[twunde]

The market over the last 2ish years is significantly worse then it's been over the past 10 years with the exception of Covid due to the rise of interest rates and change in tax incentives. This has hit large companies pretty hard, so there is a double whammy of fewer jobs from the biggest sources and more competition with other engineers. Anecdotally it does seem to be warming up, but it is uneven with significantly longer timelines to get a new position.

So what can you do? 1. Update your LinkedIn with descriptions of all your jobs so it looks similar to your resume. This should include technologies you've worked with. This is basically doing some SEO work so you get inbound recruiter emails (understanding that the quality of those inbounds will vary dramatically). 2. Apply to jobs directly and actually write cover letters (take a look at Who's Hiring, etc).

In terms of new skills or certifications, it's usually easier to add something adjacent to what you already do instead of learning something completely new. If you're a backend engineer, maybe you learn about data pipelines, or cloud infrastructure. If you're a front-end engineer maybe learn to write some backend code using nodejs. Put a side project on your resume, and ideally online.

[ericmcer]

Yeah the market has been brutal since interest rates went up.

anecdotally: I applied lazily around in late 2020 and was drowning in offers from big names.

In mid 2023 I started applying again and it was absolute silence. I was a much stronger engineer, my resume was better with 2+ years at big co, but I was getting nothing. It was a huge wakeup call that your abilities are not as important as the market.

So if tech gets hot and engineers are in demand take every penny you can get, because once it cools down they will not want you.

I did eventually find another job but it took 6ish months, my advice is the obvious stuff, get your resume strong, make sure you can crush any interview you get, and lean on your network. I don't think learning new technologies or doing elaborate side projects is worth it unless you enjoy doing it.