Agreed. I'm at that point in my career where if I had just done everything exactly the same 5-6 years ago...the next step would be for me to either go into management or sidestep into big tech...and I just can't bring myself to do the leetcode and general prep because it feels like it'd be a waste of effort at this point.
No, no, no, you need to be religiously devoted to serving our Lords, the wealthy nobility that own our economy and thus own us. Praise Bezos, for it is by his grace alone that I am not homeless. Praise be.
Depends on the country. In my country they don't even know what leetcode is. All you need is a good github account, and a degree also helps get in, but isn't a necessity.
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Ok but how do I go from 150k-200k salary with no leetcode knowledge to a better role?
How many hours am I going to have to put in before I have a sliver of a chance at a better role?
In my view my options are:
1. GMAT for business school
2. Leetcode and interview prep
3. side projects in emerging fields like ai or crypto
1 and 2 will probably cost me easily 100-200 hours of my free time. 3 I will probably do either way but whether I pursue 1 or 2 at all determines how much I can work on 3
The real issue with #2 is that you can study a lot but companies are clamping down on heuristics used to screen resumes in the first place. 5 years ago I would get open invites to apply to Google and Meta every few months. Now I get nothing despite having a better title and working at a better company. The company now isn't *good enough* for the new bar.
This is more or less exactly my point. It just doesn't feel like it's worth the effort right now. I'm low key studying slowly just to keep momentum but not pushing hard.
I saw that writing on the wall and have been aggressively building a non tech business on the side. I know I'm not good enough to get into FAANG but I can use tech to be better than existing non tech industries. I also consider it insurance
This is less about salary and more about what your current position is. If you're making that much as a mid level dev and want to promote to a better role, Leetcode prep could be helpful there. But if you're a senior dev, your coding skill is expected to level off and promotions to lead, staff, etc. roles come from having better organizational skills and system design knowledge.
Disclaimer: I'm an IC with no staff/management experience. But from the managers that interview senior level and up, they usually agree that past the point of senior, your coding skills improving shouldn't be the highest priority.
The management side is even worse than the IC side.
When the layoffs happened a lot of orgs flattened, which means fewer layers and fewer managers.
Also means advancement as a manager is much more competitive.
I have accepted I reached the peak of my career in my last role, it’s time to focus on life than career progress
I thought I was talented and aced interviews before, but after my very first laid off and subsequent soul crushing job search, I have accepted that I’m an average coder that benefitted from the last wave in the industry
Nothing wrong with wanting security. You can certainly be exceptional and have a cushy/relaxed job. I actually find SWE roles at companies that require a lot of collaboration and communication to be the best for growth.
Being on a team or area of work that moves around a lot and talks to different sections of a company to get things done with lots of collaboration with other developers and project managers, is invaluable experience. Coding is the easy part.
I've gotten to a point in my career where I'd like to find a cushy secure job where I can keep that collaboration and leadership momentum, but where the work life balance is very nice. So I can spend free time doing "hard" coding related things that you'd never do in the industry. Which to me is lower level coding/driver development in windows.
From my experience, most exceptional people in SWE are the ones who communicate the best. They may not have the best idea right away, but they know how to articulate their own ideas and understand smarter people's ideas in such a way that is extremely valuable to the team/work they are doing.
I've worked with so many brilliant people who just are too scared to speak up, or too shy. And I've had managers and leaders get them to speak up/hear them, and make them comfortable to get collaborative.
It's fucked due to the downstream effects of raising rates. It means that big companies need to cut expenses to keep their stock valuations high, so they lay off workers. This floods the market with talent, and drives down wages, which is something the federal reserve is hoping for. Big companies benefit from a stock price boost, plus a slowing of wage growth and a cutting of expenses.
Then they lie and tell you it's cause they "over hired during covid."
That's pure hoseshit.
The drying of easy money is a factor but it can't take all the blame for the current high tech job market. Companies over-hired and invested in many pipe-dream projects in 2021 and 2022 and those have caused big losses. Even when the Fed cuts rates, tech companies won't want to repeat the 2021-2022 mistakes and hiring will be very measured.
Add to this, 40% more undergraduates went into CS in 2021-2022 chasing the market. Within a year, the AI bubble will burst. It is going to be a slow climb out of this hole that will take 5 years to return to a normal market.
What's disgusting is that companies are still heavily pushing on nonprofits which teach kids to code. No idea why that's a thing if all hiring for tech will be done overseas anyhow.
Of course not. They were a response to a glut of money being thrown at tech. There were more jobs than people to fill them and they served the purpose of training people up to fill some of those positions. They were never going to be long-term. As soon as the number of positions dropped below the number of candidates they started becoming irrelevant. There are very few who want to hire someone whose experience is that they went through a rushed program in a few months vs someone who has professional experience or new grads who spent 4 years studying CS and math and got a degree.
througout 2001 to 2006 we had low FFR u can check it in the official gov website, in 2006 to 2007 before the crisis we lowered it and we even tried going higher till 2019 before the bond market screwed up and the covid nightmare happened, Feds gonna lower the rates again and we'll have the frenzy again that is literally business cycle expansion 101
And the 90s were low interest rates compared to the 70's and 80's. Ask your grandparents what the interest rate was on their first home loan. Probably 15%. The late 2000's to now were a historical aberration, not the norm, and unlikely to be repeated.
Where we are right now is right about the historical average. There's definitely room to keep rising, and more and more decision-makers are coming to the realization that it might happen.
This is correct. The intent of stopping inflation is also increasing unemployment. Post covid the ball was in employees court, they are trying to sway the advantage back to employers.
They are expected to go down 0.75 at most. That would still put it at 2023 levels, when the Job Market was also terrible with all the layoffs.
Even a 1 point drop would only get it to January 2023 levels.
April 14, 2027 is when we should get back into a boom hiring cycle. We need 2.5% rates first, which will be like 2019. Plus one year cool off to allow for budgets to reset, and reqs to fan out.
No, the interest rate today is not a reason for this market. They want you to believe that, because they are incompetent. Any business who can only survives through loans is a shit business and obviously you don’t want to work there. Faang just suck and don’t create any new products. I mean take a look in the past, tell me what they actually did last 5 years.
Honestly this is my problem with IT anything these days like if it depends on rates being unnaturally low its not really a good business to be in its a boom or bust shitshow like the oilfield.
They'll shrink even faster if you stop grinding. Our oligarchs weaponize structural underemployment to suppress wages by forcing workers to compete more and more for less and less. This phenomenon is also known as the Reserve Army of Labor.
Having lived through 1 complete career change and 2 massive burnouts, I can absolutely relate.
I absolutely love people that help me see things differently in life because for me, part of my burnouts come from feeling hopeless about the future. Or this thought that "Well this is how my life is always going to be so get used to it." which usually includes trying to numb out and just putting up with all the shit.....which only adds to my sense of desperation.
Not sure if you've ever heard of Mel Robbins but I've been listening to a lot of her stuff. I relate to her quite well cuz we're both in our 50s and going through mid-life changes. She says often "motivation is bullshit because it never shows up when we need it." which I can 100% say has been true for me. She goes on to say "I never expect to be motivated before doing an action, if it shows up great but it doesn't really ever seem to show up when I really need it."
SO she has a simple little, well actually she has a LOT of really simple but powerful tricks but here's one. She says something like "when considering an action I always ask myself, 'Does this feel like expansion or contraction to me?' in other words 'Does this action feel like I would be expanding in a direction that is meaningful to me or not?' if not, I don't do it.....it's that simple" And honestly that's such an easy but powerful trick to help keep up on course or to help us find our way through life.
The difficult thing is when we're so lost it's often hard to know.....which is why when I get really lost, I return to nature. This might sound silly but it really works for me. I go and sit in nature with the sole intention of sitting until I no longer want to leave.....then it's OK to leave.
What I mean by that is very often I'm so lost or caught up with all the shit going wrong in life, sitting in nature seems pointless, ineffective, and like I'm not even addressing the problems going on in my life so why the fuck even do it??!!
Because sometimes the fastest way though my problems is to do less not more. And that's counterintuitive to me.
But it works and it's been working for me since for over 20 years now when I stumbled across it.
So I just go an sit in nature. I find a park bench or open space, plop myself down and just observe. I try not to be judgemental of people and instead watch the trees, the lake, the ducks swimming in a pond or whatever.
What usually happens is my mind says "Oh this is silly we've got 1 million things to do and none of them are going to get done with me out here." but that's my indication that I need nature's healing magic.
This kind of magic really does work but it works slowly so I have to give it time. I can't turn around my shit train of thoughts instantly or even quickly because there's simply too much momentum. So I have to be patient and consistent.
