Ask HN: V2 – Laid off folks, are you getting hired yet?
Been a few weeks since last posted. How goes the hunt?
The one place that did call me back gave me their take-home coding test, but their automated grading system said I failed, so they sent me a rejection email with no details about what their automated system didn't like about my code and then never responded to my request for more info.
I've really enjoyed the first month or so of unemployment, getting to hang out more with my spouse, do hobbies, work on the house, etc., but the anxiety about running out of emergency fund runway is slowly creeping in. We've got about another 4 months before things get really dire, not accounting for unemployment checks. With UI, we can probably double that before we'd need to dip into investment accounts.
For sure a more fortunate position to be in financially than most get, but it's still really unnerving not knowing when/if I'll get another interview. I've been consistently employed full time since the moment I graduated high school (about 10 years ago), so this is literally the first time I've ever not had a job in my adult life.
For my last job I sent out a few lazy applications in early Jan 2021 and was debating which of 3 offers I wanted to take a few weeks later.
I’m a better engineer than I have ever been, it’s just a rough market. Hopefully everyone has the savings and emotional fortitude for a long job search.
--- older comment below ---
Was laid off in August while working for a US-based company. My first layoff in a 10-year career. Still looking for a job. I'm broke. As in "can't pay my bills next month" broke. People are hiring but remote jobs are hard to find. (I have family responsibilities and cannot relocate)
I did find jobs. People who took 7 rounds of interviews then never released an offer letter. AFTER verbally confirming that I'd gotten the job. This has happened thrice now. I started with asking for $5000/mo (last drawn). But now, I'm willing to work for anything that pays the bills.
I'm in dire need and at my wit's end.
The previous time I was unemployed, I got rejected 7 times in a row. I found my humility and accepted a job doing PHP for a bunch of bullies at my career starting salary.
This time I started out with pretty low hopes, but lined up 5 interviews in a week, went with the first offer in two days, and changed my mind with the second offer after one more day, ticking more boxes. I needed people to tell me I was aiming too low, because of bad memory.
I’m trying to say, I was pretty broken the last time, and my confidence turned me into a job repellant. I hope you get paid soon, so you can heal your confidence. The bad voices turn this into being about something it’s not.
Overall, I think things went ok for me because I have a fairly solid resume and a great network to lean on, and was able to do well in interviews. I also mostly applied to senior SRE and infra roles, which sounds like it’s harder to hire for than general SWE.
LinkedIn positions get 150+ applications within hours. For the first time I got nearly zero response from HN Hiring as well.
I think the issue is everything is skewing wildly towards senior roles, even non-senior roles are getting inundated with 200+ applicants that are over qualified.
If you're like me and have 3yrs of (FAANG and growth stage startups) SWE and 1yr of product eng / TPM'ing you're basically fucked. Hard to tell if I've fucked my career (by not just working at one company with my longest tenure being 2yrs w/ zero resume gaps)or if the market is just not great rn.
I've been staying afloat consulting for a friend's startup - granted SVB probably just nuked any chance of their series A actually happening.
Future is very bleak atm - but thank god I have cash to live on.
I hope you find something soon, but let's be realistic here, claiming SWEs with FAANG experience on the resume are "fucked" is some real extreme hyperbole.
If you could pass the engineering hiring bar at FAANG, surely you can do an approximation of how many people with 4 years of career experience don't have FAANG on their resume, aren't engineers, or both. You have an advantage over nearly all of them.
Like others have said, networking/connections are key, but that's still true even when the job market is hot.
Parent, try imagining a career like mine: 16+ years of working for startups that paid in the $60K ~ $80K range. Now feel better about yourself.
Going through the resume pile is work. The recruiter would rather not have to do the work and get a hire in the job.
Network could be better though, going to spend the week at a friend's in Austin at SXSW to accelerate potentially growing the network at cringe founder events. Yes, I'm that desperate.
This also applies if the person is a friend of a friend — building a “network” just means knowing people who can vouch for you as a valuable and trustworthy person.
The ability to build relationships and be stable over time is a merit.
That's not what I said. To emphasize my own comment:
> Whenever I've seen a situation with low supply/high demand
In context to the GGP I was making reference to improving resumes when the labor market is over-saturated. Many orgs will sooner hire someone who's been vouched for than to sift through 100s of Github repos and contact 100s of references. They might not be as good as the best candidate in the pool, but the expense of verifying that might be too much, especially if they don't have the bandwidth to do that (e.g., HR staff, time from tech staff). And in times like these, candidates will be just leaping out of their networks.
https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/video/unemployment-rate...
