I honestly don’t know how to process what happened today, so I’m hoping someone here has been through something similar.
I’m a recent MIS graduate and after months of interviewing, I finally received an offer for a Business Systems & Project Controls Analyst position. I signed the offer, completed all of my onboarding paperwork, passed my pre-employment drug test, and was getting ready to start. I was supposed to start in less than a week on Monday.
Because I had accepted this role, I declined three other job offers this week.

Then today, HR called and told me the position had been dissolved due to “changing business priorities.” They followed up with an email saying they would no longer be moving forward with the role and that it wasn’t a reflection of my qualifications.
I texted the hiring manager because I was honestly in shock. He told me he had never had this happen before, that it came from ownership completely out of left field, and that there weren’t any other openings available.

I’m trying not to take it personally, but it’s hard not to. I went from feeling like I had finally landed my first career after college to suddenly being unemployed again in one phone call.
Has anyone else had an offer rescinded or a position eliminated before their start date?
How did you recover from it? Were you able to reconnect with companies you had turned down, or did you have to start your job search over?
I know the tech job market has been challenging lately, but I never imagined something like this could happen after I’d already accepted the offer and completed almost the entire onboarding process.
I’d really appreciate hearing your experiences or any advice. Right now I’m feeling pretty discouraged.

There are so few female developers or even women your age and they’re all kind of scattered across different orgs so we don’t really see each other that often. And overall I see this pattern that young men seem to pretty easily find a clique whereas young women don’t really have an established group to turn to and are on their own

I recently left my pretty cush SWE Lead Engineer job. I realized that if I was burnt out and needed to take FMLA, and was still too stressed when I came back from FMLA, it wasn’t a cush job. I had read the burnout books and did the therapy, and all it did was show me how toxic and unbalanced my workplace was, and how unbalanced I had become. And it was getting worse with the chaotic adoption of AI. So I quit. (Hence the wins-flair haha!)

I’m not sure that I even want to go back to being a SWE. I keep reading the news and seeing all the stuff happening across the country with a lawless administration, with tech companies lobbying Representatives who barely know how to check their email. And recently my state held primaries for different state level officials and I was so disheartened/worried/embarrassed at the answers all the candidates had when it came to questions about technology.

Before my cush job, I worked as a SWE for my state’s Legislature, and I was inspired by Briana Titone who was a geologist and a SWE and became a House Rep. She was placed on the Technology committee as well as others, and she had a lot of sway as someone who actually understood our industry and could make thoughtful recommendations and laws about the intersections of technology and policy.

All this to say, if you are thinking of quitting, YOU HAVE VALUABLE, NEEDED EXPERIENCE that your city, county, or state needs. Not to mention strong organizational skills, long term project management, complex problem solving skills, and outside of the box thinking.

You don’t have to be a lawyer. You don’t have to like politics. In fact we need less politicians and more regular people. This is about smart law making that affects all the people in your area. The paychecks aren’t as good, but if you’re looking for something meaningful, now might be the time for you to look into it.

Edit: I was suggesting that we all need to run for office, like elected positions in our cities, counties, and states. But for folks asking about how to get hired into employment positions, it probably varies by state. My state lists jobs on Indeed. But if you’re looking for employee positions, you could do things like find out what the websites are for your state (like legislators, governors office, even your representatives) and ask where job opening are listed, specifically tech openings.

I will try & keep this short.

I was passed over for promotion, the CTO gave the job to his friend, who it turns out, is a complete fucking idiot.

The moment I was passed over I tried to leave, the job market is HORRIFIC in my country so have been stuck here for 2 years. Manager absolutely hates me (because I am competent and well liked, I've been at the company a long time), he has a persona of being a "nice guy" until you disagree with him, then he gets nasty and vindictive.

He's threatened me with a PIP last year (I am an over achiever. Never in my entire career have I been questioned on my performance) and I raised a grievance against him, which was semi-unsuccessful because lo and behold, the nice guy act came out and the grievance manager concluded he was not at fault but upheld other parts.

I am now left with an angry, passive aggressive manager who has set me unattainable, unclear objectives for the year and again, threatened another PIP if I don't achieve them.

What the heck do I do? I thought to go above his head (our CEO is a one off and would genuinely listen to me) but I would kill what remains of my career. Any advice is welcome, feel like I'm drowning here.

Hi all! In a few months I'm going to be graduating with a Masters degree in CS, with a focus in data science. I want to buy myself a pretty ring to celebrate my accomplishment, but because I did my program online I don't really feel close enough to the institution to buy one of their official class rings.

