Ask HN: Have you been laid off?
I work remotely as a front-end developer at a VC-funded, series B startup. Funding has dried up as investors with financial exposure to anything retail or entertainment-related are hemorrhaging cash. The company leadership told us that starting immediately, all employees (including the fully-remote workers like myself) are on mandatory unpaid leave.
Job cuts in 2019 were already up a whopping 351% from the previous year[1]. Considering the COVID-19 outbreak, I'm concerned that many other tech workers like me might be updating their resumes and entering a stagnant job market. Alternatively, organizations may view this as a great time to gain additional market share. What do you think?
If you're a tech worker, have you been laid off or do you expect to be laid off soon? If you are a hiring manager, what is the current hiring status at your company?
[1] https://www.challengergray.com/press/press-releases/2019-year-end-job-cuts-report-fewest-monthly-cuts-july-2018-yoy-10
665 comments
[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 808 ms ] threadThis is especially true of countries like the US, where it seems very simple to fire someone.
I’m a CFO of $300M company that employees ~2200 employees. We’re out of cash in 6 weeks if our revenue continues to decline. Down 30% vs last year this week (which is good compared to most). Doing layoffs and pay cuts right now. My network of CFO friends are all doing the same, many at much larger scale. Hard for me to imagine a scenario where unemployment is <20% in 2 weeks in the US if this continues.
At some point, the financial cost is too severe for the majority of us who will survive this thing. We need to just resume business and accept there is a death toll. This is war. That’s my unpopular opinion on things anyway.
I also don't quite understand how a $300M (assuming revenue, not valuation) company can run out of cash in 6 weeks. You're saying you can't make payroll in 6 weeks at the current trajectory?
When revenue collapses, as it has for many industries, your fixed costs dwarf everything else and most businesses will be in trouble.
It all has to do with how much cash you have to weather the storm. My firms investors wanted us to be cash efficient. Meaning we don’t have much of a safety net. This is the PE mindset IMO. As CFO one may think this is my decision, but really I advise to risk and the board ultimately decides.
Bigger companies who have hoarded cash since 2008 or before will survive but still lean down.
It’s possible banks will help companies like mine stay afloat. We have relationships in place and plan to pursue capital. Not sure how that will play out.
This being common or even the norm is one of the (many) fundamental problems of our current economical system.
I utterly hate that option. But I'm afraid that if we don't find a medicine which can help for the 1/5th with serve syndromes we might be going there. In both the EU and the USA.
Following is somewhat a Conspiracy Theory don't take serious:
I was even wondering if some of the delays in taking measurments around some countries was not incompetence but intentional to strike a heartless ugly balance between economical impact and people dying. But then they underestimated it waited to long and now regret it.
And yes dying people do have a hard economical impact anyway, but companies being closed of over a long time can become economically worse then even 5% of the whole population dying. Mainly because we have a messed up broken economical system which is completely incapable to gracefully handle such emergency situations :(
Of course, if $300M is VC ponzi valuation money, this was 80% fake anyways, and dependent on funny math continuing until the company caught up to the hype or exited to Someone Else's Problem, but that was the game being played. Then yes, time to cut. 2K people sucks, but like Uber employees complaining about RSU devaluation.. sucks, but you are the 1% and will ride it out.
At the same time, your top competitors are also getting ready to lobotomize, and the smaller players too. Some of their suppliers/partners are feeling it, and the customers on your market may soon be in need of someone new. So a lot of opportunity for strong co's to come out with power moves on their market, just the $ doesn't get seen for awhile. Contractions create gaps for those who don't, esp as this isn't about industries dying but temporary cash crunches.
There is so much VC/PE money out there, that this is a ripe time for them. Their q is 'where' and 'how much of a discount'. I'm obviously quarterbacking here, but similarly as your lever being firing, bank/PE/etc is spending.
My wife's a PhD microbiologist, and works at a $bigPharma, and she's not convinced that we will be back to normal any time soon.
I'm currently in an area where we are essentially in total lockdown. All non-essential shops are shut. Businesses are laying off staff everywhere. Hotels and restaurants are all closed. Borders to neighbouring countries are closed. Schools and kindergartens are closed. Even the local playgrounds are closed and taped up - try explaining that last one to your 4 year-old.
Recovery in six months' time? I'm struggling to see it.
With the huge number of small businesses collapsing, it seems unlikely that the immense numbers of newly unemployed (likely including myself) are going to be have any spare cash to drive demand when the quarantines are lifted.
The federal government is planning on sending thousands of dollars out to Americans directly.
That is in addition to unemployment, which in the currently proposed bill also provides for paid sick leave
What more do you want?
Happy debt bubble land is over, for a long time.
As far as frameworks, I'm quite familiar with React and React Native (app in Google Play and App Store), Redux, Angularjs, etc. I haven't worked with Vue yet, but I'm looking forward to trying it now that I've suddenly found myself with some free time!
