For the longest time, I was trying to get another remote developer job. Nothing crazy wasn't really targeting tech companies or anything, just remote work that would pay me well enough to keep going. It took me too long to realize that this was going to be impossible and why. I managed to get interviews throughout this time, but it always ended with them selecting another candidate. Of course now, I’m more open to in-site roles, but I’m in no position to move, especially not to some high CoL area.
Now I'm fucked. I'm currently living off a friend, and this isn't going to last forever. I've been applying to anything that looks like I could remotely be considered qualified for. Retail and restaurant companies won't ever respond to my applications, despite constantly spamming the same jobs month after month.
If the job market is ostensibly so great, why can't I manage to find anything? I swear it was easier to find a job when I didn't have any work experience at all than it is now. It’s not just me. I had another friend, not a tech worker, who was out of work for a long time. Most of the interviews they got turned out to be MLMs and other sales related Ponzi schemes. They finally found a job, but it’s not paying nearly enough for them to get back on their feet.
My network has also utterly failed me. I’ve had people left and right offer their help in getting me a job, everything has fallen flat.
The tech market isn't doing very well. You can check it my the recurring posts like yours here, many with hundreds of comments. It is a tough time out there. I would recommend start something for yourself, an app, a saas project. It can help you keep up with the tech asked in the job posts and also have an excuse for the gap in your CV.
Its crunch time for lots of people in the west - and if you have a bog standard web development job with little specialization, you will be competing with huge numbers of people to get work, including all of those recent juniors entering the market because of the boot camps they did a couple of years ago when things were frothy in the market. These jobs still exist - but competition will be more fierce.
There are many things you can do proactively - and its important to stay proactive, even if you feel defeated. Maybe getting another FTE job isn't for you right now, then sidestep, find a side-hussle, or train up another skill and diversify in yourself so you can build back better and not be left vulnerable next time this happens.
I think developers generally speaking overly invest in just development and computer-science, but there are metric shit-tonnes of ways to make money in this world. If you don't know any other way, learn some other way. Find some other domain of knowledge you always wanted to learn, and learn it, then figure out ways to create small businesses to monetize on it.
Middle class continued to be crushed, everyone noticed that tech was the only way to have a shot at upper middle class, and rushed for the same doors.
The “extras” that weren’t making the cut got let go last year and even harder this year.
The only way to win is to stop playing the game. Make your own company. Get a loan from the SBA. Fuck the disgusting wanna live forever VC extractions class. Get out of the rat race. Stop rewarding the cancerous leeches that are dismantling everything else so they can go do cocaine in Mykonos. Stop playing their game.
So, still not really open to on-site then, unless it happens to be in your area?
You could contribute to open source. This can take a few forms. A few small PRs on well known projects can go a long way. Many projects are looking for docs and better test coverage, these can be easy ways in.
You can make something on your own and open source it. I'd suggest something small but complete with some sort of interesting novelty to it. Make sure any projects have interesting READMEs. Don't just follow a TODO list tutorial in language X and stick it up GitHub.
You could volunteer your tech skills somewhere. Even contacting charities and seeing if they need help with anything.
You could try write a blog, but with a specific focus on an area that interests you. I was out of work for a while and planned to do this for horizontal database scaling for example.
Any of these things look infinitely better to a potential employer than a blank space.
Finally, it's really important to own the narrative. Put on your CV you've been out of work but looking for a new opportunity. List the things you've been doing. Maybe there's a framing you can put on it, like a career break. Don't be ashamed by it, stay positive. Good luck.
Everyone has a boss including the person who reads your application and it cant be rejected if you seem to be a perfect match socially speaking.
Emotional intelligence is the crack in the wall. All they want. They could not care more about how good you trully are providing they even know what a good dev is.
Play the social game. Buy new clothes that convey what they want you to convey. Study profile pictures and craft a great one. Study their mindset.
Aim for quality, not quantity.
Finally, you can do QA? Now you're a QA. Do what you need to do. Fuck em. After all, you've contributed and now youre dumped. Employee is not viable. A new director arrives and decides your career is over when you, as a nerd, created his own fucking job. So do it with a fuck em mindset. Beat them as their own game. And let it be known that employee is not viable (without unions?).
Good luck.
"Ask HN: Who is hiring?" threads. Such as: Ask HN: Who is hiring? (August 2023) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36956865
"Ask HN: Who wants to be hired?" threads. Such as: Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (August 2023) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36956867
They generally happen each month, and when I have posted a well thought out resume on the "Ask HN: Who is hiring?" I have gotten responses, even not necessarily leading to anything.
"Ask HN: Who wants to be hired?" also provides advice on what people view as an "interesting" short resume summary, and what types of skills are showing up (for the observant).
If I was close to financial ruin, I would do that and probably in my area could earn enough to afford a rented room and minimum quality of life, while I'd continue searching for something better.
I don't know of any place in the U.S. that doesn't have wanted signs in the windows for restaurant work. Between fast food, back of house, or front of house, there really are a ton of options both in downtown areas and suburbs from my experience.
Have you actually gone to one of these locations, physically, and applied? Did you follow up instead of just dropping an application by and hoping for the best?
Now that we are back to normal; many companies are going to hire in-site. The one that aren't have an immense pool to choose from. And you having no degrees and being out of work for a long time means you are at the bottom of that pile. Unfortunately, this is the consequence of your decision to favour your short term comfort over your long term employment (I know I am going to get downvoted to oblivion for this).
At this point, you need to act as if you were new to the market and target junior positions. Since you cannot afford high COL, maybe aim for mid/low COL cities, and get ready to relocate there - possibly getting a loan to afford the move. If you can; try getting some form degree, online certification, etc. Everything a new dev would be doing; but use your experience to speedup the process and get good grades.
Good luck !
What are you best at, job wise (within tech)? Not what do you _want_ to do, but what can you most _consistently_ do? I'd suggest concentrating your efforts there.
It does feel like the market is tighter than normal, but I still get recruiters and cold calls, so companies must be still hiring. ("Ouster", for instance, has open positions. I do not work there. There's some entity https://www.a.team/ which could be something, tho I decided not to follow up, got an odd vibe.)
You might have to fall back to ...shudder... retail, I did, much earlier in my career, and was the worst 18 months of my life. Got through it though! So can you. :)
Sometimes it just takes forever, and yeah, getting all the rejections isn't exactly good for self esteem...
It's not, they're falsifying the numbers by double-counting people who are having to get multiple jobs to survive. The economy is totally broken right now, this is worse than what caused 2008.
It seems like this is the crux of the problem. Your resume is getting you as far as the final handful, despite a bear market. That means your process up to that point is pretty good! The problem seems to be occuring in those interviews. Might be technique, might be information they're uncovering (or not uncovering), might be something else. I'd focus my improvement efforts there.
After that, it's just a numbers game. Keep shovelling leads in at the top of the sales funnel, and eventually a close will fall out of the bottom of the funnel.
All the stuff about the state of the job market and why might be interesting, but it doesn't solve your problem. Ignore it. Focus on being a great interviewee.