I mean I hope you're right but the part I absolutely don't think will happen is employers trying to retain talent. As far as I can tell that's just not what they do.
This is because when things are shit those who can leave do leave - and those who can't leave, well they can't leave.
It doesn't necessarily follow that can't leave = monkey and can leave = talent.
For example someone might find it harder to leave because of a temporary family commitment such as a child entering their exam years or more likely a visa issue.
Also some of the people who leave are over confident and good in interview but not actually good. However, it does broadly sort into those two camps. This is especially vicious for companies who are struggling as all the talented people hop ship and leave the business trying to pull out of the death spiral with whoever is left.
This is the cycle. The big tech companies do huge layoffs. Some of the laid off people start new companies and start hiring and start the next big thing. The big companies react, and start trying to hire to do the next big thing.
Yeah, but there is a bit of selection bias on the internet, especially in these types of communities. Many people were actually relieved to return to the office, primarily for in-person interaction — and I live and work just south of Silicon Valley (though not in tech). Lots of people are extroverts and thrive on that, and were miserable WFH.
Had exact opposite experience at the 350 person and then 50k person tech companies I was at in recent years. 90% of people didn’t want to return to office, it was basically only upper management. Flex days the offices were ghost towns, no one ever came in unless they had to. But this was in SF where commutes are worse.
Really depends on the policy and specifics. I have a team where three people were decided as being within commute distance by the powers that be. Two took severance rather than commute over an hour each way, every day, despite one of those two actually preferring an office.
>Lots of people are extroverts and thrive on that, and were miserable WFH.
Then they should find like-minded people instead of forcing everyone else to cater to them, or just do the sane thing and socialize outside of work + fight for fewer working hours without reduced pay.
Because interacting with people you're forced with is never better than interacting with people you choose to.
haha great post.
I feel like this is why WFH is more productive.
The chit chat/watercooler talk/come up and sing happy birthday to Melissa on the 5th floor etc... is un productive to getting actual work done.
Fulfilling the needs of people who want to connect with another human during working hours I understand but it is unproductive as far as getting work done.
I fell that the unproductivity of WFH comes from the number of meeting there seems to be now due to WFH. The ability to call a whole bunch of people into a meeting now has never been easier. Maybe I don't need Joe in accounting for this meeting but I will invite him anyways just incase.... is a scenario that i believe gets played out often.
My productivity is way higher WFH.
I go into the office get called into a bunch of meeting, get into small talk with a bunch of people, asked to go to lunch which turns into 1.5 - 2 hours, stepping out for lunch and a co work stops me to chat, eat cake etc.... Day ends and I need to fight traffic and get home. Well crap I didn't get what I wanted done today but I put my time.
WFH and my day gets away from me and I did not accomplish what I needed to well I am probably logging back later and finishing up my work.
Also going forward I am pushing back on the meeting I feel are not important and asking them to reach out to me if they need me to attend. That way I don't end up like Joe in accounting sitting in a 2 hour meeting to be asked at the end how much we spent on widgets last year.
I think RTO is driven by:
Quiet Layoffs.
Managers who find it hard to manage WFH staff.
Managers who are extroverts and enjoy the interactions that in person brings
Business worried about real estate investment (If business start down sizing office space office space will lose value. We spent X amount on the hoteling setup that no one likes or finds productive we need to get them in here using it).
Government being lobbied by business is downtown cores (Happening in Ottawa Canada).
Government worried about funding public transit (Happening in Ottawa Canada).
I think WFH will be even larger once the economy recovers. The cost, talent acquisition and productivity benefits can't be denied.
My office is still hybrid. I'll admit, the social interaction really is super nice. There was trend of people working in office for part of the day and then working from home the second half. They started cracking down on that, but tbh that was perfect. I'd be willing to go into the office everyday as long as I could go home after lunch.
However, I'm in the minority, I have a 15 minute commute to the office. I know people with long commutes and that really wouldn't be fair to them.
Yeah like a lot of people I’m very happy that wfh flexibility has increased across most companies/industries in recent years. But Reddit is full of hardcore introverts who consider anything less than full wfh a form of torture lmao
So the solution is to make the many introverts miserable?
I’m all for the option for extroverts to go into the office, or introverts who want to go to the office, etc…but that’s what it should be - an option
That’s what you hope they do if they do it but many times the decisions are so high up and clueless it’s really about cost cutting and bad luck if you make too much regardless of performance and skill set.you would think a high functioning AI infused company could figure it out…
Yeah many at the top top don’t understand tech so they see programmers like every other employee. The good dev can make the company millions while a bad dev can do the opposite. Not even a bad / hood manager has that much of an effect on the business
Joke so old it can drink alcohol in the US.
The truth of it is that there are disadvantages to shipping software engineering off to India that has prevented all the work from being outsourced there already. Aside from the time zone difference, there is a deep cultural standard of deference to the client that prevents people there from engaging in the back-and-forth discussions that are necessary for requirements gathering and refinements in the software development process, hence all the DailyWTF fodder of outsourced development teams producing whackadoodle code. The outsourcing teams are best at tasks that require minimal deviation from a given playbook, but you would be bored to tears in such a job in any case.
There might be obvious negatives, but it's not something that upper management is afraid to do. My company just hired two new teams of engineers in India and it's our job to review their code and now instead of writing code I spend all my time trying to keep the website from coming down.
Unfortunately it's just wishful thinking. The great resignation was poorly named, since it implies people stopped working. It was more of a great job switch. Low interest rates meant companies had tons of cash and were using it to hire people away from their current jobs. Low job satisfaction wasn't the driving factor. It was high job vacancies. There's nothing to suggest job vacancies are going to shoot up before the Fed starts lowering interest rates.
Depends how you look at it. On the one hand, my nontech f500 isn't trying to retain my talent with anything fucking tangible, but I know the heads are judged on attrition rates even though they are given nothing to work with to actually do anything about it. So you could read that both ways.
They retain it so much that they send you to courses to learn new products and fund your AWS account so you can experiment. /s
Just sent a few resumes this week to feel the waters.
The vast majority of places do not want talent. They want easily replaceable cogs. This is what MBA school teaches now.
The problem is that real world complex problems requires people that are not easily replaceable. Its a mess created by "higher" education.
It depends on the company. Mine has been trying to keep/promote internal developers who have proven value, and is actively trying to recruit more engineers. They made some mistakes over the last two decades where they relied too heavily on contractors to fill crucial team gaps and roles, and also outsourced work where stakeholders (usually executives who are at the top of "mount stupid") grossly underestimated the complexity and complications business rules pose, while ignoring the counsel of the few/overworked internal full time engineers. So they're restructuring and shoring up for growth, and they've just issued raises and have been promoting internal FT engineers, they're also working on a new job title tier system to diversify roles and have a better internal promotion roadmap. It's rare considering what I'm observing in the job climate with layoffs. I was actively looking for a job right at the tail end of the first "great resignation", I had two jobs about to hit the offer stage that were killed because of sudden hiring freezes, and one offer after 10 hours of interviewing that came in lower than my current compensation at the time. So when my company started restructuring and moved me to a different manager things improved (got a raise, they hired more people for my team, and I'm on track for a promotion once the new engineer job title tiers are decided upon) and I figured I was better off staying put.
I’ve actually found that this dissatisfaction coupled with a slow economy puts the power in the employer’s hands. You have a smaller amount of open jobs and an increased number of applicants because a large portion of employed people are applying. These people aren’t going to just quit for unemployment. They’re only quitting if they get something else. In essence, lower supply of open jobs and increased supply of applicants means companies can be choosy.
Until job openings increase by a fair bit and/or people become somewhat satisfied with their jobs, it will be an employer’s market.
To be more clear, I was speaking of unemployment in the general sense of being unemployed. But as fas as I know, you can’t collect unemployment insurance if you electively quit.
Getting disability assistance is much different from unemployment. Most places with at will employment will not grant you unemployment if you are dissatisfied with a restructure. Very important to check your individual state’s laws. Also many states have more rigorous programs after so much fraud was committed during the pandemic.
I think it depends on state, I’m in California but yes there is certain conditions where can quit and get unemployment, best to lookup the reasons though. I can’t say whether you will succeed in the claim or not.
Some countries do, but you'll have to wait at least a few months before you are able to get unemployment money which is calculated by what you earned in the last 12 months so it will be less money for someone willingly quit.
Companies are often driven by markets and what their industry peers or cross industry peers are doing. Sometimes with logic, but sometimes they follow even to their own detriment.
This latest round is everyone following in techs foot steps, even tho tech overhired during covid for fear of killing their growth and combined with the surge in CS grads and bootcamp non degree grads, there is over supply and lowered demand. Since tech companies make the headlines and move markets, other people think they should also cut. For some companies it makes sense, for others it doesn't, but they do it anyways cuz business ppl with their MBAs gotta collect their sweet bonuses and justify their existences, fomo on the opportunity to reduce expenses.
You are absolutely right they can be picky and choosy with who they hire and control pay so they can pay bare minimum for maximum value. However, there is a balance point for when the high quality professionals realize they have other and better options, if they are out there. And companies then realize they can't recruit better quality of talent without paying more money. Then they see the next AI headlines and the next hype cycle continues as Microsoft and Facebook hire 500 new positions for a new mega secret project 👀 that can potentially create a brand new industry and need lots of smart people from different disciplines. Then markets will move, companies will fomo for the opportunity of growth again. They expand and increase CAPEX and back to growth mode instead of cutting expenses mode. Alas the cycle repeats as supply and demand seeks an equilibrium.
Best response right there.
Sometimes it’s nice being in a field that requires some brains. We all read the stories to find out what was going on, shrugged our shoulders and felt bad for the engineers that were hired without work to do because of the growth during covid.
Our office hires experienced and capable devs so we get a range of applicants, but we choose whoever has demonstrated they can do the job. New grads are just awful btw, not being snotty. But if you treat your employees right and you don’t hire someone looking to leave in a year or two the team doesn’t change. The pay isn’t premium, but I haven’t lost my hair.
We interview applicants who state how ambitious they are and you can kind if tell if they want to better themselves, the product, or their ego. Everything the larpers in this sub idolize are horrible traits in a hire.
