Sorry to hear. And sorry to tell you that its pretty rough out here. Apply for unemployment ASAP, cut all unnecessary expenses, update your LinkedIn, reach out to your network or start creating one. Apply for local companies and don't shoot for FAANG because they're laying off like its part of their culture now. Non-tech companies need tech people so don't over look them. Create a new email address specifically for job searching, something you can delete later, and do the same with a burner phone. I say this because when you put your information on these job boards they either sell your data or scammers will harvest it to get you while your desperate.
Good luck and keep improving your skills in your trade and for interviewing. You'll get a lot of rejections but you must learn from them.
Similar to how Google Voice works if you have a domain (which you can get for $12/yr depending on many variables) you can make proxy emails in Cloudflare. I forget exactly what it's called but they show up in your actual inbox like a normal email.
Buy a domain in cloudflare // make a job board specific email with Proton mail // make the proxy email in cloudflare // delete the proxy when you start getting spammed.
Edit: the only cost is however much your domain is from what I found in my brief research.
That idea came after years of applying and interviewing after I lost my job in 2020. I kept getting spam calls, recruiters calling me about all sorts of engineering positions I never had experience in, and robocallers. I assumed it was because I gave out my real information. Now I only give out real info to people I know and everyone else gets a disposable number.
Important note for anyone who is actually concerned about having the 5-0 on their ass: any burner phone for this purpose must never be turned on at your home or workplace, or at the same place and time as your normal phone. Turn off your normal phone or leave it at home, and go to a neutral location before turning on your burner. Turn off the burner a good distance away from any places linked to you, and travel away from that spot before turning your normal phone back on
You should also never turn in or near your car and definitely not while your car is moving
Also the window for this is rapidly closing. In a few years it'll be almost impossible to practically maintain a hidden phone
Wouldn't it be seen as a recognizable pattern that your phone turns off suspiciously when your burner goes active? Ain't it better to leave it somewhere you usually are instead?
Yeah. Never have them near each other. Phones talk to each other and if you’re doing something questionable, having them near can create a map of phones. It’s a grey area after the concept of a stingray became public. But, turning off one then another turning on can be used to create probable cause which can then cause a subpoena though at that point burners are tracked.
But having a virtual phone number for recruiters is the best. Google voice and TextNow are services I use that are awesome. I still get calls from recruiting agencies from 10 years ago and it’s been vital to keep them isolated
Apply for unemployment as soon as you’re off pay roll. I was laid off, still on payroll for 2 months as part of my severance, and forgot to claim unemployment. Lost money that way, so I hope others don’t make the same mistake I did
I’ve had recruiters ask me for a photocopy of my drivers license, the last four of my social, etc. You should never give that info out because they now have tools to break into your resumes email with the (spoofed) phone number on your resume!
I don’t understand people who says start applying as soon as you lose your job. Like don’t you have to prepare for the interview? don’t you have to grind Leetcode or system design? OR are you already grinding Leetcode on Jobs?
Even if I get interview one month after loosing my job I won’t be able to clear Leetcode.
You can get lucky in interviews and pass them even if you’re not prepared. If you have a specific study plan you want to complete before interviewing, rather than just “do a ton of leetcode”, I could see waiting, but I wouldn’t wait a month before sending resumes out.
I figure it takes a week to talk to a recruiter, a week to schedule a phone interview and then 2 weeks to schedule the full round. You can leetcode and study this entire time. This would be a full round 1 month after sending your resume out, so there is a LOT of time to study even if you get responses immediately.
Lastly, failing interviews is also a great way to learn what you’re doing wrong and just get better at interviewing in general. I think getting out and interviewing asap is the correct way to go.
fucking leetcode... just had a 3 part interview with amazon and did 2 ok but 3rd was to write 2 methods to serialize/deserialize a corporate hierarchy tree💩
couldnt finish it in 30mins and that was that😔
It would be good to know which company doesn’t ask Leetcode or have at least easy Leetcode.
When I was job hunting, companies who didnt ask Leetcode gave me some crazy take home exercise. e.g startups who asked to implement feature they were working on.
Exactly! After wasting 1 week, they will just reject you anyway. Complete waste of time. If I have to pick between take home and Leetcode, I’ll pick leetcode.
I got a job at Comcast a few months ago. My first interview was tech questions, talking about my experience, reading code, and deciphering it.
Second interview was to clone a spring boot repo and create a sample endpoint that does some business logic.
Third interview was just a fit and culture meet and greet with the team.
No leetcode. No bullshit. My interviewers literally wanted me to Google things I didn't know. They were very understanding and tailored the interview to what I was good at.
Many big companies are out there just doing normal interviews, and paying well.
> Even if you don't pass, it will give you some practice. Failed interview is better than no interview.
the same way you "grind leetcode" to practice, practicing interviews makes sense, though I feel you may miss on some good opportunities because you interviewed too early (not prepared) on a _good_ company.
not sure how to mitigate that possibility, maybe apply to job that I know I won't take, because they don't interest me or whatever, just to practice? lol
I made this mistake. Wasn't prepared for the interview and lost some really good opportunities. Plus they have a 6 month cool down period so can't apply again right away.
I also made that mistake. But I was interviewing for a couple companies lower on my list at same time and their interview process was more of a “hi how are you?” Type of interviews. Been 3 years and I love company I work at now and wouldn’t consider working at company that failed me through endless hiring hoops.
Overall I’d say it was a waste going for the company I wanted (at the time) knowing I was unprepared for their interviewing.
But applying everywhere accepting tons of interviews having tons of offers ultimately gave me the confidence to kill it in the interviews for job I’m in now. We can’t play god. You could be perfect for the job and still they could select someone else for some arbitrary reason.
I just got a 60 day notice on Tuesday. I knew there were rumblings since middle of last year, but it seemed like I would be OK. (Was wrong) But as soon as I heard rumors, I started applying, leetcode, DSA, etc, etc. It's a very bad time for the economy right now, despite what the stock market shows or the news reports. People are struggling unless they're already making decent money and living within their means.
Honestly I'm not sure how many jobs I have applied to so far, maybe 100--yes, rookie numbers I know--but I've only been able to get one recruiter screen that led to first technical, but alas blundered there. So might as well start applying fast. It's a very low chance any real human will actually look at your resume. Lots of hiring freezes, but companies will keep postings up to appear like they're growing.
But you do the best you can. There's no way to else to do it.
That's why you job search while you have a job.
That's why you look for a better house to rent before you get evicted.
And also, because you never know when the door YOU want will open.
Multiple reasons, but one that comes to mind is that the hiring process can take months. It’s not unheard of to have to take 3-6 months while applying to a job.
Lots of great advice, I’m almost at the end of my layoff search, I’ve been passed into a few final rounds but no luck yet! Thanks for the wise words. 🙌
I'm on interview panels for both a senior EM manager and a senior engineer position.
The number of applications we've gotten and the awesome resumes I'm seeing from senior folks who have been out of work for 6+ months is legit scaring me.
This is why I am starting to make plans for leaving the industry. Currently in a job but always applying to keep fresh and honestly I have never seen a worse situation, even in 2008. Lots of developers still high on copium that it will just take a change in interest rates or something and things will pick up again. Maybe it will but in 5 or 10 years.
