4 ms·
Ask HN: What is the job market like?
We've all heard about layoffs; what are people's actual lived experiences when it comes to the recent changes in the job market?
- Helloworldboy 4mo ago[dead]
- ge96 4mo agoCheck r/cscareerquestions ha usually blood bath for juniors eg. thousands of applications to try and land a job. r/experienceddevs too a little different vibe there but some insight on job market But hey if you don't use AI when doing an interview, might have a better leg up than those that do eg. pause for 5 seconds between responses, ear piece, looking at a screen, someone replacing you after hiring, etc...
- 10xDev 4mo agoReddit, is not and never was reality especially now with all the bots with private profiles. Either they are unemployed or a senior developer at FAANG.
- ge96 4mo agoWill say there is a difference between "reality" and hackernews too, this is a startup elite type place, jobs posted here, different than those posted on LinkedIn. I'm just fortunate recruiters have found me for my jobs... there was one time I used Hired that was back in 2022 that worked for 1 job. The hiding of user posts on reddit is bs I hate that, although it is convenient if you want to just hide all your stuff without deleting your account
- confidantlake 4mo agoCan't say this place is any better.
- red_hare 4mo ago> pause for 5 seconds between responses I'm sure I'm not the only one, but I've gotten so aggressive about monitoring for this. I do most interviews zoomed in on the candidate's eyes and I rubric on how they "thought" through the problem, not just the results. Thankfully the interview tools are catching on as well and now tracking this like browser focus, number of monitors, window size, and sending notifications when any of those change.
- nsvd2 4mo agoSurely all of those metrics can be easily gamed by a competent software engineer.
- skylurk 4mo ago> competent software engineer hired :)
- mooreds 4mo agoWe actually state in our job listings that we will have an onsite interview as part of the process (we pay for travel/hotel, of course!). Seems to weed these folks out.
- teeray 4mo agoI did not have Voight-Kampff tests on my 2026 hiring bingo card, but here we are.
- joeypickles 4mo agoI know this is HN and we’re not supposed to laugh, but this gave me a smile.
- sixtyj 4mo agoWe are heading into Blade Runner times so V-K test is the appropriate prop :) And SpaceX is the Tyrell corporation… /s
- throwthrow85583 4mo agoStaff eng level, ~15-20 years experience. 18-36 months in position at well known large company at beginning of the year, lots of the usual recruiter interest. Responded to one from another major company mid January. Short interview process. Started late March. Similar level, slightly higher scope, significant salary bump. Took the opportunity to send outbounds to a few other major companies while in process, with senior referrals: ~no responses at all from that stuff. Also, despite the employer change not being public, much less recruiter outreach the last 2 months.
- bwestergard 4mo agoTo go by the numbers, it's pretty good. Not as good as the truly anomalous post-pandemic peak of hiring. But still good compared to almost every other occupational group. https://www.comptia.org/en-us/resources/research/tech-jobs-report/ https://www.comptia.org/en-us/resources/research/tech-jobs-r...
- MeetingsBrowser 4mo agoI don’t know how to make the statistics match my perceived reality. Both in this thread, and people I know in real life who are looking for jobs are struggling hard. Mass layoffs are becoming more common and the time spent between jobs is measured in six month increments. And yet, the numbers say we are in a hiring market with more job openings than ever, except for during the pandemic. My perceived reality and the numbers almost could not be further apart.
- WorldMaker 4mo agoIt reminds me of 2008/2009, but weirder. I remember in that time a lot of companies going through the motions as if everything was alright and they were still hiring just fine, but then not actually hiring in the way they were acting. It seems weirder now partly because it isn't a clear across the board recession, though part of me keeps looking at quarterly earnings reports and the DOW and keeps wondering if we're still "early 2008" on that rather than "late 2009" and that it will get worse before it gets better.
- Varelion 4mo agoWhy would the (USA) job numbers be real? We have yes-men at every level, purposefully installed to spin any and everything in the most positive light possible. And, if not, outright fabricate numbers.
- bwestergard 4mo agoFormer BLS officials still believe the numbers are reliable, because the methodology is public and there are lots of ways for well-financed actors (e.g. wall street traders) to spot manipulation. https://www.npr.org/2025/09/05/nx-s1-5530733/bls-jobs-report-labor-statistics-trump https://www.npr.org/2025/09/05/nx-s1-5530733/bls-jobs-report...