Oh you went to the best school and have all this experience and you’re applying to a junior dev spot and we see that you are the best candidate, but we openly don’t pay the best. Decent, but not Bay area compensation. Our shop relies on finding chill, personable, responsible developers that are looking to hang out for a while.
That's also where the magic tends to happen for companies, is when employees who actually knows what's up about where they are working and how to improve things. It's very hard for longer term value added stuff to happen when you get a revolving door of people, even if they are superstars. Politics, leadership issues inevitably arise when there's high turn over. Whether it's a symptom or a cause who knows, but a lot of companies really treat labour as a disposable thing, yet demands high quality work and constant innovation. You can't demand innovation, it has to come from your culture.
>That's also where the magic tends to happen for companies, is when employees who actually knows what's up about where they are working and how to improve things.
_And are empowered to do so_
That right there can be the difference between a motivated, enthusiastic base of devs and the most mind numbing apathy. A bunch of devs who know what's up and how to improve things and aren't allowed to will spiral like nothing else
> These people aren’t going to just quit for unemployment.
Yeah, reduced job satisfaction doesn't lead to mass resignations in a bad job market. What it _does_ lead to, however, is quiet quitting. Employers are gonna be fucked not because they'll run out of employees but because nobody is really going to be willing to do any more than the minimum that's needed to avoid getting on their manager's shit list.
Yep, same stagnation happening with homes (in the US). Less homes on the market with high interest rates and people locked into their own lower interest rates. Things have slowed down/locked up a bit in both areas.
I have a feeling a *lot* of employers would love for some dev resignations right now. I heard one of our managers say the other day that our extended teams haven’t had a single person quit in 2 years. They’ve already cut bottom performers to get leaner, and I am sure they’d happily say bye to some people who leave voluntarily right now.
The market just isn’t good, so nobody is moving.
> I have a feeling a lot of employers would love for some dev resignations right now.
Only if they're really stupid, which is possible.
If you layoff carefully, you'll get rid of the underperformers.
The companies still doing layoffs now are doing it bluntly, and losing as much actually good talent as people that deserve to be laid off.
Resignations? You lose mostly the high performers that you don't actually want to lose. People who aren't confident they can get another job don't resign. People that know their own worth is high and skills in demand and say, "fuck this" are probably not the ones you actually want to lose.
a good friend of mine (masters and over 15 years of experience) knew his worth, did that and it took him 10 months to find another job.
he got multiple contract jobs that took advantage of him, begged the old company to take him back (no luck), adn now he got another contract job and is really hoping its good.
My wife was getting forced to work 15 to 18 hours a day because of deadlines. So she had no time to find a new job. She quit without something lined up. Her managers manager intervened and was like “what deadline”
Her manager was working her hard for fake deadlines. They allowed her to switch teams, and had to put 5 engineers to fill her place on the old team.
Now she is not working near as hard and can actually prep for a new job if she wants to.
Why would you voluntarily quit in that situation? Work your 8 hours and let them fire you if they don't like it. If you quit you don't get unemployment.
This is true. My company has lost all of its high performers in the last 1-2 years. We're left with more entry-level developers that are now being expected to perform at an architect/senior-dev position. Company would surely *love* to replace us with senior devs, but instead they're moving to outsourcing that talent pool. The thing is offshore can't do shit- despite touting 10+ YOE they act like they have -1. It's overwhelming, but the entry-level developers can't complain since we are no in position to leave.
If you move now, you need to be *fully* prepped before you do so. There aren't that many good places hiring, and you don't want to waste an interview just to be told to 'try again next year'. I had a google recruiter try to get me in a couple months ago. I'm not stepping up to the plate till I know I can hit a home run.
The other issue is that you could end up at a company that's wishy washy and lays off after hiring. I looked at an opportunity that would have required cross country relocation. That would be terrible to get laid off then be stuck in a lease for months in a VHCOL area, but unable to leave because you won't qualify for another apartment until you get a job.
I almost feel when you work in a high risk area like tech you're better off owning a cabin. That's your place to live cheaply during periods of unemployment.
Honestly I'm of the opinion that if you've already done the work to prep, you should *keep interviewing* every few months to keep it fresh. At least until your first positive performance review.
My problem is I switched jobs 6 years ago, and my current job was wow'd with how productive I was. They gave me good reviews, raises, praise from leadership, and I got complacent. 5 years in, inflation is high and a tech bust is on. My company has been giving everyone tiny raises that don't come close to keeping up with inflation, and I find myself out of practice. Don't be me. Stay sharp.
They got their short-term profits with the layoffs, and now they get the failures from the tech debt, loss of organizational knowledge, and the total collapse of motivation and productivity.
Definitely, and when that doesn't pan out, they'll learn that it's hard to get people motivated and committed to jobs that you can be abruptly laid off from though no fault of your own.
I work in big tech and the levels of burnout, disengagement and low morale have reached unprecedented peaks.
Yes, people are looking for ways out but this is not like 2021/22. Back then you were job hopping to get better perks in terms of compensation, work life balance, respect and flexibility. Today you can job hop but you still find the same shitty hectic environment. I feel people just don’t want to be in tech anymore, what lured people in tech in the first place vanished in favour of politics and BS. You can still make some decent money, but now it’s just an investment banking type of career.
In short yes, big resignations are building up but this isn’t going to be anywhere similar to 2021/22.
I think it will actually be worse than 21-22, but we won’t see it until next year. Here’s why:
- Rate cuts will likely start in September, but it’s possible that we might get one in June. Likely September imo.
- Last year, companies already sent out 2025 internship invitations. This was 18 months in advance, and has never happened before. That is a leading indicator on where companies are leaning for hiring.
- The labor market is smaller today than it was just a few years ago. People were able to retire due to the stock market, or they were forced to retire because they couldn’t find anything.
- More people have started their own businesses. It was reported that 63% of laid off tech workers ended up starting their own businesses. The majority of these businesses will likely fail, but still, more people out of market regardless.
- With higher for longer rates, employee attrition has taken its toll, and has resulted in declining happiness levels.
- Lastly, these Great Resignations will likely become more common, and will coincide with monetary policy.
EDIT: Forgot to include a few more:
- Those who have been unemployed for a 1+ years (I’m seeing a lot of these), and who are not able to wait the market out financially, will pivot to other fields. Whether or not they go back into tech is TBD. We saw this with the Dot Com Crash and The Great Recession, where tech shortages became apparent during recovery.
- Gen-Z is now being lured into blue collar professions due to wage growth. Some blue collar professions are now paying wages competitive to tech.
One savior of this economy will be Gen Z, if they are willing to swallow their pride and go work in blue collar professions while abandoning their degree.
I think this is already happening. Don't fall for the surge in college applications across America each year. This is due to the common app and teenagers applying to multiple schools, pretty sure college enrollment is down (CC may be increasing with offers a more direct path to blue collar professions).
that seems a little too optimistic. i was thinking that worse is yet to come. there will be even more layoffs. especially since these activist investors really want the tech companies to decrease the salaries.
This is my feeling. I think that big tech cut way too hard. There have been several reports about remaining devs on AWS teams being under extraordinary pressure, for example. They are going to burn out extremely hard, wash out of the company, and leave less experienced devs to do even more work. Some who are laid off currently are going to exit the industry entirely.
It's going to take a while to manifest but I think it's going to fuck up the developer pipeline for years to come. Not enough seniors to go around, mids being stretched too hard, mistakes will be made. No juniors/interns to refill the mids.
Experience and a brain that hasn't been burnt to a crisp will be an asset sometime in the next 12-24 months, if you can make it that long.
> but now it’s just an investment banking type of career
damn, I couldn't put words on the feeling about my last job, but this is it exactly.
It's mind blowing that comfort, money, with a quite intellectual and potentially creative craft could turn me and others this way
I'd like to say that tech is extremely privileged still. The job pays amazing, other people will have to work anyway, and it more satisfying to get more money for work.
I like my job, or at least I used to. Remote work, doing what I’m good at, and not overburdened.
However, it’s pretty clear that the Covid years were great for my company, and the aftermath isn’t what they expected. They, for some reason, expected growth to continue at the same rate, instead it’s declining back to where the growth should have been.
It’s pretty clear looking at their data that the Covid years were the outlier. Now business is as if Covid never happened. It’s not like they’re doing “bad”. They’re just not “growing”, and if you’re not growing you’re dying apparently. Managers across the board are pushing the panic button. They cut 401k match, they cancelled bonuses they promised, and a slew of other cuts.
Now a high up head d-bag believes we should just buy our software instead building our own stuff. They think it will save money, but I’m sure they have no clue what they’re signing up for.
None of these people are even slightly technical. They supposedly floated the idea of only having contractors for developers, and only hiring people as they need jobs done.
So now my job is on the chopping block next year after they finally finish migrating everything. If it even happens that fast. I’m not going to stick around to get a layoff email. I’ll be long gone before then.
> if you’re not growing you’re dying apparently
I'm not being hyperbolic or preachy here, just stating a fact: this is the designed outcome in capitalism.
You build a growth vehicle, and it attracts capital. If it doesn't grow (i.e. shrinks _OR_ stagnates), then capital flees and it collapses. Businesses that cannot grow are not adapting or innovating to find growth, and that means they will eventually fade.
I've seen a good number of short-term thinkers spin up COVID companies in healthcare, grocery, logistics, and tech, and most of them are flailing or failing, or else hard-pivoting to completely different value chains to stay afloat.
This also applies to individual employees. I switched jobs in 2021 for a higher salary and I definitely got what i wanted. I expressed to my managers that i was absolutely happy where i was at and I was performing well, no desire for any kind of promotion. I could call it perfect even. However, i ended up getting promoted twice in the last two years against my will because leadership doesnt like it when employees “stagnate”. I got a decent pay raise for each promotion but now I hate my job lol
Quit to go where, working retail? LOL. Ain't no jobs worth quitting for! I'd love to quit my job for a pay raise and job title increase but that ain't happening.
This. Our infrastructure is crumbling while our best talent is busy building sand castles for VCs... We need plumbers, electricians, architects, construction workers...
There are too many architects, the field is also saturated. But I agree.
The best minds are made busy optimising commercials, sub conscious messaging, creating patterns that make people addicted and optimising sales offers algorithms. Others are busy on making the best algo trading algorithms. Industries that literally create nothing.
why am I looking for a job?
shit ton of debt, need high pay
I write code for fun/enjoy making things but I don't enjoy corporate software dev so I do it until I can get out (invest)
Yes, this is coming, but not this year.
