Ask HN: What was it like to be a developer after the crash of 2008-2009?

You would be better served asking "what did it look like in the crash of 2000".

Today twitter, etsy, hell even zynga are looking a LOT like the bubble companies, the fact that pets.com sock puppet could be a product on etsy today should not be lost on you (or any one for that matter). In 2000 the questions were "do you know html, and can you fog a mirror" today we would ask "have you been through boot camp and can you fog a mirror". IN 2000 we had lavish launch parties, today we have free lunches (if that isn't telling). In 2000 you bled money to SUN to have servers, today you bleed money to a landlord for office space. Back then VC's were handing out money to any one with an idea, today they are pretty much handing out money to any one with an idea.

Honestly, 2000 was a complete shit show. Most people checked fuckedcompnay in the morning to find out if they were going to get laid off. Some showed up to work and were "locked out". The market tore up any maginal company that was listed and the money flowing into the valley STOPPED. If you weren't profitable, if you could not control your burn rate, you were dead. How did we (developers) survive 2000? A lot of folks didn't. If you were here, and you managed to stay, it was because you wanted to be here, because you had some passion for what you were doing, and were willing to eat shit for it. A lot of folks who made it through 2000 were the same ones who endured the smaller wind down of 2008. In 2008 people who were good knew each other, we had networked by then, and a job was just a "phone call away".

What you probably want to know is how do you survive the coming storm? The reality is that you probably don't/won't. A lot of folks I know who survived 2000 built war chests, we have "fuck you" money, and a network. We aren't paying $3000 or $4000 a month for rent. Even if your splitting that 2 or 3 ways what happens to YOU when you have to eat that cost cause your "housemate" bails cause he's unemployed and has ZERO prospects after 3 months? The reality is that it will be more of an enema of mediocre talent and companies, rents will go down, engineering costs will go down, and a few years later money will flow back in for us to start the cycle all over again.

Back before the crash, I was working at home writing webapps in Python, JavaScript, and SQL. These days, I am still working at home....writing webapps in Python, JavaScript and SQL, just on different projects. One of my friends worked at an ad agency and got a paycut. Another worked at a large corporation and absolutely nothing happened, business as usual. There is a lot of money-generating code that needs to be written and maintained independent of the stock market. Probably less VCs risking capital/less speculation for a few years though. I do remember more people being just happy to have a job vs. now where people spend most of their time talking about their stock/bonuses and whether they should quit out of boredom etc.

I worked at AIG during that crash, in their mortgage insurance subsidiary. To say we were hammered is a massive understatement. Two thirds of the company was laid off during one week: the gating factor was meeting rooms in which to process the layoffs. Many of these people haven't fully recovered: they were "lifers" and most of their skills were tied to that specific company and industry.

Free soda immediately went away, with a very lame justification ("it clogs the drains when people pour them down the sink").

There were news cameras parked outside for a couple weeks, trying to get sound bites from people coming and going.

There were even a few attacks on employees in the streets immediately afterwards. We were encouraged to go out in small groups: alone, there was danger of being accosted by people who lost their mortgage, while in large groups it created the impression we didn't care about what was happening to the world outside.

It was pretty intense. I'm glad I saw it as close as I did, but I'm not sure I would like to do that again.

Uh, fine? 2008 was banks and people with money sweating. I remember seeing a report that the company's 401k accounts had lost two thirds of their value. Oops. Developers are the plant matter of the business world. Developers create value if given a little bit of sunlight. 2008 was a forest fire that didn't burn down the entire forest. If you were at the right kind of company you just kept on coding. I bought some puts on Lehman Brothers but was about a month or two too early to really cash out on their collapse.

No effect on my job. I was watching the financial sites very closely, though, and I was maybe 24 hours from taking all my money out of the bank as cash...