She's now contracting full time for Sun as a Web project manager in the Java Group, a position that she started in November, and feels that she scraped by in the nick of time. "About two weeks after I started, everything really started hitting the fan. Today, all the recruiters I talk to confirm my feeling that the jobs just aren't there. I'm really glad I found something before the market just completely dried up, because it's scary out there right now." She thinks this is the worst market for contractors since 1993.

Even those booming job boards, which are enjoying increased traffic as more people look for work, have less to offer. In August 2000, Monster.com had 40,867 job postings in the category of "Computers, Software." In February, it listed 30,677 jobs, a drop of 25 percent. As recently as February 2000, it had had 55,013 listings. The decrease is part of a more general trend, according to a survey by the Federal Reserve, which finds that the tight demand for the highest-paid workers in jobs in high tech and the Internet is easing.

Craig's List, the popular Bay Area jobs site, shows similar declines, with most of them concentrated in front-end Web work. "We have seen significant dropoff in job postings in the area of Web design and Internet-related software engineering, but the demand still seems to be strong. The demand for Java programmers in particular is still very high," says Craig Newmark, the founder of the list.

The changes are making life somewhat easier for companies looking to hire. Ron Theis, 28, a senior software engineer for Danger Research, a stealth start-up in Palo Alto, Calif., that is hiring, says that the pool of job candidates is getting better. "The quality of candidate that we've interviewed lately has gotten better." But he also thinks that programmers like himself who work with C++, Java and SQL will be fine. "If you'd moved out here a year or two ago, and if you only knew HTML, then boy, you'd have a tough time. But if I wanted to get a job, I could have my pick of a half-dozen within a few days, and it's true for anybody experienced with programming skills, not just me."

Mike Wertheim, senior systems engineer for Zhanra, a small start-up in Oakland, Calif., says that there's been a real change on the hiring front. "Getting qualified engineers last fall was really difficult. Any engineer who was decent could get a job just about anywhere. We have three open positions now, and we will have no trouble filling them. More people are applying and those people don't have nearly as many opportunities as they did just a few months ago."

Still, Jim Everingham, senior director of engineering at TellMe, a start-up with 250 employees -- over 100 of whom are engineers -- says that hardcore geeks have nothing to worry about. "The market is still really strong for solid people, and they still require a lot of work to get. Known performers are still at a premium, and they're just as hard to find as they were a year ago. They're still being snatched up left and right."

Ayres, the recruiter, agrees: "It's not that it's really that bad right now for the job seeker; it's just compared to a year ago when we had a gold rush. A year ago, it was actually hilarious to think that people with minimal experience could get multiple job offers at inflated salaries really quickly. So they got used to that."

Today, things aren't so promising for younger people with less experience or for front-end Web developers: "There are a lot more junior engineers available, and a lot more design and HTML coders. With a lot of design firms and the dot-coms going under, there's a lot more Web talent out there," says Everingham.

Thirty-year-old Hannah (not her real name) is thinking about giving up altogether on her technical skills -- which she spent two years at a technical college to acquire -- to go back to clerical work.

For this developer, who does HTML and ASP/VBScript, the job market in Seattle, where she lives, is grim. "It's pretty bad. I send out anywhere from three to 20 résumés a week, and I get no responses. In the month and a half that I've been unemployed, I've gotten two responses. There's no contract positions either. I would take anything. They're just not there."

One of the two companies that did call wanted to start her pay at $35,000 a year, $20,000 less than what she'd been making at Network Commerce, the dot-com where she'd worked for two years before they laid her off Jan. 23. The lowball salary was a shock. "When he said the dollar amount, I blinked. I was speechless. It was a really big wake-up call."

For now, programmers who have the more hardcore back-end technical skills may still be insulated from such indignities. Tim Gotch, a product specialist in the Internet equipment division of Netopia, a 500-person company in Alameda, Calif., says that his company is still offering $10,000 finder's fees for referrals of C programmers and software engineers who get hired.

So there's at least one way to make a buck -- maybe all the laid-off techies can get together and make a few extra grand by referring each other for new jobs. In the new, new economy, you've got to be creative.

The Free Software Project
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