Ask HN: Has the tech recession affected you?

I’m a hiring manager. My company did a round of contractor layoffs in 2023 and made a smaller number of FTE hires backfills.

My advice is to hang in there. Often we have 3 strong candidates per open position. The people we reject aren’t getting rejected because they aren’t a good fit or lack skills - it’s just that someone else was a little better. If I had the budget I’d hire all the great people I have the privilege of interviewing.

For what it’s worth I think the industry is starting to run a little too lean. Teams are getting pushed to their limit, there’s no “slack” left for additional output. Contrary to the buzz you see on sites like HN, in the real world AI coding tools are completely underwhelming. The pendulum is losing momentum and I suspect orgs will realize they either need to grow their headcount or downsize their product offerings - meanwhile they’re letting certain products languish because they don’t have the headcount to work on it. And risk appetite for entering new markets is waaay down. The business culture is becoming more conservative (not politically/culturally, but rather in terms of its approach to operations and product development)

This means more opportunities for entrepreneurs and new companies soon. “What if big tech company X just copies you?” — oh you think they’re going to get budget to do that? You think they’re going to hire 50 devs to just copy your random startup? In THIS market? With THIS amount of Wall street scrutiny against quixotic projects? Hah! If you see a gap build it and fill it. The big dogs are all tied up in meetings with finance trying to save their datadog subscription from the chopping block - they won’t notice you until it’s too late.

I've struggled to find a Software Engineer job for many months, even with FAANG on my resume. It's nowhere as easy as it was when I graduated college 7 years ago.

I send out my resume and barely get any answers. I don't even get a chance to interview.

That being said, I had a good luck streak in December! I'm waiting to hear back from several companies right now.

A lot of my colleagues bailed on the company at the height of COVID moves for FAANGs and have since been downsized. Meanwhile my company has done its best to keep layoffs far from engineering. Our sales aren't doing super well, but we have cash on hand and a very low amount of debt. And we're already public so we don't need to look for funding.

I'm still saving money in case layoffs happen, especially because I'm remote and moved far outside of tech markets and bought a house last year.

I have a large amount of anxiety looking around my network at folks who I know are competent and have been out of work for more than 6 months. I'm very glad I didn't follow the trend and stayed at a more stable company.

Keep in mind this thread is heavily affected by selection bias; Those who aren't affected have very little reason to contribute.

Struggling a lot with the response rate, once I could get one interview in three applications, now it's one in 50. I am hoping that it will pick up this January since everyone is making plans for the entire year. I was told by a manager in a large startup that they plan to complete hiring for the whole year by the end of February, and it might be the case for the entire industry.

I haven't been laid off, but a good chunk of my team was.

Anecdotally, I'm hearing lots of stories of companies laying people off and then there are new openings very similar to the position that was let go, but with lower salaries or where one person would be expected to do the work of 2-5 previously laid off folks.

In particular, a person I know from EA Games saw half their department let go, and then replacements appeared a couple months later. All of them had lower pay and were less skilled. This all reads like quarterly profit optimizations by a bean counter up top looking to make the shares look good.

I was laid off (for the first time) 9 months ago, and I still haven't found a job.

I don't live near a major city. This wasn't a problem when remote work was the norm, or when I could wait for the right remote job to open up. But in the current environment it's a major headwind.

I'm also starting to get concerned about how employers will perceive this long of a job gap.

And the psychological aspect of this long of unemployment is no joke either.

Well, I got laid off. I have a decent resume. In past job hunts, I got call backs on 50% of applications. Now responses are closer to 1%.

Sure seems recessionish to me.

Yup. I got laid off in April, and iirc have had about 3 legit interviews, and conservative guess of 10-15 screening calls. I'm now applying for whatever I can do, like driving a moving truck, but it's tricky with a resume that's overwhelmingly software related. Also considering just switching into a different trade, but as rent and cost of living continue increasing, as well as interest rates being what they are, it's a scary time to take on debt. I'm thankful to have what I'd consider a relatively minimalist set of expenses, but I anticipate being in the negative by the end of the year. Not negative as in I've had to dip into my savings, negative as in I'll be out of money with no prospects if I don't figure something out. I figure if I can land a job that covers rent in that time, it will help stave off that decline. (Canada btw)

Otherwise though I'm very well rested, and my M+ rating in World of Warcraft is better than ever.

