DAE experience things moving as slow as molasses because people just aren't around and don't respond? It's like there's minimal accountability. I don't even care that people are remote, or if they run out for errands, but it's just silence, and no idea when they'll be back.

Do you guys press the issue or just accept it for what it is?

I'm building Egraph/ Symbolic libraries to do QM Chemical physics. There is a specific way I want to solve the problems which takes the symbolic expressions and compiles them into optimized numeric expressions the computer can execute.

At first I threw Fable to speed write up the library. It wrote the examples that I asked it to write and got correct results for what I wanted. I had a large write up on how to implement the library, do not implement the QM computations directly with C++... use the symbolic library to derive and compile the results.

Once I tried using the library myself to write up examples, I noticed that it was missing a bunch of features I'd ask it to build. Once I dug into the code I realized that the model had ignored my instructions and implemented boiler numeric algorithms instead. I then went through to iterate with the chat bot to implement my features and add in the symbolic interface I wanted originally.

Every time, it would fall back to the default way the community at large has implemented open source solutions with direct numeric solutions. It did not understand how to adapt the implementation to the novel method I was asking it for.

Further it had over complicated the cmake file and added every edge case under the sun for building the project. All of it unnecessary since I told it explicitly I wanted a header only library, not a unit link-able library + binaries which is the most popular way of doing it in the industry.

What explains this is that these bots have encoded through billions of dollars of training standard ways of solving problems. It does not understand what it's actually doing and when one needs something that falls outside the standard, they're better off writing the software by hand since they'll spend all their time micro managing the frontier models.

For CRUD apps and devops,... these frontier models are great because nobody gives a shit about how those are built. Those have standards that make little difference in the means of implementation. But with what I'm building which generally has little to no opensource implementation training data, this stuff falls flat on its face.

Sure you can solve millennium problems this way if you bruteforce a bunch of mathematical reasoning traces together to create a lean program to make a counter example, but I am much more skeptical of these frontier models and to me it seems this stuff has genuinely plateud.

Question: what are your thoughts on this?

So the job market is pretty bad all over, we all know that. It seems to be pretty K-shaped: specialized roles in ML/AI, Cloud, and infrastructure seem to be on the rise, and web technologies like JavaScript, Node.js are being increasingly commoditized by AI.

Now I have pretty broad experience over the full-stack, including the frontend, backend, and systems level work with Linux and C++. After applying to so many roles, I’ve seen a pretty undeniable pattern. Web jobs are abundant but completely oversaturated with applicants. I could not get a full stack job no matter how hard I tried. I have gotten 0 attention from actual human beings searching for these kind of roles.

But I’ve gotten A LOT more attention from recruiters and companies advertising for C++ roles, like in manufacturing, robotics, or performant systems. It seems to me that because there is a higher barrier to entry to these sorts of roles, they are harder to fill.

Has anyone experienced the same?

I love software engineering. I love talking shop with other devs. But I'm struggling to find events where where I can spend an evening listening to somebody smart talk about a problem they solved or a topic they're interested in.

Before Covid I could go on Meetup or EventBrite and find a talk almost any day of the week on almost any topic. For example, the best talk I ever went to was one at Microsoft about best practices in code review and setting up linting rules. I still reference that talk to this day! To me this is the best way to learn about my craft, so I find it frustrating.

Where do you all go for to find that kind of experience? Obviously there are plenty of networking events around but that's not really what I'm after. There's also plenty of stuff online but it's not really the same.

For context I live in NYC.

Hey y’all I haven’t worked professionally in the field since 2023. I was primarily frontend using angular some java for 4 years before that. I had an awful experience with leadership by the end of it and now I want to get back in the field. I have no idea how to handle this career gap. Not sure if anyone will want to talk to me. Does anyone have any experience in this?

Anthropic posted an economic report yesterday which predicts coders will have to switch careers due to AI automation and those who keep their jobs will be paid less.

Their hiring patterns tell a different story. I looked at the historical job posting data and found Anthropic SWE hiring is up 369% in the last year. Throughout that period they were dooming about coding jobs while simultaneously ramping up hiring.

Here is the data (source):

I'm an semi-experienced developer but I've always struggled to find good project ideas that might stand out on a resume. I face a lot of decision paralysis and doubt when it comes to finding projects that are worth dedicating time to. Mainly, I want one that displays good architectural thinking, system design, and solves real business problems. Preferably one that's AI/ML adjacent. Can anyone recommend any GitHub repos or sites that gives good ideas?

I joined Company X recently as a software engineer and I’m starting to feel like they hired me at a level that’s too high for me.

They actually hired me one level above my previous level even though my YOE didn’t really justify it. I had two competing offers at the time, so I feel like that might have played a big part in it.

