Ask HN: How's the Job Hunt Going?
Greetings fellow engineers.
I wanted to share my experience as a software engineer, which is that USA based job seekers are currently having a difficult time. I would't call the global market overall bad though.
What is your experience? I find myself wondering if my email is broken. Which is to say I get very little reply. Compare this to a year ago when I got a reply to almost every application I sent out. I'm kind of kicking myself for being so picky; I haven't had a job in a few years and running out of money (I was never that well-off, but coming from a working-class background I don't live an expensive life). I've had a few bad experiences and I wanted to find something I really liked (I actually had a very well paid "Silicon Valley type" job for a company most here will know last year which I quit after 3 months because they gave me fuck all to do and I felt their engineering ethos was horrible – it just didn't feel right accepting a huge salary and not working for it). I just recently got a job after a few years away. It was the only interview I got out of about a dozen crafted applications and probably over a hundred basic ones. Pretty dismal. Fortunately, a friend of mine needed dev help with his growth stage company so I've been keeping the lights on contracting and sort of price gouging my hourly rate. That said, I've really been hoping to land another proper full-time gig. On that front, things are not looking good. I had about a year under my belt as a newly transitioned (4YOE SWE 1YOE TPM) TPM so I'm sort of double fucked. Tech companies don't want to hire flip flopping devs and product people with less than a year of experience are basically un hire-able. It's been four months, but at least I have some income to show for it. Had maybe three interviews, two recruiters reach out in this entire time. Probably around 100 applications. I think I’m screwed. I can’t get interviews anymore. Every now and then I get one and it goes nowhere, and I almost never make it past the first round. My LinkedIn profile views now show mostly as “salespeople” instead of recruiters. I’ve lost a lot of money thanks to emergency expenses that happened towards the beginning and have been steadily bleeding my savings through general cost of living. I’m not sure how much longer I’ll be able to keep it up, but at this point I’m pretty much convinced I’ll run out of money before I can get a new job. Can you please share what is the main reason you believe you're getting rejected or passed on? Not really for the interviews. I can definitely recognize some mistakes during most of them, but nothing really common to all them. If I had to guess, I imagine that in this market, there are just a lot of other people seeking work with much more impressive resumes. Almost 10 YOE on top of a MSc, looking for remote roles mainly in Europe. Looking for work for the past few weeks, sent out close to 500 applications. I heard back from maybe 20 companies, 10 won't hire remotely (anymore?) and asked if I'd relocate, 2 progressed to multiple interview before rejecting me without any reasons stated, and have an ongoing process with another 4-5.
All salaries I'm looking at are way lower than what I was making (down to even half). Bleak. Good luck. Are you interested only in remote? Lots of companies are doing the hybrid thing, in EU, and won't accept fully remote anymore. Moved where I'm at a few years back to be close to extended family. Moving elsewhere within the country wouldn't really net me many more opportunities (expect maybe for middle management roles).
