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Ask HN: Is the job market brutal? or is it just me?

• dawmak 4y ago
  [dead]
  • zimzam 4y ago
    FYI on your jobseeker's page the copy reads "Finding a new jpb" instead of "Finding a new job"
• yoav 4y ago
  Everyone mass spamming their resume blindly to hundreds of positions in response to the flooded market is only making it harder for companies to sift through applications or actually read resumes. AI is getting people past initial screen and then ghosted and the “right fit” people not even getting looked at. It’s self fulfilling and will eventually resolve itself when the market picks up and standards are lowered. (Assuming that happens before GPT5. If you can sit this cycle out for 6+ months and work on your own stuff or take a sabbatical you can help accelerate us out of this period of chaos.
• dormento 4y ago
  Are you based on SF/SV region? This might explain it (due to a saturation of "high-quality" generalist developers).
• nomoretrash 4y ago
  I know the exact feeling. I have over 10 years experience in tech and ~7 years in product. Typically I am looking at 2-3 offers when interviewing for a me job but this time around I methodically applied to nearly 100 jobs with only a handful of interviews and only 1 offer! (which wasn't even a tech company). I know the job market is supposedly in good place but for tech workers it seems to be the worst market I have seen since I've enter the workforce.
• stevev 4y ago
  I believe the market has slowed down. The amount of recruiter emails I receive are now more sparse. I have been passively looking for new gigs and so far landed one interview and sent three applications. I’ve worked close with recruiters for years and understand enough how some things work. After viewing the comments I see a few things that stand out. People are mass sending their resumes. I think this shotgun approach doesn’t really work given the state of how many people are submitting resumes. You will get filter out. The idea is to get you in front of hiring managers. This is where recruiters come into play. Working with recruiters that has continuously placed candidates at job x is a better approach. Write cover letters to the hiring manager. Your resume has to be tailored to the role. Write follow up letters showing your interest for the role. Companies are willing to hire a less experienced engineer over someone with more due to their greater interest in the role. If you think your experience alone is going to get you the interview or job, think again, FAANG engs are having a tough time securing roles. You need to make it sound like there’s no other place you would rather work at for the next five years than there. However do this without sounding desperate but with great interest and a desire to contribute and offer something. In a flourishing or surplus market, I wouldn’t normally do any of these as it’s not required. In the previous market anyone could get in front of managers without much effort. However we are in dire times where companies are careful who they hire and one has to really stand out to be picked. Be picky and don’t just chase anything, even if you’re desperate. Gluck.
• naterkane 4y ago
  it was almost the same for me. 25 years into my career, and deemed basically unhirable (after years consulting for gov where titles don’t translate back to private sector) after 6 months of job hunting, where even friends who were SVPs couldn’t get me a timely interview, i was left feeling so dehumanized i just gave up and stopped job hunting. then i got an idea. in 2008 i created a company where i wanted to work after not being able to find an agency in NYC that i felt had good culture.. so i should do it again. this time, however, there would be a mission… i want to unfuck how hiring is done. if, as job seekers we can share knowledge of how recruiters and hiring companies behave, we can spare each-other grief and unnecessary pain and suffering when we look for work. recruiter reviews, by candidates for candidates. it’s very new, has quirks that i’m working out, and is simply a chrome extension that runs on top of LinkedIn. reviews contribute to a calculated score, and the details of any review are never shared with anybody. job seekers come first, recruiters get held accountable for the reputations they deserve. https://hirerank.cc https://hirerank.cc give it a swing, let me know what you think.
  • pcthrowaway 4y ago
    this sounds great, but I'd be especially interested if there was a way to use the service that didn't involve a browser extension
    • naterkane 4y ago
      the browser extension is just where i started. a gmail add-on that will be released in the nearish future. would you mind sharing the issue or concern about using a browser extension?
      • pcthrowaway 4y ago
        They have the ability to exfiltrate private information. Even if you as an honest person wouldn't do such a thing, you might sell the IP to someone who would, or someone who would accept money to include a script that does that.
• flashgordon 4y ago
  No it's not you. It is the market. I am seeing a couple of phenomena: 1. Every company wants to show off it's "really high bar" ... For building yet another crud service ... handling 1qps (that is still a 100k qpd so don't laugh at it). 2. So they read about what the fangs do and naturally copy all the terrible parts (impact impact impact, more artifacts just for evidence, write realms and realms of repeated documents before writing a line of code so you can show "influence", leetcode and more). Why aren't they copying the good parts - oh we are still a small company and tight on resources. 3. Naturally they couldn't demand this when the market was hot. Now they feel unleashed. So are going nuts either in the form of taking their sweet time ("evaluate and dig deep into our hiring pipeline") or with ridiculous and arbitrary hiring loops. (I had one cto ask me to demo a personal project only to back out after he felt insecure about what I had built - sure could be my opinion). Another one I had never written a cover letter in my life before and this time I had to write 2000 word essays on why I thought company X was better than Jesus and why and when Id sacrifice my left nut for the honor of being chosen by them. Sigh I suppose human nature had to come out. But thankfully I did get lucky and met some amazing people who were there when I needed them. My only advice (ok selection bias) is to network like hell. Good roles aren't coming by just applying on LinkedIn (I don't this was ever true but more so now). If you have to send a resume you've already lost is what I am getting reassured of. Hope ymmv.
  • roncesvalles 4y ago
    Some of the difficulty is also because smaller companies are wary about interviewing and hiring people who will leave as soon as the market bounces back. They want a unicorn candidate who is "perfect" technically, will accept significantly less money than their current/previous job, and won't run off to double their TC at a big tech company in 12 months. When you apply all these filters you're left with... no one.
    • flashgordon 4y ago
      This is the irony - The unicorn candidate (IMO) is a myth. I can assure you (we) faangers wear our pants one leg at a time and dont just "jump" into it :) Having hired at startups - hiring for passion, curiosity and desire has gone a long way rather than trying to act all big. Now key here is to be honest with yourself and the candidate (TC) that your pay is "mediocre" and X,Y,Z are going to be the mutual benefits. Best case scenario company and TC grow together. Otherwise TC learns a lot and is ready for their next role when ever the market bounces and I am glad to be the guy who helped you launch rather than tried to hold you back with BS. Ive literally said that and I mean it.
