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I've been out of a job for most of the past year. While sending Merry Christmas texts to my friends, I had a conversation with one (another programmer, differen

I've been out of a job for most of the past year. While sending Merry Christmas texts to my friends, I had a conversation with one (another programmer, different technologies and industry) where he revealed he was laid off last month. I keep applying for jobs, and recently accepted the possibility to relocate for an on site position (because staying where I am and hoping to get a remote position hasn't worked out). I just had a promising lead in Texas 'move forward with another candidate'... argh! Companies aren't willing to train people, not even their current employees. They want their candidates to come prepackaged with at least X years experience in Y technologies for several technologies. Their unwillingness to budge created the H1B catastrophe we see now. I'm more than willing to replatform my skillset (B2C Commerce Cloud to Shopify, or Java to .NET, for example), but no one's offering. Looking around at the big picture, it seems that most money is leaving tech to chase higher returns elsewhere. If you aren't doing AI or crypto, it feels that you're fighting over bones. The scraps were gone a long time ago.

gaws 2y ago
> I just had a promising lead in Texas 'move forward with another candidate'... argh! More than likely an internal hire. This is often the case if you're an external candidate.
w4ffl35 2y ago
That has been my experience as well.
- mxuribe 2y ago
  You are not alone!
underseacables 2y ago
I think companies do this deliberately to avoid hiring Americans. The entire H1-B scheme is a disaster.
- Yoric 2y ago
  I'm probably going to be unpopular, but as a non-American, I actually find that hiring non-American is a good trend, especially if you want to sell all around the world. I don't have an opinion on H1-B specifically.
  - binary132 2y ago
    do you feel that employers in your home country should also follow this rubric?
    - LouisSayers 2y ago
      they already are...
    - maeil 2y ago
      Software ones? Absolutely. Companies selling physical goods lead to a decent amount of jobs in every country they operate in by definition. Not so for software. It is US big tech who has for a decade or 2 reaped enormous benefits from extracting large sums of money from non-US economies while contributing near-zero back to those economies (often not just near-zero but straight up deeply negative amounts due to externalities).
      - EliBullockPapa 2y ago
        What do you mean? Only way I can think of is social media advertising revenue going to big tech instead of local media. But a net negative effect on non-US economies seems hard to believe.
        Yoric 2y ago
        How much money does country X spend paying Windows or MS Office or Photoshop, simply as the cost of doing business? And it's not that any other country couldn't – technologically – come up with a competitor to Windows, MS Office or Photoshop, it's that it is basically impossible for a non-US product to gain any traction in the tech world, for reasons that are both economical and legal. In fact, in many tech domains, the best that a non-US company can hope for if they want their product to be successful is to be bought by a US company. Seen from the rest of the world, the has spent the last few decades killing the software and hardware industry of everybody else through practices that feel very much like a combination of a tax on tech and an abuse of monopoly. If you wonder, the rest of the world doesn't quite see any difference between the "unfair" practices of which US Conservatives accuse China and the practices that the US has adopted for the last 40+ years in a number of domains when it comes to becoming/remaining the dominant player in a number of fields.
ajb 2y ago
And we see PG talking up H1B on twitter. I'd like to think that if he still read HN he might not do that. Really companies should be banned from importing more people[1] if they laid off a certain number in the last year. That way the job market would be more likely to self correct. [1] I think they should still be allowed to hire people who are already in the country on a visa, as it's unfair to make their risk of being kicked out of the country worse. And they should be allowed to renew existing visa workers
- Glyptodon 2y ago
  I think it should be a decay function that looks back longer than a year.
  - throwaway48476 2y ago
    I think if you say you're hiring 0.01% people you should be willing to pay 0.01% salary.
- steve_adams_86 2y ago
  An argument against not being allowed to import more people after layoffs (and it’s the one people like PG and Musk are making) is that the people who were laid off simply don’t have the skills required to allow companies to succeed. They need to import labor because the domestic labor pool isn’t good enough. A quieter part is that people immigrating also expect less for their outputs.
  - ajmurmann 2y ago
    And once they are hear the H1B somewhat locks then into an employer gutter damping salaries
    - wsintra2022 2y ago
      It’s spelt here. To hear means to use your ears.
microtonal 2y ago
If you aren't doing AI or crypto, it feels that you're fighting over bones. Getting jobs in AI has also been hard for a lot of people as well. Many of my former colleagues who worked for a very visible company in the ML/NLP space have had issues finding good positions.
- fredfoo 2y ago
  I think these are businesses development directions everyone talks about but are almost guaranteed to be a flop for any company that isn't already known in them. A few years ago everyone talked about big data hires even if they had about a GB of relevant data.
pfdietz 2y ago
I wonder how much of this is due to the end of semiconductor scaling. At some point, if hardware performance-per-cost doesn't increase, things will stabilize and new applications will dry up. The computer industry could become like, say, the machine tool industry. Important, but not a source of runaway profits.

