The Reality Of Tech Jobs in 2024
Summary
TLDRThe job market is turbulent for engineers; layoffs and hiring freezes lead companies to cut costs. As a result, senior engineers now compete for mid-level roles while employers are wary of investing in training junior hires who may underdeliver. The best path forward is building trusted connections through friendships and networking to access unlisted opportunities. Rather than applying cold, focus on proving trustworthiness through relationships and contributions over degrees and scores. Surround yourself with peers to share progress and discover openings.
Takeaways
- 😟 The job market for engineers is in a scary state with more competition for fewer open positions
- 😥 Companies have tightened budgets and are less willing to take risks on hiring junior developers
- 🤝 Connections and trust are now the most important factors in getting hired as an engineer
- 😀 Referrals and co-worker recommendations provide a lot of value and trust
- 👥 Surrounding yourself with other engineers is key for making connections and finding opportunities
- 🤯 Cold applying to jobs alone is usually not enough in the current market
- 😢 The myth of getting good offers just from school and side projects is fading
- 😡 Internships are even harder to get than full-time entry level positions
- 😊 There are great online tech communities to network and meet peers in
- 🤔 Understand that trust and connections are what companies prioritize in candidates now
Q & A
Why are companies more hesitant to hire junior engineers right now?
-Companies are hesitant because junior engineers require a lot of onboarding and ramp up time, which slows down existing engineers. With tighter budgets, companies want guaranteed returns on their engineering investments.
What is the approximate fully-loaded cost of an engineer in the US?
-The typical fully-loaded cost for an engineer in the US, including salary, benefits, and office expenses, ranges from $200,000 to $400,000 per year.
How can junior engineers build trust when job hunting?
-Junior engineers can build trust through personal connections and referrals, contributing to open source projects, showcasing their skills on sites like LeetCode, and highlighting work from previous internships or jobs.
Why are employee referrals so valuable right now?
-Referrals provide social proof and serve as a trust signal for candidates. With higher risk tolerance, companies lean more on referrals rather than cold applications.
What is the alternative to cold applying for jobs?
-Instead of just cold applying, focus on networking both online and in-person to build connections in the industry. Leverage sites like LinkedIn, Twitter Spaces, and Discord communities.
Why is networking so important for getting a job right now?
-With lower risk tolerance, most companies hire through referrals and existing connections. Networking builds trust and social proof necessary to get your resume prioritized.
What types of engineers are lower risk hires right now?
-Engineers with several years of experience at reputable companies are lower risk, as they have a proven track record. Specific niche skills are also valuable.
How has the expectation for engineer training changed?
-Companies expect new hires to ramp up faster with less onboarding. There is less tolerance for long engineer training periods.
Why don't degrees and interview performance matter as much now?
-The current market values trust and connections over formal credentials like degrees or coding challenges. Social proof is more important.
What if you don't have an in-person network right now?
-Online communities like Twitter Spaces and Discord groups provide connections too. The key is discussing code and building relationships.
Outlines
😕 Job Market is Challenging for New Engineers Due to Lack of Trust
The job market is very challenging currently for new engineers and even senior engineers. Companies have tightened budgets and are hesitant to take risks on hiring and training junior engineers. The key thing missing for new engineers is trust and connections in the industry. The best way to build trust is through relationships with other engineers who can vouch for you.
😥 Cold Applying is Not Effective; Focus on Networking
Simply cold applying to jobs is usually not effective. With the changed job market, companies are much less willing to take risks on candidates. It's critical to network extensively with other engineers to build relationships and trust that can facilitate opportunities. Strongly recommend finding communities and groups to connect with other coders.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡trust
💡network
💡risk
💡productivity
💡relationships
💡onboarding
💡referrals
💡budgets
💡connections
💡opportunities
Highlights
The job market is in a weird and scary state with layoffs and senior engineers competing for positions they weren't before.
Companies are tightening budgets both short-term and long-term, and engineers are the biggest expense for most tech companies.
It's a risky investment to hire junior engineers since they slow teams down initially and may never reach full productivity.
Guaranteed wins right now are hiring from trusted networks rather than training junior engineers.
New engineers lack trust and connections, which are the most important factors in hiring.
GitHub profiles and coding scores don't provide trust - personal connections do.
College is still valuable primarily for making professional connections, not just getting a degree.
Many talented junior developers in tech communities don't require much training, but companies are still reluctant to take the risk.
Focus less on exact job requirements and more on building trust through professional relationships.
Surround yourself with other engineers to build connections and find opportunities.
Cold applying alone is unlikely to be successful in the current market.
The myth of getting top jobs through solo coding projects is fading - connections matter more.
Internships are extremely competitive right now and difficult to acquire.
Leverage online tech communities to network and meet peers.
Understand that lack of industry trust is the main barrier for new engineers in job hunting.
Making professional friendships reduces the risk of hiring you and increases opportunities.
