Their honesty should be applauded. Imagine they hired you and then had to fire you in 6 months. Keep in touch with the PM if you liked them and see how they perform in the next 12 months.
> Is demoralizing to find out I spent 4 years in school just to get into a really harsh job market.
I know it doesn't make your experience any better, but this is *not* a harsh job market. Yes, some companies are pulling back/slowing down/pausing hiring, but there are still far more software jobs available than people to fill them.
> What companies or roles will be more resilient?
Those that are or can quickly become profitable. Most startups are NOT profitable because they chase growth at all costs. This may change as cheap and easy money dries up.
> And how as a SWE / tech industry professional, specially the ones starting their careers like me, can prepare?
Don't do anything different. You had one company pull out on you. That happens all the time for a multitude of reasons. Don't be discouraged. Apply for jobs at a range of companies, from start-ups to profitable SaaS companies to companies outside the typical "tech" wheelhouse.
I dropped out of school in 1999, and got laid off in 2001 at the start of that recession. I couldn't get a job in 2001 or 2002, so I went back to school and got scholarships to live off of, and graduated in 2003. Recession was still ongoing but I got lucky and had a friend from the first job help me get a job, but other than that, I wasn't getting a lot of interviews.
I had friends who were getting hired and then laid off just a few weeks later. One guy lucked out and got hired and fired with severance before his start date.
Job searching during a recession isn't fun. Going back to school with scholarships, if you can get them, is a good stopgap. You'll get money to live as well as extra education to make a stronger application when the recession ends.
Otherwise, work your network. Find friends who were lucky enough to get jobs and ask for referrals. Work on open source projects and try to make friends with the senior people on the project, who might like your work and get you a job.
Just to give you my own experience right now, I literally just accepted a new job yesterday after job hunting for 3-ish weeks. I had multiple job interviews, even more job interview requests.
I don't say this to brag, so I apologize if it comes off that way. I just wanted to give you what could be a cancelling-out anecdata point to your own experience. I wouldn't let it get you down too much. Keep hunting and keep applying, I doubt the recession will get to a point where NOBODY is hiring :)
If you need another job board resource, try out "Hired.com". Here's a referral link from me for it (full disclosure I benefit from you using this!):
[link redacted]
I found it to be an extremely effective tool for finding interviews, or I wouldn't recommend it.
I wish you all the luck possible on your hunt; Sometimes it's just that -- luck. Just keep perservering and don't be too proud to ask for help from anyone and everyone!
I'm not surprised (unfortunately, and I am truly sorry for this).
Don't look to the 2008 recession for an idea of how things may go. Look to the 2000 (Tech Bubble Burst) recession. In that one, the bottom dropped out of the tech market. Web designers were especially hard hit.
I have family that works for Intel, and they say that Intel tends to actually increase hiring in bear markets. I suspect that's because they are getting bargains, and preparing for the inevitable upswing, so they will be in a position to jump on the up elevator when things turn around.
I guess it depends on the company. Companies that are running on fumes (highly leveraged) are likely to have a tough time. Companies with conservative approaches may do better.
I've had meta and microsoft cancel on me. I also went all the way through the interview loop at one company, received very positive feedback but was told that they had decided to close the position without filling it. There's definitely a pullback and it started about 2 months ago.
Update: As of now, about half of the companies I've interviewed with at one level or another, have abruptly halted their process due to economic concerns.
This is not the situation for any startups who have already secured funding with a decent runway for expansion. As a software engineer, you're living in a golden age for your profession. Most tech companies are offering significantly higher salaries and bonuses now than pre-pandemic. There are not nearly enough engineers to fulfill the needs of all the successful tech companies. Best advice I can give you is to make sure your coding skills are up to snuff. Use sites like leetcode or a book like cracking the coding interview to make sure your technical interview skills are top tier and you can get hired by any major tech company with a 120k-300k salary to start depending on the company and your skills. As far as roles, data and machine learning engineers are seeing the biggest jump in salaries upwards of $25k bump in last year or two. Good luck!
I've been interviewing as well, and plenty of companies have either gone totally silent or cited hiring freezes after very positive interviews and even some offers. It really burns to put in the hours and have things go cold, but I try to remind myself how much worse it has been and could be. It's alright to have to work a little harder at times like this.
I'm looking for much different roles than you are, so our experiences will differ. My advice for anyone would be to be persistent though. There's not much to lose by keeping at it and maintaining good spirits, but there's a lot to lose by giving up. You could be surprised to find that connections you make now are rewarding when the economy is looking better, too.
The job market isn't a reflection of you, and losing out on opportunities will be easier than ever, but not by any fault of your own. Give it time and do your best, and you'll find something.
Good luck, keep your head up!
I bet the non-profitable, feeding-on-VC startups are getting worried and we'll see more of this. I work at a non-VC-funded, profitable, stable, small place and we're desperately trying to hire. I've never made FAANG/startup income, and I've always felt a little left-out because of that. But we've been stable for nearly 30 years, and have never had the big layoffs or hiring freezes including, dot-com bust, 2008, 2020 COVID lockdowns, and now. We're low variance, so the upside isn't as crazy, but then again the downside has been historically pretty limited too. My advise is to find a smaller, stable, profitable place to interview at.
edit: grammar
If you want to be recession-proof, get a job at a non-software company (or in academia, state/city government, etc).
In theory, "programmer" is the same job whether you work for a startup or the Minnesota Dept. of Transportation, but in practice they feel like completely different industries. In one, you can make fantastic money but the interviews are famously difficult, the culture can be borderline abusive, and layoffs are a way of life. In the other, the money is only pretty good but you leave at 5, the toughest interview question you'll get is "Please name three design patterns," and your job is mostly immune to macro trends.
> I wanna know if during recessions recruiting slows down even for big profitable companies.
