Big Tech Has Created Its Own Adverse Conditions (And that Gives Little Guys a Big Chance)

In 2022 I was laid off from a tech job just before layoffs became the cool thing to do. What followed was a year of job-searching hell that showed me that both traditional and trendy recruiting practices are as well suited to the current tech landscape as a cheap pool floatie is to river rapids. Companies aren't getting what they need, even with a glut of candidates on the market. Candidates can't land an interview, even with companies begging for talent.

It sucks for everyone and it doesn't have to. Join me for a boots-on-the-ground guide to navigating this mess.

Big tech (FAANG, though those are hardly the only players at the top) managed to create the next ten years of turmoil for themselves in less than ten months. Faced with lower-than-expected profits, they trimmed their teams of mid-level, long-term employees. On paper, the big tech companies look slim, youthful, and sexy again.

In reality, many people who deeply understand their former employer's tech stack, what sorts of technologies that stack can power or boost, and even how to monetize those ideas, just left the building. These are people who had to solve puzzles just to access application pages. These are people who pushed themselves through extensive interview prep. These are people who have spent the last 15 years of their lives creating technology that is mind-bogglingly ground breaking in scope and purpose. These are highly motivated, incredibly intelligent, wildly creative minds. But what really makes them most valuable is they've proven that they are disciplined enough to deliver.

These are also exactly the people who have a ground-breaking idea in their back pocket, and the only thing that's been stopping them from bringing it to life has been a lack of money and a lack of time.

Big tech just gave them both.

Oops.

But big tech also took away the team, the tools, and the 'toys' that allowed that idea to be incubated, nurtured, and realized to its full potential. Little tech can step in and fill this gap, little tech absolutely can attract that talent with those ideas to their companies. Sure, some of the laid off techies will take that seed money, take that time, go full throttle on a crazy idea, form a dream team, and build a rocketship startup that stuns us all, but not all of them. Not even most. Plenty of people are looking to take their best ideas to someone who will appreciate them and let them fly. The job search is on for them. In a market that has historically been almost ludicrously tight, with big players romancing talent in bulk before anyone else even got a look at the yearly crop, ideas and talent are available everywhere. The tech talent drought is over. It's raining like it might never stop.

So why are so many struggling to get absolutely soaked?

In a single acronym: ATS. In a word: process.

Stay tuned, we're going to fix it.