want it. You may want to work forever, but the jobs may not want you. Already an issue for older ICs and I expect it will just get worse.
  • dghughes 4y ago
    I think when I hit 50 my fire went out. I'm not 1/10th of what most HNers are I trod my way through jobs IT or not. As long as money comes in and I can bear the job. I like technology but it can drain you and at some point burn-out is a possibility if you can't recover like you could decades earlier. Certainly save money now and always especially if young like 20s. Stuff money away learn how to invest. Even if you're older save like your life depends on it right now. Even for emergency funds I'd suggest a year's worth not as cash but something just as easy to liquidate that won't lose much value. Yes I'd say plan to retire as soon as you possibly can. Or switch gears to part-time work since younger workers will become increasingly annoying to you. You may like them but generational culture clash is natural.
  • geekbird 4y ago
    I'm less than ten years from retirement. I still need to work for those ten years, and probably afterward. Yes, I get a lot of ageism, ableism and sexism in my job searches. I don't look my age, fortunately, but having over 20 years in my field makes people want to lowball me or hire a "cheaper" (less experience) person. It's very annoying.
• heb3rt 4y ago
  chichi caca
• lkrubner 4y ago
  About this: "If you had asked me right after I got laid off how long it would take me to get back to work, I would have said three months – including two months of vacation. It took me a year." That is fascinating. I'm glad they shared this experience. It is very different than my own experience. I'm trying to imagine what that would be like, to go a year looking for a job. Here in New York City, at the end of 2022, I am still seeing very strong hiring of software developers. I was recently hiring at FutureStay.com. And I recently had a friend lose their job and they found another job after 6 weeks, of which 3 weeks was pure vacation. The one group that I see struggle is new developers who have just graduated from dev bootcamps. Some of these developers struggle 6 to 12 months to find a software development jobs. But of experienced software developers? Going a year without finding employment? I heard of such stories during the recession of 2001, though I never saw it among my personal circle. And this was very much true in the aftermath of the crisis of 2008 -- it wasn't till about 2011 or 2012 that things got back to normal. But even then, when I went looking for a job in 2010, it only took me 4 weeks to find a job. A year without a job? I will say the industry has gotten slower about hiring, with more and more rounds of interviews. In the extreme case, some companies now have 9 or 10 rounds of interviews, which is far past the point where the Law Of Diminish Returns sets in. By contrast, when I was hired at WineSpectator.com in 2010 the CTO interviewed me for 2 hours and then hired me on the spot, I didn't have to talk to anyone else. Likewise when Mark Herschberg, the CTO of ShermansTravel.com, hired me in 2011. I feel like the industry is driving away possible talent by adding in so many layers of testing and recruitment. There is absolutely no good reason why an experienced software developer should go a year without a job. That such a thing can happen suggests something is broken with our current hiring processes.
  • pm90 4y ago
    I found this a bit strange as well. A year seems a bit excessive. The most I've seen is 4 months, with an average of much less than that.
    • JJMcJ 4y ago
      Only exception was first half of 2009 when it seemed like the world had ended. Otherwise, for experienced people, something is wrong. Not trying hard enough, applying to wrong companies, terrible resume, interview very badly, demanding a job above skill level.
• zer00eyz 4y ago
  I survived the dot com crash (yes I'm old). I have hired (interviewing team member, or hiring manager) hundreds of engineers. If you are hearing "let me know if I can help" (number 5) you might be doing something wrong. You should be hearing some version of " I will talk to my boss" or "I will call for you" or "XXX person I know is looking". I have a list of about 30 people who if they call me I'm going to go out of my way to get them a job. That means make a spot for them on my team. Or I will reach into the non overlapping parts of our networks to see if someone is hiring. Im going to do this because they are good, because they don't suck, because they will get the job done. They will make me look good as the person who brought them in/onboard. Those of us who survived the bubble did so on hard work and a network. We brought along the people we thought were the best, who we got along with, who would get the job done. Its the new year, it is the perfect excuse to figure out who your network is, and what they can do for you. Make a list of folks you know, call them up, tell them your thinking of changing jobs. If you don't hear a lot of "send me your resume"/"is your linked/site in up to date" then you need to make some changes.
  • w10-1 4y ago
    "We brought along the people we thought were the best, who we got along with, who would get the job done" I really appreciate the sentiment. In my experience such networks have been self-serving and mostly exclusionary, rewarding loyalty more than competence. "You need to make some changes" is not particularly helpful when you're outside the fold. What's typically unstated is something about loyalty, esp. not disclosing the mistakes of others. The best advice someone could give? 1. Achieve impressive things 2. Never give anyone a reason to dislike you
    • beckingz 4y ago
      That's pretty good advice. Get stuff done and be likable is good.
