Also for anyone looking to draw conclusions here, remember that the HN crowd including the hiring thread is a very small slice of the tech industry generally, and for most people you only need to find one job for your job search to be over.
> for most people you only need to find one job for your job search to be over.
This is interesting as it relates to price rather than ability to find a job. Things would have to change dramatically to reach a point where someone won't pay you minimum wage to do tech work, but as difficulty in fulfilling positions declines the need to pay extraordinary and increasing salaries will decline in kind. This does give a good idea about what's ahead for compensation adjustments. The double digit percentage pay bumps people were taking advantage of over the last couple of years is no doubt over (for now).
I'm someone who is indeed struggling to find a job, and in my case salary has little to do with it since so far I've been filtered before that's been an issue. There's actually no way to compete on price even if I wanted to, since employers are looking for luxury goods and offering to work for very cheap would send the wrong signal. I understand the market is very different if you have a great resume and everything is lined up.
So I think a lower volume in the hiring thread has a stronger impact on people who are struggling, since they necessarily need to apply to a high number of places, compared to the impact on people who are going to get multiple competitive offers regardless.
Employers are looking for good programmers, since a bad programmer can do active damage to a codebase. They are willing to pay a higher price to try and avoid those situations so offering work at a lower rate isn't going to be attractive to those companies.
There are places like Upwork and fiverr where people are hiring cheap programmers to work on things like their small wordpress site. They aren't fun to work on and there is a lot of competition from lower cost of living parts of the world, but they do exist.
Once you have a "foot in the door" and some proven industry experience you'll find getting work a lot easier. It took me about six months after I first started applying to secure my first development job in 2019, and now I have tons of recruiters messaging me daily about new opportunities.
From the employer side it's like being a consumer shopping for reliable goods, such as clothing or appliances. You don't want something suspiciously cheap but you also know the marginal gains at the high end are probably minimal or maybe even negative. What you really want is to find a brand you trust at a deep discount from a reputable seller.
Brands go on sale to move excess inventory or to try to convert skeptical shoppers into becoming loyal to the brand later on at full price. However for better or worse there's no way for a job seeker to put themselves temporarily on sale. You can't work at a discount without devaluing yourself. This is important to understand because it means that it's not entirely about job seekers simply accepting lower pay.
> since employers are looking for luxury goods and offering to work for very cheap would send the wrong signal.
I'm not sure that's the right perspective. It's true that offering Google a chance to hire you for minimum wage isn't going to win you a seat. But most potential employers aren't putting themselves in front of the market because they believe nobody out there will work for less than a healthy six figures (or whatever).
I walk down the street of a small town and see endless businesses who understand where they could improve their business with tech, but also know they'd be bankrupted in a matter of days if they had to pay FAANG-level salaries. They don't even bother trying to hire tech talent. At $7.25 per hour, however, now you've got their interest.
I'm not sure what you're arguing exactly but the tech market of literally walking down the street and offering to help random businesses for $7.25 an hour is so far from HN hiring, or really any salaried tech hiring, that I'm not sure why you bring it up.
Most tech employers who make job posts might be happy if you suggest a salary near the bottom of the range they've already decided for the position, but will absolutely take it as a negative if you come in far below their range, especially if it's clear you're doing that because you're desperate.
I'm not arguing anything. There is nothing here to argue. Nor would I enter into an argument. I can think of nothing more boring.
> literally walking down the street and offering to help random businesses for $7.25 an hour is so far from HN hiring, or really any salaried tech hiring
Because the topic is price. Price exists specifically to guide allocation of scarce resources. The scarcer a resource, the higher the price, the more buyers pushed out of the market. Conversely, the more available the resource, the lower the price, the more buyers able to participate in the market. Just plain old supply and demand.
Like I said originally, things would have to change dramatically for things to end up where nobody would hire you even for minimum wage. Without some kind of fundamental shift, there is effectively no chance of developers not being able to find work. What is more realistic is someone not being able to find work at the price they'd like. If you're accustomed to making $200k per year, get laid off, and those hiring are only offering $120k that can be a hard pill to swallow. Many will hold out for a better offer. Eventually, though, hunger sets in and you may be forced to take the $120k job. If things are really bad, $120k might be more than you can hope for.
> I'm not sure why you bring it up
There was some confusion about the earlier comment and I found enjoyment in expanding upon it. Perhaps there still is confusion, but oh well.
We're talking about different ends of the market. You're talking about the high end where sought-after workers get multiple competitive offers and big raises from switching jobs frequently. In that case a hiring downturn means less offers, less switching and less raises. I'm talking about the low end where every employer has set a floor of let's say $120k for their developer positions, and if for some reason every employer decides that a job seeker is worth less than that, that job seeker won't be able to get a job as a developer. In that case the hard pill to swallow isn't accepting less money, it's leaving the field. It's possible for the floor to decrease over time to match the perceived value of that job seeker, but worker compensation is sticky so this would require a long downturn, during which time the job seeker will become even less valuable due to having been forced out of the field.
This all leads into the question of how rational and efficient the hiring market for developers is. I would say this is at least an open question, to put it mildly.
> We're talking about different ends of the market
I am quite specifically talking about price. Maybe you still carry confusion. Maybe you replied to the wrong thread. Maybe you're desperate for that argument you hoped I was engaging in. But whatever it is, we're not talking about that. That is certain.
In terms of price, I've been saying that parts of the developer market work like Veblen goods while I think you've been saying it's all ordinary goods. You started us down this road earlier, maybe unintentionally, by questioning my statement that employers are looking for luxury goods.
> by questioning my statement that employers are looking for luxury goods.
I explicitly acknowledged and agreed with your statement. What you said jives with what I said. Which stands to reason as there is nothing to argue here, as we covered earlier.
Indeed, you originally came at the subject from a different angle and I did point that out to orient ourselves on the same plane to make communication easier, but nothing about the subject changes as it relates to the angle of approach. The destination is the same no matter what direction you come from.
We can certainly work from different angles, but it will be more work. That said, I'm not sure what is left to work on. Your comment merely indicates that you also recognize that we're not coming at this from the same angle, which is something that we already established many comments ago. This suggests to me that the meat of discussion has already reached its natural end.
