Ask HN: Where Are All the Jobs At?

Tech job market is fucked because rates aren’t zero and money isn’t free for the first time in like 15 years.

Middle class continued to be crushed, everyone noticed that tech was the only way to have a shot at upper middle class, and rushed for the same doors.

The “extras” that weren’t making the cut got let go last year and even harder this year.

The only way to win is to stop playing the game. Make your own company. Get a loan from the SBA. Fuck the disgusting wanna live forever VC extractions class. Get out of the rat race. Stop rewarding the cancerous leeches that are dismantling everything else so they can go do cocaine in Mykonos. Stop playing their game.

> The only way to win is to stop playing the game. Make your own company

I don’t have the time nor the resources to do that now. If I could get a job that would allow me to stabilize a bit, then I could start thinking about that.

SBA loan! Friends and family loan. You’ll get a job, feel stabler and safer for awhile, and be too tired to work on other stuff until the next time you’re in the same boat.

This is ridiculous advice, what is someone supposed to do with a loan? You can't just "business" out of thin air. You'll just be paying interest rates or worse.

It's TikTok advice, the classic:

- open an LLC to protect your -$10,000 in assets

- open lines of credit using the LLC (don't worry about what a Paydex is)

- ???

https://www.tiktok.com/@moneytips.tt/video/72389957727446663...

This sounds like a neat infinite money trick, are these the right steps?

- Open LLC

- Take out huge, collateralized SBA loan

- ???

- Profit?

Needs one more step to transition from meme to reality:

- Open LLC - Take out huge, collateralized SBA loan - ??? - Profit? - ???

The first ??? represents all the steps and actions. The second ??? represents all the consequences.

You're getting some rather pessimistic replies.

But I get what you're saying --you're saying, get funds together by any means necessary (SBA is a straightforward path) and bootstrap/found a company.

It's still certainly possible to start up a software business. Basically the business needs to provide enough value to customers that they'll pay for it, and what they pay needs to cover the costs of the business.

That is profitability (which is something even many large VC-backed tech companies have totally forgotten how to do).

Software businesses can be started with low costs...

I'll probably get the same pessimistic replies, but this is definitely a valid path for the brave and competent.

Some of the pessimism may be from really competent folks who realize that a business environment that is so hostile that companies that essentially have infinite money compared to you start tightening their belts and let you go then won't rehire you...

...may not be the best environment to go and start taking out loans to open your own business. Especially not for a micro-SaaS where profit margins should be something like 80 something percent on a terrible day.

SBA loans are better matched for opening a business where your margins are in the single digits and you need to pay vendors X weeks out before you can make a single sale. Not selling software you can write for $0 and host on a $10 VPS.

Brave and competent do not need his advice in the first place. Others will end in debt with no job nor company. Building a company is full time job with it's competences...

I look forward to tomorrow's Ask HN: "I started a business, where are all the clients at?"

Do you actually have experience behind the advice you are giving? What you are suggesting is a terrible idea for most people. For a time, I used to think about that. Getting an SBA loan is really not as easy as people on the internet claim. Most companies fail, and a company that is founded with the premise of "leaving the rat race", as opposed to an idea that brings genuine value, is even more likely to fail and leave the owner in a worse position.

Better advice would be to consider changing or shifting skills towards something that's in greater demand right now and find ways of meeting people who can connect the OP with a job. Given that they are living with a friend, I don't think they have the leeway to start a business (and likely fail).

The markets, along with the world economy are undergoing substantial change.

Its crunch time for lots of people in the west - and if you have a bog standard web development job with little specialization, you will be competing with huge numbers of people to get work, including all of those recent juniors entering the market because of the boot camps they did a couple of years ago when things were frothy. These jobs still exist - but competition will be more fierce.

There are many things you can do proactively - and its important to stay proactive, even if you feel defeated. Maybe getting another FTE job isn't for you right now, then sidestep, find a side-hussle, or train up another skill and diversify in yourself so you can build back better and not be left vulnerable next time this happens.

I think developers generally speaking overly invest in just development and computer-science, but there are metric shit-tonnes of ways to make money in this world. If you don't know any other way, learn some other way. Find some other domain of knowledge you always wanted to learn, and learn it, then figure out ways to create small businesses to monetize on it.