Yes, and they might lay people off. Hiring slows generally (and unemployment rises) during recessions.
For example, I was at Amazon in 2008-9 and their attitude was: "We think we'll be alright, but we're not taking any chances, so departments should expect to make due with their current staff for a while." Once the freeze was lifted we started hiring like crazy.
This is totally anecdotal, but earlier this month, in a two week period, I interviewed with 8 different companies. None of them pulled out or hinted they were pulling out. I wrote about the experience here:
https://www.observationalhazard.com/2022/05/my-experience-wi...
I bring this up to present a counter to your experience and encourage you to keep applying. While I'm doubtless many companies have/will pull back, there are also many that are continuing to hire.
I always get flak for this but here we go anyway: the key is to manage expectations in the short term.
First realize that the market you know is far from the norm. We were at the end of the longest bull run in history and the hottest tech job market in memory. These are things you can kiss good bye for a while: eye popping salaries with little experience, kombucha on tap and Prosecco Friday, headcount doubling every 6 months, 50% YoY stock growth...
Yes, your timing is bad and it sucks. Such is life. I graduated in 2008 into one of the worst economies in my country. Imagine living paycheck to paycheck working as a software engineer.
The good news is you have a few years of experience, so you are in a better position to weather this than a fresh grad. When the economy starts picking up again you'll be in an excellent position to take advantage of it.
This is a fact: big companies are still hiring and are very resilient. Deep pockets will take the chance to attract talent. Amazon still has a huge gap due to the great resignation and hasn't slowed down. Now is a good chance to join for a stable job during turbulent times.
This is an opinion: I truly believe many decacorns from the next generation will come out of this. The recession will clean up the undergrowth and leave room for the next rocketships to take off. Imagine being an early engineer at Google? that might be happening now. Of course the trick is to pick the right horse out of thousands.
What path you choose depends on your situation. If you want stability try big tech. If you want to play the lottery keep an eye open for startups.
Everything slows down. Almost every CFO wants to be more cautious.
Some companies get more aggressive, since they want to seize the opportunity in the marketplace and possibly get talent for cheap. This typically has pros and cons for the employee.
However, during recessions is historically when the actually cool stuff is built. Find companies doing real things that generate cash flows and try to target them as best you can. Read their blogs, talk to their SWEs on social, build a mini-version of what they do if you. This isn’t just a time waste, suck-up effort, it actually helps you learn the sector of the industry you are interested in. Someone will think it is impressive.
NOTE: hacker news suggestions that “this will only impact those bottom 90% plebe developers” are bad and even if true would only be helpful advice for the top 10% (who typically aren’t on hacker news anyway)
I had a full signed offer to join large semiconductor company designing chips back in 2001. I found out on slashdot before the call that they were giving people a choice to take a payout or take your chance looking for a job within the company. This was during the dotcom crash.
The best advice I can give you is to keep developing skills that are in demand. Keep building things. Keep networking. You will find something better even in tough times.
The screenshot has the word "bootstrapped" which makes sense. Unless you have free VC money to throw, startups and smaller companies have to really watch their spending and as VC money is drying up (supposedly), this is expected.
Having said that, I think in 2022, there are lot of companies tech and non tech that are still hiring as the demand for tech jobs is a lot more than what we had during 2001 or 2008 crash. You just have to do a bit more homework and effort to get the jobs.
Expect hiring freezes and layoffs across the board. Startups and companies that don’t show a profit may shrivel up. This happened in 2000 and got pretty bad before it got better.
Businesses in other sectors (not tech companies) rely on software so those jobs don’t go away. Not every sector of the economy is a rollercoaster like the tech sector. Some skills transfer better than others. I stayed employed through the 2000 downturn doing database work (Oracle) for enterprise logistics companies, for example. Away from the bleeding edge of tech you find plenty of jobs, although maybe not as sexy or fun as you’d like.
Keep in mind that it might be (or might not, impossible to predict) a preemptive decision due to uncertainty, not necessarily due to actual changes they see. A company I worked at when COVID started also had a hiring freeze, but had the best result in years during 2020-2021 due to the market situation.
Ultimately all companies are linked to a market of some sort which in the end can see growth or shrinkage if a crisis comes, you can't do anything about it.
I graduated in 2001. I had an offer from campus placement in the summer of 2000. Things were rosy till March, April 2000. And then everything moved very fast, most of the offers were cancelled. I was utterly unprepared for this. I picked up pieces and went for the masters. About 18 month later I was in the middle of masters I got an email from the company saying they are honoring their offer.
2008 wasn’t that harsh for the tech sector. I was at Amazon. I was visiting colleges for campus recruitment, we were given reduced head counts to fill but nothing bad. And I don’t remember there being any mass layoffs.
Given this experience I would say the current downturn to last for about 18 months. Here’s what I’d do differently.
1. Always be on the lookout for opportunities. Even if you get a job offer don’t make plans around it.
2. Develop network your university alumni who are employed. Figure out ways of making yourself useful for them.
3. Internship or part time work is totally OK. You will be abreast of the ecosystem.
4. Learn macroeconomics and business cycles. We all are impacted by it. Whether we like it or not. So we might as well be prepared.
> What companies or roles will be more resilient?
Well, for startups, if they've just raised (in the last 6 months) and you know or can estimate their burn rate and they have 18-24 months in the bank (or are cash flow positive), that's a good choice. Also good if they have a clear business model, rather than still trying to figure it out.
I think that any of the pandemic focused companies were darlings of the markets for the past 2 years and they'll be a snap back for them (Zoom, Pelaton, etc).
But it's hard to counsel you on areas of growth/stability at this time. If you are currently employed and decently happy, this next 6 months would probably be a good time to stay still, since you're a known (and hopefully respected) quality at $CURJOB.