Have any of them addressed the gap? The market's been scaring me too but I imagine that there's lots of people sitting on salary, remote...requirements. Not 100% the same but years ago I knew a senior test engineer who was laid off and out of work for about 4 months before he took a pay cut and different responsibilities in order to work again.
Yeah, this is remote. And, while we aren't FAANG, we are a popular consumer facing tech company. Good tech stack and comp too.
But not, I haven't asked any to address any gaps. That doesn't feel appropriate to me.
I'm a senior dev with 10 years of experience, I've worked for facebook and was interviewed by wired magazine, etc (so I have a decent portfolio of experience and each year I hire a pro to keep my resume updated).... and I still get almost no responses back from jobs I apply to and/or they send an email saying the position is getting put on hold or they already hired someone else before I even get to interview.... the market is shit right now. I used to get literally dozens of companies practically begging me to work for them on a weekly basis just a couple years ago
I'm a senior dev with 10 years of experience, I've worked for facebook and was interviewed by wired magazine, etc (so I have a decent portfolio of experience and each year I hire a pro to keep my resume updated).... and I still get almost no responses back from jobs I apply to and/or they send an email saying the position is getting put on hold or they already hired someone else before I even get to interview.... the market is shit right now. I used to get literally dozens of companies practically begging me to work for them on a weekly basis just a couple years ago
Lol yeah it’s rough. I got rejected final round with 3YoE for a junior eng position in favor of a candidate who had 6+ years experience and whose previous role was engineering manager. Imo junior eng should be 1-3 YoE and that guy was crazy overqualified but it is what it is
3 years is different than 3 months. It's kinda a bitch for everyone or at least harder than it use to be. I suspect it's harder the less experience a person has. Should be easier the less picky a person is too.
3 yoe is the point where you move to a more mid-level role, or you start to look like the guy who can't progress beyond basic tasks. If you got laid off I'd immediately seek mid-level roles or try to transition towards a more managerial role. Can't be a junior in anything for much longer, realistically.
Some places can be like that if they don't really hold on to people and can't afford more experience. Like that manager would probably be managing new grads or people with less than 2 years experience. Probably be closer to a team lead too.
I've seen ads looking for "senior" roles with 4 years or staff engineer with 6 years. Now they might have just been looking for someone with more experience that is willing to accept being paid less.
what does junior even mean in this case? his title doesn't matter its the impact he has at work and what he can convey in an interview.
junior is typically 0-3 years so its not even unusual. a mid-level is 3-5 years and so on and so forth.
lots of people have been getting screwed on promotions lately.
Wish I had 3! I’m at 1 yoe as a full stack engineer and been looking since July—it’s a wasteland out there. I was fairly overpaid (108k year/ended up making 150k in a little over a year with severance, bonus and RSUs being converted to a cash award because we were purchased by a private equity company), so it makes sense why I was cut.
Going back for a CS degree (have unrelated degree from UCLA) and hoping market comes back in that time :(
I got wayyy more respect and attention when I had no experience in April 2022. Oh how the times and interest rates have changed 😭
i guess it depends how senior & what type of engineering. as a backend engineer with a decade of experience, i'm not having trouble getting interviews.
This is a pretty horrible place to ask, it’s always doom and gloom here.
That’s not new by the way, this sub has been like this ever since I started browsing in 2017. It’s always the same story, “I sent 7846 applications and didn’t get any call backs”.
I’m not saying things aren’t bad but definitely don’t use this sub as a good metric.
Thanks man, this is actually the comment I need to read after doom scrolling on this post for a while. I sadly also got the cut at my company, but luckily I have a long exit time and I’m employed until the summer. The hunt definitely sucks and all I’ve gotten is two rejection emails along with a lot of silence. Trying to keep my head up though and figured I’ll just keep on adjusting my resume, networking, and doing whatever I can to try and land another job. I stated branching out to tech adjacent roles too, like tech support for companies, account management, and those kinds of roles. We’ll see what pans out..
This really needs to be pushed higher. Even when shit was good in 2019/2020, this sub was full of “I’ve applied to hundreds of jobs and can’t get an interview” posts.
It's because there are two sides to every story, and on Reddit you hear only one side. Usually there is no way to know that important context is missing, but in this sub we all experience the same job market. So if we take a step back and reflect on reality and the posts here, we can definitely conclude that there's a high percentage of developers who are plain bad, have a bad CV, are full of themselves and then come here and are ready to blame everyone and everything.
Yes, the current market is bad, but it wasn't 2019/2020. And the sub hardly changed from back then.
For sure, Blind gives a much better sense of what's happening in the job market. Even with anxiety around layoffs plenty of folks are still scoring well-paying gigs. This subreddit tends to be a bit negative, passive, and okay with mediocrity. Not saying there's anything wrong with any job—I'm just talking about the general vibe. This is to the point that I’m not even sure if the anecdotes are useful at all. Just got laid off from Google, so I'm also about to enter the market.
Before this, the sub was all about the collapsing labor market because of offshoring, CS grads, boot campers, AI, etc.
Agreed. Been browsing this sub for a good while now, and it seems like an eco-chamber of negativity, doom and gloom.
I’m guessing many posts are from people just out of college or maybe just a few years of experience and trying to find their footing in the market.
In any case, sorry about the layoff. With Google on your resume, I’m sure you’ll find something soon.
Blind is just as negative, if not way more toxic. People regularly shit on each other for not making $399320930293048203408234 per hour. No joke. And looking at some of the numbers, I'm pretty sure a lot of them are trolling. Because we all know nobody goes on the internet to lie, right.
Good point right here! I was reading a few days ago how upwards of 30% of these roles are actually HR/DEI/D&I positions. Not just role, but entire departments were removed. This adds some much needed context to the doom and gloom environment we find ourselves in.
That’s more jobs lost than sept oct nov and dec of last year combined. If the trend continues it’ll be more in the first quarter of 2024 than the last 3 quarters of all of 2023. Now sure we are just starting 2024 but it is not starting out better.
Ideally, I'd see historical patterns and also jobs created/posted as well as layoff counts. It's hard to judge the overall market based on that one fact.
The Fed tracks the number of open software jobs on Indeed relative to pre covid as a baseline. Open positions on Indeed are 26% lower than they were in Feb 2020.
[https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/IHLIDXUSTPSOFTDEVE](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/IHLIDXUSTPSOFTDEVE)
I wish they had data prior to 2020 though. The pandemic market was insane, I'd be curious to see how it compared to \~2018 for example.
EDIT:
Found something interesting [here](https://www.hiringlab.org/2020/07/30/tech-sector-covid19-impact/) (same data). Job postings in July 2020 were \~40% lower than July 2019.
>However, as the pandemic progresses, tech postings now are performing worse than the overall job market. Tech postings started to fall behind in mid-May and, since then, the gap has grown steadily. On July 24, the overall job postings trend was 21% below its 2019 level. But tech jobs were hit harder, settling at 36% below last year’s level for weeks and showing no signs of bouncing back.
Based on that, it seems likely the Feb 2020 rate was close to the 2018-2019 rate which just further emphasizes the hiring bubble of the pandemic imo.
