Ask HN: How do I figure out what skills are in demand?
I've been looking for a new software engineering role for a couple of months now. Despite have 3 years of profession experience, I'm having no luck getting calls. My best plan at the moment is to work on my skill set, get a few certifications, and create an impressive project or two to showcase my new skills.
Are there any sources on skills that are in high demand today? Are there any certifications that would look great on a resume?
Bonus question: Is the market over saturated at the moment? It was so much easier to find a job two years ago.
You can’t be opportunistic in hi tech job market. This just doesn’t work.
What is always in demand is your deep meaningful work experience and this is the only parameter worth optimizing for.
If you can show a few years of building a complex software product - it doesn’t matter if you did it using C++ or brainfuck.
And you will always beat candidates with certificates but lack of such meaningful experience.
Ha! The Netherlands would like to have a word with you. All non big tech companies are like "Oh, you don't have Java experience? That's okay, we know you have talent and are a capable individual... NEXT"
Source: my experience
And? You put in your cv you know Java, and solved. I mean, if you have experience with a few mainstream languages, it should be no problem to handle yet another one. I have done this several times. Yes, I lie in my cv, but that doesn’t mean I cannot work with yet another unknown programming language and be productive after a few weeks. More often than not, the real issue is to get to know the business logic in a new job, that may take a few months (more than enough time to get up to speed with a new language).
Notice I said “mainstream” languages. This means stuff like Java, Python, PHP, Ruby, Go, TS, etc. Now, stuff like Lisp, Haskell, Clojure, ok, that’s different enough.
What are you going to say in an interview when they ask you to describe your Java experience?
I would have no problem taking on people with excellent c++ or c# experience for a longer term role if they show they are committed to spending time improving their java skills. If you are hiring for a very short assignment then obviously you're going to want the specific skills you're hiring for.
Had a guy with c++ experience for C# job - never again. Yes it is generalization but he messed up basically half a year of company work.
If in the interview for C# or Java someone doesn’t write idiomatic C# or Java - but writes his c/c++ „for loops” it won’t work.
Management went over to hire that guy because we needed a developer and he was living close to the office… Worst hire ever - even a guy who we hired remotely that seemed to cheat because he did nothing or not much was waaay better because after 2 months we fired him and he did not break anything and did not make other team mates angry besides management.
I guess the problem was more that the guy was a jerk or not willing to learn. I do remember a C++ guy who would only ever do stuff in text files refusing to use a database which was ok up to a point, until it wasn't. What I meant was that someone who has the competency to understand complex C/C++ will not struggle to learn to work well with Java/C#
But that's the problem. With big corporations you probably wouldn't be the one deciding who to hire. It will be some HR person who doesn't know what qualities are important. They just Ctrl+f through the stack of CV's looking how often keyword 'x' occurs.
But that is The Netherlands- good luck buying a flat or house. Also good luck getting an employee because most people on normal salaries cannot afford to rent something decent that is not 2 hours commute time. While OV is quite nice in NL, trains ar e still expensive and also companies pay for travel costs but not for your time between home and office.
Agreed. Your comment inspired this blog post [0] expanding on the idea.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40908810
I love the idea of a second-order HN which is just content inspired by or in response to something posted on HN
Wow, Im flattered
You are certainly right for the higher level higher paying jobs that look for elite candidates. How would you modify your answer to also include less experienced candidates who are looking for something to specialize and build complex products for?
Technical skills come and go. Soft Skills and Project Management are universal and always (but not explicitly) in demand. No matter the technical stack or project domain, you will always be working as a team negotiating requirements, writing tickets, estimating work, and communicating across domain boundaries. Getting good at this process and then executing on that work is the one-two punch of a Senior developer and above. The management track is getting a team of people to do these steps in harmony.
