State of the Market

[Fraidycat]

I was benched for seven months and finally got something back in February. Naturally, four months later, I received a jury citation. :fume

Jury service should be easy to get out of, probably existing threads on this site about how to get out of it. I got one back in 2000, just told them i was 'self employed' and it would be very harmful to my business revenue etc. I don't know if its harder to get of out of these days. But back then there was no objection.

I guess if you work through an umbrella it might be harder..

[cojak]

What upset me most was the recruiter was actually laughing while talking about the rate. If I wasn't so professional I would have just put the phone down on them....


When will this madness end.

Well she wasn’t professional, but I would have cut her off with “I don’t think that I wish to continue with this conversation as we are both wasting our time here. Good day to you”. THEN I would have put the phone down on her.

[hobnob]

Just had a look to become an Uber driver and from what I can see, it looks like it will cost ~£1k to get a taxi license from tfl. Not sure if this a route I want to go down, although I am running out of options ATM.

If you're working for Uber, it would be classified as private hire rather than taxi, because you'd be booked through an app rather than picking up people who wave at you on the street.

For private hire, you'd need a driver licence and a vehicle licence. The vehicle will only get a licence if it's suitable. If your car has been in the family for 25 years then it probably won't meet the air quality standards, but it's worth checking the TfL website for more info:
Apply for a private hire vehicle licence - Transport for London (tfl.gov.uk)
(Normally the maximum age is 10 years, unless you have an exemption.)

I think you'd be better off looking at Amazon or fast food deliveries, although either way you'll need to check your insurance policy.

[DrGUID]

Jobserve down to 16K vacancies now. The biggest surprise is that Jobserve still exists, given most recruiting has moved to LinkedIn.

I was fortunate to find a permie role a month ago, although for 10K less than a role I had last year.

I'm also a frugal GenX'er so know all about having a rainy day fund. Those school RE stories about 7 good years, 7 years of famine made a big impression on me. The nice thing about a rainy day fund means you don't have to bother looking for a role when times are hard. I didn't bother during covid - I just spent time getting my skills up to date.

I am not optimistic about interest rates being slashed. IT may be on its knees but I know a welder who just got an 8% raise and the job centre was deserted when I went to sign on. I'm a big fan of Peter Zeihan (geopolitical analyst) and his key trends are reshoring and the going away of boomer retirement funds (which have allowed record low interest rates to occur in the first place).

The other looming events are a housing market crash - especially in the UK as unlike in the US most mortgages are on floating rates/short term fixes. Also a stock market crash is quite likely when the AI bubble bursts. However non-tech stocks have largely already crashed (some serious bargains around if you do not think AI or weight loss drugs are the new paradigms).

I was benched for most of 2002 and ended up starting a little software company. This isn't too difficult if you can find an idea in a specific business vertical and can get the first couple of clients.

I've also been a teacher for a while - if you have minimal commitments to the UK then TEFL'ing is a lot of fun. You just need a degree (in anything) and a TEFL cert. I did half a PGCE when I returned to the UK but covid and an awful uni experience killed off that career. Teaching computing is kind of fun though but UK school politics is a toxic culture I wanted no part of.

For anyone younger I'd recommend quitting IT and learning a trade (plumbing, electrical, roofing etc.) or a profession like law or medicine. One of the devs I used to work with is now a GP. The other advantage of this is it's really easy then to find gaps in the market for making software products in these verticals.

[northernladuk]

Jobserve down to 16K vacancies now. The biggest surprise is that Jobserve still exists, given most recruiting has moved to LinkedIn.
.

How do you work that out? 15 years in and jobserve and all bar two roles have been sourced on Jobserve. Two were ex client and none were linkedin. Often the linked in gigs just direct to either an agents portal or directly to clients recruiting portal. I've found it absolutely dire. No surprise jobserve is still around as it's been the mainstay for contract roles for over a decade and IMO still probably is.

And in a world of competition all the job sites don't shut down just because linkedin is getting popular.