      • Arisaka1 4y ago
        I have a colleague who almost feels like he's actively trying to make me hate him by throwing completely unrelated to work off-hand remarks in the most basic thing I do, like telling people that I'm gonna take a lunch break or just opening up a terminal prompt while we pair program. I know it's off-topic but It's hard for me to try to be likeable with people who are actively trying stuff like that, and I don't know what else to do. It feels like I'm sitting on a table and the other side ignores their table manners because they're just that valuable to the company that they can.
• w10-1 4y ago
  Kudo's for reminding everyone of the idea of hard truths and the kind practice of sharing them. We could all get better at facing unpleasant reality; so much more damage is done by being avoidant, mainly to our own character. The key question is why recruiting is maladaptive, whether the market is hot or cold. The answer lies in why no one has really addressed the question: recruiting is spoiled by a culture and practice of secrecy. The goal is to be fair and avoid recruits gaming the system, but the practice ends up nurturing toxic judgments, tending towards the paranoid and the extreme. Paranoia excludes supposedly non-compliant untrustable people evidenced in resume gaps, and extremism excludes supposedly toxic people evidenced by ancient social media posts. Like defense procurement, the secrecy that is necessary ends up concealing and preserving toxic practices. In both cases, programmatic application of objective standards could dis-intermediate, so the recruiters/procurement bureaucracies resist and claim essential wisdom.
• Bahamut 4y ago
  Love most of the advice I see here, but there's a few quibbles I have here. > You’re going to have to grind Leetcode. Yes, even the dynamic programming problems. One trend I've been seeing is the MANGAs have been moving away from leetcode crap - in my org at one of them, I think almost the entire org is against leetcode questions as an insufficient form of candidate assessment. > Come up with a more, uh, positive reason for why you’re interviewing instead of disclosing that you were laid off. Honestly, as an engineering manager on the hiring side, I haven't seen any negative perception in these times when candidates disclose they were laid off - its become so common as of late & often not due to the candidates' fault that it's a non-issue for us. I know a manager trying to extend a formal offer to one such candidate who revealed that they were laid off. I especially appreciate honesty in a candidate when they admit they don't know something & try to set the conversation around working with the info they have as presented to them, creating space for an open conversation around questions being asked instead of viewing it as a Q&A session. Those tend to be the candidates who get the highest marks from me.
• devmor 4y ago
  I've survived several layoffs, a couple firings and a couple quittings and I don't really identify with much of what the author says here in any of these situations. I've never considered leaving a job for any reason to be "lonely", nor does it take very long to find another position that suits me well. If I let one of the recruiters I talk to know that I'm looking for work, I've usually got multiple interviews within 3-5 days. The only thing I'd really agree with is the bit about honesty and transparency - I've definitely been a bit too honest about my faults before and it's cost me an interview or two. I don't know if I'm an odd duck, or the author is just very poor at networking - but it seems like the latter to me.
• nvarsj 4y ago
  I was laid off in 2010 and I can relate with a lot of these points. Especially how long it took me to find a new job. Despite what I thought was a great CV it took me nearly 6 months. I thought I’d find a job easily when I got laid off. It was an incredibly humbling experience - reaching out to tens of companies and barely getting any responses. Took me 3 months to just secure my first on-site. I’ve generally always gotten jobs from reach outs while employed - making me feel special - when in reality it was my skills simply lining up with some open headcount at that time. When you’re laid off suddenly it’s a whole different ballgame. It’s largely luck trying to find matching roles with open headcount. In a downturn this is especially rough (like now). It taught me some things: don’t stay anywhere too long (it restricts your network), make sure your skills are not too niche, and ensure you are following industry trends so you remain widely employable.
• anticristi 4y ago
  I would love to read a European, perhaps Swedish version of this article. 12+ months of unemployment insurance is standard here. I guess it doesn't take the loneliness away, but might make unemployment less traumatic.
  • the_af 4y ago
    I really liked the article, one of the few on this subject that doesn't feel like self-help or a humble brag. So kudos to the author. That said, like you, I wonder if this is an American thing. It feels to me as if many Americans are one job away from total collapse, like their country is only ok for people with a good employment and an utter nightmare for everyone else, with no safety net at all except your own savings. With that in mind, a year without a job prospect would indeed seem like living in hell.
