[HN Gopher] Skilled tech workers snapped up despite downturn
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Skilled tech workers snapped up despite downturn
Author : sizzle
Score : 116 points
Date : 2022-12-20 17:32 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.com)
| Tade0 wrote:
| My co-worker's engagement was recently reduced due to lack of
| work matching his highly specific skills, so he's on the lookout
| for another project.
|
| He was told by one of the recruiters that while there are offers
| for contractors such as us, it's the first time since time
| immemorial when they're actually considerably lower than the
| previous year.
|
| Don't know what to make of this - could be just a negotiation
| tactic but indeed the budget he was offered there was around 75%
| of what he had in his previous main thing(our project is
| technically his side gig).
|
| Meanwhile Google was on a hiring spree around here for the past
| few months, but the compensation offered is reportedly, ahem,
| uninspiring.
|
| Perhaps if enough companies do the same we'll be facing not a job
| shortage, but a well-paid job shortage. I think it's possible.
| ptero wrote:
| Downturn is still very young. Many unprofitable companies can
| continue to execute on their previous funding rounds which,
| raised in the macro environment of zero-cost money, can provide
| for a year or more of runway. Should this downturn become a
| fairly severe recession, many more jobs may be hit affecting
| hiring in skilled tech as well.
|
| Not claiming that this _will_ happen, but many economists agree
| that it is fairly likely. So even if you are in a very enviable
| position in a skilled tech role and are inundated with recruiter
| calls I would prep: take stock of your finances, determine your
| _personal_ runway (how long can you maintain current quality of
| life should your paychecks stop tomorrow) and plan accordingly.
| My 2c.
| oceanplexian wrote:
| I think a lot more interesting things are going on with the
| "tech recession" than meets the eye.
|
| Unlike the crash in '08 and '01, the economy now has a hard
| dependency on tech. There is no "going back" to the world of
| the past. Smartphones aren't going to be "un-invented". People
| aren't going to give up online shopping. Businesses aren't
| going to give up targeted advertising and start buying ads on
| AM Radio or something. If you look at the big picture, and
| barring any wild developments like general intelligence AI, the
| demand for skilled tech workers is only going to increase.
|
| I don't think tech workers are invincible but I think tech is
| now a requirement for economic growth, which poses a problem:
| Business leaders and investors have been really ticked off by
| the tech labor shortage. They tried to fix it with H1B, they
| tried with all these "learn to code" programs. They tried boot
| camps. They keep trying, and failing, because being a software
| engineer requires a degree of intelligence and critical
| thinking and there will always be a limited supply of that kind
| of labor.
|
| My pet theory is that some portion of the layoffs are being
| engineered to undermine the remote work revolution, scare
| people into accepting lower wages, and get back to "how things
| were". But the economic need for tech is so large and the
| supply of labor is so limited I don't see much changing.
| vbezhenar wrote:
| I feel that there's lot of bubbles which will burst and
| release plenty of programmers to the job market. It's already
| happening. And those programmers will not find work, not all
| of them. We need smartphones, but we don't necessary need all
| those "old moms social network" apps.
|
| During rich years plenty of people came to the industry.
| Plenty of them are smart and capable, so competition will
| lower salaries and push some people from their levels.
|
| And god save us if this AI thing will actually take off. It's
| dumb but it's progressing.
| mehphp wrote:
| > And god save us if this AI thing will actually take off.
| It's dumb but it's progressing.
|
| I don't see how it does anything but progress. I obviously
| have no idea how long it will take before it can replace a
| software engineer but after playing around with ChatGPT and
| seeing the code it can create, it's definitely progressing
| faster than I thought it would.
| strangattractor wrote:
| IMO One of the best times to do a startup is during a downturn.
| Startups typically don't even have a product for some time
| after beginning. One of the worst scenarios is introducing your
| product at the beginning of a downturn. Adoption rates tend to
| be slower then because corporations are reducing spending.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| * If you can find funding or self-fund.
| [deleted]
| time_to_smile wrote:
| I still hear a lot of conversations that assume current trends
| are temporary, that we'll return to an era of free money soon,
| and we can finally stop worrying about this silly "profit"
| nonsense to focus again on growth which is much more fun.
|
| I won't believe this is near over until I see worldviews
| fundamentally change.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| There is a lot of room between "era of free money" and 5%
| rates.
| VirusNewbie wrote:
| What "unprofitable" companies are you talking about? Most of
| the layoffs have come from very profitable companies that
| trimmed a lot of fat they acquired.
|
| Meta, Amazon, Stripe, Twilio, Salesforce etc are all profitable
| companies. That's where the majority of non crypto layoffs came
| from.
| ketzo wrote:
| Isn't that exactly the parent's point?
|
| They are saying that many unprofitable companies _haven 't_
| done their layoffs yet, because they're still coasting on
| huge funding rounds from 2021. Thus, there are more axes yet
| to fall.