[edison]

How do you work that out? 15 years in and jobserve and all bar two roles have been sourced on Jobserve. Two were ex client and none were linkedin. Often the linked in gigs just direct to either an agents portal or directly to clients recruiting portal. I've found it absolutely dire. No surprise jobserve is still around as it's been the mainstay for contract roles for over a decade and IMO still probably is.

And in a world of competition all the job sites don't shut down just because linkedin is getting popular.

I haven't had to do much searching on job boards the last few years as my last five roles all came from my network and referrals. This time has been totally different and via much searching since late last year I can't see that any other board comes close to Jobserve for contract roles.

The one downside is they don't seem to have updated the site for a decade now...

[SchumiStars]

I haven't had to do much searching on job boards the last few years as my last five roles all came from my network and referrals. This time has been totally different and via much searching since late last year I can't see that any other board comes close to Jobserve for contract roles.

The one downside is they don't seem to have updated the site for a decade now...

It still uses aspx which is a Microsoft tech stack from ~2003. The interface has remained unchanged and I usually use the classic view. In fact, I believe the invented the use of a basket for job applications.

I amazed it's still around. I used it when Napster was around!

[Unix]

Have to also remember software development has changed massively in the last 5yrs.

The old, cryptic systems that no-one knew much about seem to be less in existence now. Everything is written with SOLID principles which means that there is less maitanance, support and bug fixing.

In general, whereby there used to be support contracts for older systems to keep them running, there seems to much less of them. Development work seems to more focused on new projects, new integrations, new code.

Then there are the cloud systems which have replaced onprem applications. For instance, why would anyone write their own POS system now? And integration between for instance SAGE into Excel have all been concluded.

A very similar analogy is the death of CRT monitors and TVs. An industry were diagnosing and fixing screens seems to have long disappeared as the availability and cost benefit favours.

I do believe that diagnosing and bug fixing, especially for older systems, seem to be dying. Which is one aspect I used to enjoy TBH. And with coding becoming easier with app developers, believing they are now fully fledged software developers having spent no time reading about LIFO, I can see the industry now diminishing.

I.e Why would a company need a full software dev on £500pd who can develop, diagnose and build software when all I need is 2 app developers to build new software for £600pd for both.

Have to remember that software projects are also better managed now with agile, scrum and iterative design, build and release. Rarely are requirements incorrect and large tasks such as before 'Build screen for database table x' are now broken down into the nth degree and managed through to delivery.

Yes the quality has improved of the product but it has also taken away the creativity from a developer. Meaning we are not solving massive technical design issues, another aspect i miss.

In my experience none of this is really true. Maybe in a few companies but majority are still tulip shows.

[Fraidycat]

Got a spam email from Glassdoor (Jobs In Tech forum) this morning, some very sobering stories. The IT sector in the US is going to be around five times bigger than the UK tech sector, so these stories of 800 and 3000 applications are probably true. If vacancies in the UK get 100s of applicants, i can only imagine how many they get in the US, (1000s?)

Project Manager
I just hit my 1 year anniversary of unemployment, I'm being strategic with my search and have submitted at least 800 applications to date with no interviews. I'm not just applying to apply. I meet the majority of requirements when I apply.Looking for recommendations for fully remote non-client facing Project Manager or Scrum Master roles.I've hit the character limit on this post so I'm unable to include all the steps I've taken in this search to appease any critics.

Senior Enterprise Implementation Manager
Month 10 of my tech layoff. No unemployment, I refuse to go on section 8. I dedicated my life to the tech game and now that I’m 3000 plus applications in I’m realizing maybe the game wasn’t made for me. 1099 are the only thing keeping the lights on..

Software Test Engineer
I have been searching for jobs for over 12 months and havent had a call back in the past 10 months.I have over 20 years of experience in my field.

[sadkingbilly]

Have to also remember software development has changed massively in the last 5yrs.

The old, cryptic systems that no-one knew much about seem to be less in existence now. Everything is written with SOLID principles which means that there is less maitanance, support and bug fixing.

In general, whereby there used to be support contracts for older systems to keep them running, there seems to much less of them.

except in banks etc.-
legacy systems still COBOL/ PL/1 /assembler code.