    • belfalas 4y ago
      >It feels to me as if many Americans are one job away from total collapse, like their country is only ok for people with a good employment and an utter nightmare for everyone else, with no safety net at all except your own savings. Yes, that is pretty much correct. Many many Americans, even ones considered well-off, live a threadbare existence. To Europeans it's unfathomable what can happen in the United States but it's just as bad as you think if not worse. There is literally no bottom in this society, there's no limits to the depths you can fall.
    • gorbachev 4y ago
      https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/19/56percent-of-americans-cant-cover-a-1000-emergency-expense-with-savings.html https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/19/56percent-of-americans-cant-...
  • system2 4y ago
    In some cases unemployment means hunger, homelessness, or even death. Those Swedish people live on another planet.
  • fatnoah 4y ago
• musingsole 4y ago
  > Hard Truth #3: Interview invites are a poor proxy for your desirability Just because you’re getting a lot of offers to interview does not mean that you are a hot commodity. Hard disagree. Interviewing is expensive as all hell from the company's perspective. Any company interviewing a rash of candidates is engaging in a weird strategy. Getting an initial interview is a positive sign that (on paper) you're qualified. Further interviews with the company become a blended signal of your qualifications and being a culture match with the latter becoming more dominant with more rounds.
• 0xmarcin 4y ago
  We may revert the hard truths to get soft precautions: - Always have savings that will cover at least 6 months of expenses, now probably a year (if indeed it takes so much time to find a new job). - Socialize outside work, ideally have a network of people that work at other companies that you are in touch with. Sports, charities, churches etc. If this is hard, ask yourself if you are overworking yourselves/spend too much time at work. - Be careful what you are posting on social networks. Employers are more and more concerned about the image that you have on the internet. I propose to have 2 profiles, the first a professional one with portfolio of projects, blog, articles and what's not and the second for your private views (nobody should track that profile to your person using publicly available information). Also I wonder what the author is doing professionally. I don't see any hard tech articles on his blog. Maybe he is into niche tech or doing some no longer hyped stuff like data science? That would explain why it took the author so long to find a new job. Maybe if this is the case the author should reflect on his skills and maybe change his niche to something more marketable?
  • kelnos 4y ago
    > I propose to have 2 profiles, [...] the second for your private views Or just don't post about your views on anything (controversial or otherwise) on social media. Just opt out. There's no inherent reason why you need to post about anything on social media. If you must, perhaps because you use it to keep in touch with family and friends, just post about things that are going on in your life. There's no reason you need to use social media to air your grievances about society.
    • SCUSKU 4y ago
      The issue I take with this is that employment becomes a form of restriction of free speech. Unfortunately, the reality is most of us can't afford to truly speak our minds because we need a job to put food on the table and a roof over our heads. Still, even with that in mind, I think the best compromise is to provide strong support of your opinions and not just shout whatever political slogan happens to be in vogue.
      • 4y ago
• barrenko 4y ago
  Makes sense that this is the author of "Zillow did not have metallic balls".
• Beaver117 4y ago
  I don't know why people attach themselves to their work so much. It's just a job. When you have money, what's wrong with quitting to live your life for a bit? I got burned out but only stayed to see the numbers in my account go up. That's no way to live. I don't even like tech anymore, maybe it's more fulfilling to start a farm or coffee shop
• mouly 4y ago
  The article makes me wonder if a support group (nonprofit) for laif off tech professionals with the goal of alleviating the loneliness. It could be as simple as a weekly call with others who have been laid off.
• octobus2021 4y ago
  Was laid off in March 2020 (senior dev/lead), took 1.5 years to find another job. Share author's disbelief in "job market in unbelievably strong", "people quit jobs because they are unhappy and hop to better positions", "employers cannot have enough IT workers" and similar statements. By extension wondering how accurate overall job market statistics are; "Employers are scrambling to find workers" while layoffs have been in full swing for months now.
• shufeng 4y ago
  When I was at the spot before covid, I felt very venerable and desperate at the same time. I was junior and just started my career. At the beginning of job search, I tried to tell people the true story behind. However, once I opened that, it immediately became a gossip where the recruiter was more interested in the details than my competency for the job. I survived it eventually after 6 months but I wish I knew all the truths before that.
• gorbachev 4y ago
  The number one thing I've learned from being laid off was never to trust your employer. Trust people, if they've shown to be trustworthy, but never, ever trust a company. A company is not family, they're not your friend, and the perceived loyalty you think you've "earned" doesn't mean a thing if layoffs are coming. Treat your employment as a business arrangement. You get a paycheck in exchange for labor. Nothing less, nothing more.
