Ask HN: Is finding a dev job getting difficult in 2023?

I’ve always found success leveraging past coworkers when finding work: basically if I know an old colleague who is now at a cool company I reach out to them for a referral before applying such that I can get to the top of the list of candidates and often seek to talk to the hiring manager directly to see what they really need from this role, what pain points they’re looking to fix in the next few months.

Gosh I wish I could do this but my former coworkers going back ten years are all lifers- I was the only one to leave

You're asking an empirical question that will almost certainly only have anecdotal responses.

I am finding it extremely difficult, its hard for me to believe its a tight labor market with so little employment in LA.