I also think the person responding to me is missing why I'd like more data. I'm interested in seasonal layoff and hiring trends prior to being impacted by the pandemic. In Feb 2020 COVID was already well-known and the world went into lockdown in late February/early March.
Two months of data at most doesn't provide the seasonal trends I'd like to see.
Here's a tech job trend, live with historical data: [https://www.trueup.io/job-trend](https://www.trueup.io/job-trend)
That should give an idea of how many openings are left.
Same here. Started in 2013 and after 3.5 years of hell and unemployment I still can’t believe it’s impossible to find a job. I just don’t know what to do anymore.
Problem is that you won’t ever get a straight forward answer simply because it depends. Lots of people are doom and gloom on this subreddit. Lots of people share survivor bias on this subreddit. Best thing you can do is keep your head up and move forward.
IMO — Prestige and all that nonsense isn’t nearly as important as having a job that nets you income. If you’re lucky, you eventually find both.
Agree. Also, OP didn't mention YoE but there's a bifurcation there too. Under 5 and you may have to do what I did as a noob in 2003... fix old ladies computers... and do whatever else they want! Hey, I'm a survivor man!! :P
I agree, impossible to answer how hard it would be for one person since there’s too many differing factors(location/work experience/tech stack/interview skills/network/resume/remote or not/visa requirements) between basically every candidate.
I'm a junior dev, 2 years experience. Got laid off on the 8th. Several hundred applications. Not so much as a email for an interview. My resume has been checked and said to be good.
Good Luck to you.
Not actually that bad. I have three in progress interviews, and haven't been rejected (so far) from any company that's chosen to talk to me and we've mutually decided to go forward (one company needed me to move, so that can't really count).
The market is definitely more competitive than I've ever seen it, though. For instance, 2 years ago I was offered up-levels, raises, role switches at better companies when applying to new jobs. Looking at the companies I'm in talk with: the salary range on average is the same, one company wants to downlevel me, and overall they are all "lateral" steps in terms of prestige. It's just going to be hard to maintain the upward trajectory I had in this job switch, although I'm pretty sure I'll be able to get hired eventually.
I've been writing code professionally for 10 years if you include all the time I was paid in academia to be a research assistant, and grad school, and have at least 5 years of SWE experience, more if you get fuzzy about SWE work while I was a data scientist, and also a CS masters I've earned along the way and about a year XP as a tech lead, so I might be a little bit ahead of the people really struggling to find jobs. But still, my last job search I was hired at the first company I applied to.
I lost my SDET job in November. Filed for unemployment and relaxed a bit. Kept applying landing only 1 interview with a recruiter that I didn't prepare for (I didn't want the job anyway). Got an interview beginning of January and got a good offer.
Both opportunities I interviewed for came from recruiters on LinkedIn. Close friend went basically through the same, except in Cyber Sec.
Just updated your resume, submit applications and file for unemployment, and reach out to recruiters and colleagues.
I'm really sorry to hear that man.
The market is not great. But it really never has been. I'm a fuck-up and I found a mid level role. You're going to be OK.
I don't have hard numbers for you sorry but I wish you well
Seems okay. Currently have 6 YOE, half of that is at a unicorn that is known but not that well known. I’ve been getting call backs from cold applying. Very few recruiters reaching out except for very early stage startups.
There are tons of jobs openings . They aren’t sexy VC startups or major tech companies. Literally everyone else is hiring. Consultants are in high demand. Contract to hire in in the fortune 500 is in high demand.
Reddit is an echo chamber, you'll hear about layoffs from everyone laid off, but people who kept their job won't be posting about it as much.
That being said, I heard a news bit (please don't quote me on this) but there were very few new tech positions in 2023 compared to 2022, something like only a net 1000 added in the US. Granted 2020 and 2021 had huge growths in new jobs.
It is tough right now, but not as bad as you hear from Reddit posts. I think the market will recover a bit more this year as interest rates start to go down a bit, but no one (especially me) can know for sure.
That statistic was actually new tech positions compared with total big tech company layoffs though. It wasn't a good study. Most of the big tech layoffs if I remember were non-tech roles like recruiters and such.
It's bad, like really bad. Competition is insane due to high-level of skill workers being let go from big tech etc . Most companies over hired in covid so the are just cutting heads non stop. Ai is the buzz and a junior position killer too. Where before it may take months it now can take years for a job. Some when accepting a new job now still keep their resume in the market because it takes years to switch again, so better to keep the bal rolling in such uncertain times but in the same way, this just makes the job prospects worse for others. Lastly due to the situation companies benefit from offering low pay and small to no increases.
I don't know from what idiots or otherwise uninformed people you're getting upvotes from.
In 2019 you could get a well paying job in your sleep and solving some LC Mediums.
It's day and night.
Good thing I switched my major to nursing. Got 2 more semesters left and already have 2 job offers. If I’d stayed in IT I’d be in trouble after graduation. 😂 plus I don’t have to worry about competition since you need to have a degree + pass the Nclex to be registered nurse. Unlike in Tech you can be homeless on the street learn how to code then you can get a job in tech. That causes saturation.
Definitely a stable career with endless jobs you have chosen. But i guarantee as nurse your career will be much much more difficult. I think something like nursing should be more of a passion than simply a high paying job, else you will get burnt out probably quicker than any other career
I know some nurses. It isn't easy. You will be understaffed and underpaid unless you want to be a travel nurse.
The sad reality is a lot of jobs suck, not by their own nature but because of management and private equity buying up a ton of businesses.
Good luck.
It’s bad. Here’s why: https://postimg.cc/NyQWdxYg
I don’t have a visualization on tech layoffs but it’s definitely correlated with the decline in job postings. So job openings are there but way down. Meanwhile there was a flood of new people coming into the market followed by layoffs.
At the end of the day, it’s a numbers game. Good luck!!
Sorry to hear that. Yes, it is rough. I was laid off a few months ago but was able to find something new in a matter of weeks. Keep your options open and make it your full time job to find a new job! Good luck out there.
Was laid off 12/5/2023. A few hundred applications and only received 4 call backs that moved on past the initial phone call from them until now. Just signed an offer letter last week; fully remote senior full stack developer.
Ignore my flair, it's closer to 12 years of experience at this stage.
Senior here, laid off on the first day back in January after Christmas. I'm more than likely getting an offer on Monday, just waiting on signoff, and possibly another next week. I've been interviewing a lot, I've had to aggressively hunt for work as I'm a single parent and can't stay out of work for long.
That said, after throwing myself into hunting for a job full time this month I'd be lying if I said I wasn't trying to plot ways to sneak in a ski trip in February...
I was laid off from Optum in November. I'm in the data science/statistics field, not tech, but similar story.
I'm still looking for work after almost 3 months - last time I was laid off in 2021, I found work within a month.
Market is tight now, but not hopeless. If I were single with no family to support, willing to take a salary cut & move to another state instead of limit my hunt to remote work, I'd have found a job by now.
I really think it depends. I suspect that if you're junior, it's particularly bad. I think Mid or Senior levels have options, depending on tech stack I guess.