  • euix 4y ago
    I second this. Institutions come and go but the people and connections you make throughout your working life is what counts and transcend your workplace. This is especially true for technical people, if you are middle management/executive your skills are far less transferable.
  • lll-o-lll 4y ago
    Ahh yes. I think most people end up going through this bitter disillusionment at some point in their careers. Humans are tribal by nature and companies are setup like a big tribe. We even call the guy (and it’s mostly a guy) at the top the chief! Feelings of “family” and “loyalty” are built into humans operating in tribes, and a real tribe looks out for its members. So when the sudden wholesale internally orchestrated slaughter of a chunk of the tribe happens (metaphorically), it comes as quite a shock (the first time). Both for the people that go and the people that stay. The lesson is that a company is not a tribe. That said, a company is also a collection of people and the relationships you develop as you work are just as meaningful as the ones you develop in other aspects of life. Loyalty to people is a perfectly good and reasonable thing. So my take is, you should focus on fostering good relationships with your coworkers and hold loosely to the concept of the “company”. The company may screw you over, but good people will always try to do what is right.
    • Nathanba 4y ago
      the weird part for me is why I keep falling into that trap again and again. I like the work, I like the employer and I do good work and so I think that there is some kind of safety in that. I guess maybe it's a natural human impulse to think that you're somehow settling into a tribe. But the reality is that you're not in a tribe, you don't have safety and the business has a very calculated view of your value: You already got paid for your time, years mean nothing. There is no sense of "past achievements" (which could be construed as loyalty). There is only: Can you keep working right now for price X, yes or no? If no you go. I keep forgetting that everytime I settle into a job. Perhaps because I do too much compared to others, that somebody must surely see my massive value. But eh, your extra 20-50% is nothing in the grand scheme of a company, they won't mind paying 1.5 people to replace you. They just take it and say "thx buddy". I'm always far happier in the beginning of a job than at the end, I am starting to think that it's because I don't have any delusions that I have safety or loyalty from the people around me.
• mortenjorck 4y ago
  I just had the fourth layoff of my career earlier this month. It doesn’t get easier per se, but you do start to develop a process, and having a process makes the whole ordeal a lot less daunting. Perhaps the most daunting part for me right now is that I’ve spent the better part of a decade getting hired by people I worked with before, and this is the first time no one in my immediate network has a req open. Still, the value of a network is paramount: To paraphrase another comment here, do good work and be good to work with, and you will have people out there looking for a reason to get you in the door.
• granshaw 4y ago
  OP is a really good writer / articulator and I found this to be a great piece - with that in mind the fact that he took a full year to find something tells me he must’ve had red flags elsewhere, or was just really fussy or had a high bar?
• tomcam 4y ago
  Painful to read. Thank you for sharing. > You’re going to have to grind Leetcode. Yes, even the dynamic programming problems. What are dynamic programming problems?
• parski 4y ago
  SWE does not mean Sweden. I've gathered that much. WTF is SWE?
• vintermann 4y ago
  > “When faced with two choices, flip a coin. When it’s in the air, you’ll know which side you’re hoping for.” —Former gangster Arnold “The Brain” Rothstien In the TV series Boardwalk Empire, he said that. I can't find any evidence he ever said it in real life. However, the poet Piet Hein did: Stejler man foran et vanskelig valg og vil ha det afgjord prompte, er det et såre fornuftigt princip at platte og krone om det. Ikke at valget skal ske pr. hazard, i mens man selv sidder og måber men: lige når mønten er kastet til vejrs så ved man precis, hvad man håber. (His own translation: Whenever you’re called on to make up your mind, and you’re hampered by not having any, the best way to solve the dilemma, you’ll find, is simply by spinning a penny. No – not so that chance shall decide the affair while you’re passively standing there moping; but the moment the penny is up in the air, you suddenly know what you’re hoping.)
• whoIsYou 4y ago
  My experience was a bit different. Got laid off the week after thanksgiving. Being laid off was absolutely panic inducing. Got a new job before Christmas thanks to intense focus and the decision to accept a 3% paycut
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• ummonk 4y ago
  I don’t understand the thinking behind #7, especially when it contradicts #2-#4… Surely if the job market is so tight, it might be worthwhile to take what jobs you can get?