The remote team that I have been working with most recently are all updating our resumes. A portion if the fully-remote engineering team is located in Europe while a couple of us are located in the USA.
If you or someone you know is hiring, feel free to send me an email at the address in my profile and I can put you in touch with a few fantastic remote developers who I happen to know are available and who do great work.
Payment is 2x better and I find Web stuff being more interesting and rewarding than game programming. Also it's less stressful and it's better to do something mainstream than working in a niche. It means more opportunities.
I've went through about 20 something job interviews until I had enough to chose from.
Good luck!
Lessons learned both from my experience and from talking to other game programmers: working on games would not fit exactly your pre-made image of it, most jobs in gaming industry will be underpaid (my case) and require overworking (as others told me), it's fine to switch jobs if you are underpaid or bored, it's good to get out of your comfort zone, working in a large company is not as bad as it can seem for someone who only worked in small teams and the best way to get a raise is going to job interviews and trying to sell your skills the best you can.
And nothing stops me to work in my free time in a more interesting project which I hope I will launch as a business in a few years. It helps that I am doing web programming at work because I don't have to jump from one tech stack to another daily and I can learn and experiment faster.
https://careers.fool.com/
If you work for a company funded by SoftBank or your company is chasing froth, I'd start making plans that involve your current employer no longer paying you.
I'd be remiss if I didn't say if you need a job, meet the above qualifications, and are willing to work in SF 4 days/week only -- comment below this. (Though obviously we're fully remote until at least April 7; I expect after that it's going to be fully remote at your choice for probably another month minimum. More depending on if / how Trump bungles the covid response further).
I'm super worried about the coming year.
Probably the one time in human history the evil bankers can actually point and say "it wasn't us this time, really!!!"
The only real remedy is economic activity. That can't happen until people can start spending money again.
There is a huge opportunity in thinking about when things go back to normal, what things will remain permanently changed.
I started a thread about that the other day; let's collect some more ideas: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22587052.
Really consider your expense and have a plan if you cannot find computer work when you will look outside of that. The general employment picture is a disaster, though.
Read up on COBRA (ensure you have continuing medical coverage) and your state's unemployment benefits and how/if they have recently changed.
Personally, I experienced the .com crash and worked through the 2008 financial crisis. I am absolutely terrified right now.
I've been causally preparing for a market downtown for about six months, but I wish I was in a better position than I am. That being said, I'm in a lot better shape than a lot of folks are and I'm hoping things can turn around with as many lives saved as possible.
I first read it as "read up on CORBA", but I think we aren't that desperate yet.
Too bad newer languages won't even support it...
Everybody should be terrified and cut expenses RIGHT NOW: don't buy a fancy car, pull the kids out of private school, cancel vacations, don't buy a house, don't enter into any kind of commercial lease (you'll find plenty of cheap leases).
If you are into consulting (front end, back end, ML, devops, ML) offer to cut your rate 50% if you can get a 12 month contract, right now.
Don't blame the virus. Sure it does not help but a lot of startups were barely viable businesses under oxygen (=VC rounds, always looking for dumb money for the last rounds). Don’t be picky (I don’t like the office culture, the market you are in, etc)
As they say get a mortgage, you’ll start enjoying your job better. Get several kids and you’ll start enjoying your boss/the founders/the market your startup is in as well.
The company I worked for did also have H1B contractors whose contracts were terminated and some of those people left the country.
Prepare for the worst.
not to be glib, but this would be a one-way trip for the near to mid future. Any rquirement to leave and return to the country is also a non starter
This is not correct. If you leave/lose your job, you have a 60-day grace period where you're not considered out of status. You need to find a new employer willing to petition a new I-129 for you.
Please check the specifics with a lawyer. Immigrations laws keep changing in very subtle ways.
L1 - if you lose your job and you have no other status (ie have not filed for green card or have your H1B), that's it. You have to leave within 60 days and you cannot work at another company in the US.
H1B - you can switch to a new company and they port your H1B with USCIS. Otherwise, 60 day grace period to leave.
Adjustment of Status to 485 - if it has been pending with USCIS for more than 180 days & you have your EAD, you can port to another company under the AC-21 act.
It's fantastic to see some of the responses here indicating that companies are still hiring. Even though though the retail and entertainment industry have been hit hard, it seems some portions of the job market are still going strong.
I don't have a beef with you but the whole crypto crapto markets really need to calm down and stop stealing money from naive people especially at this sensitive time. Lack of regulation helps launder money even easier.
Crypto crapto is the reflection of a giant random number generator that is operated by both VCs and nefarious entities at the same time. It's a competition to see who wins this random number generator...
Also, the crypto market reflects its value as well. You're playing yourself with your own argument.
