I was laid off at the beginning of October and still can’t find anything. It’s definitely a buyer’s market for senior level engineering talent.
I went through about 15 interviews and applied to maybe 50 positions.
If it’s a buyer’s market then employers can say “work in the office” - take it or leave it.
Also, you got to be confident and toughen up before your interviews, because even if some would be interesting, constructive done in a pleasant way by nice people, many will be nasty. I got through many interviews were there were several people acting like machine guns, spitting dozens of sometimes silly questions just trying to catch me with a mistake.
Boy, how much I would wanted to switch roles a bit and show them that is not a constructive way to lead an interview.
The process is kind of random. I aced all the coding tests but ultimately I ended up accepting the offer from the only company which did not make me do a coding test.
IMO, the smartest engineers can identify talent without relying on the outcome of a coding test. Coding tests are shallow and misleading; they don't evaluate the skills that really count.
Effectively no offer would be able to generate through the system.
I would say the Amazon spam will go away for next 6 months if not longer.
That's how Germans are perceived but having met Germans I know that's totally not the case.
we will hire backfills to replace employees who move on to new opportunities, and there are some targeted places where we will continue to hire people incrementally
But I also don’t think it’s prudent to say “don’t worry about that layoff, you’ll get a new BigTech job tomorrow!”
Times are weird.
I mean there is a reason why so many Kiwi’s go work in Australia.
Singapore on the other hand. Best 10 years ever.
Edit: the rest of Australia is nice. Especially people in Brisbane. My comments and negativity is to Sydney which is a horrrible place to live and work.
For context a lot of mortgages of recent times people got at very low rates fixed for 1-2 years (https://www.asb.co.nz/documents/economic-research/home-loan-... ) and now (https://www.asb.co.nz/home-loans-mortgages/interest-rates-fe...) that's a brutal shift for people that had budgeted at 2.5% when their food bills are heading for the moon as well along with other living expenses.
Not discounting that most countries are having these problems, but it's fairly extreme here.
"Wellington continues to have the greatest proportion, with 38% of first home buyers who bought during the last three months of 2021 now in negative equity." https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/property/129611585/first-ho...
Job prospect wise: Devs are (and have been) enjoying a very strong market, but I think (personally) we're going to see some challenging times ahead once the retail reality of Christmas flows through. The banks had been on hiring binges (hey just like US tech co's) and they're going to wind off just as quickly as they wound on.
So come, but eyes wide open if you do. If you've got a sh*tload of money to bring with you, can get over the cost of living, there's probably some deals to be had in a year or two...
As much as I don't wish anything bad to anybody, stupid people being bitten back by their stupid decisions is very low on the sympathy list for anybody, compared to say civilians being shelled at their homes because vladimir woke up pissed off this morning.
The historic average over 10 years is approximately 6.5%.
https://www.canstar.co.nz/home-loans/what-is-the-average-hom...
At the time, almost every conversation at work kept devolving into property (oh and crypto lol) which was annoying. And what was even more annoying were people who bought that were _convinced_ that they had got a good deal, lecturing me I should buy as well.
I ended up leaving the country for better pay, lower housing cost and good amount of savings to last me a while . I hope in 2 or so years when we go back, the prices are more reasonable.
Plenty of people bought in during Covid, at the peak, at 1.X variable rates that are now north of 4% and rising.
Lots of Reddit posts from people asking “why is my pay off period 89 years now?”
It’s going to be interesting.
Yeah despite the rampant, unrelenting racism, of course. Perhaps this should be prefaced with "If you're a white European with an English name"
Why Australia?
Public transport is SO SHIT. You'll be driving everywhere. If you end up in Auckland (which you probably will), prepare for a two hour commute each way unless you live in the city. I'm not joking. Unfortunately, you don't want to live in Auckland city because it's dirty, lacks amenities, is stupid expensive for the terrible apartments, and is actually really dangerous now. The Labour government has spent five years trying to reduce the prison population, and people are rarely given prison terms anymore. People are getting regularly assaulted now and perpetrators are being sent through a "restorative justice" procedure designed to keep them out of prison. In practise this means sending a letter to their victim and doing a few hours of community service.