> If you don't know any other way, learn some other way. Find some other domain of knowledge you always wanted to learn, and learn it, then figure out ways to create small businesses to monetize on it.

I can “learn” anything. What I cannot do is synthesize years of experience in some other domain. Most jobs are not like web development. They are not interested in outsiders or people who lack traditional credentials and experience in their exact field.

Have you considered taking out student loans, living meagerly for a few years, and getting the credential? At that point, you've cleared a very selective automated filtration mechanism holding you back and your prior experience would launch you. Plus, by then, the economy will be better.

> What I cannot do is synthesize years of experience in some other domain. [...] They are not interested in outsiders or people who lack traditional credentials and experience in their exact field.

This is the third thread about this same topic that you've posted. I get that you're desperate, but what else are you doing with your time?

You say employers are ghosting you and you express belief that it's because you're not ticking the right boxes. What are you doing to make yourself more marketable so you can tick those boxes?

"Years of experience" is arbitrary and negotiable. Employers routinely make dumbass demands like 5+ years of experience in tech that only launched last night. If you really can "learn" anything, you're going to have to step up your showmanship and convince them of that during the interview. On paper you're competing with people falsifying and exaggerating such backgrounds altogether.

(If you're serious about becoming an airplane mechanic, consider the military. They're hurting for recruits, and your lack of a degree would ironically put you on the vocational track. They also provide housing.)

> learn some other way. Find some other domain of knowledge you always wanted to learn, and learn it

This is a multi-year commitment. Look at how long it is to go to school for a degree

Agree. Things are very unstable and undergoing significant change. I don't think anything will coalesce until after November 2024 at the earliest. Even still, plan for long term uncertainty.

1) stay hopeful and positive, and preserve existing relationships. 2) expand your social network by attending free in-person clubs, events, etc. this is where you'll find your job. anything where people gather repeatedly over time, so you can make real connections. 3) lower financial expectations and take any job. cash flow is important in times like this.

Keep looking online also, but I suspect you'll find your next opportunity through old fashioned in-person networking.

It may not seem like it, but skilled developers really are hard to find. You want to be that lucky break for someone.

Mild practical advice. Check for the:

"Ask HN: Who is hiring?" threads. Such as: Ask HN: Who is hiring? (August 2023) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36956865

"Ask HN: Who wants to be hired?" threads. Such as: Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (August 2023) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36956867

They generally happen each month, and when I have posted a well thought out resume on the "Ask HN: Who is hiring?" I have gotten responses, even not necessarily leading to anything.

"Ask HN: Who wants to be hired?" also provides advice on what people view as an "interesting" short resume summary, and what types of skills are showing up (for the observant).

On topic of "who is hiring", the number of posts is half of what was two years ago.

Do not disagree with you. Just attempting to provide better advice than "take out a loan bro" or "make your own company bro." Like I said, attempting practical advice based on what the author requested.

"Where the jobs at?" Check "Ask HN: Who is hiring?"

During the pandemic a ton of people saw an opportunity to move in a low COL area and get a remote dev job. The market is flooded with people with no degrees / bootcamp willing to work remotely. This was kinda working while companies had no other choice than to hire remotely due to the sanitary situation.

Now that we are back to normal; many companies are going to hire in-site. The one that aren't have an immense pool to choose from. And you having no degrees and being out of work for a long time means you are at the bottom of that pile. Unfortunately, this is the consequence of your decision to favour your short term comfort over your long term employment (I know I am going to get downvoted to oblivion for this).

At this point, you need to act as if you were new to the market and target junior positions. Since you cannot afford high COL, maybe aim for mid/low COL cities, and get ready to relocate there - possibly getting a loan to afford the move. If you can; try getting some form degree, online certification, etc. Everything a new dev would be doing; but use your experience to speedup the process and get good grades.

Good luck !

Absolutely do not get a loan, especially in this economy. You can very easily end up condemning yourself to years of what is effectively slavery. You would be better off just accepting your situation and finding freelance work through connections, flipping stuff on ebay, doing gig work etc.