It's a bit scary to be in this position, as I know most companies here stopped hiring, so I'm not sure if I'll be able to find a new job quickly.
We went 100% all-remote at the start of the year, and historically over 50% of over our team has always been remote. This has been a really good boon for us as we started writing down and documenting even more of our processes, etc. in a handbook: https://about.sourcegraph.com/handbook
I'm still gathering information on how coronavirus is impacting the job market, but what I know now is that many companies have laid team members off in the last week, and I suspect many more will soon. Most early-stage startups that did not recently fundraise and do not yet have significant revenue will struggle during this pandemic. If they were planning to fundraise this summer, fall, or winter, their investors and advisors have already told them start cutting costs in order to survive. Hence, a rise in layoffs.
More stable startups may have slowed their hiring efforts (i.e. "we planned to hire 40 engineers by 2021, but after adjusting our budget, we're now looking to hire ~20"), but they've also explicitly told me that filling certain roles are more urgent than ever.
While this all sounds bleak, some companies will endure, and a smaller number will actually thrive during these times.
Several folks who have recently been laid off have reached out to me. I know that getting laid off can give you the impression that every company is laying people off, but it isn't true. Companies who need to hire in order to keep up w/ unprecedented demand are ramping up and are excited to capture talented folks who were recently let go. So stay positive, put yourself out there, and keep looking!
I'm currently reaching out to all of the companies I work w/ in order to stay on top of their hiring plans, and I hope to message what I learn in my upcoming newsletters. It is the easiest way for me to keep folks up to date on what I'm seeing, and I absolutely will not take offense if people unsubscribe. Key Values: https://www.keyvalues.com
Thanks again for this comment, and I'll absolutely be subscribing to your newsletter.
Btw, I don't know your email, but feel free to reply to my next newsletter (goes out on Thursdays) if you have specific questions or feedback on how I can be more helpful. I sometimes feel powerless because I don't know what I can do to help during these trying times –– I'm not a healthcare professional, I'm not rich, I'm not a political leader, I'm not famous –– but I can at least (a) connect individuals and companies who can help each other, and (b) do my part to inform anyone I know about COVID-19, the job market, and/or what I'm doing/thinking. It's not a lot, but hey, it's at least a start!
Our observations so far:
1. Hiring in tech has definitely not gone to zero, even for the junior-level roles we skew towards.
2. We're seeing more like a 60-70% drop in hires compared to our original (pre-COVID) projections for the month of March, so far.
3. Companies least affected seem to fall in two major categories: A) BigCos with deep pockets; and B) SaaS businesses with predictable revenue streams and some degree of economic insulation from the "meatspace" economy.
Many software businesses (e.g., Zapier, GitLab) are already run partly or fully remotely, so their hiring workflows can take quarantine in stride, to an extent. Many others (e.g., Stripe) are quickly adapting to these new constraints.
The effects of a global quarantine and pandemic are almost certain to propagate to all companies eventually. But some are less affected than others, economically and operationally. We're fortunate in tech that it's still quite possible - albeit measurably harder - to get hired under current conditions.
what was your original projection
Those are most likely lagging by a few weeks or a month. Monthly subscriptions are arguably the easiest to cut and companies are looking to cut non-essential services.
In the former, cutting run-rate is important but you also need to look at the aftermath. Firing people now hurts you later on when the storm clears, whereas cutting Slack and switching to open source self-hosted alternatives is a cost savings that won't impede the future growth. Obviously cutting slack won't save a company with zero revenue.
This always makes me curious. Why do companies look for junior levels instead of senior ?
It seems to me that with the choice you would want experience if it was an option.
Disclaimer : am employed not looking for work simply perspective
The amount of waste in corporate american and startups is insane. IMO
There are solutions experienced folks know that save so much money when you look at the big picture it always baffles me when I see that..
The other thing that baffles me is when a CIO makes choices based off of things he has read online instead of taking the business need and finding the most economical solution
If you are interested in making money finding technical solutions with known failures is the key. Experience always knows those.
Just a perspective and comment to an opposing. Not arguing.
As a company you want a diversity of workers to allow you to better optimize.
Most menial tasks senior guys have figured out how to automate. We hate menial repetitive tasks and find ways to eliminate them so the ROI of having a senior guy is yes payroll is higher but you have less headcount.
There really isnt anything new being done. Containers have been around for ages ( Solaris doms / freebsd jails )
What I see is companies prematurely optimizing by saying they need portability and multi cloud strategies before they have achieved profitability.
Multi cloud is expensive and difficult and if you don't have a successful business you really don't need it to be portable.
