[hellojesus]

I first entered the workforce at IBM and several months later they did layoffs (resource action). Every six months after that for my 6ish year tenure there were more resource actions.

To this day I walk into the office each morning thinking today may be the day I get laid off. My wife doesn't think it's a healthy mentality, but I'm not sure I know another path of life.

This is to say at least it's done in one fell swoop. Repeated layoffs are certainly demoralizing.

[raw_anon_1111]

It is a healthy mentality. After staying at my second job for too long - 9 years until 2008, I was uncompetitive in the job market and I didn’t have a network. I was 34 then. I said never again.

I don’t get demoralized at all. I’ve had 10 jobs in 30 years. When a company decides or I decide that the deal of they give me money and I give them work doesn’t work for one of us - I move on.

And I found a job quickly with multiple offers after being Amazoned in 2023 and again in 2024

[hellojesus]

I think part of my anxiety is this. I went to IBM, stayed until my subsidiary went under, and then started job 2 in 2019, and I've been there sense. I'm a bit terrified of my market competitiveness.

But the good news is the mentality helps me keep costs under control. I'm nowhere near real earners in tech at only 200k, but I have two littles so haven't considered moving until they get a bit older because I'm fully remote and the flexibility with daycare sickness is helpful.

[raw_anon_1111]

Well two things in my case can both be true.

In my niche - customer facing + strategy + implementations hands on keyboard cloud/app dev consulting and every project I’ve had over the past year and half has involved integrating with LLM - my resume never gets ignored by companies looking for full time consultants not bragging I am old and experienced.

But my niche is just that a niche. “Cloud architects” who spend time doing migrations and infrastructure babysitting are far more in demand since AWS throws money at 3rd party partners for it than software developers who know AWS and can lead consulting projects

I’m very concerned about not being able to find a job in this market. It wasn’t this bad in 2000 in second tier cities as an enterprise dev working for profitable companies

And to your other point, I’m also just over $200k. But our kids (my step sons ) are “taxpayers” and fully launched and my wife and I moved to a condo 1/3 the size of our old house in state tax free Florida in 2022. Our fixed expenses are 35% of my gross. My wife has been retired since 2020 since she was 44. Push comes to shove, I could take a job making $135K (only a little less than I was making in Atlanta before 2020 and my pivot to consulting) and be fine - just wouldn’t be saving much.

[hellojesus]

Glad to hear you're doing well. Hopefully it continues and you don't have to enter the job market.

I'm hoping the same for myself, but hopefully at some point in the future I at least try to go for something new. I'm torn between the status quo of the cushy role I have now and the feeling that I've never accomplished anything noteworthy. But until the kids grow a bit more I think I'll remain stationary but try to enhance my skills when possible. I'm also just starting llm integration on a project where we'll be implementing mcp for agents with google-adk. Between that, vertex ai services, etc. it seems mostly like gluing things together more than actual innovation.

[raw_anon_1111]

There is absolutely no need to be torn about anything. Stability is important when you have kids. While I did change jobs 4 times between when I married my wife in 2012 and 2020 when my youngest stepson graduated, my wife was able to work part time in the school system so we could have stable insurance and she could be there for them.

But times are different now. The market isn’t what it was and it’s even worse when you want to stay remote. I live in a tourist area (central Florida), there are very few even enterprise dev jobs in the area. I’m hoping I can stay at my current job long term. I’ve never craved longevity at a job like I do now. I actually like this company. The only other two I liked as much were startups - one went out of business and I left the other when a remote job at AWS fell into my lap in 2020

[AlexeyBelov]

Are you scarface_74?

[raw_anon_1111]

I am that account has been dead for awhile

[MattGaiser]

> To this day I walk into the office each morning thinking today may be the day I get laid off. My wife doesn't think it's a healthy mentality, but I'm not sure I know another path of life.

Why? It lets you plan your actions accordingly.

[project2501a]

> but I'm not sure I know another path of life.

Unionize.

[raw_anon_1111]

So exactly what will the magic of unionization do when any company can hire developers from LatAm (much easier to deal with in the same time zone) that are good enough enterprise devs for half the price?

[project2501a]

block the hiring.

[raw_anon_1111]

So you are going to tell a company that has an international business that they can only hire in the US?