Take it from an old-timer: your career is still far too young to be fucked.
Having said that, many places refused to interview me because I didn’t have experience with LLMs. I was surprised how strict some places were with experience requirements.
Zero.
Value the equity at zero.
Or at most value it like a lottery ticket - something that lets you amuse yourself dreaming about what you’ll do when you “win”.
But make all your ongoing plans assuming they equity will be worth zero. Either because the startup fails, or because you get screwed out of any payout by the founders or board, or by future investors insisting on deals where early employee equity gets diluted and preferenced down to zero. Or even occasionally because they intentionally never have a liquidity event and stay private with no available way to monetise your shares. Those, or exits where employees make at most “new car” money not “fuck you” money, are by far the most common.
Do a startup if you want, they can be amazing ways to gain an incredible amount of experience to add to your resume in a short time, they can be a great fun work style at least for a while, they can be great at finding out who amongst your co workers are genuinely super talented and productive people and building networks with them.
But don’t fall for the “yeah, we’re paying well below market, but look at how generous our option grants are!” snake oil recruitment pitches…
I don't think the same can be said of FAANG equity, which is the context this was in: while it is still a good lesson to treat it as worth zero, you can regularly exchange it for cash at market prices.
My guess is a lot of companies / hiring managers are searching for key terms. Screening is likely not from people who know what they’re talking about
Clearly one of them was wrong.
Train yourself an LLM on resumes that land interviews and offers, and sell access to it…
:-)
I also feel like you have a different perspective. It's not just about the actual experience.
Some complain about how hard it was to get a job, when they just needed a few weeks or months to get one.
They were also surprised to have been turn down by some companies, which is healthy. You can't match everywhere. You're not qualified on everything. Job ads are minimalist to ambiguous, so tech teams have to do a lot of filtering to make up with what HR published. You may also want to apply outside of your comfort zone, because you don't risk anything,...
Also, some seem surprised to have to interview. While 8 is definitely too many, it makes sense to do some, when you apply for positions with experience. You're no longer graduate, they want to know about you.
I was also surprised by users who reported to have a lower wage now, which is probably still much higher than the median income in the USA
Such views don't picture a weak market, but a more realistic market. We're mostly among well paid tech industry workers here, so we can complain about the processes. But out of respect for most workers who earn up to the median wage, it's not decent to call these times a difficult job market.
I hadn't fully realise what kind of bubble the tech jobs used to be over there, before reading this thread.
Anyway, gg for getting a nice job.
I'm should really go across the pond. I'm fed up of doing 40k in here.
Not complaining just would appreciate some of your thoughts on what are good options to consider to make that leap.
I want to move away from ML but this might be a bad time for it.
I focused on smaller companies as that’s what I wanted. Bunch of larger companies were hiring though.
> get baked
> Smoking a larger than normal quantity of marijuana, usually resulting in a good few hours of laziness, desire to eat fast food (or junk food) and/or fall asleep.
So, thank you for that data point. There's such a big world out there!
Cannabis specifically is a very easy drug to try for two reasons- the dispensaries usually cater to first timers, and it's a pretty "low intensity" drug in normal doses. The dispensaries that sell it know that a huge chunk of the population isn't familiar, and its pretty standard to ask an employee "I've never tried this before, what do I do, what should I buy, and what should I know going into this" and they'll be super helpful and give you solid advice. It's their job, and they're prepared for it. If you asked someone at a liquor store how to prepare to drink for the first time they'd laugh or roll their eyes - and this is nothing like that.
Don't feel pressured to do drugs if you don't want, but don't feel scared. That goes for anyone on the internet reading this - don't feel scared, go into the store and try to learn if you're curious, but don't feel pressured to partake.
If you really want to do it, try low grade edibles; do it in the presence of a friend so they can get you medical help if you need it. Only a small number of people will have a problem, but don’t take stupid chances with your body and mind, people.
That said, there’s really few cases of cannabis use going poorly, especially in the context of other drugs (alcohol, tobacco) and their documented harm. I’m not a doctor, I’m not a lawyer, etc so do your own research, but it is most likely a safe activity at a “normal” dosage for the average person.