Just some observations from someone watching various business models
http://boringtechnology.club/
I'll leave this one alone as opinionated experienced guys get like that for a reason
The question was "why higher less senior people?" My answer, and perhaps I wasn't clear, was that for your first 1-5 devs, you should definitely higher senior...but once you break past that then your senior devs - you know the ones who launched all that boring technology - then want Jr devs to mold into doing things the right way from the start.
https://careers.blizzard.com/en-us/openings/onAAbfws
Really glad we've got a ton of runway. Keeping everyone in mind who are less burn-fortunate. My only advice, having done a few big layoffs before: Cut now, cut once, cut deep.
I have the funds to last about a year unemployed + I wanted to work on my own software projects for a few months. However, I'm concerned that if I don't hop back in the job market quickly enough, the decent paying jobs might dry up.
It makes sense, in a way. If the market is valuing your labor less than it was yesterday, your opportunity cost is lower and it might make more sense to invest in yourself.
If anybody needs some contract web dev done, check out my info at https://albright.pro/ and reach out ASAP. I will cut you one hell of a deal if you can at least help keep a roof over my head.
Available here: https://themeforest.net/item/leadx-landing-page-marketing-wo...
I didn’t make it nor am I affiliated with it - but it was a quick and easy way of generating a polished freelancer page for myself.
Good ways to find gigs as a freelancer are toptal, moonlight, yunojuno, bark, stack overflow (get a good score by answering questions).
Bit of advice a friend gave and I have yet to try out: If you want to find local clients go to meetups, networking stuff where you would likely be the only software developer and people will likely be interested (obviously one for after this crisis has passed).
Good luck!
Sites that fade and pan in content as I scroll down the page can die in the hottest of hellfires. I do appreciate there are less harmful "modern" design cues I can take for the new version of my site, though.
> Good ways to find gigs as a freelancer are toptal, moonlight, yunojuno, bark, stack overflow (get a good score by answering questions).
I recall trying Moonlight a couple years ago and finding they could do absolutely nothing for me. Perhaps it's time to give them another look. I do have a SO presence, but their job board doesn't let me filter by contract positions. I will check out those other sites, though.
> Bit of advice a friend gave and I have yet to try out: If you want to find local clients go to meetups, networking stuff where you would likely be the only software developer and people will likely be interested (obviously one for after this crisis has passed).
That's a good tip. I used to be active in a couple groups around here but it got disrupted by some family stuff. I should get back into it again once this all blows over.
Garret, just emailed you.
Until a month ago, there was plenty of work for everyone. We will see what happens now, but don't waste time building a fancy website; go to some meetups (oh wait.. maybe don't) or speak with some recruiters and I'm sure the snowball will start to form :)
> Your online presence is dreadfully low for a web developer.
Just dropping "Sorry to say" makes it sound less condescending.
> Your online presence is really low for a web developer.
Dreadfully -> really. Could argue that this changes the meaning somewhat, but I think the change is more in tone (again, less pretentious/condescending sounding) than in actual meaning.
> Your online presence is really low for a web developer, you should consider expanding it to increase your exposure/get more interviews
Explicitly making a suggestion is more constructive and makes the tone more friendly.
The claim that your last sentence is more constructive seems a bit weak. what is constructive about it, you basically just derived a logical consequence that touching the website yields a result? Also, what does 'expanding' even mean in this context? At no point did you give any constructive feedback (what should be improved, why is it low, why is it 'really low' etc).
on the note of 'really'. i find 'dreadfully' much more useful than 'really'. much stronger, gives a clearer indication of how bad it really is. 'really' doesn't do anything in this context, let alone be less pretentious.
The suggestion was pretty implicit in the original comment but I think making it explicit makes the tone of the comment friendlier. It shifts the focus away from just pointing out the bad to also focusing on how to be better.
> Also, what does 'expanding' even mean in this context? At no point did you give any constructive feedback (what should be improved, why is it low, why is it 'really low' etc).
Well sure, if I was the one actually giving the feedback, expanding even more would be even better. Even just the gestural focus on how to be better still does help the tone I think, though.
> on the note of 'really'. i find 'dreadfully' much more useful than 'really'. much stronger, gives a clearer indication of how bad it really is.
"dreadfully" is stronger than "really" but that doesn't make it clearer or more useful. "This is 5.6 bad points" is stronger than "this is 3.2 bad points", but without having any standard for what a "bad point" is, it doesn't really communicate any meaningful information. I think "dreadfully" similarly shifts the tone of the comment to being more negative without adding any real content.
> let alone be less pretentious
The pretentious-ness isn't as strong, but I think there's a hint of it that comes from using a "fancier" word without adding much actual content.
Also, I would not worry about making your site high-tech. Plain HTML is fine. A wall of text is fine. But I would focus more on explaining what you can do ("build a website supporting X", "integrate Facebook, cell phone, IoT alerts"; whatever), not the tools or languages you use. For extra credit, link to a few small examples to showcase some of the cool features you can do. My 2c.
