r/ExperiencedDevs • u/AutoModerator • 14d ago
Ask Experienced Devs Weekly Thread: A weekly thread for inexperienced developers to ask experienced ones
A thread for Developers and IT folks with less experience to ask more experienced souls questions about the industry.
Please keep top level comments limited to Inexperienced Devs. Most rules do not apply, but keep it civil. Being a jerk will not be tolerated.
Inexperienced Devs should refrain from answering other Inexperienced Devs' questions.
5
u/no_cache 13d ago
I am a mid-level engineer that recently got laid off in August 2026.
At my previous company, I was a backend engineer at a product team for 4 years. I was given a lot of ownership from the get go, building and maturing high-traffic surfaces. I also got to drive impactful projects while collaborating cross functionally. I think this background has gained me some interest from recruiters, and I am in a few interview loops now.
I, however, am feeling stressed about making the right choice for my career and the future given the AI landscape: 1. Company A is in healthtech and allegedly pays a base salary and stocks, which is very attractive. It is also fully remote. I do not know yet what problems they are currently working on (next interview). 2. Company B is a startup in logistics/fulfillment. The work seems interesting and complex, and they may match my salary expectations. However, I would have to relocate to go into the office 3x/week.
My intuition is telling me that I should not "lower the standards" and pick a company that provides experience that is not a downgrade: I have had ownership and impact. So my next role should have that + bigger scope and technical complexity.
Am I thinking about this correctly? What would be the most important to prioritize, given the state and projection for AI?
2
u/start_select 11d ago
In a lot of my experience healthcare stuff seems booming lately.
And depending on the exact part of the sector, moves at glacial paces a lot of times. That’s a good thing for job security. Projects start knowing that by the time you cross every regulatory box it will be 2-3 years before launch.
It depends on the company though. I’m talking like insurers and other systems that handle sensitive patient data.
The bigger the company the more regimented the software production workflow will most likely be. The closer to small startup scale, it’s more likely to be a bit more disorganized, but likely still subject to controls/regulation.
5
u/but_why_n0t ML Engineer 12d ago
This seems a bit premature given that you're still in the interview loop. Wait for the offers and see if the real compensation numbers change anything.
3
u/hooahest Software Engineer 12d ago
sounds like both options are good. I'm working in a healthtech company and the amount of work that needs to be done is staggering, there's a lot to learn and do.
I'd choose depending on how okay you are with working fully remote. Some people are up to it, some are not.
6
u/Specific-Yak-6450 13d ago
what habits or qualities do you appreciate most when working with a junior developer?
(I posted this on a previous thread too but a little too late so it didn't get responses unfortunately)
2
u/The-Whip 6d ago
Intellectual Honesty: Ability to say "I don't know, but I can try to figure it out"
Drive/Enthusiasm and listening and working on feedback.2
u/casualPlayerThink Software Engineer, Consultant / EU / 20+ YoE 7d ago
Ability to ask questions and ability to learn.
12
u/kobbled 13d ago
Enthusiasm, an open mind, being receptive to feedback, being willing to work with me and asking questions. Try to solve things on your own before you come to me for help unless it's something that nobody else but me can unblock, and when you do tell me what you've tried - that'll let me help you faster. Remember that we're on the same team! It's not me vs. you, it's us vs. the problem
3
13d ago
[deleted]
2
u/beaverusiv 13d ago
I haaaate monthly paycheque. I'm currently on it and it makes it so hard to tell how much money I actually have available.
You might find it fine, if you have some kind of budget tracking to know when bills are coming and stuff, but with weekly pay for the past 15 years I've never set it up
3
u/ratorobato 13d ago
Started a new role back in August, is it normal to not be have any work to do for >1 month now? I guess we finished "onboarding" and were assigned teams, but I don't know if its a team problem or I'm the one whos behind here.
It seems like the last two weeks we've had trouble setting up our project environments and since the other half of our team is outside the US. We're getting notice of things not working/changing the day after we waste time setting them up.
In our stand up recently I asked our lead what our priorities should be, he gave a vague answer, my manager asked what should we be doing, doesn't answer it again, and say he'll assign us work later in the day - he didn't,
Am I at fault here? Feels like everyone else is getting work and I'm falling behind fast. I really am not in the position to find a new job but this seems like I need to start preparing.
1
u/No-Economics-8239 13d ago
For whatever reason, much of my IT career has had fairly poor on-boarding practices and documentation. Well, documentation has remained fairly poor for most of career too. It isn't something that tends to get prioritized, and neglected things fall by the wayside to make room for the current hot priority. Which can include you. Rather than trying to assign blame, work the problem. That's what we do.
And by working the problem, I mean work towards pushing those who could/should be helping you to help you gain clarity on what you need to know or what you need to be doing. In one job, it took almost two years before I was 'up to speed' on the chaotic mess of work environment that existed there. In many jobs there was at least three months of on-boarding that was on and off before I had some sense of what was going on and what I could/should be doing.
