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I imagine it is a tiny fraction of the people getting laid off that go that route - imo, most are out applying for jobs. I work for a fortune 50 company - (not

by ejb999 4y ago

I imagine it is a tiny fraction of the people getting laid off that go that route - imo, most are out applying for jobs. I work for a fortune 50 company - (not faang), on our team we had 2 openings posted back in early November - one for a developer, one for a lead developer (same tech stack) - this was for a fully remote positions, but limited to timezones that mostly overlapped with the USA - we got 3 applicants for the lead, 4 for the non-lead positions and hired from that pool. Mid Jan we got the OK for two more developers (also 100% remote, the same tech stack and same total comp as above), we got over 330 resumes to weed thru this time - with lots of ex-faang and other big name tech companies folks applying, whereas we never saw resumes from those companies before. Its good for us of course, but I feel bad for anyone who needs a job quickly - there is an awful lot of competition for not as many openings

jonnycoder 4y ago
Hindsight sucks sometimes. I was looking at my linkedin messages and I have many from FAANG recruiters reaching out back in late 2020 and early 2021, and my profile is mostly private with not a lot of detail. The current market for senior/principal software engineers is dismal. The listings are there, including remote, but it's as if there is a hiring freeze across the board yet they leave up the job postings.
- Volundr 4y ago
  Hang in there. January was really disheartening for me. Like literally dead, no replies, in a market where I'm used to just waiting for the recruiters to hit me up and pick between them. In the second half of February things are picking up a little, some leads from recruiters, some replies to my resume. I expect March to be when things really pick up as budgets for the year are approved. It probably won't be the easy pickings, sellers market it was at least until the market has had time to absorb all these laid off engineers, but I have hope it'll be much better.
- ericmcer 4y ago
  The market for junior dev is even worse, imagine being fresh out of college in a market with 100,000 freshly laid off mid-staff level engineers
  - whymauri 4y ago
    The junior dev market has been terrible since the COVID lockdown.
    - disgruntledphd2 4y ago
      Remote is hard to make work with juniors, unfortunately.
      - icedchai 4y ago
        Tell me about it. I don't mind helping someone, but when they don't pay attention the first time and I have to have the same exact meeting again, it's kind of a bother.
        Haegin 4y ago
        We've had some success with recording meetings and using automated transcriptions, though we don't have any fresh out of college juniors now.
        disgruntledphd2 4y ago
        My current place does that, but we still don't really hire juniors so who knows if it works.
    - hughesjj 4y ago
      It was pretty shitty in the late 2000s/early 2010s IIRC.
  - whstl 4y ago
    That's true, however I've been seeing complaints for a little longer than that. Perhaps in FAANG they were hiring, but in general I remember seeing a lot of junior devs (not from elite colleges) commenting about how they applied for 50 positions sometimes during COVID. Something unthinkable in my time.
- whstl 4y ago
  Checked mine too and the difference is stark. However just setting Linkedin to "looking for a job" was enough to get a lot of attention in early February. I didn't want to wait for layoffs on my company, so, in advance, I got a much better paid job in about 2-3 weeks. Listings always suck, btw. Recruiters is where it's at.
  - spacemadness 4y ago
    I wonder what recruiting looks like as a career right now in comparison. I’m sure many will have to switch fields.
    - disgruntledphd2 4y ago
      Depends. In Ireland, the tech recruiters will all move back into pharma. Dunno what'll happen in the US, maybe a bunch of them will do sales?
    - whstl 4y ago
      I see experienced ones remaining calm, where rank-and-file is a bit desperate: too many calls, sending me nonsense jobs, badmouthing companies, pushing it too hard to accept offers. Unsurprisingly, there was a boom during COVID, and a lot of those new people started around that time. I see a correlation with development positions. There is just too many candidates for junior positions, but if you're a company trying to hire senior, principal or leadership your chance of success without a recruiter is very slim.
- mattgreenrocks 4y ago
  Are you looking for a new job? If so, what are you looking for? Where are you at?
myth_drannon 4y ago
