A small percent of tech workers struggling to get a job doesn’t change the overall picture that most people working in tech are living relatively prosperous and comfortable lives. We are paid at a level that means we don’t feel stressed at the grocery store figuring out how to feed our kids or wonder how will we get to work when our cars break down. And as a bonus, we get to sit comfortably in air-conditioned rooms and spend a good chunk of our day thinking about things we actually take some enjoyment from.

None of this is true for the “underclass” mentioned above who have little to look forward to each day; the labor they provide is in various amounts boring/tedious/demeaning/physical, and doesn’t pay enough to give them the middle class lifestyle they feel entitled to (e.g. home ownership, healthcare, etc).

I and many people I know have gone through job searches over the last 18 months. Yes, it was more work than we’ve come to expect over the last 10 years. But ultimately everyone I know has landed on their feet. As an industry we are still incredibly privileged compared to most.

>I and many people I know have gone through job searches over the last 18 months. Yes, it was more work than we’ve come to expect over the last 10 years. But ultimately everyone I know has landed on their feet. As an industry we are still incredibly privileged compared to most.

it's 50/50 in my circle. And I got the losing coin toss. Pretty much everyone in my circle got at least a threat of a lay off at some point except one person (and that company is in a very special situation). some got jobs quickly, to various levels of satisfaction. Some got laid off and then went back to the same company when they happened to secure a new project. I'd mostly prefer some stability over how well off I'll be when I'm 65. I'm not even sure I'll make it there at this rate.

>None of this is true for the “underclass” mentioned above who have little to look forward to each day

it's all relative, which is why this is hard to contain to a long term chart of "tech is still better off". No one wants to be caught off guard, doing interviews as a full time job for a year a income dwindles (so underselling it as "it's more work than we come to expect over the last 10 years" is underselling it). And even for the tech workers willing to work in the "underclass" jobs, it's not that much easier getting a job. Especially in my area that seems to have a higher than usual unemployment rate.

Sorry you are having a rough search. I was part of a large layoff so I know plenty of people who’ve been through it recently, some more than once if they went into another company that then had layoffs. I’d say the average search in my circle for those actively looking was about 3-4 months, with people who were very junior taking perhaps double that. I got some rejections that shocked and upset me at the time, but now that time has passed I’m glad I’m not in those roles because I found something later I liked much better.

For myself, referrals were a huge part of getting a job somewhat quickly. As more people are looking, the slush pile of resumes gets bigger which causes employers to feel they can be more picky. So if you’re relying on a cold application turning into an interview, that will definitely have a very low success rate.

I know only one person who didn’t get a job for an entire year, one of the smartest people I worked with at my last job, but to be honest it seemed like they were having some mental health / mid-life crisis things going on and not actually applying much if at all. I don’t know you and your situation, and I’m not saying this is the only explanation for a long and fruitless search, but if you think you might be like this person then I’d encourage you to reach out to someone who knows you and get the support you need. Marinating in negative thoughts won’t get you anywhere. This stuff has to be addressed because attitude, emotional state, and overall vibes can bleed into the entire interview performance and undermine what is otherwise a solid showing.

I hope something good comes your way soon.

>I was part of a large layoff so I know plenty of people who’ve been through it recently, some more than once if they went into another company that then had layoffs.

Yup. I was hit in one layoff, 3 months later thought I went into a studio that looked like it had a stable publisher, and then the publisher was in fact not stable. So 2 layoffs in 6 months. By layoff #2, the layoff trend was in full force and the market was closing in. I believe I'm now on month 10 of the job search (or 9, since I simply didn't bother searching in December and visited family).

>For myself, referrals were a huge part of getting a job somewhat quickly. As more people are looking, the slush pile of resumes gets bigger which causes employers to feel they can be more picky. So if you’re relying on a cold application turning into an interview, that will definitely have a very low success rate.

Well that's the frustrating part. It was super thin on January/February, but by April I was getting plenty of interviews. I have 8-9 years of experience and a well known company on my resume, so I can stand out if I get past the Automated Trash Systems. But the technical interviews have just became a free for all of whatever the interview wants to ask. C++ questions, software engineering questions, specific game engine questions, graphics programming questions (I haven't actually gotten a technical interview for a graphics programming position, but I sure have been asked how to render a triangle, oddly enough), leetcode questions, math questions...

I just simply don't know what to study for these days. I can answer all those questions well, but "well" isn't good enough these days. I need to be absolutely confident on on the top of the ball, but I can't do that for every single aspect of gaming. Too many topics to be a master of all ("master" in the context of an interview). At least if I wasn't getting interviews I could just accept the cold market and focus more on maintaining what I currently have.