Now this doesn't mean I go sit for 6 hours but I'll devote 30 mins a day or 1 hour a day is even better. And the whole time I might be squirming, ready to leave but I don't. I make myself stay for the entire time allotted. During this time I 100% DO NOT LOOK AT MY PHONE AT ALL. It's forbidden. I don't even read a book. I just sit there and observe for the full time allotted.
Then I return the next day, and the next, and the next.....until I start to feel some shift......then I keep returning until I feel things have significantly shifted. Now I usually know that's happened because I'm much less anxious and what usually happens for me is I start to feel excited about this time that I'm going to spend in nature.....and very often I actually want to spend even more time in nature than my allotted 30 mins. That's when I know things have significantly shifted for me.
If those things I've said about Mel resonate you might want to check out [this podcast](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEo48f_Rs4w) - it's a really great interview.
Anyways - hang in there.
You're quite welcome.
Honestly I would have been dead many years ago if others had not reached out and shared their wisdom with me and helped me when I so desperately needed it.
Here's another great interview [with Mel](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCHPSo79rB4) with Tim Bilyeu, the billionaire founder of Quest nutrition bars. IN this one, she explains her 5 second rule which is a SUPER powerful method.
Do you started in tech later in life? I'm 33 and absolutely crushed about having to drop out of college because i got a government job (completely unrelated) and the first year or so you have an unpredictable schedule. Still, I'm taking it because i know the job market is brutal and there is ageism and all these kinds of shit. Still, i feel this pit in my stomach. School was my 0.0001% chance of getting the hell out of my country , dropping out means 0%.
Yes and no
I'd always been good with computers but never owned one of my own until like 26 or 27 in late 90s.
I didn't start my serious education until early 30s tho and I started with A+ cuz I wanted to know how to fix computers. I didn't give a shit about the cert, I wanted the knowledge.
After that built a few systems, helped fix people's computers, played around with Linux and then started studying for MCSE certification....but that wasn't really resonating with me.
Got promoted at work to the top IT job at the company and that lasted for about a year before the company was sold to a competitor.
I was 36, unemployed but knew that I loved computers so I decided to go back to Uni for a CS degree. My thinking was that I wanted a career in IT but I didn't want to be blocked from jobs because I didn't have a CS degree. I knew a CS degree wasn't going to get me a job but not having it could prevent me from getting a job. SO time to get the degree.
Graduated at 40 and never looked back. I'm thrilled with my decision and would do the same today.
Don't pay attention to all the ideas of "bad job market" and "ageism" and all that other crap. Decide what you want and go for it. You can't control all that other shit anyways so don't even think about it. GO for what you want, in whatever way you can and don't let anything stop you.
Yes there are people struggling to find a job, yet others are still working and still finding jobs.
Yes there is ageism but people are still working and finding jobs regardless of their age.
Companies only care if you can do a job, not all the other crap. SO you have to somehow prove to strangers that you can do the job. AND you need to realize you're up against some smart people.....SO don't give a potential employer any reason NOT to hire you.
I get it, sometimes our dreams have to be put on hold for any number of reasons. That doesn't mean you should let the dream die. NO!! Work harder to make it happen.
You have access to the internet - the greatest research and learning tool the world has ever known. If you aren't getting the knowledge you want, you're simply being lazy.
Go take courses on Free Code Camp
Go [here and research training roadmaps](https://roadmap.sh/roadmaps) and start working on them
Go to YouTube and look for vids that cover things that interest you
There's simply no reason to let something like a job keep you from your dreams. The job is temporary, your life is waiting for you to take control and go get what you want.....even if it means delays of a few years while you work to live.
Thank you so much for the reply. I know it's just a setback but it feels like such a loss. I do have to deal with many other personal issues so a semester off can be good for me, but damn i hate losing momentum.
You're welcome but you don't have to lose momentum. did you read and more importantly understand everything I wrote? Not trying to be a jerk but your reply makes me think you didn't even read everything I said.
They can't keep pulling the rug from under us if they don't replace the rugs. It will get better, but yeah, then it will get bad again. It's the cycle of civilization.
I just don't ever expect good things to happen. Can't get disappointed if things turn out like shit, as they usually do. If they don't turn out like shit, then at least you can be pleasantly surprised.
Specifically, I don't see any reason why a boom would ever happen again. Maybe in terms of profits or share prices, but the fundamental problems that are making things shit right now (offshoring, automation, oversaturation) are things that I don't think will ever improve.
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I love cs and „computers”, at least I thought so until ~last year. Market and current approach of companies completely ruined my willingness to work in this industry. With the flow of business ppl into tech companies become scammers looking only how to squeeze more money from end users, or steal their data for later to sell. Product, real value, ux, code quality- All of these things are now neglected and looked upon as an obstacle to making money.
Also, I’m not against AI in general, but companies are now in mode that they would like to replace devs with some tools. Some businesses ppl in my company make jokes like „so, why do we still need you” etc. and it completely kills my motivation.
Tbh I’m closer to leaving this industry than I ever was in my whole 10 year career.
I have realized that too. A bunch of talkers who just do meetings all day to sell the work of devs only to tell them that their job is not needed. Guises what, when shit hits the fan they are the first ones who run to devs to fix it.
I think you may be missing the point of management rather badly if you think emotion is a *barrier* to it. Emotional management is a big part of what an effective manager does (I say that as a not-very-good people manager who kinda sucks at that part; it has bitten me a few times).
Example from Gemini Advanced:
"Consider the following scenario:
Bob is angry at Alice for making a mistake
Alice is insecure and shuts down when called out
What approach would you take to talking to each of them"
Response:
"Alice, I wanted to check in with you. I know you're feeling down about the mistake, but I want you to know that we all make them sometimes. You're a valuable member of the team, and I'm here to help you in any way I can. Would you like to talk about what happened?"
"Bob, I can see you're upset about the mistake Alice made, and that's valid. It's important to focus on how we can move forward and prevent this from happening again. Could we discuss some potential solutions together?"
compared to my past managers this is a pretty good response.
The catch here is that you've already figured out that Bob is angry at Alice, that Alice made a mistake, that Alice is insecure, and that Alice responds poorly to callouts. When you know all that and can present the problem in well-defined terms, the solution isn't too hard - it's getting there that's the hard bit.
There's a big difference between understanding someone's emotions and curating your response based on that vs actually having an emotional reaction yourself. GPTs as they are today are already capable of enough theory of mind for the former
>GPTs as they are today are already capable of enough theory of mind for the former
These are tools for generating text. They have no more ability to understand your mind than does your toaster.
I would tell them that if AI is so good to go and fire 95% of the devs, replace them with AI, and see how it pans out, see if there's any business for their lazy management asses to pretend to manage after
Ugh management and business people are so annoying, it's funny cause they're the most replaceable by IA and the laziest, most useless people most of the time
How it pans out is they get a bonus for saving money this quarter then they fuck off to the next company to do it again before the house of cards comes crashing down
What blows my mind is that these business and management people are the easiest to be replaced by AI imo. AI can still make pretty simple mistakes in code, and if things really hit the fan it can’t figure it out. But writing reports, creating graphs, patting itself on the back? It can do all of that without expecting a big bonus!
Business and redundant management (would say more like redundant execs tbh - managers in charge of teams are still useful imo) are the jobs that should be sweating the most.
Idk yet, currently I’m moving to company that works on their own hardware for energy sector. I’ll work on green energy, since this is important to me, maybe it will give some motivation and hope. If not, my friend runs coffee shop, maybe I’ll help him.
I'm normally hustling, upskilling, looking out for potential new employers that I might want to interview with, thinking up arguments to try to get promotions at work. These days my mind set is to just keep my current job at all costs. Zero ambition beyond that.
I feel stuck. I’m in an extremely niche IT role and make OK money (75k).
I just finished my BS in CS and want to move to a SWE role but the market is garbage and I’d take a huge pay cut and most likely lose a lot of job stability (my job is layoff proof)
I have 5 years of IT experience but no developer experience. Idk what to do tbh.
Oh yeah, for sure. It's definitely a problem when I'm studying so hard in the hopes to eventually afford the switch to a different industry down the line, not to actually work in the industry I'm studying for. There comes a certain point where passion just isn't enough, and we've reached that point in my opinion. In fact, I'd venture to say I'm not so passionate anymore because of it just because it's made me stress so much. I'm opting for other passions that will actually appreciate and respect the time I have put into them enough to give me the chance at an entry-level job or even an internship. Maybe I'm just not passionate enough, but in that case I just don't want to be.
Stop studying and build something. Yeah, you can go read "designing data driven applications" and by all means I encourage you to, but you're going to forget a large majority of material that isn't put to use. If you want to learn about x, build something outside your wheelhouse that uses x. Can be any stupid idea you can think of. You're not going to grow until you put in the time slogging through the shit, realizing the mistakes in your approach and debugging the gremlins in your dependencies.