When I was out of career-work I managed to get some minimum-wage programming jobs by targetting crypto groups and I ended up starting an ebay side-business that still brings in about 300 USD/m for not much work. My CoL is very low so that pays for everything except food for me, that's one of the advantages of moving to a low CoL area.

"finding freelance work"

Any tips? The freelance sites just don't work currently, even the crappiest and shadiest 'jobs' are mobbed by 50+ proposals, and anyone new to the platform won't even have their proposals read.

Don't go through freelance sites, use Discord and Telegram 'market' communities. I also managed to get some success advertising my CAD skills on moneromarket.io (not affliated)

I was in the same position and the way I got a job is by significantly improving the emotional intelligence of my applications. Meaning. Craft your CV and your linkedin to the letter. Make it super minimal, focus on past 5 years, because at this hour, details dont matter, social bonds do.

Everyone has a boss including the person who reads your application and it cant be rejected if you seem to be a perfect match socially speaking.

Emotional intelligence is the crack in the wall. All they want. They could not care more about how good you trully are providing they even know what a good dev is.

Play the social game. Buy new clothes that convey what they want you to convey. Study profile pictures and craft a great one. Study their mindset.

Aim for quality, not quantity.

Finally, you can do QA? Congratulation, now you've been a QA for the last 5 years. Do what you need to do. Fuck em. After all, you've contributed and now youre dumped. Employee is not viable. A new director arrives and decides your career is over when you, as a nerd, created his own fucking job. So do it with a fuck em mindset. Beat them as their own game. And let it be known that employee is not viable (without unions?).

Good luck.

Would you mind sharing your LinkedIn profile and/or a link to your cv?

In my bio

Have you tried a remote government job?

https://www.usds.gov/apply

https://18f.gsa.gov/join/

https://www.usajobs.gov/help/faq/job-announcement/remote/

Yep, screened out of most I’ve applied to. I don’t tend to get past the very rigid bureaucratic checklist they do. Local government too, can’t be exactly sure why, but I assume it’s the lack of a degree.

Have you considered mock interviews with someone just to make sure you’re not self sabotaging?

> If the job market is ostensibly so great, why can't I manage to find anything?

The tech market isn't doing very well. You can check it my the recurring posts like yours here, many with hundreds of comments. It is a tough time out there. I would recommend start something for yourself, an app, a saas project. It can help you keep up with the tech asked in the job posts and also have an excuse for the gap in your CV.

> The tech market isn't doing very well.

I get that, but why can’t I find anything else.

Years ago, when I was working retail jobs, they would hire fucking anyone. I got stuck working with stoners, alcoholics, and just general clowns, but suddenly these sort of places won’t hire me?

Retail not hiring people like you before the downturn as well.

Your resume now signals "white collar upper-middle class" and retail will assume:

- You'll still be looking for work when you join

- You can't/won't work hard

All my friends with PhDs in non-marketable specialties have faced this problem for a decade.

Of course I have no idea how you present yourself or how things exactly are at your location on earth, but they could feel you're overqualified. If you have tech jobs on your resume they could easily assume they can't pay you and/or you get bored at the job and leave quite quickly.

In my experience the best way to get in somewhere is to build a personal connection. Try to reach out by phone or in person to the other side. Make sure you understand the person and the company on the other side. That really helps to get to the top of the list, especially at smaller companies. Then still it can take a thousand no's to get one yes.

Good luck! Hope you land a job soon!

Don't include your tech experience in your CV if you're applying for retail jobs. You're probably getting screened out for being "too experienced" since they think you'll churn as soon as a better opportunity comes along (which is true).

Take out student loans and go to university to either get your undergrad or graduate degree. Take time to reskill, and Uncle Sam will give you loans to live full-time as a student - not just for tuition, but for your living expenses. It will give you 2-4 years to recalibrate and future proof your career.

I’d love to, but I don’t think I’ll be getting any aid. When I tried some years back, I was offered nothing. I wasn’t making crazy money, middle class income for sure, but a fraction of what’s considered “good” tech money and I was denied aid.

I’m not saying get student aid, I’m just saying get student loans. Pay the retail amount, if you have to. https://lendedu.com/blog/loans-for-college-living-costs

Fed offers guaranteed student loans, to my understanding.

You're currently unemployed and made nothing for a very long time. Your experience from a few years ago is no longer applicable.