See this great tweet on the topic: https://twitter.com/techgirl1908/status/1524740200206848000 (there are also some companies in the replies who say they are still hiring).
The job market is still about as hot as I've ever seen it as a senior engineer - I don't know what it looks like for juniors these days, but I know a lot of places are hiring a lot of people and some have been trying for over a year now to fill positions.
I think probably startups will take a hit, but there are plenty of places that pay well and do good things and need coders.
I can say without hyperbole that this job market is still incredible compared to post 2008 recession times. Especially comparing apples to apples at the entry level.
What you can do to prepare is just to keep getting better at the skills people are looking for.
I graduated during a financial collapse in 2008 with a CS degree. I had about 2 years of internship experience at the time. My college friends were telling me "it's really bad - take what you can get." After weeks of searching I ended up taking my first engineering job which paid $25k a year. It was rough and my only advice is get ready for the worst.
The 2000 recession sucked and lasted a while. I remember Intel was hiring web programmers for $12/hour and were getting swarmed with applicants.
In those kinds of environments, contractors do a little better. Employers are all freaked out, they want to get work done but they don't want to make long-term commitments. It's not until they start making noise about contractors being expensive and wanting to convert you to full-time that you know the recession is over.
The last 10 years or so have been very good for startup financing. It's been relatively easy to get funding. That's changing. Investors are going to be more selective about what they fund so you'll see lots of companies slowing their hiring. But that does not mean it will all fall apart. There are still plenty of startups that are doing good work. My advice is to keep trying and don't give up. Be flexible about what you accept and after you have a job keep an eye out for a better one. I would focus on the bigger companies that have a steady profit margin. They will be more likely to weather the coming slowdown. These things happen. You just have to make the best of it.
I'd advise looking for roles at established profitable companies because they are more likely to weather any potential recession (if one happens - I'm not yet convinced this isn't just a long overdue correction). I just left one FAANG for another, meanwhile my friends are joining small risky crypto startups. Personally, I don't share their appetite for risk.
Go get your MS/PhD. By the time you finish, the market will be stronger, and so will your resume
The Georgia Tech online MS is good and about $7k total. You can pay for it working at Starbucks
I’ll give you the same advice my father gave me when I was graduating. Be persistent. Don’t give up after one rejection. I’ll also add my mixin - be smart about how you network. That’s how I landed my first job, rather than blindly applying, though I did that too.
Being on the other side of the interviewing table, we really want to give you the job. Don’t give us a reason not to. I’m willing to let some syntactical things slide when doing the code interview if a candidate is a good behavioral fit (communicate!).
One thing you have to realize is that rising interest rates has led to a decrease in liquidity, especially when it comes to fundraising. So look for companies that have an ample runway, and ideally are profitable. Worst case grind out the leetcode and look for a FAGMAN job, a lot of teams are still hiring, but don’t bank on it.
Unfortunately for you being a recent graduate but the rest of us experienced folks knew that a recession was looming. Anyone thinking we'd get out of the pandemic without a recession isn't that familiar with business or economics.
Kudos to them for not ghosting you and letting you know they're not hiring. That's being up-front, honest, and respectful. Don't expect that from everybody.
As for advice - recessions make for tough markets for inexperienced people. Companies tend to hire fewer people and the people they do hire they prefer they have a proven track record. Your bargaining chip is your price. Your inexperience makes you cheaper and if you can somehow demonstrate you can do the work you may find people willing to take a chance on you.
Good luck!
Many mature companies are freezing net headcount, but still backfilling positions. Others are instituting temporary hiring freezes. Others are laying people off.
In the startup space, many companies were raising money on valuations equal to 30-50 times ARR. Investors can be very picky and many startups are about 1 yr of cash on hand. If they are forced to raise money now, and their performance isn't the best of what's out there, they are going to be SOL or facing such onerous terms, it's going to be demoralizing.
Startups should be preparing to ride out the storm and that's going to mean they're going to find a way to push off a fundraise / going broke at any cost, if possible.
Interest rates have changed how easy money is, now unit economics has to work and the blitzscale and monopolize model doesn't have the capital to fuel itself
That's why classic blue chips are up and all the creative accounting, exotic pricing, complex funny money stuff is crashing hard. Anything that's not super easy to understand is doing terrible.
Look at who's up over the past 6 months. Johnson & Johnson, Kellogg's, Coca Cola, Coors, General Mills, Campbell Soup, Eli Lilly - companies with solid conventional reliable products and not a bunch of adventurous moon shots. Even PayPal, which is normally a pretty "safe" tech company is -60% YTD.
Honestly, I think it depends on where you are looking. Over in the Midwest we have had trouble finding SDEs, maybe it's because in my area starting pay is in that 65-80k range and I know alot of grads shoot for the startup/FAANG 100k+ pay but in the rest of the tech world I would say more people are moving around because there are so many open roles and not enough people to fill them.
I have been an engineer for over 10 years now, and my advice would be to widen your search and seek out experience and when your ready to level up leverage that experience to move into the pay/role/company you want.
Big picture: A shit ton of software needs to be written over the next 20 years. Many software companies will continue to have good economics. You'll do great.
It's interesting to see the self-reinforcing aspect of this recession/downturn. Many companies have yet to see a material impact to their revenue or market conditions, but are tightening their belts in anticipation. I'm not saying that's a bad thing or the case here. The more a potential recession is discussed, the more fearful companies become, the more conservative they become in their actions and ultimately the recession will be worse due to that. Perhaps the contagion of fear is better in the long term as companies are forced to act more prudently.
Well, as someone who (re)entered the industry in 2003 after the fallout of the dotcom crash, one thing that helped me get a job was the fact that tons of people just straight-up abandoned the industry during that period and the pipeline of new applicants dried up. So all those people who got a CS degree or went to a bootcamp because coding looked like an easy ticket to a high paying job? Poof - gone. Not to mention a small minority of software developers just permanently left the profession. And what happened? A few years later companies were desperate for coding talent again.