• nick_modeselekt 4y ago
  This is such an awesome thread, and wanted to thank you all for all the insight you’ve provided. I’ve been helping Kara (joinkara.com) search for a Head of Engineering for a few months now and it sounds like a bunch of you might be great fits for the role :) if you’re interested in building a platform that helps Venture Capital align their capital incentives with their Impact and ESG goals, reach out to me at Nick at modeselekt dot com. I’m still actively searching for this role! All the best out there.
• Element_ 4y ago
  From what I have heard from colleagues there are so many applications coming in for open job postings the hiring managers are applying generic filters just to make the numbers manageable. Using filters like location, so even if you have 15 years exp with perfect matching skillset your resume may still not even be viewed by human eyes because you are located > 20 miles from the office etc... I think the market is just saturated/brutal right now.
• alien8472 4y ago
  I have no words to describe how brutal it is. But my advice to finding opportunities at the moment especially in tech is seek more validation through oneself rather than through online validation, e.g. taking numerous advice from say random people on linkedin leads to a kind of survivorship bias effect. What works for others might not work for you, you have to discover within yourself before people discover you I have found in such a brutal market.
• goddamnyouryan 4y ago
  Check out https://polyfill.work https://polyfill.work we’re trying to figure out a way out of this mess of applying for 150 jobs to only hear back from 1 or 2
  • 80x25 4y ago
    Interesting idea. I signed up. I noticed that the email confirmation links are using http:// http:// vs. https:// https://. Chrome has started to flag http:// http:// links with a full-page speed bump, saying it is insecure. Perhaps those links should use https:// https://? I did try manually switching to https:// https:// in the URL but Chrome didn't like the cert there either.
• gicraulo 3y ago
  We are hiring (big bank). My team is doing some transformational work in pricing building ML models and optimization frameworks. Looking for a couple talented engineers as we scale. Hit me up! ciraulog@gmail.com
• troutwine 4y ago
  I'm not looking right now but I have several friends that are. It's not just you. With so many layoffs there's a lot of folks looking all at once and a number of companies see this as a chance to get very experienced talent at a steep discount _or_ don't know where their headcount funding will be in six months to a year and are looking to hire very, very sparingly. Reminds me very much of the Great Recession. I hope things go well for you.
• throwaway5959 4y ago
  I went from getting 1-2 recruiters a day sending messages via LinkedIn (with my profile marked not looking) to 1-2 a week (some weeks 0). It seems as if companies across the board have just decided not to hire anyone while laying people off. We've laid off like a dozen people in our 50 person engineering team and we're building more than ever (the people still on the team are _tired_). We'll see how it all plays out over the next few months.
• echelon 4y ago
  I know this probably isn't helping, but have you ever thought about building a startup? This lull might be a good chance to launch something or find a scrappy team to join. Hardly advice if your situation demands something more stable. I just wanted to speak to the possibility.
  • nikhizzle 4y ago
    Four startups in. One break even, one still going (micro vc fund). Two failed. Not sure if I’m up for it at this moment.
  • qntmfred 4y ago
    Seems like a great time to take this route. I've been looking for something new the last 2 months and haven't found any great fits yet. 2 weeks ago I signed up for https://www.ycombinator.com/cofounder-matching https://www.ycombinator.com/cofounder-matching and got 30+ messages so far.
    • bilsbie 4y ago
      Wow I had no idea that existed. What a great service.
• tomashertus 4y ago
  I've not been actively looking for a new role, but the number of inquiries in my LinkedIn inbox has dropped from 6–10 per month to 1–2. I think there is an overall slowdown in hiring, especially in FAANG, and given how many open positions they were hiring for, it's a significant drop that can be felt, especially in the Bay Area. I believe that with the recent news coming from Twitter and Facebook (cutting middle managers), there will be significantly fewer open positions in middle management roles.
  • dangwhy 4y ago
    > believe that with the recent news coming from Twitter and Facebook (cutting middle managers), there will be significantly fewer open positions in middle management roles. This still hasn't materlized at META though. There have been no middle managment layoffs at meta. Reamins to be seen if mark was just bluffing.
    • tomashertus 4y ago
      Interesting insight, thanks for sharing that.
• moosedev 4y ago
  Not just you. I would guess, optimistically, I’m averaging a 5% conversion rate of applications to recruiter chats/“stage 0 interviews”. That is, ~95% of applications yield silence or a generic email rejection without any human contact. ~15 YOE, FAANG experience, usually only applying to roles I feel I’m at least a halfway good fit for (i.e. not a complete scattergun approach). I’m (financially) fine for now, which is very fortunate. I wasn’t even laid off - I quit voluntarily and took a sabbatical while the good times were rollin’. But since I started looking seriously again, it’s been hard to shake the sense of time disappearing with nothing to show for it. I’m better at Leetcode (ugh) than I’ve ever been, but so is everyone else, and with the slow drip of actual interviews, I only get to demonstrate it once or twice a month :) ETA: A few of the recruiters I have talked with have mentioned that they’re getting hundreds of applications within hours of a posting going live. So there is likely a “lost in volume” effect as another commenter mentioned. In fact, for some of the roles where I thought I was a great fit but got a generic rejection without a recruiter call, I’ve had some eventual success simply reapplying for the same role, at least when the recruiting platform allows it (some don’t). For reasons of culture and upbringing, it took me a while to get comfortable not taking that initial, faceless “no” for an answer, but it has worked at least twice so far.
  • gautamdivgi 4y ago
    If you are a US citizen try defense companies. Edit: I should have explained my reasoning. They have a much smaller eligible applicant pool - US citizens who are eligible for security clearance. Because of this they’re continuously looking for good talent.
    • naterkane 4y ago
      nobody is sponsoring clearances for uncleared talent right now. dod/ic work is always a career dead-end unless it’s all you want to do until you retire.
    • wunderland 4y ago
      Damn this is the most depressing comment in this whole comments section
• akmarinov 4y ago
  Well yeah, all the big companies have hiring freezes and there's currently a ton of talent looking out there. Give it some time and investors will demand growth which can no longer come from cutting people, so they'll have to start actually growing their products and will need people for that.
• oh_sigh 4y ago
  150 resumes sounds like you're just shotgunning them out there willy nilly. Maybe take a more nuanced approach and work your network a little bit. Your network could even just be people you've worked with in the past who respect you and enjoyed working with you, doesn't need to be people you actively keep up with.