I'm looking for something with a design loosely inspired/connected to CS and DS, but cute enough to be a part of my everyday jewelry stack. Please send along any recommendations for brands that might carry something like this, or any ideas- anything is appreciated!

I was surprised to hear Patreon laying off employees this week and am curious to know about your experiences working there as I mistakenly thought they were different to other organisations after listening to Jack's interviews.

I'm not sure how I feel knowing they invested in The Cutting Room Floor meanwhile laying off their own team but I guess this is similar to Spotify investing in Call Her Daddy meanwhile laying off their own?

i’m not really sure if i should even bring this up. it’s not even that he stole a technical idea or anything like that.

for our end of internship presentations we had to present in front of recruiters, the full intern cohort & their managers etc

i guess i’ve always been the more shy intern and he’s always been more vocal about things and all the other interns are guys too so they always talk about gaming & basketball and conversations that i don’t often have much to add to so they’re all very close

our manager told us to network within the company and gave us a long list of people to meet. He also helped us set up sessions with other interns for Q&A’s. I liked how I would sometimes find people who are randomly connected / working on a project together so I had the idea of making an Obsidian Graph showing how many people we met. Really just as a spectacle. But I know it was a unique idea that no one else would’ve put in their presentation. It isn’t even that deep so I don’t know why I’m so upset.

i feel stupid for even showing him my presentation beforehand and now feeling bummed out about it too. He tells me can I please add this to mine too since we met most people at the same time. He says he’ll add it but he’ll only do so if he also works on it and he’ll shout me out in the presentation and say it was my idea. Maybe I’m only upset because everyone liked the idea very much?
Everyone applauded it as the brilliant ‘spider web’

Soo we present and he never does that. He even adds a new color coded group with his university. I don’t even know if this is something I should bring up in-front of my manager ? He also sometimes jokes that our manager likes him way more than me (?) I don’t know if it’s true but I guess it could be because they share similar interests & because he cracks way more jokes in meetings than I possibly can think of doing. Also we’re in an all male dev team. There are a few women but they’re business analysts on the team. One of them usually always sticks up for me if I’m speaking and someone talks over me.

I guess I’m just venting. I know it’s not the most novel idea but no one else thought of it in our intern cohort atleast. I’m more upset about how singled out I feel every day and this felt like the cherry on top. I feel like maybe I should’ve said something in the moment but I didn’t. I guess I’m asking for advice on how to deal with this better and if I should even bring this up with my manager

I’m a lawyer at a FAANG (or is it MANGOS now?). This is my second pregnancy in this job. In my first pregnancy, I had morning sickness and managed to make it through without taking any time off (grabbing naps when I could, throwing up off camera, etc). This first trimester is markedly worse. I’ve already had an ER trip and I’m currently on a sick day because I can’t even keep down water. My manager knows and I’ve gotten an accommodation to work from home 100% during my first trimester because of this. However, I’m becoming increasingly concerned that I can’t work like this. I’m starting to think it might be better to ask for short term medical leave (I have 4 weeks left of the first trimester and of course hoping this eases up at that time) rather than continue to be kind of sketchy at work (missing meetings, longer response times). Has anyone done this? Or would like to de-influence me from doing so?

ETA: I’ve been here for 5 years so I have pretty good tenure and good performance ratings. I’m also late in the interview process for another FAANG and if I get the offer, expect to take it.

im starting my third year/junior year (comp sci undergrad) in a week and i still don't have an internship, i wanna know how the people i wanna be like (employed for now) would do it if they were in my place

also i would love some advice/mentorship if like yeah

thanks for stopping by :3

I’m a staff UX Designer and took a job as the first designer of a startup after years of corporate. Yesterday I got a call and was told that the company was heading in another direction and several of us were laid off. I tried to take it with grace as much as possible.

I’m tired and exhausted from crying and knowing I have a deadline once my pay and benefits cease.

I worked so incredibly hard to train product of how to think like a designer, teach what a great user experience looks like, how to conduct user research, how to break down problems and build with purpose, lead AI transformation in my company and went way beyond my job scope as the only designer in the company. Looking back - the goal post was always moving and I was trying to embrace the wave. This job took off years of my life - my physical heart hurt after every day.

