This is the toughest market I've ever seen. I easily made it to on-sites at FAANG a few years ago and now I'm getting resume rejected by no-name startups (and FAANG).
The bar has also been raised significantly. I had an interview recently where I solved the algorithm question very quickly, but didn't refactor/clean up my code perfectly and was rejected.
I can’t solve everyone’s problems but I can say that I have 1-2 (depending if an outstanding offer is accepted) open principal engineering roles directly working for me. The process will be talking to the recruiter, then two tech interviews, then an interview with me. This will take you a couple weeks to go through because of our team is tiny and we’re fairly busy. Team is 100% remote and async. All the stuff in the JD applies, the one update that we haven’t gotten out yet is that you must know terraform really well. Comp is scaled for engineers outside the USA.
My observation as well. Going remote makes it harder to switch jobs because of loosing the personal connections and networks that get developed working on site. Going through the front door when applying for opportunities is usually more difficult than the back door. Back door as in getting introduced via your network. As a result, I've learned that a good recruiter is now a necessity because they have those relationships with hiring managers which can put you to the front of the line and also prep you better for the process.
I don't mean to sound harsh, but it does sound like front/ backdoor metaphor is code for filtering people by the social biases that form much of the personal connections and networks you mention.
The effect of remote work, seems to be leveling the entry point for everyone; an advantage for people who got discriminated against before and a disadvantage for people who enjoyed their privilege for far too long.
my experience must be an outlier. I’ve applied and gotten the job via the “front door” 3 times in my 10 year career so far. This is in the US at large companies, 2 of them with competitive salaries, 2 fully remote. The last one was at the end of 2022, right as the market was turning to shit.
I probably _could_ get a job more easily today because i’ve made connections over 10 yrs. But i’d probably still try the front door first because i’m stubborn lol. But the resume needs to be PERFECT when there’s so much competition, especially for remote roles. Everything on 1 page, needs to be very easy for a hiring manager to visually scan in 10 seconds, to make a quick decision. And obviously add necessary keywords for the stupid “resume filters”. It’s a real chore…
I will say though, there’s something really rewarding about getting the job you want without asking for favors.
It’s tough out there today. Many experienced engineers were laid off, i bet it’s brutal.
Essentially post-school every job I’ve been hired for was through strong personal connections. And I certainly feel I don’t develop the same kinds of connections remotely. Maybe some folks who grew up in that of remote environment are better adapted.
Weirded how, if you don't mind elaborating slightly?
For example, does it mean: the actual skill level (e.g., smartness) people actually look for and hire hasn't changed, but the activities that hiring teams require candidates to have experience with are (seemingly weirdly) not a great thing to need anyway and therefore lots of great candidates end up twiddling their thumbs?
In that way, the "height" of the bar is the same, but it's a "weird" bar, in that one could have to accept it for what it is, or even stoop to it, or perhaps shift over to it, in order to pass it?
Or more that the overall interview experiences are weird caricatures in and of themselves?
Weird is a great word, but it can be a little non-specific, so I'm left curious about the intended usage/meaning.
Many companies are filtering candidates in favor of mercenaries while pretending they are looking for dependable, committed professionals.
If you don’t have specific experience with some CTOs favorite esoteric API or don’t have experience in the same, specific corner of some insurance or usury industry, your ability to actually engineer solutions is considered irrelevant.
It’s as if the industry has forgotten that building software is about the application of algorithms to data structures to accomplish some user need. Instead, company after company wants to hot glue some service via some API using some framework on some cloud platform. And because the MBA decision-maker can write Excel macros with GPT, we don’t need programmers to build systems anymore. Just wire up foo SaaS to bar SaaS and MVPFailFastLeanAgile our way to success!
> It’s as if the industry has forgotten that building software is about the application of algorithms to data structures to accomplish some user need
My 3 months experience searching - and getting only ~3-4 initial interviews - is the New-AI-Kids-on-Da-Block think software-engineering is just another plumbing for their Artificially Great Intelligence. One CEO even used the exact word.
They are just saying the quite part out loud now because they think they can finally get away with that.
Well when the discount plumbing they are getting put in starts to leak shit all over the place there will be a premium again in actually knowing how to do it properly.
> It’s as if the industry has forgotten that building software is about...
This really isn't new. A look at Slashdot will give you similar complaints as far back as at least the 2000s. I'm sure someone older than me will dig up Usenet posts with exactly the same complaints and tell me to get off their lawn ;-)
> * Diversity hiring: Big US/EU companies are trying to hire more females here because cost is low and they can show great diversity numbers. It hurts when you see posh privileged urban women having much more chance of getting into a good company than a man who worked his way up through sacrifice.
do you have any examples of this happening? or is this just a boogie man?
my experience has been different: so many mediocre men in this industry. all of the women i've worked with have been brilliant.
I've had the same experience, and I've reasoned it as follows:
It's very difficult to be a woman in Computer Science. CompSci is uniquely awful for women. Like other STEM, it's overrun by men, so you get all the subtle discrimination of that. But CompSci men also tend to be, for lack of a better word, asocial weirdos. Civil engineers have to work with people, CompSci people built up their skills in front of a screen.
All this means that the large majority of women are filtered out. The ones that remain are the ones most skilled with navigating tough situations, and who have a strong passion for engineering. A passion strong enough to wade through the downsides.
I also think they have to constantly prove themselves, which also builds up their skills.
I always got the feeling that the distributions were different for men and women. Male professionals seem to be normally distributed, with a lot of mediocrity, some excellence, and some incompetence. In women, the mediocrity part of the population seems to be missing, so the distribution looks more bimodal.
If that's actually the case and not just a warped perception on my part, it could easily happen that, depending on your own skill-level and environment, you'll be more likely to work with one of the two groups in the bimodal distribution.
> It hurts when you see posh privileged urban women having much more chance of getting into a good company than a man who worked his way up through sacrifice.
It's not a gender issue. I would be looking to hire someone competent who works hard, not someone who makes "sacrifices" and then expects a job/promotion.
The latter never works. That's not the work culture in most places. I've seen it many times, people who make "sacrifices", allowing themselves to be exploited, expecting some promotion from it, and are then passed over for someone who actually has demonstrated they are good at the job and ready for more responsibility, and not being a doormat. Then they become resentful.
Right, but certain careers have figured out that women are, on average, better at the socialization game and thus, broadly speaking, a better fit for the job. Ain't nobody "diversity" hiring on the oil rigs or other jobs where the physical act is more important than interpersonal interaction.
However, it is difficult to measure those positive traits for what they are, so employers are selecting based on gender hoping for positive correlation. But that's illegal, so "diversity" hiring was created as a scapegoat to help avoid legal fire.
Are you asserting that companies in a free market are intentionally hiring people unqualified for their jobs and paying them wages as if they were qualified?
This has not been my experience. The women I've worked with in software engineering teams have all been, well, engineers. One of them worked on some kind of real-time printer operating system before becoming a Java dev, another one is currently team lead on the cluster team on a distributed software product, another one has the most in-depth knowledge of CSS of anyone in a 50+ people frontend department.
I see a lot of people online complaining about the job market and blaming all kinds of things for their inability to find a job, but I think what has changed is that there are no more defensive hires, where companies like Google hire as many people as possible just to deny their competitors those people. Lots of relatively unqualified people found very high-paying jobs that way and are now surprised that they can't land those jobs anymore.
If you're competent and personable and know your own strengths, you can still find a job relatively easily.
Coincidentally, I was fired during the tech downturn two years ago, and within a few weeks, had three job offers out of three applications. I have a good CV, I applied at local companies that matched my specific expertise, I asked how the interview would go and what was expected, and prepared specifically for each company.
Complaining about women because you can't find a job isn't just misguided, it's harmful to yourself, because it prevents you from understanding what the actual issue is, and working on it.
When I studied comp sci around 2000, women were actively discouraged from continuing their classes by professors. During an oral exam, a prof told a female friend of mine that women had no place in comp sci. As a result, not many women graduated, so two decades ago, there were just fewer women in the field in general.
I'm not sure what exactly qualifies as a "legacy game engine", but given the small number of women who worked in comp sci when games were made ten or twenty years ago, and particularly in male-dominated videogame studios, I would naturally not expect to see a lot of cis women with experience working on these engines (or on related tech stacks) today.
This seems like a bit of a special case, rather than a general representation of women in software engineering.
> i did not know that one gender could be better at this work. that seems like huge news if true.
There is research that has shown that men are, on average, better at single-focus tasks. And, indeed, it was huge news at the time the research was published – at least as huge as being reported in major news publications is.
It wouldn't be huge news now. We quickly grow bored and tired of widely reported things from the past. Humans, of all genders it seems, tend to seek novelty.
I assumed you were already dead by the time I got to reading your response. One does not normally tell you that they are dying if they expect to still be around for a long time. Shame on me for assuming. What is the expected lifespan for someone diagnosed with your condition?
Name a prominent open source project created be and led by a woman.
Who created and contributes to linux kernel, python, c, c++, go, python, ruby, ruby on rails, php, wordpress, ghost, SumatraPDF, zig, oding, nim, nodejs, deno, bun.
I could just keep listing major open source projects because I literally cannot think of a single one created and led by a woman.
And if you find one, it still doesn't negate the 100 to 1 ratio.
Open source, unlike jobs, are pure meritocracy. A woman can create a GitHub account and start coding just as easily as a man. There are no gatekeepers and open source contributors / maintainers are abused by random people as a matter of course.
To me it's reality. To you, somehow, saying that out loud is bias.
And to be clear: I don't think there's anything preventing women from learning to code and contributing at a high level and I've known a few that do. But for some reason they overwhelmingly don't. The stats are brutal.
go ask claude to give you feedback about this comment, because it shows a misunderstanding of how a male-dominated society works if this is what you think about women in tech.
The words you're looking for aren't conservative or reactionary they are bigoted and asshole. Best software engineer I've ever worked with is a woman, the rest had exactly the same range of ability as the men. Overall though a much lower level of entitled ignorance than "guys like us".
It's so peculiar that the man who thinks few women are willing to "get in the trenches" never sees women really getting into the trenches. It must definitely be because that's just how all women are. And definitely not because most women choose not to work with you or a company that perpetuates that idea.
> It's so peculiar that the man who thinks few women are willing to "get in the trenches" never sees women really getting into the trenches.
I have seen women in the trenches but I don't see how that contradicts my claim that they are relatively few and there's probably a reason despite all the efforts to bring more women into tech.
The bar has been lowered in many respects. 14 years experience, 5 of them at a FAANG. Successful startup exit for a small company I founded, and and endless array of India-based recruiters that, for example, want me to mention “Ruby 3.2” in my resume when the resume says I have 14 years of Ruby experience including using it daily in my present job. I could literally say “I invented Ruby and have worked with it daily for 20 years,” and they’d say, “but you don’t have 3.2 listed.”
I play the game then they pass me off to another Indian who is less understandable than the first guy and then they offer $45/hour. I say yeah sure, submit me to the potential client. Then I never hear anything back.
The Indian 3rd party recruiting industry is absolutely horrible. Another anecdote was spending 10 minutes explaining how Java and JavaScript aren’t the same thing. I am convinced there is rampant discrimination happening as well against non-Indians, and especially those who aren’t H1Bs. (H1B is a trap that makes it easy to hire people at lower wages and then also makes it harder for them to switch employers.)
I’m not well articulating the problem, but anyone who has done this dance knows exactly what I’m talking about.
By the way, I used to contract at $95/hour and now I can’t get calls back for $45/hour.