  • goodpoint 4y ago
    "willy nilly"??
    • etimberg 4y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willy_nilly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willy_nilly "Willy nilly is an idiom that means "haphazardly" or "spontaneously"."
      • goodpoint 4y ago
        Thanks, I thought it had only the first meaning: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/willy-nilly https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/willy-nilly
  • uncletammy 4y ago
    It's hard to keep morale up after spending multiple hours composing a few thoughtful, "good fit" applications, just to be auto-rejected immediately upon submission without them even being seen by a human. I don't even bother anymore unless I have someone on the other end who's willing to usher my application straight to a hiring manager.
    • nyarlathotep_ 4y ago
      Yeah tailoring your resume is an exercise in futility when the most common outcome is either no response or an auto reject email. Changing a few keywords or whatever is one thing, but trying to go bullet-point accuracy for the listing is a total waste of time when 95% of the time the resume is never viewed by a human.
• karaterobot 4y ago
  150 job applications in a week! Last time, my strategy was to send out one a day, but do a bunch of research about whether I would actually be good for that company, and also very specifically tailor the resume to the job. That worked pretty quickly for me, but as you say, it's a different market right now. Best of luck.
• arthurcolle 4y ago
  Keep at it. It definitely takes a while to ramp up into doing daily interviews/technical assessments (take homes) but once you are in a good flow, it becomes easier. I would say that your time is probably better spent leveraging your network, and using Linkedin/Work at a Startup/RemoteOK to find better leads, as there is more favorable signal/noise ratio on these more 'intimate' sites (excluding linkedin, but there is still value in Linkedin) It definitely sucks. Especially when unemployment insurance takes forever (been trying to get a piddly $400 a week from MD where my last employer was located for the last 5 months, and honestly no one there is sympathetic for someone earning 100K+ who now is submitting all the documents and doing everything needed to get unemployment checks) It's tough out there. If you are really hard up for money, take whatever is available or try to get into consulting. I wish I had better answers, but I'm in the same boat.
• BWStearns 4y ago
  I've definitely noticed it's a lot softer market than any other time I've seen it. Not totally dead but not great, especially since I'm really trying to find a role I actually want to be in this time (historically I haven't been very picky other than the comp number and it led to a bit of burnout).
• Plasmoid 4y ago
  I was looking at some internal metrics for applications. We were seeing ~1000 applications per week for SWE roles and around 500/week for senior SWE. I'm not sure how many are genuine compared to scatter-shot applications but it means that a lot of recruiters have to dig through huge piles of resumes and odds are good that you're just being missed in the volume. There are much fewer resumes for specialized/higher level roles than for junior roles. Infra or Security roles get much fewer applications than junior SWE. On a personal note, I've noticed that recruiter reach outs have increased since mid-February.
  • cvhashim04 4y ago
    Likely most of those applicants are hardly qualified or applying as Jrs.
  • y-curious 4y ago
    I am <1 YOE as an SWE (had other technical roles prior) and I, too, have seen a huge uptick of recruiter emails since the beginning of March.
• mv4 4y ago
  It is brutal. Even with 20+ YoE and a couple of FAANGs on the resume, the response rate is 1/10th of what I saw a couple of years ago.
  • amonith 4y ago
    Tbh it was always not that great with "too much experience". I feel that the best response rate is on that sweet spot of around ~5 years, probably because you already know enough but are still relatively cheap for the employer. I imagine that with that much exp and FAANGs on resume you are still negotiating FAANG salary, which are kind of the outliers of the industry. Idk, the dev market in my country (Poland) stills seems to be in a good shape, but we're earning pennies comparatively (50k USD would be a top 1% senior position) so not sure if that's actually better. I might get a stable salary and lots of companies to choose from if there's anything I don't like, but you can beat my earnings with a 3-month side gig, so... :D
    • mv4 4y ago
      You may be right. There just aren't that many strategic roles that require that level of YoE.
• smitty1110 4y ago
  Caveat Lector: I'm east coast, so YMMV. Everything I've heard suggests there's a lot of decisions that are waiting on financial reporting for the quarter before the C-suites make their hiring decisions. MS is not just laying off, they have frozen internal hiring between groups and even projects inside of groups. AWS is waiting on financials, my contact over there is looking to move back to MITRE because he's worried, and he has high-side access. I know a couple of start ups in the area have had their buyouts put in a holding pattern. Nothing is dire, but the general vibe is "calm before the storm".
• alberth 4y ago
  > Have normally found a new job within a few weeks, but this time it has been 4 months. That’s because during COVID, tech had unprecedented hiring rates. Google, Facebook, etc literally 2x their employee count in just a couple of years. And these are companies already at massive scale with 10s thousands of employees. How easy it was to find a job over the last few years was not normal.
  • marcinzm 4y ago
    Even before Covid an experienced competent engineer could easily find a decent job in around a month. Longer for large tech companies due to the lengthy interview process but you'd at least be in the pipeline.
• 1differential 4y ago
  It's extremely brutal. I'm a staff engineer and a tech lead of ~12 engineers, I've either been getting low ball offers, or ending the last round of interviews to get no offer. I've employed but have been looking for a job for ~6 months with terrible results. I graduated from a T5 school, have worked at a "unicorn" startup, and have an average of 3 years at every role. My conversion rate is a little better - 3 interviews for every 40-50 apps, but I've gotten 2 offers for 6 months of searching. My most memorable was this tier 3 hedge fund trying to convince me to take a junior IC role for a new team that had also hired a manager and director from outside the company for a new endeavor/initiative, and the manager had been at his last 3 jobs for roughly over a year each, get out of here lol.
  • q7xvh97o2pDhNrh 4y ago
    Oof. Are you going out for L6? Is the goal a big company, or a startup? Reading all the comments in this thread, I wonder if there's some correlation to specific areas of the tech industry. e.g., Are people working in the AI space (or even something like ML infra) just inundated with job offers right now?
    • 1differential 4y ago
      fwiw I'm a backend engineer - primarily building out services in Java/Scala/Go. I would say the market probably isn't as good as someone with a Masters/PhD looking for ML engineering roles, but that would be anecdotal after chatting with friends.