• SergeAx 4y ago
  I was laid off 3 times in my almost 30 years career. Every time it was difficult experiences, but I got some lessons from that. I still member of two active "ex-..." communities. Those are most helpful and useful, especially when other people are getting there after me and it was a perfect cause to get back in touch, meet for drinks or get back on track with common hobby. After first one I always open my piggy bank and do the things I wanted for a long time but had no time to do. Like getting a sailboat skipper licence and do a couple of gigs like deckhand on a voyage, repair or long haul. Or travel for a distant destination for a month. Time between jobs is always great to get in touch with own body and mind, like doing a health checkup or visit short-term psychology group. And of course it is a perfect time to spend more time with parents, relatives and friends.
• hcks 4y ago
  This person doesn’t sounds neither professional nor very talented, no wonder it took them a year to get back on tracks.
• enos_feedler 4y ago
  All of these apply equally well to getting dumped.
• akomtu 4y ago
  "No, it’s not going to make the world a better place. Yes, it might even make the world a worse place. But you will be employed." With the same attitude DuPont managers dumped PFAS into the rivers.
• senjin 4y ago
  Thank you for writing this. I have the sinking feeling I will be laid off within the next 6 months and I am already starting to get worried about the job search ahead. This is great preemptive information, now I need the "so you're about to be laid off..." post for someone who hasn't had to interview for a job in 15 years.
• kowlo 4y ago
  I had this article left on my screen to read after making a cup of tea. Wife was a bit confused, she'd only read "8 Hard Truths I learned when I got laid"...
• KETpXDDzR 4y ago
  > It [work] is the gravitational center around which the other activities in your life revolve. Don't let work be most important part of your life! Companies encourage you to, so they have another cheap way to lock you in. Years of work from home showed me that your (social) life shouldn't mainly happen at work. Better find friends at hobbies/meetups/etc.
• mustafabisic1 4y ago
  Happy it worked out for you. I had a similar experience only my wife had just gotten pregnant with my second child. That game me urgency like crazy and with a bit of luck I found my dream job in 3 months. I agree with everything you've mentioned but the biggest +1 for me is that it's lonely. I'd add that all job searches are lonely in my experience.
• chb 4y ago
  >You might have to pay for coffee at the office. And it may even be drip! Uh, no. If you're paying for your own drip coffee, you're working at a convenience store, not in an office. Coffee is for closers and people who write software.
• gwbas1c 4y ago
  I was laid off in February 2020 and it took me almost a year. I didn't feel like I needed to keep that I was laid off a secret; but I disagree about doing the 8-hour take-homes. They indicate unreasonable bosses and I always walked away. When I was more naive and did those kinds of things, I would often get no callback, not even a "thanks but no thanks."
• kbenson 4y ago
  You’re probably going to have to fake enthusiasm for the AI-enabled TikTok outfit generator you will be working on. No, it’s not going to make the world a better place. Yes, it might even make the world a worse place. Let's be honest, whatever you (any of us) as a SWE were working on previously was probably making the world a worse place also, regardless of what you thought when you first started working on it. In my opinion the last decade (or two) of tech can be summed up as "the road to hell is paved with good intentions."
  • avg_dev 4y ago
    sometimes, not even the intentions are good
• wolverine876 4y ago
  > Companies may be looking to reset expectations around compensation and working conditions. Offers are extended, but with extremely unpalatable terms compared to prior jobs. For unsavvy candidates, this won’t become apparent until late in the interview process. ... > The sooner you accept that you will have to do the interviewing equivalent of eating your vegetables, the less you will immolate yourself and, by extension, the opportunity in front of you by dying on some absurd hill. Suck it up and play the game. Sounds obvious? If so, I will politely refer you back to the title of this post. Those comments seem dissonant. The second sounds like someone who has blindly bought into the first like it's a truth. It's a political struggle and we can do much better. The hill isn't at all absurd; people before you fought for it and won it before - that's how you ended up on top of it. They didn't do that by accepting defeat as some inevitability, but by seeing the world and imagining something better. (They did the same with technology - how will you be an entrepenuer if you buy into this reactionary, depressive, defeatest attitude?) Now it's your turn. The future of our society, in significant respects, depends on it. It depends on you. Your predecessors built everything good that you have. Now it's your turn - no cavalry is coming; there's nobody else. It's you and me. With a little vision and daring, it's incredible what can be accomplished - just look at the world we live in.
• PostOnce 4y ago
  "Yes, it might even make the world a worse place. But you will be employed." I think the author should spend some time considering the implications of these two lines. In fact, I think we all should.