>but if you think you might be like this person then I’d encourage you to reach out to someone who knows you and get the support you need. Marinating in negative thoughts won’t get you anywhere. This stuff has to be addressed because attitude, emotional state, and overall vibes can bleed into the entire interview performance and undermine what is otherwise a solid showing.

Well there's a lot to be bitter about in my industry, if we're being frank. Game studios are still shutting down or laying off everyweek, no matter how strongly their teams performed, and games are continuing to squeeze on the industry as they push more and more attempts at monetization without necessarily adding more value. No one is feeling very valued in this current state of affairs: not the customers, not the devs, not even the executives.

On a personal note, I did have 2 studios I went assumedly to the end of the process with (6 stages each + recruiter call), only to have no respose whatsoever after the last interviews. Only thing worse than a no at that level of investment is lingering in purgatory as an assumed no. Those would have been surefire offers had I applied 6 months earlier, but alas. I'm truly hitting all the branches on the way down.

Oh, and did I mention the ghosting? There are so many ghosts these days. I remember being contacted by a recruiter for a call, then the call got delayed 1 week, then 2, then cancelled. Never heard from them at all.

I'm usually one to place too much blame on myself, but these days I really don't know what to evaluate from this experiment. It just feels like a circus and I need to keep putting on the clown makeup and doing stunts until someone picks me up. Nothing really feels like it's evaluating my skills and taking my experiences into account past the HR call, so all I can do is throw the dice until something comes out the crapshoot.

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That's all to say: Sure, I'm bitter. But I don't really let that linger to the next inerview. Quite the contrary. Just a lot of numbness and apathy when beforehand I'd be excited at all the new tech to potentially work on, and all the creativity flowing. It all just feels so sterile these days. So artiicial. Interviews were always superfical, but it feels like no one even tries to pretend to do the motions anymore.

I still have a somewhat healthy social life, and I know how to play the part (I've done it several times before to success). But I definitely do feel interview burnout. one week I'll have 5 interviews where 2 ghost me (very haunting last years, I'll say) past the HR call and 2 others bomb at the technical test, and the week after I would simply just not take any calls. Interviews are way more exhausting than day to day work.

Generalizations are always only somewhat true.

But what you're probably seeing is a reaction to the end of a period when, assuming at least a pulse and some vague familiarity with computers (and maybe some ability to navigate tech interviews), you could walk out of a job on Friday and have multiple offers within a week.

This was basically never the norm with most professional jobs that could take months of job-hunting with no guarantee of a higher salary or not needing to move. I was very lucky over time and it always depended on professional connections.

A lot of people got accustomed to a period that was nothing like the historical norm. I expect very few of them have taken fast food jobs which absolutely happened in 2001.

> you could walk out of a job on Friday and have multiple offers within a week. This was basically never the norm with most professional jobs that could take months of job-hunting with no guarantee of a higher salary or not needing to move.

This was never really the -norm- in tech either. Yes, a small number of very talented, very well-connected software engineers with well-known schools or companies on their resume, could probably leave a job one week and have multiple offers next week, but come on... This has never really been the experience of the vast majority of tech workers.

Sure, if you survey Stanford graduates, working in a hot domain, in top companies Silicon Valley, you're going to conclude that getting jobs has always been easy "in tech."

Totally fair. But that was the narrative. And, yeah, there's been a shift from the "narrative" and I have three "full-time" jobs to I can't get a new job offer in spite of thousands of applications but that was never really the norm in either case.

>This was basically never the norm with most professional jobs that could take months of job-hunting with no guarantee of a higher salary or not needing to move.

It's not the norm for most professional jobs to need to study content unrelated to the actual responsibilities for your role, and going through 3-5+ stages of interviews just to get a thumbs up. no other sector is studying interview questions on the side. they either have a standardized license exam to vet their technical expertise, can do a contract/trial period to show their chops ("contractors" in tech aren't really a "downgrade"/less compensated role like in other industries), or otherwise have testing that closely mirrors their day to day.

>I expect very few of them have taken fast food jobs which absolutely happened in 2001.

I was in elementary for 2001, so I can't comment much on 2001 or 2009. I have indeed heard some of those people consider 2023/4 to be even worse for the market, however. Just "being good at your job" isn't enough these days, where it sounds like that sufficed in 2001, and the study space for 2009 was at least manageable. But that's secondhand accounts.

Just because IT sector has lows, doesn't mean it's a bad one suddenly.

It’s harder than it was a few years ago to find a six figure upwardly mobile job.

This is a different world from the one where hundreds of thousands are committing suicide with fentanyl.

I'd take any job, but very few bites outside of tech. So chasing that tech job is literally my path of least resistance.