My email has gone from big recruitment finders-fee offers in spring to a drip of single 'seasoned candidate available' contacts in summer to '3 hand picked senior CVs enclosed' this week

It's possibly going to be hard yards for many people over next few months -- but lots of successful companies were born in such periods

I hope it works out for OP and everyone else impacted -- maybe one will build the next Stripe

What economy are you in? I still see plenty of job postings on the East coast.

Anyway, if you were looking for a break from Stripe’s culture you’re not gonna be happy at AMZN.

I work on cloud computing services (PaaS / BaaS) and infrastructure. All the big employers in this space have hiring freezes.

I used to get 20 recruiting emails from Amazon a month. Now they have a complete corporate hiring freeze. The saying here in Seattle goes that if you can't find a job you could always try one of the many Amazon roles because they were always hiring. Not so anymore.

EDIT: if parent comment is referring to Amazon job postings, the all up corporate hiring freeze was just announced this morning!

You are talking about a niche. There is more jobs than employees can fill. Companies are begging to find qualified employees.

I second that.

Sure, but what about the psychological impact / feelings of people when reading all the news of hiring freezes?

For example engineers that were laid off at Stripe in Seattle ordinarily have a good chance of getting a job at Amazon, but now Amazon isn't hiring. That combination certainly causes folks to feel uneasy.

Additionally, cities like Seattle are expensive and not all companies pay equally well. If you bought a house on a single income but suddenly cannot find a new job paying enough to pay your bills, then that's a problem too. Previously there were lots of jobs of similar pay to go around. In the current economy that is no longer the case. Suddenly you will need to make some tough choices. Yes we can argue that nobody should have put themselves into such a position in the first place, but buying a house is incredibly difficult in markets like Seattle and San Francisco, and so I don't blame people who are now in this predicament.

>but now Amazon isn't hiring

Amazon is not the only company. There are literally millions of companies out there. They can stop being so delicate and suck it up and work somewhere else than FAANG.

>If you bought a house on a single income but suddenly cannot find a new job paying enough to pay your bills

Have you seen the tv show called x-files? Trust No One. Don't make big financial decisions by depending on someone else. Save enough to save yourself from that kind of trouble and find a job. It doesn't need to be Amazon. Suck it up and survive.

I blame people who cry after making $200k+ and not saving. I blame them for making weird financial decisions and thinking their social status depends on their job titles at certain companies. Life is fast and everchanging. You must trust no one and be self sufficient.

Someone from Amazon emailed me a few hours ago

People are hiring everywhere, and for like 1/3rd of the jobs you can work from home. It may get nasty in the next few months, but not today.

For most people in the job market today the unemployment rate is literally the lowest it's been in their entire lifetime.

A good strategy is to lower your compensation expectations significantly. You might get paid 40% or 50% of previous pay, but you still have solid ground under your feet and for once you might get an interesting project you always wanted to do, using some tech you never had time to try. Add it's not slavery, you can change jobs again when market improves.

As someone who trains a _lot_ of junior engineers and data scientists, it’s harder than 2021 but for an experienced engineer it’s frankly not that hard to find work right now.

Unemployment is near all time lows. The number of employed people is near all time high, and many have quit the job market (due to Covid). We are quite far from the scenario you are describing.

Finding your dream job? Maybe not. Finding a job in this market? It should be cakes.