The outsourcing offshoring business needs to be significantly reformed. I had a gig at Best Buy ($70/hour) and I got to spend 3 months training some Accenture H1Bs to replace me. I thought H1B was to fill “critical shortages of highly skilled workers?” Best Buy didn’t have a shortage — they fired my entire team and replaced it with Accenture. Best Buy should be heavily taxed for that and Accenture et al should have their offshore labor tariffed into oblivion. (They typically have onshore H1Bs directing offshore teams.) The Best Buy CEO talks all sorts of DEI crap, while firing people to cut costs. Not very inclusive if you ask me.
Indians,Brazilians,Portuguese,Ukrainians,Russians are possibly the worst clique of discriminative nationalities. You can be 100% assured that you will be driven out of a company/job if more of them take a hold and get into higher up positions. This is not racism. This is a pure fact based on statistical evidence.
You will be sold a dream of infinite scalability by hiring "talent" in those countries for cheap and what you will get is usually disfunctional teams riddled with incompetence and nepotism.
Even if a job/team is meant to be multicultural,diverse they will find a way how to hire more and more of their countrymen until knowing the language is basically a requirement for the job.
I am not even an american and i've seen this happen in Europe as well so I imagine in the US it must be 1000 times worse.
You're describing the effects of normalising remote work. Employees now are able to work from anywhere in the world, so companies get employees from all over the world. Since we're already looking at employing anywhere, why not also contract from anywhere?
anecdata - I am Indian and on h1b. Intel hired Accenture folks, they just put more people with no experience, it took more time to train them than doing stuff ourselves.
Another instance, Intel gave tens of millions to do something that few employees could have done in couple of months. Its basically creating two conda environments, one with intel optimized software stack & one with default and compare the results for 20 use cases.
Not sure its the case with all the contract companies, but this was my experience.
Yeah I feel like the recent application experience is almost coercing me into racism - I don’t actually believe in racial superiority, I’m not into any kind of bigotry or mistreating other people… buuuuuut I’ve noticed that I have this visceral reaction to seeing a typical Indian name on an email from a potential employer, or a thick Indian accent on a phone or zoom call. It always just seems like an indication that I don’t actually have a chance and am just wasting my time.
It’s awful catching myself in a “I’m not racist but” situation. It really worries me.
On the bright side, racist thoughts creeping into classes who haven't been exposed to circumstances that lead to racist thoughts before might become more understanding of and helpful towards those who have contended with them for ages instead of simply dismissing them as people born with "incorrect thoughts". Racism is never actually about race.
This has been my experience in the US as well, but I'm not so sure that this paradigm extends outside the US.
I lived in Europe for a few years and didn't feel that same context as well - it wasn't almost assumed that white people were racist and anyone might be seen as racist regardless of their skin color or heritage.
But in the current woke public opinion it's not and only whites can be racist.
I would love if it was possible to label racism whenever it appears but it's not possible without being called a racist yourself if you are white.
Looking at sibling parent poster there mentioning Germany, a similar example would be trying to make rational arguments about Israeli conduct with regards to settlements in the west bank. Any German even thinking out loud about those would be labeled a Neo-Nazi.
> But in the current woke public opinion it's not and only whites can be racist.
In my opinion "the current woke public opinion" is almost entirely a bogeyman construction of primarily the US right wing media with trailing support from their UK, AU, and CA siblings.
It's rare (ie. never.) that I read in "left wing" media of any substance articles about the pressing need for kitty litter trays for Furry students.
It's disturbingly commonplace to hear of what can only be performative manufacted outrage about such things from the asshole tanning bowtie wearing media wing.
The conclusion is that the statement " in the current woke public opinion it's not and only whites can be racist" is very much a localised subjective opinion and not any kind of actual global truth.
localised subjective opinion and not any kind of actual global truth.
Global truth: definitely not. But we're also not talking about that. At least I'm not. I'm talking about "western realities". In the parent sibling's Germany example, the only thing relevant is Germany, not globals. If you're a white German in Germany, then in regular media public opinion a lot of what should be normal pro/con type discourse is easily labeled "Neo-Nazi". So much so that people self-censor. Except for the real Neo Nazis. Americans can be "proud to be American". A German proclaiming to be "proud to be German" is a Neo Nazi.
And yes in "NA" context, I can definitely say that it's not "right wing outrage" construct. It actually feels like this conversation is the perfect example now. I'm absolutely not a Trump supporter for example. Not even a republican supporter. But it's absolutely my belief that H1Bs (which primarily means Indian nationals) is a very detrimental construct for America. I would never in my wildest dreams mention this "IRL" in my regular social circles for fear of being labeled racist. I am actually struggling to write any further here right now without fear of being labeled racist. I absolutely want to avoid "being thrown in the Trump camp" as well. I absolutely abhor the kind of vote buying Musk engaged in for example. A million a day for a signature? WTF!? It's such a brazen thing for a person with money to do, it's against everything I always believed the United States of America, the leader of the free world, would stand for. But I guess I was just naive. The world is way less fair than I hoped it was. I do recognize that. I still hate it.
> I am actually struggling to write any further here right now without fear of being labeled racist.
You are a racist. Now, with that out of the way, how has your life changed? It hasn't, has it? So, what brought on the fear, then? Have you invented racism in your head as being something it is not?
India is a big place with the widest cultural and socioeconomic range I’ve ever witnessed. You might just be facing the less pleasant ends of those ranges.
I experience the other end of the spectrum. The skilled Indians that made it to Germany and write to me through my website are usually delightful people.
Consider just how different your experience of most countries would be if you just interacted with their people with the most imbalanced incentives. This is sort of what’s happening.
As someone with a couple of open (not engineering) recs, I can agree this is the toughest market I’ve ever seen. For both recs, we received many highly qualified candidates with relevant skills,
often in a relevant domain.
I’ve never seen this before. It’s always been very hard to find a single highly-qualified candidate.
The media seems to think the great resignation has ended, but really it’s just that jobs have dried up. Professionals, especially good ones, are eager to leave their current jobs, but the pool is so small, there’s just nowhere to go.
And with so many people looking for new positions, if you’re not highly keyword targeted, you won’t go anywhere.
> I had an interview recently where I solved the algorithm question very quickly, but didn't refactor/clean up my code perfectly and was rejected.
It sounds like they intentionally present a simple problem because they are not filtering by who can solve it, but by who writes clean maintainable code.
I wish I had thought of that when I was interviewing candidates, because it is a good criterium for a well established organization.
For what it's worth, it is definitely thawing (at least if what we're seeing in our client base is anything to go by), it's just going to take some time for that to work its way through everyone looking for work.
Is that the reason you were rejected, or was that just an attribute of what you did && you were rejected? What stage of the interview, what level?
I truly don't doubt that's what happened, I've had it happen, but when it did their feedback was (insultingly) not up to their professional standard. I say insultingly because it was an amateurish evaluation of what I did, specifically because it was like the 5th god damn interview by that point and really they should have been looking for more than trivialities like the coding style I chose to use in HackerRank with a visible ticking clock.
The reason I ask is just for context; if people are interviewing for Senior roles and being rejected for code formatting problems, something is even more deeply wrong than it seems, since they probably shouldn't be concerning themselves with that _at_all_. If it's possible though that you were rejected for some other reason, but that your code style was the strongest negative apparent signal, that's also worth exploring. In my case, that's a possibility, that they were looking for just one more reason to narrow the funnel, but it can be hard to accept.
I think a lot of this comes down to AI. In a recent hiring round we experienced multiple candidates using AI tooling to assist them in the technical interviews (remote only company). I expect relationship hires to become more common over the next few years as even more open-discussion focused interview rounds like architecture become lower signal.
If you're giving remote interviews, your loop should assume candidates can use AI. it's like giving a take home math test that assumes people won't use calculators at this point
I disagree. We pretty explicitly ask candidates to not use AI.
While it's fine when doing the job the purpose of the interview is to gauge your ability to understand and solve problems, while AI can help you with that you understanding how to do it yourself signals that you'll be able to solve other more complex wider-spanning problems.
Just like with a calculator - it's important for candidates to know _why_ something works and be able to demonstrate that as much as them knowing the solution.
Asking candidates: "Don't use AI" is like all those other arbitrary handicaps that interviewers used to (and sometimes still do) weirdly insist on:
"Write this code, but don't read the API definition (like a normal developer would do in the course of their work)"
"Whiteboard this CRUD app, but don't verify you did it right using online sources (like a normal developer would do in the course of their work)"
"Type this function out in a text document so that you don't have the benefit of Intellisense (like a normal developer would have in the course of their work)"
"Design this algorithm, but don't pull up the research paper that describes it (like a normal developer would do in the course of their work)"
You're testing a developer under constraints that nobody actually has to actually work under. It's like asking a prospective carpenter to build you a doghouse without using a tape measure.
> Just like with a calculator - it's important for candidates to know _why_ something works and be able to demonstrate that as much as them knowing the solution.
And this is why I never give coding-puzzle interviews. I just have a chat about your past projects (based on resume). We'll go deep into the technical details and it is easy in such a conversation to get a feel for whether you actually contributed significantly to the things the resume says you did.
There is an interesting dichotomy in your interview process. You say you want someone who can solve problems, but then go on to say (perhaps unintentionally; communication is hard) that you only want someone who has already rote-memorized how to solve the particular problems you throw at them, not someone who can figure things out as the problems arise.
> but then go on to say (perhaps unintentionally; communication is hard) that you only want someone who has already rote-memorized how to solve the particular problems you throw at them
They said the opposite of that. Unless you think it's not possible to figure out problems and you can only do them by rote memorization?
> Unless you think it's not possible to figure out problems and you can only do them by rote memorization?
It is not possible to solve a problem from scratch. You must first invent the universe, as they say. Any solution you come up with for a new problem will build upon solutions others have made for earlier problems.
In the current age, under a real-world scenario, you are going to use AI to help discover those earlier solutions on which to build upon. Before AI you would have consulted a live human instead. But humans, while not what we consider artificial, are what we consider intelligent and therefore presumably fall under the same rule, so that distinction is moot anyway.
Which means that, without access to the necessary tools during the interview, any pre-existing solution you might need to build upon needs to be memorized beforehand. If you fail to remember, or didn't build up memories of the right thing, before going into the interview, then you can't possibly solve the problem, even if you are quite capable of problem solving. Thus, it ends up being a test of memory, not a test of problem solving ability.
And for what? AI fundamentally cannot solve new problems anyway. At best, it can repeat solutions to old problems already solved, but why on earth would you be trying to solve problems already solved in the first place? That is a pointless waste of time, and a severe economic drain for the business. Being able to repeat solutions to problems already solved is not a useful employment skill.
> you only want someone who has already rote-memorized how to solve the particular problems you throw at them, not someone who can figure things out as the problems arise
This is literally what AI is, and why they don't want it used in the interview.
Literally someone (or, at least, some thing) that can figure things out as problems arise? That seems quite generous. Unless you're solving a "problem" that has already been solved a million times before, it won't have a clue. These so-called AIs are predictive text generators, not thinking machines. But there is no need to solve a problem that is already solved in the first place, so...
It is really good at being a "college professor" that you can bounce ideas off of, though. It is not going to give you the solution (it fundamentally can't), but it can serve to help guide you. Stuff like "A similar problem was solved with <insert research paper>, perhaps there is an adaptation there for you to consider?"
We're long past a world where one can solve problems in a vacuum. You haven't been able to do that for thousands, if not millions, of years. All new problems are solved by standing on the shoulders of problems that were solved previously. One needs resources to understand those older problems and their solutions to pave the way to solving the present problems. So... If you can't use the tools we have for that during the interview, all you can lean on is what you were able to memorize beforehand.
But that doesn't end up measuring problem solving ability, just your ability to memorize and your foresight in memorizing the right thing.
>We pretty explicitly ask candidates to not use AI.
This doesn't work, because regardless of what the rules say if i think all my competitors are using AI (and you won't be able to reliably detect it) i'll feel pressured to use it as well. This is true of any advantage (spending extra time on 2 hour takehome assignment is the classic version of this)
To be fair, you don't have to fall into the Tragedy of the Commons trap. If everyone else chooses to use LLMs during an interview that's their choice. If you are asked not to and are uncomfortable using it anyway, just don't.
