https://matt.sh/panic-at-the-job-market
A 
long blogpost made by some neurodivergent 
guy who has spent 2 decades in the tech industry (including positions at STRAGMAN companies) and has gotten nowhere 
and about to get evicted
The whole thing is written like someone who posts on 4chan 
in an overly sarcastic 
and memey style. Its best summarized by the last paragraph:
The worst feeling is comparison. Comparison is the deathof happiness, as they say. I look at my own place
in the world
compared to people who just started at Apple or Microsoft
20 years ago then never
left, and now they have made eight figures just over the past 4 years while my life path has lead me to… practically nothing. Then the tech inequality continues to compound. Imagine joining a company where
the teenage interns have already made a couple
million
off their passive stock
grants and other employees have been making $2MM to $6MM per year over the past 5 years there, while you're starting over with nothing again for the 5th company in a row so what's the point
in even trying6. Though, did you know paying rent on a credit card still qualifies for points? Made $60 this month paying rent with credit card point
rebates7. whoops.
Well, at least the author 
is fricking 
hot for someone in their 40's, and isn't some IT blob. I'd tap that blonde 
bussy!
Orange site discussion here
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I'm kind of stuck in two loops with the same cause
Want to move out of parents and buy a house => housing market is a disaster -just put in an offer on a house at the top of my income and it had 10 offers in less than 24hrs
Need to increase my salary to reasonably afford a house => job market is a disaster so I'm not getting a promotion (would be like a middling increase anyway) and no other company is hiring.
Seems like I'm be stuck being a rentoid, it's going to suck to throw away 30%+ of my income to a landlord (which is also inflated) but I don't think I have another choice
!followers
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I legit wasn't prepared for this kind of honesty on rDrama.
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I usually post pretty honestly, it'll probably bite in me the butt. Especially when i do get a house and invite rDrama to do a housewarming party.
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Is this the house?
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Go in on a house with a cult
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Is this an offer?
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Maybe
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You should've studied medicine and became an SRS surgeon
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Holy shit welcome back, most esteemed doktor of the gender arts
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Genuine advice, living with your parents is not a bad option if you've got a job and making money and helping your parents around the house.
Yes housing market sucks. I lived it in 2021 where my best offers waving home inspections were still losing to cash offers. It sucked.
So while you can, live rent free ( lol) and acquire currency and keep accumulating it faster than the worth of the dollar going down.
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That's what I've been doing but both me and my parents (well...my mom at least) have been butting heads lately (trivial stuff it's just getting old).
In general I just want to move on to my next stage of life (mid-20s)
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Get a broad pregnant.
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Buy a fricked up house
and fix it up
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The houses I'm looking at already need work. This one I just lost was literally owned by indoor smokers
If you mean fricked up houses, they often have bad roofs which is $$ to repair, spending to fix a basic thing like that is reducing your supposed savings. I'd also keep in the mind those fricked up houses are also inflated right now so who knows if you'd get good equity out it. My favorites of course are the ones in flood zones. There's a few in my search that keep popping back up because ppl realize it's in a flood zone much later lol.
The real issue is the interest rate keeps people with pre-2022 mortgages from selling on the market - they have good 2% rates - once the rates come down in a few years it should be in a better place due to an increase in supply. As of right now everything is an estate sale.
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Keep looking
in the meantime. Even if it's super 
discouraging. House 
prices and rents are only going 
to increase. There 
are still good fricked up houses out there, even if you have to put in the work. Look for the ones that old people died in that haven't been flipped
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That's all the houses rn, you can tell cause they'll be bought in the 1970s and still have a pink bathroom (
who tf thought that was a good idea)
I'd be perfectly fine with those it's just they sell immediately unless I overpay.
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Keep up the good fight.
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Thanks king
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You can always buy in the near term and refinance later. Rates are pretty high and will probably go down, although likely not to covid levels.
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I actually got a decent rate for the current market, 6.34% which my friend who's also looking for a house said was great in the market.
I'm not super upset with paying high rates, like you said just refinance, the issue is people with 2% rates refuse to sell on the market so the supply is seriously limited.
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Depending on the size of the house, and the area, a roof isn't that bad. Mine's getting replaced and it cost about half of what I was expecting from reddit comments and googling.
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That's fair, I just meant that as an example. If you're going in looking for a deal but still have to spend tens of thousands on repairs just to move in...it's a hard bargain at $160k or w/e
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Renting is fine, especially if you keep it to 30% of your income. Just don't do it for 40 years. Being stuck in a home you don't like is a heck of your own making.
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I've found homes I do like they just sell instantly.
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With a mortgage, 90% of your monthly payment is going to interest, insurance, and property tax for a long time (talking 10-15 years). If you stay long enough your payment will eventually become more principal than interest, but taxes and insurance are always going to go up. In the mean time you'll also be putting money into maintenance, repairs, and other unforeseen costs like paying someone to deal with the hornet's nest that has made its home in your front yard
It makes sense if you have kids and plan to stay in place for a long time but if not, the deciding factor should be where you want to live and if living there is cheaper to buy compared to rent. If you're worried about missing out on financial gains, the average annual rate of return on residential real estate is 3-5% and you can get more than that in the S&P500 (or even in a high yield savings at the moment) so there are investment options that win out and involve less work
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Yeah I 100% want to continue living in the area and 100% agree the best thing about renting is flexibility. I just have no reason for it ATM because the only thing I want to be nearby is my family and church. If I had a gf or something maybe that would be different.
I hear the "you'll spend money on maintenance and repairs" a lot (and i mean a lot
) but every time I do hear it it's from a homeowner with a 2% mortgage who I'll ask if they'd rather rent then...they always say no.