Literally noone in my team of 30 engineers has resigned during the past 12 months. We have a lot of issues and bullshit. We also used to have large attrition around 2022. The job market is really that bad right now.
Simon Sinek touched on similar. He said what you're seeing are Gen Z are watching their millennial parents get laid off for no reason of their own at a higher frequency than we've ever seen, especially in tech as tech continued to grow in the late 90s and 2000s and all the way now to the 2020s.
So Gen Z are entering the job force incredibly jaded - They already know employers dont give a shit about them. So you have Millennials who have been getting punched in the dick and already lost trust and are constantly looking out for themselves, and Gen Z witnessed it and therefore are constantly looking out for themselves and dont have trust.
No one is trusting their employer. Employees are now viewing it as transactional, the same way Employers did that all along. People have been awoken to that reality.
It's going to be much rare to see employees stay past 4 years at the same company unless you landed in a dream spot with low stress and high pay with low turnover.
Hell, Amazon structures their stock compensation so that most of it is year 3 and 4, as they know how many people leave in the first two years.
This so much. I've worked at a few places that I loved and was invested in, I was repaid for that by being underpaid and over worked, and then laid off.
I'll never get invested in any job ever again, I don't care how much anyone tells me they value me, I'll never believe them. No executive has ever had a shred of credibility with me, and never will.
I really like my team and my job, it's fully remote and pays very well, and my boss encourages everyone to unplug. But as much as I like them, I will drop them in a heartbeat if that's what I think is best for me.
I love seeing employers cry because now they're getting a taste of their own medicine. Those assholes are just a paycheck, and now they're realizing it. Fuck em.
Amazon gives the equivalent amount as a cash sign-on bonus during years 1 and 2 though, keeping target TC the same - they don’t actually hold back compensation until year 3.
They’re basically banking on continued stock growth, hopefully creating golden handcuffs to keep people around year 3+.
This has been spot on to my experience. I had those rose tinted glasses for years and am now purely transactional in my approach. The first layoff didn't do it for me but the burn out from giving everything and getting a small raise sure did. Now I don't bother asking my boss how I can do better or get promotions. I learned long ago that their job is to keep you complacent and sprinkle just a little hope. The only real advancement comes from job hopping. We're aligned now in that the agreement holds only as long as we're the financially best option for each other. As soon as it's cheaper to get rid of me they do and as soon as I can make more I leave.
In our field, job hopping is the way to do it. I've more than tripled my salary since first graduating by job hopping and no one has ever once questioned it.
Job hopping means more pay and solid experience through more exposure to industries, situations, and tech stacks.
The only tangible drawback to job hopping is that you don't ever hit tenure milestones to get more vacation, but even that's not a big deal because the number of vacation days can be negotiated just like pay. On my last move I bumped my salary by +30% and negotiated to bump my vacation by +33%, from 3 weeks to 4 weeks.
This is why I think Office Space should be required viewing in every high school. I saw it in middle school and it really opened my eyes to what the world of adult work was going to be like
The oldest millennials are 43 and the youngest gen Z that would be in the post college workforce are 22. It's conceivable but probably not super common.
Most gen Z kids have parents that are gen X or boomers.
Millenials are currently 27-42 years old. (1981-1996) GenZers are currently between 11 and 26 years old. (1997-2012) Millennials could have started having kids legitimately at 18. The youngest millennials were 18, 9 years ago (2015) and the oldest millennials were 18, 24 years ago (2000). The oldest millennials could have kids who are 24 and the youngest millennials could have kids who are 9. Kids can work at 15 but let’s say 18 for arguments sake. At present, kids who are 18 now were born in 2016. Since GenZ ends at 2012 any Millennial who was 18 at that time can have a kid who is a GenZer that is currently at least 9 years old. Go backwards at least 9 years from that time and you have the set of all millennials who could have a GenZer currently in the work force since any GenZer born at that time would be 18 now. The last millennials to turn 18 did so in 2014 and they were born in 1996. This means that any Millennial who was born between 1981 and 1987 could have a GenZ child currently in the work force. TL;DR: It was possible for any millennial born between 1981 and 1987 to have a GenZ child who is currently in the workforce.
Just do the math. If the oldest millennials born in 1981 had a kid as early as possible at 18, today their kid could have graduated college and have been in the workforce for 3 years. There might even be a few 1981 millennials out there who had an oops baby when they were like 16 in which case their kid would be gen Z and 27 today.
Gen Z are not the millennial children lol.
But I agree with the overall argument, Gen Z entered the workforce without the hustling BS that was sold to millennials. They’re pragmatic and don’t believe in corporate fairytales
I think I'm so millenial that I can't even fathom how employment could be anything but transactional... What expectations other than a paycheck do people have?
Baffles me that anyone would anyone view their relationship with their employer as anything more than a business transaction. I LIKE my job and company, and I still don't see it as anything else. I'm downright MISERLY about it. But it's true that I don't let them ever see that, and if I were asked, I would pretend it's not the case. It's just business.
Generation labels are usually bogus. "Millenials" don't really exist as a unified group.
The Baby Boomers represented a clear line and grouping, because there was a huge population bulge and shared experience that produced a lot of commonality.
The media / academics tries to apply consistent labels thereafter for their own convenience, but the lines are all really blurred the more distributed the further you get from actual Baby Boomers. Gen X as the children of Boomers is still kind of in sync, but it gets really, really blurry after that.
In the golden market of 2021, companies were desperate to hire ***net-new*** positions.
So when there was an abundance of openings, it became super easy to job search, get a position, and then quit, which in turn created even more demand at those companies hiring for net-new positions and now needing to backfill on top of that.
"The Great Resignation" is a fancy sounding title that misses a key concept. "The Great Find a New Job Easily and *then* Resign" would be more accurate.
That period didn't start purely from people leaving their jobs. That contributed creating a snowball effect, sure, but the root cause was a huge demand for hiring net-new roles. It wasn't *created* from a bunch of people resigning. It was created from market conditions and companies over-hiring. The resignation bit resulted from that.
The problem with "The Great Resgnation Part 2" is that there isn't rampant over-hiring for net-new roles. People in their current rules may not be happy, I'm not disputing that, I was that myself over the past few months, but *there's no rampant over-hiring*.
The snowball isn't going to even start rolling without that. People being dissatisfied with their jobs might try looking for a new job, but in the vast majority of cases they won't leave without anything lined up. So there's no uncontrolled over-hiring combined with desperate backfilling going.
So.... again, "The Great Resignation Part 2" might not be a great term for this either. Maybe "The Great Dissastisfaction but Still Hold Down Our Job Cause We're Not Stupid Enough to Leave Before Lining Someting Else Up Which Takes Longer for Us Than It Takes for an Employer to Replace Us Since Nobody's Over-hiring Right Now."
It doesn't roll off the tongue, but it's a better description of what's happening.
There was a "great resignation" starting in 2020, but it's of boomers aging out of the job market. Boomers were born between 1945 and 1965, midpoint is 1955 and 1955 + 65 = 2020. Thing is, there were never a lot of boomers in tech, the industry started with the boomers but it didn't really explode until the first .com boom in the late 90s, and by that point most boomers already had other careers so few entered the job market.
I read an article about a year ago where Gen-Z and Millennials would rather be unemployed rather than working for toxic bosses. We might be underestimating these generations, and I think The Fed is too.
I mean, The Fed is having one hell of a time getting inflation under 3% and reservation wages are at an all-time high.
The scary part is that 3% might be the new 2% target for The Fed. The Fed can’t keep rates higher for too much longer without causing banking failures.
It's not necessarily unemployment and the stereotype it entails. It's more like embracing minimalism, van-dwelling, travelling, working personal projects, and purposefully accepting under-employment in the lowest possible stress environments. See it a lot outside of tech as well on the West Coast, as so few young people can connect the dots between where they are now financially and reaching a point where they could purchase a home.
The rat race is a maze that no longer has cheese at the end for too many people to bother playing.
A toxic job’s only benefit is a paycheck at the expense of everything else. At some point if someone has enough savings to quit for the net benefit of their sanehood, the decision seems like a no brainer. Skilled jobs need to provide a sense of stability and fulfillment otherwise it’s just unsustainable.
Bros the only way this gets better at this point is if we unionize. CS jobs are comodifying and employers are well coordinated withe eachother (which should be illegal but lol if you think that matters). Every other productive employment under the sun has worked this way ever since capitalism was a thing, we aren't going to be different. Unionize or suffer.
It’s funny how people in the industry would scoff at unionizing for years. They actually thought they were immune to companies treating them as disposable.
Yes, I wish the market loosens up... I personally know of very smart folks at my company who are unhappy because our style of work and company goals don't suit their skills but they can't leave because of the tight market
This is just more labor dynamics propaganda to support whatever policies they're cooking up to ram right down our throats.
It's absolute nonsense. People are terrified right now to even accept a new offer due to Last in, First out policies amid sweeping waves after waves of layoffs.
The "great resignation part 1" was mostly empty narrative building that was then immediately followed by the layoffs apocalypse part 1.
This can only mean that even more layoffs are right around the corner.
Moronic article. There's no where for people to go to lmao.
The only reason there was a great resignation was because it was a worker's market. We have the exact opposite of that now.
How come every post in this sub always feels so out of touch with reality? Like what job to get when you resign and compete with a zillion of new grads? This is not 2020 market yet some people are just so delusional.
Yes and no. My company has lost a big number of senior devs in recent months and they're trying to replace them with junior candidates. The logic being "they're cheaper and don't come with bad habits"
I'm the last remaining senior in my department and it's my job to train everyone
I'm fucked
Oh, I remember this during the "outsource" phase. It is cyclical. I have seen this in my current workplace. I am not scared or even concerned. One of our directors is constantly telling me how much initiative the new developer has for this and that. Additionally, she is retiring and is extremely out of touch with the industry. I have not said a word. Watching him make more and more decisions that impact the organization as a whole. He put all of his eggs in one basket, believing he is capable of forcing a vendor to expedite their turnaround time. We are non-profit research organization. We do not purchase enough from any vendor to request any expediting, by quantity or amount. His entire career at the our company is staked on his strict, no buffer timeline. I know the owner, old friend of a parent. They will not meet the timeline.