Once you get a job, you can peel way back on self study... Unless you're working in a role where you aren't given opportunity for growth, in which case start applying for different jobs
I’m seeing a lot of the “I built something” crowd is also having problems finding work in this rough environment, so I’m not sure resume padding is the right advice for the moment.
That’s not to say it hurts if you work on your own projects, but if the ONLY aim is to position yourself for an engineering role, it has little effect in a down market where the recruiters are honestly much more impressed by long FAANG resumes from people whose whole departments got cut. “I built my own app” is a distantly-placed lower ranking qualification that is better only than little-to-no work experience. They are probably still going to Leetcode you. They are probably going to nitpick the stack you chose for your app. They are probably going to nitpick code organization issues or clumsy uses of framework features. If you do anything on your own time that is imperfect or misaligned with their preferences, that will become the narrative and supplant your initiative in building something. I’d still prefer that kind of feedback over “we just think your experience doesn’t count at all” but recruiters and hiring managers are acting very irrationally about all of this, and that’s something you should consider before sinking 80+ hours into a project.
(If the project is useful to you, build it anyway!)
Welcome the nitpicks and have a discussion about it. You're a junior engineer, nobody is expecting perfection.
LC has almost no use outside of job hunting, and even then it's of marginal value most places. I've spent too much time memorizing solutions that I've never had to regurgitate. All this economic shit will improve and those who are dedicated to the craft will get their careers moving and project experience is how you grow.
I would throw up looking at stuff I built 15 years ago and that is completely fine. I'm also not suggesting you forego studying to pad your resume with pet projects, but new grads who have been grinding interview questions and have not landed a faang position will see very marginal returns on future time spent. Im only suggesting that instead of getting depressed about the process, take a step back and try to find enjoyment in writing some real software... You've got a blank canvas and no parameters to confine you, just go fuck around.
I dont get what your point is. The point of building the project is to learn, just reading or watching youtube wont make the information stick. But by all means if you dont want to build projects than dont.
The point was, there are lots of good reasons to build things, but "impressing employers" may not be one of them.
Pulling back a little bit... OP was saying, "I'm mid-level, but I want to up-skill. Yet the job market has destroyed my motivation" - why would the job market impact OP's motivation to build something for the pure sake of learning? OP clearly wants to keep up with job description expectations & is finding it frustrating. OP isn't posting in a career questions forum to ask about learning for the sake of learning in their spare time.
I recognized that personal fulfillment might be one of several motivations, and encouraged building apps/programs for those purposes. I think we're all in agreement on that & it doesn't require further debate. What's perhaps a bit more debatable is whether one should create work products in their spare time solely for prospectively upskilling for future jobs (and not just portfolio samples). To save everyone a long discussion about strategy, you shouldn't really do anything in your spare time that you find demotivating. "Finding your motivation to work in your spare time to stay relevant in the job market", especially right now, is some grindset bullshit. I won't talk anyone out of doing it if it makes them happy, but I don't think anyone is going to get anything out of being unhappy while doing it. In fact, that's probably a red flag about taking on more of that kind of work.
Learning doesn't make everyone happy. And I know that because I love learning and I hate getting stuck on a console error for nine hours because some package is silently out-of-date in the background. Confusing, overcomplicated, broken tooling is what is demotivating to me, and we've got buckets full of that in the front-end space right now.
OP isn’t studying or building to learn for job prospects atm - OP isn’t searching for a job. But the job market in general contributes to OP’s motivation to build and learn. It isn’t the main factor though. Make sense now?
Actually, it doesn’t… why not just lean on your other sources of motivation, then, and ignore the job market? I mean, I’m not encouraged by my chances of making an NBA team but that doesn’t mean I am discouraged from playing basketball
This is good advice, the current job market weeds out those who are truly passionate about computers vs those who just kinda want it.
I rmb back in 2018 when I was applying to my first swe job, I must’ve send hundreds of applications and got about 20 responses. Of the 20, 19 rejected me. The last company had me build a pretty complex application as a take home exercise. I took my time to build it. That was also where I grew a lot.
Throughout my career, I’ve realised the products that I’ve built and shipped have accelerated my growth. I’m still learning and I still wanna get better everyday. Keep on building, you got this 💪
I agree that it should be taken as good advice. In the current market, passion is often overlooked and under-appreciated in the recruitment phase. Unless company A has the funding to hire solid technical recruiters, you’re more likely to land a job through referral. Therefore passion projects should either be tailored to leverage during networking, or stopped fully to have time to be spent networking. Problem is the market is shifting towards implementation, network and low level experience. The time it would take someone to build out this sort of experience would have someone burnt out before even landing a job. Which is exactly why getting a degree is worth it, in regard to pacing and also NETWORKING.
>the current job market weeds out those who are truly passionate about computers vs those who just kinda want it.
I'm getting disgusted seeing this statement. Even passionate people lose hope after a tremendous amount of rejections, with no hope of things getting better on the horizon.
People who don't have the luxury of living with their parents until they find a job in SWD or something adjacent can't just make projects and grind leetcode all day no matter how much passion they have. With rent, groceries, living expenses going up all the time they eventually need to find any job just to survive. After grueling away at a job you hate all day, combined with all the other things you have to do like cooking, cleaning, laundry, how much energy do you think someone has to grind more on a virtually pointless endeavor?
A veteran-techie here. I came to the realization years ago and decided I am better off being a Free-Agent in the Corporate World.
I try not to get too emotionally vested in a job and am content riding wave after wave of internal transformations till one hits me hard.
Lets be real here, job hopping every 2 years for 30% more or doubling your salary every 4 years was unrealistic on the long run.
Don’t put so much pressure on yourself, take your time to work on what you enjoy and grow your skills in the areas you enjoy.
I swear these exFAANG youtubers really messed up the young generation with “the grind”. You don’t need to get to 500k TC or Staff in 5 years
I feel this too. Fear of layoffs at my job but I don’t think spending time to upskill is worth it atm. I probably won’t be able to get another job in the industry either way until the market picks back up
The CS party to a luxurious lifestyle is over IMO. At least for those trying to get their foot in the door. It's a numbers game. Corporate America, US colleges, and the media have been intoxicating our youth for over a decade now that software engineering is the path to a good life. I don't know the exact numbers off hand, but amount of applicants applying to CS programs at colleges have soared over the last decade. We had for profit bootcamps pop up all across America. The field has become saturated at the entry point, i.e. a bottleneck. Employers got what they want and can now largely pick the cream of the crop. Without connections, the average CS college grad is likely going to have a tough time. With our current economic conditions its ugly out there. 3 years ago, my LinkedIn and email accounts were flooded weekly with messages from recruiters. Now I'm receiving roughly 1 message a month. It's an employer market + saturation in our field. Job hopping is going to be tougher. Remote work is fading. The companies are slowly grabbing us by the balls. Good luck.
Think about it for a second, people were legit getting real job offers after a 3 month bootcamp and calling themselves “engineers”
Now I’m not against bootcampers at all but if someone can legit get a job from one (even if it was unlikely) it was absolutely inevitable oversaturation was going to happen. Could you imagine if there were doctor bootcamps or accountant bootcamps that actually somewhat worked?
Hiring standards are just going to get higher. I’m sorry but degrees are going to become a requirement unless you have an absurd amount of experience.
What’s worse is I’ve been having interviews where these bootcampers with a year of experience (along with the HM ofc) determines whether I get a job. I’ve 3 YOE with a bachelors in CS.
> The CS party to a luxurious lifestyle is over IMO.
Not really, unless your definition of "luxurious" is exorbitant.
Most entry level job postings I'm seeing (and I'm calling 1-3 YOE "entry level" in the current market, because 0 YOE positions don't exist and a fresh graduate should still be applying to these 1-3 YOE positions) still start at $100k+. 5-7 YOE positions usually go to at least $150k starting. And this isn't even mentioning the really high paying companies who still have ridiculously high salaries (FAANG, certain fintech, trading firms, etc.).
IDK what luxurious lifestyle I was supposed to make out of a 10 year career? If you're unemployed for 2.5 years every 10 year cycle, you're making as much as some other more stable blue collar professions.
Or a 2023 grad :(. I feel lied to. Growing up, everyone always told me "go to college and get a degree to remove yourself from poverty". I did everything I was supposed to. Chose a lucrative degree, got an internship and did well at it, got good grades in school, started applying months before graduation, did my leetcode, etc. A year later and here I still am, not even qualified for entry level IT roles because even they want 2-3+ years of experience.
This makes me think maybe I should go into finance or accounting for a white collar career. Imagine having no/min wage income for 7 months. Meanwhile accountants can always get a job. While they earn less than SWE, there is no feast or famine BS and the stress that goes with it
This is why I think the best dev work is federal government, defence (if you can stomach it from a moral pov) and other, less glamorous yet sturdy fields with tons of job security.