It basically destroyed me. I spent most of 2023 unemployed after being laid off in late 2022. I was working for a small SaaS company that went from ~100 to ~200 in the past couple years and than subsequently dumped the recently hired ~100 a year later.

Part of my problem was I really wanted to avoid moving and stay remote. That turned out to be impossible. I ended up taking a job and moving to place I don’t care for so far. I’m pretty sure I only got it because of a referral because I was less qualified for it than many of the roles I was getting rejected for.

My career was rotting anyway. I’m not going to waste time typing out an essay, but I’m pretty sure I’ve hit my peak pretty early and there’s not much left for me to do (or that I care to do). I still had some ounce of ambition prior to the layoff, but that’s gone now. I just feel defeated. I was actually planning to leave the industry prior to the layoff, but that won’t happen now.

The job market is extremely rough right now. I was one of the first layoffs of this job drought which happened to me in December 2022. I took a sabbatical and now jumped back into the job search in August 2023. I get very few call backs/interviews and I’ve been developing software for 20 years.

I noticed companies are being excruciatingly picky during interviews. One interview for a senior position the interviewer kept interrupting me during coding and during my explanations to tell me how he would have answered the problem. It cut into the solution time.

Another company I was interviewed by someone who had only been in the industry for 3 years and at the company for 6 months and not a senior and told me I wasn’t qualified enough for a senior position because they couldn’t follow my explanation. Even after asking “does that answer your question?” I was also a referral from a former coworker who was also laid off.

I have an interview in two days that has two 1 hour coding interviews and a systems design interview and this was after I already completed a 1 hour technical screening.

I’ve even done a take home project that resulted in no interview so I have stopped interviewing with those companies as well.

I think a lot of younger people were promoted or weren’t laid off and now companies are feeling out how to hire people again, but the biggest barrier I am seeing is purely over interviewing candidates and looking for some tiny flaw in their responses.

Are you trying to hire me or just interview me?

not affecting me personally, but last year we were hiring for a lead engineer (for a fortune 50 company) - got 2 resumes.

5-6 months later we needed another lead engineer and we got over 300 for the exact same position, same pay, same location.

Was laid off from Big Tech after working nights, travelling around the world for the company and giving everything I could to keep my job.

The job market seemed dead, also I was competing with around 500+ people that were laid off as well with me... luckily(!!!) I've found a new job after only 2 weeks.

The compensation is lower, but it's fine. Europe compensation for developers sucks in comparison to North America :-(

My new job is in a small company, but really nice. Cool people, laid-back and interesting. I really like it.

Here in Europe things look a bit more quiet than usual but not too bad: I still get contacted by recruiters almost every week, my company is hiring and people around me are still finding decent jobs.

I wonder if this is mostly a problem in the American VC/startup world.

Of the people I know who got laid off in the last year, pretty much everyone got a job after seriously pursuing one for 3 or 4 months. By seriously pursuing I mean preparing, applying, networking, and interviewing for >20 hours per week. If you aren’t talking to people in your network to find warm leads and obtain referrals and introductions, you’re doing it wrong.

Things seem toughest for the very young. If you have <2 years of experience and get laid off, you are neither new nor experienced. That seems like a tough sell. Companies have a pipeline of new grads for junior roles and are hesitant to give bigger titles to people that are still relatively inexperienced. This goes double for anyone afflicted with imposter syndrome and unable to tell the story of their experience with a bit of salesmanship.

Also, even though more experienced folk are in great demand in general, finding the right role that aligns your interests and expertise with what a company needs and values is still a lot of work. You may be awesome, but you aren’t as interchangeable as somebody with say 4-8 years of experience. For leadership roles (staff+) hiring managers can get very picky and specific about what they want to see.

It’s best not to get discouraged by this but just recognize the rejections as a necessary step in the process.