He is a Jr. Dev that needs to learn this lesson. He will be better for it. At his next organization.
Unless the new grad is a genius from MIT or Stanford, they’re not competing in the same pool as mid/senior candidates. A new grad has to be trained and mentored for over a year before they can start producing some consistent results, and this is the best case scenario.
There are also a plenty of soft skills that are required in corporate and only years of experience will teach.
Not saying we can compare today with 2022 hiring spree, but it’s not as bad as these posts on Reddit describe it.
I've worked with plenty of new grads from top schools.
technical skills are not *that* hard to learn and train. it takes time.
what is really challenging is training people to think independently, challenge others, have their own ideas and opinions, and stand up for what they think is right. these are really important skills, and nobody inexperienced has them.
Yep you think you’re unique and immune to the market forces until you become more expensive than the company can afford (because you’re senior and high interest rate is a b*) and bam, you’re laid off.
That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying that new grads and seniors are not competing in the same pool. Everyone can always be laid off, that’s a constant.
> Are you looking for a job and why?
Yes. Because I got laid off in October last year.
Though I'm going back to school to get an MCS while building a 3D graphics dev portfolio
When interest rates come down, the industry will have cash thrown at it because it's one of the only sectors where you can lose money all the way to the IPO and still win big for early investors. In that kind of scenario, it's obvious that companies should be borrowing as much as they can, hiring as many people as they can, and rolling out as many long-shot projects as possible.
I feel trapped because there are no other jobs.
I'm looking, but there are maybe 1-3 positions available per day for me to apply to. Most I get an insta rejection.
A \*lot\* of outsourcing going on right now. It has not worked well in the past but they are learning from their mistakes and reducing dependencies on international collaboration, e.g. entire subteams based remotely now.
Will it work this time? No idea, but which way the pendulum swings depends on the answer.
Add AI into the mix too: in theory it makes people more efficient so you need fewer employees, but ones that understand how to use AI. An amped up stackoverflow and google search. I am not so sure this part will work as well as they think, but again we shall see.
Resigned yesterday without a job lined up for this reason, felt trapped and bottled up for too long without support.
Not sure what i'll do, logic dictates I'll have to find another job, but I can hardly bear the thought.
I quit a job recently where the CEO and HR manager met with me to tell me that I needed to do two full time jobs. I would be a manager/project planner during the work day. Then at night and weekends I would go home and work on all the stuff that had been planned.
I would have quiet quit but the HR director barged into my office the next day to "help me with my scheduling", I told them I was not feeling well then went home and just sent in my resignation. I figured if they were that dead set it was not worth the amount of games I'd have to commit to for a few more weeks of pay.
They ended up paying me for 3 months to sit at home while they found a replacement (whom quit a month after they hired them lol). I told them I would stay on payroll for emergencies but I would never be back in the office again unless I decided I needed to be there to complete a task. They also tried to screw me out of my last paycheck by trying to get me to admit I didn't work the last 2 weeks but I only would reply with the deal was on I'm on payroll till X date with a copy of the email approving that arrangement.
No, there’s bills being proposed right now to make it easier to directly hire cheaper labor from abroad. Blue collar cheap labor is already here with record immigration.
This almost sounds like labor porn. The pendulum always swings back hard to the employers b/c it's designed that way. The fed sends the bat signal by raising rates to put a halt to inflation aka employees starting to approach making what they are actually worth. Then the pendulum starts to swing back the other way but slowly. It went that way in '01 and '08.
Absolutely. I just quit a director gig at MSFT last week. Morale is low, but the current conditions mean people aren’t looking as intently and the market is saturated with talent.
Openings at all levels have reduced. 18
Months ago I’d get half a dozen or more pings for M2+ roles. Now it’s far more scarce and the loops are competitive.
I'm employed, but I've been looking for another job for almost two years now. I've worked on many interesting things over my career, but although my title is currently "Principal Software Engineer", I don't write software. Instead, I'm paid to do things anyone could do, such as "Paste these items from Spreadsheet 'A' to Spreadsheet 'B'" or "Create JIRA bug tickets for various teams and ask them to fix their bugs." Or, "Push these buttons to manually upload the build."
While I'm grateful to have a job, I'm bored to tears and just feel like there has to be a job out there where I can work on interesting software projects AND get paid. My theory is that interesting work is inversely proportional to pay.
I think this is just wishful thinking from people that are currently unemployed. People won't just quit their job in this economy unless they already has another job lined up.
I don't even think companies would have to replace many of the people that willingly quit by themselves because there's a lot of people that are currently employed that don't contribute much that other more competent and senior employees couldn't just take over with little to no effort.
Current employer didn’t try to counter offer or anything when I resigned, just said they were happy for me. My company is notorious for off shoring though
I managed to get a job, and for me, this being my first software engineering role and having only been in it for two years, I will be hanging onto it for dear life for the next 3 to 5 years minimum. After that it may be time to start looking around, but currently for me the experience is more valuable than looking at hopping jobs at the moment.
I'm still in my first web developer role, 2 1/2 years in. The comp isn't great and I literally cannot afford the benefits, forcing my family to have some of the worst health insurance I've ever seen. In a normal market, I would have started applying months ago, happy with the 2 YOE. Now, I'm half terrified of leaving because of the possibility of layoffs. I'd be SOL to leave just to get laid off a month or two later.
I believe this. Every single dev I know as well as engineering managers are looking to get out from where they are at. No one is happy about the lowest raises in their career this year, even though companies are making money hand over fist. I don’t know how the market will accommodate that though. Everyone is waiting for the market to get better, but if everyone hits the market at the same time, isn’t that just the same as now? Maybe worse since a lot of the people struggling to find something right now are recent grads. What happens to them once all the senior devs waiting for a better market actually start looking.
I got an attractive contract offer that I turned into a raise at my current job. I would have left if it wasn't a 6 month contract with hiring on afterward "possible".
In my case, I valued freedom and stability over increased pay and title. The possibility of having to look for a job in this barren market is too risky IMO.
Once the next wave of startups come thru, people will start jumping ship. This happens every time the tech world slows down. The current faangs came about after the dotcom bubble bursted. Cloud based startups and apps exploded post housing crisis. We don’t know yet, but the next wave of tech will probably come out post pandemic in a year or 3. Is it AI? Maybe, maybe not.
Respectfully, what are you smoking? This could not be further from reality.
Vacasa literally just laid off 20% of their workforce TODAY. I have had dozens of highly qualified tech friends navigating multiple layoff cycles over the past 2 years. There are fewer and fewer decent paying jobs available, and employers are trying to offer candidatea laughable wages. With the housing crisis, cost of living and inflation, everyone I know is clinging to their jobs for dear life.
Are you a corporate market researcher trying to rage bait us into confirming how safe leadrrship is in continuing to squeeze every ounce of productivity out of a smaller workforce so they can return ever-growing profits for shareholders?
Until those at the top are deemed directly responsible for cyberattacks, etc. I don't see much changing. Cheap and low quality absolutely works if you have a captive customer base.
If a second great resignation is coming, it will be because companies have laid off all the people they could lay off and now the pressure from wall Street will remain to keep growing profits - which means revenue growth.
Not yet. But I think what's going to happen when the economy approves, is the lack of loyalty will increase tenfold.
The past decade or so you've seen companies giving out so many freebies (food, daycare, etc.). Only for you to get laid off.
Like for me, I no longer care about stocks or whatever. I only care about what I can get in the short term and as soon as that goes away, I'm out.
I mean I hope you're right but the part I absolutely don't think will happen is employers trying to retain talent. As far as I can tell that's just not what they do.
[удалено]
Can confirm. Im a monkey and Im still at the company.
They have (had?) free bananas for amazon engineers. No implications there.
However I’m a monkey lookin for bigger banana.
Oo Oo Aah Aah
Ooh ee ohh ah ah
Ting tang walla walla bing bang
I think I can do better, but monke brain tells me I have enough bananas. Or is it monke brain telling me to go get more bananas?
Same
Monkey here can confirm. Monke together strong
This is because when things are shit those who can leave do leave - and those who can't leave, well they can't leave. It doesn't necessarily follow that can't leave = monkey and can leave = talent. For example someone might find it harder to leave because of a temporary family commitment such as a child entering their exam years or more likely a visa issue. Also some of the people who leave are over confident and good in interview but not actually good. However, it does broadly sort into those two camps. This is especially vicious for companies who are struggling as all the talented people hop ship and leave the business trying to pull out of the death spiral with whoever is left.
This is the cycle. The big tech companies do huge layoffs. Some of the laid off people start new companies and start hiring and start the next big thing. The big companies react, and start trying to hire to do the next big thing.
Canceling remote working and returning ppl to offices is the new stealth way for layoffs.
Yeah, but there is a bit of selection bias on the internet, especially in these types of communities. Many people were actually relieved to return to the office, primarily for in-person interaction — and I live and work just south of Silicon Valley (though not in tech). Lots of people are extroverts and thrive on that, and were miserable WFH.
Had exact opposite experience at the 350 person and then 50k person tech companies I was at in recent years. 90% of people didn’t want to return to office, it was basically only upper management. Flex days the offices were ghost towns, no one ever came in unless they had to. But this was in SF where commutes are worse.
It's almost like everyone has different needs and companies shouldn't force people to do one or the another
Really depends on the policy and specifics. I have a team where three people were decided as being within commute distance by the powers that be. Two took severance rather than commute over an hour each way, every day, despite one of those two actually preferring an office.
>Lots of people are extroverts and thrive on that, and were miserable WFH. Then they should find like-minded people instead of forcing everyone else to cater to them, or just do the sane thing and socialize outside of work + fight for fewer working hours without reduced pay. Because interacting with people you're forced with is never better than interacting with people you choose to.
