Ask HN: Who is hiring? (July 2024)

Hacker News Discussion ↗

July 2024’s Hacker News “Who is hiring?” thread showcases hundreds of openings across startups and established companies, with a heavy emphasis on senior software roles, AI/ML, dev tools, fintech, healthtech, and climate tech. Employers range from small seed-stage teams to profitable later-stage firms, offering a mix of fully remote, hybrid, and onsite positions worldwide, often with equity and modern tech stacks (TypeScript, Python, Go, Rust, cloud-native tooling). Alongside job ads, commenters surface recurring concerns about long-open or “evergreen” postings, unclear definitions of “remote,” and the growing impact of salary-transparency laws on how roles are advertised.

Overall job market patterns

  • Wide range of companies: early-stage YC startups, mid-stage SaaS, big tech, finance/trading, defense, government labs, climate/energy, healthcare, gaming, and devtools.
  • Heavy skew toward senior roles: staff/lead/principal engineers, data/ML, product managers, and “founding engineer” positions. Junior roles and internships are comparatively rare.
  • Common stacks: TypeScript/React, Python, Go, Rust, Java, C++ and Kubernetes/cloud infra recur across many listings.
  • Many jobs emphasize AI/LLMs, data engineering, and infra/observability; several focus on climate tech, healthcare, and fintech as “impactful” domains.

Remote vs. onsite tension

  • Multiple posters complain about the “insane” number of on‑site or hybrid roles in 2024 and say they will only work fully remote, even willing to change careers or retire rather than go back.
  • Others argue some people like offices and that hybrid teams may find fully‑remote members harder to integrate.
  • There is back‑and‑forth over whether remote work slows skill growth and promotion; some claim evidence for this, others ask for data and say they’ve advanced remotely. No consensus is reached.

Geographic and legal constraints

  • Many “remote” roles are actually restricted to specific countries (often US, sometimes US+Canada, or narrow lists like a few EU states).
  • Commenters note frustration when country restrictions are hidden deep in application forms rather than in the initial post.
  • Discussion of US pay‑transparency laws (e.g., WA, CO) and concern some companies may exclude those states rather than post salary ranges.

Skepticism about recurring or opaque postings

  • Several companies (notably a few long‑time regulars) are criticized for posting the same roles month after month, with applicants reporting rejections or no response and speculating about “fake hiring” or free work via paid take‑home tests.
  • Company representatives push back, saying roles stay open because they’re hiring multiple people and are selective, and that tests are not used for real work. Some commenters remain unconvinced.

Meta: thread usage and tooling

  • Suggestions to standardize remote labels with explicit country lists and time‑zone ranges; the thread template is updated accordingly.
  • A few people share tools/scripts analyzing past “Who is hiring” and “Who wants to be hired” posts (e.g., tech‑stack frequency, search across prior candidate posts).