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Ask HN: Developer Job Security During a Recession

8 points by MetalGuru ↗ HN
I think we can all agree that the software engineering job market is on fire. Endless recruiter emails, crazy high comps, etc. Is anyone concerned about how much this will change when we enter another recession. For those that have been in the job market during past recessions (eg. 2008), what was the impact on the tech job market? Were massive layoffs common? Was finding jobs significantly harder? Do comps decrease (obviously RSU values will decrease if the stock market contracts, but what about base)? If you're at a BigN, is it best to stay put and weather the storm?

4 comments

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chovy
Hmmmm....I think the recession has already started.
joeblow9999
during the dot com bust of 2001 it was a slaughterhouse. forget about value of RSU decreasing, there were no jobs. people were talking about the end of the tech sector entirely. you needed to know someone to get a job. and the pay was definitely lower than your last job.

it can get bad

scawf
2001 seems really far in the past when you look at how tech evolved in the recent years.

Do you think it'd be the same today (Everything is numeric nowadays) ?

non-entity
On the other side, I'm in a very low paying, but extremely secure position. I was looking at making a move soon, now, with all the talk of recession, of I'd better just keep my head down.