The US tech job market is worse than I thought.

[@ball-e]

They won't give you feedback, but they'll send you a survey to improve their interview process

[@jmg9509]

Lmao, imagine.

[@MarkFilip-e4s]

The irony is palpable! They can't be bothered to tell you why they rejected you, but they expect a detailed survey response. I'm so over it. I actually used an AI service during my last interview rounds. It felt strange at first, but it helped level the playing field. The questions were so specific, I wouldn't have stood a chance otherwise. Now I'm thankfully past the interview stage and actually working. This video's advice is great for those still stuck in the application process though!

[@NickBrian-x6h]

@@MarkFilip-e4s Seriously, what AI service? Don't leave us hanging! I need all the help I can get.

[@MarkFilip-e4s]

@@NickBrian-x6h just saw your comment, it was called interview hammer. please note this is not useful if you don't know what you are talking about since the interviewer would notice you reading, you need to know the answer and use this as a memory refresher.

[@Alexandre5]

@@MarkFilip-e4s that's quite an elaborate ad, but lying is not a very good way to promote your product

[@chanrox69]

Interviewed with 20+ companies only to realize that they don't have an intention to hire. The roles have been apparently open for 6 months

[@SinCityGT3]

Every company is "hiring" if they see someone that looks like a 100x programmer.

[@chanrox69]

@SinCityGT3 100x developers don't need a job

[@catofdeepblack]

There is also an option that you weren't good enough, and they do not want to hire whoever.

[@chanrox69]

@catofdeepblack You're not wrong. I definitely screwed up my initial interviews and I wasn't good enough

[@SinCityGT3]

@@catofdeepblack thats possible. But I've worked for 2 companies that were always "hiring" and interviewing but never made an offer unless they interviewed someone that was staff at Google/meta.

[@juggles5474]

I’m done with tech. Got a job in an architecture firm and if this is my last coding job ever, I won’t be too sad. I’d rather work construction than face another hiring panel of sociopathic, antisocial, unfeeling losers who relate more to computers than humans. I used to do leetcode but I will not any longer. Life is way too short for that bullshit.

[@saphone9758]

Construction can be a great job man!

[@martinlutherkingjr.5582]

@@saphone9758Not for your body though

[@kmichal456]

Accepted an offer from faang company. You are not only competing with other applicants. You are also competing with internal transfers.

[@JacobChencha]

Congratulations

[@crimpers5543]

tc?

[@scalpertcg6179]

This is literally me but in the healthcare finance industry

[@nikolat_272]

What do you mean by internal transfers

[@jaycool9480]

@@nikolat_272when employees inside the company already transfer to another department. But external candidates are competing with internal referrals/recommendations and transfers. The latter of which will get you the job faster and quicker than the rest.

[@nonequivalence1864]

I've been full stack engineer for over 7yrs. Got my CS degree. Worked at a startup from seed round all the way to acquisition. Now working at a larger company. I'm DONE with tech. The interviews are disrespectful and are questions that the interviewers can't even answer themselves. It's all one big joke. All companies out there are a joke. I know what I'm talking about. I've been through the depths of hell and came out on the other side. Tech is cut-throat, evil, brutal, unfair, biased and toxic. I'm transitioning to real estate. Yeah, the grass ain't greener on the other side but dealing with code makes me sick just thinking about it. I used to love coding. Now, I despise it. I got fooled into thinking CS was the way to go. Boy, was I wrong.

[@MartinoNotts]

Definitely the interview process feels inhumane in some way; reductionist and not respectful or empowering in my experience. But if coding and tech is all we know, what are we to do? AI is here to take visual design jobs (at the low-mid end) and in time, for coders too. Maybe we have to switch to Product, or become redundant?

[@Prounounced]

the whiplash from 'Tech is cut-throat, evil, brutal, unfair, biased and toxic.' to ' I'm transitioning to real estate' is wild. Best of luck

[@kl3664]

I went to a developer Bootcamp right when AI was coming out after my business of 10 years went through post-covid changes and bad partners. Now, I just trade full time solo and make more than a senior dev. Always been an entrepreneur though.

[@valdomero738]

@@nonequivalence1864 go into welding , or construction or anything tbh.

[@rosepainting8775]

I am unemployed and I wish you all the good wishes sir.

[@valdomero738]

CS majors and programmers are going through what Petroleum Engineers and the energy sector went through in 2014-2015. Mind you the market never recovered. Energy companies learned how to exploit what they have.

[@larryellison531]

Managers are shitty they do not even know how to create circle and lops to generate more projects to hire people.

[@jamestogher1098]

Thats an interesting comparison I don't know a lot about energy, but it seems to be somewhat a trendy sector meaning from my point of view different kinds of energy get a lot of hype until the next thing. For example nuclear, petroleum, or now solar, wind, coined 'green energy', etc. I know tech has these cycles as well but they typically arent as violent, disruptive (at least from my pov). There is definitely a down turn, but I'm going to optimistically and perhaps naively put the brakes on calling it permanent. Programming and CS are just so embedded in the average persons day to day life, that it's hard to imagine a future where this doesn't remain a stable form of income.

[@furdhiek]

Having been trading renewable energy at that time I can understand what you said. After the drop, oil companies understood that renewables were here forever and that they had to include it in their portfolio if they wanted to last. Renewable production and demands are the most influential parameters of energy price. Big oil and gas companies were already in the energy market, it was therefore easy for them to include it in their trading portfolio. Otherwise with the war in Europe, the prices of energy did go back up and renewables are even more profitable. Actually a lot of big trading firms are opening desks to trade short-term and the old energy companies are starting to struggle to employ because salaries are very attractive in pure trading firms.

[@tottiegod8021]

Do you think big tech doesn't exploit the VISA program in the USA? LOL There are many big tech engineers making $80-150k doing the same roles as FTE natives.

[@HelloThere-xs8ss]

It will just change. It's never going away

[@NickKravitz]

I am a quant developer and analyst like Jesus; I also went through a job applicant cycle in 2024. The biggest factor in getting offers continues to be pure luck. I am now in my 50s so have been through 1000+ interviews and have already heard all the technical and behavioral questions multiple times. I generally perform well at interviews but have ups and downs like everyone. It is just a numbers game. I sent off approximately 1000 job inquiries; this led to around 50 conversations, 10 interview cycles and 2 offers. Be organized and be prepared to juggle multiple interview cycles. Over a 30+ year career I would say 2024 is around average, worse than the go-go 90s and better than the dumpster fires of 2002 and 2008.

[@kaanutku7761]

Hey Nick you have a sick profile! I'd like to connect and hear about your experiences if that's okay, I am a senior CS undergrad and am interested in the Quant path!

[@johnsmith-ro2tw]

Agreed. it's a numbers game. if there are a 100 other applicants for the job you're applying for, it becomes luck at that point. Like playing the lottery. if it's a numbers game, then forget about those HR advice we were all told about (customize your resume for every application), because you need to maximize the number of applications you send out. And if you send 1000 applications out while you already have a FT job and a family and hobbies, you don't have 2h to dedicate to each and every application. Not even talking about the interviews, that include live coding and all, therefore that require much preparation, and that you have to insert in your already busy work week. It's not just the interview process that is broken, it's the job market.

[@MarkFilip-e4s]

Wow, 1000+ interviews over a 30+ year career is mind-boggling! I'm nowhere near that level, but the "luck" factor you mentioned resonates. I've been in a similar boat recently, juggling multiple interview cycles and feeling like it's a numbers game. Honestly, for my last few interviews, I started using an AI tool that listens in and gives me answers in real-time. It felt a little weird at first, but it's been a game-changer, especially with those obscure technical questions that pop up unexpectedly. It helped me relax and focus on showcasing my actual skills and experience, rather than panicking about trivia. I even landed a job after using it! It shouldn't have to be this way, but it's the reality of the current market.

[@BrianKen-p8u]

@@MarkFilip-e4s What's the name of that AI tool? Asking for a friend who's also in the quant space and tired of the interview grind.