|
| Not sure how much stock I actually put in that argument --
| lots of VC-funded companies are already doing layoffs, too --
| but I think you're sort of agreeing with them.
| VirusNewbie wrote:
| If a company isn't doing layoffs now, when there is
| basically a free pass PR wise, they must be _extremely_
| over confident or delusional.
| whatshisface wrote:
| If you're describing it as a PR pass they don't have one.
| ketzo wrote:
| Not that you're wrong, but aren't you kinda describing
| the archetypal VC-funded startup founder? :D
| adventured wrote:
| While you're correct about most of those, Twilio has been an
| epic loss-making machine its entire existence.
|
| $1.1 billion operating loss the past four quarters on a mere
| $3.6b in sales. $915m operating loss fiscal 2021, $492m
| operating loss 2020, $369m operating loss 2019, $108m
| operating loss (on $650m in sales) for 2018, and so on. They
| have always lost money and are currently gushing red ink.
|
| It's definitely part of the reason their stock has collapsed
| in such a dramatic way (a particularly unsupported valuation
| previously). While even most highly profitable tech stocks
| have dropped by a lot, Twilio's drop of ~89% is largely
| reserved for the group of very unprofitable extreme valuation
| tech stocks.
| meltyness wrote:
| Profitable, but not consumer facing, advertising driven
| revenues may be volatile, depending on how sophisticated a
| thief the company is.
| mrtksn wrote:
| Here is graph visualising the layoffs:
| https://www.visualcapitalist.com/visualizing-tech-company-
| la...
|
| November appears to be the exception where those profitable
| big company layoffs dominate but it's still not by much.
|
| The long tail is the king, as always.
| VirusNewbie wrote:
| The graphs aren't very accurate. Reports 8k twitter
| layoffs???
| ojbyrne wrote:
| The source (https://www.trueup.io/layoffs) says 3750 FTE
| and 4400 Contractors were laid off. Which looking around
| the web seems accurate.
| ptero wrote:
| Profitable big tech layoffs are, in my opinion, a different
| phenomenon. Those companies are trying to get their PE up to
| be competitive with fixed rate assets. Otherwise, their share
| prices will suffer even more. For example, Google's PE of 19
| is OK in the era of a free money, but not so good when rates
| are at 5% and defensive sectors yield 7+%. But the key thing
| is that the layoffs are not an existential question for them
| -- they are profitable and can continue to run for years even
| if their shares suffer. It would be a bad business decision,
| but will not lead to a quick death.
|
| I was talking about smaller, unprofitable, non-market
| dominating firms. If they are not profitable they will have
| to raise or die. And raising in the environment of 5+% rates
| and poor overall tech stock performance may get _brutal_.
| Currently, many of those companies still have significant
| runways (because they were able to raise a lot earlier), but
| this will start running out in the next several months. This
| may already be starting: two of my friends who work in such
| small companies (robotics and lasers) are sensing job
| uncertainty ahead. My 2c.
| TheCoelacanth wrote:
| It's not an existential question for the companies, but it
| could be for the people making the decisions. If
| shareholders aren't happy with the company's performance,
| the CEO might find themselves getting replaced.
| trustfundbaby wrote:
| Carvana, Vroom, Bird, Helbiz, FuboTv, Shift, Wework, 23andMe
| to name a few, theres many more.
|
| Their stocks are either in or dangerously close to penny
| stock category.
| aadvark69 wrote:
| Twilio is NOT profitable
| highwaylights wrote:
| Those of us that have been through this before won't be
| suckered in by it.
|
| Where I am, 2008 wasn't too bad in tech, but the aftermath of
| the dotcom bust was like the end of Infinity War, just there
| one day and then gone.
|
| No-one expects their career to end at the gilded hand of a
| giant purple alien.
| dasil003 wrote:
| One thing to keep in mind is that in the Dotcom bubble, the
| web was brand new. On the talent side, we were still figuring
| everything out. Most software engineers were used to either
| desktop app development, or expensive enterprise server
| development. Most designers were print designers, with UX
| design having not really emerged from the early human-
| computer interaction days where it was still more technical
| than humanities.
|
| At the same time, the web had only proven that regular people
| were willing to try it, but there was no meaningful consumer
| or advertiser money flowing through it for another ten years.
| So basically you had a perfect storm of a bunch of people
| trying to figure out something from scratch and massive over
| investment from VCs. When the music stopped it was a
| bloodbath because there was so little actual revenue.
|
| I don't see the same thing happening now because the web is
| firmly embedded in our lives and someone needs to maintain
| all this code. I'm honestly more worried about environmental
| threats and the sustainability of our way of life than the
| economy per se.
| snovv_crash wrote:
| It's a lot like the current crypto scene
| senko wrote:
| > So basically you had a perfect storm of a bunch of people
| trying to figure out something from scratch and massive
| over investment from VCs.