Moving to other EU countries for a slightly higher salary that I'll spend on achieving the same quality of life and travelling to see friends and family seems a bit pointless, or even reckless with a young kid. I make $25000 USD/yr automating printers and excel spreadsheets in a textile mill. I might be stupid. Now this is something I would like to know more about! Well we use a software from Centrics called ARCH which was really confusing when they asked me if I knew ARCH and I thought they meant Arch Linux. ARCH itself is basically just a MS SQL database and a SMB server. When I started here they were spending a lot of time using the GUI client Centrics provides to copy/paste data from ARCH into excel spreadsheets, but I found it's a lot faster and more accurate to just have a computer query the database and put the data in the spreadsheets automatically. And the spreadsheets are good because they make it easy for someone who isn't connected to the network to view data from ARCH. And ARCH is helpful because it keeps track of the orders, makes sure the products get printed out, packaged, and shipped to the right places. ARCH can do billing too, but I think we use quickbooks to do that. Also the printers are necessary because we print out designs on paper and then use heat to sublimate the ink onto the textiles. I've heard rumors that we might start doing direct-to-garment printing but that would require a lot of changes to our process and I think it might not even be cost effective. Very very hard going for me. I have nearly 10 years of experience but only got one interview, and when the topic of money came up 70k was deemed much too high. I got no further contact from that company. What currency/location is that? What do you think is the reason for getting no job interviews? 70k USD. I am based in Japan and I'm looking for remote positions or Japan based ones. Not good at all... I have about 20 years in the industry, I've submitted ~60 online applications over the last 16 days and have received ~15 rejections (with one arriving nearly instantaneously)! Keep trying, getting probably a 10% response rate over here (not that bad for cold applications), submitted 100+ so far. It can take a few weeks to get back to you. Also, competition is FIERCE especially for remote roles. So they see ~20 YOE and they're running? I'm curious about the location, you can share your area if you wish, or just country. Are these applications for positions that are flooded with resumes? (can be seen on linkedin) Hopefully the 20 YOE isn't scaring anyone off. I truly see it as a benefit and would say that I'm in the prime of my capabilities so far. I'm looking for a FT remote position (as I'm based in central PA). I've previously worked in the NYC area for about 10 years and prior to that was a traveling consultant at IBM. Some of the positions have received quite a few resumes. Others have not or were applied to outside of LinkedIn/Indeed. LinkedIn has listed me as being in the Top 10% or Top 25% of applicants for some of the positions. So far this seems to be the toughest job market that I have been searching in. At this point, I’m convinced remote is a dying fad, and will fade into something that’s more of a rare perk (I worked remote prior to the the whole Covid debacle, but only ever once). When I go to look at jobs, and I put on the remote filter, it significantly decreases options. For example at the current moment if I look at jobs on LinkedIn with the search I’ve been using that have been posted within the last day, I get a little over 500 results. However I used uBlock to cut out “promoted” positions which are often stale and irrelevant to my search, so there’s probably less than that. What remains are mix of weird niche positions, low quality agency spam, a bit of non-dev or otherwise irrelevant listings, and a minority of jobs that I actually look qualified for worth applying to. Comparatively, when I switch to filter for only on-site or hybrid positions with the same search, I get over 3000 results, with many more jobs relevant to my resume. I really, really, really do not want to move right now, and I’m not sure if in the end I’d rather just settle for an on site position that will force me into a costly move, or just cut my losses and try to start my life over from scratch while I still have the chance. I also did remote long before the whole COVID business, and I think you're half right. I do think remote was a "fad" to some degree, people were ushering in a "new era of work that will forever change things", and that clearly wasn't going to happen. While I do really like remote work, it's not without its downsides, both for employees and employers. I think almost everyone who worked remote before COVID realized this. That said, certainly for software development, I don't think remote work is going away. It existed before COVID and will exist after COVID, and in that sense it's not a "fad". I also think software dev is the best example of where remote works well because fundamentally it's an individual activity, and it's also an activity where I feel text communication often works better than verbal communication (although verbal still has value, of course). too many yoe can be a negative. higher wage expectations and lower tolerance for BS. companies know this. By far the worst job hunt in my entire career. I have nearly 10 years of experience and the only things I get recruited for are short term contracts which require me to move. Luckily my personal expenses are very low so I don't NEED to work, but I'm definitely discouraged right now. USA based, I am right around 20 years into my career in IT Ops. A little over two weeks of submissions, 20 sent and 4 rejections so far. Based in Australia, recent graduate, market for junior positions is pretty difficult even with industry experience. So i heard. How are they gonna find seniors in the