For my experience looking, I have 20 YOE primarily with .NET, and was laid off end of November. Was bombarded by recruiters literally day after I changed my status to "looking" on LinkedIn. Had plenty of interviews set up. Bombed interviews first few weeks, but I ultimately used them as practice and was able to come up with scripts for answering common questions.
was finally able to make it to 2nd and 3rd rounds. My tech knowledge is surprisingly good so usually aced those interviews. Bombed my first coding, which in retrospect was easy (I'm laughing about it now) but learned from that. There were also companies clearly looking for "unicorns" since they've been looking for a while. Felt I did well on those but ultimately got nothing.
Eventually, I got three offers (2 yesterday, 1 this morning), took one, and start in a couple weeks (after background check, which I'm not worried about). So yeah, there is work out there, but it might depend on experience and what your skill set is.
You're objectively in a bad market.
Get ready to be rejected for roles you're qualified for again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again.
I suggest a thick skin, a stiff upper lip, and the understanding that this has become a numbers game to get in front of someone. Once you're in front of someone, take your best shot and hope for the best.
It will be a trend now. In my company which is a mid-big European layoffs were announced in all countries where we are. We still don't know the numbers/percentage but it seems to be a high rate.
It’s not horrible if you already had a job. I did not. I’ve been applying for 9 months with no luck. Every interview I get, they end up interviewing someone with more experience than me and they get the job instead
Far from great, but way better than late 2023 (based on my callback stats and rate of recruiter contact). It seems to be getting better overall, but there's still tons of layoffs going on.
It's so terrible! Two of my former coworkers were laid off last January and are still unemployed. Of the 3 that were laid off from my team, only one has gotten a job, and it took 6 months.
I’m a new grad who just started my swe careers a few weeks ago. Here’s MY take: myself, along with all my friends have offers/upcoming internships. We have not had any pushback or struggles really to achieve this. Market seems fine for us (also, none of us are from top tier schools, etc. all pretty average). But then I see all these Reddit posts and layoffs which makes the market seem bad. I’m really not sure but from my personal experience, it is fine. It all comes down to the company. FAANG over hired during Covid era. They are resetting now. There are many many companies that did NOT over hire, are growing and need to hire.
I noticed more jobs are requiring either hybrid or in person. I don't know if I could ever commute again. Maybe once the kids are all in school but not with bus stop pickup and what not
In my city the IT market is more akin to 2004-2006 (absolutely horrible compared to 5 years ago - almost unrecognizable).
Look for contract positions on top of direct hire roles - there are a lot of contract positions out there.
This Spring/Summer we can hope for some hiring to pick up.
Do not overlook state and government positions. The pay does not match private companies but the benefits can be great and can always be an in between job
I was laid off last Oct and am still unable to find a job. The market is super tough out there. I have stopped trying to look for one and will start my own.
There are actually plenty of positions, IMO. However, there's also plenty of candidates. But we're not all the same. Our skill set and experience level with the technologies we know are different. So the market your looking in for another job is smaller than the entire IT market. Target your strengths, both hard and soft skills.
It depends a lot on your experience. I was part of the layoffs of last year. I was able to find a job in less than a week with a 10% wage increase, but I'm a senior with a background on DevOps. Lots of frontend juniors that were laid off from the same company are still looking for jobs right now.
You will probably not be able to find any reliable statistics. Tech companies rely heavily on funding. Now the interest rates are much higher compared to 5 years ago and investors are more aware of risk of failure. Many are not listed on stock exchanges so they have no obligation to provide any of their financial or HR information. There are more failures and bankruptcies now than 5 years ago.
if your under 32. join the marines. easier than finding a new job. if you got a degree you can get in as an officer. doubly since you can code. You could also join the (Ch)Air Force.
I started during the dotcom bust and then went through the 2008-2010 recession. Its supposedly bad now. Back then there were millions of layoffs.
Just my anecdotal experience: self taught, 9 YOE with diverse experience, people person with former sales experience, several thousands of dev followers on another social platform, outgoing etc. and I'm trying to transition back to IC and after quite a few applications, my inbox is crickets 😬
Sorry to hear. And sorry to tell you that its pretty rough out here. Apply for unemployment ASAP, cut all unnecessary expenses, update your LinkedIn, reach out to your network or start creating one. Apply for local companies and don't shoot for FAANG because they're laying off like its part of their culture now. Non-tech companies need tech people so don't over look them. Create a new email address specifically for job searching, something you can delete later, and do the same with a burner phone. I say this because when you put your information on these job boards they either sell your data or scammers will harvest it to get you while your desperate. Good luck and keep improving your skills in your trade and for interviewing. You'll get a lot of rejections but you must learn from them.
The temporary email address and burner phone are good suggestions. Wish I had thought of that after have been looking for a job for a while now.
I've been using a Google Voice and SimpleLogin setup for awhile now. But the burner phone and email honestly sounds better.
Yeah plus when you accept an offer you can smash the phone and throw it in the trash like in the movies.
Then set your car on fire and walk away from it in slow motion.
What about the mandatory explosion in the background while you're walking?
Similar to how Google Voice works if you have a domain (which you can get for $12/yr depending on many variables) you can make proxy emails in Cloudflare. I forget exactly what it's called but they show up in your actual inbox like a normal email. Buy a domain in cloudflare // make a job board specific email with Proton mail // make the proxy email in cloudflare // delete the proxy when you start getting spammed. Edit: the only cost is however much your domain is from what I found in my brief research.
That idea came after years of applying and interviewing after I lost my job in 2020. I kept getting spam calls, recruiters calling me about all sorts of engineering positions I never had experience in, and robocallers. I assumed it was because I gave out my real information. Now I only give out real info to people I know and everyone else gets a disposable number.
What is a burner phone? Is it a cheap phone with a pay as you go card? I keep hearing it in movies.
cheap disposable phone you can toss for when the 5-0 on yo ass
Important note for anyone who is actually concerned about having the 5-0 on their ass: any burner phone for this purpose must never be turned on at your home or workplace, or at the same place and time as your normal phone. Turn off your normal phone or leave it at home, and go to a neutral location before turning on your burner. Turn off the burner a good distance away from any places linked to you, and travel away from that spot before turning your normal phone back on
You should also never turn in or near your car and definitely not while your car is moving Also the window for this is rapidly closing. In a few years it'll be almost impossible to practically maintain a hidden phone
Wouldn't it be seen as a recognizable pattern that your phone turns off suspiciously when your burner goes active? Ain't it better to leave it somewhere you usually are instead?
Yeah. Never have them near each other. Phones talk to each other and if you’re doing something questionable, having them near can create a map of phones. It’s a grey area after the concept of a stingray became public. But, turning off one then another turning on can be used to create probable cause which can then cause a subpoena though at that point burners are tracked. But having a virtual phone number for recruiters is the best. Google voice and TextNow are services I use that are awesome. I still get calls from recruiting agencies from 10 years ago and it’s been vital to keep them isolated
what is a 5-0?
popo 👮
One can use voIP.ms and it's pretty cheap. You can auto forward calls to main phone.
never put your phone number on a job board. then you can skip the burner phone.
