Remote Work is now the norm

February Highlights

The new year and a new way of working in the Covid era allows us to take a fresh look at hiring trends on Hacker News' whoishiring threads. This month, we are going beyond just technology. A few new terms have been added to the analysis, looking at software job specialization (frontend, backend, full-stack), and job experience/level (Principal, Staff, Senior, Junior).

But, first, and not all that surprisingly, the biggest change this month is what's happening with remote work. Remote postings now account for about 2/3 of all postings, up from about 30% a year ago, pre-Covid. Remote is now the most common attribute of job postings, drowing out perennial winner React.

The second finding from the month is that hiring is ramping up. The spring is usually when the total number of posts starts spiking for the year, but this month had the third most posts ever in the history of the whoishiring thread. This is a significant rebound from last May when it was noted that jobs were dropping.

Specialization

Specialization trends are likely tied to specific technologies, but here we look at them relative to other specializations. While Backend and Frontend postings started out about the same back in 2011, and were close for a long time, Backend is opening a lead up. Meanwhile, Full stack, even though it is more challenging to truly be today, is in demand more than ever, being mentioned in 15% of postings.

Compare Full Stack, Frontend, and Backend

Engineering Levels

Software Development job titles are anything but consistent, just look at levels.fyi to see for yourself. But, in an effort to spotlight some standards emerging, I've added some tracking around a few common ones like Principal, Staff, Senior, and Junior.

It may be a little early to track this, since Senior is over 30% and the others are all 4% or less. The trends for Senior has been rising steadily, will need to watch this one more in coming months.

Compare Principal, Staff, Senior, and, Junior

• Top 20
• Rising
• Falling