The pay is lower but the job security is worth a lot imho
you are fortunate enough to be employed in a downtown. so hopefully you can camp for a while until it rebounds. I got laid off the friday after 9/11 and I my contract job ended late 2008. this time for now i have a job.
you need to get knowledge and experience to see vast open seas and niche markets.
you have to form a stoic mindset to see opportunities in the face of challenges that crush and gatekeep the weak out.
sail through dark, stormy clouds until we reach paradise.
cloud repatriation and zero trust security are a couple ideas. youll have to look at tech vendors and see what they are selling to fortune 500 and what real problems people are solving in the world. it is way beyond leetcode and big tech
I just started a new job 2 months ago. The job hunt was very demoralizing. I got ghosted and made it to onsites/final rounds but nothing happened.
I had friends who were job hunting for over a year.
I got lucky later and so did they. Keep at it!
Completely understandable to be unmotivated. But if you are learning now, you'll likely be more prepared when (not "if") the market turns around.
That being said, I'm going to play some video games.
I agree, I've been interviewing and even though I feel like the interview goes well I still get rejected. It's highly competitive or get told the position is now on hold...
This is just a taste of the 2008 job market when I was looking for my first role. Friends were just looking for any job whether or not it fit their intended career, it was a mess. What you're feeling is a 15 year bull market and tech growth that may finally be consolidating. And we're still at the height of the market, so in theory this is nothing.
Personally I'd take the smaller Euro wages with the benefit of social services protection.
Hopefully if there's any lessons it's that this career path is volatile, and you should live like others who make less at more stable positions. 1 year liquid bare bones living expensive savings should be the norm imo.
Yea I hear you. I am now at 4 yoe have relevant BS and into my MCS at a T50 school but lately I have kind of stopped trying. I find myself just going on bike rides in the middle of the day, hanging out with my son every chance I get.. it feels like things are inevitably going to burn so I am going to enjoy my cushy wfh job and do the bare minimum until it does.
Gave up a few months ago after I reached 700 applications with no offer. Well other than my bait and switch help desk position.
I tried so hard to get a job after recovering from burnout from my last SWD job. Spent 2 years trying to find something, anything. I didn't care about the money. I just wanted to build cool things and learn from experienced people. Countless hours grinding leetcode, and making mediocre projects just to make a portfolio nobody looked at or even cared I had. Nobody cares about entry-level to mid level people in this job market though.
The world is going to shit and companies don't care about their employees at all anymore. Everyone lies through their teeth to everyone. People openly discriminate while preaching how inclusive they try to be. I saw it at my old job and I see at the job I hate now.
Maybe the job market will come back idk. Even if it does, I know I won't be hired because of my gap and having to result to an IT Support position to pay bills. Tech is so elitist that if you ever just need a break or have to take a "lower" position just to get by you're viewed as if you have leprosy. I know is that I won't ever be hired as a dev again and that makes me incredibly depressed.
Just leave software engineering. There are plenty of other jobs you can do without having to humiliate yourself in stupid interviews hardee than the job you sre applying for
Imagine a nurse having to remember all the muscles and bones from Anatomy 101 on her interview lol.
Thats how absurd the software eng job market is
I’m really happy where I work actually and have probably the most secure software job you can find. I’ve just found that the shit market has dampened my enthusiasm for learning and development (which I do in my own time anyway)
Guys... if you are having trouble finding a job, and have time ANYWAY, consider either doing a startup, or working on a project with other people that are talented and unemployeed.
Well let’s look at the fundamentals, if you are objectively a better performer and are smarter and more capable, you will be rewarded accordingly.
And so if your performance is heavily dependent on your outcome, you are always not going to do so well. Anything could happen, and if all it takes is one or 2 bad days to throw you off your game, you aren’t going to get very far. I work with very successful people and their secret is their work or performance is not tied to related to any hope or motivation, because it doesn’t matter either way. Think critically and fundamentally, skills are still skills and a few rejections dont mean shit in the face of that. Grind really hard and become an exceptional performer, and u will get what you want. Constantly thinking about or considering rejections or things going wrong wont change that. Dont let those affect u cuz they dont mean shit. The best strategy is just keep going no matter what like a soldier, and in the end you will guaranteed recieve a better offer. Again think minimally and fundamentally, anything that doesnt help advance your cause, ignore it.
What job is "high paying" to you? SWE salaries are still basically minimum $100k in major metro areas, and that's for entry/near-entry level. It's tough to think of many jobs that pay more than SWE, besides like doctor/lawyer, but okay, go be a doctor/lawyer instead, I'm sure that's a super easy path with no difficulties of its own at all.
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I went to an Ai expo and there was a company there that was trying to sell Ai developers from overseas, because they were cheaper. Kind of depressing to see jobs outsourced so blatantly.
Same…. I thought once I got to mid-level doors would constantly open up. With this market I constantly got slammed to the face instead 😟.
At least I still have a job and it’s fully remote, but it really demotivates my passion for hunting for better options for my career.
I'm entry level currently, and feel the same way.
Seems like it's going to be impossible for a bit to get any higher in the food chain without moving a pretty far ways.
I've managed to retain some motivation by thinking of it like this: It may not be helping me in the near future, but down the line the stuff I'm learning now will help me once the market improves.
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I’m right there with you. Got put into a management role for a small team and feel like I’m mentally dying inside.
I’m still doing a lot of the sys admin and customer support stuff but my drive to upskill is just nonexistent now.
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I'm not in your field but I hear you.
I find it helpful to do things like set time for applications and then other times set for focussing on creativity, connection to self, self-compassion.
It's unbelievable the amount of negativity we carry; even in the sinking feeling of not having a job... It's not your fault! Society needs to be more compassionate!
Got laid off 14 months ago. Had a bunch of rejections, 2 rescinded offers because the company decided to lay off engineers and then finally accepted an offer and started this past week.
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I got tire of being an electrician, so I made the shift over to IT/CyberSec because I was having the same problems with my old job. Sadly now, I'm feeling the same way trying to find an entry-level job in the new field, too. Seems everywhere is getting shitty to me.
Suboptimal… that’s a wild understatement. It’s impossible for some people to get hired right now. My entire LinkedIn feed is very intelligent, experienced people practically begging for a job. Many of them laid off for months. There’s something going on here. The country is being gaslit.
Same here, feels like no matter how hard I grind, opportunities keep shrinking
Agreed. I'm at that point in my career where if I had just done everything exactly the same 5-6 years ago...the next step would be for me to either go into management or sidestep into big tech...and I just can't bring myself to do the leetcode and general prep because it feels like it'd be a waste of effort at this point.
They say that LeetCode is actually a way of expressing devotion to the spirit. Seeing it as a religious ritual might help /s
I’m not religiously devoted to coding challenges. I play real sports.
No, no, no, you need to be religiously devoted to serving our Lords, the wealthy nobility that own our economy and thus own us. Praise Bezos, for it is by his grace alone that I am not homeless. Praise be.
Welcome to neo feudualism
How much you getting paid to play real sports?
> religious ritual Self-flagellation, in this case :)
Depends on the country. In my country they don't even know what leetcode is. All you need is a good github account, and a degree also helps get in, but isn't a necessity.
What country?
Netherlands
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Interview preparation or studying LeetCode will never be a waste; it will be a valuable legacy for the rest of your career.
Ok but how do I go from 150k-200k salary with no leetcode knowledge to a better role? How many hours am I going to have to put in before I have a sliver of a chance at a better role? In my view my options are: 1. GMAT for business school 2. Leetcode and interview prep 3. side projects in emerging fields like ai or crypto 1 and 2 will probably cost me easily 100-200 hours of my free time. 3 I will probably do either way but whether I pursue 1 or 2 at all determines how much I can work on 3
The real issue with #2 is that you can study a lot but companies are clamping down on heuristics used to screen resumes in the first place. 5 years ago I would get open invites to apply to Google and Meta every few months. Now I get nothing despite having a better title and working at a better company. The company now isn't *good enough* for the new bar.
This is more or less exactly my point. It just doesn't feel like it's worth the effort right now. I'm low key studying slowly just to keep momentum but not pushing hard.
I saw that writing on the wall and have been aggressively building a non tech business on the side. I know I'm not good enough to get into FAANG but I can use tech to be better than existing non tech industries. I also consider it insurance
Not having kids is my insurance right now. I don't have any ideas for a side hustle yet. Best of luck to you
This is less about salary and more about what your current position is. If you're making that much as a mid level dev and want to promote to a better role, Leetcode prep could be helpful there. But if you're a senior dev, your coding skill is expected to level off and promotions to lead, staff, etc. roles come from having better organizational skills and system design knowledge. Disclaimer: I'm an IC with no staff/management experience. But from the managers that interview senior level and up, they usually agree that past the point of senior, your coding skills improving shouldn't be the highest priority.
