Ask HN: How is your job search going?

I've been having big time imposter syndrome lately, too. I haven't received a single offer in any of the interviews I've been doing, either. It's been especially hard to keep that at bay after getting laid off again, but that's how this economy seems to be going for the foreseeable future.

If it helps, some of the most successful people I know made their achievements by taking a risk on their current capabilities. It's obvious to say, but the best way to grow is to be in a position where you have a good growth opportunity - and inherently, that means you'll be swimming in a slightly bigger pond than you're comfortable in.

I don't know anything about the specifics of your situation, so definitely discount this advice if it's not applicable - but remember that every high level / successful person had to be, at some point, wholly out of their depth in order to rise to the occasion!

Not necessarily true. The types, locations, and pay of roles vary, and HN can create a type of confirmation bias. Boring jobs looking to hire on the lower end can't really be compared with the senior who is used to making $300k with equity.

There's been a bit of a tech bubble lately. Salaries got higher than they would have, because a lot of it was fueled by VC and crypto money. People kept the dot com boom in mind back when apps were booming, but not with crypto and FAANG. Nobody wants to take a pay cut, go to a $250k job after a $300k job.

There's still junior roles and with AI coming up, there's plenty of new stuff that many seniors won't touch. I got my ticket into tech back when everyone wanted to do iOS and Windows Phone, and Android was some runt that even BlackBerry users laughed at. Did desktop to mobile redesigns, which led to responsive web work, and just building apps. There's very likely plenty of new jobs which seniors won't take. Heck, there's still a gap in the market for Flutter jobs here - seniors tend to go for native Android/iOS or React Native because they want to take advantage of the 10 years of experience.

Please do not take the internet so seriously.

You would be a fool to “await your cue” just because of scary stories. As a junior you can start anywhere.

Based on my personal experience, interviewing for senior roles in technology feels much more difficult than the interviews I did for a junior or mid level roles. Interviewing in general, is like a Venn diagram where your experience and the interviewer's experience are the circles and you need to find a way to ensure that the questions being asked end up in the intersection where you both know well enough to showcase your skills.

As the role one is applying for more gets more senior, the larger the circles on both sides become, and it sometimes ends up being too hard to get to that intersection in the short duration of an interview.

That being said, I would recommend to to start applying for jobs, since the interview experience itself would be helpful to understand where you might need to improve.

Can't seem to filter/search by Role. Also a lot of dead/expired positions.

Just checked this out, I'll give it a shot for sure.

Some thing to consider is make the tags case insensitive and just better. For example if I am trying to find Typescript roles there are tags for "Typescript", "TypeScript", "typescript", "TypeScript/JavaScript", "JavaScript/TypeScript", "Javascript/Typescript" and it goes on and on.

Can I ask where are you based? Generally speaking I haven't really encountered with leetcode or design pattern type of questions, but I was mostly interviewed by Tier 1 and 2 [1] companies, and for junior-mid positions, and I live in Denmark.

[1]: https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/software-engineering-sala...

I've been interviewing a lot lately (naturally) and I've had a similar experience. I keep getting really good initial feedback on my resume, make it through several rounds of interviews with more good feedback, and then come out the other side with "We're reprioritizing our 2024 plans" or some version on that theme.

I feel you on the point about missteps. It boggles my mind that negligible things like 'not quite enough detail in an answer' is enough to offset my years of highly relevant experience, obvious enthusiasm, and solid CV and get me rejected out of the process.

I would love to meet the candidates that beat me to these roles. I tell myself they are simply me, but more polished and more FAANG. So I never stood a chance.

Make sure to leave Glassdoor reviews for them. I feel like these “picky” places have nefarious intentions by being so quick to dismiss candidates. They are probably trying to overwork their current staff but make it seem like help is on the way or resume farming for market data. Being clueless about hiring is another potential reason but there’s no excuse for the level of circus monkeying they’re expecting unless they’re just pretentious.

Curious which markets you applied to. I assume it's not so bad that you're applying to flip burgers. But is it all Silicon Valley stuff?

Have you tried, say, some cosmetics brand that needs a Shopify site updated?

Gov jobs? I had a friend who was a star at a startup, but couldn't do the crazy hours after an injury, but she still makes decent money and gets a pension at a large organization with low expectations.

Sales engineer jobs? Normally sales jobs are still high demand during a recession and some roles require technical experience.