Gangs are a regular part of life in New Zealand now. There are members in parliament with family gang ties. Unsurprisingly, gangs are getting a free pass. This is one of my favourite headlines from the last few years: "Govt funding for gang-run meth treatment programme cleared" (https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/450633/govt-funding-for-...). Spoiler: they were importing meth (https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/130267411/antidrug-mo...).
The health system is juuust about to collapse. I don't mean that in the modern colloquial sense. I mean thousands and thousands of staff are missing from critical positions all over the country. People are dying now. If you go to the hospital for assistance, unless you're actively dying, you could be sitting in the waiting room for days before some intern hurriedly gives you a painkiller and sends you home. NZ had a funding freeze for all healthcare workers during covid. Why? God knows. Similar issues exist in the fire service. There was one day when only four emergency line operators were on the phones for the whole country of five million people.
This one you might find controversial, depending on your politics. The current Labour government is ALL IN on racial politics. New Zealand has something called the "Treaty of Waitangi." A document signed between some Maori tribes and England a couple hundred years ago. Property disputes are still happening. The government occasionally gives these tribes billions of dollars in reparation. This might be okay, but they're getting really aggressive more recently. At the moment they're trying to pass something called the "3 Waters" bill where they give half the governing rights to drinking water in most major population hubs to a small group of Maori tribes. Permanently give away control based on race. This is in addition to them setting up a separate health system based on race. I have a colleague in government in New Zealand who has to use Maori words in official communications now, in addition to saying Maori prayers each morning, and regular mandatory Maori "cultural knowledge" training. As you might expect, they are taught that science is a "racist white construct, and traditional Maori knowledge is just as valid." So now the government pays millions of dollars when building roads to consult local Maori taniwha (spirit monster) hunters. Just to ensure that the taniwha are happy.
I could go on and on and on. I'm glad I left. I strongly urge you not to go unless you are independently wealthy and love the outdoors. NZ outdoors is really nice.
I guess this turned into more of a rant. Something like 800k Kiwis live in Australia. There is a very good reason for this.
Glad you are happy outside of New Zealand.
Were you unemployed or working.
- Higher interest rates = Less access to capital for tech companies
- Remote work = More out-of-state and international competition for jobs based on tech hubs
- Easier to use technologies = Lower entry barrier to engineering jobs = More people switching careers and becoming software engineers
- More people opting to become software engineers
- Stacked ranking and mass layoffs
Most recently Clojure work. I’ve done a lot of Java of course, although I’ve been rejected from some of those jobs because I spent the last year doing Clojure full time instead of Java.
Plus, senior folks are expensive
It's the SV way.
Startups really need senior people only to hit the ground running; only established companies with seniors can afford to hire juniors.
The thing is after a certain level of seniority, there is really not that much difference so you may just as well focus with someone with 10 years experience who charges a bit less, compared to a 15y dragon.
From what I have seen, it's slightly hard to get the first position, easy after that.
It's not hard to get a position after 10 or 20 years, but, if you lose your position, you may need to adjust your expectations.
Something happens, idk what, after 10-15y. Either people made so much money that they retired, or they all become managers, or idk?
Personally I'm still doing fine but I can see the 15y horizon coming, and I'm glad I saved money like a madman. I've got options, hope you plan as such.
I'm at 27 years experience, and my problem is not finding positions that I could get (with some finessing about how I want to stay hands on and/or love their specific company), but finding places that have sufficiently senior roles at the kind of salaries I expect. Most smaller companies don't need someone as experienced as me and/or can't afford me, and I don't really want to work at a FAANG or similar (had one big corporate experience and don't particularly need another) unless something truly exceptional is on offer.
Here's a tip to those looking:
If you struggle, look for roles that look undervalued and/or are slightly below your level, and apply anyway. Be honest about what you expect as long as you're not overvaluing yourself relative to your experience. Recruiters are often fine with putting forward a few expensive candidates if they look good enough. Especially external recruiters whose pay is usually at least partially linked to the salary you're hired at, but also because a spread helps give hiring managers an idea of the tradeoffs they're facing.