  • throwaway5959 4y ago
    > had been at his last 3 jobs for roughly over a year each And yet the manager would be your boss. Not sure why you think how long someone has been in a role is somehow a worthwhile signal.
    • __float 4y ago
      As you get more senior, it takes time to understand your sibling teams, the business itself, etc. If it takes 6+ months just to get "up to speed", are you really having much impact when you leave 6 months later?
• ivanstegic 4y ago
  I believe that the market is correcting and that salaries will be going down.
  • gabereiser 4y ago
    On the contrary… I’m not seeing any evidence of this. If anything, salaries are going up.
    • jselysianeagle 4y ago
      This seems extremely counter-intuitive. I'd figure with so many experienced and talented people looking, it would be an employer's market and they'd use it to reign in pay at least a bit. Why do you think this might not be occurring?
      • eschneider 4y ago
        I would expect that from the employer's point of view, it's not a sea of "amazing candidates to choose from, any of which would be a good fit for my company." When they find someone who ticks all the boxes, they can expect that person will tick the boxes for other companies as well, so best to make a reasonable offer that the candidate will take. Are average companies offering $300K to Senior/Staff Engineers this days? Not often. Are they offering < $150K? Not if they're serious about hiring people. The numbers are somewhere in the middle.
        • gabereiser 4y ago
          This. You can try lowering your salary for the job req but you’ll end up with unfavorable candidates. So you go for the good ones and the good ones know what they are worth and are holding out collectively. Strange how economics works sometimes. Now, ask me again in a year.
    • TrueGeek 4y ago
      What's your vantage point though? Are you a "normal" senior seeing salaries going up from $175k and GP is a FAANG seeing salaries going down from $400k? note: I don't have data points for either, I'm genuinely curious
• 0zemp1c 4y ago
  during a previous downturn, I just took six months off if the market is lousy, its lousy...even if you get something, the offers could be lowball or inferior positions no one judged me or questioned this, it seemed sensible to take a time out during a crappy market not everyone can swing a "sabbatical", but if you can, I doubt anyone will judge you for it
  • sph 4y ago
    My issue is that I've taken an 18 months sabbatical, worked on my mental and physical health, and was ready to get back in the market, pumped, with the worst possible timing. So now I'm broke and still without a job after 3 months of looking. I am honestly terrified.
    • icpmacdo 4y ago
      I am in exactly the same position, if our experience are the same though at least we aren't burned out anymore. I am uncertain what the next move is though. The timing indeed couldn't have been any worse lol.
• SassyGrapefruit 4y ago
  I don't know man. I am employed but I still get 64 recruiting emails a day. Seems like business as usual. FWIW I have never had luck with applications. The last time I was unemployed I sent out 10 or 15 and heard nothing. I reached out to a recruiter and was drowning in interviews within a week. As for the other side, I do hiring on my team. We posted a Senior SRE on linkedin and got 30 applicants within a week. That was not our experience 2 months ago(more like 5). Maybe something has changed. I don't know I don't pay too much attention.
  • TylerE 4y ago
    Feels like there's just a chasm... they want CHEAP people, not GOOD people.
    • throwaway5959 4y ago
      Most companies don’t need or care about good people. They need cheap people who can keep the machines running and not break anything too badly until they either get acquired or they absolutely have to invest in fixing their stack.
    • rr808 4y ago
      My experience may be off, but FAANG salaries the last 5 years have been so huge maybe normal looks cheap now.
  • jzb 4y ago
    I keep seeing things that suggest recruiters are keeping active to look active but not much going on beyond that. That is, people may be getting hit up for things that aren't going to pan out for any of the people they touch - they just want full schedules. Or you may be super in demand, too!
    • deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  • neilv 4y ago
    > but I still get 64 recruiting emails a day Recruiters recruit. When it's harder to get people hired, I suppose that means recruiters have to work harder/smarter. If you're getting more recruiter outreaches than most people, maybe it's what you're plugged into, or (I suppose) some recruiters might still be operating on the old rule that a poached hire is preferred to a currently unemployed one. (Even though, given the large number of layoffs from prestige/upscale companies lately, I'd think that being laid off isn't a bad signal on someone. And the laid off person might be more likely candidate to get to accept an offer, and therefore maybe preferable to spending recruiting time on.)
• paxys 4y ago
  Mass applying to hundreds of positions with a single non-tailored resume has never worked and will never work. If you want interviews you need to get a referral.
  • bluGill 4y ago
    That depends on the company. Some you need a referral to attach to your resume. Some you need to send your resume to the person referring you - who will then personally give it to the hiring manager. Some the hiring manager isn't allowed to know about the referral (the company like that I know of gives to the referring employee - but that is only about generating leads, not hiring decisions). You have to figure out what is the way your target company works. Note that companies change how they work over time so make sure you have the latest information for the department you want to be in.
• paxys 4y ago
  Depends on the role. Lots of companies are cutting out middle managers. Existing engineering managers across the industry are being asked to lead larger teams and even write code. From what I can see senior ICs are still very much in demand.
• mathverse 4y ago
  No the market is not brutal. We dont know your bubble we can't possibly know what kind of jobs you are apply for nor do we know what comp do you expect. There is a high possibility you are applying to jobs where you are not a good fit (i.e overqualified).
• jstx1 4y ago
  Seems brutal. No prestigious company on my resume and I'm trying to switch fields - so far only no-responses and auto-rejections.
  • lexarflash8g 4y ago
    If you have a "name" in the industry, meaning you are some sort of 10x developer, which 99% is not -- companies will actively poach you like you are some NBA all-star. For the normal people out there -- even having a big-name company on your CV won't get you far. And forget telling them you got laid-off or out of work -- you'll be tossed out. Hiring has never been an honest process -- eliminated my expectations that any company is trying to help you.
• kasperni 4y ago
  If people added their location it would be a lot more useful.
  • 1letterunixname 4y ago
    Location is irrelevant to most, if not all, forms of knowledge work. The pandemic pushed remote work style and it's unlikely to put that genie back in the bottle. Butt-in-seat mentality is for dinosaurs.
    • declnz 4y ago
      The problem is: this is absolutely not true in the real world.
    • isbvhodnvemrwvn 4y ago
      Most companies are dinosaurs, you are delusional to think otherwise.