Prob everyone is usually AI at this point, only a few bother to make the solution mor human-made-like.
Personally, there is not way I am writing boilerplate again unless you are paying me hourly for the test.
Well that could explain why I've personally had a hard time finding a job with around 15 years of experience - I don't use LLMs.
With that said, none of the interviews I've had over the last couple months included questions that could reasonably be done with an LLM. The context is usually wrong, technical challenges were done live on a video call and it would be horribly obvious if a candidate was just prompting an LLM for an answer.
A cheap multi camera system + software, that can be quickly installed at candidates location to watch interviewing candidate. This can be sent by employer before interviews. its cheap enough that it can be thrown away.
traditional way - A company that provides interviewing centers across major cities for software interview, the location will have cameras that will make sure candidates are not cheating.
Anecdotal but I felt it was worst during the mass layoffs in late 2022/early 2023. It has been very slowly recovering since then.
The late 2020 period was the absolute best time though. I got multiple offers almost instantly, and after I signed on it felt like the org was bloated with engineers just fiddling away on meaningless projects.
This is not surprising. The companies received grants during covid lockdowns, so they started listing a lot of fake jobs. When the money dried up the layoffs followed, which was an expected outcome. Media does not let people know about the grants and presents everything in such light that it seems like the market is getting absolutely destroyed, while in reality it only slightly declined.
The bigger problem are HRs employed by big companies who autoreject every application and take no responsibility for doing this.
Though FAANG offers are usually more attractive than startups (considering pay level and stability), some startups could be more selective since they couldn't afford to hire the wrong candidate.
It’s more about calibration. If you interview 100 people at a FAANG, you get an idea of where the bar is. This idea gets calibrated with a panel of interviewers, along with shadow interviewers.
At a startup… who knows? I had an interviewer burn up 25 minutes on a 45 minute coding question trying to “hint me” towards the solution I mentioned in the first 2 minutes.
Or 1930s Great Depression no work for almost five years tough?
I expect most people here won't have a good sense for 2009. While it wasn't great for many industries, for tech it was the "app" boom. You couldn't hardly go outside without someone throwing money at you.
> The bar has also been raised significantly. I had an interview recently where I solved the algorithm question very quickly, but didn't refactor/clean up my code perfectly and was rejected.
Bearing in mind the implicit comparison to "a few years ago", a few years ago I interviewed with Google, at which point the recruiter told me I'd passed the interview, wished me congratulations (!), told me to expect a job offer, and finally, ~6 weeks later, informed me that while I'd "passed" the interviews, my scores were too low for them to make an offer.
It remains a mystery what it might mean to "pass" without actually advancing beyond the threshold you passed.
For context -
I’ve made 4 personal projects that currently have over 1000+ daily active users (numbers are ~1500, ~6000, ~14,000, and ~430,000) all created within the span of the last year. I’ve also sold software.
On top of all that, I have an Engineering degree, 4 years experience, no breaks in employment, study on my afternoons and weekends (C, Go, C#) and take extra university courses, and have some other high level achievements/recognition.
I apply for Intermediate and Senior positions.
So far I have 3 interviews lined up out of ~30-40 applications. About 10 rejections so far. 1 of those jobs is actually decent, the other 2 are desperation applications.
It’s brutal. I’m trying my absolute best, I don’t see how people that have been coasting have any chance.
You should be able to coast a bit in life.
I’m sad at the state of things, and sad for people trying to stay in the industry or break into the industry.
Very impressive resume. Why only 30-40 applications? Are you looking for a relatively niche role? As someone who graduated into the great recession, "normal" to me still feels like 1000 applications is the bare minimum.
FYI, the personal projects might be a detriment rather than a help as it may come across as "this person will have split priorities or might leave to pursue individual interests"
For better or worse, I might not showcase those that much.
IMO a well rounded individual won't have much time for personal projects while working a full time job. They might be really good at writing code though.
Just trying to play devils advocate here but have you considered that your lack of “coasting” could be part of the problem? If your resume looks anything like this post then that is something to consider.
Your side projects could give the impression that you are more dedicated to those than to your primary employer.
For the roles I review resumes for and interview I want a well rounded individual who seems like they would stay in the position for many years. Someone who is studying on weekends and taking extra university courses on coding does not necessarily give me that impression. Again, just a devil’s advocate position.
Idk, this sounds suspiciously like the sort of rube goldberg chain of logic that software developers tell themselves when they're overthinking everything. "I probably didn't get the job because I have too many successful side projects, so employers are scared I won't get any work done."
This is why I’ve given up on software. I loved it, made side projects in college, got my computer science degree, worked for a couple years and then got laid off early in 2023. It’s been a year and a half and I still can not find a new job. I have not coded in god knows how long, I don’t find it enjoyable anymore. In fact I almost despise it. I’ve decided to join the military instead.
Just coming off this comment. I think I’m done with this industry.
Had an interview with the rudest motherfucker I’ve ever met. Utter disdain for their existing employees (complaining that they can’t just fire them on the spot like in Ukraine or some other Eastern bloc country). Asked “why should we waste Engineers time interviewing someone who doesn’t have C# experience?” I should have ended the interview right then.
This is why people hate immigration. I should have told him to go back to his country if he wants that experience.
I’m so far tipped over the fucking edge I’m going to start a violent revolution.
Likely because it is not a good time to be a gardener (professionally) right now either. The tech job market and agriculture prosperity seem to track each other.
> Farming isn't in good economic shape right now either, granted.
Anyone considering farming should take note of this. The industry is not in a place where farmers can make any meaningful profit, especially if you're just getting into it. At best the average farmer breaks even after depending heavily on federal subsidies and crop insurance.
There are likely technical roles in the age industry, though personally that runs into a moral problem for me as you will end up being paid well to turn the financial screws even harder on the average farmer or farm hand.
There are just piles and piles of companies out there trying to hire but are absolutely obsessed with having people work in their terrible SF offices.
I don't get it. If these companies really believed that working in an office was so beneficial they would invest in them. But they all come across like "I need an office to appear like a real company but I don't want to spend a lot of money". They're these millennial gray warehouses rocking the sad-bachelor aesthetic.
I got laid off thrice during my 25+ year career during which i have worked at 9 different companies. twice from startups in each of the previous busts and once from a large company. job hunts are not easy and i dont interview well.
however, there are tech transitions and it appears we are in the midst of one - after which a new set of tech careers seem to emerge. internet/web/mobile/cloud/saas and whatnot. i fully expect the same to happen here.
One piece of advice I usually give is to avoid applying to jobs through company’s career websites or LinkedIn. Instead, tap your social network: see if there is someone you know/have worked with who either works at the company you’re interested in or is connected to it someone (as an advisor, investor, personal friend of someone in a leadership position) and ask them for a warm intro. Social proof gives you an advantage over the legion of anonymous online applicants.
Internal referrals won’t necessarily give you an edge, but they definitely nearly guarantee at least getting into the door.
At our company the (unwritten) policy is anyone who is referred internally will always get at least 1 shot at an interview even if the resume would been have otherwise been rejected. The bar isn’t lowered on merit, though.
Yep. Several months ago I leaned on a friend for a referral. This person is relatively well known in his industry. He’s written books and has spoke at a lot of conferences, and been interviewed by a lot of outlets. I got a personal referral from him, and I didn’t even get a phone call with a recruiter. Crazy.
My previous job search in 2019 yielded 2 FAANG offers, 1 exec role at a $2B public company, and an "almost" from another Seattle-based big tech company.
This September, I finished up a 10 month job search (had a job that was going nowhere, so looked for another) In that time, I started with careful analysis of each role, custom resume building, and applying to one or two jobs a week. When that yielded no results after a few months, I crafted a few resumes to match the broad categories of roles that I saw that were good matches and started applying in bulk. That yielded much better result in terms of actual human contact.
I did also leverage my LinkedIn network, and that yielded lots of nice reconnections with past coworkers, but zero job opportunities. The one reach out that led to anything was to the manager for the FAANG job I rejected in 2019 (always say no very nicely!). That manager made it to VP in that timeframe, and a VP recommendation to the recruiting team WILL get you in the door to talk to someone. Of course, a multi-month process resulted in a kafka-esque situation where the team that wanted me got laid off and that killed the entire process. Oh well.
In the end, I'd sent out over 300 applications, had a few dozen recruiter calls, and 7 full loops (4 offers, one of which was a lowball and 3 that all happened at the same time). Ironically, the job I ended up taking came as an inbound opportunity via LinkedIn from a recruiter at the company.
The good news seemed to be that by the August timeframe, activity had really picked up. The same resumes started getting a lot more traction.
People have been saying that since I was in school in the 90's. I've never found it to be helpful. In fact, even back in the days when there were still jobs to be had, by far the worst jobs I ever held were the ones I was referred into. The reason was pretty obvious at the time - the person who referred me in had to "talk me up" so I was starting in a position where I could only disappoint. The "cold applications" didn't have huge expectations, so when I turned out to be good at what I was doing, they were happy to see it.
not sure i agree, i went to school in the 90's as well, and out of 9 jobs I have held since, 4 came through cold-applications and 5 through referrals. referrals imo have a better chance of success particularly if you are a senior engineer, and you could have a bigger eco-system of referrers. I would also like to add that with more experience, you need to build bigger referrer networks which help in this whole process.
i try to help anyone i know (with referrals) as i have personally seen the anxiety, stress, and emotional roller-coaster that accompany the job hunt.
Do you have experience with doing this in a way that doesn't come across as desperate or too forward? How close do you need to be with this network? Is Linkedin connection enough, or would you only do this approach with people you've worked with?
I like to think of it more as being intentional, and less as desperate/too forward. You want to know what you're looking for and, just as important, what you're not looking for.
In terms of reaching out, here are some things I did when I was job hunting:
1. The classic referral
Find the job post and work backwards from there (e.g., is there somebody I know (1st connection) or somebody who knows somebody I know (2nd connection) on LinkedIn who works at the company?).
If I knew the 1st connection, I'd reach out and ask if they were comfortable referring me.
I made time to catch up with good friends. It felt energizing to get the moral support, with the added bonus that sometimes they knew people working at companies looking to hire. For example I would eventually get a job offer from Figma and that was because a good friend's partner worked there and was glad to refer me. I hadn't even heard of the opportunity before we talked.
4. The weak ties
I also made time to catch up with people I didn't know that well. There's some research on "weak ties" that suggest that people who you don't know well probably are exposed to a very different network to you, and will come across very different opportunities. The convo would be an opportunity for us to catch up and I'd talk about being open to job opportunities.
If I get such a request from someone I don't know, I will direct them to the public job board.
I'm very happy to refer and vouch for someone that I've actually worked with (and look forward to working with again), but I'm not vouching for some random stranger...
I'll review resumes of any referrals from my network. Usually provide tips or areas they need to show more substance in. I won't submit any network referral to my company's internal recruiter unless they stand out and fit a need.
The proximity to my network doesn't need to be strong, but your resume does.
Ideally people you've worked with or at least know of you and your work so they can give a positive internal recommendation. "He follows me on X" isn't much of an endorsement if that's all the person can say about you.
Ah yes, in the grand tradition of meritocracy, competition, and capitalism: “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know”.
To be clear, I’m not saying you’re wrong: in a distorted market it’s absolutely about who you know and get on with. So it’s nothing personal that your (astute) observation irks me.
I just can’t see advice like this without feeling a little tick: I’ve been in this business for more than twenty years, and there have been downturns certainly in that time, but I’ve never seen it so firmly in the iron grip of monopoly and nepotism with such predictably grim results for the software outcomes.
And don’t get me started on the party line that “the economy is doing great”.