Undervalued roles (roles advertised with too low salary for what they're looking for) tend to attract fewer applications, so you're both more likely to get a shot and negotiating salary up beyond the stated level is usually possible. Applying to roles slightly below your level makes it easier to get past the first level recruiter filter because they like to give a range and for lower level roles they're less likely to have applicants to push on the upper end.
Shift your target down until you get the interviews. Then work on getting offers. Then work on lifting the offers to the level you need.
It's usually far more important to get past the recruiter than it is to get a perfect match with the role because a lot of companies have a lot of flexibility in what they're actually looking for. Especially for more senior roles the hiring manager will also often have reasonable influence and ability to get the budget lifted for a candidate that stands out.
E.g. in my current job search, my currently most promising prospect is a role where I told the recruiter I would not consider offers lower than 20% above the high end of their advertised range because I thought the advertised range was too low for the years of experience they wanted. And they wanted someone with less experience than me. She put me forward anyway, and on the back of seeing my CV they came back and wanted to interview me for a more senior role that has not been advertised, and where I'm currently the only candidate. I may or may not end up there, but to me that's a pretty normal experience when approaching companies about roles which fit those criteria.
10 years of CRUD APIs is as productive as 20 or 30 years of CRUD APIs.
If anything, the older you get the higher the chance you won't know the latest BS kids are using these days.
I'm at 15 years, I keep specialising in different things (leadership, people management, mentoring, backend, frontend, infra, performance, crypto) but I'm just running out of things and the best paying companies (remote only) still want the same 3 skills.
My dad is doing pretty much what I'm doing with a 30 years advantage and getting jobs is harder and harder.
It does get boring, but my passive income from products is still not matching my ever growing daily rate. I guess at some point I'll stop being able to raise my daily rate, my passive income will catch up and I'll drop consulting entirely.
People expect the 10 year engineer to be a 10x engineer lol
Interviewers always ask for more specifics anyways, which is good because you can use that as an opportunity to jump into things you accomplished near the end of a job, or at the beginning of another.
I don't put dates on at all. I never have, even when I was 20.
And all the 5-7 year devs who no-hire senior folks, will eventually find themselves being no-hired when they hit the 15 year mark.
I just keep the last 5 years of work on my resume and delete the earlier ones
"senior engineer" is like 2 years of work experience anyway, it doesn't matter.
Only APAC companies have asked though, haven’t really bothered with European companies
If you have a CS degree it doesn’t matter what the gap is there to where your years of job experience begins, assuming degree is before experience starts
https://grnh.se/08cec3bb4us - Senior Engineer https://grnh.se/5c028b554us - Staff Engineer
You should take a look and let me know if you have any questions.
I have been recruiting quite a lot and at the end of the cycle you go through making difficult choices. Often times you get 2 good candidates and only one spot. So you compare them and pick a better one. The dismissed candidate can be picked next year due to lack of better candidates.
Unless it has been clearly stated in the reply that you seemed to be below their expectation of a senior candidate. And even then... a lot can change over the year and if you feel like you are better you have every right to reapply. Most companies will inform you of reapply policy terms if your are outside of it.
It's good to have your technologies listed, and be honest if your doing something out of your comfort zone... but there really isn't a technology out there that can't be picked up in 1-3 months.
+1 to this. Especially at the 16-years-experience level. Maybe earlier in someone's career where their primary focus is how to fit in and ship stuff without getting stuck all the time. But at ~staff level, your thinking and your contributions become a lot more language-agnostic (not entirely, but mostly)
If the job mentions the technology and most clojure/haskell/elixir dev jobs do then well unless they state "looking for experienced person willing to learn" in description I would not bother them. (at least with my complete lack of experience in tech). Similarly as I would not apply to "weird-tech-i-merely-heard consultant". Also think there should be consistency on the job titles/descriptions on the side of job posters.