HN Who is hiring job posts over time
With the economic downturn over the last year and the recent rounds of layoff news, I was curious to see if the "Ask HN: Who is hiring?" job posts reflected that.
Here's the code used to scrape HN API, kinda hacky: https://github.com/bfung/HNAnalytics
Here's the data and the a chart on [google sheets](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18kLWHkrEedpl1eXzAht_se8GEKd0G9zrlz7SutP2uLQ/edit#gid=846434603)
A few things stick out: Dec and Jan are low job post months, as it makes sense due to holidays and fiscal cycles, and it shows in the # of posts.
Hope this helps would be job hunters in preparing for the next few months.
82 comments
[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 171 ms ] threadhttps://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18kLWHkrEedpl1eXzAht_...
EDIT - actually, none of the urls are recognized as links.
Is there any easy way to correct for HN traffic? For example, is that what's driving the change in volume in 2016?
Hmmm I have a couple ideas, but nothing simple w/o some longer scraping or being able to find HN traffic data elsewhere.
This is interesting as it relates to price rather than ability to find a job. Things would have to change dramatically to reach a point where someone won't pay you minimum wage to do tech work, but as difficulty in fulfilling positions declines the need to pay extraordinary and increasing salaries will decline in kind. This does give a good idea about what's ahead for compensation adjustments. The double digit percentage pay bumps people were taking advantage of over the last couple of years is no doubt over (for now).
So I think a lower volume in the hiring thread has a stronger impact on people who are struggling, since they necessarily need to apply to a high number of places, compared to the impact on people who are going to get multiple competitive offers regardless.
I'm not sure that's the right perspective. It's true that offering Google a chance to hire you for minimum wage isn't going to win you a seat. But most potential employers aren't putting themselves in front of the market because they believe nobody out there will work for less than a healthy six figures (or whatever).
I walk down the street of a small town and see endless businesses who understand where they could improve their business with tech, but also know they'd be bankrupted in a matter of days if they had to pay FAANG-level salaries. They don't even bother trying to hire tech talent. At $7.25 per hour, however, now you've got their interest.
Most tech employers who make job posts might be happy if you suggest a salary near the bottom of the range they've already decided for the position, but will absolutely take it as a negative if you come in far below their range, especially if it's clear you're doing that because you're desperate.
I'm not arguing anything. There is nothing here to argue. Nor would I enter into an argument. I can think of nothing more boring.
> literally walking down the street and offering to help random businesses for $7.25 an hour is so far from HN hiring, or really any salaried tech hiring
Because the topic is price. Price exists specifically to guide allocation of scarce resources. The scarcer a resource, the higher the price, the more buyers pushed out of the market. Conversely, the more available the resource, the lower the price, the more buyers able to participate in the market. Just plain old supply and demand.
Like I said originally, things would have to change dramatically for things to end up where nobody would hire you even for minimum wage. Without some kind of fundamental shift, there is effectively no chance of developers not being able to find work. What is more realistic is someone not being able to find work at the price they'd like. If you're accustomed to making $200k per year, get laid off, and those hiring are only offering $120k that can be a hard pill to swallow. Many will hold out for a better offer. Eventually, though, hunger sets in and you may be forced to take the $120k job. If things are really bad, $120k might be more than you can hope for.
> I'm not sure why you bring it up
There was some confusion about the earlier comment and I found enjoyment in expanding upon it. Perhaps there still is confusion, but oh well.
This all leads into the question of how rational and efficient the hiring market for developers is. I would say this is at least an open question, to put it mildly.
I am quite specifically talking about price. Maybe you still carry confusion. Maybe you replied to the wrong thread. Maybe you're desperate for that argument you hoped I was engaging in. But whatever it is, we're not talking about that. That is certain.
I explicitly acknowledged and agreed with your statement. What you said jives with what I said. Which stands to reason as there is nothing to argue here, as we covered earlier.
Indeed, you originally came at the subject from a different angle and I did point that out to orient ourselves on the same plane to make communication easier, but nothing about the subject changes as it relates to the angle of approach. The destination is the same no matter what direction you come from.
We can certainly work from different angles, but it will be more work. That said, I'm not sure what is left to work on. Your comment merely indicates that you also recognize that we're not coming at this from the same angle, which is something that we already established many comments ago. This suggests to me that the meat of discussion has already reached its natural end.
There are places like Upwork and fiverr where people are hiring cheap programmers to work on things like their small wordpress site. They aren't fun to work on and there is a lot of competition from lower cost of living parts of the world, but they do exist.
Once you have a "foot in the door" and some proven industry experience you'll find getting work a lot easier. It took me about six months after I first started applying to secure my first development job in 2019, and now I have tons of recruiters messaging me daily about new opportunities.
Brands go on sale to move excess inventory or to try to convert skeptical shoppers into becoming loyal to the brand later on at full price. However for better or worse there's no way for a job seeker to put themselves temporarily on sale. You can't work at a discount without devaluing yourself. This is important to understand because it means that it's not entirely about job seekers simply accepting lower pay.
Thing is though, HN Hiring posts seem very FAANG and (even more) startup-biased? The S&P500 is more than that.
It seems to be almost 100% small and medium tech startups.
On the other hand, lot's of companies that show up in places like HN you might not even know exist.
I think now they learned to specify in the job post that what they meannis actually “remote (us)”. Which is great, saves everyone’s time.
(I'm outside of the US)
I'm seeing a lot of hiring for senior positions. I'm getting more, not fewer emails for interviews as a CTO. Meanwhile, it seems like unless a new grad is headed to a FAANG they are not finding jobs the way they were a year ago.
This is how things started in 2007, anecdotally. The ladder got pulled up earlier in the year, and then right around the holiday season everything fell apart. It took a good 2-3 years for everything to recover, but in that time salaries were down roughly 20-30%.
If what you really mean is that banks are trying to poach the same handful of employees from each other, then I can see why that would be a challenge.
From a big company's careers page, enterprise hiring starts with application systems requiring accounts and asking questions like they're running a federal background check. It's a big signal of disinterest. When you say banks are hiring like mad I trust you don't mean they're relying on experts going through the front door.
Developing or fresh developed countries have insane growth opportunities for devs.
Companies are running away from US and similar expensive/costly places.
Yes. It really sucks for new graduates and entry-level because all of a sudden you are competing with people with years of experience for the same salary and position.
Also importantly, the consequences of graduating into a recession can be quite lasting. Based on research going into the last recession ('08), it takes up to 10 for the effects to disappear[1]. And if your base case is the last couple of years in software - well it seems likely that was a huge bubble that won't be replicated any time soon.
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[1] https://www.nber.org/digest/nov06/career-effects-graduating-...
The fact that I was good enough for a FAANG company, but unhirable to almost everyone else is a bit beyond me.
From my POV, this is like university, but easier, and I get paid.
I have been told by people in r/cscareerquestionsEU that I may be too expensive due to master's but the "absence" of experience to make me unemployable.
Only a single startup gave me the chance to prove that I can get things done.
FAANG on the other hand seems to care about getting things done, or as we say, having a bias for action.
Yep, totally, very small picture.
Personal experience, though, I was laid off in August 2022, first time in my 18+ year career. I found something else, but recently, many friends and ex-coworkers also were laid off from twitter, meta, and other techs.
Hence I finally had time on my hands to code this up while waiting on interviews and such.
Or, they are growing at a rate that supports a hire every month or three?
The companies I’ve been with, I’ve always pushed recruiting to post here as a high quality source for leads.
how come we didnt feel it back then?