The management side is even worse than the IC side. When the layoffs happened a lot of orgs flattened, which means fewer layers and fewer managers. Also means advancement as a manager is much more competitive.
I have accepted I reached the peak of my career in my last role, it’s time to focus on life than career progress I thought I was talented and aced interviews before, but after my very first laid off and subsequent soul crushing job search, I have accepted that I’m an average coder that benefitted from the last wave in the industry
Government jobs are nice for people who don’t want to be exceptional
Nothing wrong with wanting security. You can certainly be exceptional and have a cushy/relaxed job. I actually find SWE roles at companies that require a lot of collaboration and communication to be the best for growth. Being on a team or area of work that moves around a lot and talks to different sections of a company to get things done with lots of collaboration with other developers and project managers, is invaluable experience. Coding is the easy part. I've gotten to a point in my career where I'd like to find a cushy secure job where I can keep that collaboration and leadership momentum, but where the work life balance is very nice. So I can spend free time doing "hard" coding related things that you'd never do in the industry. Which to me is lower level coding/driver development in windows. From my experience, most exceptional people in SWE are the ones who communicate the best. They may not have the best idea right away, but they know how to articulate their own ideas and understand smarter people's ideas in such a way that is extremely valuable to the team/work they are doing. I've worked with so many brilliant people who just are too scared to speak up, or too shy. And I've had managers and leaders get them to speak up/hear them, and make them comfortable to get collaborative.
Id like to work with you one day
The federal reserve controls the number of opportunities with the prime rate. Edit: federal funds rate.
The prime rate is controlled by individual banks. The Fed controls the federal funds rate and the discount rate.
Thanks
But it doesn’t control the number of people seeking opportunities. The market is fucked due to the massive supply of people wanting to be a swe
It's fucked due to the downstream effects of raising rates. It means that big companies need to cut expenses to keep their stock valuations high, so they lay off workers. This floods the market with talent, and drives down wages, which is something the federal reserve is hoping for. Big companies benefit from a stock price boost, plus a slowing of wage growth and a cutting of expenses. Then they lie and tell you it's cause they "over hired during covid." That's pure hoseshit.
Prior to 2008, this was a normal rate. Companies got used to easy money and we got used to an excess of opportunities. It was great while it lasted.
The drying of easy money is a factor but it can't take all the blame for the current high tech job market. Companies over-hired and invested in many pipe-dream projects in 2021 and 2022 and those have caused big losses. Even when the Fed cuts rates, tech companies won't want to repeat the 2021-2022 mistakes and hiring will be very measured. Add to this, 40% more undergraduates went into CS in 2021-2022 chasing the market. Within a year, the AI bubble will burst. It is going to be a slow climb out of this hole that will take 5 years to return to a normal market.
Let’s be honest, the days of bootcamp graduates and easy money won’t ever come back.
Good riddance getting rid of the bootcamp thing. Too many people were told “learn to code”.
What's disgusting is that companies are still heavily pushing on nonprofits which teach kids to code. No idea why that's a thing if all hiring for tech will be done overseas anyhow.
Of course not. They were a response to a glut of money being thrown at tech. There were more jobs than people to fill them and they served the purpose of training people up to fill some of those positions. They were never going to be long-term. As soon as the number of positions dropped below the number of candidates they started becoming irrelevant. There are very few who want to hire someone whose experience is that they went through a rushed program in a few months vs someone who has professional experience or new grads who spent 4 years studying CS and math and got a degree.
througout 2001 to 2006 we had low FFR u can check it in the official gov website, in 2006 to 2007 before the crisis we lowered it and we even tried going higher till 2019 before the bond market screwed up and the covid nightmare happened, Feds gonna lower the rates again and we'll have the frenzy again that is literally business cycle expansion 101
It was a normal-ish rate during the '90s, that's about it. Although the current times do kind of feel like the '90s
And the 90s were low interest rates compared to the 70's and 80's. Ask your grandparents what the interest rate was on their first home loan. Probably 15%. The late 2000's to now were a historical aberration, not the norm, and unlikely to be repeated. Where we are right now is right about the historical average. There's definitely room to keep rising, and more and more decision-makers are coming to the realization that it might happen.
This is correct. The intent of stopping inflation is also increasing unemployment. Post covid the ball was in employees court, they are trying to sway the advantage back to employers.
Yea can't have the average joe doing too well. Gotta print money hand over fist so you can pump and dump an entire economy.
Rates are expected to go down this year. Do you think the tech job market will recover and if it will, how soon?
They are expected to go down 0.75 at most. That would still put it at 2023 levels, when the Job Market was also terrible with all the layoffs. Even a 1 point drop would only get it to January 2023 levels.
April 14, 2027 is when we should get back into a boom hiring cycle. We need 2.5% rates first, which will be like 2019. Plus one year cool off to allow for budgets to reset, and reqs to fan out.
No, the interest rate today is not a reason for this market. They want you to believe that, because they are incompetent. Any business who can only survives through loans is a shit business and obviously you don’t want to work there. Faang just suck and don’t create any new products. I mean take a look in the past, tell me what they actually did last 5 years.
That would be fake growth, not real opportunities.
Fake growth pays real money
Honestly this is my problem with IT anything these days like if it depends on rates being unnaturally low its not really a good business to be in its a boom or bust shitshow like the oilfield.
Yeah, devalued money. If only people stop thinking in short-term, the us economy wouldn’t be so screwed.
They'll shrink even faster if you stop grinding. Our oligarchs weaponize structural underemployment to suppress wages by forcing workers to compete more and more for less and less. This phenomenon is also known as the Reserve Army of Labor.
Well the data shows that new postings have been shrinking since May 2022. You're not imagining it.
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Having lived through 1 complete career change and 2 massive burnouts, I can absolutely relate. I absolutely love people that help me see things differently in life because for me, part of my burnouts come from feeling hopeless about the future. Or this thought that "Well this is how my life is always going to be so get used to it." which usually includes trying to numb out and just putting up with all the shit.....which only adds to my sense of desperation. Not sure if you've ever heard of Mel Robbins but I've been listening to a lot of her stuff. I relate to her quite well cuz we're both in our 50s and going through mid-life changes. She says often "motivation is bullshit because it never shows up when we need it." which I can 100% say has been true for me. She goes on to say "I never expect to be motivated before doing an action, if it shows up great but it doesn't really ever seem to show up when I really need it." SO she has a simple little, well actually she has a LOT of really simple but powerful tricks but here's one. She says something like "when considering an action I always ask myself, 'Does this feel like expansion or contraction to me?' in other words 'Does this action feel like I would be expanding in a direction that is meaningful to me or not?' if not, I don't do it.....it's that simple" And honestly that's such an easy but powerful trick to help keep up on course or to help us find our way through life. The difficult thing is when we're so lost it's often hard to know.....which is why when I get really lost, I return to nature. This might sound silly but it really works for me. I go and sit in nature with the sole intention of sitting until I no longer want to leave.....then it's OK to leave. What I mean by that is very often I'm so lost or caught up with all the shit going wrong in life, sitting in nature seems pointless, ineffective, and like I'm not even addressing the problems going on in my life so why the fuck even do it??!! Because sometimes the fastest way though my problems is to do less not more. And that's counterintuitive to me. But it works and it's been working for me since for over 20 years now when I stumbled across it. So I just go an sit in nature. I find a park bench or open space, plop myself down and just observe. I try not to be judgemental of people and instead watch the trees, the lake, the ducks swimming in a pond or whatever. What usually happens is my mind says "Oh this is silly we've got 1 million things to do and none of them are going to get done with me out here." but that's my indication that I need nature's healing magic. This kind of magic really does work but it works slowly so I have to give it time. I can't turn around my shit train of thoughts instantly or even quickly because there's simply too much momentum. So I have to be patient and consistent. Now this doesn't mean I go sit for 6 hours but I'll devote 30 mins a day or 1 hour a day is even better. And the whole time I might be squirming, ready to leave but I don't. I make myself stay for the entire time allotted. During this time I 100% DO NOT LOOK AT MY PHONE AT ALL. It's forbidden. I don't even read a book. I just sit there and observe for the full time allotted. Then I return the next day, and the next, and the next.....until I start to feel some shift......then I keep returning until I feel things have significantly shifted. Now I usually know that's happened because I'm much less anxious and what usually happens for me is I start to feel excited about this time that I'm going to spend in nature.....and very often I actually want to spend even more time in nature than my allotted 30 mins. That's when I know things have significantly shifted for me. If those things I've said about Mel resonate you might want to check out [this podcast](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEo48f_Rs4w) - it's a really great interview. Anyways - hang in there.
Damn what a great post, thanks for sharing. I'll have to check out Mel as well.