Yeah, that’s a good point. I often ask my network for help, and it gets results. But still, I think I get more feedback when applying through the careers page.
I am in the same situation but in central Europe and looking for a bit more niche position, I am a mobile developer with 10+ years of experience doing iOS.
I have been looking for a job since the middle of the July with not much to show off. I have decreased my salary expectations but that is not the main problem, there are just no jobs to apply to.
For the last 7 years I have been working remotely for various companies inside the EU but it looks to me remote jobs are almost dead now. Everyone wants people back in the office.
My, probably controversial, opinion is that before Covid remote jobs were jobs for the more skilled people, so companies offered them knowing what they will get in return. But during Covid, when everyone worked remotely, some people not doing that that well, the companies just started considering remote jobs not worth it.
Local jobs are almost not existent too here, sometimes there is an opening at a bank but immediately fills in with tens of applications.
Last time I was looking for a new job, in 2022, after 1 month of the search I had 3 offers to choose from; 1 remote EU job and 2 remote local jobs.
Now, after 4 months, the furthest I got was remote EU job where after 5 rounds I was told I made it into top 3 candidates but was not chosen.
I started brushing up on C#/.NET I did over a decade ago as something to switch to, I am definitely not an Apple fanboy to stick to iOS at all costs, but the situation with those kinds of jobs does not look that much better either.
Sometimes I feel like you guys live in alternative universe. Nothing about the "bad" interview sounded too atypical. Sure it's annoying, but not uncommon enough to be exceptional.
I don't mean to discount anyone's unpleasantness but you'd be surprised how much worse the rest of the world is.
Software engineers are used to companies fighting over them. Now we're in a market where it's normal to have lots of experience yet be unemployed for months. So it's a shock for many (though not atypical when compared to plenty of other fields of knowledge work, as you note).
Very much a new-ish thing but quite pervasive. I see it all the time. Massive amounts of jobs are being posted to drive competition or to make the company look like they are growing, but there's no intention to hire anyone.
I got really lucky even if my comp was pretty mediocre for a number of years. But it was pretty much nuclear winter and many people (not just developers) left the tech industry.
Yeah, months between professional jobs has historically been completely normal if you couldn't interleave continue working and job searching. The meme (even if exaggerated) of rage-quitting a software job on Monday, sending out some emails, and having a few higher-paying offers by the end of the week is a complete aberration.
(Oh, and historically in many cases, it might also have involved moving across the country.)
I was talking to multiple people at an event fairly recently and there was general consensus that tech was in a "weird" place right now relative to the past decade or so.
Applying to and taking a new job requires bidirectional approval and sense of fit. The way a company conducts its interview process is a reflection of the corporate culture and sometimes is enough to erode the sense of fit on the applicant's side. If the interview process is a disorganized mess, why should the applicant believe the rest of the company is any different?
Try to get a job in finance, accounting, marketing, law, or other kinds of engineering. 7+ rounds of interviews, weird pop-psych questions, even getting a reply/meeting is a problem ...
Do you think that SWE interviews are perfect and could not possibly be improved?
I personally think there's a lot of room for improvement in interview processes, regardless of if they are currently "bad" or not, they certainly could be better
I also don't think things ever really improve broadly as long as there are enough people who think "that's actually not that bad"
I don't think it's perfect, but I truly don't think it's bad. I had a few experiences that I didn't like and so I walked away. And I don't think there's a reasonable way to regulate what makes SWE interviews bad.
I was talking to someone who is applying in another industry and they were bemoaning having to list a bunch of references on their resume, and having to call all their references to talk about the businesses that might contact them, what to say, etc.
Leetcode stuff sucks, but it is kind of nice being an industry where I can have no college degree and no references, but over the course of a few 1 hour interviews demonstrate competence.
In tech, I've tended to provide references. Don't know if they were ever called but I had them lined up. And pretty much all my jobs have been through my network in any case.
I've been unemployed for 4 months. While I have received a job offer, it would require me to move and either sell my house, rent it out, or just continue to pay the mortgage on top of rent. I'm torn as to what to do as I do need a job, but I don't want to leave my friends and family. My thoughts go out to everybody else out there looking for a job at this time.
after the dot-com bust, i took a job that involved a 70 mile commute (each way) which was about 100 minutes on the road on average each way. At the time, i thought that was the only option for me. turns out it was one the worst career choices i made.
At this point, I view the job search process as stochastic rather than deterministic. I model my job search using the binomial distribution. All that you need to know is what how frequently you get interviews and offers to then explore the probabilities involved.
To me at least, that removes a lot of the uncertainty, since I now know that if I apply to X jobs, I will have a Y percent chance of getting at least one offer, etc. Or maybe all of this is just an indictment of current hiring practices that I no longer think in terms of individual positions but in terms of aggregates of them.
Admissions to selective colleges are the same way. For most students it's rather foolish and wasteful to target any one specific college because luck plays a huge factor (or the actual selection criteria are unknown and unknowable, which from the applicant's perspective is indistinguishable from luck).
People cannot discriminate. They must spray and pray because the algorithm demands it of them. Thus, both sides (employer and employee) lose, because every applicant and every institution becomes flattened, generalized.
It used to be, applying to places took time and effort. So students (and job applicants likewise) would discriminate. This allowed employers and institutions to actually build culture. An institution could be different from another institution in large ways, all cultural, all "soft" -- unpronounceable by the machine.
This enriched us all, because it allowed pockets of brilliance to form. Actual, real, human variation.
Now, every job has 2,000 applicants. Every HR person is trained at a school whose curriculum is undifferentiated from Harvard or Yale, because every school has the incentive to emulate Harvard or Yale. Every HR person's classmates all, similarly, could not afford to care which institution they applied to, because their application process was -- again, spray and pray. And thus, every HR person at every company creates the exact same institution.
This flattening, this algorithmization, is like an invasive species which has choked out all of the variable, beautiful, at times brilliant flora and fauna which existed, protected, in its isolated institutional ecology. All of that cultural diversity has been destroyed so that we could click "easy apply."
What's the result? Every job application looks the same. Every interview looks the same. Every internal culture looks the same. Every job is the same, so much so that you could switch jobs every 2 years and nobody would even notice or care. Every 2 years! How much does a 2 year old know!? Every company apes Google in their interview process because Google is the Kudzu that choked out their local flora and fauna.
We're all poorer for it, this mass extinction event. Like you say, it's happening all over, not just in companies and schools.
The solution to the problem is trusted intermediaries that act as something of a filter against bad actors. They're just hard to establish, especially in a world where people want the other side to have their hands tied but not their own.
Upvoted, but my experience is that radically different cultures actually do continue to exist, especially across different industries. But maybe not at the apex of money and prestige.
It’s noticeably worse in Germany, to the point that the entire immigration industry is in a slump. My relocation consultant friends are really feeling it.
I also see it everywhere I look. I have never had this many unemployed friends. People spend a lot longer trying to find a job and don’t seem very successful at it.
> " the salary listed in the description had dropped by $30,000 ... But the role still sounded interesting, and the task itself looked like a fun challenge, "
If you still went for a job that had dropped by that much, but it was still a meaningful amount of money and an interesting sounding job, well ... Good luck and all, but I kind of wish I had your problems.
I guess Europe isn't nearly as bad as the US. My portfolio (and probably my actual skills) are nowhere close to what some of those in the comments that can't find a job are offering, but I was able to secure a job in Trondheim, Norway (where I'm about to move in January) with a single application and interview. I assume there weren't too many people in the Trondheim area who were willing to work at an office and who already know Vue.js pretty well.
Europe is probably easier to get hired, but if you are a senior making some medium+ salary, it's also easier to get skipped in favor of cheaper candidates.
I’m going through a similar experience after being laid off back in July for the first time in my career. The jobs advertised are quite often less-than-inspiring, the hiring processes are weird and opaque, and the hiring team is frequently disorganized and unprofessional.
An interviewer last week was straight out of a Silicon Valley storyline, asking a “if you were on an elevator with Marc Andreessen” question and explaining his devotion to Malcolm Gladwell’s 10000 hour “rule”. The week before I got ghosted twice by a company who’s leadership team apparently pays no attention to the Calendly invites they forced me to set up “for my convenience”.
I know I’m capable and do good work, so I’m not having any sort of crisis of confidence. At least not yet. But the process is definitely frustrating.
In my case, the process became so awful, humiliating, and hostile, I just gave up, and retired, ten years before I had planned. I’m very fortunate, that I could afford it. I now develop software for free, for outfits that can’t afford people like me.
It’s tough, but looking for work after 50, especially when pivoting from management, back to IC, is unbearable. My heart goes out to those without the means to walk away. I think some companies missed out, but I am under no illusion that I’m missed. I doubt they had any regrets in passing me up.
In my case, it was probably the best thing that ever happened to me. I left a lot of money on the table, but I have been happier than I ever dreamed, while working twice as hard as I ever did, when I was getting paid for it.
Devs in there 40's and 50's are probably the most valuable devs on earth. We grew up with computers and had to adapt to our rapidly changing industry.
I suspect we will see startup founders trending older if it isn't already happening. Companies stuck in the old way of thinking that older is slower will probably be disrupted in the next recession.
> Devs in there 40's and 50's are probably the most valuable devs on earth.
Over 50 seeker here (25+ years experience, first IC then mgmt). All of hiring managers I've dealt with this time around are at least 10 years my junior, and they disagree with you. They view me as a risk (higher compensation, less "hungry", higher "flight risk") and prefer people their age or younger. Don't call it ageism though, that's just how the world works :(
They want people to be passionate about whatever but in my experience the younger guys/gals are so preoccupied with themselves or some process that they spend endless hours discussing it instead of just getting some shit done.
As someone similar age, if I was job-seeking like you, then if a younger potential boss gave these vibes, I'd be up-front. Seems to me salary can't increase for ever. Sure, more experience may lead to better design decisions which save employers a fortune. However, it's kind of opaque. "Best devs on earth" may be true, but doesn't mean its obvious to management. Maybe they won't pay a higher salary immediately than to a 30-yr-old, but they'll give you a reward later if they can see how much you helped them. Flight risk? Ask 'em about it, how can you ease that fear - generally that comes down to career history - if you look like a job-hopper that can be a problem but its not specifically age-related, right? Less hungry? Well again not sure that's age-related. If they're a sweatshop I suppose they might feel they can push younger ones around more, but who wants to work there anyway? Good luck :)
From what I can see, kids out of college, are being paid more than I ever made, at the peak of my career (and they seem to have less to show for it).
Speaking only for myself, I would have been fine, taking a lower salary, if the work (and work environment) were interesting to me.
I also would not have been interested in flitting around, looking for pay bumps. I was already set.
In fact, I suspect that someone like me (and I am sure there are many others, much like me, and likely, far more qualified), could be an absolute Godsend to a startup.
> I suspect we will see startup founders trending older if it isn't already happening
Anecdotally, I think it already is. Part of it is simply because the younger you are, the less risk you can take with the cost of housing the way that it is. Older people/Millenials often have housing security and can take more risks this way, plus the other factors you raised.
Can't speak to whether that's universally true, but it's something I've been seeing: including people in their late 30s to mid 40s leaving cushy well paying corporate jobs to try founder life: they have big nest eggs from said previous jobs, so why not!
We older people have less mobility and less willing to take risk because if the bet doesn't pay off there's not much time to make up for it (younger folks can go back to be an FTE or start another thing). Also, people have kids later in life and you have to pay their insane college bills when you're in your 50s or even 60s.
If you see more older people starting companies it's because we can't find employment and have to find a way to be productive somehow...
It's interesting how much stereotyping is happening in these replies.
The fact is that there's nothing unique about any age group, and the only difference between them is their birth dates. Intragenerational differences are always larger than intergenerational differences. In any age group, there are varying degrees of competence, varying degrees of attitude, varying degrees of personal circumstances (e.g., home, family).