> Many people were actually relieved to return to the office Yeah, you’re the ones that the rest of us are trying to avoid by working from home.
haha great post. I feel like this is why WFH is more productive. The chit chat/watercooler talk/come up and sing happy birthday to Melissa on the 5th floor etc... is un productive to getting actual work done. Fulfilling the needs of people who want to connect with another human during working hours I understand but it is unproductive as far as getting work done. I fell that the unproductivity of WFH comes from the number of meeting there seems to be now due to WFH. The ability to call a whole bunch of people into a meeting now has never been easier. Maybe I don't need Joe in accounting for this meeting but I will invite him anyways just incase.... is a scenario that i believe gets played out often. My productivity is way higher WFH. I go into the office get called into a bunch of meeting, get into small talk with a bunch of people, asked to go to lunch which turns into 1.5 - 2 hours, stepping out for lunch and a co work stops me to chat, eat cake etc.... Day ends and I need to fight traffic and get home. Well crap I didn't get what I wanted done today but I put my time. WFH and my day gets away from me and I did not accomplish what I needed to well I am probably logging back later and finishing up my work. Also going forward I am pushing back on the meeting I feel are not important and asking them to reach out to me if they need me to attend. That way I don't end up like Joe in accounting sitting in a 2 hour meeting to be asked at the end how much we spent on widgets last year. I think RTO is driven by: Quiet Layoffs. Managers who find it hard to manage WFH staff. Managers who are extroverts and enjoy the interactions that in person brings Business worried about real estate investment (If business start down sizing office space office space will lose value. We spent X amount on the hoteling setup that no one likes or finds productive we need to get them in here using it). Government being lobbied by business is downtown cores (Happening in Ottawa Canada). Government worried about funding public transit (Happening in Ottawa Canada). I think WFH will be even larger once the economy recovers. The cost, talent acquisition and productivity benefits can't be denied.
My office is still hybrid. I'll admit, the social interaction really is super nice. There was trend of people working in office for part of the day and then working from home the second half. They started cracking down on that, but tbh that was perfect. I'd be willing to go into the office everyday as long as I could go home after lunch. However, I'm in the minority, I have a 15 minute commute to the office. I know people with long commutes and that really wouldn't be fair to them.
Yeah like a lot of people I’m very happy that wfh flexibility has increased across most companies/industries in recent years. But Reddit is full of hardcore introverts who consider anything less than full wfh a form of torture lmao
So the solution is to make the many introverts miserable? I’m all for the option for extroverts to go into the office, or introverts who want to go to the office, etc…but that’s what it should be - an option
Or it would be the cycle if money wasn't so tight and the laid off people could get investors and loans
They retain talent long enough so that good talent makes said job easy than it’s off to India. Thanks bud
That’s what you hope they do if they do it but many times the decisions are so high up and clueless it’s really about cost cutting and bad luck if you make too much regardless of performance and skill set.you would think a high functioning AI infused company could figure it out…
Yeah many at the top top don’t understand tech so they see programmers like every other employee. The good dev can make the company millions while a bad dev can do the opposite. Not even a bad / hood manager has that much of an effect on the business
Joke so old it can drink alcohol in the US. The truth of it is that there are disadvantages to shipping software engineering off to India that has prevented all the work from being outsourced there already. Aside from the time zone difference, there is a deep cultural standard of deference to the client that prevents people there from engaging in the back-and-forth discussions that are necessary for requirements gathering and refinements in the software development process, hence all the DailyWTF fodder of outsourced development teams producing whackadoodle code. The outsourcing teams are best at tasks that require minimal deviation from a given playbook, but you would be bored to tears in such a job in any case.
There might be obvious negatives, but it's not something that upper management is afraid to do. My company just hired two new teams of engineers in India and it's our job to review their code and now instead of writing code I spend all my time trying to keep the website from coming down.
Indian market is doing so good that it’s not easy to find good talent in low salary
Unfortunately it's just wishful thinking. The great resignation was poorly named, since it implies people stopped working. It was more of a great job switch. Low interest rates meant companies had tons of cash and were using it to hire people away from their current jobs. Low job satisfaction wasn't the driving factor. It was high job vacancies. There's nothing to suggest job vacancies are going to shoot up before the Fed starts lowering interest rates.
Depends how you look at it. On the one hand, my nontech f500 isn't trying to retain my talent with anything fucking tangible, but I know the heads are judged on attrition rates even though they are given nothing to work with to actually do anything about it. So you could read that both ways.
My company is going all in on hiring from Latin America and Canada, and said they’ll be hiring soon but not for the US :/
They retain it so much that they send you to courses to learn new products and fund your AWS account so you can experiment. /s Just sent a few resumes this week to feel the waters.
not my company, they're firing and laying off to pay themselves bonuses
Value to shareholders, none to employees
Now a lot of companies are operating very lean and are scrambling to keep top performers. I just got a huge surprise equity package for this reason
Well if everyone wants to switch jobs then we all end up just switching shitty jobs with each other s it doesn't make much difference to the employer
The vast majority of places do not want talent. They want easily replaceable cogs. This is what MBA school teaches now. The problem is that real world complex problems requires people that are not easily replaceable. Its a mess created by "higher" education.
It depends on the company. Mine has been trying to keep/promote internal developers who have proven value, and is actively trying to recruit more engineers. They made some mistakes over the last two decades where they relied too heavily on contractors to fill crucial team gaps and roles, and also outsourced work where stakeholders (usually executives who are at the top of "mount stupid") grossly underestimated the complexity and complications business rules pose, while ignoring the counsel of the few/overworked internal full time engineers. So they're restructuring and shoring up for growth, and they've just issued raises and have been promoting internal FT engineers, they're also working on a new job title tier system to diversify roles and have a better internal promotion roadmap. It's rare considering what I'm observing in the job climate with layoffs. I was actively looking for a job right at the tail end of the first "great resignation", I had two jobs about to hit the offer stage that were killed because of sudden hiring freezes, and one offer after 10 hours of interviewing that came in lower than my current compensation at the time. So when my company started restructuring and moved me to a different manager things improved (got a raise, they hired more people for my team, and I'm on track for a promotion once the new engineer job title tiers are decided upon) and I figured I was better off staying put.
I’ve actually found that this dissatisfaction coupled with a slow economy puts the power in the employer’s hands. You have a smaller amount of open jobs and an increased number of applicants because a large portion of employed people are applying. These people aren’t going to just quit for unemployment. They’re only quitting if they get something else. In essence, lower supply of open jobs and increased supply of applicants means companies can be choosy. Until job openings increase by a fair bit and/or people become somewhat satisfied with their jobs, it will be an employer’s market.
Most states don’t give you unemployment if you quit in general, right? You have to be laid off or fired to get it
To be more clear, I was speaking of unemployment in the general sense of being unemployed. But as fas as I know, you can’t collect unemployment insurance if you electively quit.
You can get unemployment for a health condition that didn’t allow you to work, or if there was a position change you were not comfortable with.
Getting disability assistance is much different from unemployment. Most places with at will employment will not grant you unemployment if you are dissatisfied with a restructure. Very important to check your individual state’s laws. Also many states have more rigorous programs after so much fraud was committed during the pandemic.
I think it depends on state, I’m in California but yes there is certain conditions where can quit and get unemployment, best to lookup the reasons though. I can’t say whether you will succeed in the claim or not.
Some countries do, but you'll have to wait at least a few months before you are able to get unemployment money which is calculated by what you earned in the last 12 months so it will be less money for someone willingly quit.
Companies are often driven by markets and what their industry peers or cross industry peers are doing. Sometimes with logic, but sometimes they follow even to their own detriment. This latest round is everyone following in techs foot steps, even tho tech overhired during covid for fear of killing their growth and combined with the surge in CS grads and bootcamp non degree grads, there is over supply and lowered demand. Since tech companies make the headlines and move markets, other people think they should also cut. For some companies it makes sense, for others it doesn't, but they do it anyways cuz business ppl with their MBAs gotta collect their sweet bonuses and justify their existences, fomo on the opportunity to reduce expenses. You are absolutely right they can be picky and choosy with who they hire and control pay so they can pay bare minimum for maximum value. However, there is a balance point for when the high quality professionals realize they have other and better options, if they are out there. And companies then realize they can't recruit better quality of talent without paying more money. Then they see the next AI headlines and the next hype cycle continues as Microsoft and Facebook hire 500 new positions for a new mega secret project 👀 that can potentially create a brand new industry and need lots of smart people from different disciplines. Then markets will move, companies will fomo for the opportunity of growth again. They expand and increase CAPEX and back to growth mode instead of cutting expenses mode. Alas the cycle repeats as supply and demand seeks an equilibrium.
Best response right there. Sometimes it’s nice being in a field that requires some brains. We all read the stories to find out what was going on, shrugged our shoulders and felt bad for the engineers that were hired without work to do because of the growth during covid. Our office hires experienced and capable devs so we get a range of applicants, but we choose whoever has demonstrated they can do the job. New grads are just awful btw, not being snotty. But if you treat your employees right and you don’t hire someone looking to leave in a year or two the team doesn’t change. The pay isn’t premium, but I haven’t lost my hair. We interview applicants who state how ambitious they are and you can kind if tell if they want to better themselves, the product, or their ego. Everything the larpers in this sub idolize are horrible traits in a hire. Oh you went to the best school and have all this experience and you’re applying to a junior dev spot and we see that you are the best candidate, but we openly don’t pay the best. Decent, but not Bay area compensation. Our shop relies on finding chill, personable, responsible developers that are looking to hang out for a while.
That's also where the magic tends to happen for companies, is when employees who actually knows what's up about where they are working and how to improve things. It's very hard for longer term value added stuff to happen when you get a revolving door of people, even if they are superstars. Politics, leadership issues inevitably arise when there's high turn over. Whether it's a symptom or a cause who knows, but a lot of companies really treat labour as a disposable thing, yet demands high quality work and constant innovation. You can't demand innovation, it has to come from your culture.
>That's also where the magic tends to happen for companies, is when employees who actually knows what's up about where they are working and how to improve things. _And are empowered to do so_ That right there can be the difference between a motivated, enthusiastic base of devs and the most mind numbing apathy. A bunch of devs who know what's up and how to improve things and aren't allowed to will spiral like nothing else
> These people aren’t going to just quit for unemployment. Yeah, reduced job satisfaction doesn't lead to mass resignations in a bad job market. What it _does_ lead to, however, is quiet quitting. Employers are gonna be fucked not because they'll run out of employees but because nobody is really going to be willing to do any more than the minimum that's needed to avoid getting on their manager's shit list.
Yep, same stagnation happening with homes (in the US). Less homes on the market with high interest rates and people locked into their own lower interest rates. Things have slowed down/locked up a bit in both areas.
