Ask HN: How is job search going for you?

27 points by logicalxor 1 year ago | 21 comments

I left my job in 2023 voluntarily after immense harassment by management for taking paternity leave. I needed it since our baby birth and first few months did not go as we expected. Company had 6 months of parental leave policy but my manager (a woman!) still discriminated. Our baby is fine now and growing well.

I took 6 months off and then started working on my own project that turned into a startup. We have a few customers and we are growing, albeit slowly. I did not have any experience with Sales and Marketing and did not have any in-group contacts for selling MVP. I am learning it hard way.

Just looking at number of layoffs it is scary. How is job search going for you? I am conflicted on whether I should get back to job search or continue my startup. I believe I product will add value but getting it up is a long path.

What are your experiences with job search lately? I have been in SWE and SWE Manager roles. I enjoy SWE Research work more than being a SWE manager.

SavageBeast 1 year ago |

I've been passively searching, sending a resume, hitting click-to-apply here and there. For the 100 times or so Ive done this since March I've had only 2 responses and they were both automated replies of "not interested". I have a lengthy and compelling resume that has always served me well. I've never had any trouble finding a new position, save for 2008 and I still did well then even. From my perspective its as if the world has ceased to function or I've been put on some fictitious black list. I have never seen anything remotely like this.

stefanos82 1 year ago | |

Oh wow, I'm not the only one who goes through this!

SavageBeast 1 year ago | | |

A guy I know well is a senior level recruiter at a large firm. Earlier this year his company FIRED THE ENTIRE RECRUITING DEPARTMENT.

idiocrat 1 year ago | |

A quick thought: You could try to peek into the new world. They are not calcified (yet) and thus growing quickly, covering half of the world population. Surely they could appreciate your extended experience.

job-seeker-6998 1 year ago |

I'm grateful that a thread like this pops up every so often. It's really difficult out there! I just turned 40 and have been feeling down about that unfortunate fact and the job search process has really piled on on the bad feelings. I'm not happy to see others in similar situations, but it really helps to hear that I'm not alone.

I briefly had a position this year before running into the wall that is a reduction-in-force. I was hired (along with 2 other engineers) in December and told that the company was looking to grow (great!) only to start on-boarding on a Tuesday in January and receive word that very Friday that there was serious money problems that they had only just realized. I somehow made it through the first layoff 10 weeks later only to get swept up in the next one in August. I had been hoping it would hold out until 2025, alas...

In the last 2 years, I've spent more time hunting for jobs than holding one. This time around I've stuck to searching in my network and have been having surreal experiences where I'm being referred by VPs and C-suite folks and still getting ghosted or very slow walked through the process (a month goes by and I'm still waiting on next steps).

Would love to bust out of this rut, but cant' seem to get my brain to come up with a pivot. I zigged into software development in 2013 (was a middle school teacher prior to that), and I really thought it would last longer than a decade. Not sure where I can zag that will allow me to retire in 20 years.

Luckily, I have savings and a lead on a few hours of freelancing, but health insurance is such an incredible expense for our family (it's more than the mortgage, it's more than child care) that it can't last forever.

In talking with other "knowledge workers" I'm seeing that the struggles engineers have been feeling for 2+ years is leaking into their world. My wife works in an adjacent field and is struggling to find clients/jobs. My friends who were laid off by news media companies aren't finding work producing content. Everything feels like it's in a standstill.

heartlessdang 1 year ago | |

> I zigged into software development in 2013 (was a middle school teacher prior to that), and I really thought it would last longer than a decade

System working as intended lmao

zig zag!

CM30 1 year ago |

The job market is an absolute trainwreck right now. Been looking for a few months or so, and despite a fairly decent number of interviews, it's been miserable finding anything resembling a good job as a web developer or software engineer. Hundreds of applications for every role, most people getting a one line rejection or ignored outright, interviewers ghosting you after multiple rounds of interviews, being told you were the 2nd or 3rd best candidate and missing out on the offer by some ridiculously tiny amount...

It's become incredibly disheartening, and made me genuinely consider either trying to enter a different line of work, or trying to become a successful creator/entrepreneur instead.

Honestly, I'd say you should continue the startup, since you've got some traction so far and the odds of that becoming sustainable seem about as good (terrible) as getting a traditional job in many industries.

stefanos82 1 year ago |

Continue with your startup mate, the current market is lousy right now...extremely stressful from all over the place.

I have been reading the same ad jobs for the same positions for more than a year now - at least where I live - and I have contacted acquaintances to ask how things are in their companies since they advertise.

Guess what? They had no clue and got scared, but luckily enough one of them knew one of the HR ladies and let him know they do this fake job ads to maintain the company's value until the end of the year they will close their accounting books.