Good luck!
They got me a really good long-term contract at my dream Drupal job a few months ago. Good luck!
also, there are many services out there that will export your linkedin profile as a resume.
good luck everyone, i might be joining you guys soon enough :P
In the Bay area, I passively get at least two recruiter reach outs per week and when I was set to actively looking, it was more like several per day. Some of them are highly targeted. For example, I've had a company reach out recently based on previous distributed column store experience.
Triplebyte is also pretty good, although it's heavily skewed towards startups.
Both of those options are pretty high return on little investment (a few hours).
Anybody interested, feel free to add me, my LI is in my profile.
This is an odd time for us. We're an online education non-profit. With all of the school closings[2], we're seeing a huge spike in traffic. Fortunately, our infrastructure can handle it, but we are still spending some effort staying on top of the rapidly changing traffic patterns.
Simultaneously, we're in the midst of a huge project to rebuild our backend (porting from Python 2 to Go)[3]. So we're juggling a lot right now, but will be fine.
If there are folks out there with backend skills in particular, we're hiring and our engineering team is half remote (all in the US/Canada).
[1]: https://www.khanacademy.org/careers
[2]: https://www.khanacademy.org/about/blog/post/6117702550643507...
[3]: http://engineering.khanacademy.org/posts/goliath.htm
But I'm unfortunately stuck in Sweden.
I honestly don't know why I even bothered to answer, but something about your post felt right and my intuition has served me well so far.
I'm afraid I don't have much backend stuff to show, as most of it is owned by respective customers. Privately I've mostly been designing my own scripting language embedded in Go [0] lately.
[0] https://github.com/codr7/gfoo
I can ask when I next meet with my manager, but I can say from my nearly 5 years at Khan that engineering has not desired to spread out beyond the timezones we're in. I did work for Mozilla for 4 years, so I do know that it can be done and what the tradeoffs are like. This is just not a step we've wanted to take at Khan.
What would be the reasons for that?
Out of curiosity, are you looking for any python dev's or people more familiar with Go?
Thank you!
Prior familiarity with Go is not required, and Python experience is still particularly valuable because we still have vastly more Python than Go.
My kids all reject the current interface. They loved the interface it had a few years back. In case you need more info to identify what I refer to, I'll describe it.
I'm pretty sure there was nothing but math. Each topic was represented by a circle, and each circle was connected to prerequisites. Kids would earn points in a simple way. Kids would also earn various astronomy-related badges.
The new system simply doesn't motivate any of my kids. It isn't a change in my kids; I have enough kids (twelve) to average that out. Kids who liked Khan Academy before now don't, complaining about the interface. Younger siblings, now the age at which the older siblings liked Khan Academy, also don't like it.
Also, a completely different matter: Last time I checked, which was some time ago, the video required YouTube. If I need to block YouTube, the video can't play. Hopefully you found a solution for that long ago.
We _do_ serve the video through YouTube by default, but we have a fallback video player that should kick in if YouTube isn't available.
My company is hiring in the US. We do runtime Linux protection & visibility. Looking for systems programmers with a background in OS development and web developers with a background in Go/Java/C# (we do Go) and TypeScript. If you're either, send your resume to the email in my profile.
I accept a job offer, put in my two weeks notice, and my last day at was last Friday. Hardly anyone was seriously concerned about COVID-19 when I gave notice. A week later, business travel was suspended and WFH policies implemented. My last day, schools were closing, and the economy tanked. This week, we're sheltering in place.
I gave myself 3 weeks in between the old and the new job, you know for relaxation and travel. Instead, I'm sequestered to my house for 3 weeks.
Everyday, the news got worse and worse and continues to get worse and worse. Now, I'm in between jobs, and am a little worried my new employer will revoke my job offer. To add insult to injury, one reason I didn't leave my previous job was job security. But in February, there wasn't any sign of an economic downturn. Everyone was enjoying the bull market.
Also, you could post on HN if they do withdraw the offer during this outbreak, so other people would know they suck.
So every company that lays off an employee "sucks"? I guess you're welcome to stay and work for free, but if they don't have money to pay you what are they supposed to do?
I agree this situation is terrible for the OP, but I don't think we need to name and shame every company that makes a prudent decision as the world moves in a abad direction...
I hope it works out though.
I've got a 4 year record of bi annual performance reviews where I've gotten 120% of the available performance based bonus, but I dont have tenure or anything. If my boss decides he hates my shoes and fires me, Im gone.
Not trying to bust your balls, but it's kind of weird you felt it was necessary to randomly humblebrag about your performance bonuses.
It's also why VP and above bonuses are written into our employment contracts -- we know better.
Also yeah, definition of "weird flex but ok".
I think they just used themselves as an example to provide the support that their argument wasn't coming from someone who values doing the bare minimum (which I've seen argued on yc a few times).
