Being laid off in 2023-2024 as an early-career developer
fpsvogel.com
fpsvogel.com
I’ve got 20 years in tech: web, mobile, cloud and early in my career I won a NASA medal for software innovation - worked in dozens of industries and led teams of 40 people for MM$$ flagship applications
Tried my network but nothing so far and its been really frustrating
It's reassuring to know that I'm not alone (so presumably it's not just because I'm a terrible developer), but disheartening at the same time because who knows when things will improve?
I'm in an ok situation financially (no mortgage, earning a little bit doing AI training) so have the freedom to develop a couple apps of my own. This is something I've wanted to do for ages, but they're a long way from making any kind of money. I can't complain but I'd really rather have a stable income at this stage.
It sucks but now but it won't be forever
Congrats on getting married though! It’s why I’m trying to find a job haha.
And yeah! Honestly it took a while for me to propose because we were having financial difficulties at the time, too, and I wanted to do things right. But even with hindsight, if I had known I would've run out of money after the wedding, I wouldn't have done anything differently at all. It was an amazing day and worth it all. Do whatever you can to make that day exactly what you want, there is no other feeling like it. Best of luck to you
I am starting a new job in April with a company that contacted me via LinkedIn in December.
I've added a note near the top of my post clarifying that the "early-career" of the title is only because I'm speaking from my own experience.
- Tailoring resumes to suit ATS systems (now with AI/other automation) - Leetcode and study for live interviews - Identifying suitable positions on job boards for cold applications - Probing your network - Responding to unsolicited contacts - Chasing ghost recruiters
It's disheartening and frustrating to remain unemployed for an extended period, especially when I possess relevant experience and expertise, yet continually face rejections due to the challenges of navigating the recruitment pipeline.
Do not look any further into it, there are no other reasons one might not want to bring their family there or live there onesself.
Probably clean streets too.
There are many reasons why one wouldn't want to live in Dubai. I was stationed in Dubai for work for two years, I know the place very well. Overall, I would say Dubai is very different than how it is portrayed in western media. Personally I find it amazing how much the place has grown in such a short time span.
But I have chosen to live in Switzerland(not my native country), a country more aligned with my personal values. Freedom for the individual, a strong democracy, a diverse culture, with people who genuinely care about the planet and their neighborhood.
But I do think a person grows when they are forced to live in cultures very different from their own.
As a kid I lived in Qatar and Oman in the 80s (born in Scotland but my dad worked in oil and gas), so I have experience with gulf states of the sort maybe you're thinking of in your mind. Yes - those places were often not great places to be a woman. But 2024 Dubai is a much different place. I visited my sister in 2022 when I had to travel to Abu Dhabi for work, and for the first time Dubai seemed like a place where I could imagine living on a long term basis.
I took a look at realtor.com and homes there and in surrounding areas are like 200k to 400k.
In Bay Area homes are like 1.5 million plus. And unlike LCOL areas the prices here will continue to go up.
I grew up in Midwest. It’s quite cheap to live there. Homes where I grew up still cost like 200k.
The increasing of class sizes refutes the claim that low teacher pay is due to too much supply of teachers.
Setting aside the merits of teaching and childcare on their own, failing to fill teaching positions now in favor of other jobs is going to lead to students who are unprepared to continue to fill said jobs in the future.
https://www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news/illinois-teacher-shorta...
Either Illinois is in a state of poverty where parents can't afford to educate their kids, the people of Illinois don't value education. They are, in practice, signalling quite clearly that they think there are more important things teachers could be doing. It isn't that hard in principle to set up a private school, you need a building, some desks, a chalkboard and a teacher. Pay 'em what you like. I'm sure there are a lot of helpful regulations to comply with too that'll push the complexity up but it isn't that hard.
This is the families with children making choices.
No doubt that number is skewed by the Chicago region. School funding is dominated by property taxes; they are high in the Chicago area and significantly less in others. It is indeed a local choice being made.
This leaves the 70% in a position where it takes extreme effort to move forward. Starting a new private school system is a big effort for a position that says teachers should get 50k instead of 35k.
> Starting a new private school system is a big effort for a position that says teachers should get 50k instead of 35k.
It really isn't. Or more accurately, if it is then that is the problem rather than the salary being paid. Teaching kids to the standards of a system that is currently paying its teachers ~$35k is pretty straightforward when you get down to it; and improving on it would not be hard. The economy is made up of people continuously taking positions on these sorts of issues.
I spent decade(s) being educated, I've got a respectable number of letters I can put after my name and all the way through the capital costs outside a couple of science labs and the actual school building were negligible. And a big chunk of the important material is available online for free. Education in real terms is a really easy field to enter and compete in. But I think if anyone tried they'd just discover that people don't actually want to pay teachers money. They want someone else to pay teachers money. Because without that little rider there is only a rather small problem here to solve.
Actually no, the low salary may simply be lagging slightly behind market conditions. Schools can't just magically pay all teachers more because of a temporary shortage of applicants, and paying only the new hires more would be unfair. Salary increases need to be well-justified and applied uniformly, as teacher salaries are some of the most structured in the whole economy and paid for by taxes that can't be changed quickly. So eventually, the salaries might go up, but the shortage might also lessen too as more graduates appear.
From just a purely economic perspective, it seems like a trivial investment given the higher order effects.
