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Swizec 6 hours ago

> Nice severance; but in this job market, holy shit.

I just talked to a bunch of recruiters (we're hiring) and their main piece of advice was: The market is crazy. Move fast. We're seeing people getting jobs within days of starting to look, bailing on offers after signing because they got a better offer somewhere else, etc. 24 hours is the longest you can leave a candidate waiting. You have been warned

edit: I am in SFBA. Your reality may be different. People have spilled some 2 trillion dollars onto the area in the past 2 years. A lot of that is going to software engineers as everyone tries to shove AI down consumers' throats. Rents are up 60% in 12 months, which is not the sign of a cold employment market :)

tombert 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I'm in NYC which I think has similar demographics to SF in this regard; I found my job in August of last year, after about five months of searching, and I found it because a friend of mine referred me. It's a good job, and I like it, I'm grateful for that friend.

Regardless, it's not like that was the only job I applied to. I had a policy of applying to at least ten jobs a day, so I applied to about ~1500 jobs, and literally all of them rejected me except for the one I have right now. I had about twenty other interviews (edit: 15, checked my calendar from last year), a few that got to late stages, and they didn't pan out [1].

I psychotically save money so I wasn't worried in any kind of existential sense, I could survive for years if I needed, but man I would have killed to be in a situation where I even had the opportunity to bail on an offer.

This has been the worst economy for software engineers I've seen in my ~15 year career. I am slightly optimistic that it will improve eventually but I suspect "eventually" might mean several more years.

[1] And one at a one of the world's largest bank (that my lawyer/mom has advised me not to name publicly) where my interviewers were potentially the most incompetent people I have ever talked to and who didn't seem to know what an atomic was in Java, and "corrected" my counter code with a mutex. And I put "corrected" in quotes, because what they corrected it to would deadlock. Morons.

eitally an hour ago | parent | next [-]

The trick to applying these days is to have a contact on the inside that can tell you what the hiring manager is actually looking for, vs what's in the public JD, and then to refer you.

That doesn't scale to 10 jobs/day for very long because almost nobody has a network that big. If you don't land something through referral to the hiring manager, it's mostly a crap shoot these days.

garbawarb 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I'm a senior in NYC, considering changing jobs but haven't pulled the trigger. I've got a good amount of reachouts from finance recruiters and small-to-medium sized startups but haven't heard anything from the established players (admittedly I haven't been looking).

tombert 2 hours ago | parent [-]

I got a number of finance recruiters reaching out then too but nothing stuck. I got a few interviews (even got to meet a few interesting characters like Martin Shkreli) but nothing panned out until my friend gave me a referral to my current gig.

I think recruiters will just carpet bomb emails out and then only respond like ten percent of the people that email them back.

vedaba 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Blink once if the bank rhymed with face

tombert 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Not that one.

I think there's MORe to GAiN from STAyiNg away from this deLicatE storY.

Sorry my keyboard acted up and I can't seem to delete that sentence.

mwigdahl 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You're hiring, so of course that's the message you're getting from recruiters. "Market is hot", so take their candidates quick before someone else snaps them up. Don't believe this line without confirmation.

thepasswordis 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

No, that's just the reality of the market right now. Software engineers are an extremely hot field, likely because everybody is trying to add AI to their products.

https://www.citadelsecurities.com/news-and-insights/2026-glo...

loktarogar 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I'm an software engineer with 17 years experience and I can't even get an interview at most places I put my resume in to.

davidw 5 hours ago | parent [-]

I'm being very picky with what I look at, which doesn't help, but yeah, it doesn't seem great. Maybe they're all in person gigs? Or is there some ageism? (There has always been some ageism in software)

_delirium an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Largely in-person gigs in the SF Bay Area, yeah. One reason the rents are up so much.

3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]
[deleted]
ph4rsikal 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

[flagged]

iAMkenough 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Easier to hire consultants to add AI to do your software engineering for you than temporarily hire humans with needs and benefit costs to add AI to do your software engineering for you.

operatingthetan 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Yeah that would make me consider finding a different recruiter. Real estate agent mentality means their interests are not aligned properly.

davidw 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Is this hiring people to dig ditches for data center infrastructure or something? Because it doesn't sound like software.

Swizec 5 hours ago | parent [-]

Just the current reality in SFBA. People have spilled some 2 trillion dollars onto the area in the past 2 years. A lot of that is going to software engineers as everyone tries to shove AI down consumers' throats.

VBprogrammer 5 hours ago | parent [-]

Not being obtuse, I even googled it, but I have no idea what SFBA is in this context. I'm assuming it's not to do with windsurfing in the San Francisco Bay Area or some kind of insulation. Could you elaborate?

ianbutler 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

They're just saying the job market is hot in the location of the S (San) F (Francisco) B (Bay) A (Area) it's not cryptic, I'll assume you had a brain fart here it happens.