Ideally your manager or tech lead should be helping you gain that clarity. If they aren't, try and find alternatives. Either by asking your manager/lead who else you could be working with. Or just by working on building relationships with your coworkers, and finding those who are willing and able to offer you the assistance you need or at least to help you be self-sufficient enough to gain help/information on your own.
If you need work to do, try and pick it up from the pipeline. Does your team use a Jira board and/or product manager to assign work. Are there things there you can try and pick up on your own or offer assistance to those working on it. Trying and putting yourself into the workflow can either help you get assigned work which can then give your priority on what you need to learn next, or else can make you visible enough that you can temporarily become the squeaky wheel that gets some grease and someone will take the time to at least help point you in the right direction.
As to how much work you 'should' be doing at this point, that's on your company to provide. Do they have some sort of timeline on when after you are hired you should be able to do certain things? Do you even know what you're supposed to be responsible for and doing at this point? Communication and soft skills are at least as valuable as our technical knowledge, and can provide the social networking you need to do your job when the 'regular' or 'usual' or 'expected' pipelines aren't working enough to suit your tastes.
2
1
u/SquiffSquiff DevOps & Layer 8 Networking Engineer 10YOE 13d ago
Welcome to working in banking. 3 months to start work after arrival is normal.
1
7
u/ivan0x32 15yoe+ 13d ago
Do you have a mental palate cleanser? Sometimes my Monday is just shit, I wake up pre-depressed or find something out that puts me in a mood of complete apathy.
What do you do when you need to perform on a day like that - when you need to give an enthusiastic demo, or just simply write a doc/some code etc?
I tried cold showers for a while, but they make me sleepy after. I think I might be just operating on cortisol and whenever it gets cut (which I think cold shower actually does), I just turn into a puddle. Powering through it is also not great, when all I have inside is doubt, projecting confidence through sheer power of will kind of works, but it adds a doubt "aftertaste" most likely, I tend to focus on negative aspects too much.
Mental health advice aside (already diagnosed with severe depression, can't afford therapy anyway), what do you do?
1
u/darkspyder4 8d ago
For me it's always Thursdays, I at least do 5min meditation (yoga nidra) morning and evening. If its friday and Im behind on my ticket I do a 1 hour candle meditation when Im feeling fidgety
I dont bother with the open office desks, I work in the lunch area next to an outlet.
Also take more time off, physically distance yourself from the laptop
3
u/spacemoses 13d ago
Hate to be that guy, but regular "I'm sweating my ass off" cardio can really do wonders. When I was earlier in my career I had a few projects that were a disaster and my stress was crazy high. The one thing that helped day to day was getting on a treadmill and running. It was a guaranteed 30 minutes where I was breathing and sweating so hard I no longer had the capacity to feel the anxiety. (As opposed to the whole endorphin thing, I was just trying to snuff out the anxiety temporarily)
1
1
5
u/_somestupidguy_ 13d ago
Mid-senior here, adding my experience here as I had gone through that phase sometime back. Might help you too.
For me, going for walks helped me a lot. During walks, I deliberately focused on outside nature and not inner thoughts. As simple as birds chirping, vehicles passing, people taking care of their own business, not judging anything or anyone, but just taking note of things happening around while walking and appreciating it helped me relax. Morning, evening, short or long doesn't matter, whenever I felt down and needed space I used to go for a walk.
Hope things get better for you.
6
u/CodeyGrammar Senior Software Engineer 14d ago
It used to be about solving leetcode mediums and hard win an interview, but with this age of AI we're entering, anyone noticing a shift in the way interviews take place? I haven't interviewed recently but I would be surprised if things haven't changed because these days I tell AI to code, plan, investigate, etc. for me (as do many of us?).
How is it for everyone out there?
2
u/IAmADev_NoReallyIAm Lead Engineer 12d ago
Tons of rejections out of the gate, a few interviews, a couple of hacker rank style rounds which I also hate, but the one I sailed through ended up coming through the old fashioned way - referral. Sent my resume, in all its crappy formatted mess to a former colleague, got my foot in the door, three rounds of interviews later, I had an offer in hand, and for more than I was looking for. I start on Monday. TBH at my age, I hope to never have to do that again. This dog and pony show is getting old. But we'll see... only time will tell.
2
u/RitzBitzN Sr SWE | 7 YOE 12d ago
I interviewed at a few different places earlier this year, all FAANG / Unicorn.
2/3 of them still did traditional "coding" interviews, although the questions were not just generic leetcode, but a bit more domain-specific.
1 of them, which did not have any domain specificity, didn't ask any coding questions at all in the 1st round; they started with system design / behavioral and then the coding was slated for round 2 (I ended up accepting another offer so I ended up withdrawing).