The other thing is that changed was that there was way less cash being pumped into startups trying to solve every minute problem under the sun - so you could actually bootstrap product in spaces without having to compete with 2-3 Tier-1 VC-backed startups flush with cash.
Oh, and because less stuff is getting built and productized, there might be more demand for contract work. That's how I built out a resume. Did a handful of projects over the course of 18 months for a few local small businesses.
You're young. You just graduated. I assume you do not have a mortgage or family to support at this time. Maybe some student loans and a car payment? Big deal. If you have the stomach for it, stick it out. It'll be a rough few years but you'll have enough experience under your belt to be on the ground-floor of the next major wave.
Since you’re asking from a job seekers perspective, this only applies to pre revenue companies and companies running at a loss. There are profitable small, medium and large tech businesses (like mine) that have not changed hiring policies and continue to hire. But they are tightening belts in other ways.
There are public companies that are pre profit that are profoundly affected. Their run up in stock price was free money for things like stock based compensation that has gone away.
Small companies pre profit will all be implementing hiring freezes or have already to reduce burn as far as possible.
The job market just got a lot more competitive for jobseekers as hiring plummets.
If you are offered stock based compensation, make sure your strike price (if it’s options) is tied to CURRENT stock valuation and not some story about a temporary dip in the market that will correct soon. And know that this may be a protracted recession (think years) and that we haven’t yet seen the bottom.
In my opinion we’re looking at a bubble in housing, bonds, stocks and commodities along with a massive decoupling of the global economy, with war in Europe, a hangover from too much fed stimulus, and the real cost of COVID coming due. A perfect storm doesn’t begin capture what we need to dig out from here.
Best of luck to the founders and jobseekers here. I mean that sincerely. Hang in there and look for the opportunity amidst the crisis.
I graduated in 2007 at the top of the housing crash and a few months later the great recession. My first job as SWE out of college was making 50k in a small company.
What got me through is that I love coding and learning, specially as a new grad. In hindsight, these are the times when great things happen - we just cannot see them. It happened in 2000, 2008 and I hope it happens again. Don't get demoralized, keep going at it and remember why you got into this profession (hopefully not just for the money)
I am still finding in my inbox lots of job proposals almost daily. But I don't live in US.
We don't know yet if are living a crisis or a recession. Until many people lose their jobs, sales of goods and services take a big hit and real estate colapses hard, we don't experience a crisis. But even if that is true, if we are experiencing the start of a crisis, I guess hiring for SWE roles will might slow a bit, but that won't make finding a job very hard.
Startups, unicorns and multibillion companies which had inflated stock prices might be more prudent now when hiring.
But apart for that there is a huge number of companies with an even greater need for SWE.
If you think a crisis might come, just ask yourself what industries/corners will be affected. What will people do in a crisis? Would they watch as much Netflix? Probably no, since they have to pay money. Will they still buy food, search google, use facebook and twitter, need insurance and banking? Probably yes.
Will old, "boring" industries, which are not hi tech, but are now on the rise such as oil and financial services need to hire SWEs? I am sure they will need.
IT is much more than startups, unicorns and FAANGS. These are just a drop in the ocean.
And if you want a great job security, you might find out that your national and local governments and state owned institutions are hiring SWE roles, too.
This is a tough market. It will be difficult to find opportunities but if you do find an opportunity, it's more likely to be a good one.
The downside of a tech boom is that there is too much easy money floating around some companies and this causes industry standards decline. The workplace becomes political; it feels chaotic and non-meritocratic. It's easy to lose passion for your work when nobody can recognize its value and nobody cares about things like efficiency and maintainability.
I'm a senior developer with 15+ years of experience and I've recently had to accept a 2 month contract for almost half my normal pay to build a new system from scratch. Unfortunately, when experienced, highly productive developers are willing to take such huge pay cuts, it pushes all the less experienced devs out of the market completely.
I would recommend trying to join a startup or a small company (or start your own on the side). Find tech companies whose customers produce real, obvious economic value. For example; the business' main customers are in farming, mining, construction, manufacturing...
The past decade in tech has been fueled by low interest rates and massive money printing and has mostly been about zero-sum activities like surveillance and manipulation... IMO this should start to change now.
I started my business in 2007...a great first year and then a global economic recession like none other. We got through that one, we'll get through this one.
Media will have you believe that everything has gone to shit in a recession. Don't read the papers and stop looking at the stock market. They're only two viewpoints - there are businesses and individuals who do VERY well in a recession. It's not all doom and gloom.
I give them some credit. Rather than hire you and have to unceremoniously lay you off six months from now, they're being proactive, upfront, and honest. Kudos to their hiring manager.
Keep at it. Recruiters on LinkedIn are still foaming at the mouth.
The proper translation for “we are not hiring because of a looming translation for a startup is”:
“We burning through cash like Willie Nelson burns through weed and VCs are antsy that they won’t be able to pawn their money losing investments off to the public market and are antsy about throwing good money after bad”
Profitable tech companies are not going to stop hiring where they see opportunities.
- All companies will be impacted, but smaller ones more and unprofitable high growth ones more. YC companies are at the extreme of both of these and aren't your gauge on the larger market. Figure out which kinds of larger and more secure businesses you can enjoy and learn something from working for during your first years out of school.
- Make a plan for how to reset expectations for your career (your and others!) in three years. You don't want recession decisions and salaries to define your career. You can clean the slate by getting and advanced degree, actively pursuing a management track, or developing an on the job specialty
- You are going to be fine. Having a four year degree and SWE training puts you ahead farther than the recession puts you behind. This sucks relative to your plans, but you can broaden the perspective and feel fortunate that you're not someone with less demand and mobility in the same environment. This timing isnt fair but others have been here and still prospered -- you will too!