|
| This could describe today, with crypto (tech still looking
| for solutions to problems that aren't scams), AI (great
| potential but mostly in a gimmick phase right now), and VCs
| coming from a decade of record-low rates causing extreme
| valuations across the board ($5M seed rounds, etc).
|
| If you exclude Big Tech (which also took a beating but is
| managing), the smaller tech scene is ripe for a disruption
| of a very uncomfortable kind.
| eastbound wrote:
| > crypto, AI and VC
|
| I'm pretty happy for all those sectors to tank, they
| don't produce value that people would pay for, while we
| struggle finding competent people for product startups
| generating 500k per employee.
| Beaver117 wrote:
| Collectively crypto failures might have lost more money
| than the dot com crash
| Firmwarrior wrote:
| I've been asking around about the dot com bust, trying to get
| a better picture of it
|
| The problem is that most of the people I've talked to were
| employed at huge, profitable companies that made actual
| products. So it was just a blip for them.
|
| I was working on web development after school and got laid
| off, but all that meant was I had to eat the food my parents
| made for me instead of eating at fast food places with my
| friends..
| screwturner68 wrote:
| The dot com bust was a bit of a perfect storm, lots of
| people weren't needed because Y2K was over, lots of dumb
| ass startups with no product and no revenue disappeared and
| finally 9/11 gave everyone an excuse to chop heads because
| the economy was surely tanking. The first two were going to
| happen no matter what an the third just amplified the
| situation. Through all of it there was still hiring, the
| week I got hired the company that hired me laid off 12,000
| people.
| haakonhr wrote:
| I've actually met a couple of people randomly on flights
| that worked as software developers until the dotcom bubble
| burst. They both said they couldn't find anything the
| following years so they changed careers: one became a
| carpenter and the other ended up as an accountant.
| ghaff wrote:
| Cisco, EMC, Sun... were all huge (and formerly profitable)
| companies making actual products and got absolutely
| hammered when dot com busted. Personally I was very lucky--
| got a job with a small firm whose CEO I knew well and was
| (at the time) still doing OK though it went through a
| fairly long rough patch.
|
| But no small number of people, including many who had
| worked at large firms, basically left tech.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| I decided to leave my job of 8 years in July of 2001 (the
| layoffs in tech had started by then, but really built up
| momentum a bit after that). At the time I was doing
| software development for a semiconductor company and it
| just seemed like after 8 years there I wasn't going
| anywhere and we'd recently paid off our house so I figured,
| what the heck, I can find another gig in 6 months, I'll
| take some time off. When I started looking around in Jan
| '02 it took several months to find a 3 month contracting
| gig. After that was over I decided to go back to school and
| get a masters degree which I did. Had a few conctracting
| gigs after that but steady work didn't return until '05. So
| yeah, my timing wasn't great, but I did get my masters
| degree.
| [deleted]
| davidrupp wrote:
| I had just switched from IBM 370 mainframe assembler to
| Java in mid-2000, worked for several months at iXL, a then-
| typical consulting company with high margins and
| correspondingly high "bling" -- elaborate office
| furnishings, massive plasma TVs in the conference rooms,
| massages, beer cart Fridays, et cetera. That got crushed in
| the dot-bomb, followed soon after by 9/11. I managed not to
| have to return to my former vertical (airline
| reservations), but I definitely had to scramble to stay
| relevant. I work at Amazon now (usual disclaimer; opinions
| my own, etc.).
| d_burfoot wrote:
| > I was working on web development after school and got
| laid off, but all that meant was I had to eat the food my
| parents made for me instead of eating at fast food places
| with my friends..
|
| A good reminder that economic downturns can be actually
| healthy for people, families, and the environment. With
| less money, people will drive less, travel less, drink
| less, eat less meat, spend more time with loved ones, etc
| etc
| spamizbad wrote:
| The workers hit the hardest during the dotcom bust were
| people who recently skilled-up in HTML/CSS and basic web
| design. There was a massive hiring spree for people with
| these skills and a huge number of those jobs completely
| evaporated by 2001. Many of those people ended up just
| leaving tech all together.
|
| Those jobs never really came back as websites became more
| "Dynamic" and CMSes began to proliferate: So rather than
| hiring 20 web developers converting copy and design to
| websites you could hire a 1-3 engineer(s) to customize and
| run your CMS and non-technical people can provide the
| content.
| strangattractor wrote:
| Finding work was not all that bad depending on your skill
| set. In fact I started doing consulting after leaving my
| startup. Was one of the most profitable and enjoyable times
| of my career. Having been through several downturns in tech
| I tend to view them as shifts. Early 80's personal
| computers -> late 80's early 90's connectivity (modems) BBS
| networks -> 2000 Internet etc.