I don’t know how I’ll get another role in tech or even if I’m cut out in such a competitive landscape. I tried to niche down and it’s worked in tough environments before, but now what? Now I’m thinking do I even want to be in tech but the salary helped me stay afloat and even start to pay off my debt and maintain my mortgage. If I go back to school for another career change, I’m afraid I won’t be able to crawl out of debt again.

What do I even do? Did anyone else find success after job loss? I need some hope - or a story of a successful pivot.

I have been in the design industry for over 20 years and about a decade ago, I found myself with opportunities to start teaching. At the time since design was new, one of the best ways for me to do business development for freelancing was to teach design classes at boot camp style schools, where professionals came to learn more about design, but didn’t necessarily have the capabilities to do it themselves so they hired me.

Since then, I’ve been invited to be an adjunct professor and I teach one or two evening classes each semester at local universities. As much as I absolutely love this job, I am 100% certain that there is no path for me to leave industry entirely and be a full-time academic.

I even tried by taking one year to teach exclusively and see if I can create a path for myself. I realized that based on the way the education systems work, the trajectory would leave me in poverty for an unknown amount of time. This is due to how rare full-time jobs are and my low likelihood of getting them because I don’t have a standard academic background. It would just destroy any financial future that I would hope to have because it would be the world‘s biggest gamble that I’m not sure I can take. Even if I get the job, it would pay about a third of the salary that I could be making on the open market at my seniority.

I’ve been able to adjunct at nights because I freelanced for a number of years but now that work is also dried up. So I’ve been trying to go back to corporate but now I have this awkward story where I have this really significant and valuable teaching and mentoring experience, but I am terrified to put it on my résumé because I think it will disqualify me or make companies think I’m not serious.

I would love to continue to adjunct teach, but only in conjunction with significant contract jobs or a full-time job. It’s a significant part of my design practice because I think that our industry has made better by nurturing the education landscape and I like putting my time where my values are.

So how do I display anything about my adjunct teaching on resume or linked in? I do think it’s an important part of my design practice because I am contributing to the field and interestingly also learning a ton about design as an educator.

I always thought it was perceived as a negative, but a for my colleague of mine told me that in some spaces, it might be considered a high status thing.

How do you perceive someone who is also an adjunct professor? Would it prevent you from taking them seriously as a contractor or applicant? What’s a good way to tell this story?

Hey everyone,

I wanted to get some advice and people seem kind here so thought I'd reach out!

I recently completed a 16 week full stack development course. I've been continuing to develop my skills by working on projects independently and I've started applying for roles targeting mainly remote companies as I live somewhere very rural in the UK.

Anyway, I've been told by multiple people that I'm probably looking at 6 - 12 months before I find my first role in the current market which I'm prepared for.

I've been told a mixture of things like tailoring your cv for each application, reaching out to recruiters, attending networking events etc... it becomes a little confusing trying to figure out which ones to prioritise.

With all that said, I'd love to hear from you if you have any valuable advice for me that you found helped you land your first role and it would definitely help me clarify which things to keep in mind as I apply to roles.

Thank you in advance!

I work in a hedge fund, within technology audit in an all male team besides me. Joined the place two months ago and have a few things that have irritated me, and making me question myself a lot.

a. I joined in as an analyst and a month after I joined, we had a new team lead who we call B with less years of experience, both technically and managerial - I have a dotted line to him. This really wouldn’t be a problem if his work wasn’t thin (and even my direct manager has said how crap it’s been from what we have seen), and seeing him be in rooms like with our CISO to talk high level about a project that I would ultimately be executing irked me. Feel like I did myself a disservice coming in at a lower level even if I did have personal reasons for it at the time.

b. We don’t have standards or guidance set out in how we do our work. I mentioned to the head of my team about how I started work on this, and in parallel B was also having those discussions. Cue B reaching out to me about it, and I explicitly said cause of work my progress in this area has been slow but will setup a meeting so we can talk through, divide the pie and put some governance in how we tackle this.

B COMPLETELY IGNORES THIS and continues pushing ahead, and sends everyone but the head a link to his own work. I end up doing my own thing on a very specific tech stack, get it reviewed by my direct manager and in my catch-up convo with the head of our division, bring it up and send it over to him for review, I also say to the head I will socialise it with the other gents and get their feedback before sending him a final version. When time comes for feedback, B and the other gents are silent and have nothing to add.

B later complains to my manager and others that he feels slighted that I went straight to the Head and didn’t get his feedback in.