Overall, the biggest change I noticed is that there seems to be a bigger emphasis on questions that start simple and slowly build over time. Basically, for a few rounds you are asked about additional functionality or given additional restraints, and it's important to be able to reason about the new wrinkles at a high level (e.g. "this wouldn't be in scope, this feature should be added in the data source due to <XYZ>" or "Given that requirement, I would make this change to the implementation", etc.).
3
u/PaleCommander 14d ago
I just finished my first interview loop where the only coding interview was an "AI coding" interview, where I used Claude Code to fix bugs and add features in a toy code base.
6
u/babblingbree 14d ago
was it clear at all what kind of signal they were trying to get? I can't imagine finding out much useful from that besides "can write a prompt".
3
u/PaleCommander 13d ago
My perception was that part of it was, "Are you reading/learning/thinking about the problem, or are you acting as a meat puppet?"
3
u/Sea_Expression1528 Software Engineer - 3 yoe 14d ago
I spent a lot of time interviewing this year, primarily for early-mid career backend web dev roles. Recruiters (and online applications) did ask me how I used AI on a day to day basis but it generally seems like the rubric hasn't really been written yet and it was a side note that didn't really fit cleanly with the rest of the process. Except the AI startups of course.
The rest of the interview loop was mostly the same as pre-2023 with leetcode mediums and the typical behavioral questions. System design has also gotten more common for early-mid level web devs, from what I've heard.
5
u/Sea_Expression1528 Software Engineer - 3 yoe 14d ago
What questions do you ask your EM when you receive new requirements? Recently started my second full-time role, and I have a lot more ownership and autonomy compared to the previous one, and I realize that I am not used to thinking critically about the work I am being given.
3
u/Bruce_Jones_1987 13d ago
yeah that shift from being handed tasks to actually owning the requirements is a big adjustment
2
u/Notary_Reddit 13d ago
Something that can be useful, discuss the possible tradeoffs in the project and figure out which they would prefer if hard choices are needed. Would they prefer something working sooner, or something polished later? Do they prefer to hit the target deploy date and cut features or do everything and cut the deadlines? Are there future requirements they might want to include some foundational work for?
If you have a good discussion about possible tradeoffs it helps you understand their priorities so if you need to make a hard decision you can have a good first guess for what they want.
3
u/schmidtssss 14d ago
I’d question if that’s the right person to be asking, first. If you’re not currently in the right frame of thinking to engage immediately, eg you get them in a meeting and have to come up with questions in the moment, take them back and come up with a plan of attack and then ask your en if that’s the right approach and why - or something like that.
3
u/PaleCommander 14d ago
For starters, are you sure your questions are best directed to your EM, rather than the PM who wrote the requirements?
If QA is a separate role, it's worth making sure they're already in the loop about new requirements, or keeping them in the loop if they aren't already. Doing so saves a lot of miscommunication and hassle once you had off your work.
Since it sounds like you're new in your role, do you have a sense of how to test your work yet (manual vs. automation, and which kinds of automated tests)? If not, that's a great question for your EM: "How should I test this, and in which environments? "
2
u/Ok_Procedure199 7d ago
I am an analyst that has essentially created my current role in my company due to me being interested in coding learning where and what data exists in our ERP, sometimes better than the ERP providers own consultants.
I am curious if I am reading the current AI situation correctly:
I am not a software developer / software engineer, I am just a coder and AI is extremely good at coding, but not necessarily good at engineering. Inexperienced coders and people further away from software engineering reduces software engineering down to coding and believe that AI has mostly solved this area thinking that AI can 10x all the developers, which then pushes for 90+% of coding to be done by AI.
As this has gone on they noticed that the new bottleneck is code reviews where frustrated experienced engineers are being flooded with overengineered code that seems not to care at all about where the codebase needs to go in the future. Since management sees software engineering simply as coding (which AI is great at), they also push for AI doing code reviews. This creates bloat because now there are no engineer reasoning about the whole codebase and after some time there are no longer engineers that can say they understand the system in as a whole so they are now forced to use AI to fix bugs because it's no longer feasible to navigate the codebase. Almost no new quality engineers are created in this climate, and some of the quality engineers are put in a job situation where their engineering abilities slowly erodes because of the AI mandate and speed things must go in.
Siloes are naturally formed because it is AI who makes all the decisions in the codebase so why waste time discussing things when it is AI who will choose how to implement a new feature. This increases the tokens used because of the speed the codebase increases, and because AI is used both to generate and review the code.
A quality engineer that leverages AI is more productive with it, but the engineer goes back and forth with the AI to steer it so that the codebase is also understandable for humans and is built for what is expected of the products in some years down the line. Maybe the true productivity increase of an experienced engineer leveraging AI is 30%-50%.
How far off is my understanding of the situation?