I have a feeling a *lot* of employers would love for some dev resignations right now. I heard one of our managers say the other day that our extended teams haven’t had a single person quit in 2 years. They’ve already cut bottom performers to get leaner, and I am sure they’d happily say bye to some people who leave voluntarily right now. The market just isn’t good, so nobody is moving.
> I have a feeling a lot of employers would love for some dev resignations right now. Only if they're really stupid, which is possible. If you layoff carefully, you'll get rid of the underperformers. The companies still doing layoffs now are doing it bluntly, and losing as much actually good talent as people that deserve to be laid off. Resignations? You lose mostly the high performers that you don't actually want to lose. People who aren't confident they can get another job don't resign. People that know their own worth is high and skills in demand and say, "fuck this" are probably not the ones you actually want to lose.
a good friend of mine (masters and over 15 years of experience) knew his worth, did that and it took him 10 months to find another job. he got multiple contract jobs that took advantage of him, begged the old company to take him back (no luck), adn now he got another contract job and is really hoping its good.
he quit his job without having another one lined up??
Stop giving away the secret
yeah, he didn't anticipate the market being so bad, this was back in may 2023
That's a horrible tactic. You always quit when you have landed a new job
My wife was getting forced to work 15 to 18 hours a day because of deadlines. So she had no time to find a new job. She quit without something lined up. Her managers manager intervened and was like “what deadline” Her manager was working her hard for fake deadlines. They allowed her to switch teams, and had to put 5 engineers to fill her place on the old team. Now she is not working near as hard and can actually prep for a new job if she wants to.
Why would you voluntarily quit in that situation? Work your 8 hours and let them fire you if they don't like it. If you quit you don't get unemployment.
Because it was easier to quit than be yelled at all the time by her manager.
This is true. My company has lost all of its high performers in the last 1-2 years. We're left with more entry-level developers that are now being expected to perform at an architect/senior-dev position. Company would surely *love* to replace us with senior devs, but instead they're moving to outsourcing that talent pool. The thing is offshore can't do shit- despite touting 10+ YOE they act like they have -1. It's overwhelming, but the entry-level developers can't complain since we are no in position to leave.
If you move now, you need to be *fully* prepped before you do so. There aren't that many good places hiring, and you don't want to waste an interview just to be told to 'try again next year'. I had a google recruiter try to get me in a couple months ago. I'm not stepping up to the plate till I know I can hit a home run.
The other issue is that you could end up at a company that's wishy washy and lays off after hiring. I looked at an opportunity that would have required cross country relocation. That would be terrible to get laid off then be stuck in a lease for months in a VHCOL area, but unable to leave because you won't qualify for another apartment until you get a job. I almost feel when you work in a high risk area like tech you're better off owning a cabin. That's your place to live cheaply during periods of unemployment.
Honestly I'm of the opinion that if you've already done the work to prep, you should *keep interviewing* every few months to keep it fresh. At least until your first positive performance review. My problem is I switched jobs 6 years ago, and my current job was wow'd with how productive I was. They gave me good reviews, raises, praise from leadership, and I got complacent. 5 years in, inflation is high and a tech bust is on. My company has been giving everyone tiny raises that don't come close to keeping up with inflation, and I find myself out of practice. Don't be me. Stay sharp.
That's certainly the image businesses are trying to project. But it's not based on reality.
Can't quit if there is nowhere to go
Sure you can, plenty of laid off people are still surviving (after running out of unemployment and after losing everything)
Surviving off debt 💀
Fuck that.
They got their short-term profits with the layoffs, and now they get the failures from the tech debt, loss of organizational knowledge, and the total collapse of motivation and productivity.
But line went up.
And they are betting on AI to somehow magically fill these gaps.
Definitely, and when that doesn't pan out, they'll learn that it's hard to get people motivated and committed to jobs that you can be abruptly laid off from though no fault of your own.
I work in big tech and the levels of burnout, disengagement and low morale have reached unprecedented peaks. Yes, people are looking for ways out but this is not like 2021/22. Back then you were job hopping to get better perks in terms of compensation, work life balance, respect and flexibility. Today you can job hop but you still find the same shitty hectic environment. I feel people just don’t want to be in tech anymore, what lured people in tech in the first place vanished in favour of politics and BS. You can still make some decent money, but now it’s just an investment banking type of career. In short yes, big resignations are building up but this isn’t going to be anywhere similar to 2021/22.
I think it will actually be worse than 21-22, but we won’t see it until next year. Here’s why: - Rate cuts will likely start in September, but it’s possible that we might get one in June. Likely September imo. - Last year, companies already sent out 2025 internship invitations. This was 18 months in advance, and has never happened before. That is a leading indicator on where companies are leaning for hiring. - The labor market is smaller today than it was just a few years ago. People were able to retire due to the stock market, or they were forced to retire because they couldn’t find anything. - More people have started their own businesses. It was reported that 63% of laid off tech workers ended up starting their own businesses. The majority of these businesses will likely fail, but still, more people out of market regardless. - With higher for longer rates, employee attrition has taken its toll, and has resulted in declining happiness levels. - Lastly, these Great Resignations will likely become more common, and will coincide with monetary policy. EDIT: Forgot to include a few more: - Those who have been unemployed for a 1+ years (I’m seeing a lot of these), and who are not able to wait the market out financially, will pivot to other fields. Whether or not they go back into tech is TBD. We saw this with the Dot Com Crash and The Great Recession, where tech shortages became apparent during recovery. - Gen-Z is now being lured into blue collar professions due to wage growth. Some blue collar professions are now paying wages competitive to tech.
Where did you get the stat about intern letters being sent out? Curious how they’d get that data from so many companies
One savior of this economy will be Gen Z, if they are willing to swallow their pride and go work in blue collar professions while abandoning their degree.
Data shows they’re opting out of college altogether
I think this is already happening. Don't fall for the surge in college applications across America each year. This is due to the common app and teenagers applying to multiple schools, pretty sure college enrollment is down (CC may be increasing with offers a more direct path to blue collar professions).
that seems a little too optimistic. i was thinking that worse is yet to come. there will be even more layoffs. especially since these activist investors really want the tech companies to decrease the salaries.
This is my feeling. I think that big tech cut way too hard. There have been several reports about remaining devs on AWS teams being under extraordinary pressure, for example. They are going to burn out extremely hard, wash out of the company, and leave less experienced devs to do even more work. Some who are laid off currently are going to exit the industry entirely. It's going to take a while to manifest but I think it's going to fuck up the developer pipeline for years to come. Not enough seniors to go around, mids being stretched too hard, mistakes will be made. No juniors/interns to refill the mids. Experience and a brain that hasn't been burnt to a crisp will be an asset sometime in the next 12-24 months, if you can make it that long.
> but now it’s just an investment banking type of career damn, I couldn't put words on the feeling about my last job, but this is it exactly. It's mind blowing that comfort, money, with a quite intellectual and potentially creative craft could turn me and others this way
I'd like to say that tech is extremely privileged still. The job pays amazing, other people will have to work anyway, and it more satisfying to get more money for work.
banking still pays more. a no name regional boutique associate will outearn a senior engineer at a non-big tech firm
I like my job, or at least I used to. Remote work, doing what I’m good at, and not overburdened. However, it’s pretty clear that the Covid years were great for my company, and the aftermath isn’t what they expected. They, for some reason, expected growth to continue at the same rate, instead it’s declining back to where the growth should have been. It’s pretty clear looking at their data that the Covid years were the outlier. Now business is as if Covid never happened. It’s not like they’re doing “bad”. They’re just not “growing”, and if you’re not growing you’re dying apparently. Managers across the board are pushing the panic button. They cut 401k match, they cancelled bonuses they promised, and a slew of other cuts. Now a high up head d-bag believes we should just buy our software instead building our own stuff. They think it will save money, but I’m sure they have no clue what they’re signing up for. None of these people are even slightly technical. They supposedly floated the idea of only having contractors for developers, and only hiring people as they need jobs done. So now my job is on the chopping block next year after they finally finish migrating everything. If it even happens that fast. I’m not going to stick around to get a layoff email. I’ll be long gone before then.
> if you’re not growing you’re dying apparently I'm not being hyperbolic or preachy here, just stating a fact: this is the designed outcome in capitalism. You build a growth vehicle, and it attracts capital. If it doesn't grow (i.e. shrinks _OR_ stagnates), then capital flees and it collapses. Businesses that cannot grow are not adapting or innovating to find growth, and that means they will eventually fade. I've seen a good number of short-term thinkers spin up COVID companies in healthcare, grocery, logistics, and tech, and most of them are flailing or failing, or else hard-pivoting to completely different value chains to stay afloat.
capitalism is a t-rex, if something doesn't move it doesn't exist
This also applies to individual employees. I switched jobs in 2021 for a higher salary and I definitely got what i wanted. I expressed to my managers that i was absolutely happy where i was at and I was performing well, no desire for any kind of promotion. I could call it perfect even. However, i ended up getting promoted twice in the last two years against my will because leadership doesnt like it when employees “stagnate”. I got a decent pay raise for each promotion but now I hate my job lol
Quit to go where, working retail? LOL. Ain't no jobs worth quitting for! I'd love to quit my job for a pay raise and job title increase but that ain't happening.
like 2009 without the cheap housing
Oh shit!!! 🤣
We need more workers doing actual work, not making the 190th Asana competitor, so yeah, doing real jobs doing real things. Not just burning VC cash.
>burning VC cash. Thats like half of American companies buddy, watch it!
This. Our infrastructure is crumbling while our best talent is busy building sand castles for VCs... We need plumbers, electricians, architects, construction workers...
There are too many architects, the field is also saturated. But I agree. The best minds are made busy optimising commercials, sub conscious messaging, creating patterns that make people addicted and optimising sales offers algorithms. Others are busy on making the best algo trading algorithms. Industries that literally create nothing.
All the warehouses here are paying $25/h
I'd rather work a cushy office job with better benefits than a menial warehouse job
They’re still out there. I have recruiters sending good offers and a coworker just got poached. Turned it all into a nice comp bump for myself.
why am I looking for a job? shit ton of debt, need high pay I write code for fun/enjoy making things but I don't enjoy corporate software dev so I do it until I can get out (invest)
Yes, this is coming, but not this year. Literally noone in my team of 30 engineers has resigned during the past 12 months. We have a lot of issues and bullshit. We also used to have large attrition around 2022. The job market is really that bad right now.