[@MarkFilip-e4s]

@@BrianKen-p8u just saw your comment, it was called interview hammer. please note this is not useful if you don't know what you are talking about since the interviewer would notice you reading, you need to know the answer and use this as a memory refresher.

[@kikuomiku3]

The reason they ghost you when you ask for feedback is because their HR department doesn’t allow it. Giving feedback to candidates as to why they weren’t hired opens up the company up to risk, including legal risk for hiring discrimination if the candidate disagrees with their reasoning. There is no real upside to the company for giving feedback to a rejected candidate compared to the downsides they may face.

[@AdrenResi]

I would just ask for feedback at the end phase of the interview

[@tiqien9831]

Depends on the company and the interviewer tbf. I got an interview for nasa and they were pretty much completely transparent on everything (metrics and what to work on) after the interview (didnt get that internship but am grateful for the feedback)

[@MarkFilip-e4s]

That's exactly why I ended up using an AI tool for my last few interviews. The risk of getting dinged for some random trivia question is too high. I have years of experience, but who can remember every little detail? The tool basically listens in and feeds you answers in real-time. It felt a little weird at first, but honestly, it leveled the playing field. I finally landed a great job after using it. It's sad that it has to be this way, though. Companies need to realize that ghosting candidates is a terrible practice.

[@TedR-h6t]

@@MarkFilip-e4s What's the name of the AI tool? I'm in the same boat and need an edge. DM me if you'd prefer.

[@MarkFilip-e4s]

@@TedR-h6t it was called interview hammer, please note this is not useful if you don't know what you are talking about since the interviewer would notice you reading, you need to know the answer and use this as a memory refresher.

[@blazer511]

It takes real valor and integrity to admit you are wrong on something, especially in 2024, for that I commend you It amazes me that people are still trying to funnel into tech while there are barely any applicants at all on equally paying medical jobs.

[@CodingJesus]

Thanks for the super comment.

[@KWFit]

I wish it was so. The healthcare industry is just as bad. People are leaving left and right.

[@Wes-Tyler]

Unlike tech, the medical industry is highly abusive and exploitative. And for that, it pays terribly. Not to mention the extremely expensive barriers to entry to get into the medical field.

[@marmosetman]

@@CodingJesus How are you able to afford an apartment while job searching? aren't you a fresh grad? or did you work before and just looking for a new job?

[@XX-pl9wp]

@CodingJesus, maybe they don't like you. Maybe it has to do with their prejudice towards some past... Idk.

[@shiyiyin3403]

The company could afford to treat candidate like shit right now, because there are thousand of people are ready to apply.

[@jmg9509]

Oversaturation cooked the CS/Tech job market. Edit: At least in part.

[@honkhonk8009]

More like 1.4 billion * 2 foreigners from India/China all competing for the same tech-wagie job.

[@jmg9509]

​@@honkhonk8009 Sounds about right. And they're all on Upwork and Fiverr fighting to bottom of the barrel on price to get work. Heads of corporate America know this. That's why they can come up with all these BS tactics that make you feel like you're taking the damn SATs per interview. They can take their pick from the hoards, weed out who's more "skilled" based on arbitrary vetting methods, and then pay shit because they know if you leave, there's always more wagies in stock for supper.

[@adarby4215]

Getting ghosted/no feedback really is the most demoralizing aspect of interviewing period.

[@abrarmubeen2604]

yup, and when they reject you after the interview they act all nice and helpful, but then after that they ghost you when you ask for feedback

[@paca3107]

yop, I have been ghosted even by company very close related with company which I used to worked. I went to the last stage of the process :).

[@smallego8068]

Aren't you taking this too personal? Maybe there is no rational reason for it, so the answer would be worthless anyway. Maybe several candidates had the exact same capabilities and they simple chose the one that's more charismatic.

[@winzyl9546]

I don't take ghosting personal. I understand they have tons of candidates. Getting ghosted is the easy part, getting 1 interview in a whole month with hundreds of applications is the worst part.

[@DontTakeCrack]

i dont mind getting ghosted at this point. their feedback lacks poise anyways, it tends to point out trivial stuff just the same. at least that's been my experience.

[@LM-tv2bo]

The knock-on effect is that every SWE is switching to be a DS, DE or MLE and this is causing that market to be mega-cooked, even though that's one of the fastest growing markets in the US.

[@harryzhu]

CS Grad with 4 internships here. 900 apps since october 2023. I took risks but has not paid off yet. I've been unemployed for two months now. I still have hope for myself.

[@JuliaAugustyniak]

What intern position did you have?

[@WisdomofHal]

Fresh out of school… I would hang up with few friends and try to create a successful startup. It’s so easy to start a company right now.

[@crimpers5543]

should write 900 mobile apps instead of sending 900 apps.

[@kAI-np9rv]

​​@@crimpers5543if that would have been the case this comment wouldn't have existed.

[@neogening3792]

To think people have 4 internships and are struggling to get work when I fought for my life to get a single one. I’m cooked

[@vishweshmashruwala9307]

I wholeheartedly agree with your point that doing good on leetcode interviews is directly proportional to how much free time you have, in my sophomore year of college, i interviewed with companies and did good on leetcode style interviews, cause I practicing them in my free time and in my delusion that I was smart af, since then I had to pick a part time job to cover some expenses and now I dont have enough to do leetcode with university course work and part time job and feel like I have lost all my leetcode muscles.

[@manutebol956]

same dude i work and do school now and my leetcode skills have gone down the drain

[@rtusiime]

i mean it's a tradeoff. you can take a loan and make time for leetcode since it probably has higher ROI than your part time job. especially if you're as good as you say you were. The gamble is worth it

[@thomasr22272]

Here I solved your problems: 1. Don't apply to dumb US big tech companies 2. Don't apply to dumb US big tech companies 3. Don't apply to dumb US big tech companies 4. Don't apply on dumb Linkedin 5. Don't apply to dumb US big tech companies 6. That one is easy, if a company ghosted then they did you a service, you don't wanna work there

[@NoraGrey27]

Then where does someone apply? Small start up company?

[@maryamzibaeifard]

The golden age of tech jobs is over. Too much headache for ordinary payments and low job security.

[@CasimiroBukayo]

Former systems engr and game engine dev here. It's been 3+ years since my last employment. I'm now an organic fruit tree farmer and baker. Guess I made the right choice after all

[@anclaudys]

Exactly. Leetcode interviews test how much free time (and arguably working memory). That’s all that it does. You could be a senior or staff engineer who can add more value to a company than the next 50 engineers combined, but it doesn’t matter. If you have a family to feed and mortgage to pay, tough luck. You just didn’t Leetcode hard enough. I’m dreading the idea of eventually getting married and starting a family simply bc of this Leetcode bs. The process is unethical af to say the least. I might be really reaching admittedly, but I think there might even be good grounds to take this issue up to the courts or legislation if advocates with enough technical knowledge can make the case for why these interviews have almost entirely nothing to do with what you do on the job and often even reject highly qualified candidates. Like I wonder if the govt or the military had a full-blown tech sector, if it would bet our national security on whether or not an employee can Leetcode. It’s really that serious. I’m glad that people like you with larger platforms are finally speaking up.