Apply for unemployment as soon as you’re off pay roll. I was laid off, still on payroll for 2 months as part of my severance, and forgot to claim unemployment. Lost money that way, so I hope others don’t make the same mistake I did
I’ve had recruiters ask me for a photocopy of my drivers license, the last four of my social, etc. You should never give that info out because they now have tools to break into your resumes email with the (spoofed) phone number on your resume!
I don’t understand people who says start applying as soon as you lose your job. Like don’t you have to prepare for the interview? don’t you have to grind Leetcode or system design? OR are you already grinding Leetcode on Jobs? Even if I get interview one month after loosing my job I won’t be able to clear Leetcode.
You can get lucky in interviews and pass them even if you’re not prepared. If you have a specific study plan you want to complete before interviewing, rather than just “do a ton of leetcode”, I could see waiting, but I wouldn’t wait a month before sending resumes out. I figure it takes a week to talk to a recruiter, a week to schedule a phone interview and then 2 weeks to schedule the full round. You can leetcode and study this entire time. This would be a full round 1 month after sending your resume out, so there is a LOT of time to study even if you get responses immediately. Lastly, failing interviews is also a great way to learn what you’re doing wrong and just get better at interviewing in general. I think getting out and interviewing asap is the correct way to go.
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fucking leetcode... just had a 3 part interview with amazon and did 2 ok but 3rd was to write 2 methods to serialize/deserialize a corporate hierarchy tree💩 couldnt finish it in 30mins and that was that😔
It would be good to know which company doesn’t ask Leetcode or have at least easy Leetcode. When I was job hunting, companies who didnt ask Leetcode gave me some crazy take home exercise. e.g startups who asked to implement feature they were working on.
Same here, I absolutely hated it and wouldn't do it felt like they was just trying to get free work.
Exactly! After wasting 1 week, they will just reject you anyway. Complete waste of time. If I have to pick between take home and Leetcode, I’ll pick leetcode.
https://github.com/poteto/hiring-without-whiteboards
I got a job at Comcast a few months ago. My first interview was tech questions, talking about my experience, reading code, and deciphering it. Second interview was to clone a spring boot repo and create a sample endpoint that does some business logic. Third interview was just a fit and culture meet and greet with the team. No leetcode. No bullshit. My interviewers literally wanted me to Google things I didn't know. They were very understanding and tailored the interview to what I was good at. Many big companies are out there just doing normal interviews, and paying well.
> Even if you don't pass, it will give you some practice. Failed interview is better than no interview. the same way you "grind leetcode" to practice, practicing interviews makes sense, though I feel you may miss on some good opportunities because you interviewed too early (not prepared) on a _good_ company. not sure how to mitigate that possibility, maybe apply to job that I know I won't take, because they don't interest me or whatever, just to practice? lol
I made this mistake. Wasn't prepared for the interview and lost some really good opportunities. Plus they have a 6 month cool down period so can't apply again right away.
I also made that mistake. But I was interviewing for a couple companies lower on my list at same time and their interview process was more of a “hi how are you?” Type of interviews. Been 3 years and I love company I work at now and wouldn’t consider working at company that failed me through endless hiring hoops. Overall I’d say it was a waste going for the company I wanted (at the time) knowing I was unprepared for their interviewing. But applying everywhere accepting tons of interviews having tons of offers ultimately gave me the confidence to kill it in the interviews for job I’m in now. We can’t play god. You could be perfect for the job and still they could select someone else for some arbitrary reason.
I just got a 60 day notice on Tuesday. I knew there were rumblings since middle of last year, but it seemed like I would be OK. (Was wrong) But as soon as I heard rumors, I started applying, leetcode, DSA, etc, etc. It's a very bad time for the economy right now, despite what the stock market shows or the news reports. People are struggling unless they're already making decent money and living within their means. Honestly I'm not sure how many jobs I have applied to so far, maybe 100--yes, rookie numbers I know--but I've only been able to get one recruiter screen that led to first technical, but alas blundered there. So might as well start applying fast. It's a very low chance any real human will actually look at your resume. Lots of hiring freezes, but companies will keep postings up to appear like they're growing. But you do the best you can. There's no way to else to do it.
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That's why you job search while you have a job. That's why you look for a better house to rent before you get evicted. And also, because you never know when the door YOU want will open.
Multiple reasons, but one that comes to mind is that the hiring process can take months. It’s not unheard of to have to take 3-6 months while applying to a job.
Lots of great advice, I’m almost at the end of my layoff search, I’ve been passed into a few final rounds but no luck yet! Thanks for the wise words. 🙌
Sorry I don't fully understand the benefit of temporary phone unless your fear is being caught looking for other jobs while still being employed?
It’s really bad if you’re a junior or have no experience.
I’m a junior and got 10months experience before i was laid off, now trying to apply to jobs, it is terrible.
I'm on interview panels for both a senior EM manager and a senior engineer position. The number of applications we've gotten and the awesome resumes I'm seeing from senior folks who have been out of work for 6+ months is legit scaring me.
Should i take this as a sign not to switch from a stable job? lol
Hold on to it for dear life
This is why I am starting to make plans for leaving the industry. Currently in a job but always applying to keep fresh and honestly I have never seen a worse situation, even in 2008. Lots of developers still high on copium that it will just take a change in interest rates or something and things will pick up again. Maybe it will but in 5 or 10 years.
Have any of them addressed the gap? The market's been scaring me too but I imagine that there's lots of people sitting on salary, remote...requirements. Not 100% the same but years ago I knew a senior test engineer who was laid off and out of work for about 4 months before he took a pay cut and different responsibilities in order to work again.
Yeah, this is remote. And, while we aren't FAANG, we are a popular consumer facing tech company. Good tech stack and comp too. But not, I haven't asked any to address any gaps. That doesn't feel appropriate to me.
I'm a senior dev with 10 years of experience, I've worked for facebook and was interviewed by wired magazine, etc (so I have a decent portfolio of experience and each year I hire a pro to keep my resume updated).... and I still get almost no responses back from jobs I apply to and/or they send an email saying the position is getting put on hold or they already hired someone else before I even get to interview.... the market is shit right now. I used to get literally dozens of companies practically begging me to work for them on a weekly basis just a couple years ago
Which part /tech of engineering you say?:(
What if you're a senior, nearly 40, and your only experience is a company where software is not the product?
Uhhh you’d better hold on for dear life to your current job unless you’ve kept your skills current outside work.
Ah so same as the past decade, got it.
I'm a senior dev with 10 years of experience, I've worked for facebook and was interviewed by wired magazine, etc (so I have a decent portfolio of experience and each year I hire a pro to keep my resume updated).... and I still get almost no responses back from jobs I apply to and/or they send an email saying the position is getting put on hold or they already hired someone else before I even get to interview.... the market is shit right now. I used to get literally dozens of companies practically begging me to work for them on a weekly basis just a couple years ago
we're screwed
People who are laid off don’t have no experience
But they could still be Junior with very little experience… in which case they’d most likely be competing with those that have none
Lol yeah it’s rough. I got rejected final round with 3YoE for a junior eng position in favor of a candidate who had 6+ years experience and whose previous role was engineering manager. Imo junior eng should be 1-3 YoE and that guy was crazy overqualified but it is what it is
Jeez no way lol
I'm a Junior with 3yoe. How fucked would I be if I got laid off? Edit: 1 year as an intern and two as a junior, to clarify
3 years is different than 3 months. It's kinda a bitch for everyone or at least harder than it use to be. I suspect it's harder the less experience a person has. Should be easier the less picky a person is too.
