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> on HN The most important subtext. There are engineer friends of mine laid off from remote companies that, almost 5 months later, cannot get work. These aren'

• Invictus0 3y ago
  cannot get work... at the price they want. Plenty of low-paying remote jobs out there
  • bamfly 3y ago
    > low-paying For high values of "low paying". $150-250k TC, instead of $300-500k.
    • baristaGeek 3y ago
      Exactly! It just makes the job market much more perfect. $500k at scale is an economic squander.
      • bamfly 3y ago
        To be clear, I'm not complaining about FAANG/finance comp rates. Anyone taking a bigger paycheck instead of that money going to capital is doing god's work (plus, building a foundation for future capital innovation, if you want the pro-capitalism slant on it—more people with investable capital and more people with cushion to try to build a business is very good). You should absolutely take every dollar you can wring out. They wanna spend stupid-money, see if they'll give you "stupid + $1". All day long. Just putting things in perspective. "Bad" developer pay is still really good. (of course, there's a worse tier of pay for developers and sysadmins under that one, but I don't think there's a lot of remote work in that tier that isn't also offshored work—in-person, though, yes)
    • coryrc 3y ago
      This useless administrator[0] who failed King County completely is hired by Seattle for $250/hr. Paying SWEs $150k-250k is low. [0] https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/regional-homelessness-authority-and-former-ceo-move-on-after-breakup/#comments https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/regional-homelessn...
  • tayo42 3y ago
    Companies are being cheap. Software engineers are only providing 200k dollars worth of value? I find that hard to believe.
    • Aurornis 3y ago
      Compensation isn't proportional to the value you produce. It never was. The hiring market is a market. Prices in a market are set by supply and demand. The value you produce only sets an upper limit on your compensation because companies don't want to lose money by employing people.
      • tayo42 3y ago
        yeah sure its a market, the money is there though to get. that doesn't change companies are being cheap. nothing wrong trying to extract as much as you can. companies that pay low are signaling they don't value their workers.
      • mempko 3y ago
        It's a market but not that great of a market. No transparent price discovery. Huge market manipulation by the big guys making deals with each other to suppress wages (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2014/04/23/what-the-apple-wage-collusion-case-says-about-silicon-valleys-labor-economy/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2014/04/23...) Yes, wages are high relative to other industries but the large tech companies are immensely profitable. Wages can be even higher without market manipulation. So yes, it's a market but a really really bad one in ways we value markets to be good.
      • nonethewiser 3y ago
        > The hiring market is a market. Prices in a market are set by supply and demand. Demand for software engineers is partially explained by the value software engineers generate. The value a job creates is obviously a factor. Imagine a job that creates absolutely no value but has a limited supply of qualified people. It wont even exist let alone pay anything.
      • dv_dt 3y ago
  • shmatt 3y ago
    Im not sure why this is even getting downvoted. Top pay of market has significantly shifted to hybrid. Even once a week in office means you can't live anywhere in the country you'd like. Though i'm not sure if the original article counts hybrid as remote in this case There are plenty of fully remote openings for senior software engineers looking for $100k TC right now. Every person can make their own calculation
    • oofta-boofta 3y ago
      [dead]
    • CoastalCoder 3y ago
      I agree with the parent and grandparent comments. For me personally, the question is how long I hold out for a job that will pay the bills. E.g., without my kids needing to take out big college loans. For one thing, I don't want to screw over an employer by taking a job that I know I'll leave as soon as something better-paying becomes available. Hopefully I'll find a decent job before I get that desparate.
    • zer8k 3y ago
      Honestly, I'd take 100k TC for a position to keep remote. One caveat, I will be working at 20% of my actual mental capacity. Frequent vacations, using sick time as often as possible, etc. I would not take on anything resembling pagerduty and I wouldn't try to lead anything. Then I'll leave for any job with higher TC. Malicious compliance is the best kind of compliance and is the only way to respond to a lop-sided negotiation. Companies are exploiting the rift in labor due to inflation, COVID, etc right now. For 2 years the power was in the hands of employees. This left a very bad taste in the mouths of management. What companies want is top-tier labor for bottom-tier pricing. It won't happen. If it does, you'll have a bunch of people with 1.5 feet out the door coasting at work.