> something to specialize and build complex products for
Generally you specialize in a particular business domain. Being realistic, you get this skill by repeating the above (PM and PR) in a particular domain enough that it soaks your brain like a brine. This is particularly true if you work in a regulated industry. If you wanted to get into a particular domain, target working for teams and companies explicitly working that domain as a way to immerse yourself. Once there, get cozy with the Product Manager as a way of drip-feeding learning the domain.
The only goal for less experienced candidate is to get a position in a good project.
So I’d invest in optimizing my cv to pass as many hr filters as i can and in my portfolio of pet projects or open source contributions — to demonstrate that I am capable to do meaningful work e2e.
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Three years? I have almost _thirty_. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen it this bad and I’ve seen it pretty bad. The dot-com bust was brutal. Skilling up is never a bad idea, but that’s not the primary constraint right now. The primary constraint is more jobs are being shed than positions are hiring.
That’s is true. I have almost 15 years of exp and there are quite some job postings in my skill area. Like 2 years ago when I sent out CV I got call back next day. Nowadays I send CV and crickets - I don’t think my CV got worse in those 2 years.
And watch this: https://youtu.be/VpPPHDxR9aM?feature=shared
Look at job postings. They list the qualifications they are looking for. Learn or improve on those things.
Personally, I think when the job market is tough, it's better to keep the job you have, as a new hire will be easy to let go if the company needs to reduce their headcount.
The market over the last 2ish years is significantly worse then it's been over the past 10 years with the exception of Covid due to the rise of interest rates and change in tax incentives. This has hit large companies pretty hard, so there is a double whammy of fewer jobs from the biggest sources and more competition with other engineers. Anecdotally it does seem to be warming up, but it is uneven with significantly longer timelines to get a new position.
So what can you do? 1. Update your LinkedIn with descriptions of all your jobs so it looks similar to your resume. This should include technologies you've worked with. This is basically doing some SEO work so you get inbound recruiter emails (understanding that the quality of those inbounds will vary dramatically). 2. Apply to jobs directly and actually write cover letters (take a look at Who's Hiring, etc).
In terms of new skills or certifications, it's usually easier to add something adjacent to what you already do instead of learning something completely new. If you're a backend engineer, maybe you learn about data pipelines, or cloud infrastructure. If you're a front-end engineer maybe learn to write some backend code using nodejs. Put a side project on your resume, and ideally online.
Yeah the market has been brutal since interest rates went up.
anecdotally: I applied lazily around in late 2020 and was drowning in offers from big names.
In mid 2023 I started applying again and it was absolute silence. I was a much stronger engineer, my resume was better with 2+ years at big co, but I was getting nothing. It was a huge wakeup call that your abilities are not as important as the market.
So if tech gets hot and engineers are in demand take every penny you can get, because once it cools down they will not want you.
I did eventually find another job but it took 6ish months, my advice is the obvious stuff, get your resume strong, make sure you can crush any interview you get, and lean on your network. I don't think learning new technologies or doing elaborate side projects is worth it unless you enjoy doing it.
>I'm having no luck getting calls >Are there any sources on skills that are in high demand today?
Do you look at the things you are applying for? Presumably you have sent out multiple applications, meaning you have looked at many listings, for sending out a dozen applications you likely already looked at hundreds of potential positions. That should have given you a great overview of what employers are looking for.
It is hard to answer what specific skills are relevant to the industry and geographic location are relevant, but you are currently in a great position to figure that out. Your resume and skills should target a particular industry and a particular area and you should start out by actually finding some match between what your skills are and what you can do and what you want to do.
>My best plan at the moment is to work on my skill set, get a few certifications, and create an impressive project or two to showcase my new skills.
To what end? Do you want to be employed by a specific industry where these certifications are relevant? Do you think your employer needs to see "impressive projects"? How does an "impressive project" look, which you made for the sole purpose of having an "impressive project"?