We are still hiring at Fractal (NFT marketplace for gaming assets). We're a revenue generating company with fewer than 15 team members that just raised $35m in new funding. Founded by experienced founders. https://jobs.lever.co/fractal-is/
What you can do in these times is to work in, or interview 'line' jobs vs 'staff' jobs. Jobs that actively bring in revenue are rarely at risk, even in economic downturns. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staff_and_line
Throughout my career I always relied on recruiters in two ways.
1. They help me find jobs. 2. ASK them what technology frameworks they are being asked for.
Number 2 has been more beneficial than number 1, it has allowed me to have insight into what is a valuable framework to learn next.
Take time to befriend and talk to recruiters, it is a two way street with many of them.
NPR’s marketplace segment was unusually honest in their assessment yesterday, noting that most economic experts want new hiring to considerably slow down. I’m old enough to remember when this kind of statement was in the news all the time in the 1990s, but this is the first time I’ve seen it said in public in a long time.
I encountered this a lot in the 2001 drawback. There were mini pockets though. Things would dry up. Then people would start interviewing again. The next shoe would drop. Rinse, repeat. It was more typical of smaller companies but wound up being across the entire industry.
I didn't wind up job hunting in 2008 so can't speak to that.
During a recession it is common for companies to freeze hiring. Even Google has done it before, from low levels to very very high, it's a very common and fast to implement step. It's a sledgehammer instead of a scalpel, but they often just don't have the information to know whether their revenues will go down, userbase might go down, maybe salaries go down and they don't want to overpay, it's not especially surprising.
This is the time when starting a (slow-burn) company and being in school are big advantages, I think a lot of people go back to grad school during these sometimes. But I think a lot of people were just sort of like... too risky to assume I can get another job so I better stick with what I have. It's a scarcity mindset that favors employers for sure, but it may also be correct during a recession.
Anecdotally, the recruiter calls surged in the previous few months and have slowed to a trickle in the last couple.
> recruiting slows down even for big profitable companies.
The first response of businesses, big and small, to uncertainty is to pause everything they are doing to stock of the situation. Regardless of whether they are profitable or not. When that happens they pause hiring until they know what they are dealing with.
You would have seen the news/grapevine that Twitter, Google, and Meta have paused hiring. It takes about a quarter for them to adjust and get back to business as usual. After that hiring managers will start putting pressure on execs to open up the head count or face missed deadlines. So I'd say give it 3-6 months as far as big, profitable businesses are concerned.
As for unprofitable ones such as Uber; well it's going to be a tough ride. And it's been like that since going IPO.
I’ve seen so many posts like this on HN and Reddit. Maybe I’m just interviewing at the wrong companies, but honestly the market feels hotter than it ever has before.
I’m getting companies practically begging me to come work for them. Startups, Fortune 500s, the whole lot of em.
You should offer more details about the role you're seeking. All SWE jobs and industries are not the same. Being a web programmer is not the same as being a systems programmer, career wise. You might get better advice with more info.
Some of us have lived through multiple recessions. You'll do fine. What you might have to accept is that the FANG compensation that we've gotten used to could be reduced for quite a while. No one can really say how deep this recession will go or how it will affect SWEs. I would be defensive though. Get a job soon, even if its not your dream job, and start building experience while accumulating savings.
Long term you'll be fine, but don't be complacent.
Can anyone explain to me how come we are about to hit recession when there is an incredible demand (as in people have the money and want to spend them) for everything (furniture, appliances, anything really..) but there's no supply?
There are certainly worse positions to be in, and I believe you'll be fine if you stay persistent. As much as it may seem here on HN and other dev socials, dubbing yourself as a 'software developer' doesn't guarantee that you write your own ticket from the get-go. Stay persistent, go through the application process for everything that seems remotely interesting, and negotiate from there. Good luck - once it happens, everything changes and soon you'll be looking for a more senior role where you can demand a bit more.
I'm afraid the recession will be used as an excuse in a lot of cases where it's not the real issue.
A side note. I see a lot of hiring freeze at least in the gaming industry.
A couple of things:
1. Bootstrapped business are very good at cash management because they usually don't have a lot of cash.
2. Better to never be hired than hired for three weeks and laid off.
3. Software development is still an awesome industry to be in and there are still far too few developers than there are jobs at all levels.
4. Look for companies that have customers that continue to buy in a downturn if you fear recession. Companies that serve government, healthcare and energy industries tend to be safe, but they usually pay less than other industries.
Companies are pre-emptively closing open recs for non essential positions. It's a defensive posture to protect budgets, which are going down as the economy winds down.
This could have been prevented, or mitigated, it they'd increased [edit] interest rates 6 months to a year ago as many voices were calling. And we spoke of corporate greed causing inflation rather than money printing. Rhetoric aside, now we're needing to climb down a steeper hill.
I had the same situation in reverse.
I had a loop set up with a tech startup, and ultimately I decided that due to their market segment potentially being impacted by the recession that it didn't make sense to keep interviewing. I was likely to be much more secure at my much larger company in the economy sours.
So I canceled an interview loop that was going really well. There's more to it than just economy, but it was one factor.
Ultimately no hard feelings. They understood.
I entered the software job market in 2009 as an intern, start of 2010 as a full timer. All through college people were questioning my choice of major; they viewed CS as a bad bet. I took what I could find starting out, but it hasn't hurt my career.
It may be harder to find something. It likely won't be your dream job right after college. Mind you, you probably wouldn't have gotten that anyway. Don't stress too much about it.
This is unfortunately expected behavior and a bullet dodged. The only exception would be that this startup likely was expecting to get a funding round to close soon, and because of the recent shifts, VC dollars are drying up. That said, there is still money moving to tech companies.