Last summer and also before that, when I applied, I would get ~90% response rate and would have at least a call from recruiter/HM. Last week I sent a bunch of applications and crickets... this is something that I've never experienced in +10 years being in the industry. I'm not in dire need for a job but I can imagine how much,much stressful is to be unemployed now vs even 3-5 years ago.
- tomcam 4y ago
  I think you should stop sending crickets. It might annoy prospective employers.
  - saghm 4y ago
    It definitely sends the wrong message about introducing bugs rather than removing them
- mortenjorck 4y ago
  I was laid off in December and this has been by far the hardest search of the now four times (yes, really) I’ve been laid off in my career. The few times I’ve received anything resembling feedback in this cycle has been along the lines of “we have a large number of highly qualified candidates for this role” and with a lot of LinkedIn postings citing 200+ applicants, I believe it.
  - claytonjy 4y ago
    Never apply through LinkedIn. It is so low-friction that the vast majority of applicants are nowhere near qualified, and hiring managers quickly learn to ignore anything that came in from LinkedIn.
    - HeyLaughingBoy 4y ago
      OTOH, if you are job hunting, be sure to keep your LinkedIn profile up to date.
ahi 4y ago
I got laid off in November (not faang). I was going to wait until the right position came around, but as the lay offs kept coming in January I jumped on the first non-terrible opportunity. If the music stops I don't want to be without a chair.
- ejb999 4y ago
  good choice - you definitely don't want to be caught without a chair when the music stops. Whether one likes musk or not, and whether or not you agree with how he is running twitter or not - he let go like 80% of the company and it is still more or less running (with some bumps) - I don't think other companies will go to quite that extreme, but I'd bank that some executives right now in some companies are asking themselves "can we at least cut 33% of the staff and still keep things (more or less) running"?
  - yunwal 4y ago
    I mean, twitter’s worth about 40% of what it was when Musk bought it. Hardly a success story.
    - wincy 4y ago
      It’s not worth anything until he sells it. That’s just some imaginary number people are making up to cast aspersions at Elon Musk.
      - yunwal 4y ago
        I mean, fidelity has no reason to cast false aspersions at musk especially since they own equity in several of his companies https://www.axios.com/2023/01/29/fidelity-cuts-twitter-valuation-elon-musk https://www.axios.com/2023/01/29/fidelity-cuts-twitter-valua...
    - andsoitis 4y ago
      How are you calculating its current value, given its finances are now private and it is not traded on the open market?
lmkg 4y ago
The layoffs are rather sizeable. Even if only a small fraction go the start-up route, that could end up being a significant number of new start-ups.
conductr 4y ago
It’s not mutually exclusive. Applying for jobs takes a few hours a week. Maybe a little more if you get a hit. You have a lot of bandwidth to work on an mvp and do bootstrapped startup stuff.
- maerF0x0 4y ago
  IDK about you, but applying, recruiting calls, company research, HM call, leetcoding, practicing system design interviews, scheduling coding/arch interviews, practicing with arch diagramming tool, telling recruiter it was good and no i still wont show my hand with comp, followups because layoffs hit recruiting and coodrinators (they're short handed now), more scheduling conflicts, interviewing, and then telling the recruiter "no you offer first, then I'll tell you what i think", "Ok I'll talk to your VP finance about how valuable you think the options are", more scheduling... It's easily a full time job.
layoff_payoff 4y ago
> I imagine it is a tiny fraction of the people getting laid off that go that route - imo, most are out applying for jobs. Speaking for myself; I'm doing both. I applied for a job, and I am also working on my own company on the side. I have some run way, and could have gone all in on my company, but this is a terrible time to be seeking investment as a founder, and it probably will get worse. What I like: job stability, and having "free"[1] time to work on slow-growth projects. I fully expect things to get worse before they get better, so the route to profitability for ambitious new startups may be tricky. 1. It's amazing how much additional time you get back when you switch from a high-pressure FAANG job to something more normal
devwastaken 4y ago
Its sad seeing the students coming into the field trying to find work right now. They don't understand why there's no responses or why the corps are not showing up to job events. The industry has perpetuated the lie that stem means employment, so now we have a surplus of workers in an economic downturn, they're competing for the jobs because there is less capitol to create them. When the market goes down the corps pull back. All the taxes we pay in infra and education are not returned by them.