[@rtusiime]

i think what a lot of these comments miss is that, at the end of the day, if someone wasn't passing these interviews (i disagree it's just 22 yo, surely people with relevant experience *are* being hired for senior staff, and they're not 22), these constraints would be loosened. the fact that they're not implies there's someone out there successfully interviewing. While I empathize with how shitty things are, I don't think people give enough thought to the incentives of the company and why they choose to keep this system if it's so detrimental. (it's detrimental to candidates, not to them)

[@justinpardo-mw8wy]

it peaks at 22 but your acting like it goes down the hill after that lmao it like a 0.5% decrease at worst year after year till about 30 were its a more dramatic decline

[@anclaudys]

@ okay fair. And you also did your research and showed some figures, unlike the knuckle-dragging idiots I usually see here in comment sections. 👌

[@anclaudys]

@@rtusiime I gave working mem too much weight. It only helps if you are literally coming up with a solution from scratch without having seen the pattern before. I’ve noticed that the only people capable of doing that were “geniuses”, the people with an IQ of 145 and above. IQ is hypothesized to be the combination of fast processing speed and amazing working memory (and the elusive concept known as "G-factor"). By no means were they only 22 years old. Some were in their 40’s. So I misspoke. Yes, don’t get me wrong, knowing algorithms is important but it most certainly shouldn't be the main focus. Maybe system design is the actual useful knowledge. Imagine if there was some sort of certification you only had to take once or every couple of years to ensure you knew DSA? They do this in IT. The only benefit it has on the company is the amount of time it saves them by not having to prepare an interview. However, I think it would pay dividends if they invested just ONCE in developing a new interview style. System design is already pretty good in determining candidates, so it's not impossible and probably not insurmountably difficult. The only people I see this benefitting is people who are already hired, especially senior engineers who are making it so that candidates are constantly wasting their time leetcoding as opposed to learning something that will make a candidate actually useful for a company, thereby replacing these already employed seniors. This is no conspiracy. It’s simply an incentive thing, likely even unconscious done. So yes, I don't disagree that someone is benefitting from this. But I don't think it's the company. It's the SWE's already employed in such companies. Have you seen how shitty and buggy software has become in general? This is a common subject nowadays. I have seen a lot of juniors being hired who couldn’t use Git properly, or didn’t even know what an API was. That is unacceptable. Yet, they could leetcode really well and got hired. Do you think that this benefits companies? You don’t have to automatically assume that everything a company does is sensical just because they are profitable and reasonable in most other areas. That’s a logical fallacy and a huge assumption. “Company 'A' is successful, therefor everything they do is right.” I’ve heard that argument before and I’m worried about the amount of people that actually believe this blatantly nonsensical illogical bull crap. On more than one occasion, I've had the following convo with some folks whenever I criticized tech interviews… “If you think the hiring process sucks, let’s see you start a more successful company than Google or Facebook” to which I'll reply with... “No. I cannot start a successful company at all period. However my dumbass can sure as hell come up with a much better way of interviewing candidates even if my company sucked and will probably fail within less than 2 months.” I don't have to know how to run a successful company to able to recognize that ONE small aspect of running the company, which is the SWE hiring process, sucks.

[@anclaudys]

@@justinpardo-mw8wy Wait, question, what's the rate of decline when you reach 30? I'm concerned now.

[@jw4659]

Being ghosted is awful. The least they can do is give you some feedback so you can prepare better for the next interview.

[@kd8437]

How is it possible to have 6-8 rounds of interviewes for a developer? What are they even talking about during these rounds? I've been working as a software dev for 10+ years and if I interview a person, I need only one interview to assess tech level of a candidate.

[@RolopIsHere]

I had to interview 11 hours with 7 people for amazon Sde interviewe... at the end, it felt like torture, and I wanted it to be over...

[@kd8437]

@@RolopIsHere Amazon is a different story, because there are thouthands of people who apply to a position..so, for amazon, having many rounds of interview is understandable, I would say. Also, Amazon's salaries usually very decent, so it is kind of fair. But I feel like a lot of companies which offer average salaries think that they are amazon now and they force people to have 5+ rounds of interview.

[@denissartisskis1625]

Totally agree with your comment. 1 is really enough in order to have an idea if person would be able to perform the tasks. To have more is excessive and seems like deliberate torture especially that most of the asked questions are just academic and will not be used in your day to day work.

[@RolopIsHere]

@kd8437 there are hundreds of applicants for all the positions... so it is not that different.

[@kd8437]

@@RolopIsHere that's crazy!

[@groundhog-plays]

I don't apply to places that do leetcode anyway... 17 years of experience. If they are asking me to do leetcode, it's a sign of disrespect. Would I ask a HM to do very complex managerial exercises. No it's saying: I Don't respect you as a candidate and if I hire you I won't respect you as an employee.

[@kingdrift1136]

You must get abysmal pay then

[@hockeymikey]

Agreed. I'm not going to do some stupid pop quiz.

[@groundhog-plays]

@@kingdrift1136 lol no. People who do leet code fall into idiot savant territory. The market of software engineering for seniors pays well and doesn't have too many hoops to jump through. Plus, you can increase your salary better with real life skills not grinding puzzles. Think creatively there are ways to either negotiate more money or etc.

[@rtusiime]

@@groundhog-plays i think it can be true that you earn decent money as a senior dev without doing leetcode but at the same time, the best pay is going to be gatekept by more hoops, so you are making a decent living I'm sure, def not "abysmal" but you are not making the $400k- $600k the biggest companies offer, cuz they are all using leetcode. And they have to do this simply because A LOT of people are vying for those jobs

[@groundhog-plays]

@@rtusiime "but you are not making the $400k- $600k " I've made more than that in the past, and I have better things to do with my time than to sell ebooks to people. All kinds of things you can do, you can open up a consultancy and hire others for example. The idea that you only can be a wage slave and you have to pick the best wage slave coffin is very restrictive thinking. Again, using real skills, not silly parlor tricks, one can really up their income. Also I don't think 400k-600k is going to be asking leetcode. Those positions are not likely entry level grunt coding positions. 400-600k focuses on system design. When they pay they much out, they don't care/waste time on contrived/antiquated exercises.

[@lex494]

This is not only in the US. This pretty much reflects also on the EU market. Ghosting, no follow-ups, multiple interview rounds, dead job offers, few real offerings flooded with hundreds of applications. I've gone through a 7 round interview process which lasted over a month, and after the last round I have been ghosted. Lmao.

[@honkhonk8009]

Shouldv listened to your right wing parties when they rightfully stated your jobs are being sent to overpopulated countries like India/China.

[@genx7006]

I have passed multiple panel interviews with intense interrogation on topics from calculus to complex binary tree queries. On my first day on the job, I'm changing the color of a button.

[@sunnydays405]

CS is absolutely COOKED. Copers will say it's just normal market swings, but the jobs aren't coming back, and even if some of them do, it won't be at the same salary. Over-saturation of the field, outsourcing, and (to a lesser degree) AI has wrecked the field from being accessible to competent software engineers.Time to learn how to put fries in the bag.

[@hockeymikey]

Outsourcing has always been there, it's nothing new.

[@sunnydays405]

​@@hockeymikey Not to this degree at all. There is now an extremely large pool of cheap labor in India that has the education to do these tech jobs for a fraction of the price, this was definitely not the case before. The reason a lot of us in the West can do our job from home is the same reason keeping the job is uncertain since it can be sent overseas. Sure, the new foreign team may not be 100% as competent as the American tech team that got replaced, but for upper management trying to maximize short term profit on their balance sheet, it doesn't matter to them. The complete accessibility of learning tech skills and the fact there is 0 gatekeeping makes this a dead field career wise for most folks who are not in the top 10% of talent. Your B.S/M.S in Computer Science from a decent American university is now worth its weight in used toilet paper.

[@hifive5067]

​@@sunnydays405 To add to this, AI has substantially boosted outsourcing, as this technology allows big tech to hire people with very low competency to fill such roles. I'm writing this from personal experience - few years ago my team consisted of quite seasoned devs and was located mostly in Germany, the UK and a few members in eastern europe. In the span of a year the company slashed the development team in half and hired twice as many people in India. I know from an acquaintance, who's in the HR team, that it costs the company like 1/15th of what they had to pay here, like it is so dirt cheap for them. However now these new members of the team are doing very poor job - like I'm pretty sure they lack fundamental knowledge and use chatgpt for absolutely everything.With the former team, we were quite open minded about our work - in case of issues with the codebase, we were working closely as a team to fix them in a timely manner, basically we felt good at keeping high coding standards / good practices. Now I'm barely able to keep my head up from reading crappy PRs the whole day and declining bad changes. The company already suffered a severe outage because of an absurd change, that got into prod and lost millions euros. Funnily the guy from india who pushed the change, who obviously lacked basic understanding of swe, had no repercussions, but my colleague got fired, as he approved the PR (I do blame him, but looking at how 90% + of the PRs contain breaking changes, I see myself doing the same at some point). From my point of view, this is a ticking timebomb, like we've already seen a couple of BOEING crashes because of a software bug introduced from outsourced team. So I have hopes, that at some point quality and trust/responsiblity would move back a lot of these outsourced positions.