|
| Understanding and adapting to those changes are key. Next
| up -> IOT - computers in everything - applying AI - Biotech
| - ? Generally something expensive has to become cheap for
| the masses. Hayes modems took $1200 - $2000 devices down to
| <$300. Ethernet made LANs cheap. Twitter made stupidity
| availability massively scalable for zero dollars:)
| tunesmith wrote:
| I got laid off twice during the Dotcom bust. Remember that
| it dovetailed into the post-9/11 stuff too. In Q4 2001,
| there was just nothing. Intel and Nike were advertising web
| development positions for $12/hour (not a typo) and were
| getting flooded with applications. I ended up cold-calling
| various local businesses, got a freelance php/mysql
| contract for $20/hour, found a different perl/oracle
| contract for $55/hour in May of 2002, and worked my way
| back up from there.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| Wow, $55/hour is pretty decent salary in most of the US
| today, kudos.
| tunesmith wrote:
| It was 1099, not W2. But yeah, that contract is when
| things started feeling "normal" again.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| For software development, though, $55/hour doesn't seem
| great in 2022. I was getting $50/hr contracting back in
| 2002.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| Sure, but it was framed as a rebuilding step 20 years ago
| and inflation adjusted its like $165,000/yr. Making that
| in the trough of a recession after a lay off seems great
| to me.
| screwturner68 wrote:
| Yep I was getting $57/h in the spring of 2001, then the
| party stopped.
| ghaff wrote:
| I got laid off about a week after 9/11 though the writing
| was on the wall before that anyway. I consider myself
| super-lucky to land a job in about a month after a lunch
| discussion I had with someone I knew about 3 days after I
| was laid off. Nothing else, including discussions with
| other people I knew, was leading to anything at all.
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| I feel the recent rounds of layoffs were a bit overblown (perhaps
| because it affected well-known companies? and Meta isn't very
| liked by traditional media outlets).
|
| A lot of layoffs targeted "tech-adjacent" or "non-technical"
| positions too (perhaps this
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34039816 can shed a light on
| how essential these jobs were). Some of it were expected, like at
| Microsoft where they trim about 1% of the workforce deemed
| underperforming on an annual basis.
|
| The market is still incredibly hot for high performing engineers,
| especially senior. I think where the squeeze really happened are
| junior positions, but I still see a strong market for qualified
| candidates. It's certainly not like back in 2015 where you would
| see junior hires come in with only a coding bootcamp on their
| resume.
|
| Now something I noticed is a renewed interest for startups,
| especially from experienced engineers who might have "cashed out"
| in the last few years and have bit of runway. Crypto and Twitter
| both created their fair share of well-off engineers that are
| looking for their next challenge.
|
| > Craig Freedberg, from UK-based specialist recruitment firm,
| Robert Half, says businesses will still have a need for tech
| resources and software development projects.
|
| > However, he thinks companies will be reluctant to expand their
| workforces and will instead turn to temporary tech workers.
|
| Maybe in the UK, but it's not what I've seen this side of the
| pond.
|
| Brexit made the UK a risky destination to start or operate a
| business, and out of control inflation didn't help. Salaries
| adjusted to cost of living have decreased, inducing an even
| larger brain drain. Temporary resources are good for the
| immediate bottom-line but when has this ever worked out? Long
| term, it generally means a loss of technical expertise for a
| company. The reason a lot of UK businesses are doing it might
| also be that Brexit made it much harder to secure finding, as
| investors aren't too confident in the UK's future.
|
| > Could this erode Silicon Valley's attraction for ambitious
| software engineers and developers? After all, other cities like
| Lisbon and Toronto are offering attractive tax breaks in the hope
| of attracting tech entrepreneurs.
|
| Startups aren't worried about taxes. They are worried about
| funding. The real question here is are Toronto and Lisbon
| attractive places to secure funding? That's what matters to
| founders.
|
| > Author Margaret O'Mara does not see a big exodus. "Companies
| come here for the talent, to recruit the best people, and that's
| still happening in Silicon Valley," she notes.
|
| > But venture capitalist Lu Zhang views it another way. "The new
| normal will be to rely on the core values within Silicon Valley
| to help founders get started and create their initial products
| and learn about market fit, but then to expand outside those
| borders to leverage talent outside Silicon Valley and remotely
| hire from other tech hubs."
|
| From my experience that's already the case. However, long term,
| I've seen a lot more employees move from other tech hubs to the
| Valley than the opposite.
|
| Every time I've been pitched the "next Silicon Valley" or that
| innovation just wasn't going to happen in the Valley anymore, the
| correct bet was to ignore it. I don't see how this time is
| different.
| jeffwask wrote:
| There was an entire layer of software companies that were
| struggling to hire and fill roles because the big players were
| hoarding talent. All those companies are still hiring, the roles
| may not be as flashy, and the challenges may be different but
| they all need good engineers.
| cgb223 wrote:
| Personal anecdote:
|
| Am a Senior PM laid off from a Big-N tech company who has
| launched multiple 9 figure revenue generating products.
|
| The market, despite the economy and the time of year isn't great,
| but it's not terrible.
|
| I've had lots of first and second interviews and a surprising
| amount of final rounds given all of the above.