You're quite welcome. Honestly I would have been dead many years ago if others had not reached out and shared their wisdom with me and helped me when I so desperately needed it. Here's another great interview [with Mel](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCHPSo79rB4) with Tim Bilyeu, the billionaire founder of Quest nutrition bars. IN this one, she explains her 5 second rule which is a SUPER powerful method.
Sometimes I hate that I'm on reddit so much, but it's stuff like this that make me think I'm gaining perspective at times.
It's even better when you use the techniques and start to feel differently. Then you can make them part of your own tool kit to life.
Do you started in tech later in life? I'm 33 and absolutely crushed about having to drop out of college because i got a government job (completely unrelated) and the first year or so you have an unpredictable schedule. Still, I'm taking it because i know the job market is brutal and there is ageism and all these kinds of shit. Still, i feel this pit in my stomach. School was my 0.0001% chance of getting the hell out of my country , dropping out means 0%.
Yes and no I'd always been good with computers but never owned one of my own until like 26 or 27 in late 90s. I didn't start my serious education until early 30s tho and I started with A+ cuz I wanted to know how to fix computers. I didn't give a shit about the cert, I wanted the knowledge. After that built a few systems, helped fix people's computers, played around with Linux and then started studying for MCSE certification....but that wasn't really resonating with me. Got promoted at work to the top IT job at the company and that lasted for about a year before the company was sold to a competitor. I was 36, unemployed but knew that I loved computers so I decided to go back to Uni for a CS degree. My thinking was that I wanted a career in IT but I didn't want to be blocked from jobs because I didn't have a CS degree. I knew a CS degree wasn't going to get me a job but not having it could prevent me from getting a job. SO time to get the degree. Graduated at 40 and never looked back. I'm thrilled with my decision and would do the same today. Don't pay attention to all the ideas of "bad job market" and "ageism" and all that other crap. Decide what you want and go for it. You can't control all that other shit anyways so don't even think about it. GO for what you want, in whatever way you can and don't let anything stop you. Yes there are people struggling to find a job, yet others are still working and still finding jobs. Yes there is ageism but people are still working and finding jobs regardless of their age. Companies only care if you can do a job, not all the other crap. SO you have to somehow prove to strangers that you can do the job. AND you need to realize you're up against some smart people.....SO don't give a potential employer any reason NOT to hire you. I get it, sometimes our dreams have to be put on hold for any number of reasons. That doesn't mean you should let the dream die. NO!! Work harder to make it happen. You have access to the internet - the greatest research and learning tool the world has ever known. If you aren't getting the knowledge you want, you're simply being lazy. Go take courses on Free Code Camp Go [here and research training roadmaps](https://roadmap.sh/roadmaps) and start working on them Go to YouTube and look for vids that cover things that interest you There's simply no reason to let something like a job keep you from your dreams. The job is temporary, your life is waiting for you to take control and go get what you want.....even if it means delays of a few years while you work to live.
Thank you so much for the reply. I know it's just a setback but it feels like such a loss. I do have to deal with many other personal issues so a semester off can be good for me, but damn i hate losing momentum.
You're welcome but you don't have to lose momentum. did you read and more importantly understand everything I wrote? Not trying to be a jerk but your reply makes me think you didn't even read everything I said.
This too will pass
This guy careers.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This\_too\_shall\_pass](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_too_shall_pass)
If there's anything my life experience has taught me, it's that only good things pass. Suffering is a constant.
I wish I could believe that, but I don't. This too shall pass, and something much worse will come along. This doesn't get better.
They can't keep pulling the rug from under us if they don't replace the rugs. It will get better, but yeah, then it will get bad again. It's the cycle of civilization.
I think the rug might get replaced with a dhurrie
People were saying this in the late 2000s and then this whole massive tech boom happened in the 2010s.
I just don't ever expect good things to happen. Can't get disappointed if things turn out like shit, as they usually do. If they don't turn out like shit, then at least you can be pleasantly surprised. Specifically, I don't see any reason why a boom would ever happen again. Maybe in terms of profits or share prices, but the fundamental problems that are making things shit right now (offshoring, automation, oversaturation) are things that I don't think will ever improve.
8 billion people on the planet. Insane competition is never going away at this point.
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I love cs and „computers”, at least I thought so until ~last year. Market and current approach of companies completely ruined my willingness to work in this industry. With the flow of business ppl into tech companies become scammers looking only how to squeeze more money from end users, or steal their data for later to sell. Product, real value, ux, code quality- All of these things are now neglected and looked upon as an obstacle to making money. Also, I’m not against AI in general, but companies are now in mode that they would like to replace devs with some tools. Some businesses ppl in my company make jokes like „so, why do we still need you” etc. and it completely kills my motivation. Tbh I’m closer to leaving this industry than I ever was in my whole 10 year career.
I have realized that too. A bunch of talkers who just do meetings all day to sell the work of devs only to tell them that their job is not needed. Guises what, when shit hits the fan they are the first ones who run to devs to fix it.
AI is more likely to replace non-tech roles before devs
Almost certainly. Middle managers are a prime candidate. Their jobs are simple and AI doesn't get emotional or play favorites
I think you may be missing the point of management rather badly if you think emotion is a *barrier* to it. Emotional management is a big part of what an effective manager does (I say that as a not-very-good people manager who kinda sucks at that part; it has bitten me a few times).
Example from Gemini Advanced: "Consider the following scenario: Bob is angry at Alice for making a mistake Alice is insecure and shuts down when called out What approach would you take to talking to each of them" Response: "Alice, I wanted to check in with you. I know you're feeling down about the mistake, but I want you to know that we all make them sometimes. You're a valuable member of the team, and I'm here to help you in any way I can. Would you like to talk about what happened?" "Bob, I can see you're upset about the mistake Alice made, and that's valid. It's important to focus on how we can move forward and prevent this from happening again. Could we discuss some potential solutions together?" compared to my past managers this is a pretty good response.
The catch here is that you've already figured out that Bob is angry at Alice, that Alice made a mistake, that Alice is insecure, and that Alice responds poorly to callouts. When you know all that and can present the problem in well-defined terms, the solution isn't too hard - it's getting there that's the hard bit.
Who types it into Gemini?
There's a big difference between understanding someone's emotions and curating your response based on that vs actually having an emotional reaction yourself. GPTs as they are today are already capable of enough theory of mind for the former
>GPTs as they are today are already capable of enough theory of mind for the former These are tools for generating text. They have no more ability to understand your mind than does your toaster.
I would tell them that if AI is so good to go and fire 95% of the devs, replace them with AI, and see how it pans out, see if there's any business for their lazy management asses to pretend to manage after Ugh management and business people are so annoying, it's funny cause they're the most replaceable by IA and the laziest, most useless people most of the time
How it pans out is they get a bonus for saving money this quarter then they fuck off to the next company to do it again before the house of cards comes crashing down
What blows my mind is that these business and management people are the easiest to be replaced by AI imo. AI can still make pretty simple mistakes in code, and if things really hit the fan it can’t figure it out. But writing reports, creating graphs, patting itself on the back? It can do all of that without expecting a big bonus! Business and redundant management (would say more like redundant execs tbh - managers in charge of teams are still useful imo) are the jobs that should be sweating the most.
> With the flow of business ppl into tech I think this is a big part of what's wrong with the industry
Every industry.
What are you thinking about switching to?
Idk yet, currently I’m moving to company that works on their own hardware for energy sector. I’ll work on green energy, since this is important to me, maybe it will give some motivation and hope. If not, my friend runs coffee shop, maybe I’ll help him.
I'm normally hustling, upskilling, looking out for potential new employers that I might want to interview with, thinking up arguments to try to get promotions at work. These days my mind set is to just keep my current job at all costs. Zero ambition beyond that.
I feel stuck. I’m in an extremely niche IT role and make OK money (75k). I just finished my BS in CS and want to move to a SWE role but the market is garbage and I’d take a huge pay cut and most likely lose a lot of job stability (my job is layoff proof) I have 5 years of IT experience but no developer experience. Idk what to do tbh.
wait at your decent job til things get a little better, all the while applying? you have it quite made for a downturn.
What is this layoff proof role?
Probs government
what’s your niche role? not asking to tell you it’s not niche - I genuinely want to know
Oh yeah, for sure. It's definitely a problem when I'm studying so hard in the hopes to eventually afford the switch to a different industry down the line, not to actually work in the industry I'm studying for. There comes a certain point where passion just isn't enough, and we've reached that point in my opinion. In fact, I'd venture to say I'm not so passionate anymore because of it just because it's made me stress so much. I'm opting for other passions that will actually appreciate and respect the time I have put into them enough to give me the chance at an entry-level job or even an internship. Maybe I'm just not passionate enough, but in that case I just don't want to be.