Instead, we are going to suffer the higher order effects in the opposite direction.
Just insane but we seem to be getting really good as a society at making dumb decisions.
Also for new grads, the best advice I can give you: join a fortune 500 company. Startups are extremely cut throat and volatile, esp. in this environment where everything is under scrutiny, interest rates are high, etc. If you can get into a FAANG, Pintrest, xyz and climb the ladder, it's likely better than being taken advantage of at a startup - which I've seen more often times than not.
> Also for new grads, the best advice I can give you: join a fortune 500 company.
I think the problem is not that the new grads are not applying. They simply are not getting a chance. It's not a matter of choosing between F500 and startups.
Maybe if you went to an elite university and live in the Bay Area, but realistically I'd suggest new grads apply to non-tech companies.
Not every developer job is at a software company.
Someone who tried to hire me in 2021 (I turned them down), went seeking themselves in 2022 and had 8 offers. They went seeking again in 2023 (they chose poorly, hated it) and it took them 6 months and dozens upon dozens of interviews to secure something.
They don't call it a job market for nothing.
Generally, the AWS listings for the country are suddenly zero – nil. Microsoft's are close to zero and I haven't heard back from them at all. I saw one Google job ad in a smaller hometown of mine where this region's GCP servers are located which I applied to and came across later on LinkedIn, but it showed that the job had over a hundred applicants in under a week.
The salary ranges mentioned to me during my interviews I did have, e.g. for the larger consultancy role taking place at the country HQ in the capital city were abysmally low (like ridiculously low), so I guess they went with someone more eager to work for what they were willing to pay. That is, earning half of what the local junior factory welder does here in northern Europe (they do night shifts though etc.). The title for the role was: Data & AI Consultant, and it's one of the Big4 accounting / audit / consultancy firms. Anywho, they were telling I'd be working at 100% capacity without a lot of time for self-development or anything else for that matter, which is fine, but in essence, and to summarize, I've personally seen a huge shift downward in the last year in the job market and frankly, it looks rather terrible right now.
I have no visibility into the layoffs happening in the industry, but looking from the outside it does indeed seem grim. By now I'm actually thinking I should've seriously considered taking anything they were willing to offer me at all, or even working half-free to get myself back to working again! Well, I guess I'll just continue looking, but my expectations have been calibrated in a major way, that's for sure... So I guess we're all sailing in the same boat right now job-market-wise.
I'm a senior dev who started coding at 14, with university degree, with 15 years commercial of experience working on some large projects. I also worked on some high profile projects. I was raised in a small town and almost nobody knew how to code there and so I self-taught myself from books and online.
I after finishing university, I worked for various companies including a distributed trading platform handling 30k+ concurrent users. I designed and wrote (as leader of a small team) the P2P network layer of a Blockchain worth $300 million which has never been hacked and never went down (it's been over 5 years since my team's code was rolled out). I'm also a good team player.
I also built many open source projects including a successful one with several thousands of stars on GitHub.
Yet I can't even get first interviews for jobs. I never earned above $120k per year (USD). Even after 10 years and being the top dev in every company I worked at.
Then I read about juniors getting $160k straight out of uni and people changing careers into software development making the same as juniors. I'm actually starting to believe conspiracy theories about targeted individuals. WTF.
It's disturbing because while all these people were out partying and having fun, I was teaching myself coding. Now they're all getting paid more than me.
Then people downvote me on HN when I tell my story. WTF.
If your skills are as strong as you perceive them, then there is at least ONE valid reason you haven't landed a more profitable job, especially if you were applying between 2018-2022. I recommend paying for a reputable third party to review your resume, and your "about me" statement. They don't even need to be trained in cs. You'll also need to do so with an open mind and not be defensive about criticism. Good luck!
Anyways unfortunately no, but look on LinkedIn and ask for references.
> It's disturbing because while all these people were out partying and having fun, I was teaching myself coding. Now they're all getting paid more than me.
I'm sorry, but this statement is telling. Take some personal responsibility: the job market is much different today, and successfully navigating it without generational wealth takes a set of skills that you must develop.
A sister comment recommended a resume review, but I would suggest going further and looking into mock interview services where you can get honest feedback about your interview skills. I find interview/interpersonal skills to often be the choke point for many individuals who have a hard time navigating the market and don't know why.
When I talk to recruiters, initially, they sound excited but for some reason ghost me or they invent new job tech requirements which were not listed on the advert (and which are trivial and I could easily catch up on). I've heard stuff like "Although this position is for a Node.js role, the head of engineering is particular and likes candidates who have some past experience with C#..." WTF!!
I think my problems may be related to my involvement in crypto. I tried to actually improve things there. Feels like what happens to heads of state in foreign countries who try to improve their people's lives to the detriment of foreign investors... But weird because I'm literally a nobody! I didn't get much exposure outside of my immediate community.
To be completely frank, this sounds like a paranoid delusion. But, I don't know you and I keep out of cryptocurrency drama, so I'll withhold judgement. Have you looked into work outside of that niche?
The therapist would think I'm being reasonable if they heard the full story. My ex-colleagues would back me up on that.
I’m not saying this you, it’s just an example from my life. If your experience is in sharp contrast to how you see yourself, it’s worth taking a look at how others might see you.