Unless I'm getting whooshed now lol, but yeah the market here is just super hot because all the AI money sloshing around.

ericmay 3 hours ago | parent [-]

For what it's worth I actually took "SFBA" and Googled it because I wasn't sure either. I've always heard of it referred to as SF or SV. Learn new stuff every day.

jahlove 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

you're so close!

nick32661123 4 hours ago | parent [-]

So, onsite work in an area with no available housing?

davidw 4 hours ago | parent [-]

Probably a bunch of performative 9-9-6 BS too.

WatchDog 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Pre-covid, and during the early covid hiring spree, I used to get messages from eager recruiters every week, I get maybe one a month these days, and they are much more tepid.

garbawarb 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

To anyone who's been looking for SWE jobs lately, has this been your experience?

sickcodebruh an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Started looking in November, four offers by end of January, all decent, last two competing offers were fantastic with great companies and I accepted one. Past few months and even now I’ve had more inbounds from recruiters than any time since Covid boom. Offer salaries aren’t as high as Covid boom days but there are a ton of startups that need people.

shaftway 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I've actually had really positive responses. I'm fairly senior (~20 years of experience). I was laid off by Meta in 2022, started at Block 3 months later. Laid off by Block in 2024, started at a smaller company 1 month later. Decided to leave that company in early 2025, contacted one company from a HN Who's Hiring post and took that job. That ended up being a poor fit, and I went back to a FAANG around July of 2025.

In the last three transitions I applied to a grand total of 5 companies.

Also, looking at the recruiter emails I've been getting, they've been ramping up over the last few months, and I'm back up to one or two cold emails per week.

But again, I'm fairly senior, and I have deep domain knowledge in a few key areas. I understand the market is brutal if you're early career or your knowledge isn't "T" shaped.

Rapzid 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Also getting lot's of direct recruiter and engineering leadership pings.

etimberg 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Eng leadership pings seems to be one of the few strategies that's been working on the hiring side for finding great talent the last few months

yogorenapan 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Wildy varies. I'm a new grad and got my first offer after 8 applications and got another offer last week unprompted. Meanwhile my friend graduating from the same university has done 300 applications and a couple dozen interviews with no offer.

wavemode 4 hours ago | parent [-]

What differentiates your resume from your friend's?

malfist 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Just left amazon for Stripe. Not part of a layoff. It wasn't too bad for me. Remote middle of the country too

littlexsparkee 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Zumper says 15.6% on 1b, 21.3% on 2b - how did you get to 60? https://www.zumper.com/rent-research/national-rent-report

kermatt 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> 24 hours is the longest you can leave a candidate waiting. You have been warned.

Need to tell more recruiters.

tayo42 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> I am in SFBA. Your reality may be different.

With my current job search I've got the sense that sf is once again the place to be. Everything else kind of sucks, lots went back on remote work.

Grosvenor 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Can you give me your recruiters number?

operatingthetan 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

It seems like the tech job market is exactly the opposite of this right now? Could you be more specific?

ej88 5 hours ago | parent [-]

trimodal swe compensation (elite, big tech, everyone else) extends to the job markets too

operatingthetan 5 hours ago | parent [-]

They generalized "the market." I know a lot of out of work SWEs right now.

ej88 5 hours ago | parent [-]

is there any data about the overall job market on whether it's been good or bad? genuinely curious the most recent data point shows a rebound https://www.citadelsecurities.com/news-and-insights/2026-glo...

and fwiw i dont know any swes struggling to find work personally

swe is so broad and in bubbles its hard to get an objective analysis

Swizec 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Software development jobs are up 10%. Jobs in general are down 6%

https://x.com/perborgen/status/2025890393166917857

dk8996 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I collect data from "Who wants to be hired" threads. This month is one of the highest in years.

yesb 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You'd think "past year" would include a full 12 months. This person has chosen a ~10 month period to hide the large drop off in early 2025 as you can see here: https://www.citadelsecurities.com/news-and-insights/2026-glo...

Ariarule an hour ago | parent [-]

They did not, you get the same date range and the same graph shape going to FRED and pressing the "1Y" option, and the series includes the first two months of 2026 so it's 12 months: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1SGzm

However, the chart settings were actually modified to hide/deemphasize the earlier decline: the the index date was changed. 2025-02-20=100 in their graph, default of 2020-02-01=100 would have the chart start at 64 and rise to 71.44.

jibe 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Job openings are down, but total jobs are up.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PAYEMS

yesb 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Their graph shows a rebound to early-mid 2024 levels which is promising but still a relatively bad job market

ej88 3 hours ago | parent [-]

i guess it depends on what you define as bad and what that threshold is

https://trueup.io/job-trend

this tracker shows continuous improvement since 2023

yesb 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Sure, I assumed status quo everyone is talking about is basically the several years before that graph. I still think it's relatively bad compared to that despite the modest improvement.

What's not shown in a graph of job postings is the demand side. With all the layoffs, out of work college grads, people staying put in jobs they are unhappy with, etc., I'd wager that demand per job is still at a historically high level compared to what we have been accustomed to