|
| That said most all of those came from recruiters reaching out as
| opposed to applying directly.
|
| Unlike a month ago, my LinkedIn is EMPTY in terms of recruiter
| messages.
|
| It's been over a week since anyone's reached out but I figure
| that's a function of the time of year.
|
| To compare to Spring of this year when I was interviewing (while
| still employed) I had many, many, more recruiters reaching out
| than anything I've seen in the last 3 months, and the caliber of
| jobs was higher quality.
|
| It sucks being unemployed during the holidays and not getting the
| reach I had before. It's a little scary, but I keep reminding
| myself that it's that time of year with holidays, no budget, etc
| and it'll get better in January (hopefully).
|
| I'm no 100x rockstar coder, but I've added real, quantifiable
| value at companies where it's a real challenge to launch anything
| quickly and successfully. It's not nearly as rosy a picture as
| the BBC presents. I hope it gets better soon.
| [deleted]
| devmunchies wrote:
| It's known that tech recruiting has its most active months in
| spring/summer. Its more in line with the school year[1] than
| the calendar year.
|
| [1]: probably because parents don't like big changes while
| their kids are on a schedule and because new grads, and
| _possibly_ (on a more evolutionary-biological level) because
| people are more active after winter as they begin foraging
| /farming/building, venturing out, etc.
| creaghpatr wrote:
| >Unlike a month ago, my LinkedIn is EMPTY in terms of recruiter
| messages.
|
| A lot of in-house recruiters may have been laid off during that
| time, so might not directly correlate with new job postings
| volume/quality (obviously still related though).
|
| On the upside, wherever you land, they are more likely to be
| investing thoughtfully rather than tacking on headcount.
| dimal wrote:
| I noticed that the number of recruiter messages I get on
| LinkedIn was proportional to the number of replies I give to
| the messages in my inbox. When I'm active, I get more interest.
| Like, going from 0-1 new recruiter messages to 5-7 a week.
| Maybe I'm imagining things, but it would make sense that if you
| just have your profile set to "Looking for work" but you're not
| actually talking to anyone, you're sending a signal that you're
| not actively looking, and you're going to fall to the bottom of
| the pile. Send a few "Sorry for the delay in responding.
| $YOUR_PRODUCT sounds interesting. Can you tell me more,"
| messages to the most recent messages in your inbox and see if
| it gets things unstuck.
| dist1ll wrote:
| It's the end of the fiscal year. No one wants to drown in paper
| work during the holidays.
| bdcravens wrote:
| Not discounting real issues going on in the economy, but most
| stuff grinds to a halt in December, even when things are
| rocking.
| thatfrenchguy wrote:
| It's the week before Christmas, half the people are gone
| already, and of the half is not at 100% anymore. January will
| get better :)
| pnutjam wrote:
| I'm a linux sysadmin / devops guy who went through this
| recently. When I started looking, end of September, I had a ton
| of interest from recruiters who wanted to chat. I also applied
| to a ton of jobs. Week 2 looked a little sparse. By week 3 I
| was getting interviews daily. It took 6 weeks, but I ended up
| with about 6 solid offers and I turned down another 2 or 3 that
| wanted to make offers, or continue interview rounds. I landed
| an awesome job at the very end of November. Things will pick up
| in January, good luck.
| sizzle wrote:
| Wait till everyone gets their Q1 bonus for a flood of job
| vacancies early next year.
| dzonga wrote:
| companies printing money i.e profitable not funded by cheap vc
| money are not affected by the current downturn. unless it is
| industry wide e.g covid which affected the cash flow of travel
| tech companies. likewise for financial companies e.g HFT. of
| course certain skills get saturated and get replaced. normal
| course of market adjustment.
| negamax wrote:
| 100x this. Most companies with large layoffs had pie in the sky
| valuations due to pandemic money printing. They were never
| profitable. VCs with wads were searching for next 20x in three
| months
| treis wrote:
| >companies printing money i.e profitable not funded by cheap vc
| money are not affected by the current downturn.
|
| Google, Amazon, and Meta have all laid people off and they
| basically own dollar printing presses.
| izzydata wrote:
| I imagine that all those companies are big enough to have
| segmented departments that can be determined to be
| unprofitable by themselves. Amazon made plenty of profit, but
| they doesn't mean they should keep employing everyone from
| the Alexa department that only lost money.
| [deleted]
| friedman23 wrote:
| Of course they will be affected if their customers are
| unprofitable and are forced to cut costs or go out of business.
| dahateb wrote:
| As someone with 13 years of experience in Backend Development and
| Devops and currently working in a startup that might run out of
| money next year, would it make sense to start looking for a new
| job right now or just wait it out? Also considering that I'm
| working in Europe where job protection laws are quite strict and
| having worked in a company for 3 years will give you strong job
| security. So basically I will be one of the last ones to be laid
| off.
