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ezekiel68HNSource author
Lessons learnedExperience excerpt · English

During the DotCom bust I ended up getting a taxi license in NYC and driving yellow taxicabs on …

… During the DotCom bust I ended up getting a taxi license in NYC and driving yellow taxicabs on 12-hour (standard) shifts for over 18 months. During the GFC, I got trained in HazMat handling and joined contracting companies as an employee cleaning the beaches after the BP oil spill for a year. In both cases, I re-entered the software engineering market as a high-demand candidate and made even more in base and total comp than I had previously. I am over 50 now. I never transitioned to a management position. Still, I do plan to re-enter the software engineering market when the current winter ends and spring next arrives. [0] I work with agentic AI on my own projects. Due to limited context windows, even the best models like Claude Opus or Alibaba's Qwen-coder require much more expert handholding than people let on. Even with good context engineering and memory tools.

Original discussionWhen the job search becomes impossible448 source comments · at import
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myahioHN

What could potentially put an end to the current hiring "winter"? We have an increasing amount of immigrants coming over in hopes of getting a white-collar job, in combination with the tech sector shrinking, as well as companies as a whole being much more careful when hiring. There would need to be some explosion in the amount of tech jobs, in order for everyone to be able to get one. However, I just cannot see what could cause something like this in the near future.

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giantg2HN

"this is not some game-changing phenomenon[0]. The jobs will return when it is once again a "seller's market" -- which it surely will be." Pretty bold. Things like manufacturing haven't recovered and we're seeing similar outsourcing in tech.

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la64710HN

I wonder if with AI it is possible for someone to be a productive entrepreneur easily than finding a job in today’s market. Specially for someone over 50.

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reaperducerHN

Substitute "church secretary" for driving a hack, and "soldering heart monitors" for hazmat work, and you're me! You do what you have to to pay the bills. If that means going outside your field for a while, so be it. When the Great Recession hit, 90% of the food truck operators in my neighborhood were very recently bankers and finance people.

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