[@talwaar007]

LOL - I just wrote pretty much the same before noticing your comment. Totally agree. Some people out there thinking "oh it will bounce back next year" are in for a very nasty surprise.

[@talwaar007]

@@sunnydays405 Seriously....dude....it's like reading back what I've been telling people this past 18 months. As you say, the foreign team in India usually do a shit job. Their code sucks. It will need to be completely rewritten in 5 years time. But in the here and now it "does the job" and for 1/2 the price. And for senior management that's all that matters when it comes to boosting their profile in the firm and increasing their bonus pool. As you correctly say, anyone can now become a coder through online courses. Back in the 90s you had to go to a decent university and do a computer science degree. The tech industry as we knew it for 20+ years is over for good.

[@ayoubkhalil1]

I recently got laid off as a full stack engineer. I have 2.5 yoe. Tbh I've been getting a lot of responses for interviews but they either are insanely hard interview (had one for Amazon sde 2 - sht was so hard, especially the technical questionnaire part) or they're terrible jobs like start ups that expect you to work 12+ hours a day. Some other ones are asking for insane experience for sht pay. I live in NYC, offering 80-100k for over 5 yoe is absolutely insane. Trying to remain hopeful. Still getting interviews hoping to eventually land something reasonable soon.

[@DiamondShocked]

Amazon's leadership principles turned me off of the company quickly during the onsite.

[@asdfbeau]

@@DiamondShocked I spent a couple years at amazon- the principles are just a cudgel that L7s use to beat the lower ranks into submission.

[@jackedup447]

@@DiamondShocked The LP's suck ass ngl.

[@kernelpanic5672]

I remember once in an interview I gave a stupid answer and then turned and saw the interviewers laughing at me, and then they tried to pretend they were laughing at something else

[@richardcui4817]

Brutal.

[@pisiiki]

Do you want to work in an organization where the engineers are people whose strength is solving toy problems and grinding for 16 hours a day? Think twice. Also, you've had your whole life to learn skills. What will you fix in one week? This is the mindset you need when interviewing. If they give you a random, trivial problem that you can copy-paste in one minute and judge you based on that, just offer your apologies and leave the interview.

[@groundhog-plays]

I feel like there are two worlds in software engineering. The big tech/quant upper elite, that many want to get into so the interview becomes who can chant the eldritch rituals better. Then there is just the normal one, which I am a part of and prefer. It is made up of normal people who have more in their life than just a cat, grinding leet code and working to live. An interview at a place like that asks situational questions and looks to see if your answers actually line up with what you would do in the job and is way more telling as to who is a good or bad hire. I feel that all the elite places have going for them is investor money and prestige. Investors will keep pumping money in and these people keep doing the eldritch rituals and the circle continues. But hey, even AOL used to be a very high "S tier" company to work for when it was pumped full of investor money.

[@AaronBlox-h2t]

@@groundhog-plays AOL is still around? haha

[@LiveType]

I find soft technical problems (the brutally hard ones) very good tests of problem solving capability. It shows whether or not they can break the problem down into smaller more manageable chunks and how well they know each of those chunks. But basing hiring prospects on whether or not you can give a correct answer to leetcode 141 in 20 mins is typically not a great test as I've interviewed folks I know are very capable and they fail miserably on those tests. I've done it myself and I've never once passed unless I got lucky and quite literally saw the problem the night before. As stated in the video it's more a filter for how much free time you have. I typically give 2 questions. A "do you know the basics of programming" and then depending on the role a brutally hard field specific problem (not leetcode and hopefully something they haven't seen before aka not something you can LLM in 15 seconds) with full expectation that they won't be able to actually fully solve it. I simply want them to walk through how they would approach solving it. They don't even need to write code. This very very cleanly seperates candidates that know how to approach, solve, and communicate problems and those that don't. This position costs 250k/year. I expect you to be competent. Now if we're talking ~70k then yeah there's a lot more wiggle room.

[@Mitmitti07]

⁠​⁠​⁠​⁠​⁠@@LiveTypecould you please provide an example of a specific problem you would ask the candidate?

[@richardcui4817]

You are wrong. If you can crack 100% Leetcode medium or 50% of Leetcode hard, you basically will have 0 issue dealing with real life problems.

[@melvin6228]

Applied to one data analyst role for funzies while never having done the role. I immediately passed all interviews and got leveled at L4 at a non-tech multinational. I have had more than 10 tech interviews as a software engineer and yet this is the role I pass without prepping. It shows to me that non-tech departments interview better. And yea, the pay is better, in my situation:

[@bestechdeals4539]

Interesting

[@ka-md8ue]

In which country did you do it?

[@t.j.5574]

Data analyst is more mathematics than code?

[@scorpionzz885]

@@t.j.5574depends because data analyst is a broad term but I think most are either working with data in a specific field while others are just business analysts.

[@pierrechevalet8284]

Cool! I didn't expect DA to be better paid than SWE

[@hanchiang9532]

it is good that we have proper tech influencers like you speaking up on the state of the tech job market, and not just parroting what most "big tech turned entrepreneurs" are saying

[@qvtvna]

as someone whos graduated recently, i honestly hoped in some part that the boomer-pill mindset of "people are just lazy" was right, not because it validated anything i thought, but because it made me feel like all i had to do was put my head down and grind; it was an illusion that i had some kind of control over my future. understanding that the problems with the market right now are largely out of my control is tough to hear, but necessary to understand. i think the best thing i can do right now is try and find another industry that i might be interested in, as you suggested in the video. thank you for giving your perspective and experience on this topic!

[@qpwug8s1d7rhf]

I recently got two offers from big tech. It is definitely harder right now, but if you grind for several months and keep trying you can get offers.

[@AaronBlox-h2t]

@@qpwug8s1d7rhf Two offers in 12 months?

[@bnug242]

im a new grad and got a job by attending an event for a python library I use. I highly recommend finding ways to meet engineers in person, i don’t think i wouldve found a job otherwise. Networking!

[@rtusiime]

@@bnug242 yep, with current spamming of job posts, you gotta show up in person

[@bnug242]

@@rtusiime yep, create a genuine in person connection, be clear with what you’re looking for (“hi! I’m a new grad looking for a job!”), then stay in touch for months following. It might take a little luck, but you’re giving yourself the highest chance with that approach imo. When a new entry level position opens up, they’ll think of you first and hopefully reach out (they get referral $), then secure the job. Note: This probably only works for medium to small sized companies. FAANG companies are a machine, if you want to get in there you need a strong connection, high level leetcode skills, and some luck lol

[@BlissOn47]

In my opinion, this is just the job market naturally balancing out supply and demand. We have way too many people pursuing a CS degree. This was bound to happen. Hopefully the market moves on to a different field.

[@honkhonk8009]

True. In middle school I was the only person even interested in computers and I was called a geek for it. Then in Uni every 0.4 GPA dork talked about going into CS making gorillions. But thats also ignoring the fact that ever since 2022, companies werent able to get tax cuts on R&E for tech jobs, leading to a mass outsourcing of tech jobs to inhumanely overpopulated countries.

[@jaycool9480]

Gen Z did the opposite of what millennials were fed. Only going after majors that make money aka STEM, law, and finance degrees. But I don’t think that’s wrong because it’s expensive out here. It was back when the younger millennials came out of school and it still is now so you can’t blame the younger generation for wanting to go where the money is and the biggest ROI for an undergrad degree.

[@dishcleaner2]

I was working in the industry for 3 years and got laid off. I was unemployed for 6 months and during that time I learned 4x more than I did working because of free time. I passed the leetcode interview question. I’ve been working for a year and a half now. I don’t think I could pass the same question that got me the job now.

[@lan92034]

Do you remember what the question was?

[@dishcleaner2]

@@lan92034 one of the standard easy/medium questions you would see around string manipulation. I got to pick the language I solved it in. Passed by the skin of my teeth.

