alt Hacker NewsTech employment now significantly worse than the 2008 or 2020 recessions
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There are different types of engineers, those who don't engage with product and have soft skills will feel the burn
Purely anecdotal, but I'm a senior engineer with about 15 years of experience and a decently impressive resume. In the past, I almost always get to at least the interviewing stage, and have frequently received multiple offers at the same time. Recruiters used to spam me constantly.
I haven't heard from a recruiter in probably 6 months. I recently put my feelers out and applied to a handful of positions I was qualified for, and got rejection letters from all of them.
2008 wasn't that bad for tech and neither was 2020. 2020 in fact lead to the highest employment craziness in the tech field ever. It's no wonder that the entire industry has indigestion from so many workers hired.
There are hidden jobs out there that are not listed. Try https://www.jobs.now/
Did we ever leave the 2020 recession?
Seems like my co is shedding US jobs and moving them to Taiwan, and paying up to 75% less in salary.
After reading many anecdotes of top school alumni struggling to even secure some interviews, I'm really curious about what opportunities available for median American freshgrads e.g. 3.0 GPA from T100-200 Unis.
This is the plot of the first derivative of employment. It shows a comparatively small but lasting dip after a massive, prolonged, and unwarranted boom between late 2020 and early 2024 that coincided with the dying breaths of ZIRP.
I have no idea about what's coming, but I wouldn't pay a whole lot of attention to people who are looking at the plots of a highly volatile and cyclic industry that goes through constant boom-and-bust cycles, and are trying to position this as proof that AI is or isn't having an impact.
They want everyone to chine/indian wages!
This industry is a race to the bottom and long overdue for a massive salary reset. There is no society on Earth where someone who codes JavaScript (poorly) should make more money than, say, a doctor. Yet here we are.
As someone who has been hiring the past six months, the candidate pool has been absolutely abysmal. Slop resumes, misrepresentations, bad interviewing skills, etc. I'm baffled at the other end at how much inbound crap there is.
So much for that golden age.
I can't even get an interview.
The most recent one few months ago and I passed it with great score, top 5% of candidates etc but that wasn't enough to get me hired.
Terrible market, i'm at my wits end to even how to approach this.
Nota bene: these aren't "tech" jobs, these are "laptop job" over-hired email people. Not real people.
Good. Too many useless people got into tech because any monkey can memorize LC and outperform the monkey who also memorized LC and now is part of the interview panel so they can show off to the other monkeys that he deserves more bananas.
Tech was and still is the easiest way to make 200k base salary, before even thinking about the stock.
We need a reset and anyone who can’t make it can go fill the jobs we need in construction, education, etc.
Anyone else's inbox slammed with recruiters, more than it ever has been in the past? Feels like there's 10x the jobs available, but perhaps it's just that LLMs have automated a recruiter's job and they're letting the slop fly
I mean, didn't a ton of people get hired immediately after 2020 during the pandemic? Also,I don't remember the tech sector getting hit too hard during 2008 time period, it was mostly everyone else.
Don't worry, it will go up again! Just keep at it!
This is YoY change. It's impossible to read. And it only goes back to 2016.
Seems like a tough market for those nuking their prod db with an ai agent
It's bad, yeah, especially for folks on the job market (it me). Some statistics first, from my own job search logs:
* Since I hit the pavement in late January, I've tracked 100 job applications
* Of those 100, only 7 have turned into interviews
* Of those seven interviews, 3 turned into second-round
* ~50% of all applications never receive a response
* ~20% of rejections for any reason have the role re-posted within thirty days
* For rejections stating "higher quality applications", that role re-post rate is closer to 50%, suggesting ATS systems culling too many candidates to fill the role or ghost jobs
* Despite my state requiring salary requirements be posted in the JD, only around 70% of postings included what could be considered "reasonable" estimates
* 100% of interviews have been for local employers requiring 3+ days on-site
And now, some observations not captured in the data directly:
* Employers are trying to "under-title" folks; Senior roles want to hire former Leads, and Management roles want next-rung candidates for prior-rung titles (e.g., hiring what should be a Senior Manager for an entry-level management role)
* Employers are also trying to underpay workers by a large margin, especially folks coming from Big Tech ("We don't pay {SV_FIRM} money" while offering salaries below the local 50%ile for the role in question); they're blaming a "surplus of tech talent", which may or may not be true (I lack the data to prove either way)
* The two above points are in conflict, because rent/mortgages in these areas are so steep that even with major lifestyle changes to cut costs, these wages simply aren't survivable for local areas
* "Credential Creep" is back in force: Architect certs required for mid-level engineering roles, buzzwords prioritized over outcomes and achievements, and AI ATS' rejecting qualified candidates flat-out
* College Degrees are relevant again as a means of pruning candidates; fifteen years of experience is irrelevant for a lot of Senior roles if you don't have a BS or Masters, which wasn't the case even last year
* Industry-specialization is also back, even for roles where industry specialization is generally moot or easily picked up (e.g., Corporate IT stuff)
* A significant number (~75-85%) of roles explicitly reject H1B and other visa workers; not a problem for me (Citizen), but this is the worst possible time to be job hunting on a non-LPR status.