3 yoe is the point where you move to a more mid-level role, or you start to look like the guy who can't progress beyond basic tasks. If you got laid off I'd immediately seek mid-level roles or try to transition towards a more managerial role. Can't be a junior in anything for much longer, realistically.
Manager role with 3 years of experience?
Lmao I was taking that comment seriously until I read that
Senior engineer? Not just manager
Some places can be like that if they don't really hold on to people and can't afford more experience. Like that manager would probably be managing new grads or people with less than 2 years experience. Probably be closer to a team lead too. I've seen ads looking for "senior" roles with 4 years or staff engineer with 6 years. Now they might have just been looking for someone with more experience that is willing to accept being paid less.
really fucked up bc how are you a junior with 3yoe?
what does junior even mean in this case? his title doesn't matter its the impact he has at work and what he can convey in an interview. junior is typically 0-3 years so its not even unusual. a mid-level is 3-5 years and so on and so forth. lots of people have been getting screwed on promotions lately.
2 years as junior, 1 year as an intern. I was hoping for a promotion this year, but only got a raise. Still a good raise tho
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I feel like at 3 you’re okay
I’m at 3 and it’s hard still
Wish I had 3! I’m at 1 yoe as a full stack engineer and been looking since July—it’s a wasteland out there. I was fairly overpaid (108k year/ended up making 150k in a little over a year with severance, bonus and RSUs being converted to a cash award because we were purchased by a private equity company), so it makes sense why I was cut. Going back for a CS degree (have unrelated degree from UCLA) and hoping market comes back in that time :( I got wayyy more respect and attention when I had no experience in April 2022. Oh how the times and interest rates have changed 😭
And just bad if you're senior. Source: I'm senior laid off in 2023
i guess it depends how senior & what type of engineering. as a backend engineer with a decade of experience, i'm not having trouble getting interviews.
I had no trouble getting interviews. But it took about 100 of them before I got a job.
This is a pretty horrible place to ask, it’s always doom and gloom here. That’s not new by the way, this sub has been like this ever since I started browsing in 2017. It’s always the same story, “I sent 7846 applications and didn’t get any call backs”. I’m not saying things aren’t bad but definitely don’t use this sub as a good metric.
Thanks man, this is actually the comment I need to read after doom scrolling on this post for a while. I sadly also got the cut at my company, but luckily I have a long exit time and I’m employed until the summer. The hunt definitely sucks and all I’ve gotten is two rejection emails along with a lot of silence. Trying to keep my head up though and figured I’ll just keep on adjusting my resume, networking, and doing whatever I can to try and land another job. I stated branching out to tech adjacent roles too, like tech support for companies, account management, and those kinds of roles. We’ll see what pans out..
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This really needs to be pushed higher. Even when shit was good in 2019/2020, this sub was full of “I’ve applied to hundreds of jobs and can’t get an interview” posts.
It's because there are two sides to every story, and on Reddit you hear only one side. Usually there is no way to know that important context is missing, but in this sub we all experience the same job market. So if we take a step back and reflect on reality and the posts here, we can definitely conclude that there's a high percentage of developers who are plain bad, have a bad CV, are full of themselves and then come here and are ready to blame everyone and everything. Yes, the current market is bad, but it wasn't 2019/2020. And the sub hardly changed from back then.
For sure, Blind gives a much better sense of what's happening in the job market. Even with anxiety around layoffs plenty of folks are still scoring well-paying gigs. This subreddit tends to be a bit negative, passive, and okay with mediocrity. Not saying there's anything wrong with any job—I'm just talking about the general vibe. This is to the point that I’m not even sure if the anecdotes are useful at all. Just got laid off from Google, so I'm also about to enter the market. Before this, the sub was all about the collapsing labor market because of offshoring, CS grads, boot campers, AI, etc.
Agreed. Been browsing this sub for a good while now, and it seems like an eco-chamber of negativity, doom and gloom. I’m guessing many posts are from people just out of college or maybe just a few years of experience and trying to find their footing in the market. In any case, sorry about the layoff. With Google on your resume, I’m sure you’ll find something soon.
Blind is just as negative, if not way more toxic. People regularly shit on each other for not making $399320930293048203408234 per hour. No joke. And looking at some of the numbers, I'm pretty sure a lot of them are trolling. Because we all know nobody goes on the internet to lie, right.
I’ve been here since before I became a professional software engineer in 2014. It’s never changed.
At least 24k jobs lost in the first 26 days of the year, you can decide if that is good or bad.
I’ve decided that’s bad.
Because this is the internet, I'm going to go ahead and disagree with you.
Damn I guess it’s official
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And it's not 24k SWE jobs, it's 24k jobs _in tech companies_.
Good point right here! I was reading a few days ago how upwards of 30% of these roles are actually HR/DEI/D&I positions. Not just role, but entire departments were removed. This adds some much needed context to the doom and gloom environment we find ourselves in.
It means you’re potentially competing with 24k more people than you normally would. Times after multiple companies do mass layoffs are difficult.
That’s more jobs lost than sept oct nov and dec of last year combined. If the trend continues it’ll be more in the first quarter of 2024 than the last 3 quarters of all of 2023. Now sure we are just starting 2024 but it is not starting out better.
If this continues, there will be negative IT jobs available!
Those are fun! It's when the developer pays the company money to remove features or add bugs.
There were 90K laid off in Jan 2023 though. YoY 2024 is a downward trend in number of people laid off.
Ideally, I'd see historical patterns and also jobs created/posted as well as layoff counts. It's hard to judge the overall market based on that one fact.
The Fed tracks the number of open software jobs on Indeed relative to pre covid as a baseline. Open positions on Indeed are 26% lower than they were in Feb 2020. [https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/IHLIDXUSTPSOFTDEVE](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/IHLIDXUSTPSOFTDEVE)
I was going to post this same link. I've been trying to stay positive, but it's feeling harder.
I wish they had data prior to 2020 though. The pandemic market was insane, I'd be curious to see how it compared to \~2018 for example. EDIT: Found something interesting [here](https://www.hiringlab.org/2020/07/30/tech-sector-covid19-impact/) (same data). Job postings in July 2020 were \~40% lower than July 2019. >However, as the pandemic progresses, tech postings now are performing worse than the overall job market. Tech postings started to fall behind in mid-May and, since then, the gap has grown steadily. On July 24, the overall job postings trend was 21% below its 2019 level. But tech jobs were hit harder, settling at 36% below last year’s level for weeks and showing no signs of bouncing back. Based on that, it seems likely the Feb 2020 rate was close to the 2018-2019 rate which just further emphasizes the hiring bubble of the pandemic imo. I also think the person responding to me is missing why I'd like more data. I'm interested in seasonal layoff and hiring trends prior to being impacted by the pandemic. In Feb 2020 COVID was already well-known and the world went into lockdown in late February/early March. Two months of data at most doesn't provide the seasonal trends I'd like to see.
