The US tech job market is worse than I thought.

Heres my experience interviewing as a software engineer in the current US tech job market.

00:00 - Start
00:50 - Context
01:25 - Problem 1
03:15 - Problem 2
04:39 - Problem 3
05:38 - Problem 4
06:20 - Problem 5
08:00 - Problem 6
09:10 - Advice for Experienced Hires
10:40 - Outro

[ball-e]

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

[justinvasconcelos]

Been in the industry for 12 years. 90% of the people I’ve worked with cannot pass a leetcode interview despite being very talented and knowledgeable when it comes to designing and implementing software. It’s not a good way to test someone on their ability to perform.

[chanrox]

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

[kmichal]

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

[nonequivalence]

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.

[valdomero]

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.

[juggles]

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.

[blazer]

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.

[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.

[kikuomiku]

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.

[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.

[adarby]

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

[vishweshmashruwala]

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.

[shiyiyin]

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

[LM-tvbo]

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.

[anonymous]

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.

[JimBarcelona]

I have a dual citizenship. If I use the US passport, I won't get a job. If I use the foreign passport, I get the job, but a third of the salary. That said, 1/3rd USD salary as an AI engineer in a foreign country is a luxurious life. Your job is being taken by Sanjeev and Jian-Yang. Your boss will deny it, but I'm here to say it's true. That said, I've decided to start my own company as a solopreneur. Liked and subbed.

[maryamzibaeifard]

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

[kd]

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.

[ayoubkhalil]

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.