    • jselysianeagle 4y ago
      While I agree that location shouldn't be relevant, the fact is that many companies will absolutely use (and probably already are using) this period of time as leverage to push for hybrid/full on-site roles instead of remote. The few remote roles advertised get quickly flooded with applications.
• whiplash451 4y ago
  Can confirm from the other side. Our company is not famous, and it takes us a few weeks to make a hire instead of months —- without lowering the bar.
• ok_dad 4y ago
  I've been doing okay, lots of targeted recruiter interest, but I have a pretty specialized set of domain knowledge that is useful for a specific industry (energy efficiency, basically) and gets me in the front door for most companies doing the stuff I know about, since they aren't as affected by the current tech downturn (everyone always needs energy). I not as worried about AI powered software engineering or other SWEs taking my job since I write algorithms that AI just can't do, yet, but someday when there's a glut of software engineers some will probably learn what I do and apply it better than I am able to. I'm hoping my current small startup survives and does well, so I don't have to try finding another job, though.
• mancerayder 4y ago
  How's the independent contractor market?
• lionkor 4y ago
  Could we get people here to add what kind of field they work in?
• sph 4y ago
  It has been for a couple months, yet HN keeps trying to convince us there's plenty of positions open, just a little slow. Personally, this is the worst I have experienced in 16 years, also because I'm in Britain and we have our own sets of issues on top. I am barely keeping afloat with underpaid Upwork gigs. Contracting work is pretty much dead in UK. Recruiters have not landed me a single interview after connecting with two dozen of them. Not a single one in two months.
• mkl95 4y ago
  I'm getting a lot of recruiter spam lately, but a lot of it is low effort and AI driven. A local unicorn reached out recently on LinkedIn with what looked like an organic message, so I gave them a chance. The interviewer was stand-offish and bitter. I then checked out their LinkedIn page and they had laid off 10% of their workforce in the previous 6 months. I am not a big fan of interviewing, but I have noticed a corporatization trend among small companies, where they tell you things like "it's up to the hiring manager" which means they are not actually hiring anybody, or you are making enough money that you are out of their league, etc. One of the things I miss the most about the 2020-2022 period is how honest those companies used to be, and how smoothly money was flowing even for the average Joe.
• 0xDEF 4y ago
  >Submitted 150 job applications last week. Try customizing a few of the applications for the specific position you look to fill.
  • 93po 4y ago
    Yeah this was what I noticed too. I write custom cover letters for jobs that I apply to, and it often takes 30-60 minutes. Sometimes I'll even tailor my resume for the ad. But I also only apply for a job every week or two, and I only apply to ones that I'm actually very interested in.
    • recfab 4y ago
      Has this been working for you? At times, I've had panic mode set in and _feel_ like I need to apply to every little job that looks remotely decent, but I don't know if that's _actually_ helping.
      • 93po 4y ago
        It's hard to say, it's all relative. I've had a couple first-round interviews for places that I care about, but those were also maybe because I had a referral at those places. In reality I'm not a super strong candidate because my entire resume is 1.5 year stints a decade in, and I haven't work anywhere noteworthy or something people recognize.
      • bluGill 4y ago
        The more remotely decent the job is the more important it is to customize. I have hired people who have never worked in my niche before, but if all I see is irrelevant experience with no indication you want a new field you go in the pin. Convince me that despite not having the right experience you want a new field and you get a chance.
    • bluGill 4y ago
      Not just the cover letter, also the experience. Look at the job description and keywords. Make sure your relevant history is there early and the things less relevant used as filler. In the US we mostly use resume which is a short summary and you are expected to take off things that are not relevant. In Europe I understand they more use the CV format which allows for more length for experience that we don't care about.
• skizm 4y ago
  Might help if folks post locations of where they're looking? I get a general vibe (with no hard data) that the NYC area has no shortage of work for SWEs, but other cities might not? I'd be curious to hear other folks' thoughts on their locations.
  • jselysianeagle 4y ago
    Yes, I had my LinkedIn location set to NYC since I was living there before and forgot to update it. As soon as I set my status to #opentowork I started getting messages from recruiters for roles in NYC (and some in Chicago). To be sure, it was still nowhere near the same level as the "good" times before the recent round of layoffs, but it was something. I changed my location back to the west coast where I'm currently located, and the drop in messages has been noticeable. So I'm inclined to believe that the west coast tech scene (what I consider "new" tech) has been hit harder. On the east coast there's still a decent amount of tech openings in finance, defense, and other old school/traditional industries.
• gigatexal 4y ago
  Have you considered moving abroad? I’m a mediocre engineer compared to the rockstars in my field and I regularly get interviews at startups, and medium to large companies here in Germany. I feel as though the jobs are for me to take or the interviews are for me to fail. Honestly think about it. I do interviews for the company I work for (though I’m a senior data engineer I really like being people facing and meeting folks) and the market here is hungry for talent. The larger companies might be laying off like their American counterparts but smaller (less aggressively tech focused) firms (like real estate, banking, manufacturing, pharma, etc) are hiring like crazy and so are startups. Good luck to you!
  • gigatexal 4y ago
    *forgot to add context: I’m an American living in Germany for the last 5 years.
    • sneed_chucker 4y ago
      How did you handle your initial relocation? I'm an American with German citizenship and a decent (~C1) grasp of the language and I toy with the idea of moving there from time to time. But it seems like first you need to get a company that's willing to hire you and wait for you to relocate before starting, no?
