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by sixhobbits·3mo ago·view on hn ↗
From my non objective, not looking but I try to stay as informed as possible across South Africa, Europe, US perspective and regularly talk to people on both sides and ask them directly

- it's not as bad as it was in the last several months

- it's still very hard to get noticed, get interviews, etc there's so much noise on both sides that personal references are much more important than front door applications. This was always the case but much more now

- there were previously a lot of jobs for low agency people who were good at doing what they were told and meeting specs, AI is taking these as if you are willing to spend hours per week writing specs and checking results then tokens are better bang for buck than freelance devs now

- approximately all the demand now is for directly AI related plays and even people who get them don't feel secure because the whole industry feels so unstable and bubbly, but there's no money in anything not AI now

1 comments
> it's not as bad as it was in the last several months

I think this needs to be caveated by the fact that the job market is seasonal. The beginning of the year is usually the best part for jobs since departments have shiny new budgets, with a boost again around March-April as people quit after getting their bonuses triggering of another set of churn.

This matches my experience as well as a sr. Ruby/Python engineer (NE USA based)

The market was pretty barren in late 2025, but wasn't too terrible in Jan 2026 and I progressed nicely through two interview processes. Got an offer from one. Made it to the final round with the other but timeframes did quite not align.

    shiny new budgets
I was curious about this aspect. Lot of companies have fiscal years (and, presumably, budgets) that do not start at the same time as the calendar year.