by ejb999 4y ago

jonnycoder 4y ago

Hindsight sucks sometimes. I was looking at my linkedin messages and I have many from FAANG recruiters reaching out back in late 2020 and early 2021, and my profile is mostly private with not a lot of detail. The current market for senior/principal software engineers is dismal. The listings are there, including remote, but it's as if there is a hiring freeze across the board yet they leave up the job postings.

Volundr 4y ago
Hang in there. January was really disheartening for me. Like literally dead, no replies, in a market where I'm used to just waiting for the recruiters to hit me up and pick between them. In the second half of February things are picking up a little, some leads from recruiters, some replies to my resume. I expect March to be when things really pick up as budgets for the year are approved. It probably won't be the easy pickings, sellers market it was at least until the market has had time to absorb all these laid off engineers, but I have hope it'll be much better.
ericmcer 4y ago
The market for junior dev is even worse, imagine being fresh out of college in a market with 100,000 freshly laid off mid-staff level engineers
- whymauri 4y ago
  The junior dev market has been terrible since the COVID lockdown.
  - disgruntledphd2 4y ago
    Remote is hard to make work with juniors, unfortunately.
    - icedchai 4y ago
      Tell me about it. I don't mind helping someone, but when they don't pay attention the first time and I have to have the same exact meeting again, it's kind of a bother.
      - Haegin 4y ago
        We've had some success with recording meetings and using automated transcriptions, though we don't have any fresh out of college juniors now.
        disgruntledphd2 4y ago
        My current place does that, but we still don't really hire juniors so who knows if it works.
  - hughesjj 4y ago
    It was pretty shitty in the late 2000s/early 2010s IIRC.
- whstl 4y ago
  That's true, however I've been seeing complaints for a little longer than that. Perhaps in FAANG they were hiring, but in general I remember seeing a lot of junior devs (not from elite colleges) commenting about how they applied for 50 positions sometimes during COVID. Something unthinkable in my time.
whstl 4y ago
Checked mine too and the difference is stark. However just setting Linkedin to "looking for a job" was enough to get a lot of attention in early February. I didn't want to wait for layoffs on my company, so, in advance, I got a much better paid job in about 2-3 weeks. Listings always suck, btw. Recruiters is where it's at.
- spacemadness 4y ago
  I wonder what recruiting looks like as a career right now in comparison. I’m sure many will have to switch fields.
  - disgruntledphd2 4y ago
    Depends. In Ireland, the tech recruiters will all move back into pharma. Dunno what'll happen in the US, maybe a bunch of them will do sales?
  - whstl 4y ago
    I see experienced ones remaining calm, where rank-and-file is a bit desperate: too many calls, sending me nonsense jobs, badmouthing companies, pushing it too hard to accept offers. Unsurprisingly, there was a boom during COVID, and a lot of those new people started around that time. I see a correlation with development positions. There is just too many candidates for junior positions, but if you're a company trying to hire senior, principal or leadership your chance of success without a recruiter is very slim.
mattgreenrocks 4y ago
Are you looking for a new job? If so, what are you looking for? Where are you at?

myth_drannon 4y ago

Last summer and also before that, when I applied, I would get ~90% response rate and would have at least a call from recruiter/HM. Last week I sent a bunch of applications and crickets... this is something that I've never experienced in +10 years being in the industry. I'm not in dire need for a job but I can imagine how much,much stressful is to be unemployed now vs even 3-5 years ago.