[@jasperclement6320]

I think the reason companies don't give good feedback to candidates they are not interested in is because they don't have any incentive to do that. In fact, it is better for them if they keep a large amount of people in a state of limbo. That way those people become more desperate and they can get better candidates for less money.

[@eightgates-ai]

....OR the eval process for an interviewee from the prespective of an interviewer is a grade scale of recommendation confidence to other interviewers which looks like: no hire, hire with low, hire with medium and hire with high confidence. These qualitative grades are collected and a decision is made which is then communicated through HR. You are right though that there is just not enough incentive to pay interviewers for the extra time to write more than a grade report for each candidate interviewed. Big players can take the intiative but...will not make other follow necessarily because there is just not enough evidence to suggest that companies or interviewing protocols can improve the health of the candidate pool. It is by default considered the uni/bootcamp/individual's responsibility.

[@Philgob]

True. Also revealing what made them fail a process exposes them to all sorts of potential legal and public backlash if not worded perfectly. There’s just no point.

[@ntl9974]

Sick people, sick culture

[@kierzo8543]

If a company asks you for more than 2 hours time before you get the job, turn them down, if a company has a long winded application process, meaning you need to spend more than a few mins filling out their website, then don't bother. I only apply to companies that take a CV and have 2 stage interviews. I turned down a very well paid KPMG job because they tried to put a 3rd round of interview and essentially making me do tasks for them. All that happened was they lost a potential great engineer and I found another company paying about the same without the bureaucracy. To me it says a lot about how the working environment will be if they are pulling your teeth out in the interview process. Some forget that an interview is 2 way, that also we are checking if we wish to work there. Also its worth getting an agent to find you a job and not to do much on it yourself.

[@jcdenton7914]

I left IT to make time and get a cyber security degree. Now I'm a minimum wage security guard who is overqualified for any better paying non-degree job and unable to get back into tech.

[@bubbasanches4591]

CySec is not entry level and those who don't deeply understand OSes and networks should not be in it

[@martinlutherkingjr.5582]

@@bubbasanches4591What field/job do people typically start in who eventually work in cybersecurity?

[@kkondakov]

The main root cause: global outsourcing - all US / EU positions are targeted for potential elimination. WHy pay $200k for a software engineer in Palo Alto , California if you can get by with an engineer in Bangladesh who needs $20K and no benefits ?!

[@honkhonk8009]

I love Trump. He was 100% right abt it all. Its really goofy how these libshits saw India/China's inhuman levels of overpopulation, and tried to vaguely blame "greedy people" instead of the laws allowing it. Over emotional people that have zero place in politics. Easily exploitable by the bourgoisie. Just like how the climate movement was hacked by oil companies, and weaponized against their competitors (Keystone moment)

[@EnronnSierra]

I'm in a desktop support position at large company and at times I get frustrated and have applied at other places. I'll normally get as far as, your resume has been sent to HR for consideration. Then its crickets. One of things I think you missed and I realized in my journey is, these companies might already have internal candidates ready for the position. But as a due diligence, they need to post the position for external candidates to apply to be in compliance. The job might already have been filled, but they just get a kick out of wasting your time. Where I'm at in tech, I've come to be content, got a small raise recently and I'm working with it for as long as I can. My focus is saving, maxing out the 401K coast until retirement a few decades from now. Fingers crossed. I feel so bad for those leaving college with all those student loans.

[@shyampatel7461]

What kind of roles are you applying for? Did you do certs before the current role

[@zonk1477]

Yes and they waste everyone's time doing this. If they already have someone don't waste my time.

[@darkamsiaaaa]

Stop maxing out 401(k) and max out your IRA!!!

[@TKGZONE]

thats exactly what how i felt, every interview felt like a crap shoot and they all ask something different each requiring you to study something different which is a big time commitment. I got so sick of it.

[@aj-jc4cv]

Congrats on your new job. I think this process also favours younger folk, as when you're older, not only may have other commitments outside of work, you also have less energy to swot in the evenings. I am not saying this is deliberate but more a side effect of the current state of hiring. Also, 8 rounds seems crazy to me, thats a lot of trips to the dentist or sick days.

[@honkhonk8009]

No it doesnt. Your old, you have more experience on your resume, and have an actual reason to not have your job outsourced to India/China. I dont.

[@OldTomato44]

I think one solution that isn't being mentioned much is: entrepreneurship. More coders should be using their skills to build things they want to build, solve real world problems, create new games/products that they personally want to see, etc., and sell their creations. We need to stop hoping to skim off the safe, established, but rotting institutions.

[@ryanburryy]

agreed. makes more jobs as well

[@ryanburryy]

@sdf-m4t facts lolll

[@martinlutherkingjr.5582]

Most people aren’t cut out for that. Lots of people know how to write good code but knowing how to make money off of it is not the same skill set.

[@notashark8069]

I am glad I chose the medical field when everyone was getting into CS.

[@kagame6524]

Thinking about switching to med field too

[@sunnydays405]

The smart move for sure if you were able to stomach the front-end investment of financial/opportunity cost and stress of studying. Clearly it paid off, 6 years ago most people were high off the accessibility of tech jobs, the smart ones went into fields with extreme gatekeeping like medicine that aren't threatened by outsourcing.

[@nakatash1977]

Your time will come

[@bharghavak]

​@@nakatash1977 Something that disruptive is a long time away, a good sign too.

[@JJ-bj6hg]

😂​@@nakatash1977

[@tHebUm18]

Part of the reason they don't give feedback is it exposes them to potential lawsuits about their hiring practices.

[@anonymous49125]

Section 174... they are keeping your resume on file until the tax code changes back. ALSO they get grants for 'attempting' to hire people (but oh no, there are no talented people looking for work)... but the biggest thing is that section 174 tax code change... Seconds before all the mass layoffs happened, there was a change to how much you owe in taxes. It used to be that expenses were written off... this could be buying product, building factories, or hiring workers... so, lets say you have a dev, then you don't have to pay a penny against any of the money you paid to them... the money spent in that way is just written off against the profits. Big companies love this, because, why pay taxes when instead you can just spend that money on yourself... buying product, building factories, or hiring workers... Imagine being in a foot race against 10 equally skilled runners... but imagine the rules of the race are: the finish line is actually pushed forward 30% towards you, if you just want that... THAT is why companies like amazon pay $0 in taxes... they just spend it in themselves, because EVERYONE ELSE is just spending it on themselves as well and it would set back their company for no benefit whatsoever if they did otherwise. So, because big companies love not paying taxes, a major thing that they can invest in themselves is developers... developers build intellectual property that has intrinsic value. So, when you have times of big booms like tech companies lapping up the covid SaaS money, then you just hire more devs... even if 99% of the developers are a complete waste of space, that's okay, because if you have even 1% chance of having a game changer technology that you create that destroys your opposition, then it's an easy cost to pay. However, all that changed with section 174. Now instead of writing off 100% of developer salaries against profits, you instead can write off 5%-20% depending if the worker is foreign or domestic (respectively). So that dead weight you sunk your profits into... that isn't worth anything now, because you have a massive tax bill at the end of the year... upwards of 95% of the money you spent on developers get to get paid again as taxable income.... you lets say you have a $140k dev, and instead of just writing off 140k against the profits and just spending it on yourself (as a company), NOW, you get to pay that (likely worthless) dev $140k AND ON TOP get to pay taxes on 80% of that (140*0.8=$112k) and at 30% tax rate, you get to pay $33.6k in taxes... PER SOFTWARE DEVELOPER. With 30 devs you just burned a million bucks. However, it's even WORSE than that... Lets say you're operating at an actual loss... lets say you spent 10 million on developers but only brought back 5 million in sales.... instead of being in the red 5 million... the tax man sees 4 million of that 5 million COMPLETELY TAXABLE.... so you LOST money AND get to pay OVER A MILLION DOLLARS in taxes.... and tech is very much a gamble and we're very much headed towards a recession which makes that gamble even less likely to succeed. So, now big companies are still paying nothing in taxes,... but they do that by firing any developer not worth a darn, and instead putting their profits into more product and factories... they are still taking resumes and selling your data, and still accepting government money to do so... but... I don't think things will change until that tax code goes back to how it was.

