Ilia Kolesnikov

‘Who wants to be hired’ now outnumbers ‘Who is hiring’

Sun, 26 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

For the first time since 2014, job-seeker comments on Hacker News exceed hiring comments.

Every month Hacker News runs two job threads: job postings go in “Ask HN: Who is hiring?” and resumes in “Who wants to be hired?”.

For the first time since 2014 there are more people seeking jobs than job postings.

The drop started after the Fed increased its rates, not because of AI. However, after the Fed started to decrease its rates, we don’t see jobs rebounding. Was the last flip influenced by AI? Who knows.

The most productive data team I saw this year was one person with a set of AI agents

Thu, 09 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The most productive data team I saw this year was one person with a set of AI agents.

At Improvado I work with data teams across dozens of companies. The productive ones now run almost every data operation through agents. The SQL, the pipeline wiring, the dashboard updates - the work that used to eat most of an analyst’s week. Agents do most of it now.

I have seen this several times already: one analyst does the work that a whole team did before. Or the same team ships several times more data products to their clients.

This year I reviewed more than 2,000 take-home assignments

Wed, 01 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This year I personally reviewed more than 2,000 take-home assignments for data analyst positions.

I’m a big fan of this approach as it helps us to choose better candidates.

AI changed how we design these tasks. We need to ensure that it can’t be solved by AI alone with a couple of simple prompts. But I don’t do this to filter out people who use AI. I want them to use it. The best candidates are the ones who use AI well, not the ones who avoid it.

What marketing jobs have already been replaced by AI?

Wed, 24 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

What marketing jobs have already been replaced by AI?

There is a lot of buzz about AI replacing jobs, and marketing is an industry that has already witnessed the massive advent of AI for several years. However, the reality is more about augmentation than replacement.

Automated ads targeting and optimization have been around for many years. It helps to make a work of advertising specialists easier. However, anyone serious about advertising knows that AI assistance is limited. Auto campaigns without human touch are useless. That’s why there are still many professionals who perform this work manually. But it’s important to note that due to the advent of AI, the number of such professionals is far fewer than it was before.

Just imagine, previously marketing specialists manually chose places on websites and magazines to place their ads and exchanged emails and phone calls with publishers to negotiate conditions and pricing. Yes, I remember how i did this work myself!

2,000 applications for one data analyst role

Fri, 05 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

American tech industry is in a deep crisis.

Yesterday, we posted a job opening for a Data Analyst role at I Can Explain. In less than 20 hours, we received over 2,000 applications from US candidates.

142 of them took the extra step to send me a direct message. Two years ago, it was unimaginable to receive 142 applications for this position, but now I have as many direct messages. And many of these candidates have the relevant experience and expertise we need, though, of course, some do not.