      • gigatexal 4y ago
        As jselysianeagle points out in response to this it seems it's tough here, too. I guess that's the case. I had a former colleague who is very much a stronger Data Engineer than I am take about 3 months to find their ideal role. The thing is when the layoffs happened at his old firm he got the 3 months notice period that is common here plus some severance that held him over for a few months on top of that which meant finding new work was not a stressor. But as the OP points out if you're a competent person and interview well and are good at what you do (and one would hope someone at the highest tiers of the industry working at places like Apple, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, etc. are) then finding work here in the EU is not hard. From what I have seen EU companies would all but kill for really strong US talent. They can't get this talent because would be folks be they in the US or abroad want to go or stay in the US for those bonkers high salaries. But if living and working in the EU is appealing then the perks are really, really nice. ~30 days of vacation time on top of public/bank holidays. Family leave for the birth of children. Really long notice periods in the case of being fired or laid off. Good severance. And then all the perks of social welfare states like subsidized or social medicine, good public transit, good travel to other countries etc., etc. So to answer sneed_chucker's question: A few years ago while perusing the Who's Hiring here on HN I saw that a startup based in Hamburg (I didn't know where that was at the time) was hiring for a Python engineer. I applied (only having taught myself Python to an beginner+_level but was eager to learn) and I got the role! They handled all the visa paperwork and for a while my visa was tied to my employer. It's called a blue card here. Think of it like a green card. And as long as I was making > 50k euros and such I could live in Germany. When I changed employers I had to get my blue card updated. Since I've been here about 5 years now I have an open ended one so when I change employers I do not have to get it updated. I really do like it here a lot. Small plug: DeliveryHero, based in Berlin, -- the company I work for currently -- regularly (well we used to, let's see when hiring picks up again) hired folks from abroad and upon the first salary was often a relocation bonus of 5k euros or more to help folks get settled here. It's based on where you're coming from so if you were coming from the US I'd think it'd be closer to 7.5k or 10k even. Hope that helps! > But it seems like first you need to get a company that's willing to hire you and wait for you to relocate before starting, no? Yes. DO NOT JUST SHOW UP IN GERMANY ON A 90 DAY VISA HOPING TO FIND WORK. Most apartments won't even give you a lease without a job and it's hard to get a job without a proper visa. Do the work before hand.
• burkaygur 4y ago
  We are hiring for Staff+ roles at fal.ai. Reach out to us: https://featuresandlabels.notion.site/Join-us-at-fal-cf36c13c0cd74509b1110c16bc0b0bf1 https://featuresandlabels.notion.site/Join-us-at-fal-cf36c13...
• livinglist 4y ago
  it is brutal, at least compared to the begining of covid...
• tennisflyi 4y ago
  The hiring process this day and age is just brutal, i.e., not efficient.
  • 1letterunixname 4y ago
    That likely implies an opportunity play for the category. Some categories are vacant because of no first movers (frontier migrants get slaughtered) while others are vacant because there's not enough money in them. I see the possibility of having AI agents interview and quiz people: far more people than any human hiring manager could ever interact with. And then, the algorithms would deliver the best fraction of candidates for final/manual review. Throw away the résumé algorithms and interact with humans to discover their talents and qualities that keywords cannot locate. This is possible in narrow specialized AI domains such as coding and chat bots. Clearly, AGI is 10-100 years off in the distance. The extreme value potential is apply similar discernment of exceptionally talented hiring managers in narrow domains that AI could not necessarily be fooled as easily by. Interrogation by chatbot seems a plausible future in most human activities.
• linuxftw 4y ago
  USA, remote. I recently (Feb) found work. I did about 10-15 company interviews at various stages, lots of recruiter calls. I screened out easily 3x the amount of companies due to position requirements or salary. During my job search I probably had 100 or more messages from recruiters on linkedin. Got to the final round on 6. Received 3 offers, accepted one of them. Not a lot of equity in the comp packages this time around (real equity anyway, plenty of funny money from startups). I accepted a salary of $200k, 20% annual cash bonus, small signing bonus. My overall comp is lower, but my cash is a touch higher and the stress is a lot less. My background is Linux, k8s, golang, and python. I also write C/C++ occasionally. Don't really ever touch front end work or databases anymore. I don't have FAANG experience, but I have contributed to some large open source projects here and there. No degree.
  • lapaz17 4y ago
    What kind of os projects?
    • linuxftw 4y ago
      kubernetes and related projects.
• pkaler 4y ago
  Hiring manager here with open REQs. I've been doing multiple phone screens daily, and it's been brutal on my end, too. I structure the hour-long phone screen to be 1/3 coding, 1/3 behavioural questions, and 1/3 career growth and questions for me. We rarely get out of the coding question block. It's a fairly simple question that ChatGPT solves easily. The tightest solution is about 10 lines of code. It can be answered either with iterative, recursive, or functional code. There is a general case, an empty case, and an exceptional case. It's the type of code I was able to write after completing CMPT 101. I had to change the question since it was so easily solvable by ChatGPT. Engineers with years of experience at FAANG and similar companies cannot solve this straightforward problem. It's like, what have you been doing with your life? Did everyone do nothing during ZIRPy times and have accumulated years of rust that they now need to shake off?
  • shubhamkr1 4y ago
    can you please share that question here ? I am very curious now after all the discussion
  • theshadowmonkey 4y ago
    Most leetcode hard or reasonably complex dynamic programming problems have 10 lines of code or less. It is coming up with the logic and solving for edge cases. Maybe its your confirmation bias that the problem is easy considering you have seen all iterations of it multiple times?
  • recfab 4y ago
    Is the coding question that is representative of the work you do at your company, and that you expect candidates to have done? Or is it a toy, "write a function that does X" question? "ChatGPT solves easily" suggests to me that it's a toy question. If it is a "toy" question, then I'm of two minds about it: On one hand, I am used to solving higher level problems, so it might take me a few minutes just to realize you are asking a much simpler question. It also can feel just a tad insulting to be drilled on CompSci 101 questions. Oh the other hand, I think candidates should be able to solve such questions, as long as the scope is clear. You need to filter somehow and I've met people who could not do that.
• hsuduebc2 4y ago
  I was recruited proactively just through linked in. Try banks. They still try to digitalize afterCOVID not fun but pays well.
• some-guy 4y ago
  I can only speak from the hiring side: I've been working at the same large-ish enterprise company in the Bay Area for 9 years out of college. Up until this year, it was nearly impossible to hire anybody qualified. We are now drowning in candidates from FAANG, rejecting candidates that would have passed with flying colors just last year.
• 0xDEF 4y ago
  Here in Europe I have noticed that the task of auditing software for safety/privacy compliancy is going to lawyers, chartered accountants, and business consultants. Is it because they are cheaper? Not really, in most of Western Europe these people make the same or more than software developers. We tech people need to be more assertive and protective of our cake. Why does the EverybodyShouldLearnToCode™ movement even exist? I don't see lawyers, accountants and business consultants pushing for their cake to become smaller.
