I am attempting to gain some insight into the issue. My situation is somewhat unique in that I am self-taught without a CS degree. I'm a very experienced, diligent worker, etc, but an algorithm doesn't care about this and so getting through the filters is difficult.
However I see many discussions being posted (primarily on X) stating that it is nearly impossible for people with CS degrees (especially white males) to get an interview let alone a job. There have been mass layoffs, less money being invested etc. Many people have claimed AI is taking jobs, or that there aren't as many jobs available, yet at the same time, Elon Musk and others claim there is an engineer shortage and we must increase the number of H-1B visas in order to fill this gap. When I apply to a position on linkedin I can see that even the most Jr positions have over 100 applicants.
I know that X can be slanted, and really anything posted online must be taken with a grain of salt - but I'm seeing many people claiming to be in the same situation as myself, and most of them claim to be white males.
Furthermore, in the last two years I experienced two layoffs. In both situations it was white males let go in favor of Indian and KZ foreigners. Again - this is anecdotal and could be a coincidence, but its awfully telling that Vivek and Elon are calling American tech workers uncultured, lazy and stupid in the wake of these experiences and those that I've read about online.
I don't want to start a war here on hackernews, but I'm looking for people's personal experiences. Do they match up? Are you having a hard time finding employment? Have you been fired in favor of foreign workers? Is this racism / ageism / sexism at play or is that being overblown by political actors?
I have an Ivy league degree, worked in deep learning since alexnet at a leading startup in the space, was a CTO of a startup that got acquired and have referrals from very senior people at the top FANG companies and still struggled to get interviews.
I also have research scientist friends with Neurips papers, ones that solved long standing open math problems and even they are struggling to get hired.
What me and my friends heard from a lot of people at the large companies was that many of them are no longer hiring in the US, but in India, Poland and Brazil instead, and that the roles they have listed in the US are for internal transfers. I've had a referral for Google for months and did not get an interview for NYC based roles, but when I went to an ML conference in Warsaw a few months ago I learned that Google is looking to hire 2000 people there, but with people in that office making ~1/4th of my friends in the US.
On top of that you have a huge pool of bootcamp grads and foreign applicants so any role posted gets 1000s of applications in the first few hours, making it impossible for recruiters to look over all of them.
And if that wasn't enough we're going through a huge hiring downturn post the COVID bump, see: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/IHLIDXUSTPSOFTDEVE
Most of my brazilian friends living abroad also cleared said onsites, absolute majority rejected their offers(because they live elsewhere with a currency that has any sort of value).
As a matter of fact, Uber is struggling to fill their vacancies around Brazil. Everyone that can clear said interview are already in Europe/US. So you're only left off with the people that actually want to be closer to their families.
It sucks for you guys, but its just the new reality. Engineering is dead end career unless you are top 10%, move on to management, or money doesnt play a role, but at that point you might as well go duck farming or become a carpenter.
So those lobbying for work-from-home, well, this is the natural endpoint of that.
My contact info is in my bio.
Same here. At my last company, each missed milestone meant "fire an American, hire a Pole."
Could it just be, the more senior/executive level you are - the harder it’ll always be to find another comparable job.
The funnel gets smaller the higher up you are.
I always wondered why American companies have offices in such unattractive locations. Last time I saw a company whose only European office was in Belgrade. Who are you going to convince to move to Belgrade to work for your company, lol? This is not like the US were all states speak English and have broadly shared cultures.
and of course everyone speaks english…
In particular, the Nikola Tesla Museum, free walking city tour, massages, and some cool bars.
Everything was really inexpensive compared to say Germany, and the women over there... they are stunning!
Of course it'd be different to live over there, but it really wouldn't be the worst place to end up if you were earning a decent salary.
Only obvious downside for me was smoking in restaurants (I can't remember but probably bars as well). Not sure if it's still the same now.
Obviously this is done to hire local workers. In general, and especially in Europe, most people are not interested in moving away from their home country if they can avoid it, even if it means a vastly reduced earning and career advancement potential. Serbia in particular has lots of engineers with a phenomenal quality to cost ratio.
so yeah ya'll folks are not hallucinating - jobs are gone.
e.g https://www.rippling.com/en-GB/careers/open-roles - engineering. majority of non-staff roles in india with staff roles in the US.
