[graemep]

In the UK. Freelance. A major client put their project on hold and (looking to fill gap) its been a long time since I saw so few opportunities for things I used to find it easy to get work in (e.g. Django, which can be boring but has always been solid bread and butter).

[n_ary]

Interestingly, since some of my colleagues are actually looking to jump ships, I lend them some networking. Last week when we were having a coffee, everyone had the same complaint, all the shiny tech are missing, the old tech are now all the rage. Basically last when I checked, anyone with TS(nest), Python(django/flask), Go(Echo) were swimming in offers. Now literally every job is Java(springboot) or Rails(RoR) and every job needs years of experience with every AWS(and some GCP) components.

It is very strange, seems like the market is just suddenly very different. Even senior engineers are not well trusted with adapting new language or tools, while previously I actually onboarded several senior engineers to entirely new stack (e.g. TS -> Go, C++ -> TS, Zig -> Kotlin, frontend engineer with vanilla JS -> Java). The whole market is insane(or entirely irrational).

Reference: Am in one of the EU countries where BMW originates.

[graemep]

That is interesting.

Is Django shiny? I have been doing it for so long it feels like old tech to me. YMMV I suppose.

[surfingdino]

It started in 2019 with the introduction of IR35 legislation. HMRC scared the living daylights out of clients using contractors, they even went after the government contractors. That opened the market to umbrella companies and large consultancies who switched paperwork, lowered rates, then shipped roles offshore.

[graemep]

I did not think of that as a possible cause because I do not do any work that could conceivably fall under IR35. I did find the market pretty healthy until very recently myself.

I do think contractors were to blame too. Using ridiculous schemes (like the borrowing from an offshore company one) was only going to lead to a crackdown on both individuals and in general.

[surfingdino]

These schemes were used by high-profile celebs, not ordinary IT contractors. Most of the cases brought up by HMRC related to contracting are against umbrella companies or people who tried to be "clever" on a much smaller scale, certainly not trying to avoid paying hundreds of thousands or millions of pounds in tax.