Unless there's something you're not disclosing like a drug conviction or being a dependent of your parents, you should be eligible for Pell grants and other offers. If you're a California resident, vocational school should be near-free for you. There are no criteria for student loans besides a pulse.

Stay on your friend's good side and throw a few bucks his way. Getting an apartment with student loans as your only source of income can be tricky (in this market, I'd expect it impossible). You may be aged-out of dorms and they kick you out every summer anyway.

> You're currently unemployed and made nothing for a very long time.

Thats true, but iirc, when filling out the forms, they ask for tax information, from two years prior to the year you're applying.

> Stay on your friend's good side and throw a few bucks his way.

Unfortunately, they're probably moving out of state early next year, which is why I'm particularly. worried.

This. It's not the market per se...

This is a great idea. Fill the big hole in your CV; ride out the shitty job market; and give yourself more runway. You could work part-time as a developer once you find the right place too.

Feel similarly unemployable. Year and half ago even FAANG recruiters were knocking down the door to talk and not having worked for a period didn't make me a leper. Now can't get any interviews pretty much regardless of position or salary. Tech job market is terrible.

Sorry to hear you're in that situation. Having been responsible for hiring at a few places I would stress to keep yourself busy and your tech skills active. If you have a big gap with no explanation or activity it's hard to justify bringing you in for interview. Find things to do, and put it on your CV but in a way that shows this is part of a work gap and you're looking for FTE.

You could contribute to open source. This can take a few forms. A few small PRs on well known projects can go a long way. Many projects are looking for docs and better test coverage, these can be easy ways in.

You can make something on your own and open source it. I'd suggest something small but complete with some sort of interesting novelty to it. Make sure any projects have interesting READMEs. Don't just follow a TODO list tutorial in language X and stick it up GitHub.

You could volunteer your tech skills somewhere. Even contacting charities and seeing if they need help with anything.

You could try write a blog, but with a specific focus on an area that interests you. I was out of work for a while and planned to do this for horizontal database scaling for example.

Any of these things look infinitely better to a potential employer than a blank space.

Finally, it's really important to own the narrative. Put on your CV you've been out of work but looking for a new opportunity. List the things you've been doing. Maybe there's a framing you can put on it, like a career break. Don't be ashamed by it, stay positive. Good luck.

One thing that helped me in your situation was to join a talent agency. I’m not sure what they’re actually called, but basically you show up and say hi, I’m a developer, and they find you a job. They also take a large portion of what would normally be your salary.

> They also take a large portion of what would normally be your salary.

This sounds like a horrible deal. Where are they finding the jobs? Why can't people put in a little work and bypass them?

Because seven years of schmoozing and building relationships with hiring managers in some transect of industry is not replicable in a few months.

All of the recruiters I work with have put in copious amounts of time to understand how to put the right candidates in front of me and have learned from every proposed slam dunk I or one of my staff flunked out.

This attitude is some combination of contempt for the low end of the market and the dentist's fallacy. Certainly, the low end of the market runs on shotgun work, but the high end of the market is not replicable with ~any of the last decade of your software development skills.

> Retail and restaurant companies won't ever respond to my applications, despite constantly spamming the same jobs month after month.

I don't know of any place in the U.S. that doesn't have wanted signs in the windows for restaurant work. Between fast food, back of house, or front of house, there really are a ton of options both in downtown areas and suburbs from my experience.

Have you actually gone to one of these locations, physically, and applied? Did you follow up instead of just dropping an application by and hoping for the best?

> Have you actually gone to one of these locations, physically, and applied?

Are there any places these days that are sitting around with stacks of paper job applications waiting for someone to walk in and ask for one? I figured by now just about everyone would ask you to apply online and showing up in person would just get you strange looks like "how has this person never heard of the internet?"

I don’t know about the method of application, but the restaurant industry, in particular, has almost always operated on hiring bodies that actually walk in the door versus applications from someone online. Especially true for entry-level stuff in my experience (10 years in the service industry).

No, service and retail still like when people show in person

This. I'm taking a break from big tech, and started a restaurant a couple years ago. We get a lot of people sending emails/social media messages saying they want a job, but so far we've only hired those who have come into the location (with great success). I use it as a litmus test for someone being able to actually show up for the job when hired.