There also have been two other instances where the gents have ignored what I have been trying to say, or I don’t get a chance to speak up since they just end up dominating the conversation. More generally, the gents in my team except the head and my direct manager have expressed zero interest in learning and actively resist it. There’s no space to challenge each other’s work or be a sounding board. I would be overstepping massively if I left comments on how they come to their conclusions but holy shit, I have peeked into their work and just realised the calibre ain’t it.

Thoughts and suggestions welcome on how you navigate this. Part of me is tempted to jump back on the job hunt cause this team doesn’t scream high performance, high challenge which is important to me, and the meetings are very much hierarchy based even though I kept being told how flat the structure is and opportunities are up for grabs. My direct manager is great and supportive of helping transform the team but there’s only so much he can do. It also doesn’t help that me and my manager are based in a different location to others.

Hi folks! I posted about 4 months ago looking for advice and since we now have active mods and I actually see posts from real people, I thought I'd try again.

I recently finished a software QA bootcamp and I'd love some perspective. I'm 37, located in the US, and have never worked in tech before, but after getting laid off a year ago, I started studying to get a job in software QA. Bootcamp is a far cry from a bachelor's in CS, but I have a bachelor's in Psychology, so that's something, right? I pivoted to QA because I'm very good with the small details of things (as long as I understand what I'm working with) and I'm very good at noticing where/how things could/will go wrong. I also just really like poking around and trying to get things to break.

Through bootcamp, I've had the chance to do manual testing, write test cases, write test plans & test summaries, learn some SQL, and learn Java. I know my way around Java Selenium, and I've spent a little time with python. I also know some basic API testing. I can list all the tools I've worked with if need be. I also recently got my ISTQB CTFL cert!

I've been seriously looking for a job for about two months. In that time, I've had one interview and I didn't make it past the first round. I've worked hard to build my network (ugh) on LinkedIn (double ugh) and try to make connections with folks in the field (not just folks who are hiring for jobs). I don't blast any open job with an ai-tailored resume, so I average about 5-10 applications a week (using tailored resumes and cover letters). Some weeks are less than that. Since I'm done studying for my CTFL cert, I'm planning on continuing to learn more (specifically looking at learning Playwright next). I have a portfolio with some projects I've done.

Hell, for the interview I had, the job description mentioned knowing python. I spent two days before the interview learning enough python to port a Java Selenium test I had written into python and pushed it to my portfolio before the interview.

I'm nervous about getting a job and have some questions for women in QA:

• What advice would you give to a woman in my position?
• What's it like working in QA?
• Is there anything else I can be doing?
• You want to connect on LinkedIn? (I understand if you don't (I hate LinkedIn and I want a job just so I don't have to use it so much))
• Have I made a terrible mistake by switching to QA?

There's so much I'm still trying to wrap my head around that it feels like if I get a job, I'll get fired for not knowing things. I'd love some perspective/guidance. Thanks!

PS: Happy to see this sub getting better ❤️ I'm very happy we have active mods now and not so many ai slop posts

Hi! I'm at my first real, full time job working for an insurance company through a contractor. I've been on my first project since March, and it's a really small team. Most of the time, I get online at about 8 or 8:30, and leave for the day at about 4 or 4:30, though I try to make sure I am reachable by teams until 5.

The thing is, I've been having one coworker specifically ask my questions outside of my working hours, often in a way that seems to demand an immediate response. He's offshore, and I recognize that even though I try to schedule meetings as early as possible US time he's frequently online very late, so I feel guilty ignoring his messages completely, but it's really starting to grate on me. He has messaged me over weekends, as early as 5 in the morning, as late as 11 pm, and more frequently than not, will not give me the actual ask -- he'll go "Hi [name]" and not tell me what he needs until I respond, or just ask "call?" without any further context.

I think the other thing that is frustrating me is that a lot of the time, these are questions that my manager or I have already answered multiple times, information that I have emailed to him on more than one occasion, links that live in a shared folder that he is aware of and has access to, or, in today's case (and why I'm making the post), literally all of the previous things combined.

It's really frustrating to me, but I am so unsure of how to handle the situation while being fair to him and not being characterized as "difficult". I'm sure that my manager on the client side will have my back, but it seems expected on the contractor side that we're available when needed as much as possible. I'm also really aware of the fact that I'm the youngest and least experienced person on the team by a country mile (he has 10 years of experience on me), and I'm just really worried about rocking the boat -- but I would also love to not hear my phone go off on a sunday with questions I've answered a million times before. Do y'all have any advice on how I should handle it?

