Of course it was a bubble 2021 was nuts. People with just a few years experience were getting senior jobs earning hundreds of thousands of dollars, then leaving soon after to a new job earning even more. All the while WFH doing so sweet FA. I've never seen anything like that job market.
I’m baffled how so many smart people bought into the “new normal” narrative and believed that our pandemic era weirdness would last forever.
It was across the board. People in my hometown set up restaurants, cafes, coworking spaces - businesses that don’t see an ROI for a few years at least - all because they thought the young people who had returned home during the pandemic would stay there forever.
Of course, now almost everyone has gone back and these businesses are dead or struggling.
No they aren’t. They got paid large joining bonuses and 4 months of severance. They probably made 2 years worth of money in a single year. I’m recommending most of my friends at FAANG and FAANG-adjacent companies to go join a late stage startup that has high cash comp, since the equity value is pretty shitty everywhere right now. Once the market improves in a year or 2. Their resume will start getting shortlisted again because it had FAANG on it.
I think the days about caring about your employer are now in the past, given how companies have treated employees.
For the love of god you can get for hundreds of thousands of dollars actual senior engineers from Europe. It's baffling that US companies are not doing it.