I tried to negotiate a verbal offer, swapping the signing bonus for base salary, ultimately moving base up not even 7%

and they didn't even counter and moved on. very established company too, a highly unusual practice according to every recruiter, article, AI rehash, and person I’ve told this to

I would say this is a symptom of the market. Employers flexing on the big pool

In my mid 30s, got laid off from a medical device company in August, literally a week before my wedding. Company's sales had been floundering, the company founder had caused numerous schedule overruns by meddling too frequently in product development concerns. Then in a surprise move an outside investment group bought enough shares to push the CEO out of his role. New CEO came on board, gutted all new product development efforts (and guess who was leading new product development). So I was given a bunch of apologies and let go. Fortunately, I had been reading the writing on the wall for weeks and ended up getting an offer just days after the layoff, followed by a second offer. Pivoted into a tech role that uses my skills without the time pressures of a manufacturing environment. And making loads more money. I think the trick to surviving these recessions is to constantly assess your organization's health and consider alternatives. The timing was just right for me and saved me months of stress.

Got fired in April. Basically lost my mind after private equity turned our company into a sweatshop. Told my manager I didn’t want to work on a project anymore (albeit in a colorful fashion) after they pressured me to work while I was sick with COVID. They claimed I was refusing to work despite me actively working on it.

Got a job at a startup a few months later. Hate working here, but I’d like to own a house in the coming years. Can’t wait to leave.

FWIW I originally rejected their offer, for the reasons I now wish to leave.

I need a break :(

I was just told today that my team is being cut in half soon. No idea if that's going to include me too.

As far as I've been told, the funding for most startups is gone right now.

Fortunately, no.

I work as a DoE contractor and that means my job is pretty much stable unless I intentionally try to get fired or if the federal government is insolvent (in which case we have a much bigger problem than just 1 random dude not having a job).

I turned down an offer from a bulge bracket 2 years ago and I am glad I did because that company had its own little down sizing.

Jobs are harder to get. Lots of people flooding the market after lay offs. I have 3 positions so far that I went deep into interviews and then it was - there is no budget for the position - it is cancelled, maybe next year.

Pay is also inching lower.

Scaled down from 150 people and high burn to 120, much higher revenue, and clearly on a road to break even. I do find it quite challenging. Financial markets are tighter than they've ever been and it feels out of whack with market rate salaries/and the level of effort people put in.

I didn’t get laid off, and my startup managed to raise more money during the height of the layoffs. However im starting to look for a new job and the market is definitely not what it was in January 2022 when I last looked for an engineering gig (and found one in less than a week.)

Friends of mine who were laid off this year can't find jobs. One moved back in with his parents and gave up on the job search. One started a full-time dog-walking business. One works at a grocery. It's really bad out there.

I had to let go of all my contractors. Aside from that, we're still hiring for many FTE's. (40~ next fiscal).

I suppose contractors are a "make hay while the sun shines" situation and it can turn...

Since somebody pointed out at selection bias, I'll spend a word in the opposite direction: haven't been laid off, company has done a great job to prevent layoff situations and they have been extremely transparent, even how much runway is available if everything goes south.

I'm hoping to stay here a long time, really like the workplace

Listen to me, what hurts most people. is DEBT and run away spending. Stop both of it.

I been through 2000,2008, 20015(:) and 2023, layoff a few times, and my answer now is, shut up and pay me. Build a 1 or 2 year F-U fund and have zero debt. You know what happens after a layoff if you have that? Nothing. you sleep well and start looking for a Gig or FTE without the pressure of bills. It shows up in interviews.

It has affected me, although I never lost my job and my employer has handled things comparatively well. Several great teammates were laid off and our comp increases have not kept up with inflation. I also get the sense that there are fewer opportunities out there which drives down perks and wages for the whole industry.

I got laid off last fall and competition for interesting, well compensated roles is higher than ever.

My decision to take my time and find a “perfect” job is feeling a lot less achievable now.

Have had to stay in a job I probably would have left sooner because of the crappy jobs market. It also seems like the conditions at that job have deteriorated.

I work in ad tech and we had layoffs last year and no new headcount for this year (even backfills need approval from leadership). Our revenue was up, but IMO we way overtired during the pandemic so I doubt we will hire a lot of people for another 2 years.

The layoffs were mainly ICs so a lot of middle management is left trying to fight for scope to save themselves. I have a feeling that managers are going to be the target of layoffs this year.