| KptMarchewa wrote:
| No job protection laws will protect you from losing job when
| startup runs out of business. Look for a new job now.
| anonporridge wrote:
| The longer you wait to jump ship, the less time you'll have to
| establish and prove your value at a new company, making it more
| likely that you'll be first in line on the chopping block if
| the new company also ends up with layoffs in the next few
| years.
|
| It really all depends on how many years you can survive without
| a job from your savings and how much faith you have in your
| startup to survive long term. You seem to be in a high risk,
| high reward situation which necessarily has no one right answer
| because every person has different risk tolerances. If you can
| survive 2-3 years without a high paying tech job, and don't
| have a family to support, the reward of sticking it out might
| be worth the risk. Only you can answer that.
| chomp wrote:
| This has been my experience too. Companies never stopped looking
| for senior talent. Junior talent is getting squeezed. Quite a few
| people in my circle have been getting job offers after
| interviewing at one or two companies, it's still somewhat of a
| hot market.
| madaxe_again wrote:
| I'm seeing the opposite at PE-backed firms. Blackstone, for
| instance, have been firing anyone who costs anything, and
| moving every technical role to the lowest bidder. I've watched
| the entire technical and leadership teams for businesses get
| fired this year, and replaced with $10/hr coders.
|
| It's going to make them look rosy for the next few Qs while
| everyone else haemorrhages cash. Long term, not so much, but
| the long term isn't important to the market.
| starwind wrote:
| Seems like business as usual for private equity
| WrtCdEvrydy wrote:
| There's no future beyond the current quarter.
| paxys wrote:
| Junior talent isn't getting squeezed either; there are just too
| many unqualified people trying to break into the industry. The
| time when you could get a high paying tech job with a bootcamp
| certificate or a couple of trivial projects on your Github is
| over. People with CS degrees, internships or a year or two of
| professional experience are fine.
| chomp wrote:
| I guess that is true. I mentor CS students at my local
| university and they're having tougher times breaking into the
| industry than past years. We helped them with resumes and
| making contacts, and where maybe 3/4 of students previously
| would have been placed by now, only maybe 1/4 are getting
| placed. Companies in my area seem interested in talking to
| students, but not actually hiring them (yet.) A couple
| students got job offers in place 6 months out (!)
|
| I do believe the bootcamp certificate crowd will have a
| harder time than this though. I'm seeing way more "degree
| required" postings than I did 5 years ago.
| paxys wrote:
| > A couple students got job offers in place 6 months out
| (!)
|
| This is standard in the tech industry. The bulk of college
| hiring happens August-October for start dates in May-August
| or even later. And the local market is always going to be
| difficult in non tech hubs. Relocation is almost always a
| requirement for the better jobs.
| bobkazamakis wrote:
| Maybe in the 90s? You speak pretty confidently about
| this, but relocation being necessary is not even close to
| the truth.
| screwturner68 wrote:
| I've mentored a couple of college kids and have pointed out
| some good jobs at good companies and the response I got was
| "they're boring". They might be boring but they pay well
| and have good benefits, I guess it's got to be a
| generational think because I would have jumped all over a
| $80K gig at a boring company vs a $32K gig at some BS
| startup at 23-24.
| spamizbad wrote:
| The problem is the "funnel" is clogged. You can slip through
| with a referral, a degree from a tier-1 school, and/or some
| solid internships but everyone else just has to hope they get
| lucky.
|
| I do agree about the under-qualified part though. We do some
| basic technical pre-screening that has candidates spend maybe
| 15 minutes answering 2 fizzbuzz-style questions just to save
| everyone time and there's a solid minority of candidates that
| can't do a question they didn't rehearse in leetcode
| training.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| I'm still uncertain when that was ever so easy. Leetcode,
| take home exercises, and all of the hiring processes that are
| the stuff of a hundred irate blog articles posted to HN have
| been around since the late 2000s. And it feels like bootcamp
| grads were feeling the squeeze as early as ~5 years ago.
| Hermitian909 wrote:
| I know someone who founded a bootcamp around 2010.
| According to him they had a 99% placement rate within 3
| months of finishing bootcamp till around 2015, with
| starting comp in the 80-120k range.
|
| The basic setup over 3 months:
|
| 1. Crash course in basic dev tooling setup (git etc.)
|
| 2. Crash course in data structures and algorithms (e.g.
| leetcode)
|
| 3. Crash course in setting up a production environment
|
| 4. Group interview prep sessions post-graduation
|
| According to him this worked because:
|
| 1. There was very little talent on the market at all
|
| 2. Very few CS students had any experience writing
| production code, even for toy apps. This meant their ramp
| up time was often slower than bootcamp grads
|
| 3. There was a backlog of otherwise highly competent people
| trying to break into tech that just needed guidance on how
| to get in
|
| None of these things are true anymore and he has sinced
| closed his bootcamp since it began to felt exploitative.