Your skills are in demand, just may need to work with a recruiter for find a spot that works best for you (how I get most of my roles lately).
It was quite common by 2000/2001 (Burst of the dot.com bubble) and again in 2008 (Financial Crisis).
It was 2001 when a mayor semiconductor company stop the hiring process two days before signing the contract, and one week after leaving previous company. At the end it was an opportunity get out of the comfort zone.
My advice:
* Keep on moving
* Be bold
Can someone do a story time of the last recession and how it impacted tech? Start, middle and end
Just want to understand what to look out for and just prepare.
companies with consistent revenue are doubling down on hiring atm - think Atlassian, Cloudflare, etc
This will be at least the fourth such downturn I have seen in my career:
- the 2000 Dotcom Bust
- the 2008 recession
- the 2020 pandemic recession
- Now
The short answer is that no one really knows what will happen. A lot of companies are reading the tea leaves - and regardless of what anyone tells you, that's really all it is - and trying to figure out how to make the best moves given rising prices, rising interest rates, a pandemic that, though mostly tamed, still presents challenges and potential dangers, war in Europe, etc. Back in March of 2020 when I was still actively looking, I went through the same thing you are now - companies who were super eager to hire me all of a sudden stopped the interview process and circled the wagons. And these were the FAANGs.
My advice here is to keep looking, but start working on something on the side that will generate revenue. Working for a company feels like a safe move until the economy contracts and they ultimately decide what they think you're really worth. In every one of those previous downturns, I felt like my sense of self worth diminished along with every rejection or ghosted call - and I suffered a LOT of those. This last time around in 2020, I finally gave up entirely and became an independent technical strategy consultant - basically doing what I've always done, but under my own banner instead of someone else's.
It took six very hard months until I had a solid client base and consistent enough income to survive - I had to borrow money from some folks during the time to pay the mortgage and healthcare, which was humbling, but it worked. I also have a mortgage, a wife, and a teenager to support, so I really had to get a solid income flowing fast - there wasn't a lot of room for error.
If you get a job before you figure out your side gig, great! But maybe keeping working on the side gig because it's nice to have something to fall back on. If you get the side gig running, but it's not making you enough money and you get an offer - take the offer, but make sure you keep building out the side gig.
I was probably about your age when the first Dotcom bust happened - I had been out of college only two or three years at that point - and I gotta tell you, that was frightening. When I got my first job out of college, I was hot shit. I put my resume on Monster.com on a Wednesday and by the following Friday I had received about 100 calls, 10 job interviews, and five solid offers. When the bubble burst, not a single person or company returned any of my calls. For nine months. A smarter man would have spent that time trying to build something to make money, to be independent from the vagaries of corporate America and economic cycles over which he has zero control. I was not that smarter man then - it took 20 years and at least three more cycles for me to finally figure it out.
Be the smarter (person). Keep applying and interviewing, but spend the rest of the time you would otherwise be working building something for yourself to generate revenue. Could be code, could be an online class, could be selling stuff on Etsy - doesn't matter, so long as it's something you can sustain and that can eventually sustain you if worse comes to worse.
I already got laid off once this year because the startup I was working for had such a bad time during COVID-19 (small company, high touch sales, sales pipeline was unusually bad due to their target customers not wanting to spend).
These are turbulent times we're living through. Good luck everyone
This is why I keep interviewing, while I am already in late stages of job applications and/or already have a job. This can happen to anyone at any point, whether you are applying for jobs, are in the late interviewing stage, an employee of 5 years or on a 1 year contract.
This is one advantage of living in a (relatively) low-cost country like India. Recruiting actually picks up here when there's a recession in the US, because it's cheaper to hire here. The difference is not 10x like it used to be, but it's still at least 2-3x.
There are still people hiring, there's always work out there. I'd put up a post in the "freelancer" and "who wants to be hired" posts next week here on hackernews. Maybe you can get some bites that way, I've gotten work through that in the past.
Was interviewing with a few startups in the Series A and B phases. They had come back and held all hiring.
Their time to zero is in the 2-3 year range but a lot of companies are dealing with a people issue to make sure staff is aware of the state and has confidence they aren’t going to get laid off.
Most seem to have held for 3-4 weeks. Will see at that point how many are paused indefinitely or are back to normal.
If a company is near the end of the runway, they maybe in damage control and would be concerning.
Just keep interviewing. This maybe your first recession. Advice, just keep swimming. If a company freezes hiring because market conditions then they might be too volatile for you. Try a larger organization that has funds to weather the storm.
I was in a similar position in 2008. The key thing you need is experience, as people fresh out of college take awhile to ramp up and actually be productive.
I'd avoid small startups and focus on larger, established players. Unless they raised money before things started to get bad, smaller companies won't have the same resources as late stage orgs and FAANG.
While you're applying, try to get experience however you can. Work on personal projects relevant to jobs you're applying for and post them on Github. Pick up work on UpWork, etc at whatever price people are willing to pay. Having experience you can point to gives you a leg up over everyone else.
This may be somewhat anecdotal, but I founded a product in the recruiting space and my daily active users and key metrics are all well within expectations and trending up.
I would say we are doing fine, do not let the fear mongering get to you.
> Will be this the situation for most tech companies or just start ups?
One start up, with specific reasons to chicken out, not the whole industry. You luckily avoided a dying employer, and you'll find someone else soon.
I entered the market in a similar situation in 2008. For what it's worth, while certain companies tighten their belts, at the end of the day more software needs to be built than exists right this second, and so there will always be positions available.
Thats not to say it won't be hard, but you're still in the biggest growth industry I can think of, and it touches more and more other industries every day. There will always be need for software, and there will always be need for software developers.
Thats my two cents anyway, and how I approached it when I was younger, and I was right in the medium term :)
It shouldn't be that bad if you're in a non-tech established company - something that is making money and will continue to make money.
