Market Data 
Just a few years ago, you only needed to be a “competent” software engineer to land a job. Now, you have to be perfect.
That’s according to Evan King and Stefan Mai, cofounders of interview-prep startup Hello Interview. Previously, King worked as a staff engineer for Meta, while Mai has experience as an engineering manager at Amazon and a senior engineering manager at Meta.
“There is little incentive to pass someone who doesn’t get everything entirely correct,” King and Mai wrote for the The Pragmatic Engineer newsletter. “This is the grim reality of what happens when there are so many qualified candidates in the interview pool.”
A series of unfortunate circumstances have created the perfect storm for out-of-work engineers, they said. For one, there has only been about a 40% increase in the total number of jobs available since the market hit rock bottom in 2023, and companies are increasingly picky about who they onboard.
And with engineers of all experience levels competing for a reduced number of roles, candidates are increasingly facing interviews that King and Mai said are only becoming harder to clear.
“While the core interview structure at Big Tech remains largely unchanged, the bar has shifted approximately one standard deviation higher across the board, and performance that would have secured an offer in 2021 might not even clear the screening stage today,” they wrote.
Engineers in niche specialties are doing better, King and Mai said, with the hiring market seeing an increased demand for those who have knowledge of “AI infrastructure” and “machine learning operations,” among other things. Those in “core domains,” though, which the authors designate as frontend, backend services, and mobile development, are seeing fewer openings.
The challenges aren’t all equally punishing, though. King and Mai write that junior engineers, particularly those first entering the market after graduation, face the toughest field of competition.
They spoke to a job seeker who graduated from the Indian Institutes of Technology — which the authors describe as the “most prestigious computer science university in the country” — and has been trying to land a position for 6 months, having applied to over 100 companies. The former student hasn’t received a single offer.
“Companies that once maintained robust university hiring programs have dramatically scaled them back, which is concerning because this could create an experience gap that impacts the industry for years to come, and could manifest in a ‘missing generation’ of engineers,” they wrote.
As for what junior programmers can do to increase their odds, King and Mai suggested shoring up on the fundamentals.
“The technical bar for junior roles has risen dramatically, making mastery of fundamental algorithms and data structures essential,” they wrote. “Successful junior candidates typically solve 150-200 coding problems across all difficulty levels before interviewing. You must be a stronger coder before anything else.”
Though the competition is severe, it’s not impossible to break through, said King and Mai. They wrote that though the interview process has essentially become a “specialized game,” candidates do have one advantage — the rules are public, and interviews can be practiced.
“The process might seem arbitrary, but with proper preparation, it’s entirely learnable,” they said. “Anyone with sufficient dedication can master these patterns and significantly improve their performance.”
In a follow-up conversation with Business Insider, Mai said the current job market heavily favors the prepared.
“For those who are able to put in the effort, and willing to put in the effort, I think the market is still one where you can find a job,” he said. “If you talk to too many people, you’ll encounter a bunch of engineers who’ve been really, really struggling, but there are plenty of people who are making moves and getting their positions.”