[@jayali8392]

The fact that we've had interest rate changes, this tax code change, and Jerome Powell literally said he's going to hike interest rates until unemployment goes up; yet people talk about every other reason lol

[@Zapanath]

Here is my two cents. There are a lot of fraudster candidates that have helped to mess up the job market as well. There is lots of cheating and attempted cheating in technical interviews and some candidates still getting the jobs and completely failing on the job. These ppl are making the job market hard as well.

[@johnsmith-ro2tw]

BigTech companies have promoted very hard the high income, "relaxed" working environment (working slouching on bean bags) lifestyle. It's not a surprise the SW market has attracted lots of candidates who were here exclusively to embrace that lifestyle. One former employer told me they interviewed a candidate once, they asked him why he wanted to work for this company. He answered : for the free beers. Those idiots list down "free beers" as one of the perks, in the JD.

[@honkhonk8009]

Not to mention the sheer amount of Indians/Chinese people that have flooded the market and basically blatantly lied abt half the stuff on their resume. Its a massive issue. Dads in software and his company tried to swap a whole department with H1B's from India. Complete disaster. Had to answer basic questions every 2 seconds that a simple google search wouldv solved, and 99% of the codebase was undecipherable AI generated slop that didnt even work.

[@redhotbits]

there are tech leads that only know uncle bobs books, and misinterpret then

[@ntl9974]

Indian maybe

[@kamaboko1]

Former recruiter here. No feedback to candidates avoids possible lawsuits. "They didn't hire me because I'm (insert ethnicity). I know a (insert ethnicity) who was hired by them." I've had these discussions with management of $B+ companies and smaller. On another note, I was at a final interview once and a candidate was asked a ridiculously difficult question to solve on a whiteboard in a given amount of time. He paused, pointed to one of the devs on the interview committee and said, "I guarantee I can offer a better answer than him. When I do, I want his job." He was serious. The interview committee didn't accept his request. He walked out. Made the whole team look bad because the guy on the interview committee couldn't step up to the plate. The tech interview process in the US has been broken for over 20 years.

[@juliedavis6893]

I am a Technical Project Manager and employers seem to think that as a ApM I can create automation code, programs, and run queries! That is not what project management is and it is so frustrating to be interviewed by people who do not know what it is your position does. It is like they just add a bunch of skills they want you to have and just expect you to be knowledgeable in all of it! PM’s are not engineers, we are not system architects, we are not automation engineers, we are not programmed, developers, coders, or query gurus. It is completely mind blowing that employers want 3, 4, & even 5 different specialties all rolled up under the title project manager. I Am absolutely demoralized by it all! Complete insanity!

[@jasontutorials4809]

The crazy part is that on your day to day work, you are building real time applications and microservices, not algorithm problems …

[@ShubhamSinghYoutube]

I'm an international student doing master's in US, I applied to 2000+ companies, and got 0 internships. 0. Worst experience was with Millenium, that said they will interview me but never did, they just ghosted, I reached out several times, and they didn't reply, and after 2 weeks, they said, sorry we are moving forward with the other candidate.

[@aquilafasciata5781]

As someone who has no college degree; let me tell you it is next to impossible to get in front of any interviewers.

[@Hiddenflower]

Did you teach yourself how to code? My friend is teaching himself on how to code by watching KZbin videos instead of enrolling in a Bachelor degree program in Computer Science.

[@aquilafasciata5781]

@ Yeah, I’ve been programming since I was 12. I only have 1 larger project under my belt that’s still a work in progress, but I know JS, Rust, C/C++, Go, and Python. It’s the automated application rejects that see I don’t have a degree that get me.

[@berniemeowmeow]

@@aquilafasciata5781 Maybe go for a WGU CS degree? You should be able to finish pretty quickly with your experience. And you can put it on your resume with an expected graduation date once you start.

[@martinlutherkingjr.5582]

You’re better off trying to start your own company than trying to get hired right now. Just wait 3-5 years for the market to recover before applying again.

[@willconyea5968]

the most frustrating thing for me is when recruiters reach out to me and then keep me on the hook for almost a month, but then end up ghosting me after promising me a 2nd round. It's like it's a game. This has happened to me 3 times.

[@RecapWorldTV]

You need to just start your own company at this point. I don’t see getting another job as the answer.

[@ben1777]

That's what I'm doing. Realized it was pointless to work for someone else, and that it'd give me the ability to diversify my sources of income.

[@milanlabus1582]

thats how whatsapp was started

[@problem4643]

@@ben1777 Can you employ me if you start your company ?

[@jaycool9480]

Pretty much, but as hard as that is with the amount of startup capital you’d need just to get started, how does one sustain themselves is the question. What is a product worth building that people need right now. That product that answers this question will become successful

[@RecapWorldTV]

@ starting a company can be done with as little as $5,000

[@Alcani3ca]

There are multiple problems. One is that companies delay hiring a candidates for a position because then they can ask the government for h1b visas and get cheap labor. The other one is that they have to test wayy too many things to consider hiring someone because its very difficult for them to fire people that are incompetent without getting lawsuits. The fix is to tell to your politicians to put a freeze on h1b visas and remove regulations so that companies can fire incompetent people more easily.

[@payamism]

Even if you have some free time, would it be more beneficial for you to reverse a linked list or learn more about Microservices, Aspire,... things that you are using on a daily basis and need to develop more knowledge? I know plenty of senior software engineers who simply don't interview because they don't have time to spend on leet code and hacker rank style interviews. Those interviews are also very demoralizing for experienced engineers, if you know what I am saying.

[@ripple123]

yea iv recently been interviewing and only chatted to HR people who don’t understand technical things. Only for the screening to go well and fail on a leetcode interview and never get to chat about what I actually do on a technical level on day to day basis

[@ST-pq4dx]

LC for interviews is a very complex topic. You might think doing those problems is time consuming or a waste in the job, it might be the case. But companies know that too and the reason more and more companies changing to LC style interviews is simple. They want to filter candidates who can commit, work under pressure, pickup new things fast and are not slackers. CS jobs are ever changing since decades. We had monolithic, microservices, cloud etc and now AI/ML. For top companies, this shift happens super fast and they don't have a way to test candidates on specific things like microservices etc. That's the reason you see govt software running on decades old tech and the companies on west coast are recent.

[@payamism]

@@ST-pq4dx LC interviews make sense for junior developers and people with not a long history of development. We are talking about senior developers. People who have been developing for over a decade.

[@ST-pq4dx]

@@payamism except take home assignments, there isn't really a proper way to test long time senior developers in interviews. I mean companies used to look at github profiles etc before. But I think LC is way better than those. Also for people interviewing L5+ (senior to principal) the number of LC rounds go down.

[@payamism]

@@ST-pq4dx We exclusively interview senior developers. We have technical conversations. Our goals are a couple of things. Detecting technical knowledge. Detecting personality traits and ability to have conversations, and ultimately, getting a feeling of the person. Is this someone that we even want to work with? We can't detect all of these by LT questions.

[@sergiocarmona6567]

Machine learning engineer here i changed to AI Engineering manager. And also i have experience in data engineering. Im building my 3d printing company. Robotics will explode this decade. That is my best advice. Im gratefull i have a job but its getting exhuasted Data and AI field.

[@honkhonk8009]

Yep. I heard theres a big push into industrializing sectors like agriculture aswell. Webdev has ran its course and is a solved field. Yo btw Im straight addicted to 3D printing ever since I got an X1C. What are you guys doing with your 3D printing company? I wasnt aware there was much going on there.

[@sergiocarmona6567]

@honkhonk8009 dental stuff market its huge

[@honkhonk8009]

@@sergiocarmona6567 Oh yea I heard too. I was looking at retainers and realized that you actually 3d Print your retainers now with some special bio-resin instead of vacuum forming like before. But its super expensive apparently

[@TheMountainBeyondTheWoods]

@@sergiocarmona6567 I've heard people mentioning something like that before. Do you mean 3d dental models?