      • addisonl 3y ago
        And people wonder why companies don’t like remote work…
  • yieldcrv 3y ago
    in my experience, the process is the same at any salary or compensation package it isnt “easier” to get an offer at lower ranges, those companies think they are taking a risk with their comp ranges too
    • shmatt 3y ago
      It is significantly easier to get a $100k offer than a $600k one as a senior software engineer. Companies who offer lower pay fully understand they aren't poaching anyone from Meta or Netflix any time soon, and lower their bar in terms of how hard the interview is In other words getting an offer for "tech in a non-tech company" is pretty easy. Getting the Meta offer in 1-shot of 6 back to back interviews, not so much
      • solarmist 3y ago
        The bar may be lower but their risk aversion is just as high, so they're also doing 7 round interviews where a single 'meh' ends the process.
    • bamfly 3y ago
      > it isnt “easier” to get an offer at lower ranges, those companies think they are taking a risk with their comp ranges too The trick is not to job-shop in bad markets. "Expensive" and "risky" to a startup in, I dunno, Billings, is "holy shit, what a bargain!" in a lot of cities—and not even the top markets, but tier two and three cities. Or to established, larger companies. Be wary of small companies scraping by in cheap cities. If the pay's non-shit, they'll expect you to be a literal wizard, performing actual supernatural feats, for pay that's still probably on the low side.
    • zer8k 3y ago
      The lowest end TC still requires you to do a 7 stage interview + colonoscopy. They're doing this to age-out a large portion of the industry. No other reason.
    • nonethewiser 3y ago
      What you say is true to an extent but its still easier because there are less or less qualified candidates.
  • nsxwolf 3y ago
    Anecdotal, I am not seeing any difference with the low paying jobs.
• mostlysimilar 3y ago
  Without data this is just fearmongering.
  • zer8k 3y ago
    A trite statement like this has very little meaning. You don't need a double-blind placebo study to observe the shifting market.
    • lossolo 3y ago
      > You don't need a double-blind placebo study to observe the shifting market. Is your data based on just a few of your friends? How is that considered a "shifting market"? My friends and I do not experience what you are arguing. In fact, we experience the opposite of what you are saying.
      • jselysianeagle 3y ago
        Considering that literally hundreds of thousands of qualified people have been laid off this year alone, many of them devs, and plenty of anecdotes on this and other tech forums/chat groups about how the job market has shifted to favor employers, I think it isn't wildly irrational to believe the person you're responding to. Sure, "the plural of anecdote isn't data" and all that, but talk to recruiters and you'll hear much the same. Yes, even in this market it's possible to get outstanding offers but I'm fairly confident in asserting that that's much rarer right now than it was, say, a year or two ago.
        • lossolo 3y ago
          > Considering that literally hundreds of thousands of qualified people have been laid off this year alone, many of them devs, and plenty of anecdotes on this and other tech forums/chat groups about how the job market has shifted to favor employers, I think it isn't wildly irrational to believe the person you're responding to. "In 2023, the software engineering industry faces a record-breaking shortage of professionals. This skills crisis has resulted in an astonishing 1 million tech job vacancies that still need to be fulfilled. Reports suggest that the number of US job vacancies, due to a lack of talent, will reach 85.2 million by 2030." > Sure, "the plural of anecdote isn't data" and all that, but talk to recruiters and you'll hear much the same. Yes, even in this market it's possible to get outstanding offers but I'm fairly confident in asserting that that's much rarer right now than it was, say, a year or two ago. All of these are anecdotes and nothing more. If you have data that would support that I would like to see it and then I can agree with you.
• CoastalCoder 3y ago
  This is my personal experience as well. I'm ~4 months in, and I'm still looking for an appealing job. Anyone know of a forum where people like me can candidly compare notes about finding a job after layoff? I'm learning so many lessons, but some could only be shared in an anonymous setting.
  • whimsicalism 3y ago
    blind
    • CoastalCoder 3y ago
      Can't you only post to blind if you created your account while still employed? IIRC, I was able to create some kind of limited account after I was laid off, but I couldn't fully participate.
      • whimsicalism 3y ago
        yes, it might be challenging to gain access once you are unemployed, in that case try Reddit?
        • safog 3y ago
          r/cscareerquestions is pretty good even if most people there are the leetcode griding new college grads.