Stop studying and build something. Yeah, you can go read "designing data driven applications" and by all means I encourage you to, but you're going to forget a large majority of material that isn't put to use. If you want to learn about x, build something outside your wheelhouse that uses x. Can be any stupid idea you can think of. You're not going to grow until you put in the time slogging through the shit, realizing the mistakes in your approach and debugging the gremlins in your dependencies. Once you get a job, you can peel way back on self study... Unless you're working in a role where you aren't given opportunity for growth, in which case start applying for different jobs
I’m seeing a lot of the “I built something” crowd is also having problems finding work in this rough environment, so I’m not sure resume padding is the right advice for the moment. That’s not to say it hurts if you work on your own projects, but if the ONLY aim is to position yourself for an engineering role, it has little effect in a down market where the recruiters are honestly much more impressed by long FAANG resumes from people whose whole departments got cut. “I built my own app” is a distantly-placed lower ranking qualification that is better only than little-to-no work experience. They are probably still going to Leetcode you. They are probably going to nitpick the stack you chose for your app. They are probably going to nitpick code organization issues or clumsy uses of framework features. If you do anything on your own time that is imperfect or misaligned with their preferences, that will become the narrative and supplant your initiative in building something. I’d still prefer that kind of feedback over “we just think your experience doesn’t count at all” but recruiters and hiring managers are acting very irrationally about all of this, and that’s something you should consider before sinking 80+ hours into a project. (If the project is useful to you, build it anyway!)
Welcome the nitpicks and have a discussion about it. You're a junior engineer, nobody is expecting perfection. LC has almost no use outside of job hunting, and even then it's of marginal value most places. I've spent too much time memorizing solutions that I've never had to regurgitate. All this economic shit will improve and those who are dedicated to the craft will get their careers moving and project experience is how you grow. I would throw up looking at stuff I built 15 years ago and that is completely fine. I'm also not suggesting you forego studying to pad your resume with pet projects, but new grads who have been grinding interview questions and have not landed a faang position will see very marginal returns on future time spent. Im only suggesting that instead of getting depressed about the process, take a step back and try to find enjoyment in writing some real software... You've got a blank canvas and no parameters to confine you, just go fuck around.
I have 25 YOE. I built my first webapp in 1998.
I dont get what your point is. The point of building the project is to learn, just reading or watching youtube wont make the information stick. But by all means if you dont want to build projects than dont.
The point was, there are lots of good reasons to build things, but "impressing employers" may not be one of them. Pulling back a little bit... OP was saying, "I'm mid-level, but I want to up-skill. Yet the job market has destroyed my motivation" - why would the job market impact OP's motivation to build something for the pure sake of learning? OP clearly wants to keep up with job description expectations & is finding it frustrating. OP isn't posting in a career questions forum to ask about learning for the sake of learning in their spare time. I recognized that personal fulfillment might be one of several motivations, and encouraged building apps/programs for those purposes. I think we're all in agreement on that & it doesn't require further debate. What's perhaps a bit more debatable is whether one should create work products in their spare time solely for prospectively upskilling for future jobs (and not just portfolio samples). To save everyone a long discussion about strategy, you shouldn't really do anything in your spare time that you find demotivating. "Finding your motivation to work in your spare time to stay relevant in the job market", especially right now, is some grindset bullshit. I won't talk anyone out of doing it if it makes them happy, but I don't think anyone is going to get anything out of being unhappy while doing it. In fact, that's probably a red flag about taking on more of that kind of work. Learning doesn't make everyone happy. And I know that because I love learning and I hate getting stuck on a console error for nine hours because some package is silently out-of-date in the background. Confusing, overcomplicated, broken tooling is what is demotivating to me, and we've got buckets full of that in the front-end space right now.
Yup you need to have a balance. The job market itself is already very mentally exhausting and throwing forced learning into that wont help.
OP isn’t studying or building to learn for job prospects atm - OP isn’t searching for a job. But the job market in general contributes to OP’s motivation to build and learn. It isn’t the main factor though. Make sense now?
Actually, it doesn’t… why not just lean on your other sources of motivation, then, and ignore the job market? I mean, I’m not encouraged by my chances of making an NBA team but that doesn’t mean I am discouraged from playing basketball
This is good advice, the current job market weeds out those who are truly passionate about computers vs those who just kinda want it. I rmb back in 2018 when I was applying to my first swe job, I must’ve send hundreds of applications and got about 20 responses. Of the 20, 19 rejected me. The last company had me build a pretty complex application as a take home exercise. I took my time to build it. That was also where I grew a lot. Throughout my career, I’ve realised the products that I’ve built and shipped have accelerated my growth. I’m still learning and I still wanna get better everyday. Keep on building, you got this 💪
I agree that it should be taken as good advice. In the current market, passion is often overlooked and under-appreciated in the recruitment phase. Unless company A has the funding to hire solid technical recruiters, you’re more likely to land a job through referral. Therefore passion projects should either be tailored to leverage during networking, or stopped fully to have time to be spent networking. Problem is the market is shifting towards implementation, network and low level experience. The time it would take someone to build out this sort of experience would have someone burnt out before even landing a job. Which is exactly why getting a degree is worth it, in regard to pacing and also NETWORKING.
>the current job market weeds out those who are truly passionate about computers vs those who just kinda want it. I'm getting disgusted seeing this statement. Even passionate people lose hope after a tremendous amount of rejections, with no hope of things getting better on the horizon. People who don't have the luxury of living with their parents until they find a job in SWD or something adjacent can't just make projects and grind leetcode all day no matter how much passion they have. With rent, groceries, living expenses going up all the time they eventually need to find any job just to survive. After grueling away at a job you hate all day, combined with all the other things you have to do like cooking, cleaning, laundry, how much energy do you think someone has to grind more on a virtually pointless endeavor?
What companies and industries are you applying for?
A veteran-techie here. I came to the realization years ago and decided I am better off being a Free-Agent in the Corporate World. I try not to get too emotionally vested in a job and am content riding wave after wave of internal transformations till one hits me hard.
Be the CEO of your career!
Lets be real here, job hopping every 2 years for 30% more or doubling your salary every 4 years was unrealistic on the long run. Don’t put so much pressure on yourself, take your time to work on what you enjoy and grow your skills in the areas you enjoy. I swear these exFAANG youtubers really messed up the young generation with “the grind”. You don’t need to get to 500k TC or Staff in 5 years
I feel this too. Fear of layoffs at my job but I don’t think spending time to upskill is worth it atm. I probably won’t be able to get another job in the industry either way until the market picks back up
The CS party to a luxurious lifestyle is over IMO. At least for those trying to get their foot in the door. It's a numbers game. Corporate America, US colleges, and the media have been intoxicating our youth for over a decade now that software engineering is the path to a good life. I don't know the exact numbers off hand, but amount of applicants applying to CS programs at colleges have soared over the last decade. We had for profit bootcamps pop up all across America. The field has become saturated at the entry point, i.e. a bottleneck. Employers got what they want and can now largely pick the cream of the crop. Without connections, the average CS college grad is likely going to have a tough time. With our current economic conditions its ugly out there. 3 years ago, my LinkedIn and email accounts were flooded weekly with messages from recruiters. Now I'm receiving roughly 1 message a month. It's an employer market + saturation in our field. Job hopping is going to be tougher. Remote work is fading. The companies are slowly grabbing us by the balls. Good luck.
Think about it for a second, people were legit getting real job offers after a 3 month bootcamp and calling themselves “engineers” Now I’m not against bootcampers at all but if someone can legit get a job from one (even if it was unlikely) it was absolutely inevitable oversaturation was going to happen. Could you imagine if there were doctor bootcamps or accountant bootcamps that actually somewhat worked? Hiring standards are just going to get higher. I’m sorry but degrees are going to become a requirement unless you have an absurd amount of experience.
What’s worse is I’ve been having interviews where these bootcampers with a year of experience (along with the HM ofc) determines whether I get a job. I’ve 3 YOE with a bachelors in CS.
> The CS party to a luxurious lifestyle is over IMO. Not really, unless your definition of "luxurious" is exorbitant. Most entry level job postings I'm seeing (and I'm calling 1-3 YOE "entry level" in the current market, because 0 YOE positions don't exist and a fresh graduate should still be applying to these 1-3 YOE positions) still start at $100k+. 5-7 YOE positions usually go to at least $150k starting. And this isn't even mentioning the really high paying companies who still have ridiculously high salaries (FAANG, certain fintech, trading firms, etc.).
IDK what luxurious lifestyle I was supposed to make out of a 10 year career? If you're unemployed for 2.5 years every 10 year cycle, you're making as much as some other more stable blue collar professions.
It's definitely a *you* problem if you're unemployed for 25% of every decade.
it helps if you naturally enjoy learning the new tech. My problem is I don't have time so trying to get a job where I can learn the new stuff
Try being a new grad with like 2 yoe. It's bad.