The funniest thing about the rent vs. mortgage question is it's still cheaper/in-line if i can score a house especially at the $200k sweet spot or so. I was easily getting $1400 mortgage payments and some of the cheapest 1b1b rentals I can find here are $1200/mo - plenty on the market for $1600 too.
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Do whatever you must to get a house. Kill and steal if you have to. House life fricking rules. It's your own domain. Make whatever noise you want, don't worry about anyone else's noise, plant weird things outside. It's bliss.
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Yeah bro, this house I lost was so cool. Was so much space for me to entertain my friends and plant shit.
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Get your parents to help you with the down payment
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They're already giving me $20k for down and closing (they paid for my sisters undergrad degree entirely and bought her two cars, this is my version of that)
The houses I've been targeting are ~170k on the low end and $230k on the high end.
I clear about $60k/yr or so and could be approved for a mortgage of $280k according to my mortgage lender (good credit, zero debit).
The house I'm talking about was around the high end and again ended within 24hrs of being listed.
It kinda sucks cause i feel like my life otherwise has been poggers the last two years but this is seriously keeping me from moving on to my next stage of life.
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Aren't you a codecel, you should be clearing more than 60k per year no problem. I feel you, where I live there's no detached house within 200km going for less than 1mil. I'm looking at condos if I want to own
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I'm a server janny and this is my first career job, it's full remote (no need to pay gas for commute) I don't have a degree either.
My friend who is a codecel and has a degree isn't making much more than me, I'm not upset with the wages really.
In any other housing market I don't think I'd be in this position. And yeah this area isn't hit nearly that bad, at least people are theoretically getting these houses for $250k.
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That's fair if it's your first job, I would recommend applying around casually, I went from 60k in person to 120k remote from my first to second job. I was fine with the pay too but I was applying causally and found my current job.
I don't know about the server admin market but codecels I know make 2-3x that at a similar level. If you can transition into dev ops the pay is pretty similar to programming.
All the best though, if you're fine with the pay and the company I'm sure you can make it work. That's half the reason I'm still working where I am, work life balance is everything.
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Yeah I can crank out a systemd unit file or fix a servers permission error in about 15min and get kudos for it. It's a pretty ideal remote job, and everyone is so friendly.
Problem is IT market is crap rn, I'm trying to help a friend with a stellar Jr. resume and not finding bites at all. I'm sure it'll turn around in a year or two but it still sucks to finally be in a good place with an actual career and not be able to advance.
Guess I should use this time to study though
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Yeah I try to be grateful for what I have now.
Once I get a house I'll feel pretty set though.
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My current take on the Job Market Discourse is that millennial and zoomer recruiters (almost exclusively foids in my admittedly limited experience) are deeply, dangerously incompetent to the point that it's a threat to the entire US economy.
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The current tech bubble popped. It's nothing new. There will be new jobs soon. Until there isn't.
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I predicted this but I was off by about 5 years lol
You have to admit there are glaring inefficiencies in hiring processes though
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I'm not sure it was a "bubble" so much as people during/post the 'rona money printing overhired entirely.
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I think
2021/2 was a uniquely r-slurred 
market, but it's definitely worse now than it was 2018/19
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i think 2018/2019 was also r-slurred in it's own right with the interest rates still being historically low.
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Yeah but it's a bubble from like the early 2010s onwards rather than a COVID
phenomenon
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Yeah i guess that's fair then, I'll retract my "not a bubble" statement.
I guess i just feel like "we need programmers" is still true, I don't think there's been a correction in the sense "being an ITcel is a bad career path".
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like I have a computer
job in not FAANG and now is the wrong 
time to pull my leetcode up
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Sounds like a bubble
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Hiring should just return to list your fraternity on your resume and if the boss was a brother back in the day you get the job.
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We seemed to have an okay middle ground in between that method and current year 8-round-interview-heck for a brief beautiful moment there.
As it is, networked candidates get precedence over cold applications 100% of the time anyway which is basically the same thing. Not that that's necessarily bad, but in combination with all of the other bullshit...
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It's been like this for almost ten years now. I remember a roastie recruiter calling me and it sounded like she just woke up
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I get that it's an HR function so of course it's all foids, that part is whatever, but 80% of the younger (<35y/o) ones I have interacted with give off the same vibe as those tiktokers that were bragging about their do-nothing "tech" email jobs a couple years ago.
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That's an neurodivergent super villain if ever I saw one. Ex Machina was probably based of him.
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I think this guy might actually be
when it comes to finances. I initially took his comments where he was saying average established companies were paying employees $5k-$10k a day as hyperbole. Flipping through a few other posts, I think this guy legitimately believes the starting salary for neophyte devops should be around $500k a year, and should grow from there. Stereotypical delusions of grandeur, backed up by the grossly exaggerated stories of how he single-handedly has fixed awe-inspiring problem at numerous companies without a hitch, or how his ideas (if he could get funding) represent trillions of dollars in potential.
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hes probably thinking
about all the tech jobs where 
you begin at a startup and you get stock 
options 
and stuff which can end up growing greatly in value
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Those startup lottery stories make tech look sexy but what they don't tell you is nine times out of ten you didn't join the one that became the next billion-dollar unicorn and the potty paper shares you took in lieu of a higher salary are worthless.
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good lort these ppl sound miserable
how about you imagine none of this
like move to the woods raise birds and find a hobby
chasing $$ is so sad
like, it's the current year sweaty
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Motherlover, I had a .edu email before .com TLDs existed. All y'all AOLn00bs think you're fresh; you're just trite.
Snapshots:
https://matt.sh/panic-at-the-job-market:
ghostarchive.org
archive.org
archive.ph (click to archive)
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