Not saying it will happen tomorrow, but would not surprise me to see Russia go in there after they get a big chunk of Ukraine and slowly gain control of it's government.
A ton of big tech companies opened large offices in Poland in the past few years. It’s starting to look like a pretty major tech hub. If you look at Google or Box job boards most of their open roles in Europe are in Warsaw.
I started by creating a resume and LinkedIn and aggressively optimized both as much as possible. Using a ATS checker I found online, I got a score of 96 for my resume after numerous changes (29 changes after a few weeks).
I started applying aggressively (and tracking) immediately after being let go. I’m pretty sure early rejections were because my resume was awful.
After nearly 2 months, 588 applications, with an average 10% response rate within an average of 10 days per response, I had 16 move to interview stages and 2 final offers. I accepted one of them (it checked all my boxes for what I wanted so didn’t have to compromise). I had 3 referrals but none of those materialized to interviews or offers. I did not work with any recruiters.
Market is bad, no doubt about that. I can’t speak to the experience of others but I’m convinced my response rate is good enough and it’s a numbers game.
This happened earlier this year.
Some stats for those who think it may influence my results:
40s Asian male. US Citizen. So no VISA needed and not white and don’t check any DEI boxes.
This is for Senior SWE IC role.
It's always been a numbers game. The people writing this posts you don't want to work with. Think about it, would you write this post (you the reader, not you throwaway guy I'm replying to)? Top commenter entitled guy with "Ivy League" degree who probably did everything right in school but cannot code.
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Caveat lector: This is simply a retelling of my personal experience, YMMV. This is not advice.
What has consistently worked for me: I stopped applying for jobs, and redirected all that effort into creating and publishing open source projects that demonstrate competence in the areas of work I want. And, just as importantly, I contribute to big established open source projects in those areas too.
I did not apply for my current job (started 6 months ago): they solicited me, based on my open source work. All the best jobs I've had have been like that, this is the 3rd time it worked.
When I'm unemployed, I only apply for jobs I actually want, typically spending an hour each on 0-2 extremely targeted applications per week. But I treat churning out new open source stuff as my full time job until somebody notices. In addition to successfully landing me three great jobs over the past decade, this approach has made me a much much better programmer.
Also, I strongly believe spending hours a day writing new code will enhance your ability to pass technical interviews much more than gamified garbage like leetcode.
A huge part of making this work is not living a typical valley lifestyle: I plan my life around the median national salary for a software engineer, and when I'm making more than that it all goes straight into my savings. In the bay, that requires living frugally (by bay standards...), but I can't even begin to put into words how grateful I am to past-decade-me for living like that and giving today-me the freedom to turn down the bad jobs and wait for the good ones. Obviously, I don't have children.
I do a lot more open source than a typical programmer in the valley, but I don't think I'm "exceptional" in any sense: you just have to put in the work. I do feel like I was very lucky to start my career in an extremely open-source-centric role, and in fairness that gives me a leg up here which I am probably inclined to underestimate.
1. Contribute your time generously to a software community
2. Get to know the people and help them
3. Most people have a bias towards reciprocity, want to help you!
Bonus: do this before you need a job, but while you’re employed.
I used to think that way, but now I understand it differently. Networking is about building trust or business friendships. Within the network, everyone stakes their reputation, so there is less need for verification. You wouldn't risk your reputation recommending your plumber friend if he was a bad plumber. Everyone gets to let their guard down and trust their peers.
It's funny that something so radically collectivist ends up sounding skeevy. I think it's only the case if you try to network at the last minute, to get something out of it.
You can also get good hires and open positions thru community friends. Invest in community and community invests in you.
I keep applying for jobs, and recently accepted the possibility to relocate for an on site position (because staying where I am and hoping to get a remote position hasn't worked out). I just had a promising lead in Texas 'move forward with another candidate'... argh!
Companies aren't willing to train people, not even their current employees. They want their candidates to come prepackaged with at least X years experience in Y technologies for several technologies. Their unwillingness to budge created the H1B catastrophe we see now. I'm more than willing to replatform my skillset (B2C Commerce Cloud to Shopify, or Java to .NET, for example), but no one's offering.
Looking around at the big picture, it seems that most money is leaving tech to chase higher returns elsewhere. If you aren't doing AI or crypto, it feels that you're fighting over bones. The scraps were gone a long time ago.