  • vithlani 4y ago
    [dead]
• throwaway384jd 4y ago
  Staff engineer here, I can confirm the market is brutal. Readers, if you are wondering how to help: please read my résumé before interviews, and ideally, look at my github. I’ve been rejected for roles because I did not mention something in the interview, even though it is clearly on my résumé. Also please take cultural differences into account. I got a rejection because during the architectural interview, I phrased some of questions as “In this case, if X, I would…” instead of asking a direct question. English is not my first language, I did the best I can, it was disappointing to be rejected for that.
  • jedberg 4y ago
    > I’ve been rejected for roles because I did not mention something in the interview, even though it is clearly on my résumé. That's gonna happen unfortunately. People don't read resumes closely. If you think it's important, make sure to mention it during the interview. Unfortunately you have to learn to talk like a politician and answer the question you want to answer instead of the one they asked, while still making them feel like you answered their questions.
• zihotki 4y ago
  In EU it's brutal right now for senior/lead roles. But it's fine for medium ones. Nobody needs a rockstar to do a boring enterprise work.
• Volundr 4y ago
  It's brutal. I've been looking since January and only just found a new role. Usually finding a new job has just been setting my LinkedIn status to open to work, tapping a few people in my network and sitting back and waiting for the offers. It's rarely taken more than a month. January and February frankly scared me. Aggressively looking as opposed to my usual passive approach and I was getting nothing back. Just silence. I was refereed to a position I was a perfect fit in terms of background for by a previous colleague, and got no reply. They asking internally weren't able to find out anything either. No one's been hired and the listing is still up. March things finally started gaining some traction and I was finally able to land a new position. I actually had two offers, one I frankly didn't want and was feeling like I'd have to do anyway given I had no other leads, and a couple days later one I was pretty excited about. So there is hope. I'd say things are visibly improving, but I expect it to suck for awhile. I think I may be a little lucky in that my primary skill-sets are a little niche, so while there are less jobs out there that are a match, it also means I'm competing with 10s (or less) instead of 100s that are a strong match. So for the average Java/.NET/React dev I expect it's harder to stand out. One thing I'd note since you mentioned Apple/Facebook, I ended up taking a ~25% pay-cut with this search, and I wasn't making anything like a FAANG salary. I don't know what your targetting, but if your providing a range when submitting applications, you might want to research salaries for the company on sites like Glassdoor and consider if you need to set your sights lower.
• recfab 4y ago
  I've been searching for about 2 months (laid off early February), and I've not had a lot of luck. Lots of recruiter calls. Several phone screens. A handful of post-phone-screen Round 1 interviews, but no Round 2. One company reached out to me, rejected me after round 1, but put me on their marketing email distro list. I did have a phone screen yesterday that I think went well. (For that position, an internal recruiter reached out because they saw my post in "Ask HN: Who wants to be hired (April 2023)"). I have two more scheduled for tomorrow. That makes this a relatively busy week. My last job I was at for nearly 10 years, so I can't compare this experience to the last few years, but it certainly _feels_ brutal. This week, I'm feeling positive, but in general, I've been worried. I have some severance left and some savings (but not as much as I should). I am also the sole income for my family.
• petetheheat 4y ago
  If you're reading this, and open to working hybrid in SF, Retool is hiring a ton of engineers this year. https://retool.com/careers/ https://retool.com/careers/ I recently made the jump from FAANG and am very content with the decision. Feel free to msg with questions.
• lexarflash8g 4y ago
  In my experience its terrible for juniors, and tough right now for senior devs. I'm applying for Snr SRE/Devops roles -- I maybe get a 50 percent response rate since my resume looks good. Get the call with the recruiter -- bla bla bla - we will submit your profile to hiring manager and typically ends there. Its like they are playing games and intentionally messing with you. Somewhere in the process I fall between the cracks, and its rinse and repeat. Its time consuming and you basically do free work (take-homes), or even assessments as part of the application. Very morale reducing. Seems like the jobs in demand are for principals/leads/ or management roles. A year ago with less experience it was much easier to get final round interviews. I've cast a wide fishing net, applying to jobs on Linkedin, through Slack channels, and posted on Hackernews. But to be frank, basically it goes nowhere. I'm using my time to upskill and read books on tech topics, take video boot camps, and sharpen my coding skills. Its hard to stay motivated without an incentive really. Seems like techies are disposable at this moment and requires a huge ego check. It sort of baffles me -- tech jobs are abundant and I'm not picky --- like trying to work as a game dev at a AAA studio or be a screenwriter in Hollywood. BS and recruiting hell seem to be the norm now
• aborsy 4y ago
  I wonder if finding a job was easier in 90s and 2000s. It feels like finding employment is getting harder and harder. There is much more specialization required nowadays (so many YOE in exactly the same field and software frameworks), rapidly shifting trends (that can leave out many people who are not lucky working in an area that is in demand), elevated expectations (see the number of the rounds of interviews) and increased competition (more and more people having access to the same jobs due internet).
  • Quozca 4y ago
    [dead]
  • leet_thow 4y ago
    It was definitely easier in the 2000s. At that time there was so much to build and not that many people to compete with.
• ReDeiPirati 4y ago
  It's hard out there. I was laid off in January, and still I don't see signs of ending this job search soon. Context for you: I'm a mid-level Growth PM based in Europe who worked mostly in early stage B2B YC startups. How am I doing? This is my 11th week in job search, 96 applications, 10 interviews (1 still active), and 0 offer. My insights so far: - there's definitively no rush from employers to close their openings, and for the first time in a job search (this is my 4th) I got 2 interviews suspended because they decided to prioritize another leadership hire before closing for the role that I was interviewing for; - most of the mid level openings are masqueraded senior roles; I feel so bad for people early in their career, for the first time I think I've never encountered an entry level opening... I was trying to also help my wife to get a job in tech (she is very early in her career), but currently it doesn't seem possible. Luckily we are financially ok, which is the main thing that allowed me to stay positive, in relatively good mood, and don't feel overwhelmed with the daily rejections.