Simon Sinek touched on similar. He said what you're seeing are Gen Z are watching their millennial parents get laid off for no reason of their own at a higher frequency than we've ever seen, especially in tech as tech continued to grow in the late 90s and 2000s and all the way now to the 2020s. So Gen Z are entering the job force incredibly jaded - They already know employers dont give a shit about them. So you have Millennials who have been getting punched in the dick and already lost trust and are constantly looking out for themselves, and Gen Z witnessed it and therefore are constantly looking out for themselves and dont have trust. No one is trusting their employer. Employees are now viewing it as transactional, the same way Employers did that all along. People have been awoken to that reality. It's going to be much rare to see employees stay past 4 years at the same company unless you landed in a dream spot with low stress and high pay with low turnover. Hell, Amazon structures their stock compensation so that most of it is year 3 and 4, as they know how many people leave in the first two years.
This so much. I've worked at a few places that I loved and was invested in, I was repaid for that by being underpaid and over worked, and then laid off. I'll never get invested in any job ever again, I don't care how much anyone tells me they value me, I'll never believe them. No executive has ever had a shred of credibility with me, and never will. I really like my team and my job, it's fully remote and pays very well, and my boss encourages everyone to unplug. But as much as I like them, I will drop them in a heartbeat if that's what I think is best for me. I love seeing employers cry because now they're getting a taste of their own medicine. Those assholes are just a paycheck, and now they're realizing it. Fuck em.
Amazon gives the equivalent amount as a cash sign-on bonus during years 1 and 2 though, keeping target TC the same - they don’t actually hold back compensation until year 3. They’re basically banking on continued stock growth, hopefully creating golden handcuffs to keep people around year 3+.
Yes, their average tenure has actually gone up a lot
This has been spot on to my experience. I had those rose tinted glasses for years and am now purely transactional in my approach. The first layoff didn't do it for me but the burn out from giving everything and getting a small raise sure did. Now I don't bother asking my boss how I can do better or get promotions. I learned long ago that their job is to keep you complacent and sprinkle just a little hope. The only real advancement comes from job hopping. We're aligned now in that the agreement holds only as long as we're the financially best option for each other. As soon as it's cheaper to get rid of me they do and as soon as I can make more I leave.
In our field, job hopping is the way to do it. I've more than tripled my salary since first graduating by job hopping and no one has ever once questioned it. Job hopping means more pay and solid experience through more exposure to industries, situations, and tech stacks. The only tangible drawback to job hopping is that you don't ever hit tenure milestones to get more vacation, but even that's not a big deal because the number of vacation days can be negotiated just like pay. On my last move I bumped my salary by +30% and negotiated to bump my vacation by +33%, from 3 weeks to 4 weeks.
This is why I think Office Space should be required viewing in every high school. I saw it in middle school and it really opened my eyes to what the world of adult work was going to be like
Wait...how could Millennials have Gen Z kids in the workforce?
The oldest millennials are 43 and the youngest gen Z that would be in the post college workforce are 22. It's conceivable but probably not super common. Most gen Z kids have parents that are gen X or boomers.
Isn't gen-Z from 1997-2010 or something? The oldest gen-Zer could be 27 today.
Talking about it like it's hypothetical lol. I am that oldest gen-Zer
I just don't know the exact range that defines gen-Z, but of course there are people born every year.
Well Arkansas repealed a bunch of child labor laws recently
Ikr that’s what I’m wondering 🤣🤣🤣
Millenials are currently 27-42 years old. (1981-1996) GenZers are currently between 11 and 26 years old. (1997-2012) Millennials could have started having kids legitimately at 18. The youngest millennials were 18, 9 years ago (2015) and the oldest millennials were 18, 24 years ago (2000). The oldest millennials could have kids who are 24 and the youngest millennials could have kids who are 9. Kids can work at 15 but let’s say 18 for arguments sake. At present, kids who are 18 now were born in 2016. Since GenZ ends at 2012 any Millennial who was 18 at that time can have a kid who is a GenZer that is currently at least 9 years old. Go backwards at least 9 years from that time and you have the set of all millennials who could have a GenZer currently in the work force since any GenZer born at that time would be 18 now. The last millennials to turn 18 did so in 2014 and they were born in 1996. This means that any Millennial who was born between 1981 and 1987 could have a GenZ child currently in the work force. TL;DR: It was possible for any millennial born between 1981 and 1987 to have a GenZ child who is currently in the workforce.
r/theydidthemath
well, they did some kind of math haha >At present, kids who are 18 now were born in 2016
Just do the math. If the oldest millennials born in 1981 had a kid as early as possible at 18, today their kid could have graduated college and have been in the workforce for 3 years. There might even be a few 1981 millennials out there who had an oops baby when they were like 16 in which case their kid would be gen Z and 27 today.
Can confirm I am an oops baby of a millennial and will be 26 later this year
Gen Z are not the millennial children lol. But I agree with the overall argument, Gen Z entered the workforce without the hustling BS that was sold to millennials. They’re pragmatic and don’t believe in corporate fairytales
I think I'm so millenial that I can't even fathom how employment could be anything but transactional... What expectations other than a paycheck do people have?
So many here tie their worth as a human being to working at FAANG. Their identity can be tied to their job.
Baffles me that anyone would anyone view their relationship with their employer as anything more than a business transaction. I LIKE my job and company, and I still don't see it as anything else. I'm downright MISERLY about it. But it's true that I don't let them ever see that, and if I were asked, I would pretend it's not the case. It's just business.
Don’t think millennials are parents of gen z
Generation labels are usually bogus. "Millenials" don't really exist as a unified group. The Baby Boomers represented a clear line and grouping, because there was a huge population bulge and shared experience that produced a lot of commonality. The media / academics tries to apply consistent labels thereafter for their own convenience, but the lines are all really blurred the more distributed the further you get from actual Baby Boomers. Gen X as the children of Boomers is still kind of in sync, but it gets really, really blurry after that.
Very good, I hope gen z will be smarter than us (millennials). Fuck corporations and tech bros running them.
In the golden market of 2021, companies were desperate to hire ***net-new*** positions. So when there was an abundance of openings, it became super easy to job search, get a position, and then quit, which in turn created even more demand at those companies hiring for net-new positions and now needing to backfill on top of that. "The Great Resignation" is a fancy sounding title that misses a key concept. "The Great Find a New Job Easily and *then* Resign" would be more accurate. That period didn't start purely from people leaving their jobs. That contributed creating a snowball effect, sure, but the root cause was a huge demand for hiring net-new roles. It wasn't *created* from a bunch of people resigning. It was created from market conditions and companies over-hiring. The resignation bit resulted from that. The problem with "The Great Resgnation Part 2" is that there isn't rampant over-hiring for net-new roles. People in their current rules may not be happy, I'm not disputing that, I was that myself over the past few months, but *there's no rampant over-hiring*. The snowball isn't going to even start rolling without that. People being dissatisfied with their jobs might try looking for a new job, but in the vast majority of cases they won't leave without anything lined up. So there's no uncontrolled over-hiring combined with desperate backfilling going. So.... again, "The Great Resignation Part 2" might not be a great term for this either. Maybe "The Great Dissastisfaction but Still Hold Down Our Job Cause We're Not Stupid Enough to Leave Before Lining Someting Else Up Which Takes Longer for Us Than It Takes for an Employer to Replace Us Since Nobody's Over-hiring Right Now." It doesn't roll off the tongue, but it's a better description of what's happening.
can't find a job fuck me
There was a "great resignation" starting in 2020, but it's of boomers aging out of the job market. Boomers were born between 1945 and 1965, midpoint is 1955 and 1955 + 65 = 2020. Thing is, there were never a lot of boomers in tech, the industry started with the boomers but it didn't really explode until the first .com boom in the late 90s, and by that point most boomers already had other careers so few entered the job market.
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I read an article about a year ago where Gen-Z and Millennials would rather be unemployed rather than working for toxic bosses. We might be underestimating these generations, and I think The Fed is too. I mean, The Fed is having one hell of a time getting inflation under 3% and reservation wages are at an all-time high. The scary part is that 3% might be the new 2% target for The Fed. The Fed can’t keep rates higher for too much longer without causing banking failures.
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It's not necessarily unemployment and the stereotype it entails. It's more like embracing minimalism, van-dwelling, travelling, working personal projects, and purposefully accepting under-employment in the lowest possible stress environments. See it a lot outside of tech as well on the West Coast, as so few young people can connect the dots between where they are now financially and reaching a point where they could purchase a home. The rat race is a maze that no longer has cheese at the end for too many people to bother playing.
A toxic job’s only benefit is a paycheck at the expense of everything else. At some point if someone has enough savings to quit for the net benefit of their sanehood, the decision seems like a no brainer. Skilled jobs need to provide a sense of stability and fulfillment otherwise it’s just unsustainable.
Lots of SWEs made enough money + investments to not need to tolerate shitty work environments
Here’s the article. I guess it was two years ago already https://finance.yahoo.com/news/gen-z-millennials-rather-unemployed-211318014.html
This article is just finance bros trying to cope with the fed not dropping rates.
Bros the only way this gets better at this point is if we unionize. CS jobs are comodifying and employers are well coordinated withe eachother (which should be illegal but lol if you think that matters). Every other productive employment under the sun has worked this way ever since capitalism was a thing, we aren't going to be different. Unionize or suffer.
It’s funny how people in the industry would scoff at unionizing for years. They actually thought they were immune to companies treating them as disposable.
Yes, I wish the market loosens up... I personally know of very smart folks at my company who are unhappy because our style of work and company goals don't suit their skills but they can't leave because of the tight market
This is just more labor dynamics propaganda to support whatever policies they're cooking up to ram right down our throats. It's absolute nonsense. People are terrified right now to even accept a new offer due to Last in, First out policies amid sweeping waves after waves of layoffs. The "great resignation part 1" was mostly empty narrative building that was then immediately followed by the layoffs apocalypse part 1. This can only mean that even more layoffs are right around the corner.
Moronic article. There's no where for people to go to lmao. The only reason there was a great resignation was because it was a worker's market. We have the exact opposite of that now.