Overall I am fortunate to have a job, and just trying to ride this one out for the next 1-2 years. I would like to get promoted or become a team lead/manager but I don’t see that happening right now.

Personally, not much. I moved to a director role this year, (1 company, 1 offer).

In my opinion: whereas previously tech was hiring consistently, there was a good fit for nearly every candidate. Now I'm seeing a "K" shape recovery where folks with established careers can still get jobs, but those who have less experience or were below the curve to begin with are having a much tougher time getting jobs at the same pay / title level. I've even seen some of our interns (at my last role) that we couldn't extend offers to leaving the field, which is saddening to say the least.

I left a FAANG last year right before some massive layoffs for a smaller and more stable company. My income took a hair cut but my stress is much reduced.

I feel bad for everyone who didn't get lucky with the timing like I did.

Best wishes for the new year.

Sent a few hundred CVs last spring/summer, got maybe 5 interviews, got burnout and disgust at the modern tech hiring practice.

Since then, with the help of a few sporadic clients, government help, and living like a pauper I decided to go all in in becoming an entrepreneur, instead of continuing my 17+ year career as a consultant or someone else's employee. Seems like stuff hasn't improved in the past 9 months.

Not having a stable job is very stressful, but the interview rat race these days is more akin to real life Squid Game than anything I've experienced before. It is dehumanising. I'd rather be penniless, stressed, and working on my product at this point. If you can afford to, do it. Even if you don't, tbh.

I've done some searching. 30 years experience, I've been writing Java and Python since the 90s. I was working in .NET since Beta 1. I'm very much a generalist, but I can't even get a call back from a company that looked ideal - I had worked at a successful startup that invented the space that company was in, I had demonstrated experience in all the relevant tech on the posting, I'm local and have no problem with the commute... does my resume suck that badly?

My theory on this is that X created a bit of a chill that became a full blown cold front. While the high profile layoffs at the FAANGs, percentage-wise it wasn't that big and most of these companies are still above pre-pandemic staffing levels, but it affected job seekers profoundly.

While those numbers are true in aggregate, a layoff is disastrous to an individual. There's no more "take this job and shove it, I'll have a new one by the end of the week". My current employer has a moribund stock price, and is nowhere near a prestige name, has suddenly stopped complaining about not being able to find qualified candidates. On recent data engineering position that opened had 350 applicants. I can't imagine what the FAANGs are getting. It must make navigating the pipeline that much more challenging. I've had 2 recruiters tell me that you really need a referral, or better a champion inside the company to get you seen.

I've heard some tales from recruiters about how aggressively recruiters poach job listings, it seems companies now feel empowered to play recruiters off against each other.

For my part, I'm out of market for another job for now, barring something extraordinary. I've made my peace with my situation: it's not awesome, but it's OK and it's time to focus on other things in life than landing a dream job.

Personally it’s led me to try out some contract work on the side for small businesses, eg building little websites and performing technical SEO work via https://www.divinatetech.com

Eager to improve my non-technical skills with this work.

I’m curious to see how the field fluctuates in these next years with the upheaval of cheap interest and split opinions on doom/boon of tech workers via LLM automation.

Company acquired us in late 2022, then cut the acquired product and team in late 2023. Similar to others here, I've been applying left and right, but only hearing back on every 10 or so jobs.

Some numbers from December: - 26 jobs applied to - 14 just never replied - 4 sent standard "we're looking for other candidates" emails - 5 went to different stages of interviews only to resolve into "offer made to another candidate" - 1 filled all the positions they had, but left the interview "open" for when new positions open up - 1 is hopefully pending me getting an offer this week

Of the 5 that went with other candidates: - 1 went all the way to right before the offer and they basically told me the had to decide between me and another candidate and the other candidate had direct experience with a product they wanted to build in early 2024 - 1 was supposed to really kick off after the holidays, told me waiting until after the holiday was what the preferred. Emailed me today to tell me they had a candidate accept an offer and my interviews would be cancelled.

Honestly feel like it should be a legal requirement to inform a candidate if you have an active offer out for the position they are applying to.

Stuck in a failing business unit surrounded by people with glaring skills gaps. It's torture, but at least I am on payroll.

