Skilled tech workers snapped up despite downturn

Re:Skilled tech workers snapped up despite downturn by tunesmith on Tuesday December 20, 2022 @03:09PM (#34071776)

I got laid off twice during the Dotcom bust. Remember that it dovetailed into the post-9/11 stuff too. In Q4 2001, there was just nothing. Intel and Nike were advertising web development positions for $12/hour (not a typo) and were getting flooded with applications. I ended up cold-calling various local businesses, got a freelance php/mysql contract for $20/hour, found a different perl/oracle contract for $55/hour in May of 2002, and worked my way back up from there.

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Re:Skilled tech workers snapped up despite downturn by ch4s3 on Tuesday December 20, 2022 @04:12PM (#34072641)

Wow, $55/hour is pretty decent salary in most of the US today, kudos.

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Re:Skilled tech workers snapped up despite downturn by UncleOxidant on Tuesday December 20, 2022 @04:18PM (#34072725)

For software development, though, $55/hour doesn't seem great in 2022. I was getting $50/hr contracting back in 2002.

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Re:Skilled tech workers snapped up despite downturn by screwturner68 on Tuesday December 20, 2022 @04:54PM (#34073206)

Yep I was getting $57/h in the spring of 2001, then the party stopped.

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Re:Skilled tech workers snapped up despite downturn by sizzle on Tuesday December 20, 2022 @09:29PM (#34075994)

What do you think you’d get today for a similar contract position if you had to guess? Really curious

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Re:Skilled tech workers snapped up despite downturn by ch4s3 on Tuesday December 20, 2022 @05:12PM (#34073439)

Sure, but it was framed as a rebuilding step 20 years ago and inflation adjusted its like $165,000/yr. Making that in the trough of a recession after a lay off seems great to me.

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Re:Skilled tech workers snapped up despite downturn by tunesmith on Tuesday December 20, 2022 @05:06PM (#34073364)

It was 1099, not W2. But yeah, that contract is when things started feeling "normal" again.

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Re:Skilled tech workers snapped up despite downturn by ghaff on Tuesday December 20, 2022 @04:18PM (#34072727)

I got laid off about a week after 9/11 though the writing was on the wall before that anyway. I consider myself super-lucky to land a job in about a month after a lunch discussion I had with someone I knew about 3 days after I was laid off. Nothing else, including discussions with other people I knew, was leading to anything at all.

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