I got laid off and realized how broken tech hiring is | Hacker News Reader

I got laid off and realized how broken tech hiring is

10 pointsnirvanist30 comments

In February, I got laid off from a small startup due to budget cuts.

I’m a senior developer with 20 years of experience, and until now I had never really struggled to find a job. Recruiters used to reach out regularly, and opportunities were always there.

This time was different.

After more than 100 applications, I started noticing patterns that didn’t make sense. The same companies reposting the same jobs every day. Listings with hundreds of applicants that never seemed to close. Automated responses, but no real follow-up.

At some point, it felt like I wasn’t applying for jobs anymore, but feeding a system. Resumes parsed by algorithms, filtered by keywords, reduced to a score. No human interaction, just signals and pipelines.

Then came the interviews. Weeks between each round. The same algorithmic problems, disconnected from real-world work. The kind of questions that reward practice, not experience.

I started questioning everything. Not just the process, but how developers are evaluated today.

It feels like the system is optimized to filter people out, not to find the best ones.

I don’t think I can fix it. But I had to adapt to it.

Curious if others here have experienced the same thing recently.

Btw this is happening now in Canada, so I guess it s the same in the US.

I found applying to job postings was effectively a waste of time. The number of replies I received from a person was < 1%

What was effective was advertising my availability on LinkedIn, Indeed, and Dice, and waiting for recruiters to contact me. In other words in the current environment passive options were far more effective than active searches - the process is definitely upside down.

The only alternative approach was knowing someone at the company and in a similar role, making a referral. Unfortunately that is often a limited opportunity pool for most people.

thanks for the comment begging for job I hate doing that, but I think it s not a choice anymore

Referrals from other ICs will often land you an interview. It’s nicer to have a referral from a manager who wants you on their team when you still have to go through the interview process. It’s really nice when you have someone who can make hiring decisions and just tell their manager you are who they want and you basically have to show up to the interview with their manager naked not to get the job.

EEO rules require that available positions be posted to the public, but in many cases there is no intention to interview outside candidates for these positions. For example let’s say a large company wants to convert a contractor into an employee. That position still has to be posted to the public, but it’s only one of many examples.

In my case I am a government contractor so candidates will not even be considered unless they exceed nearly all points of the job requirements. No exceptions.

Also it used to be all about tech stacks and tool trends. As software employment continues to shrink that is also going away. It’s more about skills and experience on a given platform or family of languages than a tool or framework. The upside to this is that while positions continue to shrink the expectations and salaries appear to be going up proportionally.

There is no general rule that a company can’t hire who they want without making the position public.

There is also no rule in general that a company can’t make a contractor a permanent employee.

It has been going this way for some time in the US. My own story and experience was very similar to yours. Lost my position as a Sr. Engineer, and while going through that gauntlet of algorithms trying to find a new role, I found a pivot instead. Left the software world of abstractions and optimizations, and brought my skills in physical hardware and machine knowledge to the forefront. Now I work in hard technology. I may be sort of unique in that I had these parallel skillsets and experiences. But it's never too late to learn new skills. What other skills outside of software do you have?

That’s a great pivot and thank you for your comment at least it s open other point of view

I’m mostly focused on software full-stack, backend, automation, and building products.

The problem in my case is that I’m too passionate about it. I was so committed to web and software development that I don’t really have easily transferable skills outside of it.

I’m currently training for some certifications, but I still feel like it’s not the best use of my time.

Find places where you're the most technical person, and you will find your skills have easily transferred.

I just landed a consulting gig installing network hardware. I'm a full stack web dev like yourself. I did a web project for them before they asked about this one.

I'm simply the only technical person they know.

Thankfully, the network requirements are simple enough I could confidently agree.

The "tech jobs" you are looking for are actually potemkin ghost jobs that are never going to be filled and are only there to give no signal to market traders and analysts whether if the company is hiring or not.

I think it s a crime, playing with people lives

Here in Ontario, as of January 2026 it is a crime. There is a nice set of laws around job postings that kicked into effect.

nice, thank you for the information, Quebec we should be inspired by that.

> It feels like the system is optimized to filter people out, not to find the best ones.

It feels that way because it is that way.

Why would someone want to find the best person when most jobs don’t require the best person?

What are you looking for? Maybe I can help. We have a lot of open positions.

thank you for the reply

team lead / full stack / frontend , reactjs , nodejs , reactnative

Your account info does not list any contact information.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/ziedhosni/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/ziedhosni/

Seems like, if anyone hires you, you are guaranteed to leave before two years so maybe it's easier to save the trouble.

The average tenure of a Senior SWE is 2 years, what's the problem here?

Are you looking for someone that would stay for 20 years?

Certainly not true of FAANG engineers, most people are wanting to stay for their initial vest.

I think 3-4 years is a much better signal.

When I was hiring on behalf of a client, the average tenure was 1-1.5 years for mid-level in Australia. I was surprised but then I started hearing common stories. The two most common ones were the following.

The market rates were going up(and inflation going up more), people would ask their employers for an increase in compensation and get denied with broken promises. They'd wait to see if those promises go anywhere and then realize it's not going to happen so decide to change employers(and their employers act shocked).

Similarly, employment conditions were deteriorating and burn out spreading. People would ask their employers for a change in conditions such as hiring more staff and get denied with broken promises. They'd wait and well, see above.

On the other side of the spectrum, there were some with over 10 years of experience at the same place and lacked the knowledge of anything outside their employer's bubble. Their manager changed or redundancies started or something triggers and now they have to look elsewhere with their "loyalty" meaning nothing except being a detriment.

Your profile is very generic and doesn’t stand out from thousands of other web developers. I’m not criticizing your skillset - just your profile.

Your last five years just have job titles and nothing about what you did and you have a lot of short job stints.

Every job application for a “generic” skillset literally gets 100s of applicants within the first few hours. What is your “unfair advantage”?

Tech hiring is no more broken than it’s been in my 30 years across 10 jobs - you’re doing it wrong.

If you are just spamming ATSs instead of using your network or reaching out to targeted companies, it’s always been a shit show

> reaching out to targeted companies

Can you elaborate?

The first thing is that you have to have a specialized skillset. Web development, back end developer, mobile or even “cloud” by itself is not specialized. Then reach out to companies that are looking for those skills

There all sorts of path dependent specialties that people have that let them stand out.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47292143

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46923247

A lot of the roles posted are mostly focused on signalling growth. Plus a lot of companies never really learned how to hire, they just followed what ever comes out of silicon valley without thinking about it.

To be honest, I think ghost offers should be criminalized; they are just playing with people’s lives.

Seems like fraud. If the intention is to mislead as to corporate health for some monetary reason how is it not wire fraud?

I guess it's a victimless crime

Reply on news.ycombinator.com