[@maxsterling9908]

Man! .. it is the same in Canada as well. We got acquired and we were laid off. It is the worst time to look for a job. I went to two and three rounds of interviews and nothing. Some had the decency of letting me know that they are not going forward with me, but others, where I had an excellent rounds of interview, I heard nothing. It is so annoying. Last week, I got a no for two positions I really liked. I had an excellent tech interview and not only I had what they wanted but I had more to offer. They had no CI/CD pipeline setup for VM provisioning, for example. I have that experience and automation saves time. It's like a roller coaster, some days you are excited about new opportunities and some days you have no prospect. I have no prospect as of right now. I will start again today. The winter holiday season is coming up and I know there are no hirings during Christmas time.

[@honkhonk8009]

Not the same. Magnitudes worse. Canada has a broken immigration system where about 87% of the jobs posted on the federal job bank, are fake. Their for foreigners. Their legally required to put job postings up to claim theres no qualified people to hire, so they can bring someone from India/China over to work for pennies. So the few jobs that havent been outsourced to India/China already, have already been mass outsourced. But we voted for Trudeau 2x in a row. We absolutely deserve it.

[@The_Quaalude]

America told students to learn to code, and now AI screwed everyone 😂

[@notsojharedtroll23]

*learn AI

[@Erick-z4b9c]

It’s not AI, it’s outsourcing to countries with a third of the cost.

[@SMD-i3v]

@@Erick-z4b9clearn to Hindi

[@_underlord]

Went through this whole process and it is terrible. Most companies have no idea how to evaluate devs so they lean on leetcode

[@N28-h9m]

If you can make wine from water, you can create jobs from nothing.

[@rcmag13]

I agree with all of your points. The job market, especially the software engineering market, is a hot mess. Company: Lets interview these candidates to see which one is best. Hiring Manager: How about we test them on some of the things they will do at the job. Company: That is a terrible idea! Lets test them on something completely irrelevant and put them through the ringer and the one who survives gets the job!

[@ThatBigGuyAl]

Everything you said here is spot on. I actually had a refreshing interview experience today for a full-stack web dev position, where the interviewers did not drill down on a bunch of technical implementation, but more on how I would approach a problem on a conceptual level. It was nice, because I have close to a decade of experience - why waste time asking me academic questions about how algorithms work? It’s not applicable and frankly, it’s BS and a waste of my time.

[@lightspeedlion]

Simple. Golden Age for Computer Professionals is over.

[@josephrodriguez274]

I get very unmotivated to study for jobs, I went to a job prep session for a company I was interested. They gave me a page of topics I needed to be proficient in, this was on top of several assements and technical programs they wanted me to write before 2 technical interviews. All of this work for just a chance for a position. It feels like I am fighting an uphill battle with my legs cut off.

[@michaelscofield2652]

Also discrimination. If you’re a man or god forbid a white man. Almost all the girls from my CS class now work for Uber, Amazon etc while they are borderline bad. I never got a call back from any of them while I’ve been working in tech since my teenage years. Same goes for most of my male friends when some of them are absolutely cracked engineers.

[@lan92034]

CS field is majority yt men. Keep crying.

[@Tatsh2DX]

Yea but this guy should first try having a haircut, not wearing wife beaters, and not having tattoos when he applies to jobs.

[@okorochukwunonso2563]

White men are being discriminated against in the US?

[@AYVYN]

⁠@@okorochukwunonso2563 No, he just sucks. He can try changing his resume name to a foreign name to see how bad he sucks.

[@TheCodeAlwaysWins]

In terms of the job applicant numbers: I would try to find something local or in person if possible. In usual cases, 80% of candidates would be disqualified off the bat for having irrelevant experience/quals, wrong country, not able to relocate, etc. The numbers are still not great and this market is absolutely horrible, but it is at least less impossible than the numbers would imply.

[@RatherBeCancelledThanHandled]

I’d never thought I’d see humility from you . Happy to see it .

[@postnubilaphoebus96]

I'm currently at my first role as an ML engineer, working on publishing my first paper. In my free time, I sometimes do math and read papers. Why? Because I am passionate about the field, and this is what I believe will get me ahead in terms of being able to develop new ideas. If I believed that studying leetcode would help, I would do it. But there is almost no situation in which I need it. Maybe it will throttle my career a little bit, but I will refuse an interview at any company that tests leetcode, because I don't wanna waste my time studying a useless skill.

[@rtusiime]

you've basically disavowed working at any company working on interesting things then: OpenAi, Google, Meta, none of that. As long as you're cool with this tradeoff, that's fine, but you're in the minority

[@ntl9974]

Where are you based. Seattle?

[@freshheck9066]

We used to give detailed feedback. We stopped doing that, not because of legal exposure, but rather because it very often became a back-and-forth discussion where the candidate was trying to patch up and minimize the mistakes or gaps we pointed out. Some would even argue that the obvious mistakes weren't mistakes. It's just not worth it from the hiring team perspective to spend all that time on someone we are not going to hire anyway.

[@auctionmusic]

after 42 years as a coding programmer (no management), I can tell you the one thing that is most overlooked by developers yet is the most important to the client....the business model. When I first started out, I knew/learned phototypesetting, and was hired at several positions based on that that and not what programming language I knew. Then moved on to word processing, imaging, and finally into finance/credit/banking. Your knowledge of the business model is golden, not what language you know. They will even train you in their own systems if you have the business model knowledge. I worked at a place one time where every programmer had been an accountant first, and learned programming on the job second, as their accounting knowledge was most valuable.

[@torvic99]

If I were in the US as a software engineer, I would not look for a job but create a job.

[@jaycool9480]

But with what startup capital? Need to spend at least some money to build something

[@elliottalderson6443]

Wow this was great to hear CJ. When I got ghosted I found it very strange and unprofessional. I didn't know it was happening to everyone.

[@yzm2065]

I’m curious what evidence/reasons you have to have come to the conclusion 4mo ago that the job market was in a good state?

[@aspeno5613]

This was really well put, Mr. Coding Jesus. I'm currently employed as a junior developer with a fair amount of free time and I don't even hate Leetcode, yet studying 100+ questions and a dozen topics and "staying sharp" on them for months is incredibly difficult. Can't imagine how it is for others. I love programming but am beginning to wonder how long I can stay in the field.

[@MattRodriguez-h7j]

Dude the market is soooo bad right now. Getting a job now might take 20+ weeks

[@appletvaccount1364]

the government (military) is always hiring, and it’s good pay. once in there you have a thousand pathways, including many different fields and positions in software engineering. you should consider.

[@WisdomofHal]

Elon and Vivek finna clean out the fed. Bunch of lazy bastards.

[@godthyfather]

I am. USAAF

[@Dextrostat]

Problem with that is they're usually strict on having a bachelor's degree. Which I really think they should lax a bit and focus more on skill and ability.

[@WisdomofHal]

@ I think it’ll be hard for them to lax the degree requirement because lots of defense stuff is highly regulated.

[@honkhonk8009]

Downside of living in Canada. Dirt poor military and nonexistent healthcare sector. The few jobs left are just given to Indians. I need to move to the US. Canada has become a clown show that nobody wants to admit. Libshits are entirely divorced from reality and are on copium overdrive over their cult-politics. Within 5 years, Canada has litterally become a northern Brazil. Its a shitshow that I dont see getting any better. The fact we have foreign countries openly assasinating our citizens in broad daylight while our cuck prime minister lets it slide, is legit terrifying.

[@danielenease]

Don't say tech when you mean programming/development jobs because I'm in networking... The operations side of things and the market is booming

[@AnotherDante]

Bullshit. I've been applying to NOT and DCTs for an entire year and I get zero responses.

[@honkhonk8009]

Yeah this was mostly the downfall of soydev's. But dude how else are college grads like me even gonna get a job in that stuff?

[@AL-kb3cb]

yet another guy coping in the comments

[@omnipi]

Right out of the gate, your first observation is spot on - companies have NO IDEA how to filter for good candidates. I’ve been a hiring manager for many years and been on the other side many times. It amazes me how poor the process is across the industry. Most interviewing could be done based on just that - an interview. Just talk with people and see what they can do, how they think, what they know, what it would be like to work with them. Elitecode is and always was incredibly stupid and rooted in magical thinking

[@joeyGalileoHotto]

if I could get a time machine, I would go back to junior year of college and make myself apply to internships. Because right now, I am getting emails that state "We have decided to move on with candidates who have the skills better aligned with this position" because I can't compete with candidates with more experience than myself.