Details vary by company of course but the tiny percentage of people who earned >100% bonuses at companies I've worked at were exceptional performers.
That's not the point. The point is performance reviews are poorly correlated with actual job performance, they aren't designed to measure job performance.
Would you hire someone knowing nothing other than they got 120% bonus at their previous job?
First: I’m super sorry about what you’re going through and I hope things work out with your new employer.
Second: I worry that “nobody could have known” will be the narrative. A very large portion of my circles was aware that COVID was about to explode and that the prevention measures would either drastically slow the economy or not be taken and the impact would be worse. Super uncontroversial. And like, I’m just a guy.
On an individual level, that excuse is unfortunate, but the individual level doesn’t matter much (except for the individual, of course). On an institutional and a governance level, we’re likely to excuse the failures of our leaders because we ourselves weren’t paying attention.
I closed all my stock positions back when the first cases outside China started to pop up, and nobody seemed to care enough to control it. I've been buying puts ever since, and could not be happier. When life gives you lemons, you need to make a lemonade, and not make excuses for your bad calls.
I closed all my stock positions back when the first cases outside China started to pop up, and nobody seemed to care enough to control it. I've been buying puts ever since, and could not be happier. When life gives you lemons, you need to make a lemonade, and not make excuses for your bad calls.
The United States government was thoroughly informed of this risk via Operation Dark Winter but never geared up for it - perhaps this is best managed by states once the infection crosses the border, but preparations on those levels weren’t completed either.
Your circles seem to be the exception then. There are a lot of factors that affect personal perception of such matters, like proximity to inflicted areas, professional background (ex: medical), experiencing similar events in the past, etc.
In hindsight it seems obvious that the world wasn't paying attention. But it took until February for western countries to realize the epidemic was already out of control, and the markets reacted.
> prevention measures would either drastically slow the economy or not be taken and the impact would be worse
Anyone that knew this last month without a doubt could've made tons of money shorting positions in the stock market.
https://twitter.com/ESYudkowsky/status/1233174331133284353
Which brings an interesting question: how many of all the people you know who knew, yourself included, put their skin in the game and are now rich from the options they bought in January? If it is not many, I would argue it is better to say people suspected or feared, not that they knew.
I did, however, rebalance almost entirely out of stocks three weeks ago and while I am not "now rich", my portfolio is doing a hell of a lot better than most folks'.
I didn't even know that a "put" on the stock market was a thing until last week, and am not particularly interested in figuring out how to do that... But I did back out of buying a car because I thought I'd be better off to have the cash when this gets bad, and here we are now in this thread... Maybe next time (hopefully there isn't one) I'll figure out more of what a "put" actually is and how to get one
That being said, I did take what I felt was a risk at the time and shorted Royal Caribbean and Carnival Cruise lines which payed off, but I was not certain that at the time it would (if I was I would have risked a whole lot more), I went off a hunch once I started seeing them close the ports to cruise ships. I am now buying those stocks because I think their hit from CORVID-19 is priced in, but we will see. It's all a guessing game on good hunches. Hardly anybody saw it exploding (short of the doctors on the ground in Wuhan) and everyone was hoping that it was going to be contained in China just like SARS was.
The reality is, Doctors and the CDC do not make decisions on news reports they make them on papers and data from people on the ground. That data was actively being suppressed to some extent by China until it was too late. Sure there where rouge Chinese doctors in the media warning us (and they where right), but that is a thin straw to base policy on. Once the true data was out and the CDC could base guideline on it, it was already too late.
Also to note I am sorry and pray for those of you that are affected by this.
Ref: https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/31/21117403/trump-coronaviru...
My comment was in response to people not realizing this was a thing a month ago.
And then the House tried to remove Trump's travel ban: https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/12/house-committee-vot...
You can play politics or you can look at reality.
"The legislation would void all of Trump's executive actions establishing travel restrictions."
https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/2214...
page 9 Do you think the coronavirus epidemic is a national emergency? yes, democrats 81%; no, republicans 53%
page 18 Which cable news network do you watch the most? Democrats, 42% CNN, 48% MSNBC; Republicans, 89% Fox News
Trump himself has been downplaying it this whole time. https://www.factcheck.org/2020/03/trumps-statements-about-th...
But even if you saw it coming, how does this help now? Right, it doesn't.
That someone's circles saw it coming doesn't help. Wht you can do now helps. Unfortunately a lot of these folks are lacking in that department IMHO.
But every time there were people "predicting" the worst. This time they were coindentially correct. Not because they "knew", but because chance.
Big same. I'm just another software engineer, albeit one with a taste for international news and a few China-focused specialists & one or two PRCs citizens that I follow on Twitter.