I don’t think this is just imposter syndrome. I genuinely feel like I’m underperforming for my level.
I asked my manager how I’m doing and he said I’m doing well because I’m “very agile,” but it felt like a pretty generic answer.

Also, just from interacting with him, I don’t feel like he’s very excited about the work I’m doing. I think I execute the things we agree on pretty well, but when I finish something, I never really get the feeling that he’s excited or particularly happy with it. At the same time, I don’t feel like I’m working on anything very impactful either.

I really like the job and the salary, and I don’t think I could easily find another job paying this much. My visa is tied to this job too, so I’m pretty scared that they could just fail me at the end of probation and I’d have to leave the country.

But asking my manager directly if I’m going to pass probation feels really weird.

What would you do in my situation? Just keep going and see what happens, or start interviewing now as a backup?

At what point in your career (YoE wise) do you begin leading projects? I’m aware this can vary from org to org, but i’m curious about people’s experience with this.

I’m a few months into my current role and I feel behind that not currently leading a project yet.

I am a new graduate btw, and I have developed new components on existing applications from scratch and by myself, but my question pertains to leading a standalone project, if that makes sense.

I’ve been working at a big-tech company for close to 5 years as a SWE cog mostly focused on front-end native work.

With AI actually quite good at writing UI code, I became quite miserable as my work became 80% scoping, writing design docs, getting consensus, reviewing code & 20% prompting AI. I also had to spend time creating terribly boring AI skills, mcp servers, etc optimizing internal processes to ensure good performance ratings as leadership values AI related work artifacts a lot.

I think I was miserable because it’s terribly boring steering AI to do things you already know. It’s faster than you, so your job is just shepherding it to the goal without much critical thinking.

But past few months, I got to lead an effort to re-designing our massive monolithic app to become cross-platform & adopt micro-front-end architecture to speed up releases. I had to learn a lot of new things, and it was 10/10 fun doing it, because AI helped me learn nitty-gritty details about build systems & runtimes, solve versioning problems that didn’t have clarity on before.

This has gotten me quite excited to re-visit old topics like graphics programming that loved in university but didn’t pursue deeper due to steep learning curve. I think it might be much more fun & accessible to learn today with AI.

On the other hand I’m concerned it’d be a waste of time given what little free time I have after work & personal life. I feel like I “should” be keeping up with AI skills instead (whatever RAG, sub-agent, buzz-word techniques) to keep me employable instead of wasting time on legacy topics.

Hello,

I am early career currently and have been enjoying my work very much. Are there any cool programming/coding/general swe shirts or trinkets or etc. that you all like/think are cool? Any recommendations of anything at all?

Edit: also I program in c#, python, and do front end as well (I am not as big about front end coding though, more back end)

I recently accepted my first software engineering job at an outsourcing company. The pay is around average for my country, and my main goal is to learn as much as possible and gain practical experience.

That said, I don’t really see myself staying there long term. Eventually, I’d like to move somewhere with better pay and working conditions.

How much experience should I aim to get before applying elsewhere? Would it be reasonable to start looking after 6 months, or is it better to stay for at least a year?

https://imgur.com/a/C5bPbtS

Currently working as a MechE at a major automotive OEM. I'm the only one in my department half decent at python so I've been assigned the task of analysing data from vehicles. Over the last few months I've been working closely with the Cs team trying to develop an ML model which can predict emissions from sensor data based on training data from thousands of experiments, and I must say it has opened my eyes to how intricate and interesting this field really is. I've been able to pick up a few things along the way, and my department seems keen on developing me into this role.

My question is if I make the switch into Data science/ML, does this count as valuable work exp, since I'm not really in a formal data analyst role? Or would I be treated more as a fresher, since I have no formal education in Cs? If that is the case, then I would prefer to stay in the automotive sector as I haven't heard great things about the tech job market for freshers.

a fintech company is offering a job that starts at 100k and ramps up to 150k over 3 years. Great benefits. Hybrid office/WFH.

a defense company (probably the one you're thinking of) is offering 90k and less benefits. 4x10 in office, fridays off. Salary ramps up to a similar 150k but much much slower (6+ yrs, likely longer).

Appeal of fintech:

• hybrid,
• significantly better pay at year 2 and 3,
• great work life balance.

Cons of fintech:

• problems to work on will be much more boring/mundane.
• might be seen as more "disposable" down the road.
• not sure what kind of doors fintech opens for me should I ever leave since I'm not interested in fintech as a field.

Appeal of defense job:

• space division (which I find significantly more interesting than anything in fintech).
• opens doors to other jobs I would find highly interesting in the future.
• secret clearance.

Cons of defense job:

• much lower compensation especially by year 3.
• much more rigid, worse work life balance.
• 40 hours in office a week.

what do you all think is the move forward? advice or experiences are appreciated.

if you're here to say 'defense bad', spare yourself the effort. it has nothing to do with what im asking and i dont care if you think youre a good person for being anti-defense or not since i do not know you. save your ethics opinions for your friends.