      • benfrancom 3y ago
        You could set up a custom domain if you don't have one already and forward the email for $8/yr. https://cloudflareapps.com/apps/email-forwarding https://cloudflareapps.com/apps/email-forwarding
        • KRAKRISMOTT 3y ago
          Email forwarding is free and built into CloudFlare. https://blog.cloudflare.com/introducing-email-routing/ https://blog.cloudflare.com/introducing-email-routing/
• hmillison 3y ago
  I support remote work, but moving out to a rural area is putting yourself at risk if you expect to get high software engineer pay. There’s a lot more competition for remote jobs and you’re also competing with highly qualified candidates in lower cost of living places outside the US.
  • nonethewiser 3y ago
    > you’re also competing with highly qualified candidates in lower cost of living places outside the US. Thats true for anyone in the US. I find it far stranger to work remotely from SF or NY.
    • codyb 3y ago
      I love working remotely in NYC. I love the city, and I love working remotely. Perfect combo.
    • QuarterReptile 3y ago
      I think the key part of moving elsewhere is that you have much less access to the in-person segment, assuming moving represents a significant hurdle to you.
  • dimal 3y ago
    Flipside: Staying in an expensive metro area puts you at risk to maintain your quality of life and pay mortgage/taxes/insurance on everything, when a lot of hybrid jobs don't pay enough to cover those expenses, and are also at risk of layoffs, which can be catastrophic when you have a high cost of living. If you're remote/rural, you don't need to make nearly as much just to skate by if something goes south. I moved out of the Bay Area, and I cannot imagine ever going back. Too much risk. I don't care if the pool of jobs is smaller and the pay is lower.
    • RestlessMind 3y ago
      When it comes to your quality of life, there are a lot of factors besides the cost of living - social circle, weather, job opportunities, hobbies, cultural compatibility etc. For a lot of people, expensive metro areas can also be the only places where they have friends & family or where they can pursue their hobbies. As an immigrant of color, I simply cannot see myself living happily in rural Ohio even if that could be a wonderful place for someone else.
• deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
• vvpan 3y ago
  Yeah, this is all anecdotal, but I'll add my 2c - been in the business for something like 15 years and was looking for work in May. It has never felt deader, remote or onsite. Usually recruiters are beating down your door. This time not even friends could get me any interviews. The way I got a job was by writing some technical articles and establishing a relationship with a very energetic VC person. I asked him if he could introduce me to his portfolio companies and day later I had a few conversations lined up. I think I found what is probably the most interesting job I have ever had. I am usually nobody to hustle or advocate for it, but it sure paid back.
  • pizzaknife 3y ago
    I agree with the first 3 sentences, 4th sentence gives me pause. I wish you all well and with as little trumult experienced as is possible <3.
  • peoplearepeople 3y ago
    anecdote: I've found the last few weeks that recruiters are really picking up steam with the cold messaging again
    • freeplay 3y ago
      Same. Although, I have also noticed there is nothing 100% remote. Many of the messages even highlight "100% on-site." Best I've seen recently is a 3 day hybrid.
  • pixelatedindex 3y ago
    How do I get myself out there to make these connections? I can make connections with coworkers, but I don’t know how to expand beyond my circle (like meeting VC folk)
    • vvpan 3y ago
      I cannot give much advice on this, because my experience is minimal. I would say pick a domain and learn to stand out in it. I stood out just a little by doing technical research and writing about it, then posting it in chats/social media. Actually, having twitter was essential. We pretty much met over twitter. On twitter every person is equally accessible to you, be they a celebrity or your cousin Bob.
• dv_dt 3y ago
  This may have more to do with the widespread and multiple layoff-rounds in the major companies in the industry rather than WFH per se.
• yieldcrv 3y ago
  people don't send me an offer after remote interviews people do send me an offer after in person interviews I have no problem getting callbacks and multiple rounds of interviews and busy work take home challenges just in case anyone else is having a similar experience, also interview at hybrid roles or offer to do an in person one
  • the_only_law 3y ago
    I’ve had a roughly similar experience I never hear anything back about remote roles after the first round. In many cases a recruiter even has perfect roles that they say they submit me for but I never hear from them again. On-site stuff tends to progress further, but usually they want one to move to a more expensive location, which I was desperately trying to avoid.
• Der_Einzige 3y ago
  If you do anything in AI it's literally never been better. People not doing things in AI are finding that it's getting very bad very quickly.