I'm sad to hear that you are having a hard time navigating the market. If it's of consultation know that many developers and engineers go through this hardship, those who never did either: Never pushed their limits, are liars, are Linus Trovalds. My personal thoughts about this is that I would prefer an applicant's motivation to be more in the sense of "What technologies are emerging, and what makes them so special? I want to master them to feel that I understand how they work". It's a wide answer, but I think the right engines are really what makes the difference. I would suggest finding a field you can develop passion to, preferably an obsession. Having an obsession is a great way to be extremely competent in a filed. Goof luck!
> My best plan at the moment is to work on my skill set, get a few certifications, and create an impressive project or two to showcase my new skills.
I suppose certificates aren't worth a lot in most software engineering roles. This might be different in your area but you should definitely reconsider it. I value actual experience in ML or some working projects on GitHub more than any related $BIG_CORP certificate.
An easy way to make use of your time is contributing to some existing and relevant project. It doesn't need to be React, Pandas, or Tensorflow. But usually you have worked with some smaller package in your jobs and encountered some idiosyncrasies. It's much easier to contribute to existing projects than spin up something meaningful yourself.
This may be a bitter pill to swallow, but three years' experience rounds down to zero. With no other information, it's enough to make me expect basic ability to use git and execute well-defined tasks within a narrow scope. If you have experience in another industry besides software, consider using that as a differentiator that allows you to write code for that industry. If you don't, see if there's anything in your job history that tells me you actually know your stuff. If all else fails, take the advice offered in this thread to light up the AI keyword detectors all over your resume, but be forewarned that the kind of job you get that way will be no better than its hiring process.
Hacker news don’t like certificates, but when I worked as a consultant having cloud certificates from AWS/GCP/Azure really made a difference to clients. Mine was paid for by my employer, but I’d imagine they look positive at it too.
Most certificates only matter to people who don’t know anything about your job - only one I know that is universally recognized as “damn this guy is good” is CCIE, and even that is starting to fall off with CCIE Enterprise being kind of a proprietary joke.
While this is true, generally the people you are selling to aren't that technical whether this be if you are working as a consultant in a big company going out to clients or at an interview which would include non technical staff. While I'm busy I don't think much about certificates, but if I had a lull in work I'd definitely consider doing the AWS and Azure cloud architect/developer ones just to have a basic knowledge of ALL the services, not just the ones I frequently use.
Ctrl+F + search terms in HN "Who is Hiring" posts
If you're a web dev, that means React.
Not at just 3 years though. Not anymore unless the employer is large enough to accept new hires or startups that want developers to work like serfs.
I have a lot of experience, but until recently I was laid off for 15 months.
Once I was desperate enough to pursue (almost) any software job, I tried to upskill in areas that were seemingly in demand.
I just couldn't make myself do it. Without the natural interest, I didn't have the drive and focus to really learn the material.
Eventually I lucked out as the market improved, and I got a job vaguely related to my previous work.
It's only now, that the pressure is off, that I can actually enjoy and dive into a fun, on-the-side software project.
If I had attempted that side project while still looking for work, I couldn't have relaxed enough to actually enjoy it.
YMMV, of course.
What exactly are you doing? It sounds like you're hitting the HR screening which means you need to apply more or apply more effectively.
Cold applications are well and good at scale, particularly when combined with custom cover letters. But using your network often yields a faster response. Also, being open to relocation helps.
Is your goal long term or just getting hired as an individual contributor?
Let’s assume your goal is just get hired. 5 years ago I would say go to a 6 week boot camp and pretend to program using React. Those days are gone. There is a growing wave of long time developers who don’t want to do that work ever again and simultaneously all but the largest employers and startups are only hiring people with 8-12 years experience doing that.
My best recommendation is to get a common security certification like Security+. Then get one of the higher level manager ones like the CISSP. That will automatically qualify you for jobs most of these guys don’t know exists. It allowed me to get away from the insanity of JavaScript.