gaws 2y ago

> I just had a promising lead in Texas 'move forward with another candidate'... argh! More than likely an internal hire. This is often the case if you're an external candidate.

w4ffl35 2y ago

That has been my experience as well.

mxuribe 2y ago
You are not alone!

underseacables 2y ago

I think companies do this deliberately to avoid hiring Americans. The entire H1-B scheme is a disaster.

Yoric 2y ago
I'm probably going to be unpopular, but as a non-American, I actually find that hiring non-American is a good trend, especially if you want to sell all around the world. I don't have an opinion on H1-B specifically.
- binary132 2y ago
  do you feel that employers in your home country should also follow this rubric?
  - LouisSayers 2y ago
    they already are...
  - maeil 2y ago
    Software ones? Absolutely. Companies selling physical goods lead to a decent amount of jobs in every country they operate in by definition. Not so for software. It is US big tech who has for a decade or 2 reaped enormous benefits from extracting large sums of money from non-US economies while contributing near-zero back to those economies (often not just near-zero but straight up deeply negative amounts due to externalities).
    - EliBullockPapa 2y ago
      What do you mean? Only way I can think of is social media advertising revenue going to big tech instead of local media. But a net negative effect on non-US economies seems hard to believe.
      - Yoric 2y ago
        How much money does country X spend paying Windows or MS Office or Photoshop, simply as the cost of doing business? And it's not that any other country couldn't – technologically – come up with a competitor to Windows, MS Office or Photoshop, it's that it is basically impossible for a non-US product to gain any traction in the tech world, for reasons that are both economical and legal. In fact, in many tech domains, the best that a non-US company can hope for if they want their product to be successful is to be bought by a US company. Seen from the rest of the world, the has spent the last few decades killing the software and hardware industry of everybody else through practices that feel very much like a combination of a tax on tech and an abuse of monopoly. If you wonder, the rest of the world doesn't quite see any difference between the "unfair" practices of which US Conservatives accuse China and the practices that the US has adopted for the last 40+ years in a number of domains when it comes to becoming/remaining the dominant player in a number of fields.

ajb 2y ago

And we see PG talking up H1B on twitter. I'd like to think that if he still read HN he might not do that. Really companies should be banned from importing more people[1] if they laid off a certain number in the last year. That way the job market would be more likely to self correct. [1] I think they should still be allowed to hire people who are already in the country on a visa, as it's unfair to make their risk of being kicked out of the country worse. And they should be allowed to renew existing visa workers

Glyptodon 2y ago
I think it should be a decay function that looks back longer than a year.
- throwaway48476 2y ago
  I think if you say you're hiring 0.01% people you should be willing to pay 0.01% salary.
steve_adams_86 2y ago
An argument against not being allowed to import more people after layoffs (and it’s the one people like PG and Musk are making) is that the people who were laid off simply don’t have the skills required to allow companies to succeed. They need to import labor because the domestic labor pool isn’t good enough. A quieter part is that people immigrating also expect less for their outputs.
- ajmurmann 2y ago
  And once they are hear the H1B somewhat locks then into an employer gutter damping salaries
  - wsintra2022 2y ago
    It’s spelt here. To hear means to use your ears.

microtonal 2y ago

If you aren't doing AI or crypto, it feels that you're fighting over bones. Getting jobs in AI has also been hard for a lot of people as well. Many of my former colleagues who worked for a very visible company in the ML/NLP space have had issues finding good positions.

fredfoo 2y ago
I think these are businesses development directions everyone talks about but are almost guaranteed to be a flop for any company that isn't already known in them. A few years ago everyone talked about big data hires even if they had about a GB of relevant data.

pfdietz 2y ago

I wonder how much of this is due to the end of semiconductor scaling. At some point, if hardware performance-per-cost doesn't increase, things will stabilize and new applications will dry up. The computer industry could become like, say, the machine tool industry. Important, but not a source of runaway profits.