Ask HN: What is the job market like? We've all heard about layoffs; what are people's actual lived experiences when it comes to the recent changes in the job market? |
Ask HN: What is the job market like? We've all heard about layoffs; what are people's actual lived experiences when it comes to the recent changes in the job market? |
RTO was used to squeeze as hard as possible to force people to leave and not pay severance ("You're not in the office a month from now across the country? Looks like you decided to resign, sucks for you!"). First it was "be in any office, as long as you butt is in a building with our logo on it" to "well, no, you gotta be where you manager is, so move again. Oh you can't? Sucks for you, you effectively resigned then".
Then the AI excuse hit. "We'll be so productive, we don't need people anymore at all". That's going on currently. Everyone is token-maxing to the limit to show how on board they are with AI to avoid getting pushed out.
In between they also managed to "cut costs" by moving jobs overseas the countries you're familiar with. This required some finagling, so they shut down one set of platform/products built in US and started building another one overseas. Then said "oh well, looks like this division in US is not needed anymore".
The strange thing is this is happening in multiple companies at the same time. It's like all the CEOs and HR reps met at some golf retreat and decided to follow a script.
Meanwhile I got only 5 or so recruiter emails in the last year or so. Before it was a constant stream, almost one every a few weeks.
I’ve gotten the same feeling. It’s too consistent to be a fluke. I get the feeling its a fashion thats being pushed by VC funds who are all neck deep in nvidia, openai and anthropic stocks. They must have realized they can pump this to their portfolio to inflate all the investments.
I've actually seen more and more LinkedIn posts from recruiters that [are proud of ] have been laid off themselves. You know things are bad when recruiters are the ones looking for jobs.
Industry trends spread in all roles ?
2026 - one (recruiter did not name the company, hybrid six month contract in another city)
2025 - none
2024 - none
2023 - four (none after March)
2022 - twenty-seven (including Amazon, Google)
I get plenty of messages from "recruiters" through LinkedIn. They're not particularly great, but I also only have a few years of experience
I get 1-2 new recruiters in my mailbox each week for different random startups. I haven’t acted on any so IDK what the process is really like, but it does seem like people are hiring. Almost 100% seem to be some sort of AI product. Senior Eng comp base seems to be in the 200-240 range plus however much worthless equity.
Responded to one from another major company mid January. Short interview process. Started late March. Similar level, slightly higher scope, significant salary bump.
Took the opportunity to send outbounds to a few other major companies while in process, with senior referrals: ~no responses at all from that stuff.
Also, despite the employer change not being public, much less recruiter outreach the last 2 months.
https://www.comptia.org/en-us/resources/research/tech-jobs-r...
Both in this thread, and people I know in real life who are looking for jobs are struggling hard. Mass layoffs are becoming more common and the time spent between jobs is measured in six month increments.
And yet, the numbers say we are in a hiring market with more job openings than ever, except for during the pandemic.
My perceived reality and the numbers almost could not be further apart.
It seems weirder now partly because it isn't a clear across the board recession, though part of me keeps looking at quarterly earnings reports and the DOW and keeps wondering if we're still "early 2008" on that rather than "late 2009" and that it will get worse before it gets better.
Most everyone I talk with is looking as well, but nobody has moved roles. It feels like were all stuck.
But hey if you don't use AI when doing an interview, might have a better leg up than those that do eg. pause for 5 seconds between responses, ear piece, looking at a screen, someone replacing you after hiring, etc...
I'm sure I'm not the only one, but I've gotten so aggressive about monitoring for this. I do most interviews zoomed in on the candidate's eyes and I rubric on how they "thought" through the problem, not just the results.
Thankfully the interview tools are catching on as well and now tracking this like browser focus, number of monitors, window size, and sending notifications when any of those change.
Seems to weed these folks out.
I'm just fortunate recruiters have found me for my jobs... there was one time I used Hired that was back in 2022 that worked for 1 job.
The hiding of user posts on reddit is bs I hate that, although it is convenient if you want to just hide all your stuff without deleting your account
(I'm in a small central-European country, that is full of tech companies, both domestic and international)
What matters is where you live - the hiring market in Germany or Canada is going to be different from the Bay Area or NYC.
Personally, as someone with a German company and a good chunk of German clients, I'd argue it _does_ help a little. Occasionally. But by and large I'm far more interested in the candidate's English proficiency.
Right out of the gate, I was getting great callbacks and final rounds. Then, around April, the pipeline completely dried up. I’m doing the work for EVERY application like generating custom resumes, tailored cover letters matching their culture, and engaging with leadership on LinkedIn.
I’m down to one lead at my partner’s company, but it’s a long shot. It feels like a lot of DevOps/SecOps/IT leadership roles are evaporating. Partially because companies are over-indexing on AI/LLMs to handle architecture complexity without realizing what those tools actually lack in practice.
After climbing the ladder for over a decade, I’m worried about the future of the market, but I’m not ready to stop fighting. Has anyone else with a leadership/infra background hit this exact same wall since April? How are you pivoting your approach?
https://www.npr.org/2025/09/05/nx-s1-5530733/bls-jobs-report...
hired :)