And now, my personal experiences:
* There's a very strong attitude of "you're being entitled" when it comes down to salary negotiations, even when you show your math for essentials - and share prior compensation history reflecting the cuts you've already taken since your Big Tech salary to "rejoin the market".
* Employers generally have no clue how expensive it is to live right now, especially in major metros; one such employer who balked at my comp floor genuinely had no clue the median rent was three and a half grand per month.
* Compensation seems particularly tilted towards working couples; as in, neither alone makes enough to survive, and employers assume you have a FTE spouse to shore up finances so they can pay you less
* Employers also don't seem to know what they actually want or need. Specialist Engineer roles (e.g., Cloud Engineer, Network Engineer) cite required experience and expertise with the full technology stack inclusive of ERP and HRIS nowadays, which is something that used to be handled by a specific team for the entirety of my career thus far, even in smaller (<1k) orgs. I've also seen Architect roles demanding Help Desk work, and Software Dev roles who want experience supporting Entra.
* AI does not feature in as many interviews as I would've thought. The few times it does, it's very much a "that's nice, but we're taking a wait and see approach" attitude
* There's a lot of eagerness to hire domestically again (I think even middle managers were tired of outsourcing or offshoring), but a lack of budget to afford domestic talent.
Ultimately, it's pretty bleak - but still better than last year, at least thus far (~300 apps, ~2 companies interviewed with, 1 offer in 2025). AI isn't the value-add I was sold on by career counselors and LinkedIn (huge surprise there /s), and there definitely seems to be the appetite to hire, but not the realism of what to expect or how much it'll cost. I very much view it as a sort of tug-of-war at the moment, between workers who did everything expected of them and have cut to the bone already, and employers who somehow think they can pay <50%ile wages while mandating 4-days on-site in a major metro for experienced talent.
If you're an employer looking to hire, I have some advice:
* Ditch the AI ATS or AI summaries and read resumes, especially if you're requiring local presence.
* Understand what you need (and what that will cost you) before posting the JD
* Understand the local cost of living, and budget accordingly (i.e., if your Senior Engineer can't afford median rent, they're not going to stick around when things improve)
* If you value loyalty and aren't paying TC to afford a median home in the area, then you don't actually value loyalty
* Don't pigeonhole yourself with hyper-specific candidates as a means of winnowing down applicants; that level of specialization will flee the second they get a better offer elsewhere
* Post salaries in the JD, required or not, so you don't waste your time with candidates whose expectations don't align with your budget
That's cute. 2001 and 1993 have entered the chat.
What are people's plan Bs for when it goes tits up? I reckon I'd make a good electrician or something like that, but it's a real, grown up profession and I would have to get qualified.
Yet, no-one here is talking about building a start up. Which is the actual answer.
As I previously mentioned, based on person experience assumptions around hiring have changed due to the Twitter layoffs, demands for FCF positivity, and WFH inadvertently justifying offshoring [0], not necessarily due to interest rate changes.
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As I also mentioned, the only way you can survive in American tech at this point is to:
1. Move to a Tier 1 tech hub like the Bay and NYC. If you get laid off, you will probably find another job in a couple of weeks due to the density of employers. Seattle used to be a good option, but WA's norms around noncompete clauses incentivize larger employers which reduces the ability for startups to truly scale.
2. Start coming into the office 2-3 days a week. It's harder to layoff someone you have had beers or coffee with. Worst case, they can refer you to their friends companies if you get laid off
3. Upskill technically. Learn the fundamentals of AI/ML and MLOPs. Agents are basically a semi-nondeterministic SaaS. Understanding how AI/ML works and understanding their benefits and pitfalls make you a much more valuable hire.
4. Upskill professionally. We're not hiring code monkeys for $200K-400K TC. We want Engineers who can communicate business problems into technical requirements. This means also understanding the industry your company is in, how to manage up to leadership, and what are the revenue drivers and cost centers of your employer. Learn how to make a business case for technical issues. If you cannot communicate why refactoring your codebase from Python to Golang would positively impact topline metrics, no one will prioritize it.
5. Live lean, save for a rainy day, and keep your family and friends close. If you're not in a financial position to say "f##k you" you will get f##ked, and strong relationships help you build the support system you need for independence. The reality is the current set of layoffs and work stresses were the norm in the tech industry until 2015-22. We live in a competitive world and complaining on HN does nothing to help your material condition.
Wait until all that AI generated code hits production on safety devices and they need to explain it in court.
Wait until the fallout of all that AI code hitting produciton
Here's the same post on Bluesky for those who prefer that platform: https://bsky.app/profile/josephpolitano.bsky.social/post/3mg...
Are there real positions these days?
I get rejection for every single position that I apply to. Often I read literally a description of myself in job posting, and it's still "we decided to no move forward".
At the same time, I hire people and see that 8/10 candidates are just trash. Not in the sense they "are not aligned", or "emit wrong vibes", or other bs. They literally can't write a single line of code, on their own laptop, in their own IDE.
Make it make sense.
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yes, ha ha ha... yes
I don't really agree, i am making more money now than ever.