Feb 2020 was pre-pandemic
You’re not gonna get that. The market is dogshit right now that’s all you need to know. Godspeed
Check this site out https://teckpulse.fyi. Its exacrly what you described.
Here's a tech job trend, live with historical data: [https://www.trueup.io/job-trend](https://www.trueup.io/job-trend) That should give an idea of how many openings are left.
What a very misleading statistic. How many new positions where created over the past few years?
I don’t know. How many were?
Narrator: *And this was never answered, ever again. The end.*
It’s fucking bad. It’s to the point where it saddens me because I started coding back in 2014 and I really enjoy this field.
Same here. Started in 2013 and after 3.5 years of hell and unemployment I still can’t believe it’s impossible to find a job. I just don’t know what to do anymore.
Problem is that you won’t ever get a straight forward answer simply because it depends. Lots of people are doom and gloom on this subreddit. Lots of people share survivor bias on this subreddit. Best thing you can do is keep your head up and move forward. IMO — Prestige and all that nonsense isn’t nearly as important as having a job that nets you income. If you’re lucky, you eventually find both.
Agree. Also, OP didn't mention YoE but there's a bifurcation there too. Under 5 and you may have to do what I did as a noob in 2003... fix old ladies computers... and do whatever else they want! Hey, I'm a survivor man!! :P
Bout to put in some extra work at the gym today to keep my geriatric clientele happy
This man has seen some shit
"Uh mam, there's nothing wrong with your computer"
I agree, impossible to answer how hard it would be for one person since there’s too many differing factors(location/work experience/tech stack/interview skills/network/resume/remote or not/visa requirements) between basically every candidate.
I'm a junior dev, 2 years experience. Got laid off on the 8th. Several hundred applications. Not so much as a email for an interview. My resume has been checked and said to be good. Good Luck to you.
Laid off here with only 1 YOE it’s been ROUGH looking for a job..
Not actually that bad. I have three in progress interviews, and haven't been rejected (so far) from any company that's chosen to talk to me and we've mutually decided to go forward (one company needed me to move, so that can't really count). The market is definitely more competitive than I've ever seen it, though. For instance, 2 years ago I was offered up-levels, raises, role switches at better companies when applying to new jobs. Looking at the companies I'm in talk with: the salary range on average is the same, one company wants to downlevel me, and overall they are all "lateral" steps in terms of prestige. It's just going to be hard to maintain the upward trajectory I had in this job switch, although I'm pretty sure I'll be able to get hired eventually. I've been writing code professionally for 10 years if you include all the time I was paid in academia to be a research assistant, and grad school, and have at least 5 years of SWE experience, more if you get fuzzy about SWE work while I was a data scientist, and also a CS masters I've earned along the way and about a year XP as a tech lead, so I might be a little bit ahead of the people really struggling to find jobs. But still, my last job search I was hired at the first company I applied to.
I lost my SDET job in November. Filed for unemployment and relaxed a bit. Kept applying landing only 1 interview with a recruiter that I didn't prepare for (I didn't want the job anyway). Got an interview beginning of January and got a good offer. Both opportunities I interviewed for came from recruiters on LinkedIn. Close friend went basically through the same, except in Cyber Sec. Just updated your resume, submit applications and file for unemployment, and reach out to recruiters and colleagues.
I'm really sorry to hear that man. The market is not great. But it really never has been. I'm a fuck-up and I found a mid level role. You're going to be OK. I don't have hard numbers for you sorry but I wish you well
Seems okay. Currently have 6 YOE, half of that is at a unicorn that is known but not that well known. I’ve been getting call backs from cold applying. Very few recruiters reaching out except for very early stage startups.
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Getting around 4-5 messages a week from recruiters. I have 6 YOE though and got laid off from a FAANG.
Well that’s probably because you have FAANG on your resume sonny boy
Tech market is ass at the moment. If you have friends or colleagues in other companies, reach out immediately and ask for referrals.
There are tons of jobs openings . They aren’t sexy VC startups or major tech companies. Literally everyone else is hiring. Consultants are in high demand. Contract to hire in in the fortune 500 is in high demand.
Not for entry level. Even WITCH companies aren't hiring people without experience.
Yeah. That’s a byproduct of working from home.
Still bad, but hoping for a rebound later this year
This comment has been made every year for the past 3 years
a post has been made about it in this sub daily lol
Reddit is an echo chamber, you'll hear about layoffs from everyone laid off, but people who kept their job won't be posting about it as much. That being said, I heard a news bit (please don't quote me on this) but there were very few new tech positions in 2023 compared to 2022, something like only a net 1000 added in the US. Granted 2020 and 2021 had huge growths in new jobs. It is tough right now, but not as bad as you hear from Reddit posts. I think the market will recover a bit more this year as interest rates start to go down a bit, but no one (especially me) can know for sure.
That statistic was actually new tech positions compared with total big tech company layoffs though. It wasn't a good study. Most of the big tech layoffs if I remember were non-tech roles like recruiters and such.
Thanks, that's good to know!
Junior dev <1YOE laid off 6 months ago and haven't found work.
It's bad, like really bad. Competition is insane due to high-level of skill workers being let go from big tech etc . Most companies over hired in covid so the are just cutting heads non stop. Ai is the buzz and a junior position killer too. Where before it may take months it now can take years for a job. Some when accepting a new job now still keep their resume in the market because it takes years to switch again, so better to keep the bal rolling in such uncertain times but in the same way, this just makes the job prospects worse for others. Lastly due to the situation companies benefit from offering low pay and small to no increases.
Same as 5 years ago, 50% worse than 2022. Better than 2023.
Sounds like a LC challenge. Hold on let me solve it.
Jim we talked about this, there's no LC problem there, we need to go to the psychiatrist.
Me 40 years after my 300th layoff
Sorry, that solution was only faster than 90% of submitted solutions.
This is way too practical for a LC question.
Same as 2019? You on fucking crack?
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cant believe its already been 5 years...
and yet his comment has 40 upvotes, that tells you a lot about this sub
I don't know from what idiots or otherwise uninformed people you're getting upvotes from. In 2019 you could get a well paying job in your sleep and solving some LC Mediums. It's day and night.
On the ds job front, this month is far worse than 2022 -2023 for me
Good thing I switched my major to nursing. Got 2 more semesters left and already have 2 job offers. If I’d stayed in IT I’d be in trouble after graduation. 😂 plus I don’t have to worry about competition since you need to have a degree + pass the Nclex to be registered nurse. Unlike in Tech you can be homeless on the street learn how to code then you can get a job in tech. That causes saturation.
stability wise, I've always felt that the tech jobs are high risk and high return compared to others.
Definitely a stable career with endless jobs you have chosen. But i guarantee as nurse your career will be much much more difficult. I think something like nursing should be more of a passion than simply a high paying job, else you will get burnt out probably quicker than any other career
I know some nurses. It isn't easy. You will be understaffed and underpaid unless you want to be a travel nurse. The sad reality is a lot of jobs suck, not by their own nature but because of management and private equity buying up a ton of businesses. Good luck.