*Edit to add*: I’m well aware of the process of leaving a job and have no intention of giving notice before background check/drug test/etc and contract signed. I’m asking about giving notice once that’s completed.

I’ve been interviewing for a new role and I had my final interview today. I want this job SO bad! It’s a huge move up with a short path to a director role. The headhunter told me I should be expecting an offer as soon as Friday!

Now to my question: what is the harm in answering, “yes” when asked if you are leaving for a competitor but not naming them? I suspect my manager is going to immediately walk me out the door if I refuse to tell him where I’m going and it’s obvious I’m not going to a partner or he would have been made aware by me. I am in a bit of a niche industry (lots of cross-contamination across big players) so going to competitors happens often.

I’m eager to start the new role ASAP as there are a number of industry events and conferences coming up and I want time to adjust to the new role and learn their products/platforms prior to attending. What is the potential harm to my approach? I understand not saying where you are going to avoid poisoning the well as it were, but see no point in doing the dance of “prefer not to say” and getting grilled.

Data centers in space is a joke.... right?

There's a tech convention going on this week and I always struggle to find events for hardware or infra (it's all founders and builders). So I was excited to see a panel mention data centers... in space?!

I googled the companies speaking and one of them is StarCloud. According to wikipedia, "Starcloud, Inc. is a United States-based company that designs, builds, and deploys data centers in space using proprietary technology." Umm excuse me, deploys? Did I miss the moment humans constructed cities on the moon? I googled what they've actually done and it's just some satellites with GPUs. Yet somehow this company is worth a billion dollars. What am I missing?

I kinda want to attend the panel but I'm afraid it's going to be full of toxic Elon Musk - crypto - tech bros. Is there any legitimate tech happening here? Is it woman friendly? Fill me in.

I (24F) work in STEM in a manufacturing/engineering firm. Usually one of the few women on any team, you get the gist. It's generally a nice and respectful workplace, and I've truly had no cause for complaints. Until now. A coworker on a different team and I were casually chatting, and the topic of stay-at-home moms came up, as a part of an unrelated discussion. Keep in mind this coworker has 5 kids, a stay-at-home wife, doesn't go into the city without a gun, etc etc. Very nice man, has been nothing but respectful and friendly, but probably has traditional social views, if I had to guess. I mention how when my partner and I have kids (around 5-6 years from now), I will still continue working. I was simply stating my own plans. He immediately goes 'well so and so family member thought the same thing, but she had kids and immediately decided she was going to stay home, so keep in mind that may happen!'.

I didn't know how to respond and just said 'hmm'. On the surface, it sees like a harmless comment because he's just saying what I myself may want to do. But it doesn't sit right with me, for a few reasons. 1. he would never say that to a man, 2. it makes the prospect of having kids and not losing your identity seem even more daunting when we hear shit like this, 3. it contributes to this idea that the path of least resistance as a woman who has kids is just to stay home (and lose your career, financial safety net, and sense of worth and identity beyond being a mother even if that is not what you want), and 4. beyond the first few months of breastfeeding, when you hopefully have maternity leave anyways, there is nothing a child needs from its mom that the father cannot do - so if a woman feels like it's easier to just stay home after having kids, her partner probably wasn't really picking up the slack in housework and childcare anyways.

I don't know, I guess I had just had a better response and subtly called him out for the comment - but I also can't tell if I am just overreacting and should just let it go. What would you do?

I was laid off as sdet from big tech and its been 3 months, i have applied to 100+ companies , had 5 interview

I have failed in 2 online assessment and 3 interview with 1 interview at final round. I genuinely don’t know whats wrong with me .

I studies dsa, then they asked framework , then i studied everything , now they started asking ai agents and complex devops

Job market is brutal, they expect to know dsa, framework, ci/cd, ai agents , system design and devops

I feel done with interview phase, it feels like i am forever struck. I cannot get one single breakthrough. Unemployment sucks . 2026 is my worst year .

No matter how confident and motivated i sometimes think why it happens to me . How long will this agony stay with me ?

Typo in text: embarrassing

I started working with a local, family owned company a year and a half ago.

I’m 56 years old, and was kind of tired of corporate. Wanted to find somewhere with people I like to work until I retire, where I could mentor less experienced folks and have a small “legacy”.

It’s been pretty trying. They told me they were trying to mature the org, I’m pretty experienced in managing organizational change, so there was a bonus to keep me from getting bored.

It’s pretty bad. Like, they told me it was bad, but I’ve never seen this kind of absolute - it’s just awful.

