10 Years of Hacker News "Ask HN: Who is hiring" Trends

The monthly "Ask HN: Who is hiring" post comes up the first day of the month, letting Hacker News users post their tech job descriptions for free. This job posting content offers a window into the hiring trends of the readers of Hacker News.

I downloaded 10 years of the "Ask HN: Who is hiring" and put them through a Python script to spot hiring trends. Getting a tech job 10 years ago is definitely different than getting a tech job today. Knowing these trends will help you know what skills to leverage in the rapidly changing tech job market.

Remote work

It's pretty clear that the 2019 pandemic changed tech work styles. The term "hybrid work" didn't event exist before the pandemic. Someone applying for a job in 2014 might have thought they would have to commute to work in a Prius Hybrid for a hybrid job.

Work styles

Location

The remote work trends definitely have effected where jobs are located. The term "San Francisco" fell off a cliff in 2020. The term "New York" fell off too, but a little less. It looks like "Europe" and "European" have been steadily increasing over time.

Work locations

Crypto Boom and Bust

"Blockchain" exploded in 2017 and fell off in 2019. It's interesting that you don't see as much of an increase in 2021 when crypto's price sky rocketed.

Blockchain

The Rise of AI

The term "LLM" made it's first splash in 2022 and has taken off since. "AI" was almost non-existent in 2014, but taken off exponentially. "Machine Learning" has been pretty consistent throughout the years.

AI trends

Decreasing trends

I was surprised by the large decrease in "mobile" and "android", but a little less surprised by "jquery". It looks like Ruby-On-Rail's demand is decreasing. I used to be a Rails developer, but I'd never start a new Rails project today. Frontend frameworks and serverless backends have made Rails obsolete.

Decreasing technologies

No more "Hackers"

I guess no one wants to hire "hackers" any more. A good thing.

AI trends

The rise of "Senior" and the decline of "Intern"

This is my most interesting finding. It seems tech internships have been decreasing. A brief visit to r/csMajors shows the dread college students face when looking for interships today. More and more jobs are looking for senior and management level positions. It is increasing tough to be an entry level job applicant in tech.

Interns vs Senior Applicants

Postgres VS. MySQL

2016 was the turning point where Postges becoming more popular than MySQL in job applications.

Database trends