[q7xvh97o2pDhNrh]

Any thoughts on root cause from your perspective?

I've been on the other side of the table recently, and I agree it feels like a buyer's market. But it still took a while to find good candidates, and a lot of candidates showed up to interviews weirdly unprepared on even the basics.

If it's a drought for you, then I'd have to add: It seems like an especially weird drought, as well. Supply and demand seem to be doing odd things.

(And, for the spectators of this comment thread, I can confirm: Yes, 2 people with 3 anecdotes each is enough to speculate wildly about an entire industry.)

[sotix]

It’s hard to extrapolate to the whole market, but I can provide my personal experience. I was laid off, and my unemployment benefits have stopped, so finding a job is a bit more desperate for me than it has been in the past.

Now I’m dealing with algorithms technical interviews, but they don’t mesh well with my style of problem solving at all. I like to quietly think on a problem by myself first. If it’s an exceptionally difficult problem, I’ll probably take a walk or the answer might come to me in the shower. If I’m working with someone else, a more collaborative process where we’re both trying to solve the problem and bouncing ideas back-and-fort is my style. Solving the problem in 30 minutes in front of a judge under the context of needing to land a job as soon as possible doesn’t properly test my abilities as a software engineer at all.

Yesterday, I was asked a leetcode hard in an interview from some no name start up. I answered how to theoretically solve it out loud with the interviewer but ran out of time implementing it. I got the impression the interviewer thought I was unprepared and a clueless engineer. I was rejected 15 minutes after the interview.

Overall, I’m not encountering interviews that actually let me display my competency. The interviews seem to all be tailored for a specific type of problem solver (fast in high-pressure test-taking environments) while eliminating every other type of person. I think it’s easy for the interviewer to lose context on the nerves the candidate might be experiencing.

The accounting industry doesn’t do this. If someone has a CPA license, companies trust that credential. If someone doesn’t have a CPA but has experience in Big 4 public accounting, companies trust that experience. If someone lacks those signals, companies may ask more technical questions. But they start from a basis of trust based on clear signals.

Unlike my accounting background where my past experience was based on trust, I have open source projects that can actually be reviewed. Some reviewers have gone through them yet still want to perform an algorithmic interview. Most have not. I feel that the vast majority of interviewers don’t really know how to interview in a more holistic manner.

[cutemonster]

When you say "a LeetCode hard", is that because the problem is literally on the LeetCode website, among the hard ones?

Or is it similar to LeetCode problems, although not actually on their website?

Does everyone remember all question titles by heart and that's why they say it was Leetcode questions, or is it more figuratively speaking :-)

I hope you'll find a place with an interview process that works for you.

[coreyp_1]

I'm not sure on the root cause. Like I said, there's several people that I know who are all experiencing the same things. I have 20 years experience and a phd. Others in my friend group have no degree whatsoever, but have a decade of experience. Several years ago, we were all offered multiple jobs at a time. Now, we are not even getting requests for interviews.

EDIT: adding that, because we all live in a non-metropolitan area, we all have been remote, and are continuing to look for remote work.

[RestlessMind]

I think fully remote expectation in non-metro areas can be a big hurdle. I know many startups here in SF who are looking to hire good candidates. But they want in-office presence at least a few days a week.

Someone summed it up nicely for me - remote work gives you speed. Colocation (typically office) gives you velocity. A startup needs velocity.

[ponector]

That is the key. By looking for a remote role you are competing with large pool of workers.

Are you ready to accept a new role as a contractor with 100k USD annual salary and no benefits? How about 60k? Many skilled developers will accept such offer for remote role.

[Suppafly]

Young people in the CS field consider any time period in which they aren't being actively headhunted and constantly presented with multiple offers from multiple companies to be a drought. r/cscareerquestions/ over on reddit is full of doom and gloom from new grads being unable to find jobs as software engineers at big tech companies.

There is definitely a down turn, because before you didn't need to be a good candidate, whereas now only good candidates are getting the interviews and ultimately the jobs but historically it still seems better than the downturns in 03 and 09.

[xandrius]

What I can say is that the interview process recently has become so impersonal and kind of automated even for highly skilled positions.

I have commented on this before but if someone is applying for Senior or above, seeing them live code a random algo with weird requirements seems less valuable to me than actually discussing architecture, previous projects and personality.

Even talking through a small project (with 0 code involved) would tell me so much about someone than what I've experienced in the last year or so while looking for a job.

So, in my opinion companies are what became weird. I don't know but even the smallest startup seems to feel they need to have their hiring pipeline be like Google or something.

10-15 years ago, I would just meet a manager and someone in the engineering team, have 1 hour chat with them and instantly know whether I'm hired or not. Now it's 4 interviews from the CEO to the HR and their grandmas.