Transcripts
I'm going to be honest getting a job
sucks right now I'm really lucky that
I'm not on the market in any traditional
sense now that I run my own company I
have the YouTube channel and I do a lot
of advising for other companies the more
I see it from the perspective both of
people hiring as well as people looking
for a new job or even their first job
the market is in a weird and really
scary State I've never seen it quite
like this before especially with the
layoffs and it's not that senior
Engineers don't have jobs or
opportunities it's that they're now
competing for positions they weren't
before and the despiration to find
Engineers on the company side isn't
quite what it used to be either what
happened we could go in depth on the
economic state of things the interest
rates changing and the reasons why
companies are being tighter with their
budgets but there's plenty of other
YouTubers doing that better than I would
companies are tightening their spend
both short-term and longterm and if
you've never run a team or a company
before you might not know this but the
vast majority of spend for the vast
majority of companies with Engineers is
the engineers because their salaries are
big their benefits are bigger offices
are expensive filling them with people
is expensive and no service you're
paying for costs as much as most of the
teams at your company and when you're
talking upwards of like $200 to $400,000
per person having fewer of them is
really beneficial but what if you're a
new engineer your salary is going to be
a lot smaller right even in the US
markets it's like 80 to 110k yeah after
benefits and everything we're closer to
like 120 to 130 and Junior Engineers
take so long to onboard that you're not
getting much value out of that money
initially in fact new Engineers often
have to be onboarded which means times
being spent by other Engineers that
could be spent on the product instead
being spent helping someone else get
faster if I had a team with four people
on it and I hired a junior enge
productivity is going to go down by 10
to 20% when they join period and after
some amount of time we might go up and
be a little bit closer to like 120% of
the previous productivity so a little
bump in the positive direction but it
takes a while to get there it's also a
gamble because not all Junior Engineers
will ever figure it out it's not because
they're bad it's because the environment
might not be the right place for them to
learn the tech stack might not jive with
them or their interests they might just
be in a weird place in life that makes
it harder for them to produce and as
such it's harder to make these gambles
it's a really challenging bet to make to
say hey we're going to pull this person
in and our team's going to move slower
for a bit but if it works out we might
move slightly faster for only $140,000 a
year that's really scary and as a result
fewer companies are making those bets
and instead choosing to spend their
money on guaranteed wins what's a
guaranteed win in this market and in
this industry I'd make the argument that
the closest thing we have to a
guaranteed win is a team where things
are going well where the people on the
team know others from other companies
they've worked with in the past and know
the capabilities of that they can pull
in to do specific understood earmarked
work if we are working on a front-end
product and we need the back end to be
changed but we don't have a person to
contribute to that backend on our team
and it exists at another team at the
company but I know somebody who has
worked with the people who built that
backend who already knows the language
who knows the framework who knows all
the things they're doing and I've worked
with them in the past and I trust them
as a cooworker I could vouch for them on
my team as a person to bring in and at
that point their previous role and title
barely matters their degree doesn't
matter their GitHub doesn't matter what
matters is I brought trust to the table
and that's the thing the vast majority
of new developers are missing when
they're hunting for jobs they don't have
trust yet it's really really hard to
build trust as a new developer in the
industry there's a lot of things that
help with trust like quality experience
at other companies like co-workers that
can for you this is why referrals and
recommendations on things like LinkedIn
are so valuable but in the end the only
way you're going to get a job right now
is if you have some amount of trust to
build on top of how you build that is
hard you can go through contributions on
GitHub you can prove your high scores on
leak code but the best thing you can do
by far is make friendships and
connections with other people in the
industry this is the real reason I push
going to college it's not about having a
degree although obviously having that on
your resume makes you a little more
trustable it's the connections you make
with other people who might make those
other connections at other places I
can't tell you how many times I'm the
linking factor between some person
getting their first job and some company
that doesn't want to hire another
engineer that takes 2 years to train and
I'll be honest a lot of the junior
engineers in this community don't need
much time to be trained y'all kill it
there are some really talented younger
folk in this community and I can
confidently recommend you to companies
that wouldn't normally hire somebody
under 25 and yes that job listing up on
LinkedIn or whatever might say 25 plus
it might say senior on it it might even
say principal on it they're saying that
because those titles are an exchange
they have made they're willing to spend
more money to have less risk but that
doesn't always mean anything what
they're looking for is less risk and
more trust and finding ways to provide
that primarily through connections with
others is the best win you can have so
surround yourself with other Engineers
that are at where you're at some will go
faster some will go slower some of them
will find really cool opportunities and
the more you stay in touch with them the
more likely you are to find those
opportunities yourself I can't recommend
just cold applying to a bunch of jobs it
might be good practice but it's going to
give you the wrong signals because
you're going to fail a lot of interviews
that's the nature of the field but this
isn't about interviews this isn't about
your resume this is about how you've
proven yourself in an industry that
isn't looking to make bets anymore and
when the market changes the way it has
the willingness of these companies to
take risk and make bets has gone down a
ton and it's important to recognize how
risky of a bet you are as an engineer if
you have 5 years working at Netflix or
Amazon you're a much less risky bet than
somebody who just graduated from school
and has two projects on their GitHub but
if one of those projects is used by
somebody on the team you're interviewing
with that risk goes away immediately so
think deeply about how you've proven
yourself and the relationships you have
and what do it take to make more of
those if you don't have an in-person
group to hang out with that also codes
and is also learning with you find some
online there's lots of really cool
communities with people in things like
Twitter space is people in our very own
Discord which you can join with the link
in the description there are so many
opportunities to network and meet the
other people who you can build this
trust with but it's so important to
understand that that is the core of
hiring right now and that's the thing
you probably don't have if you're
struggling to find a job so go Network
make friends don't go at this alone the
myth of the solo programmer who goes to
a really nice School cold applies to 10
companies and gets offers from two of
them just isn't as much a thing anymore
and God don't get me started on
internships right now what do you think
how's your experience been trying to
hunt for a job if you want to hear more
about growing as an engineer I'll pin a
video in the corner here all about that
and if you're not interested you're
already seen it YouTube thinks you like
the video below it thank you guys as
always appreciate you all a ton peace NS
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