You realize how petrified my acquaintance became when he heard that; it's a clear indication that a shit-storm is about to take place for some companies after new year's.

Let's hope all this is a big bluff and false alarm!

wryoak 1 year ago |

I took off a year and a half for travel. Still did tech stuff during that time (woofing - helped some farms with websites and iot stuff) so my skills weren’t exactly languishing, but in the past four months of applying I’ve received one interview and it was for a role I applied to two years ago that had to take the posting down for a hiring freeze and only just recently got the go ahead to fill said position. So I’m working at a grocery store stocking produce these days. Gotta pay the bills.

nicbou 1 year ago | |

I didn’t know they welcomed this sort of help! How was your experience?

wryoak 1 year ago | | |

Doing tech stuff while woofing? Mixed. I enjoyed the work and I had actually some nice facilities to work in, but some of the places I stayed were not great for interpersonal or health reasons. Some, on the other hand, were wonderful. It really depends on a variety of things. But yeah in south east Asia there are a lot of small businesses experimenting with diy tech that will offer room/board in exchange for leveraging some tech expertise. Also have seen (but not experienced) some in Europe.

shortrounddev2 1 year ago |

I get messaged by recruiters in my area weekly, but I currently have a fully remote job, so I would need another fully remote job to willingly leave. However, if I were to lose my job, I think there would be plenty of opportunities out there in my area, and obviously I'd be willing to take an in person job if I needed to. Hell, I'd work at the 7/11 if I needed to, I got bills to pay

giantg2 1 year ago |

"my manager (a woman!) still discriminated."

This is unsurprising. Any gender can discriminate. There have been multiple studies about some women being hard asses in the workplace so they don't get stereotyped as being a pushover, especially towards other women so they aren't seen as being sexist (even if that makes them more sexist).

I've had two managers indirectly hold paternity leave against me. Both were along the lines of not prorating the numbers during comparisons or saying that others contributed to a major initiative and I didn't have that opportunity when that initiative took place during my leave.

I'm actively looking internally and it's complete shit for the entire past year. Company-wide with over 20k employees and job postings at any given time are about 75-90. Stuff at my level and the level above me is rare. Like maybe 3-5 combined dev positions at any given time at those levels, but many of those already have shoe-ins. Others are on shitty teams or opened internally first so they can take someone external. I'm passively looking externally, but it's equally shitty there. I'm even more discouraged there since I have a disability and it seems that makes it extra hard to be externally hired.

obar1x 1 year ago |

I think is really important to understand the reasons... too many ppl took IT college classes or simple bootcamps while economy is shrinking (too much offer), a lot of b2b visa workers are still in America (lower wedges), a strong senior with some chatgpt or copilot can do 3x juniors or medium work (less ppl needed) and ofc more and more managers pushing on IA to cut headcount to make $$$ bonuses....

bruce511 1 year ago | |

I'm not sure the economy overall is shrinking, but there was massive over-hiring at the start of covid, and the inevitable right-sizing drops a lot of applicants onto the market at the same time.

Growing your own startup is hard. You need to find a small niche and fill it well. It takes lots of work, most of it not the fun stuff (programming) but the work stuff - sales and marketing.

The payoff (if successful) is getting off the job-hopping hamster wheel, and becomes less dependent on your employer liking you.

If you go this route I strongly recommend you stop coding and start selling. If you can't sell it then you're coding the wrong thing anyway.

ghoda 1 year ago |

Graduated two months ago and still looking for something. Maybe 150 application in the last 6 months.

dserban 1 year ago |

I'm still working through legal complications with my current employer, and in no mood to start my own company. The job market is also bad on the dataeng / datainfra / mlops side of things. My first guess is that interest rates still have to come down some. Giving up on software engineering and trying a different line of work is not an option for me, I was born with a passion for this.

999900000999 1 year ago |

Startups are always risky.

How much do you need money.

If you don't need it, keep running the start up.

If you need an income, and you're open to taking a cut, the market is ok. I took a 50k pay cut at a point ( I'm most of the way back though).

Summerbud 1 year ago |

I don't know when these will end, no one know, but it seems that startup, especially ai industry begins to recruit again (From my experience), let see how the QE land next year

austin-cheney 1 year ago |

I was unemployed for 6 months last year as a JavaScript developer. The first jobs that became available were due to my TS but I couldn’t relocate to the other side of the country. Then there were other jobs available but I just got sick of it. The more I interviewed the more I felt like I was in a job for small children whom expected small childish things.

Eventually some defense contractors reached out to me in a different line of work. I completely seized it. I finally escaped from the toddler playpen of fullstack framework stupidity.