- asdff 4mo agoEveryone I know is having a hard time in all sorts of industries. Either they are currently unemployed and have been job searching for sometimes over a year. Or they are still employed but any looking they've done has been fruitless. So different than a couple years ago. My anecdata has people from junior to director level telling a similar story.
- hnthrow10282910 4mo agoMy company is simultaneously doing mass layoffs and mass hiring. Morale is dead in the water
- jjmiv 4mo agodang. hang in there! :(
- not_your_vase 4mo agoI don't have lived experience, but "Who is hiring" had only 2 or 3 posts from my country this whole year. Until about 2 years ago there were 5-8 posts in each threads. (I'm in a small central-European country, that is full of tech companies, both domestic and international)
- tomashertus 4mo agoJust guessing, Czechia? The Central European software engineering market seems to be softening as well, likely due to second-order effects from the U.S. tech layoffs and decreased demand for remote roles from SV companies.
- itstotallykyle 4mo agoBeen applying since January after a startup layoff and seeing mixed results. I have 14 years of experience spanning datacenter ops, Security certs, and all 3 major clouds. I’ve led hundreds of people across multiple technical disciplines. Right out of the gate, I was getting great callbacks and final rounds. Then, around April, the pipeline completely dried up. I’m doing the work for EVERY application like generating custom resumes, tailored cover letters matching their culture, and engaging with leadership on LinkedIn. I’m down to one lead at my partner’s company, but it’s a long shot. It feels like a lot of DevOps/SecOps/IT leadership roles are evaporating. Partially because companies are over-indexing on AI/LLMs to handle architecture complexity without realizing what those tools actually lack in practice. After climbing the ladder for over a decade, I’m worried about the future of the market, but I’m not ready to stop fighting. Has anyone else with a leadership/infra background hit this exact same wall since April? How are you pivoting your approach?
- interactivecode 4mo agoWondering what happened in April, around that time layoffs started including at my job. No reason at all aside from “AI” and the C suite wanting larger profits.
- untrust 4mo agoApril is the start of the second fiscal quarter, so companies had completed Q1 and were doing quarterly earnings reports. The stock market was trending downward all of Q1, so it was probably an attempt to reduce costs to ensure that Q2 would have better numbers for the Q2 earnings reports.
- confidantlake 4mo agoIf you are leading hundreds of people then you really should not be cold applying to jobs. Someone in your network should bring you onto their team.
- nigel41 4mo ago[flagged]
- Maxamillion96 4mo agoGo to a good fire and brimstone preacher and sit in the pews for a while and whatever comes out of his mouth is far less hellish than the job market today.
- alephnerd 4mo agoThis gets constantly asked on HN. What matters is where you live - the hiring market in Germany or Canada is going to be different from the Bay Area or NYC.
- yewenjie 4mo agoGerman startups that used to be English-speaking are now asking for German. I don't understand what that solves.
- fhd2 4mo agoI think it's primarily a filter. Candidate filters are pretty much always silly, even common ones based on degree/grades etc. But with a lot of candidates on the market, using some filters reduces the list to a manageable amount. Personally, as someone with a German company and a good chunk of German clients, I'd argue it _does_ help a little. Occasionally. But by and large I'm far more interested in the candidate's English proficiency.
- rognjen 4mo agoGoing to have to ask for a citation for that claim bub....
- neko_ranger 4mo agoGot laid off earlier this year. June has been significantly better than any month earlier. I think everyone was sitting on their hands waiting for Meta to do their stuff in May
- throwawayhirex 4mo agoStaff eng at large startup in Bay Area, 7-10 YOE. Recently interviewed at the labs. Had to go through a recruiter friend at one of them to get a response. Very difficult interviews but mostly feasible to prep for. Had to get somewhat lucky to get an offer, staff-level. Took about two months from beginning to prep to signing an offer. Recruiters very responsive - a little arrogant re: other companies but insecure about other labs.
- wuschel 4mo agoFor those not in SF, could you please clarify what you mean by "labs"?
- Mc91 4mo agoI am a programmer in the US. Linkedin mails to me from recruiters - 2026 - one (recruiter did not name the company, hybrid six month contract in another city) 2025 - none 2024 - none 2023 - four (none after March) 2022 - twenty-seven (including Amazon, Google)
- Xunjin 4mo agoFunny, Amazon never contacted me, now after I'm 3 months in a new job, they did, but ain't paying half of how much I earn in this new one, and requires me to move to a major city in Brazil to work, sigh...