Ageism is treating a person solely as member of a group rather than as an individual. You simply can't accurately generalize based on a job candidate's age. Anyone who claims, "In my experience [members of age group] are mostly like this..." is putting forth weak anecdotal data that is practically useless and totally unscientific.
I think the OP was referring to experience not age. Older devs have seen the landscape change so much and if it makes full circle again that experience will pay off.
Experience can be valuable, but it's not automatically valuable. Plenty of people completely fail to learn from their long experience. Others learn very quickly from their limited experience.
The paragon is talent plus experience plus willingness to learn from experience. Admittedly, more older devs than younger devs will have this combination, but "social promotion" is no guarantee of success.
In my experience, its more the older ones that "just don't care that much about winning an argument at work", because we've learned over time to choose our battles, and "the healthy art of not giving a s**" . Maybe come back in 10 yrs time and see if you still think this? ;)
In my case, I’m a longtime member of a worldwide nonprofit organization, and that gives me a good platform to work in.
I would be happy to chat about it, offline, but I don’t usually discuss it in detail, hereabouts, as I deliberately avoid putting my work in the limelight.
all of these posts make me feel grateful that i've been able to pick up work. it also makes me wonder what i'm doing right and what all of these bloggers are doing wrong. bloggers are clearly good at marketing and communicating what they can do for a company, which is what a lot of software developers struggle with.
yep. saying, "data engineer who can turn your messy data into a data visualization or interactive map" is so much more powerful than saying "data engineer with 10 years of experience leading projects with python, aws, kubernetes"
I could never land anything... Those cushy AF PM jobs at Uber and the ilk right out of college really irk me. Although, those perks are getting culled left and right. Putting my time in to be a lowkey package driver at UPS and cultivating my passion project to a SMB lol
I had posted something about jobs and looking for jobs some time before here, but the best advice I can give is that all of this "What color is your rainbow" and "Cracking the coding interview" and so on isn't really applicable or it never seemed applicable to me and my experience.
To expand on my previous comment, I'm now on my 9th job in 10 years. Over the last year or so I've had another 30-40 interviews give or take. It was probably more, but this is as close as I can get. I would have liked to spend more time on some of these jobs, but circumstances didn't work in my favor so I had to make changes. What I've learned throughout the process is that all of this is a numbers game. It also helped me spot red flags and cut the process short.
For anyone else looking for a job and for the OP, here are some things:
1. Someone who is motivated to hire someone for a job will be quick/good to communicate
2. They need to set a clear timeline and steps in the process (and if they don't, ask for one and any deviation will be a red flag)
3. They might also tell you how many others are applying for the role (not mandatory, but it's good so you have a rough idea of what your statistical chances are)
4. Be clear about salary expectations early on and if someone pushes to find your current salary, feel free to say it's higher than it actually is. Any deviation from this or if someone doesn't want to say, it's a red(ish) flag and I'd be careful. It doesn't matter and if a recruiter will comment on this - I don't care what your theory about this is, you will aim to pay the lowest amount you can humanly get away with. It's also the reason we have minimum wage laws, not because companies were showering employees with money, but because they would have kept slavery going if that made sense to their bottom line (and they still do).
5. Ask why they are hiring - did they fire a bunch of people previously, are people leaving every few months or is the team/company growing; these can help you save time later on and at least have an idea of what culture you might be joining
6. Ask how widespread the technology you're going to be using is within the company. If a company has 99% Go roles and you applied to the 1% of the roles that are in Java, why is there such a discrepancy? Is it some old code carcass left over with no documentation, testing and with no desire to further develop it but they just want a body in the chair in case something goes wrong... not sure, but that's not something I'd want to do.
7. Be CLEAR about remote work/hybrid working policies - unless it is clearly stated in the contract, it CAN be changed with no notice. A change in contract would at least generally give you some time, but without this being in the contract, you can't really back out of it (case and point, Atos had remote-ish contracts for some of their teams, then they said they updated the terms and conditions, issued a new contract and forced employees to sign or resign). At a previous role I left I was told that the team is highly flexible and remote working is normal, but it's not in the contract, but it's ok, because everyone likes it. On a Thursday we were told that from Monday its 5 days in the office.
8. Anything outside of your salary or contract is NOT guaranteed, so don't pick a job based on perks. Those tend to vanish at the first sight of trouble and also, don't be one of those people that drinks the free coffee at the office just because its free. Stuff costs to make, grow, ship, build - pay for it.
9. Don't be pressured into accepting. This is a bit weirder, but it can happen. Let's say you are interviewing at 2 companies at the same time, one is more motivated to hire, but you don't like it as much, the other has a longer process but you like their domain more. Be upfront about this - "I am interviewing with another company and would like to see both outcomes to make a decision". Being forced at this stage to drop out, being bullied into saying the company name or anything of the sort is a red flag to me. If you have an offer but you need to wait a few days or a week - say so. "I am waiting for a reply from the other company too and I can provide an answer at the end of the next week".
10. Just because you accepted a job doesn't generally mean you need to take it. This is not legal advice, so take it with a grain of salt, as it depends greatly on what you sign, how enforceable it is and where you reside. But the general idea is that, if you accepted a job, but a week or two after you get a better offer, just tell the company you accepted the offer "No". "No" is a complete sentence. You do not need to give justifications, you don't need to take abuse or anything else. You have to think about yourself. They won't. If there is some legal rationale through which you NEED to start that role, just start it and hand in your notice on the first day. Most of these contracts will have some sort of "1 week notice by either party during probation". So you can join, give your notice, work the week, get paid for it and start at the other job.
Also, it will suck. Searching for a job will suck. More and more companies (especially recruitment companies - Noir, Tietalent, Aristo Group, RM Group and Hays to name a few) are really just mining for data with little to no interest in pushing you to any of their clients. They will also tend to try and say that just because you had read about COBOL during Uni, you are now 100% COBOL dev and set you up with a rather terrible interview with some client. There are more, but I'll stop here. On a side note, if you do end up working or answering to a question from a recruitment company check their reviews, look up the person that contacted you, look up the client and apply the same rigor to them as to the company you would end up working with. This entire industry is focused on selling out people to whomever, so don't end up pushed into stuff you don't want to do by one of these enthusiastic second hand car sales people.
It's going to get tougher and tougher in this job market.
1. Layoffs happening regularly.
2. Less Senior positions and virtually no junior jobs.
2. AI accelerating and reducing the number of software engineers.
3. Job postings being reposted with less salary and equity in US, EU and especially the UK.
You might as well take yourself off the job market / stay in current job, build a paying SMB company or side project on the side and make that your third income.
If it gets better and reaches sustainability you can choose to leave your job and live off it, or choose to get funding if need be.
After applying for over 60+ jobs after graduation and getting rejected over and over, I took myself off the market and started a pest control SaaS 4 years ago now it's bringing in over $2.2M+ ARR.
While the jobs I was applying for have now either shut down or not even bringing in anything over $100K ARR.
Congrats on the business, I hope this inspires others to pursue their dreams.
Since you mentioned a specific number of applications (60+), I just wanted to share my job hunt story. When I was last looking for a role (8 months ago), I started out thinking 5 applications a day was good, but then I spoke with an industry mentor, and he laughed me off saying that wasn't close to enough. Turns out he was right.
On his recommendation I started aiming for 50 a day. At first it's very slow, but you build up a corpus of cover letters and other material to submit applications.
This would have been easier if I was employed at the time, since so many places auto-reject if you aren't currently employed. This was also looking for fully-remote in APAC, which has far fewer opportunities than other regions/timezones.
And you might say "but I don't want to work for all these companies" and I would agree. But provided you are applying for a role that you are at least curious about, those ones that are not great fits can provide good interview practice.
On the other side of this you have people like me who've tried and failed, and now 15 years later I have 30 days to pay my mortgage or my life starts unfolding. Hoping to make some portfolio pieces in that time to impress some hiring managers, building fun tools for myself again without profit in mind. Not everyone can build a hyper successful SaaS.
Congratulations! This is my dream. But the SaaS thing is so challenging. Couple of questions if you don't mind. Any tips for someone starting out? Did you have any experience in the pest control business? How did you decide pest control industry? How did you market the product?
There are SaaS products for managing sales/compliance/billing for just about every licensed profession that deals directly with customers. I regularly get emails that are "from" my HVAC contractor or optometrist, but are obviously sent by a SaaS.
Now, imagine this situation taken to the extreme: searching for a job with relocation opportunities while residing in a country that many avoid for ethical reasons. :(
The bar has also been raised significantly. I had an interview recently where I solved the algorithm question very quickly, but didn't refactor/clean up my code perfectly and was rejected.
Apply at https://moduscreate.com/careers/5984037003/?gh_jid=598403700... and feel free to mention that you saw Boris (me) post this on HN.
The effect of remote work, seems to be leveling the entry point for everyone; an advantage for people who got discriminated against before and a disadvantage for people who enjoyed their privilege for far too long.
I probably _could_ get a job more easily today because i’ve made connections over 10 yrs. But i’d probably still try the front door first because i’m stubborn lol. But the resume needs to be PERFECT when there’s so much competition, especially for remote roles. Everything on 1 page, needs to be very easy for a hiring manager to visually scan in 10 seconds, to make a quick decision. And obviously add necessary keywords for the stupid “resume filters”. It’s a real chore…
I will say though, there’s something really rewarding about getting the job you want without asking for favors.
It’s tough out there today. Many experienced engineers were laid off, i bet it’s brutal.
For example, does it mean: the actual skill level (e.g., smartness) people actually look for and hire hasn't changed, but the activities that hiring teams require candidates to have experience with are (seemingly weirdly) not a great thing to need anyway and therefore lots of great candidates end up twiddling their thumbs?
In that way, the "height" of the bar is the same, but it's a "weird" bar, in that one could have to accept it for what it is, or even stoop to it, or perhaps shift over to it, in order to pass it?
Or more that the overall interview experiences are weird caricatures in and of themselves?
Weird is a great word, but it can be a little non-specific, so I'm left curious about the intended usage/meaning.
If you don’t have specific experience with some CTOs favorite esoteric API or don’t have experience in the same, specific corner of some insurance or usury industry, your ability to actually engineer solutions is considered irrelevant.
It’s as if the industry has forgotten that building software is about the application of algorithms to data structures to accomplish some user need. Instead, company after company wants to hot glue some service via some API using some framework on some cloud platform. And because the MBA decision-maker can write Excel macros with GPT, we don’t need programmers to build systems anymore. Just wire up foo SaaS to bar SaaS and MVPFailFastLeanAgile our way to success!
Sorry for the rant…
My 3 months experience searching - and getting only ~3-4 initial interviews - is the New-AI-Kids-on-Da-Block think software-engineering is just another plumbing for their Artificially Great Intelligence. One CEO even used the exact word.
waw. Plumbers make real good $$$..
Well when the discount plumbing they are getting put in starts to leak shit all over the place there will be a premium again in actually knowing how to do it properly.
This really isn't new. A look at Slashdot will give you similar complaints as far back as at least the 2000s. I'm sure someone older than me will dig up Usenet posts with exactly the same complaints and tell me to get off their lawn ;-)
They just know the keywords the EMs and C suite sent them in the headcount request.
Now that money isn’t free, they think the problem is too many engineers.
do you have any examples of this happening? or is this just a boogie man?
my experience has been different: so many mediocre men in this industry. all of the women i've worked with have been brilliant.
It's very difficult to be a woman in Computer Science. CompSci is uniquely awful for women. Like other STEM, it's overrun by men, so you get all the subtle discrimination of that. But CompSci men also tend to be, for lack of a better word, asocial weirdos. Civil engineers have to work with people, CompSci people built up their skills in front of a screen.