Significantly.

I manage an AI consultancy (https://ingram.tech/). We were AI/fintech/cybersec before 2023, and grew a lot this past year by putting all our efforts behind the AI branch.

But that's also because the other two branches just... died out. I'm surrounded by enthusiasm, but there's very little money in the game. Budgets have been cut by 10x everywhere. A huge part of the issue I think is actually the disconnect between budgets. Not everybody has caught up to the "new prices".

We started an AI startup incubator/accelerator (https://seven.camp/) and now things are looking up, but that's because we've had to create our own demand.

I dunno, I could talk about this more but it's been pretty demoralizing tbh, especially in Europe. Feel free to AMA.

I've been laid off, but my contract subsequently extended for a while. I have not been actively searching since I have the luxury of taking my time and figuring out what I want to do, but so far interest has been coming in. I've declined one offer and am in a couple of other processes. I keep hearing about the bad job market, which does concern me - should I just grab something new ASAP to secure my spot? Will I be as in-demand a few months from now? But for now, I'm focusing on opportunities that I'd be genuinely passionate about rather than casting a wide net. I guess we'll eventually see if I end up regretting it.

Been laid off since the beginning July. Many interviews, no offers. Savings depleted.

Haven't been laid off but plenty of friends have and that affects me for sure. Some are just tired of the environment of fear and quit to do non-tech. Which is quite sad as many of them are brilliant engineers.

Statistically, VC money is worst in late stage startups and actually higher in early stage ones. Since the big ones hire more, including contractors, more people are affected overall.

It is a great time to start a startup, though, if you're into that. Cheaper and higher quality talent on the market. I know some are cringing about the low startup rates, but some techies are selling insurance and essential oil.

Company I was with (200 employees) was running out of runway and funding round didn't work out so they laid off around 30% of employees in February 2023 including me. They seem to have stabilized and their new product is finally online (delayed by regulator mostly).

Took me 2 months to get a new job. Applied and interviewed at a bunch of places, mostly local, some remote. Finally got a job with one of the first places I applied for (I think my initial recruiter left which delayed stuff). Largish Tech company in Enterprise space, I'm in a "Follow the Sun" Ops team.

I haven't been affected, thankfully. I'm actually leaving my amazing job to go write a book, travel, maybe start a business.

I think it's interesting how in some ways the tables have turned for the people who used to interview me. When I was breaking into software five years ago, I remember how the interview process could feel dehumanizing. I was a self-taught developer, I didn't have a computer science degree. Insane interview questions that had nothing to do with writing stable & performant code, take-home assignments, automated ghosting and vague feedback that wasn't helpful in the slightest. All for the privilege of burning yourself out to build someone else's dream.

Nowadays, it sounds to me like a lot of older developers with 10, 15, 20 years of experience who never had to deal with this bullshit are suddenly discovering how interviewing for software engineering roles can be a tad capricious and arbitrary. After 10-15 years they know exactly what the job is. They know they can do it, and don't understand why they need to jump through all these other hoops.

It's not exactly schadenfreude, but I can't help but feeling that if engineering leaders and hiring managers had listened to the feedback from all the junior developers that came in between 2015-2020 about how insane the hiring process was and actually did something to improve it, perhaps those same 'staff' engineers or whatever they are calling themselves nowadays would be able to reap the rewards of the improved infrastructure created to effectively interview and place software engineers into roles they can have confidence they would succeed in.

Instead, you have the same shit I was wading through 5 years ago and it still stinks.

I don't know that it's a serious tech recession; my understanding is that the major players are still posting serious revenue growth. As far as I can tell, a lot of the VC/startup world was mostly a low interest rate bubble.

I suppose I'm "lucky" that I got laid off in 2021 after the company I was working for was acquired by private equity. It wasn't a bad time to find a job, and I went looking for something different which ended up being a small, local company that does fairly boring software development.

I keep hearing whispering of an "AI boom" happening soon on HN but don't see in the real world. Has anyone seen signs either way?

It seems like there is a recession - there seem to be plenty of jobs available, yet no one is hiring. COVID didn't help any and my personal situation complicates the job hunt even more.

So, it may just be my perception is skewed for other reasons than a recession. Either way, it sucks.