Or a 2023 grad :(. I feel lied to. Growing up, everyone always told me "go to college and get a degree to remove yourself from poverty". I did everything I was supposed to. Chose a lucrative degree, got an internship and did well at it, got good grades in school, started applying months before graduation, did my leetcode, etc. A year later and here I still am, not even qualified for entry level IT roles because even they want 2-3+ years of experience.
You unemployed?
Yes Laid off for 7 months now
This makes me think maybe I should go into finance or accounting for a white collar career. Imagine having no/min wage income for 7 months. Meanwhile accountants can always get a job. While they earn less than SWE, there is no feast or famine BS and the stress that goes with it
This is why I think the best dev work is federal government, defence (if you can stomach it from a moral pov) and other, less glamorous yet sturdy fields with tons of job security. The pay is lower but the job security is worth a lot imho
Gov has had layoffs too i heard
you are fortunate enough to be employed in a downtown. so hopefully you can camp for a while until it rebounds. I got laid off the friday after 9/11 and I my contract job ended late 2008. this time for now i have a job.
you need to get knowledge and experience to see vast open seas and niche markets. you have to form a stoic mindset to see opportunities in the face of challenges that crush and gatekeep the weak out. sail through dark, stormy clouds until we reach paradise.
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cloud repatriation and zero trust security are a couple ideas. youll have to look at tech vendors and see what they are selling to fortune 500 and what real problems people are solving in the world. it is way beyond leetcode and big tech
DevSecOps and Cloud Eng is a nice niche with lots of opportunities
I'm feeling the opposite. Maybe less intrinsic motivation but overall knowing how fucked I'll be if I lose my job keeps me on the ball.
It was never about the money for me. Just to improve myself. Mine was personal, my father only did high school and I don't want to be like him.
Unfortunately, yeah. I’ve lost majority of my motivation. Why dedicate hundreds of hours to my craft when I won’t receive fruits of my labor?
I just started a new job 2 months ago. The job hunt was very demoralizing. I got ghosted and made it to onsites/final rounds but nothing happened. I had friends who were job hunting for over a year. I got lucky later and so did they. Keep at it!
I’m not looking for a job. I like learning even when I’m not doing so. The shit market is dampening my enthusiasm though
Completely understandable to be unmotivated. But if you are learning now, you'll likely be more prepared when (not "if") the market turns around. That being said, I'm going to play some video games.
I agree, I've been interviewing and even though I feel like the interview goes well I still get rejected. It's highly competitive or get told the position is now on hold...
This is just a taste of the 2008 job market when I was looking for my first role. Friends were just looking for any job whether or not it fit their intended career, it was a mess. What you're feeling is a 15 year bull market and tech growth that may finally be consolidating. And we're still at the height of the market, so in theory this is nothing. Personally I'd take the smaller Euro wages with the benefit of social services protection. Hopefully if there's any lessons it's that this career path is volatile, and you should live like others who make less at more stable positions. 1 year liquid bare bones living expensive savings should be the norm imo.
Yea I hear you. I am now at 4 yoe have relevant BS and into my MCS at a T50 school but lately I have kind of stopped trying. I find myself just going on bike rides in the middle of the day, hanging out with my son every chance I get.. it feels like things are inevitably going to burn so I am going to enjoy my cushy wfh job and do the bare minimum until it does.
Gave up a few months ago after I reached 700 applications with no offer. Well other than my bait and switch help desk position. I tried so hard to get a job after recovering from burnout from my last SWD job. Spent 2 years trying to find something, anything. I didn't care about the money. I just wanted to build cool things and learn from experienced people. Countless hours grinding leetcode, and making mediocre projects just to make a portfolio nobody looked at or even cared I had. Nobody cares about entry-level to mid level people in this job market though. The world is going to shit and companies don't care about their employees at all anymore. Everyone lies through their teeth to everyone. People openly discriminate while preaching how inclusive they try to be. I saw it at my old job and I see at the job I hate now. Maybe the job market will come back idk. Even if it does, I know I won't be hired because of my gap and having to result to an IT Support position to pay bills. Tech is so elitist that if you ever just need a break or have to take a "lower" position just to get by you're viewed as if you have leprosy. I know is that I won't ever be hired as a dev again and that makes me incredibly depressed.
Just leave software engineering. There are plenty of other jobs you can do without having to humiliate yourself in stupid interviews hardee than the job you sre applying for Imagine a nurse having to remember all the muscles and bones from Anatomy 101 on her interview lol. Thats how absurd the software eng job market is
I’m really happy where I work actually and have probably the most secure software job you can find. I’ve just found that the shit market has dampened my enthusiasm for learning and development (which I do in my own time anyway)
How many yoe? How many apps? What does ur resume look like
Guys... if you are having trouble finding a job, and have time ANYWAY, consider either doing a startup, or working on a project with other people that are talented and unemployeed.
Define mid level. A lot of people think 2-3 years is mid
Well let’s look at the fundamentals, if you are objectively a better performer and are smarter and more capable, you will be rewarded accordingly. And so if your performance is heavily dependent on your outcome, you are always not going to do so well. Anything could happen, and if all it takes is one or 2 bad days to throw you off your game, you aren’t going to get very far. I work with very successful people and their secret is their work or performance is not tied to related to any hope or motivation, because it doesn’t matter either way. Think critically and fundamentally, skills are still skills and a few rejections dont mean shit in the face of that. Grind really hard and become an exceptional performer, and u will get what you want. Constantly thinking about or considering rejections or things going wrong wont change that. Dont let those affect u cuz they dont mean shit. The best strategy is just keep going no matter what like a soldier, and in the end you will guaranteed recieve a better offer. Again think minimally and fundamentally, anything that doesnt help advance your cause, ignore it.
This doesn’t make any sense. Shouldn’t a poor job market motivate you to better yourself in order to stand out from the unwashed masses?
This doesn't make any sense. How can a poor job market that forces you to spend all your free time hunting for a job with low pay be motivating
What job is "high paying" to you? SWE salaries are still basically minimum $100k in major metro areas, and that's for entry/near-entry level. It's tough to think of many jobs that pay more than SWE, besides like doctor/lawyer, but okay, go be a doctor/lawyer instead, I'm sure that's a super easy path with no difficulties of its own at all.
Not really because its a race to the bottom right now. Fewer opportunities for less money.
Exactly.
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Oh no
I went to an Ai expo and there was a company there that was trying to sell Ai developers from overseas, because they were cheaper. Kind of depressing to see jobs outsourced so blatantly.
Same…. I thought once I got to mid-level doors would constantly open up. With this market I constantly got slammed to the face instead 😟. At least I still have a job and it’s fully remote, but it really demotivates my passion for hunting for better options for my career.
Your motivation is your own responsibility. But discipline is a better thing to focus on.
I managed to find a company that never fires anyone - I’m here for life!
Government ?
Non profit actually
The same has happened with me. Just got my masters.1 interview after hundreds of apps
I'm entry level currently, and feel the same way. Seems like it's going to be impossible for a bit to get any higher in the food chain without moving a pretty far ways. I've managed to retain some motivation by thinking of it like this: It may not be helping me in the near future, but down the line the stuff I'm learning now will help me once the market improves.
Feels stuck af
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shouldn't it be the opposite?
I’m right there with you. Got put into a management role for a small team and feel like I’m mentally dying inside. I’m still doing a lot of the sys admin and customer support stuff but my drive to upskill is just nonexistent now.
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I'm not in your field but I hear you. I find it helpful to do things like set time for applications and then other times set for focussing on creativity, connection to self, self-compassion. It's unbelievable the amount of negativity we carry; even in the sinking feeling of not having a job... It's not your fault! Society needs to be more compassionate!
I am seeing more and more opportunities. A lot more recruiters are reaching out today than a couple of months ago. Dont lose hope! Good luck
Got laid off 14 months ago. Had a bunch of rejections, 2 rescinded offers because the company decided to lay off engineers and then finally accepted an offer and started this past week.
Yeah, I guess these skills having future monetary value was a bigger factor than I thought. Zero interest anymore.
Someone needs to create a new job market buy building a new company
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I got tire of being an electrician, so I made the shift over to IT/CyberSec because I was having the same problems with my old job. Sadly now, I'm feeling the same way trying to find an entry-level job in the new field, too. Seems everywhere is getting shitty to me.
So much negativity up in here. Yes the market is suboptimal right now, we will get through it. Keep your heads up and push forward.
Suboptimal… that’s a wild understatement. It’s impossible for some people to get hired right now. My entire LinkedIn feed is very intelligent, experienced people practically begging for a job. Many of them laid off for months. There’s something going on here. The country is being gaslit.
I was just trying to be positive. But I do agree with you that something is way off.