All this means that the large majority of women are filtered out. The ones that remain are the ones most skilled with navigating tough situations, and who have a strong passion for engineering. A passion strong enough to wade through the downsides.
I also think they have to constantly prove themselves, which also builds up their skills.
If that's actually the case and not just a warped perception on my part, it could easily happen that, depending on your own skill-level and environment, you'll be more likely to work with one of the two groups in the bimodal distribution.
It's not a gender issue. I would be looking to hire someone competent who works hard, not someone who makes "sacrifices" and then expects a job/promotion.
The latter never works. That's not the work culture in most places. I've seen it many times, people who make "sacrifices", allowing themselves to be exploited, expecting some promotion from it, and are then passed over for someone who actually has demonstrated they are good at the job and ready for more responsibility, and not being a doormat. Then they become resentful.
Don't be bitter. Be better.
The poster contends women are being prejudicially hired as "diversity" rather men who have "sacrificed" and worked hard.
"lolwut" indeed.
However, it is difficult to measure those positive traits for what they are, so employers are selecting based on gender hoping for positive correlation. But that's illegal, so "diversity" hiring was created as a scapegoat to help avoid legal fire.
To what end?
I see a lot of people online complaining about the job market and blaming all kinds of things for their inability to find a job, but I think what has changed is that there are no more defensive hires, where companies like Google hire as many people as possible just to deny their competitors those people. Lots of relatively unqualified people found very high-paying jobs that way and are now surprised that they can't land those jobs anymore.
If you're competent and personable and know your own strengths, you can still find a job relatively easily.
Coincidentally, I was fired during the tech downturn two years ago, and within a few weeks, had three job offers out of three applications. I have a good CV, I applied at local companies that matched my specific expertise, I asked how the interview would go and what was expected, and prepared specifically for each company.
Complaining about women because you can't find a job isn't just misguided, it's harmful to yourself, because it prevents you from understanding what the actual issue is, and working on it.
Lately my bread and butter is fixing legacy game engines. I have yet to meet a ciswoman tech lead who can do this work.
I'm not sure what exactly qualifies as a "legacy game engine", but given the small number of women who worked in comp sci when games were made ten or twenty years ago, and particularly in male-dominated videogame studios, I would naturally not expect to see a lot of cis women with experience working on these engines (or on related tech stacks) today.
This seems like a bit of a special case, rather than a general representation of women in software engineering.
have you ever heard of the word "bias"?
> Staring at logs in a terminal and sifting through endless YAML not so much.
i did not know that one gender could be better at this work. that seems like huge news if true.
and yes, you sound like a reactionary. coward ass throwaway account.
There is research that has shown that men are, on average, better at single-focus tasks. And, indeed, it was huge news at the time the research was published – at least as huge as being reported in major news publications is.
It wouldn't be huge news now. We quickly grow bored and tired of widely reported things from the past. Humans, of all genders it seems, tend to seek novelty.
Who created and contributes to linux kernel, python, c, c++, go, python, ruby, ruby on rails, php, wordpress, ghost, SumatraPDF, zig, oding, nim, nodejs, deno, bun.
I could just keep listing major open source projects because I literally cannot think of a single one created and led by a woman.
And if you find one, it still doesn't negate the 100 to 1 ratio.
Open source, unlike jobs, are pure meritocracy. A woman can create a GitHub account and start coding just as easily as a man. There are no gatekeepers and open source contributors / maintainers are abused by random people as a matter of course.
To me it's reality. To you, somehow, saying that out loud is bias.
And to be clear: I don't think there's anything preventing women from learning to code and contributing at a high level and I've known a few that do. But for some reason they overwhelmingly don't. The stats are brutal.
edit: nvm i did about this entire comment thread: https://claude.site/artifacts/b1f6e916-a21b-420b-9081-dec62b... and specifically responding to all of your claims: https://claude.site/artifacts/401d407d-ef53-4cdf-84fd-cd79b5...
I have seen women in the trenches but I don't see how that contradicts my claim that they are relatively few and there's probably a reason despite all the efforts to bring more women into tech.
I play the game then they pass me off to another Indian who is less understandable than the first guy and then they offer $45/hour. I say yeah sure, submit me to the potential client. Then I never hear anything back.
The Indian 3rd party recruiting industry is absolutely horrible. Another anecdote was spending 10 minutes explaining how Java and JavaScript aren’t the same thing. I am convinced there is rampant discrimination happening as well against non-Indians, and especially those who aren’t H1Bs. (H1B is a trap that makes it easy to hire people at lower wages and then also makes it harder for them to switch employers.)
I’m not well articulating the problem, but anyone who has done this dance knows exactly what I’m talking about.
By the way, I used to contract at $95/hour and now I can’t get calls back for $45/hour.
The outsourcing offshoring business needs to be significantly reformed. I had a gig at Best Buy ($70/hour) and I got to spend 3 months training some Accenture H1Bs to replace me. I thought H1B was to fill “critical shortages of highly skilled workers?” Best Buy didn’t have a shortage — they fired my entire team and replaced it with Accenture. Best Buy should be heavily taxed for that and Accenture et al should have their offshore labor tariffed into oblivion. (They typically have onshore H1Bs directing offshore teams.) The Best Buy CEO talks all sorts of DEI crap, while firing people to cut costs. Not very inclusive if you ask me.
You will be sold a dream of infinite scalability by hiring "talent" in those countries for cheap and what you will get is usually disfunctional teams riddled with incompetence and nepotism.
Even if a job/team is meant to be multicultural,diverse they will find a way how to hire more and more of their countrymen until knowing the language is basically a requirement for the job.
I am not even an american and i've seen this happen in Europe as well so I imagine in the US it must be 1000 times worse.
Another instance, Intel gave tens of millions to do something that few employees could have done in couple of months. Its basically creating two conda environments, one with intel optimized software stack & one with default and compare the results for 20 use cases.
Not sure its the case with all the contract companies, but this was my experience.
It’s awful catching myself in a “I’m not racist but” situation. It really worries me.
Indians rejecting Pakistanis? Not racist
Indians rejecting Chinese? Not racist
Chinese rejecting Indians? Not racist
The concept of racism, i.e. "being different enough from me"-ism exists everywhere. But somehow it's fine if you're not white.
I lived in Europe for a few years and didn't feel that same context as well - it wasn't almost assumed that white people were racist and anyone might be seen as racist regardless of their skin color or heritage.
Outside of that, examples abound of racist behaviour by non white peoples, often toward other non white people.
I my opinion all of those are racist.
But in the current woke public opinion it's not and only whites can be racist.
I would love if it was possible to label racism whenever it appears but it's not possible without being called a racist yourself if you are white.
Looking at sibling parent poster there mentioning Germany, a similar example would be trying to make rational arguments about Israeli conduct with regards to settlements in the west bank. Any German even thinking out loud about those would be labeled a Neo-Nazi.
In my opinion "the current woke public opinion" is almost entirely a bogeyman construction of primarily the US right wing media with trailing support from their UK, AU, and CA siblings.
It's rare (ie. never.) that I read in "left wing" media of any substance articles about the pressing need for kitty litter trays for Furry students.
It's disturbingly commonplace to hear of what can only be performative manufacted outrage about such things from the asshole tanning bowtie wearing media wing.
The conclusion is that the statement " in the current woke public opinion it's not and only whites can be racist" is very much a localised subjective opinion and not any kind of actual global truth.
And yes in "NA" context, I can definitely say that it's not "right wing outrage" construct. It actually feels like this conversation is the perfect example now. I'm absolutely not a Trump supporter for example. Not even a republican supporter. But it's absolutely my belief that H1Bs (which primarily means Indian nationals) is a very detrimental construct for America. I would never in my wildest dreams mention this "IRL" in my regular social circles for fear of being labeled racist. I am actually struggling to write any further here right now without fear of being labeled racist. I absolutely want to avoid "being thrown in the Trump camp" as well. I absolutely abhor the kind of vote buying Musk engaged in for example. A million a day for a signature? WTF!? It's such a brazen thing for a person with money to do, it's against everything I always believed the United States of America, the leader of the free world, would stand for. But I guess I was just naive. The world is way less fair than I hoped it was. I do recognize that. I still hate it.
You are a racist. Now, with that out of the way, how has your life changed? It hasn't, has it? So, what brought on the fear, then? Have you invented racism in your head as being something it is not?
I experience the other end of the spectrum. The skilled Indians that made it to Germany and write to me through my website are usually delightful people.
Consider just how different your experience of most countries would be if you just interacted with their people with the most imbalanced incentives. This is sort of what’s happening.
I’ve never seen this before. It’s always been very hard to find a single highly-qualified candidate.
And with so many people looking for new positions, if you’re not highly keyword targeted, you won’t go anywhere.
It sounds like they intentionally present a simple problem because they are not filtering by who can solve it, but by who writes clean maintainable code.
I wish I had thought of that when I was interviewing candidates, because it is a good criterium for a well established organization.
I truly don't doubt that's what happened, I've had it happen, but when it did their feedback was (insultingly) not up to their professional standard. I say insultingly because it was an amateurish evaluation of what I did, specifically because it was like the 5th god damn interview by that point and really they should have been looking for more than trivialities like the coding style I chose to use in HackerRank with a visible ticking clock.
The reason I ask is just for context; if people are interviewing for Senior roles and being rejected for code formatting problems, something is even more deeply wrong than it seems, since they probably shouldn't be concerning themselves with that _at_all_. If it's possible though that you were rejected for some other reason, but that your code style was the strongest negative apparent signal, that's also worth exploring. In my case, that's a possibility, that they were looking for just one more reason to narrow the funnel, but it can be hard to accept.
So with that in mind I'll see you all at ReInvent
While it's fine when doing the job the purpose of the interview is to gauge your ability to understand and solve problems, while AI can help you with that you understanding how to do it yourself signals that you'll be able to solve other more complex wider-spanning problems.
Just like with a calculator - it's important for candidates to know _why_ something works and be able to demonstrate that as much as them knowing the solution.
"Write this code, but don't read the API definition (like a normal developer would do in the course of their work)"
"Whiteboard this CRUD app, but don't verify you did it right using online sources (like a normal developer would do in the course of their work)"
"Type this function out in a text document so that you don't have the benefit of Intellisense (like a normal developer would have in the course of their work)"
"Design this algorithm, but don't pull up the research paper that describes it (like a normal developer would do in the course of their work)"
You're testing a developer under constraints that nobody actually has to actually work under. It's like asking a prospective carpenter to build you a doghouse without using a tape measure.
And this is why I never give coding-puzzle interviews. I just have a chat about your past projects (based on resume). We'll go deep into the technical details and it is easy in such a conversation to get a feel for whether you actually contributed significantly to the things the resume says you did.
They said the opposite of that. Unless you think it's not possible to figure out problems and you can only do them by rote memorization?
It is not possible to solve a problem from scratch. You must first invent the universe, as they say. Any solution you come up with for a new problem will build upon solutions others have made for earlier problems.
In the current age, under a real-world scenario, you are going to use AI to help discover those earlier solutions on which to build upon. Before AI you would have consulted a live human instead. But humans, while not what we consider artificial, are what we consider intelligent and therefore presumably fall under the same rule, so that distinction is moot anyway.
Which means that, without access to the necessary tools during the interview, any pre-existing solution you might need to build upon needs to be memorized beforehand. If you fail to remember, or didn't build up memories of the right thing, before going into the interview, then you can't possibly solve the problem, even if you are quite capable of problem solving. Thus, it ends up being a test of memory, not a test of problem solving ability.
And for what? AI fundamentally cannot solve new problems anyway. At best, it can repeat solutions to old problems already solved, but why on earth would you be trying to solve problems already solved in the first place? That is a pointless waste of time, and a severe economic drain for the business. Being able to repeat solutions to problems already solved is not a useful employment skill.
