A few observations from the current tech + services market:
Service-led companies are doing relatively better right now. Lower costs, smaller teams, and a lot of “good enough” duct-tape solutions are shipping fast.
Fewer developers are needed to deliver the same output. Mature frameworks, cloud, and AI have quietly changed the baseline productivity.
And yet, these companies still struggle to hire and retain people. Not because talent doesn’t exist, but because they want people who are immediately useful, adaptable, and can operate in messy environments.
Retention is hard when work is rushed, ownership is limited, and growth paths are unclear. People leave as soon as they find slightly better clarity or stability.
On the economy: it doesn’t feel like a crash, more like a slow grind. Capital is cautious. Hiring is defensive. Every role needs justification.
In this environment, it’s a good time for “hackers” — not security hackers, but people who can glue systems together, work with constraints, ship fast, and move without perfect information.
Comfort-driven careers are struggling. Leverage-driven careers are compounding.
Curious to see how others are experiencing this shift.
I built this: https://github.com/dvcoolarun/web2pdf — a CLI tool for converting web pages to PDFs, recently open-sourced after adding several new features. (Might be useful!)
# -- Not related to the thread, but if anyone is looking to hire a developer or knows of opportunities, I was recently let go and am actively searching. Any leads or feedback would be greatly appreciated.
Seeking Work | Remote/Onsite | Full-Time/Freelancer/Contractor
Location: Delhi, India
Remote: Yes/Flexible
Willing to relocate: Global
Summary: I have been working in the web development space for the last 7-8 years. I have experience building large-scale web applications using the React/Django Stack and have shipped multiple projects in the past. I have worked in multiple domains including E-commerce, Travel, Carbon Emission, Payment, and Automation, and have built SPA, Dashboards, Landing Pages, email templates, and Python automation scripts.
A Python-based tool to convert web articles into PDF format, The project demonstrates expertise in Python development, web scraping, and document processing.
I am always looking for interesting and challenging projects and enjoy collaborating with smart individuals.
I’m not sure if this is the right place to post this, but to everyone commenting here saying they’re hiring and asking people to send their CVs —
please have the basic decency to send a simple acknowledgement or revert after receiving them.
This has happened repeatedly over the past few months after sending dozens of emails from these threads, sometimes 10+ at a time. Not getting even a basic response feels extremely disheartening.
I know it’s a tough time for everyone searching for a job, and we all understand if things are slow —
but a small confirmation like “Received, we’ll check” or “Not hiring anymore” takes 5 seconds and makes a world of difference.
Let’s be kinder to each other. It’s been a very hard year
I believe it’s a bubble. Every app interface is becoming similar to ChatGPT, claiming they’ll “help you automate,” while drifting away from the app’s original purpose.
Most of this feels like people trying to get rich off VC money — and VCs trying to get rich off someone else’s money.
There was an article on HN a few days back about how companies like this are influencing the overall freedom of the web (I missed the source) and their own way of doing things. Other examples of influence I see similarly are of Vercel, like with enterprise. Even a few days back, we saw AWS.
Sometimes not doing the ‘thing’ (in the sense of not jumping into a goal or project) is actually a deliberate, healthy choice — resting, recharging, being in a better mental/physical state. That’s not laziness or procrastination; it’s recovery or self-care.
Summary: I have been working in the web development space for the last 7-8 years. I have experience building large-scale web applications using the React/Django Stack and have shipped multiple projects in the past. I have worked in multiple domains including E-commerce, Travel, Carbon Emission, Payment, and Automation, and have built SPA, Dashboards, Landing Pages, email templates, and Python automation scripts.
I am always looking for interesting and challenging projects and enjoy collaborating with smart individuals.
I built this: https://github.com/dvcoolarun/web2pdf — a CLI tool for converting web pages to PDFs, recently open-sourced after adding several new features. (Might be useful!)
Not related to the thread, but if anyone is looking to hire a developer or knows of opportunities, I was recently let go and am actively searching. Any leads or feedback would be greatly appreciated.
I built this: https://github.com/dvcoolarun/web2pdf
— a CLI tool for converting web pages to PDFs, recently open-sourced after adding several new features. (Might be useful!)
Not related to the thread, but if anyone is looking to hire a developer or knows of opportunities, I was recently let go and am actively searching. Any leads or feedback would be greatly appreciated.
Summary: I have been working in the web development space for the last 7-8 years. I have experience building large-scale web applications using the React/Django Stack and have shipped multiple projects in the past. I have worked in multiple domains including E-commerce, Travel, Carbon Emission, Payment, and Automation, and have built SPA, Dashboards, Landing Pages, email templates, and Python automation scripts.
I am always looking for interesting and challenging projects and enjoy collaborating with smart individuals.
I’m hearing this argument from a lot of people. I think it’s more of a feeling that anyone can contribute, and now it’s a matter of taste and stamina—who persists and who fizzles out.
Probably also tied to changes in neuroplasticity, I guess. Humans are generally good at adopting new behaviors.
I recently learned that diff algorithms (beyond just code comparison) are used to detect database schema and configuration drift. I thought that was a pretty intriguing application!
Twitter: @dvcoolarun
If you’re hiring: arun.tiiny.site
arun.js.dev[@]gmail.com