[@mrbobbilly]

or more like these are fake job posts that never had any intentions of hiring anyone in the first place, they post these jobs to make their investors think the company is growing

[@Wassap133]

Its gg for programmers

[@MattRodriguez-h7j]

Everyone needs to take a 200 usd consulting session from coding jesus to figure out the way forward

[@hockeymikey]

What?

[@BangMaster96]

What the hell are you even talking about ?

[@techsuvara]

Your points are very valid. Which is why I find networking and relationships mean much much more than any leet code you can solve. You are generally better off working 50/50 on code projects, networking than 100% on code projects.

[@EpicBattleHub23]

The US job market is becoming like the job market in a 3rd world country. It's been like that in 3rd world countries since forever. That's scary.

[@NA-dx6ii]

Now, do you know how the rich looks at the poor and say "They're lazy," when being rich is atleast 50% about being lucky

[@runthenumbers9698]

I'll tell you where this is going to screw tech companies over. I've got job applying down to a science now. The next company to hire me... I am NOT going to wait until the end of my contract or for layoffs to come. Zero chance. I'm going to be applying to a few jobs a week even when I'm employed. I am NOT EVER letting this 2 months without a job happen to me again. NEVER.

[@erickkisreal9398]

apparently I've heard recruiters avoid giving feedback because it leads to lawsuits. How true is this?

[@fpsdeveloper]

To me, the lack of feedback, is the worst problem, then the huge interview process.

[@ivomuze]

leetcode is not ideal but how should companies filter then? They will not accept everyone, I think code review is probably better to test a candidate, but is not so standardised

[@neuxell]

i love it when they say "yeah we'll get back to you in 2 months" the investors are scared apparently. First, they didnt know who would be president Now, they dont know if Trump will even survive to presidency.

[@ebere3061]

As an international student that’s still in school I definitely agree with you on the leetcode stuff. I’m currently taking 4 science courses and working 2 jobs. I am in the industry a bit since I got extended part time on my internship. I basically don’t have time to work on distributes systems assignments, go to my internship, work on other school assignments, study for test and examples, go to my second job not to talk about work on a personal project I’m currently coding that’s impactful. Leetcode is definitely not the best way to filter out candidates.

[@hockeymikey]

You're part of the problem.

[@ebere3061]

@@hockeymikey In what way?

[@hockeymikey]

@@ebere3061 Saturation of the labor pool.

[@eightgates-ai]

I see it as automation reshaping expectations. The end to end understanding has become necessary because one doesn't need humans anymore for small localized problems. The real problem is a standard way to reliably test people and the industry has been trying to figure that out for more than decade now. Seems like there is no good answer yet.

[@seyfullah642]

I went through 5 rounds of interviews over the course of about 1.5 months. One with HR, hiring manager, two technicals, and the director. Only for them to tell me I was lacking skills in linux. Why push me through all the way to the end, then? Then HR went on saying that the team likes me a lot and recommends that I would be a great fit for another position, which didn't make sense. The position they recommended was purely linux. I don't think they had the intention of hiring someone as I had this job saved for months on LinkedIn before applying.

[@BangMaster96]

There are on average 6 rounds you have to go through to land a job. 1 - Introductory call, this is the initial 15 to 30 minute conversation with the recruiter. 2 - Technical phone screen. Where you probably sit down with an Engineer and answer specific tech related questions. This is usually 30 minutes, used to asses your knowledge in a specific domain. 3 - Take home online coding challenge, if the Engineer likes you, you get to the third round, an online 1 hour timed coding challenge. 4 - Live coding challenge. If you do well in the online coding challenge, you will be put through a live 1 hour coding challenge. 5 - Live Behavioral Interview. Once you're done with the live coding challenge, you'll have a 1 hour behavioral round where they dig into your past experience and ask you about how you handled certain situations. 6 - Live System Design Interview. If they like you in the behavioral round, you'll be put into another 1 hour live interview about System Design, where they ask you design a System for any specific part of the product. All in all, some Companies have 4 rounds of interviews, some have 6, especially for more senior roles. So yes, if you choose to pursue Software Engineering as a career, be prepared to go through the grueling and brutal process of job hunting, and 4 to 6 rounds of interview rounds before you can even land a job.

[@daviddickey9832]

Ok, 8 interviews for one company is ridiculous. I would honestly not bother with that, they're not serious about hiring, or they're looking for free solutions to problems.

[@jwfcp]

Because everyone in the bottom half of income is barely able to make ends meet, everyone chases more advanced careers. So there are way more people qualified to work any job than there are positions for them.

[@lutzfilor8253]

You are right with the system is broken but for the wrong reason …. A) there are developers in there 50#, 60s … so you are classic ageism (just saying you will get older) B) you don’t deal with search tree problems at all … it is BS, absolute BS …. Meaning nobody in the workforce is dealing with any of this issues C) corporate America is outsourcing you, before you getting really effective D) code reuse, you don’t write code from scratch or in a vacuum, meaning you need to read and comprehend code more then you write code And I could go on and on and on

[@tottiegod8021]

I'm on the other side of this. We have been hiring this year, but our company is slow to fire. We are having a hard time finding quality candidates. We do NOT put candidates through leet code but ask them to do a 4-hour take-home test as an alternative.

[@aj-jc4cv]

@tottiegod8021 do you give feedback, if not why?

[@kevinwang3309]

Honestly, no good developer will tolerate a 4 hour take-home. Actual interviews are much better use of time.

[@tottiegod8021]

@@aj-jc4cv Great question -- our HR replies to candidates so I don't know exactly what is said. We cannot formally say too much for fear of litigation. Most companies discourage and sometimes even outright ban providing feedback. During interviews, I primarily provide feedback when a candidate says "I don't know" or it's clear that they are guessing. Additionally, if we get the sense that it isn't going anywhere, I keep the interview going for a few more questions and attempt to ask them in a way that helps the candidate on their journey. FWIW our questions mirror our expectations of Senior/Lead developers. i.e. You have an API endpoint producing a report in 30 seconds but desire it to run in fewer than 10 seconds, what are the steps you will take to isolate the issue? This leads us into database territory where we ask about debugging code, debugging an ORM, or running the execution plan in SQL to determine if you're performing seeks or scans.

[@tottiegod8021]

​@@kevinwang3309 This is a reason we perform a screening round initially because asking for a take-home right away is just wrong. If you're good you could complete our take-home in 2 hours. The extent is making an API call to retrieve data, executing some basic fictitious business logic, writing a few tests, and then returning the data back via an API. Pick your poison: leet code OR take-home OR 5+ rounds of interviews.

[@tobybridle]

Hey, any chance the position is entry-level/junior? :)

[@bebdaumon3948]

This is happening across the board. It's not just tech jobs. I have been thru 8 rounds of interviews and 3 exams for an entry accounting job. I got a bach in accounting and finance. What you just explained is the same experience with accounting and finance jobs. I have heard from others doing engineering jobs like electrical engineering. So, it's the companies that don't know what they're doing.

[@ex8722]

I had an interview with amazon a few years ago for a tech position that goes from site to site fixing things. It was a 6-7 hour interview. I had to take the day off of my normal job. I did not get the job, and the questions were not difficult at all. What is ping, and so on. When companies can be picky they will interview 25 people and get 1000 resumes.

[@Mary-tj5qx]

I work in tech. Three years ago I was getting offers at double the salary I am offered today. Acutally double. And that's after three years of high inflation. The job market has changed dramatically in the tech industry, and from what i can see it is going to get worse.

[@SaifKhan-di1rq]

@Coding Jesus this was an amazing video and i also currently looking for my next role as a devops engineer and i couldn't have agreed more, thank you for sharing your thoughts it really helps knowing i am not the only one thinking about the way US tech job market is right now.