I spent 6 years writing complex, deep react code. then I couldn't get a job | Hacker News Reader

I spent 6 years writing complex, deep react code. then I couldn't get a job

11 pointsmarstall9 comments

I worked for a large, prominent manufacturer for the past 6 years, writing react native code every day and architecting 2 apps through major growth and constant iteration. gesture based animations, complex forms, real time data, involved cacheing strategies etc. working with a high end team.

got laid off in December and spent the next 6 months applying for every fully remote react job I could find (I live in the sticks). ~60 applications, ~15 interviews, ~8 technical coding style interviews ... 0 offers.

what gives? is it because I can only do remote? (though these were jobs advertised as fully remote). Are these companies just flooded with people better than me?

I tend to fear its because I didn't do well enough on the gotcha-laden coding interviews - but I'm really good and sharp on the stuff they were trying to test!

finally got a job using a different/older stack but I want to try to gain insight into what is happening with this corner of the job market in 2023. hear what others are experiencing. is it just me??

You need to apply to more roles. 10 applications a month is not enough. Interviewing is chaotic, so there’s an element of luck and just having a higher raw number of attempts helps.

If you think it’s due to remote, apply for some non remote stuff and test your hypothesis.

If you think it might be salary expectations, test your hypothesis by asking for a lower salary.

And so on.

If you’re gonna spend 6 months getting a job, you have time to think and run experiments.

I don't think your lack of success is because of the remote aspect. An interview is meant to see if your skill set can match with what the company is looking for and values. I don't know the React market and whether companies are getting flooded with candidates and can just swipe away people like tinder, but to me, your lack of success is either you are competiting against too many people, or they don't value your React knowledge / experience enough or don't think they can train you to get up to speed on how their tech stack works.

> I don't think your lack of success is because of the remote aspect

Otoh I’m pretty confident I would have a job by now if I were open to non remote work.

Of course, I don’t do react work, but equally droll .NET work. I’ve had some interviews, usually with a few companies at a time with large dry spell in between, but a vast majority have been from recruiters reaching out with on-site or hybrid roles which would require a tedious and expensive move I don’t need right now. When I scroll through something like LinkedIn’s job board adding the remote filter significantly cuts out results, leaving a lot of low effort spam listings (i.e. recruiting firm posting the same remote job for every goddamn city the hiring manager could think of). I’ve had one interview for a remote role this go around and it was earlier this week, but I doubt it will go anywhere. I’ve been out of work a little bit longer than OP with A roughly similar YoE.

The other thing I’ve noticed is a lot more “specialist” roles than I’ve ever seen before and a lot less “generalist” ones.

I have been seeing this as well, it seems like the “gotcha” levels at even the early stage of interviews are at an all time high as well. A few years ago getting the “gotcha” part of a question was mostly icing on the cake as long as you could solve the rest of the problem.

It seems like there is just such a massive influx of people applying for the same positions that companies can be extremely selective, so it’s not that you are doing poorly in the interview necessarily but there are much higher chances of a few people acing the interview now

I’ve been unemployed roughly as long but I thought it was because I was rejecting any posting involving react.

Actually I did hear recently from one would-be employer that they were being inundated with AI generated applications and just couldn’t get through them all…

Sorry to hear this. I don't think it's just you. The people laid off from FAANG might have flooded the market :/

Are you talking about USA based companies/market? Fully remote isn't enough info.

> ~60 applications, ~15 interviews, ~8 technical coding style interviews

Some people can go as high as several 1000's applications and several 100's of interviews and still no offers. So do not despair, it's number game even if you knew your craft really well.

2 pieces of advice:

-Do not overly target your application to the job posting, as long as you have a 50% match, go ahead and apply.

-Opt initially for non-remote jobs, if there are more non-remote options, and then either lookout for remote jobs, or stop showing up at the workplace and work remotely saying you have obligations. It may go against your personal ethics to do so but for most part the corporate world is sufficiently twisted that one has to (seemingly) break one's personal moral code of conduct.

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