Startups and a lot of tech companies rely on easy money. They are the ones impacted the most.
Yeah I mean if you look at the IPO of YC backed businesses they are all down on average -70% from its previous ATH. Now ask yourself, how much of a run way would non-IPO businesses sustained by cheap capital has left.
People aren't joining YC to build a sustainable business. They are doing it for a shot at selling their shares on secondary market if they can't IPO, or dumping it on retailers through direct listing
The good news is that these failing startups will end up generating a ton of businesses for those that had been financially stable and conservative. Those are the ones to look at.
Honestly I'd take that as dodging a bullet, and so appreciate the honesty - if they have sufficient concerns about present market behavior impacting their ability to retain staff or even continue as a going concern to be stopping recruitment, then you'd be risking turning down other opportunities for a job that may literally disappear in just a few months.
OTOH, if they're still around and hiring again a few months later then I'd take that a sign that they are running themselves well, and have a good grasp on their stability, and would consider applying again then.
Our VC backed company is still hiring! It will totally depend on the situation, but my general advice is that public companies and the hot VC backed cos will do fine. The less capitalized businesses will have knee jerk reactions to this. Plan accordingly! I wrote a synopsis from my experience and talking with friends that are founders as well.
https://www.towardssoftware.com/blog/economic-environment-fo...
Government, non-profits, and universities are the most resilient institutions from a job-seeking perspective. They don't pay as much, but that's the trade off.
I work in a very large company which operates globally and there is talk around the water coolers about recession. All I can say is be ready for it. As another poster mentioned software engineers tend to do alright in such times as our tech is a route to cost reduction and automation - which can be bad for other trades but not. This is normal cycle of life - lost count how many recessions and market slumps I’ve been through.
You should look less into startups and more into established companies. There will be a time again to join startups, but it is not now.
I graduated in the middle of the dot com crash. I feel you.
Get any job you can. As soon as you have real experience the entire hiring process gets easier.
I have felt that for some time we are headed for a market over saturation situation like the 80's when everyone got Electrical Engineering degrees, and then it all collapsed. I know lots of people who have quit other careers to go the BootCamp route to get in on the movement. I've worried for some time this can't be sustainable.
> What companies or roles will be more resilient?
Maybe the right question to ask is: which industries will still be essential in a downturn?
There will still be food production, health care, transport, energy, telecommunication, manufacturing, ....
The closer a job is to enabling tangible things that our society needs, the less likely it is to go away.
We're desperately trying to hire for my team. If you have Java experience consider looking into fintech. The pay isn't as great as SV but the benefits are so much better. This is the first SE role I'm in where I am only assigned work for 40 hours a week and am expected to not work any extra.
This matches the tweet I saw from a stripper that said she is a leading indicator and yes we are in a recession.
I'm searching right now. There are jobs to be had, but you'll have to fire like a scatter gun instead of a rifle. I started my interview process with 10 companies and I'm down to three that I'm closing final rounds with.
There’s also a significant reduction in pay for the new offers being handed out. Somebody I knew joined a company for +50% 4 months ago. The same company is offering +5% for the same role now.
Markets need to cool down sometimes to wipe out millions of ineffective businesses. Others will optimize their processes to cut off expenses. Real estate will be cheaper. These moments are positive.
if you're good and can convey it don't worry about it. if you're not, start developing communication skills. that's more important than anything.
if all goes to shit, just apply to work at fb/google/amazon/apple. These companies are recession proof. Rotate through many teams until you find one you like.
I am still hiring software engineers at Academia.edu; email me
I am about to graduate college and start the job hunt. Should I be especially concerned about a potential dearth in entry level roles over the next 6-12 months?
There are tons of jobs out there with plenty of remote options. Turnover is high and companies are desperate to back fill. This is US west coast so YMMV.
> To be honest is my first time job hunting since I graduated in 2019.
Do you mean you’re leaving your first job after ~3 years or there’s been a gap in your resume?
This year I gained 75% more on the salary by switching jobs two times. :)
Since 3 years ago I gained a bit more than 300%. All by changing jobs.
You are lucky getting a response, I have been ghosted by FAANG twice past 3 months. Reminders didn't work either..
> What companies or roles will be more resilient?
Defense or any project fulfilling federal contracts.
Amazingly, no one is questioning whether there will be a recession or not.
We're still hiring at Wefunder! Our platform allows founders an alternative to VC funding, and helps a lot of small companies get started that might otherwise get overlooked.
Check it out https://wefunder.com/jobs
Just got an interview canceled from Meta as well. Nowhere is safe.
I guess everyone read YC and others’ memos about tightening the belt
Good time to go to grad school, if the recession gets bad.
recessions are always looming. They're a natural part of the business cycle. sounds like you dodged a red flag to me.
Obligatory "Do you have 1. a Website containing at least a small portfolio of two or more projects, and 2. a Github and/or Gitlab profile with some small open source projects, and 3. a LinkedIn presence, and 4. Your Resume on multiple resume sites frequented by Recruiters (Indeed, ZipRecruiter, Dice, Workatastartup.com , etc.?"
you have not done any job hunting since graduating three years ago?
I'm still hiring for my digital agency - we have clients that are funded as an existing traditional business or have already raised a round in anticipation of a market slowdown. You can contact me through my profile if you're interested.
Answering your questions - Will be this the situation for most tech companies or just start ups I expect companies that are still looking for PMF using VC money to die. This is essentially a population bottleneck (1) for certain classes of companies (pre-revenue) & verticals (crypto).
- during recessions recruiting slows down even for big profitable companies[?] The job market overheated for companies doing traditional sourcing, salaries were bumped across the whole industry to retain people, and still a lot of people left. I am sure that some companies overcompensated for this and are going to be burned if last year they went overboard with hiring & retention and this year the market blows up. I don't have an inkling as to which companies to watch out for, but some have already announced layoffs.