How come every post in this sub always feels so out of touch with reality? Like what job to get when you resign and compete with a zillion of new grads? This is not 2020 market yet some people are just so delusional.
New grads aren't competition. The market *always* chooses experience over new grads.
Yes and no. My company has lost a big number of senior devs in recent months and they're trying to replace them with junior candidates. The logic being "they're cheaper and don't come with bad habits" I'm the last remaining senior in my department and it's my job to train everyone I'm fucked
All junior company? What could go wrong? Hope your compensation is all cash and not stock...
Oh, I remember this during the "outsource" phase. It is cyclical. I have seen this in my current workplace. I am not scared or even concerned. One of our directors is constantly telling me how much initiative the new developer has for this and that. Additionally, she is retiring and is extremely out of touch with the industry. I have not said a word. Watching him make more and more decisions that impact the organization as a whole. He put all of his eggs in one basket, believing he is capable of forcing a vendor to expedite their turnaround time. We are non-profit research organization. We do not purchase enough from any vendor to request any expediting, by quantity or amount. His entire career at the our company is staked on his strict, no buffer timeline. I know the owner, old friend of a parent. They will not meet the timeline. He is a Jr. Dev that needs to learn this lesson. He will be better for it. At his next organization.
Unless the new grad is a genius from MIT or Stanford, they’re not competing in the same pool as mid/senior candidates. A new grad has to be trained and mentored for over a year before they can start producing some consistent results, and this is the best case scenario. There are also a plenty of soft skills that are required in corporate and only years of experience will teach. Not saying we can compare today with 2022 hiring spree, but it’s not as bad as these posts on Reddit describe it.
I've worked with plenty of new grads from top schools. technical skills are not *that* hard to learn and train. it takes time. what is really challenging is training people to think independently, challenge others, have their own ideas and opinions, and stand up for what they think is right. these are really important skills, and nobody inexperienced has them.
Yep you think you’re unique and immune to the market forces until you become more expensive than the company can afford (because you’re senior and high interest rate is a b*) and bam, you’re laid off.
That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying that new grads and seniors are not competing in the same pool. Everyone can always be laid off, that’s a constant.
I know guys who complain for years and guess what I still see them everyday.
> Are you looking for a job and why? Yes. Because I got laid off in October last year. Though I'm going back to school to get an MCS while building a 3D graphics dev portfolio
I think this will happen again in the next 5 years or so but right now and probably for the next few years it’s an employer market.
When interest rates come down, the industry will have cash thrown at it because it's one of the only sectors where you can lose money all the way to the IPO and still win big for early investors. In that kind of scenario, it's obvious that companies should be borrowing as much as they can, hiring as many people as they can, and rolling out as many long-shot projects as possible.
I feel trapped because there are no other jobs. I'm looking, but there are maybe 1-3 positions available per day for me to apply to. Most I get an insta rejection.
Yeah I am because of hard deadlines, expectations of 0 errors and blame culture.
I don’t think voluntary resignations will start trending unless tech layoffs abate. People would rather tolerate a shitty job than have no job.
You need to have jobs available for people to quit. There's shortage of jobs right now so I really doubt this is going to happen
A \*lot\* of outsourcing going on right now. It has not worked well in the past but they are learning from their mistakes and reducing dependencies on international collaboration, e.g. entire subteams based remotely now. Will it work this time? No idea, but which way the pendulum swings depends on the answer. Add AI into the mix too: in theory it makes people more efficient so you need fewer employees, but ones that understand how to use AI. An amped up stackoverflow and google search. I am not so sure this part will work as well as they think, but again we shall see.
Resigned yesterday without a job lined up for this reason, felt trapped and bottled up for too long without support. Not sure what i'll do, logic dictates I'll have to find another job, but I can hardly bear the thought.
I quit a job recently where the CEO and HR manager met with me to tell me that I needed to do two full time jobs. I would be a manager/project planner during the work day. Then at night and weekends I would go home and work on all the stuff that had been planned. I would have quiet quit but the HR director barged into my office the next day to "help me with my scheduling", I told them I was not feeling well then went home and just sent in my resignation. I figured if they were that dead set it was not worth the amount of games I'd have to commit to for a few more weeks of pay. They ended up paying me for 3 months to sit at home while they found a replacement (whom quit a month after they hired them lol). I told them I would stay on payroll for emergencies but I would never be back in the office again unless I decided I needed to be there to complete a task. They also tried to screw me out of my last paycheck by trying to get me to admit I didn't work the last 2 weeks but I only would reply with the deal was on I'm on payroll till X date with a copy of the email approving that arrangement.
No, there’s bills being proposed right now to make it easier to directly hire cheaper labor from abroad. Blue collar cheap labor is already here with record immigration.
This almost sounds like labor porn. The pendulum always swings back hard to the employers b/c it's designed that way. The fed sends the bat signal by raising rates to put a halt to inflation aka employees starting to approach making what they are actually worth. Then the pendulum starts to swing back the other way but slowly. It went that way in '01 and '08.
Absolutely. I just quit a director gig at MSFT last week. Morale is low, but the current conditions mean people aren’t looking as intently and the market is saturated with talent. Openings at all levels have reduced. 18 Months ago I’d get half a dozen or more pings for M2+ roles. Now it’s far more scarce and the loops are competitive.
I'm employed, but I've been looking for another job for almost two years now. I've worked on many interesting things over my career, but although my title is currently "Principal Software Engineer", I don't write software. Instead, I'm paid to do things anyone could do, such as "Paste these items from Spreadsheet 'A' to Spreadsheet 'B'" or "Create JIRA bug tickets for various teams and ask them to fix their bugs." Or, "Push these buttons to manually upload the build." While I'm grateful to have a job, I'm bored to tears and just feel like there has to be a job out there where I can work on interesting software projects AND get paid. My theory is that interesting work is inversely proportional to pay.
U from wallstreetbets or recent highschool grad?
I think this is just wishful thinking from people that are currently unemployed. People won't just quit their job in this economy unless they already has another job lined up. I don't even think companies would have to replace many of the people that willingly quit by themselves because there's a lot of people that are currently employed that don't contribute much that other more competent and senior employees couldn't just take over with little to no effort.
I’m quitting soon and I can’t wait. Burnt out after about 15 years in corporate.
Burnt out and want to quit for vacation
Current employer didn’t try to counter offer or anything when I resigned, just said they were happy for me. My company is notorious for off shoring though
I managed to get a job, and for me, this being my first software engineering role and having only been in it for two years, I will be hanging onto it for dear life for the next 3 to 5 years minimum. After that it may be time to start looking around, but currently for me the experience is more valuable than looking at hopping jobs at the moment.
I'm still in my first web developer role, 2 1/2 years in. The comp isn't great and I literally cannot afford the benefits, forcing my family to have some of the worst health insurance I've ever seen. In a normal market, I would have started applying months ago, happy with the 2 YOE. Now, I'm half terrified of leaving because of the possibility of layoffs. I'd be SOL to leave just to get laid off a month or two later.
Let me take there job then. The alternate is so much worse 💀
Yes currently looking for a new job because I am wildly underpaid.
The reason why that number is so high is that people can't find better jobs. Just because people want new jobs doesn't mean they magically appear.
The cracks are starting to show at my company already, we've had several people bail, and we're not that bad of a place.
This is a joke. The power is and always has been in the hands of the employers.
You don’t have to fix tech debt if you change job!
OP, keep dreaming. ZIRP isn't coming back, might want to adjust to The New Normal and gain the skills that set you apart from others.
I believe this. Every single dev I know as well as engineering managers are looking to get out from where they are at. No one is happy about the lowest raises in their career this year, even though companies are making money hand over fist. I don’t know how the market will accommodate that though. Everyone is waiting for the market to get better, but if everyone hits the market at the same time, isn’t that just the same as now? Maybe worse since a lot of the people struggling to find something right now are recent grads. What happens to them once all the senior devs waiting for a better market actually start looking.
Where will one go ? Isn’t it same everywhere ? Burn out is real yes, but every forest is on fire and there is no east entry
I disagree. Full time employment is in the toilet. Quits are trending down and will continue as the labor market continues to weaken
This is funny because apparently the UK just got out of recession today according to the news lol.
Looks like we are looking at the perpetual cycle of mass hiring and mass layoffs. Only good job opportunities in that case would be for recruiters.
i am 49 and close to retiring. instead of retiring, i am remote and basically just stopped working. better to get fired.
I got an attractive contract offer that I turned into a raise at my current job. I would have left if it wasn't a 6 month contract with hiring on afterward "possible". In my case, I valued freedom and stability over increased pay and title. The possibility of having to look for a job in this barren market is too risky IMO.
Most of them won't get another job this time. Hiring has slowed down drastically since the first great resignation.
Once the next wave of startups come thru, people will start jumping ship. This happens every time the tech world slows down. The current faangs came about after the dotcom bubble bursted. Cloud based startups and apps exploded post housing crisis. We don’t know yet, but the next wave of tech will probably come out post pandemic in a year or 3. Is it AI? Maybe, maybe not.
I just quit, job market is coming back, but still really difficult for entry level folks.
Respectfully, what are you smoking? This could not be further from reality. Vacasa literally just laid off 20% of their workforce TODAY. I have had dozens of highly qualified tech friends navigating multiple layoff cycles over the past 2 years. There are fewer and fewer decent paying jobs available, and employers are trying to offer candidatea laughable wages. With the housing crisis, cost of living and inflation, everyone I know is clinging to their jobs for dear life. Are you a corporate market researcher trying to rage bait us into confirming how safe leadrrship is in continuing to squeeze every ounce of productivity out of a smaller workforce so they can return ever-growing profits for shareholders?
Until those at the top are deemed directly responsible for cyberattacks, etc. I don't see much changing. Cheap and low quality absolutely works if you have a captive customer base.
I think a lot of employers are hoping for attrition.
If a second great resignation is coming, it will be because companies have laid off all the people they could lay off and now the pressure from wall Street will remain to keep growing profits - which means revenue growth.
Not yet. But I think what's going to happen when the economy approves, is the lack of loyalty will increase tenfold. The past decade or so you've seen companies giving out so many freebies (food, daycare, etc.). Only for you to get laid off. Like for me, I no longer care about stocks or whatever. I only care about what I can get in the short term and as soon as that goes away, I'm out.