This is literally what AI is, and why they don't want it used in the interview.
It is really good at being a "college professor" that you can bounce ideas off of, though. It is not going to give you the solution (it fundamentally can't), but it can serve to help guide you. Stuff like "A similar problem was solved with <insert research paper>, perhaps there is an adaptation there for you to consider?"
We're long past a world where one can solve problems in a vacuum. You haven't been able to do that for thousands, if not millions, of years. All new problems are solved by standing on the shoulders of problems that were solved previously. One needs resources to understand those older problems and their solutions to pave the way to solving the present problems. So... If you can't use the tools we have for that during the interview, all you can lean on is what you were able to memorize beforehand.
But that doesn't end up measuring problem solving ability, just your ability to memorize and your foresight in memorizing the right thing.
This doesn't work, because regardless of what the rules say if i think all my competitors are using AI (and you won't be able to reliably detect it) i'll feel pressured to use it as well. This is true of any advantage (spending extra time on 2 hour takehome assignment is the classic version of this)
With that said, none of the interviews I've had over the last couple months included questions that could reasonably be done with an LLM. The context is usually wrong, technical challenges were done live on a video call and it would be horribly obvious if a candidate was just prompting an LLM for an answer.
A cheap multi camera system + software, that can be quickly installed at candidates location to watch interviewing candidate. This can be sent by employer before interviews. its cheap enough that it can be thrown away.
traditional way - A company that provides interviewing centers across major cities for software interview, the location will have cameras that will make sure candidates are not cheating.
The late 2020 period was the absolute best time though. I got multiple offers almost instantly, and after I signed on it felt like the org was bloated with engineers just fiddling away on meaningless projects.
The bigger problem are HRs employed by big companies who autoreject every application and take no responsibility for doing this.
At a startup… who knows? I had an interviewer burn up 25 minutes on a 45 minute coding question trying to “hint me” towards the solution I mentioned in the first 2 minutes.
I expect most people here won't have a good sense for 2009. While it wasn't great for many industries, for tech it was the "app" boom. You couldn't hardly go outside without someone throwing money at you.
Bearing in mind the implicit comparison to "a few years ago", a few years ago I interviewed with Google, at which point the recruiter told me I'd passed the interview, wished me congratulations (!), told me to expect a job offer, and finally, ~6 weeks later, informed me that while I'd "passed" the interviews, my scores were too low for them to make an offer.
It remains a mystery what it might mean to "pass" without actually advancing beyond the threshold you passed.
For context - I’ve made 4 personal projects that currently have over 1000+ daily active users (numbers are ~1500, ~6000, ~14,000, and ~430,000) all created within the span of the last year. I’ve also sold software.
On top of all that, I have an Engineering degree, 4 years experience, no breaks in employment, study on my afternoons and weekends (C, Go, C#) and take extra university courses, and have some other high level achievements/recognition.
I apply for Intermediate and Senior positions.
So far I have 3 interviews lined up out of ~30-40 applications. About 10 rejections so far. 1 of those jobs is actually decent, the other 2 are desperation applications.
It’s brutal. I’m trying my absolute best, I don’t see how people that have been coasting have any chance.
You should be able to coast a bit in life.
I’m sad at the state of things, and sad for people trying to stay in the industry or break into the industry.
Makes me want to become a gardener
Looking for any intermediate /senior role in any stack.
I’m based in NZ so there’s barely any jobs
You gotta spam alot since 'everybody' else does it too. You'll just drown in others' applications otherwise.
For better or worse, I might not showcase those that much.
Your side projects could give the impression that you are more dedicated to those than to your primary employer.
For the roles I review resumes for and interview I want a well rounded individual who seems like they would stay in the position for many years. Someone who is studying on weekends and taking extra university courses on coding does not necessarily give me that impression. Again, just a devil’s advocate position.
Had an interview with the rudest motherfucker I’ve ever met. Utter disdain for their existing employees (complaining that they can’t just fire them on the spot like in Ukraine or some other Eastern bloc country). Asked “why should we waste Engineers time interviewing someone who doesn’t have C# experience?” I should have ended the interview right then.
This is why people hate immigration. I should have told him to go back to his country if he wants that experience.
I’m so far tipped over the fucking edge I’m going to start a violent revolution.
Why not?
(Although, apparently it’s not likely you can you do it as a dev in today’s market so)
But if you step up to being a farmer then you'll be playing with way more interesting computers than you'll find on a typical desk.
> (Although, apparently it’s not likely you can you do it as a dev in today’s market so)
Farming isn't in good economic shape right now either, granted.
Anyone considering farming should take note of this. The industry is not in a place where farmers can make any meaningful profit, especially if you're just getting into it. At best the average farmer breaks even after depending heavily on federal subsidies and crop insurance.
There are likely technical roles in the age industry, though personally that runs into a moral problem for me as you will end up being paid well to turn the financial screws even harder on the average farmer or farm hand.
I don't get it. If these companies really believed that working in an office was so beneficial they would invest in them. But they all come across like "I need an office to appear like a real company but I don't want to spend a lot of money". They're these millennial gray warehouses rocking the sad-bachelor aesthetic.
Those roles are going to get squeezed pretty fast as the market heats up.
I don’t want to move someone with obscene housing costs and rampant crime. Most people don’t, especially ones that have families, houses, etc.
however, there are tech transitions and it appears we are in the midst of one - after which a new set of tech careers seem to emerge. internet/web/mobile/cloud/saas and whatnot. i fully expect the same to happen here.
so, hang in there, and keep your sword sharp.
Of course things can change rapidly; perhaps the influx of ai-produced applications may bring this practice back.
At our company the (unwritten) policy is anyone who is referred internally will always get at least 1 shot at an interview even if the resume would been have otherwise been rejected. The bar isn’t lowered on merit, though.
It certainly helps if the person is the hiring manager or some skip-level of the hiring manager as opposed to just an industry "name."
This September, I finished up a 10 month job search (had a job that was going nowhere, so looked for another) In that time, I started with careful analysis of each role, custom resume building, and applying to one or two jobs a week. When that yielded no results after a few months, I crafted a few resumes to match the broad categories of roles that I saw that were good matches and started applying in bulk. That yielded much better result in terms of actual human contact.
I did also leverage my LinkedIn network, and that yielded lots of nice reconnections with past coworkers, but zero job opportunities. The one reach out that led to anything was to the manager for the FAANG job I rejected in 2019 (always say no very nicely!). That manager made it to VP in that timeframe, and a VP recommendation to the recruiting team WILL get you in the door to talk to someone. Of course, a multi-month process resulted in a kafka-esque situation where the team that wanted me got laid off and that killed the entire process. Oh well.
In the end, I'd sent out over 300 applications, had a few dozen recruiter calls, and 7 full loops (4 offers, one of which was a lowball and 3 that all happened at the same time). Ironically, the job I ended up taking came as an inbound opportunity via LinkedIn from a recruiter at the company.
The good news seemed to be that by the August timeframe, activity had really picked up. The same resumes started getting a lot more traction.
People have been saying that since I was in school in the 90's. I've never found it to be helpful. In fact, even back in the days when there were still jobs to be had, by far the worst jobs I ever held were the ones I was referred into. The reason was pretty obvious at the time - the person who referred me in had to "talk me up" so I was starting in a position where I could only disappoint. The "cold applications" didn't have huge expectations, so when I turned out to be good at what I was doing, they were happy to see it.
i try to help anyone i know (with referrals) as i have personally seen the anxiety, stress, and emotional roller-coaster that accompany the job hunt.
social network might not be great for someone who just broke out of their underclass social network to try make it big.
This advice assumes you have such a network anyway.
Do you have experience with doing this in a way that doesn't come across as desperate or too forward? How close do you need to be with this network? Is Linkedin connection enough, or would you only do this approach with people you've worked with?
In terms of reaching out, here are some things I did when I was job hunting:
1. The classic referral
Find the job post and work backwards from there (e.g., is there somebody I know (1st connection) or somebody who knows somebody I know (2nd connection) on LinkedIn who works at the company?).
If I knew the 1st connection, I'd reach out and ask if they were comfortable referring me.
2. The forwardable email
If it was a 2nd connection, I'd reach out with a forwardable email (https://also.roybahat.com/introductions-and-the-forward-intr...) and ask if they'd be able to forward an email and make an intro if they received a positive response.
3. Job hunting as an occasion
I made time to catch up with good friends. It felt energizing to get the moral support, with the added bonus that sometimes they knew people working at companies looking to hire. For example I would eventually get a job offer from Figma and that was because a good friend's partner worked there and was glad to refer me. I hadn't even heard of the opportunity before we talked.
4. The weak ties
I also made time to catch up with people I didn't know that well. There's some research on "weak ties" that suggest that people who you don't know well probably are exposed to a very different network to you, and will come across very different opportunities. The convo would be an opportunity for us to catch up and I'd talk about being open to job opportunities.
I hope this helps!
I'm very happy to refer and vouch for someone that I've actually worked with (and look forward to working with again), but I'm not vouching for some random stranger...
The proximity to my network doesn't need to be strong, but your resume does.
is how I've done it.
Worst case, you get ghosted. Best case, you get an interview.
To be clear, I’m not saying you’re wrong: in a distorted market it’s absolutely about who you know and get on with. So it’s nothing personal that your (astute) observation irks me.
I just can’t see advice like this without feeling a little tick: I’ve been in this business for more than twenty years, and there have been downturns certainly in that time, but I’ve never seen it so firmly in the iron grip of monopoly and nepotism with such predictably grim results for the software outcomes.
And don’t get me started on the party line that “the economy is doing great”.
I have been looking for a job since the middle of the July with not much to show off. I have decreased my salary expectations but that is not the main problem, there are just no jobs to apply to.
For the last 7 years I have been working remotely for various companies inside the EU but it looks to me remote jobs are almost dead now. Everyone wants people back in the office.
My, probably controversial, opinion is that before Covid remote jobs were jobs for the more skilled people, so companies offered them knowing what they will get in return. But during Covid, when everyone worked remotely, some people not doing that that well, the companies just started considering remote jobs not worth it.
Local jobs are almost not existent too here, sometimes there is an opening at a bank but immediately fills in with tens of applications.
Last time I was looking for a new job, in 2022, after 1 month of the search I had 3 offers to choose from; 1 remote EU job and 2 remote local jobs.
Now, after 4 months, the furthest I got was remote EU job where after 5 rounds I was told I made it into top 3 candidates but was not chosen.
I started brushing up on C#/.NET I did over a decade ago as something to switch to, I am definitely not an Apple fanboy to stick to iOS at all costs, but the situation with those kinds of jobs does not look that much better either.
I don't mean to discount anyone's unpleasantness but you'd be surprised how much worse the rest of the world is.
(Oh, and historically in many cases, it might also have involved moving across the country.)
I was talking to multiple people at an event fairly recently and there was general consensus that tech was in a "weird" place right now relative to the past decade or so.
"Other people have it worse" is not a compelling reason to make people believe their own shitty situation is good
Maybe we could improve the interviewing in all industries?
But we could start with Software since that's where most of the people on this board work
I personally think there's a lot of room for improvement in interview processes, regardless of if they are currently "bad" or not, they certainly could be better
I also don't think things ever really improve broadly as long as there are enough people who think "that's actually not that bad"
If employers were obligated to pay prospective employees for their time then they wouldn't waste time
Leetcode stuff sucks, but it is kind of nice being an industry where I can have no college degree and no references, but over the course of a few 1 hour interviews demonstrate competence.
do not do any other drastic changes (selling houses, divorcing, whatever).
Decide what to do then.
after the dot-com bust, i took a job that involved a 70 mile commute (each way) which was about 100 minutes on the road on average each way. At the time, i thought that was the only option for me. turns out it was one the worst career choices i made.