Really companies should be banned from importing more people[1] if they laid off a certain number in the last year. That way the job market would be more likely to self correct.
[1] I think they should still be allowed to hire people who are already in the country on a visa, as it's unfair to make their risk of being kicked out of the country worse. And they should be allowed to renew existing visa workers
Reverse outsourcing. Don't send the job overseas, send the overseas person here!
They need to import labor because the domestic labor pool isn’t good enough. A quieter part is that people immigrating also expect less for their outputs.
Getting jobs in AI has also been hard for a lot of people as well. Many of my former colleagues who worked for a very visible company in the ML/NLP space have had issues finding good positions.
More than likely an internal hire. This is often the case if you're an external candidate.
>> 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've since landed one decent offer, but mostly got lucky (the sys design interview was about an obscure optimization problem that I specialized in for years - though I didn't let on that fact)
Between that time, I failed multiple interviews (always solving the question, but never quickly or cleanly enough).
Companies are incredibly slow to respond back (up to 4 weeks from time of application to first interaction with a recruiter).
Some companies are incredibly demanding (recruiter screen -> tech screen -> tech screen -> take-home test -> group discussion about take-home test -> behavioral / culture interview).
Don't think it's about race. It's just an employers' market. And if you refuse to jump through the hoops, somebody else will.
For reference, the last company on my resume is a top tier company that every recruiter has heard of.
Honestly I feel this situation is an invitation/opportunity to show your depth. I had a similar experience where I was asked to implement a box filter, which I did naively, and then asked to do it the clever way.
I remembered about Haar classifiers https://docs.opencv.org/3.4/db/d28/tutorial_cascade_classifi... which solve the same problem, and I was familiar with the OpenCV implementation. I mentioned this and started to write code, but at that point the interviewer was much more interested about why I knew about some obscure old-school opencv method than finishing the coding exercise.
I’m interviewing with like 10 companies right now and it feels like a full time job, I have full days of interviews lined up for almost every day in the first 3 weeks on January.
Market is rough right now for sure but I also want to share some flags I’d personally note when looking at your website / LinkedIn.
1. You have experience in a lot of technologies, which sometimes is good, but can also be the case where you don’t have expertise in any of them. 2. According to LinkedIn since 2016 most of your gigs were about a year long. You also had a lead engineer gig that lasted eight months. I’m sure you put more info about it in your resume but it’s a pretty big flag considering that it spans not only the downturn but boom periods as well. 3. No well known companies in your list. I know it sucks that pedigree matters so much in our industry but it does. 4. Political posts / complaining on LinkedIn. Having dealt with political stuff at work (from both sides of the isle) it’s such a pain in the ass that my risk management alert kicks in. 5. I see you’re in Denver. Are you applying only for remote gigs? Sadly, a lot of companies are doing RTO and probably not in your area.
Hope this helps a bit. Hope things improve for you soon.
Linking to Jack Posobiec’s tweets and complaining about being called a racist on hacker news, on your linkedin account, just makes you look radioactive. And dumb: linkedin is for hustle porn; 4chan, twitter and their derivatives are for online political warfare. Your inability to distinguish between these shows that you will likely act inappropriately in a professional environment. It shows you don’t know your audience at all, which are the people whose money you want.
And then there’s the age-old question of whether you want to be right, or be liked. It’s not really your responsibility to educate your coworkers on socio-economic-political realities, and they likely don’t come to work to hear others’ opinions about it. But you are shaping an online persona that advertises such a service.
I’ve gone through long stretches of looking for work and fear another in this market environment, so I do sympathize. But you gotta button up. And don’t just shape a better image of a pleasant coworker–actually be one. I’ve worked with too many this-is-your-brain-on-social-media types, of all political persuasions, and it’s miserable.
It's really fun (no sarcasm) watching all of you people jump to the wrong conclusion as you judge my motivations and reasons for posting this though.
Aside from seeing a few posts and knowing he's right wing, I don't even know who Jack Posobiec is. Politics isn't my main thing. As I stated above, I am "socially apolitical". I have my opinions and my affiliations and I mostly keep it to myself unless it benefits me to do otherwise.
i've worked with many, many recruiters over the years, and only a handful who weren't actively interfering with finding a good dev / company fit.
between that, automated resume filtering and linkedin's requirements to serve linkedin before serving anyone else, we're all living in a situation that would be hilariously ridiculous if it wasn't so sad.
