Ask HN: Who is hiring? (December 2025)

Hacker News Discussion ↗

Hiring landscape and role trends

  • Very wide variety of roles: backend, full‑stack, infra/SRE, data/ML, DevOps, mobile, product, design, and some non‑tech (sales, PM, GTM).
  • Heavy representation of:
    • AI / agentic systems (developer tools, healthcare, marketing, compliance, customer support, voice agents).
    • Infra / devtools / databases (serverless platforms, observability, workflow engines, DBs, Kubernetes tooling).
    • Fintech, insurance, logistics, energy, manufacturing, and healthcare.
    • Robotics, aerospace/defense, and “hard tech” (drones, robots, chips, analog design, batteries).
  • Many companies emphasize:
    • Small senior teams, high ownership, “founding engineer” or staff‑level impact.
    • 0→1 or early scaling phase with validated product‑market fit.
    • Modern stacks (TypeScript/React, Go, Rust, Python, Postgres, Kubernetes, cloud providers, LLM APIs).

Applicant experience and communication norms

  • One commenter laments repeatedly sending applications from these threads and receiving no acknowledgment, calling out the emotional toll and asking posters for basic replies.
  • Several hiring managers respond:
    • They receive hundreds or thousands of applications per role; many are low‑effort, templated, or obviously misaligned with the job.
    • They prioritize thoughtful, targeted applications and sometimes choose not to reply to obvious “spray and pray” submissions.
    • They report high no‑show and non‑response rates from applicants, especially from this thread.
  • Practical advice from hiring managers:
    • Tailor resumes to the job and highlight relevant experience.
    • Check email and respond promptly; be reliable for scheduled calls.
    • Make it easy to verify identity and employment (consistent locations, LinkedIn, etc.).
    • Avoid AI‑generated resumes/cover letters; they’re easily recognized and often ignored.

Impact of AI and resume volume

  • Recruiters describe being “drowned” in AI‑generated resumes and automated applications, leading to many CVs never being reviewed or acknowledged.
  • Some candidates express frustration that their carefully written, non‑AI resumes are lost in the noise.
  • AI is also a core product theme: many companies in the thread are AI‑native or adding AI features, especially LLM‑based agents and workflow automation.

Remote work, time zones, and visas

  • Roles span fully remote, hybrid, and onsite; many limit hiring to specific countries or time zones (US‑only, EU‑only, UTC‑8 to UTC+2, etc.).
  • Visa sponsorship is mixed: some explicitly offer it; others state they cannot sponsor or had confusion about sponsorship that applicants called out.

Moderation and thread rules

  • There is debate over enforcing this thread’s rule that posters must be actively hiring and committed to responding.
  • Some users complain about repeated job ads and “ghost jobs.”
  • Moderators explain:
    • They cannot reliably distinguish real vs fake roles or adjudicate complaints fairly.
    • Allowing open “call‑out” threads would turn job posts into battlegrounds and exceed moderator capacity.
    • Current policy (keeping complaint threads off‑topic) is viewed as the least‑bad, scalable approach.
  • Other users argue for allowing experience‑sharing in replies and see the current stance as favoring companies over applicants, though some job seekers say they prefer low‑drama, concise job posts.