If your goals are more long term. Then work on your communication skills, both written and spoken, and your people skills. You will also want to work on your business skills as well, and by that I don’t mean financials. By business skills I mean measuring things, risk analysis, cost analysis, planning, cost of ownership/delivery, and so forth. Business skills are good, and most developers don’t have at all, but the communication skills are more important.
Comptia is a complete waste of time if you aren't looking for the most basic of US govt IT jobs, at least do something like CCNA, LPIC or one of the many many other actually useful certifications.
People on here say that, but the job market continuously says otherwise. In fairness Comptia certs are not SANS certs but they are cheap and they do get people employed.
There was an interesting analysis of the recent "who's hiring" post that outlined skills in demand: https://tamerc.com/posts/ask-hn-who-is-hiring/
The market is not oversaturated today; there were a number of conditions in place during the pandemic that resulted in many companies hiring a large number of people who were, in reality, neither needed nor qualified.
The hiring bar during that period was artificially lowered, quite steeply, and many people who could not pass a technical screening in the years before COVID were hired anyway, giving them a false sense of competency.
The hiring bar during COVID is not reflective of the hiring bar that existed before COVID and that exists now. Hundreds of thousands have been laid off in the last couple years, many incompetent, some lazy, and a few competent and motivated ones who got unlucky.
Market conditions today are reflective of the norm. I applaud your efforts to continue upskilling! Many people new to the field do not realize that continuous upskilling is a requirement in the technology industry, not a "bonus".
As for skills in high demand - go read a bunch of open job listings! Inside of your skull is a sophisticated neural network that will start to notice commonalities between many of these positions, it will start to pick up on trends of which positions are becoming more or less common over time, etc.
Sure you can look up a conclusion someone else came to, but if you don't enjoy rolling up your sleeves and doing the work yourself to collect and analyze data for a problem you're trying to solve, are you really in the right mindset for an SWE job to begin with?
One last note - newcomers to the technology industry are often surprised how much we have "boom" and "bust" cycles every few years, but it's as impactful of an effect on job availability as it is in say, the oil industry. Early COVID was a big boom, late COVID/2023 was the big bust. We are on the upswing again, but slowly.
Keep in mind that who you vote for this fall has massive ramifications on the federal reserve, and thus interest rates and liquidity, and thus the job market.
> Keep in mind that who you vote for this fall has massive ramifications on the federal reserve, and thus interest rates and liquidity, and thus the job market.
OP never mentioned he was American, but this is why I'm voting for The Donald!
> Market conditions today are reflective of the norm.
If so, I have gotten worse as an engineer or have backslided despite multiple title changes and working on a high-visibility application -- because I'm not even getting callbacks, whereas before 2019, interviews were easy to come by.
I'm not commenting on your choice of who to vote for, but just pointing out that Jerome Powell, the current chair of the fed, was appointed by Donald Trump. It's not clear that he would even push for changes at the Fed in terms of leadership or policy if he wins, I don't think he's discussed it.
The Fed's actions are undeniably painful, but they're also probably necessary to avoid even more pain caused by the last decade of reckless Fed policy and overspending during the Covid recovery.
I couldn't agree more, even on the political point.
This does not seem like a healthy economy or job market from my perspective.
Nothing compared to pre-covid, or even the early days of covid.
Lots of technician roles can be filled by software people. In fact I even recommend it for at least a part of your career, get your grubby hands on as many physical devices as you can at least once in your life.
How many jobs have you applied to?
Do you customise your cv and cover letter for every application?
How many interviews have you been to?
Did you ask them questions?
Did you ask them for feedback on how well you're going both during and after the interview?
Have you gotten your CV and cover letters reviewed and improved them based on the feedback? If you are not getting any calls, CV or what you apply to will have the largest effect.
Hiring is way down. It's a numbers game - you have to apply to as many positions as possible and lower your standards.
The who is hiring posts on here. One per month, years of backlog. Scrap and analyze those.
Generate a few hundred resumes and see which ones get call backs.
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