I completely agree that we need a disruption on the hiring front. The entire hiring process is broken.
1. > No expertise in technology:
Strongly disagree. I'm an expert in python, javascript, c#, application development, object oriented programming, agile, communication, and much more. I guess this isn't shining through on my profiles. Will have to find a way to fix it. There are many companies who value a generalist skill set.
2. > 2016 "gigs"
I had health issues starting in 2016 which derailed my career. I took what I was able to get and was still able to progress. I was promoted from eng I to eng II prior to the health issues. Later I was able to land a job as VP of engineering.
3. The lead engineer (VP of engineering) role that I had was a complicated situation - I performed my duties well and was rewarded handsomely. Working for startups doesn't always end well. From there I took time off to work for myself and you're correct, that's when the downturn started. Had I known AI would be released and jobs would dry up, i wouldn't have taken the risk of starting my own company at that point in time.
4. I havent worked for huge companies my entire career, much of it has been for start-ups but Enova, DoubleClick and Threadless are actually well known. Enova is a huge corporation and DoubleClick (one of my first jobs) was purchased by Google which is what lead to them becoming an ad company. Threadless has declined in popularity, but at the time it was extremely popular and well known. Other than that as I said, startups. Idiotic to judge a person based on whether or not the company is well known.
5. I haven't "complained" on LinkedIn. Regardless, i have deactivated my LinkedIn account, which I had planned on doing for the last month. Thanks for giving me the motivation to do so tonight. It is a silly echo chamber that has never lead to anything positive for me. I didn't even have an account until a few years ago so it will not be missed. It's clear that maintaining a LinkedIn social media account is a career hazard. That's the most useful thing your unsolicited feedback has turned up.
6. > political posts
Political posts online prevent me from working? That's absurd. My politics haven't even been stated aside from my position on H-1B and globalism. I should be allowed my political opinions without fear of reprocussion from a biased hiring manager such as yourself, but i really haven't even put any out there other than this post.
I have political opinions, and I am registered to vote, but I'm "socially apolitical" aside from a small amount of activist work I've done which hasn't been broadcast on the internet.
I don't bring politics or religion to the workplace.
It's like if a user does something wrong in your app, you don't blame or explain to the user what they did wrong. You figure out how to improve your UX.
I came to similar conclusions from your public profile. The defensiveness of your response would be a 7th red flag.
I work in immigration and my colleagues in the industry noticed the difference in skilled immigration. It even affected the overpriced temporary housing market that mostly targeted skilled immigrant workers. Freelance relocation consultants report having their worst year on record.
I also noticed a dip in traffic but it might be caused by Google’s plundering of the web with its AI summaries. I can’t tell if the actual demand changed. I run a website that helps immigrants settle.
It’s generally accepted in Germany that things are not great right now. I could likely find matching evidence in yearly reports, but the vibe alone is telling.
Two people I know have been let go (pumps and wood sectors resp.). Another (metal construction) is getting barely more than minimum wage. There's only one dude (chemical engineer) who is doing well (nearing 100k at 5 years work experience). The others are getting by.
Politicians are still complaining about Fachkräftemangel, skilled labor shortage, but it's really a wage slave shortage.
I see a lot of amazing people struggling in the market right now. This is mirrored by a general slowdown in actual project spend by businesses.
Locally, there has been a very very minor uptick in activity prior to Christmas which is a historically weird time for that to happen, so I’m slightly optimistic for the new year.
But the last 12 months have been very tough.
I am currently applying to ~15 jobs a day starting late Sep till now mostly on Linkedin. I know it might not be the best time to look due to holidays. When wake up the next day finding 3-5 "decided not to move forward" So then I think theres something wrong with my resume? So I update it a little each day, its an unless cycle I have probability done this 50+ times now? Also seeing 100+ job applicants even after the job posting has been up for only a few hours.
Also approaching 2 decades of experience, also white American (they always ask on applying). I have a bachelors degree but its in Interactive Media taught myself everything else.
I am one month away to moving back home with my brother because I can only afford another one month rent on Credit Card until its maxed out.
Free time I just spend it learning learning learning, and an hour gym routine helps with stress. I try not to think about the situation that I am in or the job market.
All we can do is try our best everyday, theres only so much we can do and stressing out is the worst thing for the mind/body.