- blharr 4mo agoThis just sounds like your Linkedin went stale for some reason or other. Do you have the Open to Work status? Or even just be active on there, apply to jobs, like posts or stuff like that? I get plenty of messages from "recruiters" through LinkedIn. They're not particularly great, but I also only have a few years of experience
- Mc91 4mo agoMy work status hasn't changed since 2022 when I got all those recruit attempts. I log in at least once a week, thumbs up people's accomplishments and sometimes reply "Congratulations", same as I always did. Other people I talk to said there has been a dropoff as well.
- rdtsc 4mo agoUS tech company. Just as the RTO excuse ended it started with AI immediately. RTO was used to squeeze as hard as possible to force people to leave and not pay severance ("You're not in the office a month from now across the country? Looks like you decided to resign, sucks for you!"). First it was "be in any office, as long as you butt is in a building with our logo on it" to "well, no, you gotta be where you manager is, so move again. Oh you can't? Sucks for you, you effectively resigned then". Then the AI excuse hit. "We'll be so productive, we don't need people anymore at all". That's going on currently. Everyone is token-maxing to the limit to show how on board they are with AI to avoid getting pushed out. In between they also managed to "cut costs" by moving jobs overseas the countries you're familiar with. This required some finagling, so they shut down one set of platform/products built in US and started building another one overseas. Then said "oh well, looks like this division in US is not needed anymore". The strange thing is this is happening in multiple companies at the same time. It's like all the CEOs and HR reps met at some golf retreat and decided to follow a script. Meanwhile I got only 5 or so recruiter emails in the last year or so. Before it was a constant stream, almost one every a few weeks.
- xtracto 4mo ago>Meanwhile I got only 5 or so recruiter emails in the last year or so. Before it was a constant stream, almost one every a few weeks. I've actually seen more and more LinkedIn posts from recruiters that [are proud of ] have been laid off themselves. You know things are bad when recruiters are the ones looking for jobs.
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- interactivecode 4mo ago> The strange thing is this is happening in multiple companies at the same time. It's like all the CEOs and HR reps met at some golf retreat and decided to follow a script. I’ve gotten the same feeling. It’s too consistent to be a fluke. I get the feeling its a fashion thats being pushed by VC funds who are all neck deep in nvidia, openai and anthropic stocks. They must have realized they can pump this to their portfolio to inflate all the investments.
- bottle_roket 4mo agome: 11 years experience with big tech on resume. Located in major tech city. I get 1-2 new recruiters in my mailbox each week for different random startups. I haven’t acted on any so IDK what the process is really like, but it does seem like people are hiring. Almost 100% seem to be some sort of AI product. Senior Eng comp base seems to be in the 200-240 range plus however much worthless equity.
- dushan07 4mo ago[flagged]
- xboxnolifes 4mo ago~3 years of experience. I can't exactly isolate the independent variable of my employment gap that increases as time goes by from my perceived quality of the job market, but my application response rate has steadily dropped from ~35% 2+ years ago to 18% right now. I rarely even get to talk to a human, it's either code assessments, IQ tests, or personality tests that get sent out within a day or two after applying, or no response. Almost always no response. Sometimes I get a request to video interview with an AI. I kindly reject those. I'm tired, boss.
- AlexITC 4mo agoMy whole team got laid off recently and I have been in constant communication with them, I also have multiple friends who got laid off this year who shared the pain it has been to get a new role, Market seems better than the last few years but it still does not feels right to me, We have got multiple people reaching out but the majority of the roles are in-office or hybrid while I work fully remotely. I posted on LinkedIn, with the help from friends I got quite a lot of visibility (most viral post I have ever had) but still, out of the ~10 recruiters that reached out, only 2 are remote roles, I also got a few offers to work for equity only. I posted on the monthly "Who's wants to be hired?" thread, it has lead to a few offers to work for equity only + shady people that want me to attend calls and "delegate" the work to them while splitting the revenue. I have also got a few referrals and even for these, they are moving slowly. To put it in perspective, years before I'd easily get 10 recruiters in my inbox per week, Market seems tough and I can't imagine what junior people are passing through while trying to get a job. EDIT: I forgot mentioning the people reaching out with promising offers and the intention of getting me to run their malware hidden in coding challenges.
- sixtyj 4mo agoRemoteok has remote only job positions listed.
- leej111 4mo ago[dead]
- josefritzishere 4mo agoThe CEO herd mentality is in full swing. RTO and AI everywhere. I don't think it's been this bad since the 2008 crash. The Fed is indicating a rate hike so that's probably going to get worse in the near-term.