Late night musings on job searches

The reasons being is that it's bucketing rain at the moment. Like, monsoon style, end of days kind of rain. Which, normally, isn't a problem. Except the boat I'm currently on (sitting on land, natch...) has been baking in the sun for the past 6 months, and the duct tape and other water-proofing measures I've taken to temporarily cover some holes in various ceilings, well, they didn't survive this baking very well. So now there's a lot of leaks. I think I've got them all sorted, though, but I won't know for another 15 minutes. Long enough to write something, right?

So, on the job hunt...

I used to be employed, I mean, I still am in a way, but I used to be too. That sort of came to a mutually agreed end because I was not only getting too expensive (because old, thus experience, thus...) but I was also getting burnt out after a good 10 years. Still, my favoritest employers ever, because they're good folks who've done me many a solid.

Anyway. So I figured you know, I really should start something myself because for various projects I want to build and run, it's just better if that's all done with a properly registered business behind it, so, go go gadget clickety-click I made myself a French "Entreprise Individuelle". Sole proprietorship, basically. Really all that does is ensure that I can send invoices, get paid, and pay the tax man their due. Not that I like that part, but you know...

So. Of course my projects are taking a while to finalize, and it's still very much up in the air whether they will actually let me butter my bread. Or even get bread. And that means looking for another job.

The last time I did this was 11 years ago.

And holy fuckballs have things remained the same, and changed a lot at the same time.

What stayed the same?

The absolute hilarity that is job postings. The usual things, you know, like asking for 10 years of experience using a language that's only existed for 5. The required skill set that even with 30+ years of experience under my belt, I wouldn't even be able to satisfy. And my favorite pet peeve, the remote jobs.

Remote? Like, 100% remote?

Yeah. 100% remote. That's what I want. And a lot of jobs advertise as such, until you get to the fine print and they sort of coyly admit that it's 100% remote 2 days a week. Well, that just doesn't work for me. I've worked remote for the past 10 years, hybrid for about 8 years before that, and I never was one for a 9-5 commute-to-an-office deal-with-interruptions-all-day type guy.

So yeah that (bluntly put) just fucks me off because you won't get the people you want if you misrepresent your remote policy. But then again, it does weed out people like me: older, experienced, and expensive. Because we're all stubborn and will be like "no remote? no apply! take that!".

What changed?

AI. Oh my. I mean, I use Claude (yeah, I know, GLM 5.3 soon... honest) on a daily basis for most of my work and some personal things (really, you won't believe how convenient an LLM is when you're on that fun AuDHD gig) so I have no objection against using it, at all. It's a very nice tool in the toolbox!

But what has changed is that the prevalence of AI and it's improvements over the past year alone have created some sort of senior repelling field. You see, us senior folk have lots of experience, but we're also generally speaking more expensive to hire. And mid-level folks? Well, they're cheaper. And with AI? They can be just as good as us senior folks.

Because there is a convergence point there where someone who's got like, 10 years of experience can do just as well as someone with 30 years, except the 30 year experience guys and gals can do it more elegant and most likely quicker.

Until AI steps in and makes "quicker" irrelevant. Then it comes down to elegance, but where before I'd vehemently argue that elegance is a must, a lot of employers won't see it that way - they want to see numbers. Not rookie numbers either, but biiiiig numbers.

So yeah. Seniors in the current job market? I think we're getting a raw deal. Juniors have the same problem; they can do code quick with AI but they haven't yet learned how to spec and review properly so they're kind of considered disposable vibe-coding primates it seems.

Anyway...

So yeah. The job hunt. It's not going great. I did respond to a few postings, and only go a single reply - and that was nice because at least they told me they got my application, and couldn't get to it until after the summer holiday season. It was also kind of nice to get the rejection in the end because well, at least they sent me that. I was apparently 1 of 600+ candidates.

For a devops job. Not even anything like, super high tech, nothing FAANG, just, a devops job. At a cloud provider.

600+ applicants.

The mind boggles. And that's pretty much what has, seemingly, been happening across the industry in the past few months.

Your point?

Well, I'd like a job. Seriously. Any job. You can find my Sifa profile here - I'm trying not to use Linkedin. I'm willing to be pretty cheap. I do have a few requirements, though:

And what do you get? Well, me. 30 odd years of experience ranging from Perl code, ITsec (used to be an ISO27001 lead auditor), Go code, *nix stuff, containerization, virtualization, lots of devops tools, way too much to mention really. Oh, and my AuDHD. Find me an interesting project, point me at it, wind me up, and watch me go off like a fucking guided problem solving missile.

In closing

It's been 15 minutes. I think I plugged all the leaks - go me. Blurbled about my job hunts. Good times.