> If you really want to do it, try low grade edibles; do it in the presence of a friend so they can get you medical help if you need it. Only a small number of people will have a problem, but don’t take stupid chances with your body and mind, people.
I do agree with this. Edibles are good because you don’t have to smoke, but bad because the affects can take upwards of 2Hr to hit. it can be hard to dose and many people get impatient and take more and then they don’t enjoy the sensation. There’s almost no documented case of overdosing especially in the context of amounts someone might buy, so that’s not likely a concern, but just having a bad time is likely. Do it with friends - it’s also more fun that way. Most people don’t turn 21 and start drinking alone, so don’t do this alone either. Establishing a sober medical monitor type relationship for taking a small edible is a bit extreme but don’t be alone.
How? For an adult human, marijuana is one of the safest substances out there. Easily safer than alcohol. Don't drive or operate heavy machinery and you'll be fine.
What percentage of people end up in the hospital from it, and how?
I'm not sure I'd recommend edibles for a first-timer. The high lasts a fairly long time, so if you don't like the feeling it's kind of annoying. Having a friend is always a good idea though.
People don’t get it because money was so cheap for so long, but the key word here is venture - this is extremely risky stuff. Adventurous. Uncertainty and low success rate is supposed to be standard.
But on the other hand rent in SF (which is where I do my remote work from) is high, so I can't get ahead.
Been a very, very rough few months. The new pay will be difficult to service my debt properly.
But I absolutely love learning and am excited to take courses. Just hard to decide which 1 course per semester to take.
Maybe also see if I can help with some research in EE or CS or computational biology.
Only thing I have going for me is that I have many years of non-professional programming experience and multiple great open source projects but at this point, I think my only hope is accepting anything. Any pay, any location, remote or in person. I'm already working near minimum wage jobs, so it's probably better to work something relevant on a resume.
I'm also in Canada so, it was sparse to begin with.
In times of prosperity, you can and do get hired without a degree. But when the industry takes a nose dive, you will get skipped over for candidates who do have a degree.
I hope you find something!
I have a brother whos a licensed electrician. When he was doing his on-job training, he always had steady work but once he got his full license and pay raise, he found himself getting laid off every year. The company would get less work for the winter and they axed the seniors right away.
This is the answer. Consider it a paid internship, do it for 15 month and then go make double somewhere else.
Compounding that is my desire to keep working remotely, or somewhere local to the DC metro area, so many of the same opportunities that would be available to me in the Bay area, had I remained there, are closed to me, because they're using a hybrid model.
I'm not in much of a rush, and I'm hopeful that I'll find interesting work with some startup.
What I've known for years, I'm finally seeing first hand: There are way too many people out there that should never have been engineers in the first place.
This is a rebalancing. Those who are competent will always be hired. Those who are are not, the jig is up.
In terms of basics it's akin to "fizz buzz".
whats the fast solution
that's a challenge for a technician, not an engineer's role.
I know plenty of engineers who can tell you how cars work, what customers like, how they should interact with the cloud, what functions make them safe,... They are ok at designing new models. But they would 100% feel distressed if they had to check their oil or tire pressure.
Also, knowing how to properly print an array is probably something you can find on the internet, when you're not familiar with the specifics of a language. So it's not even a relevant skill to test for a technician.
Secondly, "Those who are competent" is a terrible thing to hear from a recruiter. You usually hear that from mismanaged companies with no introspection nor continuous improvement process, who judge the candidates and absolutely not themselves nor their processes and job ads. They think that competence is an 1 dimensional absolute value, and interview you in java for a C# position, turn you down because you don't know the number of ports available in ipv4, or make you play games with dominoes.
or in that case :
> senior level front end position > console
you think all developers know how to develop console applications.
Unfortunately, a console application is pretty specific, uses specific packages and methods, and you never need that when you work on GUI apps or web apps. This question would have been a relevant if you wanted a sysadmin or a devops engineer to do scripts. But it is not relevant to interview a front end developer. FE developers have a knowledge of frameworks to build interfaces, as their title indicate. They don't do scripts for the console.
"It's not the job ad, the position, or the interviewing processes that are flawed. That candidate was definitely not born competent but had to learn his job, and we only want naturally skilled persons here" aka >Those who are competent will always be hired. Those who are are not, the jig is up.
