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▲ CoastalCoder 6 hours ago

I was unemployed for 14 months in 2023/2024.

It definitely hit my self-esteem, as well as 401(k).

I ended up taking a job with Microsoft, but it was a poor fit because I hate the company as well as the product area I was in.

As soon as I could I found another employer that, while not perfect, I'm much happier with.

▲martin-t 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

And this is how corrupt abusive companies can keep thriving. People will tell you "vote with your feet" from their high horse but it just doesn't work. These companies will always find somebody else to fill that role. The person needs the job more than the company does.

EDIT: Oh, wow, so much disagreement. 30 minutes, 3 downvotes, 0 comments. So tell me _where_ I am wrong.

▲nosefurhairdo 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Microsoft is not an abusive employer. Most people today or at any point in human history would envy the typical Microsoft job. Pretty much all large tech companies are similar in this respect. If your employer is actually abusing you in some way you should contact a lawyer. If you simply have a distaste for your employer you should seek alternative employment.

The defeatist "all corps are evil" mentality will not do you any good.

▲martin-t 5 hours ago | parent [-]

I didn't say it's an abusive employer but an abusive company.

It always fought against open source. Embrace, extend, extinguish. It always stifled innovation. Internet Explorer 6. And now, it bought GitHub and then plagiarized all public and private projects hosted on it. GPL cannot exist in a world where you can build a statistical model of the code and mechanically reproduce its functionality while somehow losing the GPL licensing in the process.

Also, calling it "defeatist" has no base in what I wrote. I didn't even write anything about corporations. Abuse has a much simpler description - using a power differential to benefit yourself at other people's expense.

▲nosefurhairdo 4 hours ago | parent [-]

> I didn't say it's an abusive employer but an abusive company.

A confusing distinction to make in a thread about employment.

> It always fought against open source.

They've since admitted this was a mistake, and in 2020 were cited as the single largest contributor to open source projects: https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/18/21262103/microsoft-open-s...

> And now, it bought GitHub and then plagiarized all public and private projects hosted on it.

This is news to me. Are you claiming Microsoft/GitHub used or sold private source code for training LLMs?

▲martin-t an hour ago | parent [-]

> They've since admitted this was a mistake

Don't anthropomorphize organizations. It was no longer beneficial for them to openly fight open source so instead the people in charge decided they needed to get developer mindshare by changing their public signaling. The sad thing is many people fell for it. They can just as easily switch back at any time when it becomes beneficial.

BTW, the phrasing "Microsoft has embraced open source" is very ironic and given my previous paragraph, it is a nice foreshadowing or what can come next at any time.

> Are you claiming Microsoft/GitHub used or sold private source code for training LLMs?

I have not seen it denied in any official communication. After skimming this question[0], nobody else could either and the phrasing in their FAQ is oddly specific about Business and Enterprise. So yes, given their patterns of behavior, it's very likely and I will consider it true until proven otherwise.

But that's not the biggest issue. That is that every LLM or LLM-adjacent company (Microsoft included) seems to suddenly argue that a mechanical transformation of input data is enough to erase licensing and attribution.[1] Free software licenses like GPL simple cannot exist in this environment. In fact, any licenses would have exactly 0 meaning.

See a program you want with a license you don't want? Just run it through a sufficiently complex black box and out the other side you have an identically behaving program which according to big-tech has no relation to the input. You can even do this with closed source software if you run it through a decompiler first.

I recall a MS CEO shouting something about developers when developers were the thing they needed most. Now they can train NNs on the devs' own work to imitate and replace the devs so devs are no longer valuable and get thrown under the bus.

Oh and MS employees are apparently forced to use LLMs by management...

[0]: https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/135400

[1]: This is a convenient 180° turn after for example people who had ever seen windows source code could not contribute to wine.

▲derektank 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I don't think anybody needs a job at Microsoft. The compensation is well above the US median income. If you believe Microsoft to be corrupt and abusive (I personally don't but reasonable people can disagree) there are many other opportunities to work for more virtuous organizations if you're willing to accept lower compensation.

▲throw81398475 28 minutes ago | parent [-]

I see this sentiment (that if someone can get a FANG job then they can get a startup job easily) on here all the time, and it is a belief that needs to die.

When I took an offer at Google I had literally been searching for months and had no other offers.

Years later, after a couple years career break I had been searching for months and could hardly get startups to talk to me, but X and Meta seemed very interested (I was not interested in them).

I know it sounds intuitive that if someone can land a gig at one of the large companies then they can easily get a job at someplace that's doing "good work" but this is often not the case.

▲freetime2 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I think it's probably not your intent, but this sort of feels like a humble brag. Reason being that 14 months is far short of "over two years", and I think that a job offer from Microsoft is something that a lot of people would be thrilled with.

▲windowshopping 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

It didn't come across to me that way at all, not even a little.

▲melenaboija 6 hours ago | parent [-]

Because you might be in a similar situation.

Don't know if true and if not might be close, but I recently saw the average compensation at Microsoft is ~200k...

▲CoastalCoder 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I was paid closer to $145k while at Microsoft, and the health insurance fory locality kinda sucked (according to my wife, who manages that part of our lives).

And I didn't stay long enough fory stock grant to vest at all (IIRC).

▲confidantlake 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I got lowballed by a certain washington state based company. Was no where close to that number.

Edit: was slightly lower than the number the sibling comment mentioned.

▲CoastalCoder 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I was paid closer to $145k while at Microsoft, and the health insurance fory locality kinda sucked (according to my wife, who manages that part of our lives).

▲CoastalCoder 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I appreciate the feedback. I often fail to anticipate how my words will be heard until it's too late.

FWIW, the main points I was trying to convey are:

1) Even 14 months was really hard me.

2) Only because I had a 401(k) to tap did I avoid disaster.

3) Even after long unemployment there can, in some cases, be a path back to a reasonable career.

▲apsurd 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I guess I get it, but also the person just answered the question.

I'm commenting because I get self-conscious of over sharing. Being asked a direct question and answering it, should be good shouldn't it?

▲freetime2 6 hours ago | parent [-]

I don't really agree that they answered the question directly. The OP asks:

> Has anyone else been unemployed for over two years? How are you coping?

I view the first question as actually being more of a selector trying to narrow down the discussion to people who are in the same boat and are currently unemployed for 2+ years. So not applicable to the parent. And they don't even attempt to answer the second question.

Of course anyone is free to comment on HN, and discussions in comments frequently go off topic. And I do think that 14 months is a long enough time to be able to empathize with with the OP is going through.

But I guess what I personally would like to have seen is some acknowledgement that "I know the question was directed at people who are unemployed for 2+ years, but..." and trying to answer the OPs question of how to cope. And also some acknowledgement that a job at Microsoft, while maybe not a good fit for the parent, is actually quite a privilege.

▲Aurornis 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

It's relevant even if not a perfect match.

Discouraging people from posting positive anecdotes is not the goal, either. If anything, positive stories are very valuable in threads like this.