Some big name layoffs aside, the market feels to be roughly the same size. What's missing is the churn.
1. Leads and cold messages from recruiters are for roles that tend to pay a significant amount less than my current role. Easily 20%-50% less. This tells me that companies are still looking to play arbitrage and sell (fire/layoff) high, buy low. That's a losing game for me. No thanks.
2. I like my team and the work. There are quirks like any company. There's nothing that's motivating me to look for a new job other than occasional boredom or frustration that passes.
3. A fear I have is joining a new company, then getting laid off. Until the layoff trend subsides a job change is not appealing.
4. New hires need to contribute to profitability, not just growth. It's just plain harder to justify hiring and get reqs opened in the current business climate. Part of that is board and exec group think. Another part is higher interest rates and cost of capital. Not being able to depreciate software dev expenses anymore hurts too.
Churn is indeed down.
If you have less churn, you have better efficiency and perhaps can get more done with fewer engineers.
Also interviewing and onboarding people takes a lot of time and effort from other employees, if it is being done right.
I don’t know to what degree this is happening but people staying in roles longer definitely helps. Even better if they are happy in those roles and not held hostage by a tougher job market.
True. But the downside is groupthink. New hires bring new ideas, new perspectives, etc. Heck, even something as simple explaining X or Y during onboarding forces the "teacher" to rethinking and reinterpret.
No chun? No new blood. No new ideas.