| BlargMcLarg wrote:
| A few decades ago maybe. It is _easier_ compared to the
| other majors, but _easy_ makes it sound like a firm
| handshake is the only necessity. Hasn 't been like that
| since 2008 minimum.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| I wonder if any company really only asked fizzbuzz for
| the technical segment.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| Back in the dotcom boom, most certainly. I had a friend
| who had taken exactly one programming course in some
| obscure financial language and she got hired at the, to
| her, insane amount of $45/hour. At that time, pretty much
| any warm body that had ever looked at a computer was
| being hired.
| chucky_z wrote:
| I used to ask it for a pre-pre screen. It had a maybe 20%
| fail rate.
| seaucre wrote:
| the main bootcamp in my city is still doing quite well, but
| it's not startups that are hiring - it's big banks and the
| companies the contract out to them. many of the bootcamp
| grads are only getting QA positions, but that's still a step
| up from their old work, and some are still getting entry
| level developer positions.
| dr-detroit wrote:
| [deleted]
| devmunchies wrote:
| An employer's market changes the dynamic, which can be to your
| benefit if you're a top engineer. I expect that companies can lay
| off the bottom 10% and then turn around and hire the top 5% in
| the market who will replace the laid off 10%.
|
| Kind of risky to join a new company though because if they do
| layoffs, recent hires or more likely to get the axe.
| FooBarBizBazz wrote:
| This sounds like anti-worker sentiment trying to sneak in on
| people's egos. It doesn't pass the common sense test, for me.
|
| It sounds like you're saying that companies are going to lay
| off (say) half their workforce, and replace them by a handful
| of "10x engineers" who they pay twice as much.
|
| Is there any evidence that this happens?
|
| It sounds to me like saying that luxury mansions go up in a
| housing market crash, or blue chips went up in 1929.
|
| I don't think it describes reality.
| devmunchies wrote:
| I wouldn't say it's "anti-worker", just armchair discussion
| of supply-demand economics. You can't improve worker
| conditions without an honest characterization of market
| dynamics. It pretty straightforward that a decrease of "open
| positions" (the supply of jobs) and the increase in
| "candidates looking for work" (the demand for jobs) would
| afford employers the leverage to change their hiring
| strategies.
|
| Combine that with post-covid environment where employers want
| to boost productivity to prior levels, and as they see other
| companies successfully perform layoffs without huge hits to
| productivity or stock price, and you get a perfect storm.
|
| And yes, most companies that have had had layoffs are still
| hiring, but obviously more selectively.
|
| Follow up:
|
| > It sounds like you're saying that companies are going to
| lay off (say) half their workforce, and replace them by a
| handful of "10x engineers" who they pay twice as much
|
| they don't have to be 10x engineers, just perceived as better
| than their current "hand". Put some card back in the pile,
| draw some new ones from the deck. And they don't have to pay
| them twice as much either (unless a really desirable
| skillset), it's an employers market.
| yevpats wrote:
| Downturn didnt even really start. Wait like 8 more months and put
| your seatbelts now.
| mardifoufs wrote:
| On the other hand we will probably keep hearing "it's getting
| worse in 2 more weeks" doomerisms until the downturn clears up.
| acchow wrote:
| We don't know.
|
| Currently, the fed is still saying December's CPI print (coming
| on January 12) may be high. But looking at the futures market,
| it seems like almost everything is down significantly and we
| might see the first CPI print of 0% MoM in a year. Is the fed
| keeping this narrative to temper the market and slow it down?
| Or do they know something we don't?
|
| If January 12 shows 0% or even negative MoM, it's possible
| interest rates could come down in 2023.
| trustfundbaby wrote:
| I don't think that massive downturn people are thinking is
| coming ... is going to come. The job market is too strong
| (because of lower immigration, and how many exited the job
| market during covid) and so is the housing market.
|
| I thinks its going to be more like this for the next 8-12
| months, until the fed stops raising interest rates, and then it
| will be a mad dash to get everything going again.
| projectazorian wrote:
| This. Because of 2008 and Covid people have a bias toward
| thinking that every economic slowdown is destined to be a
| massive dislocation.
| disambiguation wrote:
| maybe this is true, maybe not, but from the perspective of a
| worker, employed, or otherwise, what does it matter?
|
| if you're employed you still need to be working hard, like
| always
|
| if you're unemployed you still need to be seeking employment,
| like always
|
| so, why do i care about the economy? is there something i'm
| supposed to be doing about it?
| yardie wrote:
| It feels like we've been waiting 6 months for the last 12
| months for the downturn to start any day now. We're in
| uncharted territory. The economy sucks yet people are employed,
| wages are down, and cost of living is way up.
| benjaminwootton wrote:
| People were talking about a recession in mid 2021 as I
| remember it. Still waiting....
| vikingerik wrote:
| The economy doesn't suck. Most of the 2022 numbers that look
| bad are really artifacts of year-over-year reporting, being
| compared to numbers from 2021 that were artificially high
| because of time-shifted demand from the pandemic in 2020.