The old adage of "why don't you go down and ask for a job" still works in service/retail.

> Of course now, I’m more open to in-site roles, but I’m in no position to move, especially not to some high CoL area.

So, still not really open to on-site then, unless it happens to be in your area?

Or if relocation is offered.

Then you're actually open to moving and probably shouldn't say you're not.

I wonder if that's the problem. You might have been selling yourself short.

dog relo is /always/ on the table for on-site.

What’s a person supposed to do?

Relocating to SF/NY/LA etc. Might cost $5k+, and that’s estimating on the low side for a single person.

You might be perfectly willing to take a job in a high COL area, but completely unable to do so logistically.

Is it just the states that the tech market is bad? What about moving abroad for awhile?

If I could move at all right now, I would, but it would be difficult for me to move even domestically right now.

We're having the same situation in the UK rn

I recently joined a local tech network and was surprised to see that their slack channel is flooded with "career changers". I assume everyone went for a 3 month coding bootcamp once they caught wind of the reality of remote work. I also think that their plan might not be going too well judging by the numbers

What's your primary area of experience?

What are you best at, job wise (within tech)? Not what do you _want_ to do, but what can you most _consistently_ do? I'd suggest concentrating your efforts there.

It does feel like the market is tighter than normal, but I still get recruiters and cold calls, so companies must be still hiring. ("Ouster", for instance, has open positions. I do not work there. There's some entity https://www.a.team/ which could be something, tho I decided not to follow up, got an odd vibe.)

You might have to fall back to ...shudder... retail, I did, much earlier in my career, and was the worst 18 months of my life. Got through it though! So can you. :)

Sometimes it just takes forever, and yeah, getting all the rejections isn't exactly good for self esteem...

> I managed to get interviews throughout this time, but it always ended with them selecting another candidate

It seems like this is the crux of the problem. Your resume is getting you as far as the final handful, despite a bear market. That means your process up to that point is pretty good! The problem seems to be occuring in those interviews. Might be technique, might be information they're uncovering (or not uncovering), might be something else. I'd focus my improvement efforts there.

After that, it's just a numbers game. Keep shovelling leads in at the top of the sales funnel, and eventually a close will fall out of the bottom of the funnel.

All the stuff about the state of the job market and why might be interesting, but it doesn't solve your problem. Ignore it. Focus on being a great interviewee.

Keep trying, it's hard but not impossible. You might have to take a job that is not the ideal one but that will give you a re-start and get you out of the rut.

I know someone in a similar situation who is joining an apprenticeship program for a unionized trade. Switching careers may not be ideal, but it sounds like it may be time for you to consider less than ideal options. If opportunities open up in your original career later, you can mix careers.

>If the job market is ostensibly so great, why can't I manage to find anything?

It's not, they're falsifying the numbers by double-counting people who are having to get multiple jobs to survive. The economy is totally broken right now, this is worse than what caused 2008.

Is taking a bike/car and delivering food via DoorDash or instacart a possibility?

If I was close to financial ruin, I would do that and probably in my area could earn enough to afford a rented room and minimum quality of life, while I'd continue searching for something better.

A lot of these "gig economy" jobs are not really ways to make money. They'll let you tread water --you'll pay your car payment and gas, but suffer later in depreciation, insurances, taxes, and overhead.

I do not recommend anyone does this (unless it's very clearly profitable).

That’s why I also said “bike” and “while I’d continue searching for better”.

In my area tons of people deliver food via bicycle. Very little overhead there. I would do that in a heartbeat if I were strapped for cash. Pretty sure I could clear at least $50 net a day, which would be plenty to not live off a friend.

In most of America, that's not feasible whatsoever.

You can't squeeze juice from a stone. There are no jobs. Figure out something else to do.

Get in touch with the same firms that get all the H1B's jobs. They may be able to place you somewhere. If they can get an Indian a job from the Uni of Hyderabad, I would think you have a chance and there won't be any paper work required.

My Fortune 500 employer has been in a hiring freeze for the last 1.5 years.

You're on HN; can you code? The manufacturing industry is perennially short on process controls programmers/technicians/engineers.

Have you tried gig jobs like instacart and uber?