Large part of the tech world benefitted from low interest rates. Pull out the free money rug and lots of things fall over. All those devs working on those things don’t just disappear - they tilt supply/demand

I work in a non-tech related field as a consultant and my company had one of its best years during Covid. We have since been acquired (also during Covid) and it doesn't look like anything is slowing down soon.

Only in the sense that I'm not being contacted my recruiters on the reg. My employer hasn't had any layoffs and carries no debt, despite sales being down. Probably helps that we're very small and already pretty lean.

>depths of a serious tech recession?

Are we?

Who wants to be hired? (2023)

Oct: 547

Nov: 431

Dec: 461

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Who wants to be hired? (2022)

Oct: 272

Nov: 307

Dec: 200

worked at a midsize mature startup. got bought out by private equity. it wasn't revealed that private equity actually fully bought them out until about the second round of layoffs. monthly layoffs and heavy outsourcing, I survived 8 rounds until they finally got me just in time for the holidays.

I'm alright, already found another position but others are not so lucky unfortunately. We were already understaffed and working hard constantly too. I can only imagine how burnt out my old coworkers are probably getting now.

I’m doing great. Decent raise this year, good product, sales are up, and the company gave us extra holidays.

At least 1 person in the world isn’t dooming and glooming right now.

Most of our clients either ended our contracts or scaled us way back. Normally we have to turn business away but now I feel fortunate to have full-time work.

When I started a new job in September of 2022, my base salary was 72% of the base salary at the previous employer. It was the highest offer by far.

I'm making significantly less than I was 5 years ago.

I don't see it getting better anytime soon.

As an end use of computers, the internet and software, it has not affected me at all.

I work in a technology that's great to work in but has a bad reputation in places like HN because of irrational bias, there's no recession and salaries are still going up. Glad it keeps the competition away.

I've been a software engineer for around 15 years. I've got good experience working both perm and as contractor, both in the public and private sector.

I think because I have quite broad appeal in my experience I tend to find it reasonably easy to get interviews, and I've always felt I have an above average hit rate of getting the jobs I apply for when I get interviews.

Early last year I lost my job and it was scary how quiet the market was. I managed to find a job in the end (I think I got quite lucky to be honest) but it was a contract role so recently I've been looking around again as I will be out of work fairly soon.

I've sent my CV out for ~30 positions over the last couple of months and I've heard absolutely nothing back. Well, one recruiter said I had been shortlisted weeks ago, but then I heard nothing back.

I'm actually stunned at how bad the market is right now. I've had two previous colleagues contact me this week alone asking if I know of any work going because they've been out of a job for a while.

But not only is the market bad right now, I'm also noticing that rates for many engineering roles have tanked. A recruiter reached out about a React developer role recently which had an advertised day rate of £200 ($250), for comparison in 2021 your average React developer day rate might be around £500-600. So even where people are finding roles in many cases they're taking significant cuts in pay. Lead developer and very niche roles seem to be holding in a little better, but from what I've seen they've still come down quite a bit in recent months.

Additionally because so many talented people are out of work right now even if you find a job at a significant pay cut you're going to struggle to get it because in some cases these roles are getting 50-100 applicants – many of whom have many years of experience.

What worries me is that some people I'm talking to still seem to think that it's not that bad out there, saying things like, "I've always found something", or "there's always someone hiring", but I'm telling you this time is different. I know multiple people struggling to pay rent and feed their families right now. Tech did reasonable well during the GFC, but right now it's dire out there for tech jobs. Anyone reading this needs to be prepared to lose their job and be out of work for at least a year, and even if you find a job you need to be prepared to take a significant pay cut. If you can't afford to be out of work for a year you need to save and prepare – especially if you have a family dependant on your income.

I'm based in the UK, so perhaps it's better elsewhere in the world, but I have never seen the market this bad before – not even close. I wouldn't bet on a rebound any time soon either. Work from home, higher interest rates, large numbers of new tech talent graduating, and increasing automation in software development workflows may keep the market cool for a long time.

I'm not a huge Trump fan, but his energy policies would be good for the economy.

The US is the world leader on environmental policy. If we kill the US economy the environment will pay in the long run.