| Compare 2022 to 2019 and most things look fairly normal for a
| three-year period.
|
| Remember the "great resignation"? That was never a thing -
| people aren't leaving the workforce - it was just time-
| shifted demand for job switching that didn't happen during
| the pandemic, so that some transient numbers looked high.
| lovich wrote:
| Is anyone aware of how hard covid hit the software engineering
| community via early deaths/retirements? This downturn is going to
| be weird all over the economy because unlike normal recessions
| its coming right after a structural change to the labor market
| which is why were still seeing historically low unemployment
| rates despite these rate hikes and layoffs. Every company who was
| profitable to begin with has been hungry to snap up employees
| still.
|
| Not saying this is necessarily true with software since were a
| niche of the economy and may have a different outlook, but the
| affect of covid on our number would help figure that out
| trustfundbaby wrote:
| > Is anyone aware of how hard covid hit the software
| engineering community via early deaths/retirements?
|
| Can you provide some data around that?
| lovich wrote:
| I phrased that awkwardly. I meant, does anyone know where/if
| that data exists. I didn't mean to ask it rhetorically.
| rurp wrote:
| This article[0] doesn't discuss the tech industry
| specifically, but Jerome Powell recently stated that deaths
| from covid is a notable factor in the labor shortfall. Those
| deaths, along with early retirements and decreased
| immigration, have left the labor market about 3.5 million
| people lighter than it would have been without covid.
|
| [0]https://www.axios.com/2022/12/16/the-missing-workers-who-
| are...
| madengr wrote:
| cheriot wrote:
| Great to hear that those laid off have jobs to find.
|
| This round of layoffs has only been the end of easy money. If we
| have an actual recession it will get worse. Now's the time to
| think through emergency funds and contingency plans.
| LatteLazy wrote:
| All the news I read is lay-offs, recessions and downturns.
|
| All the emails I get are from recruiters begging for me to apply
| to their clients' many openings.
|
| And I am not Skilled really.
|
| I am not one for conspiracy theories (except for some really
| niche little ones :) ) but it does make me wonder how much the
| media follows facts and how much it follows the mood. People seem
| in the mood for a recession more than actually in one...
| screwturner68 wrote:
| I've heard nothing but the warning of a massive recession since
| about 2015, half the pundits are telling me the world is going
| to end in the next six months and the other half say the pump
| is primed and the good times will be back in the next 6 months.
| I guess we'll find out who's right in the next 6 months...or
| not.
| yrgulation wrote:
| disambiguation wrote:
| the #1 influence on the american economy is the Fed, and if
| they raise interest rates - which is likely - then it will
| cause a recession. (see Volcker)
|
| of course there are no guarantees, we can't predict the timing
| or severity of the markets' reaction, but its not a complete
| fiction of the media and mood.
| jti107 wrote:
| if you're willing to relocate and not picky there are tons of
| state/federal programming jobs. couple co-workers got picked up
| by NASA for Javascript/C++ programming
| AB1908 wrote:
| How does one look for these? Looking for junior roles.
| mkl95 wrote:
| Tech salaries are keeping up with inflation in my area. Employers
| expectations are proportional though.
| tluyben2 wrote:
| Because I am working on some new products and finally without a
| NDA (since a decade), I can make some noise about myself again,
| so I am polishing my LinkedIn, Twitter, Mastodon and website; I
| am getting rather a lot of recruiter noise even some direct
| companies. I am skilled but not looking. It seems a way better
| market than when I switched off my LinkedIn. But that can hardly
| be...
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| Recruiters have gotten a lot more aggressive on LinkedIn in the
| last year.
| Beaver117 wrote:
| I mean it's still easy to get interviews. They still make you
| solve Leetcode hards and system designs which needs months of
| prep
| ornornor wrote:
| Chatgpt to the rescue!
| carabiner wrote:
| Yes, it was never possible to google leetcode solutions
| before.
| Beaver117 wrote:
| I'd still hire someone whos able to google a vague problem
| (not from leetcode) during an interview, piece together
| information, code it, and get away with it. That shows at
| least some knowledge, skill, and potential. But using
| chatgpt requires no skill. Shame
| danesparza wrote:
| Not all of them.
| Haga wrote:
| ChuckMcM wrote:
| This was true during the dot com bust as well. Basically good
| technical talent is good technical talent right? If things are
| similar to the dot com post partum it won't be as great for
| middle/line managers. Those folks often found themselves with a
| management practice from a company that failed, and that sort of
| tainted them as well seeing as "management" was considered the
| reason things failed at the company. In the early 2000's I saw a
| lot of resumes of "engineers" where their last job was
| management. Sometimes that was fine, they had kept themselves
| fresh while managing, sometimes not so much.
| Melatonic wrote:
| Anybody want to start a company specializing in de-clouding
| companies that went all in and now want to switch to a hybrid
| approach?
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