tomcam 4y ago
I think you should stop sending crickets. It might annoy prospective employers.
- saghm 4y ago
  It definitely sends the wrong message about introducing bugs rather than removing them
mortenjorck 4y ago
I was laid off in December and this has been by far the hardest search of the now four times (yes, really) I’ve been laid off in my career. The few times I’ve received anything resembling feedback in this cycle has been along the lines of “we have a large number of highly qualified candidates for this role” and with a lot of LinkedIn postings citing 200+ applicants, I believe it.
- claytonjy 4y ago
  Never apply through LinkedIn. It is so low-friction that the vast majority of applicants are nowhere near qualified, and hiring managers quickly learn to ignore anything that came in from LinkedIn.
  - HeyLaughingBoy 4y ago
    OTOH, if you are job hunting, be sure to keep your LinkedIn profile up to date.

ahi 4y ago

I got laid off in November (not faang). I was going to wait until the right position came around, but as the lay offs kept coming in January I jumped on the first non-terrible opportunity. If the music stops I don't want to be without a chair.

ejb999 4y ago
good choice - you definitely don't want to be caught without a chair when the music stops. Whether one likes musk or not, and whether or not you agree with how he is running twitter or not - he let go like 80% of the company and it is still more or less running (with some bumps) - I don't think other companies will go to quite that extreme, but I'd bank that some executives right now in some companies are asking themselves "can we at least cut 33% of the staff and still keep things (more or less) running"?
- yunwal 4y ago
  I mean, twitter’s worth about 40% of what it was when Musk bought it. Hardly a success story.
  - wincy 4y ago
    It’s not worth anything until he sells it. That’s just some imaginary number people are making up to cast aspersions at Elon Musk.
    - yunwal 4y ago
      I mean, fidelity has no reason to cast false aspersions at musk especially since they own equity in several of his companies https://www.axios.com/2023/01/29/fidelity-cuts-twitter-valuation-elon-musk https://www.axios.com/2023/01/29/fidelity-cuts-twitter-valua...
  - andsoitis 4y ago
    How are you calculating its current value, given its finances are now private and it is not traded on the open market?

lmkg 4y ago

The layoffs are rather sizeable. Even if only a small fraction go the start-up route, that could end up being a significant number of new start-ups.

conductr 4y ago

It’s not mutually exclusive. Applying for jobs takes a few hours a week. Maybe a little more if you get a hit. You have a lot of bandwidth to work on an mvp and do bootstrapped startup stuff.

maerF0x0 4y ago
IDK about you, but applying, recruiting calls, company research, HM call, leetcoding, practicing system design interviews, scheduling coding/arch interviews, practicing with arch diagramming tool, telling recruiter it was good and no i still wont show my hand with comp, followups because layoffs hit recruiting and coodrinators (they're short handed now), more scheduling conflicts, interviewing, and then telling the recruiter "no you offer first, then I'll tell you what i think", "Ok I'll talk to your VP finance about how valuable you think the options are", more scheduling... It's easily a full time job.

layoff_payoff 4y ago

> I imagine it is a tiny fraction of the people getting laid off that go that route - imo, most are out applying for jobs. Speaking for myself; I'm doing both. I applied for a job, and I am also working on my own company on the side. I have some run way, and could have gone all in on my company, but this is a terrible time to be seeking investment as a founder, and it probably will get worse. What I like: job stability, and having "free"[1] time to work on slow-growth projects. I fully expect things to get worse before they get better, so the route to profitability for ambitious new startups may be tricky. 1. It's amazing how much additional time you get back when you switch from a high-pressure FAANG job to something more normal

devwastaken 4y ago

Its sad seeing the students coming into the field trying to find work right now. They don't understand why there's no responses or why the corps are not showing up to job events. The industry has perpetuated the lie that stem means employment, so now we have a surplus of workers in an economic downturn, they're competing for the jobs because there is less capitol to create them. When the market goes down the corps pull back. All the taxes we pay in infra and education are not returned by them.