This was predictable in early-mid Jan. Once the pics and discussion of the overloaded Wuhan hospitals and the measures the PRC had to take hit the English language world, it was pretty bloody obvious. The news had hit the popular English language papers by Jan 27[1], although I was reading about it somewhat earlier - Jan 12 at the latest[2]. A timeline can be found in [3]. Anyway, by Feb 1, institutions with a specialty in disease control should have been going full bore to address the incoming wave.
Our public health officials, the officials they advise, and other health institutions should be held up to scrutiny and not covered with glory dust just because they had to act by the pace of events.
[1] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7933719/Incredible-... [2] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/11/china-mystery-... [3] https://www.who.int/csr/don/12-january-2020-novel-coronaviru...
There is a real chance that our lockdown will kill more people through stress-induced heart attacks, suicides, and general fallout from food and income insecurity than the virus would have.
My only takeaway from all of this is that our hospital system is really, really bad at handling any kind of temporary spike in disease or death. And I'm upset with our governor for panicking and putting the entire service industry out of a job, which may actually cause harm to them in great numbers beyond a probably sub-1% chance of dying from a flu-like illness.
If the health system is overrun, and there are zero ICU beds or ventilators available, that number will go up quickly. THAT is the problem we are trying to avoid.
SARS experienced countries made very different decisions, over the past few months, and since 2003.
I don't think we should excuse the many failures of our leaders, but I also don't think the now-obvious economic impact of this crisis was that clearcut even a month ago.
Good way of looking at it.
Squeaky wheel gets the grease. Sometimes, there's nothing they can do (hiring freeze from the C-level); but other times, they need to turn 10 hires into 3. Those 3 typically end up being the ones who push for it.
Would definitely push on both fronts. Good luck!
I’m looking for remote roles exclusively. Now I’m not sure if the timing is perfect or just plain terrible:)
Also, I stopped reading the news. I just don’t think refreshing Twitter every 10 min whilst self isolating can be good to your mental health.
(email in profile)
I need to quit reading news...
And yes, don't check the news too often. The real world doesn't move as fast as the refresh button.
Had some time set aside for travel before I started, but then this all happened.
Could not have picked a less convenient time to try and travel and make money off SaaS / AppStore.
I remain optimistic and am expecting to learn so much more than I would have in the more comfortable market we are now leaving behind.
To health and family first though.
During these times when people are getting RIF'd (Reduction in Force), they're understandably panicked, nervous, in shock, etc. Most employees are not thinking of what service or product they can cobble together and bring to market, but how to swiftly rejoin the job market.
This leads to a shortage of new startups spinning up as well, because the economy has gone to the dumpster. Good times, bull markets and strong economies make everyone feel more confident. Who wants to gamble when the world is going to hades in a handbasket? Not a lot of people.
Then there's the cost factor. My experience during past financial implosions, demand for everything plummets. I get the idea we're living in more of a robber-baron era than even just 5 years ago, but still, you'll be able to negotiate everything from office rents to infrastructure, salaries of new hires, hotels and airfares for business travel.
Obviously, I am going to throw my hat into this ring for these very reasons. Good luck and good day!
Which is brilliant... :/
Fortunately they're rather a hitech company so I hope we can just work remotely.
Still have to go and collect laptop and rsa certs and such though...
For a long time, many people have said that my years of experience make me valuable so that I should have gotten offers very quickly, but the reality hasn't shown that. Heck, even the founder of the startup company has told me, when I asked for his reference, that he was "very confused" that I haven't found any work for so long. And that was only a year in.
He unfortunately can't give me work anymore as he's tied up with his business. He did consider me for a follow-up freelance job before, but that was more due to a technicality that they needed a US developer for a particular job.
After being evaluated on mock interviews, turns out I'm in the peculiar situation where I am too underqualified for my years. But at least I have some experience working remote that should make me more appealing to employers.
I just can't call it impostor syndrome anymore if I consistently fail at getting full-time offers even when the economic climate was good.
If it's just first impressions then I could be like a decent TV show but with a bad pilot. Seems like I might be an "acquired taste" kind of professional.
True. As if they expect every 80 year olds to be nobel laureates. The thing is those with power to hire are hardly smart people, they just happen to have the power to hire, by chance.
However the fact that you are using numbered levels instead of broader decscriptors like "junior" and "senior" means that we are thinking on different wavelengths. I guess you're talking Google-ese because it is harder to know what is "L3" without context.
I have obtained various kinds of feedback and working on some of my weaknesses, but "underqualified" and "repeating the same basic experience many times" are the most common themes.
1) Decide which software engineering related role you want to work on (e.g. web frontends)
2) Enumerate the top skills that are relevant to that role by visiting job postings in companies you would like to work for. e.g.: React.
3) Enumerate the subset of those skills that you have. Those are your strenghts. Work in acquiring the skills you do not yet have. Those are your weaknesses (for now).