future if they don't invest in juniors now, i wonder. A graybeard here ... they don't want us, we cost too much and our tendency to call out BS is not appreciated. Maybe that's just in Oz, YMMV. You mean to tell me that they don't wanna hire seniors in your area? Idk the market seems to be looking mainly for senior+. They want senior+ who are <35yo, but then when they interview the 35yo for a senior position, they give them an offer for a non-senior role so they can pay them less. Jesus is 35+ graybeard territory? No didn't mean to imply that, but tech companies are looking for some unicorn of young with a ton of relevant experience. Young is because ... they can pay them less. My point is they have someone in mind for these "senior" positions and it is hot an older professional. I have been wondering the same. Depending on the job posting and how the company looks online, I have selectively left off lots of experience and simply said "10+ years of experience" My beard started graying at 31. Maybe it was just the stress of 2020… and 2008… I thought you didn’t need to disclose your age when applying in Australia? You don't. But even with a good haircut and trendy clothes when you are 50+ nobody is going to guess you're only 31. You can trim your CV to only show last 10 years, but the roles are somehow still a tell. You don't disclose your age in the US either, but it's pretty easy to find via linkedin graduation dates, or just... looking at you. I think most companies just judge during the video screening. Maybe we can have AI spruce up our video call avatars to be better looking and more mature. Haha. That sounds great as long as I dont have to do a seniors job. Less responsibility is fine by me! Rarely does it shake out that way - it is usually the other way! More responsibility ("you'll need to grow into the role, or work hard to be promoted") and less pay :) Just going to start normalizing being fired due to making me go out of my job description > So i heard. How are they gonna find seniors in the future if they don't invest in juniors now, i wonder. Magically, automatically. You are really giving employers too much credit. It only takes a few years of watching middle management to see how silly planning is. Don't raise management on a pedestal. assumes most companies care about future as opposed to putting out immediate fires and delivering over-promises to customers :) Telstra hires loads of juniors. A friend of mine was a PM at amazon and was part of the layoffs earlier in the year. Hasn't had any response to their applications, only 1 interview from a referral but it wasn't a good fit. As I've found, PM roles are actually far less abundant than you'd think. In most cases, 3-5yrs of exp is expected. Wish your friend luck with their job search. The bar has been raised. Not like a few years ago when they were hiring zero experience bootcamp devs (much to respect to these folks who are hard workers from non-traditional backgrounds). Questions are not easy, you can be tossed out for any perceived slight or giving a non-optimal solution. Experience is disregarded unless web scale. At least IME, but maybe it was always that way. You'll have to rely hard on your personal network to get your foot in the door somewhere. Seems pretty bad right now. A lot of companies, mine included, are in a hiring freeze. Some companies outside of big tech are hiring(I noticed quite a few jobs from banks), but a lot are expecting relocation or hybrid in addition to substantial pay cuts compared to tech salaries. I've had most of my recent applications rejected without even a recruiter call when in the past I had felt my resume was very strong. 16 months of focusing on quality over quantity in the jobs I've applied to has burned me out. Still looking today. Not personal experience, but most people I know who were laid off are taking it easy and enjoying their severance period. My own company just announced that we are massively ramping up hiring in the second half of the year, so the jobs will come back soon enough. Fucked. Trying to break into the industry, hundreds of applications over the past year, few interviews. I'm 30, and apparently that's already really old for software, so I'm not sure I'll ever be getting in. For what it's worth, I know several people who got in to software development later in life (well into their 30s), and they managed fine. At one position we hired someone and "got into development later in life" was something we considered a positive for her, rather than a negative, as we felt it demonstrated ability and motivation. That said, it looks like your timing isn't the best :-( I can't give you any more concrete advice based on this, and it may also depend on where you live, but you're welcome to email me your CV and I can take a look if there's something that you can improve (email in profile). I am from Bangalore India. I was just window shopping and came across some insane salaries for Amazon SDE and am currently feeling somewhat down. I posted a question about it here, please someone reply. Part of recent tech layoffs in SF. Zero responses to my job applications. I got laid off 4 ish months ago and was hired 2 months ago. I only looked for about one month and I had two pretty good offers out of it. 6 years of experience in industry. It's fine. I have been getting a lot of inbound and am in the loop for most applications I've sent out. The doomspelling of the tech job market is both overly exaggerated and heavily biased toward experiences of junior and intermediate developers. If you have a decade or more of experience, it's business as usual. > If you have a decade or more of experience, it's business as usual. Other's experiences may suggest it's not. Some experienced people spend more than half a year - and sometimes more than a year - to get an offer, even a modest one. 12-18 months ago the situation was reportedly better.