Also you could try jobs outside your country. Some may not pay as well in cash and may not get the same level of savings, but an experienced engineer could get a job that pays top 5-10% and get a luxurious life compared to the local living expenses. I think Mexico pays quite well, but you can also look to places like India as well.

Still, best of luck in your job search. Honestly, I have reason to believe it may dip worse, so you might want to consider looking into a lower league.

How many years experience and education? What is your skill set?

Was in the exact same boat but luckily an old coworker gave me a referral and fingers crossed it looks like it may pan out but this economy is the worst I’ve seen in over 10 years.

Stories like yours absolutely kill me and I feel so much anger toward the management class that thought it would be a good idea to overhire to such an extent and cut us off like it doesn't matter. I know this is unpopular on HN, but I have never felt more cynical about founders than I have as of late. Almost every founder i've spoken too seems to be drinking from the same jar of koolaid and thinks of workers as dispensable resources that can be let go off in a moments notice. I hate that this is what we've come to.

What city are you looking for roles in?

Placer.ai

https://www.placer.ai/company/we-are-hiring

I’m in the states.

I think things will pick up in the new year too, I’ve had a few replies telling me to contact them again in January or February so that’s sort of hopeful.

two of my friends in VC say that their respective firms have tons of capital ready to deploy but that their bosses are being extremely choosy. I think right now it’s almost like they’re waiting to see how the new year goes and how AI stuff shakes out.

If I may rant for a bit: I do hate how my aspect of the job market can feel like "guess the interview format". If I see a position marked "Unreal Engine Senior Graphics programmer", I have anywhere from

- core graphics programmer knowledge - Unreal engine specific knowledge - c++ general knowledge - fundamental Comp Sci knowledge (data structure concept, heaps, performance) - Software engineering knowledge (GoF software patterns, coding structure, etc.)

Or you know, I could still end up being metaphorically asked (or literally) to invert a binary tree. These aren't theoretical either, I've been quizzed on all these topics the past 3 months.

Like, none of these are hard for me, but if you want a confident, knowledgeable interview where I talk off the cuff about these I'd probably want some prep time. But alas, I was screened out almost every time, for reasons that may or may not even have to do with any of the above. I try not to blame myself and just accept that everyone's having a bad time, but not knowing how else to improve for test, or even WHAT they want to test me on feels discouraging. Why bother continuing to tinker on my renderer if they are just going to leetcode me? Why bother grinding leetcode (which I hate, mind you) if instead I end up in a role that never asks any?

I agree things will pick up in January. In the meantime I'll probably just relax and let interviews come to me.

I'm also in LA and having a similar experience. Not much of an AI startup boom. I was hoping on finding something of a hybrid situation after being tired of fully remote.

It was not Helsing, sorry. The challenge was to build a zero-knowledge implementation from scratch as an auth/login server. I was able to get it working, but I spent a non-trivial amount of time on it, which is the real story of my job search lately. It's a part-time job just to keep up with code challenges while I'm applying this often for work.

I am in the US, but otherwise your situation highly resonates with me, and I feel your description could be used to describe my own search.

I've been looking, applying, and interviewing (though not as often as I would like nor expect from my volume of applications) for 8 months. After some recent disappointing news, I am looking to be moving away from software development and systems-at-scale roles, and spending more time and effort at IT support / system administration roles in the future as I can't help but feel the industry just isn't interested in any desire to grow and develop professionally, they just want the perfect applicant that has already used the technologies they need for 2-5 years and won't waste time on anyone else.

It doesn't help my own confidence that I have "FAANG" experience (I'll leave it to the reader to decide which FAANG belongs in quotes), and it hasn't helped my response rate or evaluations.

In any case, it's disapointing, and I feel your struggles. I wish you the best, and hopefully your newfound perspective separating the CV and the interview will help you spend less time and anguish over the less important parts

> if I can't give them what they want

I don't know if it helps or not, but getting rejected does not always mean that you cannot give them what they want. It means that they found someone else who can and chose them. You never know if your rejection was a case of them not liking you at all vs. them being really crushed by having to choose between you and another person, both of whom they really liked.

nah, it's the economy. You're not going to want to take risks starting up stuff and you'll get more frustrated job seekers (like me) when money is looking tight.

Hard to tell if the bubble has bursted right now, gotta wait until the economy recovers. But something tells me the FAANG companies aren't gonna go bust all of a sudden over this.