• TradingPlaces 4y ago
  Large non-tech companies and government agencies still hiring. Walmart has 1278 job openings with “software” in the title https://careers.walmart.com/results?q=software&page=1&sort=rank&expand=department,brand,type,rate&jobCareerArea=all https://careers.walmart.com/results?q=software&page=1&sort=r... CVS has 458 https://jobs.cvshealth.com/job-search-results/?keyword=software https://jobs.cvshealth.com/job-search-results/?keyword=softw... UnitedHealth has 625 https://careers.unitedhealthgroup.com/job-search-results/?keyword=software https://careers.unitedhealthgroup.com/job-search-results/?ke... WSJ just wrote about this https://archive.is/2Ll06 https://archive.is/2Ll06 Go down the list https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortune_500 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortune_500
  • chadQuinlan 4y ago
    I work for CVS. I've made lots of referrals to super-qualified people, for them to be auto-rejected. The company is tightening their belt it seems - no layoffs as far as I've seen, but corporate travel was cancelled and some contractors' contracts weren't renewed. It's a wonderful company and pays super well, great people, but good luck getting in.
  • breakpointalpha 4y ago
    Sorry to say this, but everyone in this thread should be aware of ghost job openings. https://www.reuters.com/breakingviews/fake-jobs-hide-cooler-reality-us-workforce-2023-04-04/ https://www.reuters.com/breakingviews/fake-jobs-hide-cooler-... It's sometimes incompetent HR process and sometimes intentional market signalling, but these companies may just be stockpiling resumes for future use without any intention of hiring right now.
    • TradingPlaces 4y ago
      Walmart is serious, or at least I think they are. They had around 1700 job openings at the end of last year, culled that significantly in Jan/Feb. At that point there were about 1000 remaining, and it’s been creeping up again. So I think these are real.
• granshaw 4y ago
  Meta point (pun unintended): the gravy times are over for us SW engineers, and I won’t be surprised if looking back many will see the past decade as a wasted opportunity for some sort of collective bargaining, or a greater seat at the table of businesses
  • 1letterunixname 4y ago
    People said that in 2002. There's always been ebb and flow since the beginning of time. Irrational exuberance is the nature of crowds of speculators.
    • granshaw 4y ago
      Was there talk of tech worker unionization before 2002 tho?
• GOATS- 4y ago
  It's not just you. I've been applying to junior/mid-level full stack roles with ~2 YoE with little luck for the past 2 months. I also sent around 100 applications a month and got a single interview. I've started tailoring my applications more and moved away from LinkedIn which is flooded by third-party recruiting agencies who take a 10 second look at your CV before you're binned - to platforms such as Cord, Otta and Hackajob, which I'm having much more luck on. I got 3 interview offers today, it's looking better.
• sys_64738 4y ago
  FAANG haven't got a great reputation in other walks of life. People see the perks and pay you've been given and with little expected return. There's huge attitudes to work that need to be unlearned by ex-FAANG. Many won't even interview you.
  • raydev 4y ago
    This is likely wishful thinking on your end.
• 1letterunixname 4y ago
  Working for a living is always as far from a "sure thing" as possible. Government jobs tend to be the safest. Making less and downsizing is sometimes necessary. If you have the talent, always be doing something on the side.
  • Quozca 4y ago
    [dead]
• b212 4y ago
  Applied to 3 companies in the last month, got 2 offers. Senior FE dev, Europe. Got lucky I guess, but we’re still extremely privileged. I’m getting 8 spam messages from recruiters weekly, used to get 20 daily. The big question is - is getting approached by recruiters a few times a week brutal compared to other jobs?
• mitnerd 4y ago
  CTO here... great thread! Things are definitely taking longer even if the company really wants to and need to hire! But I agree with some of the comments below that for some positions you get a lot of inbounds thus hard to have enough time to review it all so screening for most relevant skillsets first and go from there. I'm certain 25% of the applicants can do the work but you'd want someone that has work on the tech stack already versus someone that hasn't. I have confidence they (or anyone) can learn it. As for compensation differences, the total comp went crazy upwards the last 3 years thanks to the billions of dollars going into a few company that decides to pay 30-50% above market and everyone else need to keep up. The downside is that the cost structure for many companies ended up to be too high to ever have a profitable company. It'd be great to get back to the early 2010s... where cash burn is the right level and equity is the upside versus startups are paying cash more than some very profitable companies. We are actively looking and I read all my DMs on LinkedIn so please take a look here. https://boards.greenhouse.io/getbuilt https://boards.greenhouse.io/getbuilt if your actually have the tech experience we're looking for, send me a DM and I'll make sure you get a phone screen! But please look at the Guiding Principals as well to make sure your values align with it. Everyone company is different make sure it's a great fit from both sides. Another thing that I do screen people out is too many short stints at companies. Unless your startup when under or some personal emergencies, I look for people that stay at least 3 years at a given company before switching. It takes at least 1 years to learn a domain and be proficient at it. Year 2 or 3 is where you're learning and implementing technologies with deep understanding. By this time you should be at the point to be promoted or get next equity grant. Sometimes it is worth the wait and sometime it's not so definitely understand if people changes company after 3 or 4 years.
  • kirso 4y ago
    The fact that you have guiding principals already puts you in the top bracket of the firms. Kudos! I wouldn't disregard people with short stints, there is so much context out there. Obviously the higher salary hunters is a concern but I have 3x -> 1 year stints on my resume not because I am a terrible human being but others, layoffs, loosing visa, toxic boss, had to move countries due to family illness and all of them in the end ended on good terms. Just saying, give people a chance to explain.
• whiplash451 4y ago
  There is also a compounding factor happening at least in EU. Because many candidates are now readily available without notice period, companies can hire much faster and as a consequence decide to hire more slowly because their hiring budget for H1 is almost entirely spent already.
• nataliamc 4y ago
  I'm reading a lot of comments saying before it took them 1 week to get an offer and now it takes 4/5 months... that's not a lot. It is basically the same time it used to take me to get an offer for a non IT job in the past.
• illusiveman 4y ago
  I'm in the process of considering a change, still not actively applying, but I do get several LinkedIn DMs every week from first party recruiters. I don't work with third party staffing agencies. There is a common theme: they are looking for leadership roles with active contribution and with deep expertise in the tech stack used by the company. So, where's the issue here? IMO, the market is saturated with generic software engineers, that is, people who can code, who are good at leetcode, but who really don't stand out of the crowd in any particular technology. That's your typical FAANG engineer. And don't get me wrong, there is a lot of talent in FAANG, but most engineers commit to the grinding to join and then just coast through. And related to that, there is the unrealistic expectations game. As others have mentioned, people in FAANG were living in their own bubble of unreal financial compensations. Now that the bubble exploded, some have unrealistic expectations that decline even high offers just because it's not what they had before.