Also bare in mind that the geography is going to make a big difference to your experience. Different countries are experiencing the recession in different ways and are at different points in the journey.
If anyone is struggling and is on the mid/senior/director side of their career (3+ yrs), I'm helping place people at my friends' Seed and Series A companies. Email me at j{at}markovmanagement.com if I can help ya!
There's toug competition for those looking to be hired.
I lost my job early Jan and found a new role by early Feb. It was difficult though. This was the first time I've ever experience recruiters ghosting me. I hustled like crazy to find my current role and I think I got quite lucky honestly.
Every time I see these threads I feel the need to remind people that no one's circumstances will be the same. Experience and geography are two very important factors in our industry. There are jobs out there, and if you can beat out a few other candidates you'll probably do fine. If you can't do that then you may struggle.
> Experience and geography are two very important factors in our industry.
yeah, I was wondering to what extent they mattered. Like to what extent you should be willing to relocate or wait for an open job in your area ? And to what extent you should apply for the same job, or switch to a totally new job. I've usually been very quick to relocate and to get a new job, even underpaid bc I didn't have experience.
But after just a few years, I believe I'm already paid more than if I continued on my first job. And there is a margin for progression, as the company still sees me as a beginner.
Did you have to relocated ? or to get a new job ? or you're keeping your routine in what you're already good at ?
problem with embedded is that it was paid less than SWEs, maybe that's another reason it's "easier" to have jobs.
I’m getting rejected from everything and recruiter contact has been virtually non existent since December. A few recruiters have reached out, but they usually don’t go far because “oh you don’t have recent professional experience in random language/library we use”
It was a mistake to enter this industry in the first place, particularly the way I did it, it’s just unfortunate it was so expensive to learn.
It could be a coincidence, but I've been writing more and more 'personal' cover letters, with more of a 'voice' and less formal stilted prose. Maybe people like it? Maybe people are just hiring again? Who knows.
Now I'm pretty much in square one, some possible interviews but nothing strong. I'm from Argentina and I'm looking for remote work, I guess it's even more difficult because the usual companies that hire people like me are startups.
First time I experience something like this.
There is more to life than work - and it may be hard to see that in the face of cost and running out of money.
Have you considered any adjacent or post-software gigs? I know some folks who have left to go study a particular science or end up in teaching. A good friend of mine left engineering to become a substitute and then full-time teacher.
Come on now, why do you feel like that is the plan?
Post your email in profile or something, plenty of us care for you. There's much more to life beyond a software job.
Sometimes I feel envious of people who don’t use computers at work. It would be nice to not have them be so tied to my reality.
It said that OP should take a lower caliber software job where Silicon Valley-tier engineers normally wouldn't apply because such a job would not reject them.
>Given how many better engineers now on market I feel there are no space for me anymore.
If we entertain the premise that there's an influx of superior talent hogging all the "good SV jobs" (which it's probably the hiring freeze due to market correction from massive overhiring and the looming recession, but let's go with the premise), that's precisely where there would be "space" for OP.
Those jobs absolutely exist, and re: burn out they can be pretty slow-pace to boot. (For example, defense/government work.)
For the most part during that time, pushing forward didn’t seem worth the energy at all. I’m glad I did though — I’m at least rather curious now, about how the next year will go for me.
I will reply to every person, no ghosting here.
Things are looking very very grim, even compared to how the market looked to me a few months back.
It's still invite-only, but check it out at https://sharedrecruiting.co/ and let me know what you think!
Take it from a millennial who graduated into the recession in 2011, even when everyone is saying the job market sucks, there are always opportunities for younger/fresher people out there, you just might have to be willing to take a "worse" position to get started - but in this industry you can always level up later once things calm down.
Don't get distracted by all the people you see on here or Blind talking about their $500k TC in their mid-20s, those people are far, far outliers. I've never worked in FAANG, self-taught my way into webdev in my early 30s after two other half-careers in my 20s, and I managed to find a job with 0 experience during COVID because I adjusted my expectations down to "normal" salary ranges (sub-$100k), as long as it paid my bills and gave room to grow professionally.
As a young person you have both lower salary requirements (requirements in the sense of "I need at least $XYZ per month to keep the lights on) and a lot of time, both of which are massive advantages when taking the long view of your career.