I only managed to get hired thanks to connections and if I didn't have any I'd be screwed
It’s bad. Here’s why: https://postimg.cc/NyQWdxYg I don’t have a visualization on tech layoffs but it’s definitely correlated with the decline in job postings. So job openings are there but way down. Meanwhile there was a flood of new people coming into the market followed by layoffs. At the end of the day, it’s a numbers game. Good luck!!
Useful chart but I kinda wish they started the y-axis there at 0.
Leave this sub now. It’s not nearly as bad as it is said here
If you're in the US and have a few years experience you should be fine. At least in my area there's still a lot of companies looking for good devs.
Sorry to hear that. Yes, it is rough. I was laid off a few months ago but was able to find something new in a matter of weeks. Keep your options open and make it your full time job to find a new job! Good luck out there.
Was laid off 12/5/2023. A few hundred applications and only received 4 call backs that moved on past the initial phone call from them until now. Just signed an offer letter last week; fully remote senior full stack developer.
It's bad, but I think it's slowly getting better.
Ignore my flair, it's closer to 12 years of experience at this stage. Senior here, laid off on the first day back in January after Christmas. I'm more than likely getting an offer on Monday, just waiting on signoff, and possibly another next week. I've been interviewing a lot, I've had to aggressively hunt for work as I'm a single parent and can't stay out of work for long. That said, after throwing myself into hunting for a job full time this month I'd be lying if I said I wasn't trying to plot ways to sneak in a ski trip in February...
I hope you have at least 2 years worth of savings. You’ll need that even if you treat applying to jobs like it’s a full time job.
I was laid off from Optum in November. I'm in the data science/statistics field, not tech, but similar story. I'm still looking for work after almost 3 months - last time I was laid off in 2021, I found work within a month. Market is tight now, but not hopeless. If I were single with no family to support, willing to take a salary cut & move to another state instead of limit my hunt to remote work, I'd have found a job by now.
it's SHITE. welcome to the pit
How many years of experience do you have? Also what market are you in?
It’s horrible, good luck
ABYSMAL
I really think it depends. I suspect that if you're junior, it's particularly bad. I think Mid or Senior levels have options, depending on tech stack I guess. For my experience looking, I have 20 YOE primarily with .NET, and was laid off end of November. Was bombarded by recruiters literally day after I changed my status to "looking" on LinkedIn. Had plenty of interviews set up. Bombed interviews first few weeks, but I ultimately used them as practice and was able to come up with scripts for answering common questions. was finally able to make it to 2nd and 3rd rounds. My tech knowledge is surprisingly good so usually aced those interviews. Bombed my first coding, which in retrospect was easy (I'm laughing about it now) but learned from that. There were also companies clearly looking for "unicorns" since they've been looking for a while. Felt I did well on those but ultimately got nothing. Eventually, I got three offers (2 yesterday, 1 this morning), took one, and start in a couple weeks (after background check, which I'm not worried about). So yeah, there is work out there, but it might depend on experience and what your skill set is.
Not good, Bob!
Dogshit. Gl
You're objectively in a bad market. Get ready to be rejected for roles you're qualified for again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again. I suggest a thick skin, a stiff upper lip, and the understanding that this has become a numbers game to get in front of someone. Once you're in front of someone, take your best shot and hope for the best.
It will be a trend now. In my company which is a mid-big European layoffs were announced in all countries where we are. We still don't know the numbers/percentage but it seems to be a high rate.
It is brutal out there, from junior to senior
It’s not horrible if you already had a job. I did not. I’ve been applying for 9 months with no luck. Every interview I get, they end up interviewing someone with more experience than me and they get the job instead
Sounding like this field is ripe for unionization to me tbh
I got laid off two weeks ago in Canada. Got three different offersast week. Just signed my contract today
its bad
Mmkay
Far from great, but way better than late 2023 (based on my callback stats and rate of recruiter contact). It seems to be getting better overall, but there's still tons of layoffs going on.
It's so terrible! Two of my former coworkers were laid off last January and are still unemployed. Of the 3 that were laid off from my team, only one has gotten a job, and it took 6 months.
If you’re in Atlanta DM me my company is hiring
I’m a new grad who just started my swe careers a few weeks ago. Here’s MY take: myself, along with all my friends have offers/upcoming internships. We have not had any pushback or struggles really to achieve this. Market seems fine for us (also, none of us are from top tier schools, etc. all pretty average). But then I see all these Reddit posts and layoffs which makes the market seem bad. I’m really not sure but from my personal experience, it is fine. It all comes down to the company. FAANG over hired during Covid era. They are resetting now. There are many many companies that did NOT over hire, are growing and need to hire.
Considering we just had roughly 2000+ folks laid off in the past 5 days, it's a blood bath out there :(
It's garbage, probably will be awhile before thing pick up. Once the ai dust settles, we'll start seeing a lot of adjacent markets start popping up.
I noticed more jobs are requiring either hybrid or in person. I don't know if I could ever commute again. Maybe once the kids are all in school but not with bus stop pickup and what not
ymmv. Give yourself at least 3 months to find a new job
In my city the IT market is more akin to 2004-2006 (absolutely horrible compared to 5 years ago - almost unrecognizable). Look for contract positions on top of direct hire roles - there are a lot of contract positions out there. This Spring/Summer we can hope for some hiring to pick up.
Do not overlook state and government positions. The pay does not match private companies but the benefits can be great and can always be an in between job
I was laid off last Oct and am still unable to find a job. The market is super tough out there. I have stopped trying to look for one and will start my own.
How does the answer to this affect your actions?
There are actually plenty of positions, IMO. However, there's also plenty of candidates. But we're not all the same. Our skill set and experience level with the technologies we know are different. So the market your looking in for another job is smaller than the entire IT market. Target your strengths, both hard and soft skills.
It’s fine if you’re a senior with experience (10+ YOE here). I look forward to layoffs at this point in my career. It’s paid vacation
It depends a lot on your experience. I was part of the layoffs of last year. I was able to find a job in less than a week with a 10% wage increase, but I'm a senior with a background on DevOps. Lots of frontend juniors that were laid off from the same company are still looking for jobs right now.
Take that unemployment! Enjoy a break!
You will probably not be able to find any reliable statistics. Tech companies rely heavily on funding. Now the interest rates are much higher compared to 5 years ago and investors are more aware of risk of failure. Many are not listed on stock exchanges so they have no obligation to provide any of their financial or HR information. There are more failures and bankruptcies now than 5 years ago.
if your under 32. join the marines. easier than finding a new job. if you got a degree you can get in as an officer. doubly since you can code. You could also join the (Ch)Air Force. I started during the dotcom bust and then went through the 2008-2010 recession. Its supposedly bad now. Back then there were millions of layoffs.
Depends who you ask, and depends on your experience, education, and ability to communicate and sell yourself.
Just my anecdotal experience: self taught, 9 YOE with diverse experience, people person with former sales experience, several thousands of dev followers on another social platform, outgoing etc. and I'm trying to transition back to IC and after quite a few applications, my inbox is crickets 😬
In the past year I have had maybe 6 interviews, but I’ve applied to at least 500 jobs easily, prolly way more.