Anyone have insights about the tech job market stabilizing anytime soon?

[Anonymous]

Does anyone have better insights about the tech job market, and whether or not middle management layoffs are going to continue, the trend of laying off high performing, high earning employees is going to ease up a bit? Seeking peace of mind, but don't feel like you have to tell me what I want to hear!

What concerns me is this article: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/02/03/tech-layoffs-us-economy-google-microsoft/?fbclid=IwAR2Twh1ivzsSXLx03-SnMNWMk2JNS5O3dzQl9duGsxD_y6gQJxtC1MbgakE

Nothing like American capitalism to punish you for hard work... playing by the rules, working hard and moving up the ladder only to be laid off because they all just want cheap young grunts to stay at the bottom.

Is this a good time to try to strike out on your own?

[Anonymous]

The good news is it is stabilizing. The bad news is that it's stabilizing at pre-2019 employment levels. The days of paying 23 year-olds $150k to send a bunch of emails every day are behind us, I'm afraid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The good news is it is stabilizing. The bad news is that it's stabilizing at pre-2019 employment levels. The days of paying 23 year-olds $150k to send a bunch of emails every day are behind us, I'm afraid.

I’m more concerned about 36 year-olds who worked their butts off to move up the ladder and can now finally afford a family and a house, only to now worry that they’re “too expensive” and now face the chopping block because companies prefer the 23 year-olds who work for less.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The good news is it is stabilizing. The bad news is that it's stabilizing at pre-2019 employment levels. The days of paying 23 year-olds $150k to send a bunch of emails every day are behind us, I'm afraid.

I’m more concerned about 36 year-olds who worked their butts off to move up the ladder and can now finally afford a family and a house, only to now worry that they’re “too expensive” and now face the chopping block because companies prefer the 23 year-olds who work for less.

My impression was that it was ALWAYS that way in tech. By 30 you need to be a multi millionaire, angel investor, and founding your own company or be an executive at the company — otherwise it’s clear you don’t have the tech “spark” so why keep you. Not only that, your tech skills are rooted in old ideas, even if you learn new languages (I learned OO but how functional programming is all the rage etc, even though many language do both).

Ageism has existed in tech since the 80s, so not sure why this is surprising? What happened to the $500k you earned for 15 years? Why didn’t you advance to leadership? You should have lots of good options, like semi-retiring and becoming a SAT tutor or something.

The last decade of holding on to older people was just a consequence of ZIRP goosing things.

[Anonymous]

The reality is that the jobs being created are trash and the good jobs are getting destroyed. We need to hault the h1 visa during periods of mass layoffs and at all times until 100% employment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The good news is it is stabilizing. The bad news is that it's stabilizing at pre-2019 employment levels. The days of paying 23 year-olds $150k to send a bunch of emails every day are behind us, I'm afraid.

I’m more concerned about 36 year-olds who worked their butts off to move up the ladder and can now finally afford a family and a house, only to now worry that they’re “too expensive” and now face the chopping block because companies prefer the 23 year-olds who work for less.

My impression was that it was ALWAYS that way in tech. By 30 you need to be a multi millionaire, angel investor, and founding your own company or be an executive at the company — otherwise it’s clear you don’t have the tech “spark” so why keep you. Not only that, your tech skills are rooted in old ideas, even if you learn new languages (I learned OO but how functional programming is all the rage etc, even though many language do both).

Ageism has existed in tech since the 80s, so not sure why this is surprising? What happened to the $500k you earned for 15 years? Why didn’t you advance to leadership? You should have lots of good options, like semi-retiring and becoming a SAT tutor or something.

The last decade of holding on to older people was just a consequence of ZIRP goosing things.

There are 2 pathways to millionaires in tech, ic and leadership, only boomers think you need to be a manager to move ahead, ses should be making millions by their 30s

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The good news is it is stabilizing. The bad news is that it's stabilizing at pre-2019 employment levels. The days of paying 23 year-olds $150k to send a bunch of emails every day are behind us, I'm afraid.

I’m more concerned about 36 year-olds who worked their butts off to move up the ladder and can now finally afford a family and a house, only to now worry that they’re “too expensive” and now face the chopping block because companies prefer the 23 year-olds who work for less.

My impression was that it was ALWAYS that way in tech. By 30 you need to be a multi millionaire, angel investor, and founding your own company or be an executive at the company — otherwise it’s clear you don’t have the tech “spark” so why keep you. Not only that, your tech skills are rooted in old ideas, even if you learn new languages (I learned OO but how functional programming is all the rage etc, even though many language do both).

Ageism has existed in tech since the 80s, so not sure why this is surprising? What happened to the $500k you earned for 15 years? Why didn’t you advance to leadership? You should have lots of good options, like semi-retiring and becoming a SAT tutor or something.

The last decade of holding on to older people was just a consequence of ZIRP goosing things.

There are 2 pathways to millionaires in tech, ic and leadership, only boomers think you need to be a manager to move ahead, ses should be making millions by their 30s

Thats my point. Yes in the past decade you could thrive as a IC, but reality unless you have a deep technical moat, you are very expensive and expendable. Those days are gone with the current bubble deflating.

Sure and if OP is an SME making millions, if he got laid off he has lots of options as a multimillionaire.

[Anonymous]

We all know that many companies over hired during the pandemic and the last year or so we have seen the resulting layoffs. At my company, there have been a few people let go but our approach was to put a freeze on hiring for several months for most positions. In August, we started hiring again. The hiring process is more exacting and deliberate. The goal is to have the right candidate for the position or not fill it at all. Currently, we have north of 1k openings globally.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We all know that many companies over hired during the pandemic and the last year or so we have seen the resulting layoffs. At my company, there have been a few people let go but our approach was to put a freeze on hiring for several months for most positions. In August, we started hiring again. The hiring process is more exacting and deliberate. The goal is to have the right candidate for the position or not fill it at all. Currently, we have north of 1k openings globally.

How much do those roles pay?

[Anonymous]

It is not stabilizing, unfortunately. Layoffs are in full swing. Snap axed 500 souls just yesterday. It will not improve until interest rates get cut.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It is not stabilizing, unfortunately. Layoffs are in full swing. Snap axed 500 souls just yesterday. It will not improve until interest rates get cut.

That’s not likely until May or June at the earliest. I imagine 6 more months of layoffs and another year until hiring.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It is not stabilizing, unfortunately. Layoffs are in full swing. Snap axed 500 souls just yesterday. It will not improve until interest rates get cut.

Not just cut, but needs to be cut WAY back to near zero to spur speculative tech investment.

[Anonymous]

Probably about 15 years.

https://www.stlouisfed.org/publications/regional-economist/second-quarter-2017/growth-in-tech-sector-returns-to-glory-days-of-the-1990s#:~:text=The%20technology%20sector%20has%20a,36%20percent%20over%20the%20period.