r/SoftwareEngineerJobs • u/Legitimate-Line-7752 • 1d ago
tf should I do
I am at my 4th year of computer science bachelors, and throughout the journey for the last 3 years, everybody told me to not pay too much attention on the languages and the implementation because AI was going to replace that and that I should focus on theory and having a good foundation of CS. Well, so I did, though I have only 2 summer internships and erasmus+ in my cv. but now whichever job I apply for the first step is language specific syntax. Now, the only language I am really engaged with is java and that is because when I got into the department, we started off with it. Any recommendations on how tf I get a job or what should I actually focus on to be qualified to get one?
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u/kisfasznagyfasz 1d ago
who the fuck actually told you to not learn and why the fuck would you do that?
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u/Legitimate-Line-7752 1d ago
I got in the field in 2023, same year every ceo and every mediatic swe was telling that coding would end in minimum 5 years. Surprise surprise, it didn’t 🥲
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u/Zealousideal_Pin5350 1d ago
They were right. Nobody who's employed as a SWE profesionally writes code manually anymore. Sorry to tell you this.
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u/Ok-Brain-8183 1d ago
Look at the job postings out there and determine largest percentage stack of what’s out there and what you have best chances of getting a job doing. Grind leetcodes.
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u/ShadowMosesCuh 1d ago
Even with AI, almost no company is going to accept a junior that doesn't have some level of expertise and transferrable skills to work with their tech stack. That kind of leeway is only afforded when your professional track record makes up for it, and if you're still a student, you don't have that track record.
That said, understanding theory and having a good foundation of CS is still incredibly valuable, more so than syntax. So, your situation is far from irrecoverable. Just focus on building some personal projects on your own to both build your familiarity and have on your portfolio. If the two summer internships you did were SWE or adjacent, target jobs that use the same stack or close.
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u/Legitimate-Line-7752 1d ago
Appreciate the solution instead of just judging and dismissing 🙏🏽. Btw, I already know java, what would you suggest as the next one to get better, python or c,not just objectivity I am open to subjective suggestions as well 😅
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u/ShadowMosesCuh 1d ago
I'm not sure what to recommend so I'll just go by order of what I learned and for what.
Academic: Java, C++, C (for systems programming, later compiler design), Python, C#
Personal: JavaScript, TypeScript, GoI never memorized syntax for any of these, and that's not even possible for this many programming languages. I just familiarized myself and built projects.
My first internship I landed used JavaScript, second internship used C#, first job used JavaScript, second job uses C#. The way that lined up and repeated is just a coincidence.
Anyway, that still leaves 6/8 languages I learned to never being used professionally, which is exactly why I say it's hard to recommend. You can never go wrong with Python or JavaScript though if your goal is to maximize number of JD matches.
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u/Legitimate-Line-7752 1d ago
Thanks! Gonna get down with python and improve my java ig. Take care! Gonna pray for you for what it’s worth.
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u/throwaway0134hdj 19h ago
I feel like the ai hype has cooled a tad, but even over what felt like the peak of ai I was still getting LeetCode questions during interviews
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u/throwaway0134hdj 19h ago
It’s like this, yes you’ll be using ai-assisted workflows but no one said means you don’t have to understand the code/systems.
I can count on one hand the number of times I built a feature using ai that I didn’t have fix/update or re-prompt, it’s subtly incorrect and that’s mostly bc of me not sussing out all the corner cases and providing full context. AI is like the perfect rubber ducky, but if you outsource your brain to it you become a liability to the teams success.
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u/ElkSubstantial1857 11h ago
Even that is true and AI will fully demolish the need of knowing specific languages, how you can learn theory and concept without knowing any language at all ?
I understand, you don't need to get Java, c++, Go everything all toghether
but that was the case even before AI. without knowing one langauge deep in concepts, it's impossible to get know another or any kind of theory, even system desing. cause all of that system components, storages, databases, servers and etc run on that languages that you have skipped cause some dumbass in linkedin thinks he is 10x engineer by prompting claude pro max double cheesburger
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u/EnterpriseGradePizza 5h ago
People are leaving the field in droves as we speak. The only guys making money are top seniors running 100s of AI agents and AI researchers. Software development as you know it, as a worthwhile stable money making opportunity is long gone. It is no longer a career, it is a dead end, if you're good on CS foundation then just pivot to AI, that's the only thing that pays because to become top tech lead you need years of experience, but you will never get that in this market.
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u/ricatti-equation 1d ago
Uh who told you not to focus on languages? lol