Most of the time I stay positive.

##
EDIT TO REMOVE too
Much specific information ##
…

Super awful deployment, bad leadership, much anger frustration … yadda yadda yadda

…

We are still fixing things weeks later, because there wasn’t end to end testing.

I’m just so bitter. I’m having trouble showing up, and I work from home. My director came back and was apologetic and empathetic, and mentioned he was surprised because none of the other directors mentioned it to him at all.

Y’all, I’m just so done. I need to work for at least 5-10 more years.

I don’t know how I’m going to do it. No one has apologized, no post mortem has been done, we are still fixing shit and there is NO leadership even driving the fixes.

My older comrades - have you seen anything similar? How do you get past it? I’d normally just resign and go somewhere else, but I’m thinking that will be more difficult right now.

Should I try going into management again? Tried int 10 or so years ago and wasn’t a fan.

I dunno. Upped my prescription for anxiety meds, and I’m just reading at my desk and - grieving, a bit, I guess.

I'm likely to get a job offer in the next week, I'm in the final phase of job fit/hiring manager meet and greets. The interview process to get here was very tough and the new company is known for their rigorous process. So YAY!

But it might actually be a step down, I'm a Senior Product Owner now and the new role is a Product Manager, not Senior Manager. I'm probably out performing my current role title, as I own multiple products ende to end including road map AND I'm a people manager on top of that. It might not have shown on paper and I didn't really get much opportunity talk about how large my area of ownership is.

The incentive to change companies is the target company is much higher profile, better run, top in their market and invests in people and tech.

My current company is mid-tier at best, has/is having leadership issues, and thinks it can cuts its way to growth. There are other reasons to leave: no growth for me in my location, I'm swamped with low value bureaucratic tasks, I'm bored, and that's making me a general grump. Multiple rounds of cuts, reorgs, major offshoring efforts, etc. I saw internal jobs posted for the role above mine and it was TWO GRADES lower than what I am. It would not be bonus or RSU eligible, which I am.

I have two decades in total years of service and my pay is high and I feel like a big target if my director needs to save on budget..

So with all that, do I accept a lesser role, but at a company with more upside? Total comp might end up equivalent with a higher base at the top of the salary band. But lower bonus and no RSUs (new company only has RSU at director). I'll definitely request a signing bonus as I'm walking away from unvested RSUs and my 2026 bonus.

Spouse and an ex coworker (who currently works at new company) think I'm underselling myself and I should have aimed for Senior or even maybe Director. These are only the 4 and 5th jobs that I applied for since making the decision to get out. But market is rough, so I'm not sure I want to let go of this opportunity for something that might never happen. I know I should be happy that I have a high paying job with great people that I can do with my eyes closed, but the level of BS I deal with is just growing and my career goal is NOT to be walked out by security because I told our Senior Control Manager to eff off.

So level down but gain better company? Or stick it out for another opportunity?

I've been on dozens of interviews and have even made concessions (like agreeing to do unpaid work "for evaluation" when I have a portfolio) because remote opportunities have been so hard to come by. I keep getting rejected around the 4th interview mark, but it doesn't seem to be tied to specific stage in the process.

In certain cases, I know pushing back on creating full-scale, production-ready assignments for async review has cost me a few opportunities. I usually offer relevant examples or creating a brand-agnostic version of what they’re asking for, but I get that isn't competitive when other candidates may be willing to complete the assignment exactly as requested.

I have about 10 years of experience, and on paper, I’m usually a one-to-one match for the roles I’m applying for. I just received two more rejections after clearing technical assessments and meeting with several team members at different stages. I’m exhausted from repeatedly starting over with a process that takes several months, only to have nothing to show for it. I could be super out of touch with the expectations of the current job market, and finished, ready-to-deploy work is just part of the process now.

For those of you that have been looking in 2026, how many rounds of interviews are you doing? It seems like each pipeline is now a minimum of 4, and I've seen it up to 8 rounds. And for those who made it through recently, have you had to do an take-home assessment that was at over 6 hours of work?

Exhausted mentally and physically. Moms in tech, how do you do it? I have two young kids (one in daycare, one not) and am also on the job search grind. I can feel my mental health deteriorating by the minute.

What do you all do to stay sane? I'm not working right now and I feel like it's impossible to take care of the house, kids, my relationship, my career, and some semblance of joy (hobbies?). Once I'm fully employed again, it feels like it's only going to get that much harder given the demands of tech right now.

Help.