- What companies or roles will be more resilient? Companies - big blue chip ones are always safe and look good on a resume. Microsoft, Google, Apple, etc. aren't going anywhere. Even if you join Meta and get laid off due to their bad VR strategy.. it still helps your career by having joined them in the first place. Roles? Anything that existed a couple years ago is fine. Anything brand new like "head of remote work" I wouldn't be so confident about.
- And how as a SWE / tech industry professional, specially the ones starting their careers like me, can prepare? Just keep interviewing at companies with established engineering teams. Don't go somewhere with just 1 or 2 developers, or where engineering isn't the core of their business. This is where good talent goes to languish. I've seen too many people come out of these companies with years of "experience" but it was learned in isolation without somebody experienced helping to shape them into a real middle of senior developer; The worst thing you can do is rack up the years without the actual substance. It's like not MSFT or others are tough - it's just everybody you work with will teach you something new that it's unavoidable. In a tiny company you have to figure out everything by yourself or follow trends, which are less than ideal.
- Is demoralizing to find out I spent 4 years in school just to get into a really harsh job market You are entering almost the best market ever for developers. If you're good, you can get a job anywhere in the world right now at way above nominal rates (if you know how to negotiate).
> Is demoralizing to find out I spent 4 years in school just to get into a really harsh job market.
Came out of college in 2000. I was told it was a gold rush from many grads I knew who were hitting the market in 98'. Startups doing startup things, VC money flowing for IDEAS, didn't even need a business plan of any kind, just have a solid idea and watch the millions get tossed your way.
Then the bottom fell out less than a year after I got out. Everything evaporated. All the cool kids were having "hanging parties" where entire companies were getting laid off in a single day. As fast as the VC money showed up, it turned into sand and disappeared.
I had the same reaction - WTF do I do now? It was so devastating to everyone around me.
Here's what happened:
- lot of friends went back to college to get advanced degrees
- some went back to college to do something totally different
- some got together and started new companies, in the ashes of the recession no less
- some just collected unemployment while waiting the recession out and waiting for companies to start hiring again
- some found gigs at big corporations and started at the ground floor. They wanted stability in the desert of constantly shifting sands. Less pay, but stable.
Here's the point. You have to seize your opportunities when they show up. You should see this, and any "negative" situation as a chance to see what's out there, make a plan and go for it. Things will eventually come back around, but I wouldn't sit around waiting for something else. Start your own company, find out what you really want to be doing and do THAT.
I found out in 2000, that when everybody was standing around holding pitty parties for themselves, there was a huge group of people that were already dusting themselves off and planning the next charge into the next big thing.
Here's an ENTIRE LIST of companies that were founded in 2000:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:American_companies_es...
The best advice I can give you is to do some digging. Got to networking events, see what everybody is doing. Make connections at companies, talk to people, see who's hiring, let people know you're out there looking for something that's a good fit. Right now? There's roles out there, but you're going to have to do some digging and leg work. The market conditions warrant you doing some legwork, instead of waiting for those companies to come knocking.
Chances are once you get out there and make some connections, you'll find people will start contacting you about roles which won't be on any job board. You'll hear from people about XYZ startup, looking for some solid talent. Or ABC Corp doing some contracting hire through DEF agency.
Watch Unlearn Your MBA by DHH on Youtube - a video from Stanford during crisis of 2008
First comment: Don't say "get rekt" anywhere near managers, recruiters or founders.
Yes, the party is over.
Prepare for a semi-long recession.
If you are in a high-cost market as USA - you are basically more or less fucked.
Doesn't speak well of their longterm planning ability to yank six open positions over a tweet - but I would guess there are other undisclosed reasons, and saying "because of the economy" is just a convenient thing to say.
> I hope some experienced people in the industry can give some hope and advice. Is demoralizing to find out I spent 4 years in school just to get into a really harsh job market. First pandemic, then recession? F...
Overall, I'd say relax a bit. You're still in a good situation. Recessions are hard for many, but software engineers were among the best off during the last one and I expect will be this time also.
> I wanna know if during recessions recruiting slows down even for big profitable companies.
I remember Google's recruiting slowed down in ~2008. [edit: 2009? Maybe not right at the start of the recession.] [1] So sometimes yes. On the bright side, it's rare for profitable large tech companies to lay off software engineers, so if you get in, you're pretty safe.
Even at startups, I don't expect a universal freeze. I asked an external recruiter (that is, someone who recruits for a variety of startups) a couple days ago about the present situation. She told me some companies she works with have done hiring freezes, others are still desperate to hire. There are opportunities. I'm not a good enough business person to give you solid general advice about which startups will be most resilient, though.
If you are good enough and/or persistent enough, my feeling is there will be a place for you in tech. (Even if, for example, you freeze up during coding interviews. Some companies do these, others don't. There's enough variety that you can still be okay if you don't have your sights set on a particular company.)
If you are not, there's almost certainly still a place for you as a software engineer in a stable, non-tech company or government position. Non-tech typically isn't as lucrative, but you can be comfortable. My feeling is many of these places have a tremendous need for just basic automation. Arguably more so during a recession, although they may not all realize this.
I started my career not long before the last recession. I didn't have any real existing savings to lose. Then I was earning far in excess of my needs and investing much of the rest in index funds (e.g. VTI) when stock prices were low. The recession ended and stock prices soared. I feel scummy saying this about many people's suffering, but the recession worked out well for me.
[1] Personally I think this was a mistake. They could have hired a lot of great people during this time. "Be bold when others are fearful." They had solid financial footing for hiring, and if nothing else, they could have put a fair number of folks on efficiency projects that would have more than paid their way in machine costs.