- The end of 0% interest rates
- The 5 year amortization of the R&D tax credit as part of the 2017 Tax Act (versus same year since 1981)
To me at least, that removes a lot of the uncertainty, since I now know that if I apply to X jobs, I will have a Y percent chance of getting at least one offer, etc. Or maybe all of this is just an indictment of current hiring practices that I no longer think in terms of individual positions but in terms of aggregates of them.
Yes, it is sales. You are doing sales. Leads -> chats -> due dilligence -> offers -> negotiation -> conversions.
This is also how the hiring side looks at it. “How many leads do we need to get a conversion to this role?”. It helps when both sides understand this.
It used to be, applying to places took time and effort. So students (and job applicants likewise) would discriminate. This allowed employers and institutions to actually build culture. An institution could be different from another institution in large ways, all cultural, all "soft" -- unpronounceable by the machine.
This enriched us all, because it allowed pockets of brilliance to form. Actual, real, human variation.
Now, every job has 2,000 applicants. Every HR person is trained at a school whose curriculum is undifferentiated from Harvard or Yale, because every school has the incentive to emulate Harvard or Yale. Every HR person's classmates all, similarly, could not afford to care which institution they applied to, because their application process was -- again, spray and pray. And thus, every HR person at every company creates the exact same institution.
This flattening, this algorithmization, is like an invasive species which has choked out all of the variable, beautiful, at times brilliant flora and fauna which existed, protected, in its isolated institutional ecology. All of that cultural diversity has been destroyed so that we could click "easy apply."
What's the result? Every job application looks the same. Every interview looks the same. Every internal culture looks the same. Every job is the same, so much so that you could switch jobs every 2 years and nobody would even notice or care. Every 2 years! How much does a 2 year old know!? Every company apes Google in their interview process because Google is the Kudzu that choked out their local flora and fauna.
We're all poorer for it, this mass extinction event. Like you say, it's happening all over, not just in companies and schools.
The solution to the problem is trusted intermediaries that act as something of a filter against bad actors. They're just hard to establish, especially in a world where people want the other side to have their hands tied but not their own.
I also see it everywhere I look. I have never had this many unemployed friends. People spend a lot longer trying to find a job and don’t seem very successful at it.
Or is it a lot better when you're physically in the Bay Area?
If you still went for a job that had dropped by that much, but it was still a meaningful amount of money and an interesting sounding job, well ... Good luck and all, but I kind of wish I had your problems.
Seems like it.
But what if that wasn't the case at all and they desperately needed an income and were willing to take an unfairly small salary?
Times are tough
An interviewer last week was straight out of a Silicon Valley storyline, asking a “if you were on an elevator with Marc Andreessen” question and explaining his devotion to Malcolm Gladwell’s 10000 hour “rule”. The week before I got ghosted twice by a company who’s leadership team apparently pays no attention to the Calendly invites they forced me to set up “for my convenience”.
I know I’m capable and do good work, so I’m not having any sort of crisis of confidence. At least not yet. But the process is definitely frustrating.
Were they looking for a nice local newspaper story about a misdemeanor assault?
In my case, the process became so awful, humiliating, and hostile, I just gave up, and retired, ten years before I had planned. I’m very fortunate, that I could afford it. I now develop software for free, for outfits that can’t afford people like me.
It’s tough, but looking for work after 50, especially when pivoting from management, back to IC, is unbearable. My heart goes out to those without the means to walk away. I think some companies missed out, but I am under no illusion that I’m missed. I doubt they had any regrets in passing me up.
In my case, it was probably the best thing that ever happened to me. I left a lot of money on the table, but I have been happier than I ever dreamed, while working twice as hard as I ever did, when I was getting paid for it.
I suspect we will see startup founders trending older if it isn't already happening. Companies stuck in the old way of thinking that older is slower will probably be disrupted in the next recession.
Over 50 seeker here (25+ years experience, first IC then mgmt). All of hiring managers I've dealt with this time around are at least 10 years my junior, and they disagree with you. They view me as a risk (higher compensation, less "hungry", higher "flight risk") and prefer people their age or younger. Don't call it ageism though, that's just how the world works :(
Speaking only for myself, I would have been fine, taking a lower salary, if the work (and work environment) were interesting to me.
I also would not have been interested in flitting around, looking for pay bumps. I was already set.
In fact, I suspect that someone like me (and I am sure there are many others, much like me, and likely, far more qualified), could be an absolute Godsend to a startup.
I don't think most companies behave this way. Maybe at one point they did, but I find the reward for doing great work is "That's why we hired you"
Yeah maybe you get a yearly raise and a bonus but it never is big enough to make up for taking a lower salary
Anecdotally, I think it already is. Part of it is simply because the younger you are, the less risk you can take with the cost of housing the way that it is. Older people/Millenials often have housing security and can take more risks this way, plus the other factors you raised.
Can't speak to whether that's universally true, but it's something I've been seeing: including people in their late 30s to mid 40s leaving cushy well paying corporate jobs to try founder life: they have big nest eggs from said previous jobs, so why not!
If you see more older people starting companies it's because we can't find employment and have to find a way to be productive somehow...
The fact is that there's nothing unique about any age group, and the only difference between them is their birth dates. Intragenerational differences are always larger than intergenerational differences. In any age group, there are varying degrees of competence, varying degrees of attitude, varying degrees of personal circumstances (e.g., home, family).
Ageism is treating a person solely as member of a group rather than as an individual. You simply can't accurately generalize based on a job candidate's age. Anyone who claims, "In my experience [members of age group] are mostly like this..." is putting forth weak anecdotal data that is practically useless and totally unscientific.
The paragon is talent plus experience plus willingness to learn from experience. Admittedly, more older devs than younger devs will have this combination, but "social promotion" is no guarantee of success.
No, I don't care about proving things to you
What kind of outfits? Might be interested myself.
I would be happy to chat about it, offline, but I don’t usually discuss it in detail, hereabouts, as I deliberately avoid putting my work in the limelight.
I had posted something about jobs and looking for jobs some time before here, but the best advice I can give is that all of this "What color is your rainbow" and "Cracking the coding interview" and so on isn't really applicable or it never seemed applicable to me and my experience.
To expand on my previous comment, I'm now on my 9th job in 10 years. Over the last year or so I've had another 30-40 interviews give or take. It was probably more, but this is as close as I can get. I would have liked to spend more time on some of these jobs, but circumstances didn't work in my favor so I had to make changes. What I've learned throughout the process is that all of this is a numbers game. It also helped me spot red flags and cut the process short.
For anyone else looking for a job and for the OP, here are some things:
1. Someone who is motivated to hire someone for a job will be quick/good to communicate
2. They need to set a clear timeline and steps in the process (and if they don't, ask for one and any deviation will be a red flag)
3. They might also tell you how many others are applying for the role (not mandatory, but it's good so you have a rough idea of what your statistical chances are)
4. Be clear about salary expectations early on and if someone pushes to find your current salary, feel free to say it's higher than it actually is. Any deviation from this or if someone doesn't want to say, it's a red(ish) flag and I'd be careful. It doesn't matter and if a recruiter will comment on this - I don't care what your theory about this is, you will aim to pay the lowest amount you can humanly get away with. It's also the reason we have minimum wage laws, not because companies were showering employees with money, but because they would have kept slavery going if that made sense to their bottom line (and they still do).
5. Ask why they are hiring - did they fire a bunch of people previously, are people leaving every few months or is the team/company growing; these can help you save time later on and at least have an idea of what culture you might be joining
6. Ask how widespread the technology you're going to be using is within the company. If a company has 99% Go roles and you applied to the 1% of the roles that are in Java, why is there such a discrepancy? Is it some old code carcass left over with no documentation, testing and with no desire to further develop it but they just want a body in the chair in case something goes wrong... not sure, but that's not something I'd want to do.
7. Be CLEAR about remote work/hybrid working policies - unless it is clearly stated in the contract, it CAN be changed with no notice. A change in contract would at least generally give you some time, but without this being in the contract, you can't really back out of it (case and point, Atos had remote-ish contracts for some of their teams, then they said they updated the terms and conditions, issued a new contract and forced employees to sign or resign). At a previous role I left I was told that the team is highly flexible and remote working is normal, but it's not in the contract, but it's ok, because everyone likes it. On a Thursday we were told that from Monday its 5 days in the office.
8. Anything outside of your salary or contract is NOT guaranteed, so don't pick a job based on perks. Those tend to vanish at the first sight of trouble and also, don't be one of those people that drinks the free coffee at the office just because its free. Stuff costs to make, grow, ship, build - pay for it.
9. Don't be pressured into accepting. This is a bit weirder, but it can happen. Let's say you are interviewing at 2 companies at the same time, one is more motivated to hire, but you don't like it as much, the other has a longer process but you like their domain more. Be upfront about this - "I am interviewing with another company and would like to see both outcomes to make a decision". Being forced at this stage to drop out, being bullied into saying the company name or anything of the sort is a red flag to me. If you have an offer but you need to wait a few days or a week - say so. "I am waiting for a reply from the other company too and I can provide an answer at the end of the next week".
10. Just because you accepted a job doesn't generally mean you need to take it. This is not legal advice, so take it with a grain of salt, as it depends greatly on what you sign, how enforceable it is and where you reside. But the general idea is that, if you accepted a job, but a week or two after you get a better offer, just tell the company you accepted the offer "No". "No" is a complete sentence. You do not need to give justifications, you don't need to take abuse or anything else. You have to think about yourself. They won't. If there is some legal rationale through which you NEED to start that role, just start it and hand in your notice on the first day. Most of these contracts will have some sort of "1 week notice by either party during probation". So you can join, give your notice, work the week, get paid for it and start at the other job.
Also, it will suck. Searching for a job will suck. More and more companies (especially recruitment companies - Noir, Tietalent, Aristo Group, RM Group and Hays to name a few) are really just mining for data with little to no interest in pushing you to any of their clients. They will also tend to try and say that just because you had read about COBOL during Uni, you are now 100% COBOL dev and set you up with a rather terrible interview with some client. There are more, but I'll stop here. On a side note, if you do end up working or answering to a question from a recruitment company check their reviews, look up the person that contacted you, look up the client and apply the same rigor to them as to the company you would end up working with. This entire industry is focused on selling out people to whomever, so don't end up pushed into stuff you don't want to do by one of these enthusiastic second hand car sales people.
1. Layoffs happening regularly.
2. Less Senior positions and virtually no junior jobs.
2. AI accelerating and reducing the number of software engineers.
3. Job postings being reposted with less salary and equity in US, EU and especially the UK.
You might as well take yourself off the job market / stay in current job, build a paying SMB company or side project on the side and make that your third income.
If it gets better and reaches sustainability you can choose to leave your job and live off it, or choose to get funding if need be.
After applying for over 60+ jobs after graduation and getting rejected over and over, I took myself off the market and started a pest control SaaS 4 years ago now it's bringing in over $2.2M+ ARR.
While the jobs I was applying for have now either shut down or not even bringing in anything over $100K ARR.
Since you mentioned a specific number of applications (60+), I just wanted to share my job hunt story. When I was last looking for a role (8 months ago), I started out thinking 5 applications a day was good, but then I spoke with an industry mentor, and he laughed me off saying that wasn't close to enough. Turns out he was right.
On his recommendation I started aiming for 50 a day. At first it's very slow, but you build up a corpus of cover letters and other material to submit applications.
This would have been easier if I was employed at the time, since so many places auto-reject if you aren't currently employed. This was also looking for fully-remote in APAC, which has far fewer opportunities than other regions/timezones.
And you might say "but I don't want to work for all these companies" and I would agree. But provided you are applying for a role that you are at least curious about, those ones that are not great fits can provide good interview practice.
That really happens? How do you know they do that? I'm not doubting you, but I've never heard of that before.
How does this work? Are we talking computer bugs?