4) Visit Linkedin profiles for random employed people in such roles in various companies you would like to work for. Compare that to your own Linkedin profile.
5) In your profile, emphasize your strengths, deemphasize your weaknesses, while working on them in your spare time. And most importantly, list your skills using the skills feature. Recruiters use that to find people.
Personally I think you should leave out all mentions to "looking for a job" and such. That is a red flag. You do not want to tell recruiters that your skills are in low demand.
Also try to keep your job descriptions consistent and relevant to your target role. Rather than "role 1/role 2/role 3", just pick the most favorable/relevant description for role and stick with that.
It usually takes me 1 month to find a job.
I would learn (or highlight it if you already know) React.js and Node.js immediately, along with Postgres and MongoDB. That should get a good boost to the resume.
If you are going full stack, you would definitely need to put in AWS, especially micro services and serverless experience along with golang if possible. You can also learn Python if you want to try your hands on Machine learning as well, but I would recommend just focussing on React and Node.js as they are low hanging fruits and there are good enough openings for those two alone..
I have been in your shoes before and I know it could be overwhelming but you can do it.
https://github.com/kamranahmedse/developer-roadmap
Adding Salesforce, Docker, AWS, PostgreSQL, mySQL, MS SQL and stuff like that sometimes get scraped as keywords.
Does anyone else think it's crazy that you need to know: React, node, Mongo, AWS, the Python machine learning stack, golang, a bunch of databases, microservice patterns, serverless infrastructure, Docker...to get a job in the tech industry?
Who are the people that actually know all this stuff?
Between my last two roles, familiarity and/or proficiency with the following technologies was required: React/Redux/JS/TS, Node/NPM, PostgreSQL, AWS (specifically Redis, ElasticSearch, Cloudwatch, CodePipeline, Lambda, S3, SQS, and RDS), Kotlin/Java/Spring/Maven/Gradle, C#/ASP.NET/MVC, Python, etc.
As well as testing frameworks / unit testing technologies like Selenium, JMeter, Postman/Chai, and Junit/Nunit/Pytest.
All of this hit me like a brick in the face over a 3 year period. I am NOT a master of any of them, but was definitely expected to be able to readily work with them. At times, it felt like I was supporting 5-6 different roles.
These were two startups with <100 people, so maybe that's why.
I think I've seen that roadmap diagram before and I notice that in every place I've worked/contracted at, their skills needs usually stop short after the "Version control" part. They don't do packages, modules and I am left in the dark about the deployment process. And I don't know if that lack of transparency of SDLC is done to me on purpose since for a long time I've been a contract dev hired to do some specific thing.
However, not everyone is privileged enough to go through the "standard techie" experience. Some of us never even heard about Leetcode until long after graduation, some of us only have experience in companies that don't believe in concepts like testing and good security.
Looks like the ideal places for me are somewhere that bridges the gap between the haves and the have-nots. A place that still has legacy work to be done but also is up to speed with newer things in other aspects. Does working at traditional F500 companies cut it?
I am not sure what your core skills are, but in my case if I want to go work for a bank, via referral I get an immediate response (and even one other bank intercepts the referral).
Without a referral I don't even get a response.
I don't socialize often to begin with but I always separate people into "family or friend" or "professional" buckets, never mixing the two.
I wrote "job" because working as a salaried employee is not the only way to make a living, or have a successful career. Consider that the freelance/contractor career you're currently having is 1) a career and 2) might be a better fit for you. Furthermore, some contractors I know make a lot more money than most of my salaried friends. The tradeoff being, of course, that you have no guarantees wrt to steadiness of your income (protip: salaried jobs come with no guarantees either, you could be out the next day, any day) and sometimes you have to chase down projects and deal with bad customers.
Sorry if something came out wrong, English isn't my first language.
Brevity is to be expected in contract jobs. But I don't know if you are purposely trying to discourage me from finding salaried work which is my main goal.
I actually don't like freelancing at all, I prefer lower risk than freelance, and it is not paying me well anyways. No exact numbers but I made under 5 figures last year. Not really great for a US freelancer. I only do this to make some ends meet while I'm searching for a FT job.
I wish you all the best in finding work as quickly as possible, sir.
Unless the whole economy tanks very badly, I don't expect any layoffs.
Right now, companies are buying VPN concentrators and the likes like crazy to support remote work. Supply chain delays do delay new projects that involve new hardware though.
0: https://angel.co/jobs
If anyone has a halfway decent idea for an app or website, I'm a UI guy with a lot of time on his hands.
[1] https://www.hackthebox.eu/ [2] https://www.offensive-security.com/pwk-oscp/ [3] https://www.metasploit.com/
If anyone would like to work on this kind of thing with me, feel free to get in touch. Who knows, it might actually get some traction.