[smnplk]

For shops on the US soil, yes.

[raw_anon_1111]

Let’s be clear what you are saying - no international company based in the US should be allowed to hire anyone outside of the US?

[dfadsadsf]

If we unionize, will I still be paid $500k with four years of experience?

[vineyardmike]

Yes. This is still possible.

Not all unions look the same. There are unions that don’t prescribe pay to the company, leaving the company to compete for talent using salary.

[shimman]

Why should tech workers care about the small minority of tech workers that make obscene amounts of money? The median dev salary in the US is ~$130k. [1]

Besides that point, I would very much like to get paid over time for being on call. I would very much like a preplanned process that comes to layoffs rather than firing people at random. I would like paid paternity leave.

Always a classic HN post about the rockstar dev willing to fuck over their fellow workers so they can make a quick buck then feign upset over how meaningless their lives are because they devote so much time making capitalists more capital rather than bettering their community.

[1] https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/...

[Hammershaft]

I would like all these things too but I wouldn't like the downstream side effects:

a) Fewer companies taking a chance on people because the cost of firing has risen.

b) Lower productivity growth leading to lower wages in the long run because adversarial union restrictions lead to less dynamic companies.

[shimman]

Why should workers care about productivity growth when income inequality is at its highest levels in the United States? Companies already don't take chances on American workers, hence why companies need so much corporate welfare to stay competitive.

I'm sorry but American workers are getting bad deals, and let's not act like the largest companies in human history can't pay more in taxes to fund training, education, and healthcare for workers.

You're telling people that are fighting for scraps to start fighting over dirt.

My Qs for you are why are you so greedy? Why do you think you deserve so much because of pure luck? Why do you think workers don't deserve a larger share of the pie when the elites and rich have rat fucked this country into having more money than necessary?

[Hammershaft]

Is $130k a year 'scraps'? If you're making the average dev salary you're richer than %99.9 of people across the world [1].

The only reason we make this much is because of sustained productivity growth.

[1] https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/how-rich-am-i

[project2501a]

UPS (and all of Europe) says otherwise.

[Hammershaft]

European countries with labor regs that make firing more expensive tend to have higher unemployment rates (specially youth unemployment) because hiring becomes more risky.

[raw_anon_1111]

Cry me a river for the “average” senior developer who as a rule, makes twice the median income of whatever city they live in. It’s called saving money and living below your means. Yes I was a standard enterprise dev for 25 years before 2020 living in a second tier city.

[shimman]

Hey buddy, you may not believe this but helping workers does in fact help everyone. Maybe get out of the crab bucket mentality and help your fellow human, as I'm confident you would want your fellow man to help you when you make the call.

[raw_anon_1111]

Right because software engineers making $140K a year have the same grievances as the McDonalds workers who can’t get a set schedule.

Again cry me a river because (hypothetical) you weren’t able to save 3-6 months salary making twice the median wage.

[SR2Z]

This is a terrible plan to get those devs onboard, and unless your theory is "these companies are idiots who don't know how much to pay for devs" they're still gonna try and find ways to hire them.

Really, it sounds like what you want is the European system where employee protections are so strong that the tech industry is barely willing to hire and is crippled as a result. Layoffs suck but the alternative (turning hiring into a patronage system) is worse.

[shimman]

No, it just sounds like you deeply hate your fellow man which I find profoundly sad. Not wanting to better the lives of people around you and would rather greedily hoard all the resources just shows your lack of humanity.

Sincerely hope you don't treat people around you with this disregard, but seeing how you selfishly only care about yourself I hope they find a new community that loves them more than what you can (or can't) provide.

[SR2Z]

I find this take to be very distasteful.

These folks (in CA at least) have a marginal tax rate in excess of 40%. In the US they are the main payer of federal income tax - income tax that is then mostly used to fund social programs. Double your income and your taxes (at least) double.

But it's not good enough for you, apparently, because the only acceptable way for me to prove I care is to support YOU making more money and being immune to layoffs.

I'm self-interested and freely admit that I like making money because money is nice. You're self-interested but you're pretending this take is for your "fellow man."

If you're a well paid software engineer, you're already incredibly privileged. Most of the world would kill to have that job, but according to you the real unfair part is that companies can choose to pay some people more than you?