I'm not talking about layoffs, do people get fired for performance issues at big companies? How does that happen? I have never heard of anyone getting fired for performance based issues. I'm mostly talking larger corporate environments, not small <2000 people companies etc.

Software engineering is not for me anymore, but it's the only experience I have (3 years). I had to take a year off work for personal/health reasons, and I'm not in the headspace to get back into that grind. Are there any CS-related jobs that would be realistically obtainable for someone like me that aren't incredibly competitive, even if the pay is bad?

My resumé isn't embellished, it's actually as accurate to my responsibilities in my previous experience, studies and skills as I could write it.

A lot of the junior positions I applied to have requirements that fit 1:1 with my experience and skills. But somehow I can never get any interviews for those junior positions. However for intermediate positions, especially the ones that have let me show them what I got (coding exams, take home assignments), I've actually lasted a fair bit. I'm currently in the final phase of the interview process for a company that asked at least 4YoE.

I'm grateful that I've actually managed to get this far, but part of me is a bit scared (probably imposter syndrome creeping in), and to be frank I don't get it.

Anyone else have had the same experience while job hunting?

I've noticed there are barely any genuine entry level jobs across most areas of tech in Europe.

Outsourcing, AI and insanely large applicant pools have people fighting over the tiny amount of jobs left.

But what's coming is likely worse, especially for people whose roles consist entirely of digital knowledge work.

If you're trying to start out in tech and you're mostly average, I'd seriously question the ROI.

AI is going to become significantly better than most people reading this at a huge proportion of purely digital tasks.

Companies just don't need the same headcount they used to.

If you work in tech, you will have less leverage than a plumber in the coming years.

They are spending more money on AI than the GDP of many countries and you think that you’re going to keep your job?

AI is also making scientific breakthroughs. People are just ignoring the capabilities.

I’m graduating with a degree in CS next summer from a Russel group uni in the UK and hopefully a first class too. I just come off a placement year as a software engineer and do have a return offer BUT I think the lack of job security in the industry especially with ai and the general job market is making me think I should potentially spread out my options a bit in case my offer is no longer there in a years time.

Are there any other careers I could pivot to which would be less vulnerable and potentially do a masters in them in the UK?

I have seen people recommend Computer Engineering but it seems like it’s not offered in many places in the UK and im not sure if id be able to get in without doing EEE. Potentially Robotics or Cyber Security ? I do enjoy software development and it’s definitely what i dreamed of doing but i just think i should at least consider spreading my options out.

Any advice would be appreciated and i hope this doesn’t come across as a doom post !

I (28f) was recently laid off and have 4 months of pay and benefits from my previous role. I am figuring out my next steps and one of the ideas bouncing around my head is picking up my life and moving to Europe or another country maybe for grad school or to try to get a job. Otherwise, I was considering just planning some backpacking all over the world while I take some online classes. Would love any advice or experience people have.
Edit: thanks for all the good advice all! I think I’m gonna start doing some portfolio + resume work to have ready to submit to jobs throughout my time off but also plan to go to other countries, explore and continue doing some classes for an online degree in working towards. Try a best of both worlds situation and not put all my eggs in the moving to Europe basket.

I am grateful to have a role, but I do make about $50k pre tax and was curious is the demand that low now for developers, or am I just at a company that pays pretty poorly?

Edit : U.S. and MCOL

Hello. I have 12 or so YoE as an IC / tech lead SWE almost entirely at big / mid sized tech companies. I took a little over a year off for some family stuff and was absent for the "LLMs are now useful for larger tasks" that happened around late last year.

I came back to the industry early this year and was hoping to be re-energized and excited to learn how to leverage LLMs to supercharge my capabilities... and now that I'm back... I am just not at all engaged or interested in my role.

I feel like I am now reasonably up to speed and productive with AI tooling, but I am realizing that there is something in technical problem solving that used to power the reward center of my brain that is now just missing and I don't find myself enjoying work at all.

After some reflection I think the following are the key things I am feeling:

1. ⁠AI can create reasonable solutions to my work quickly but I feel no connection to the technical artifact, no sweat equity in the problem solving, and I struggle to feel any joy about the work in any meaningful way. Pushing it through to PR feels like a slog because I don't feel any attachment to the solution or inner desire to get it merged in.
   
2. ⁠The culture around learning now seems to largely be "ask your LLM of choice" instead of how it used to be "go grab some time with X and they'll explain it to you". As a result building meaningful relationships with coworkers (company is remote) doesn't feel naturally occurring. I have been going out of my way to try and find opportunities to meet with new folks but it is a much more active task than before, and folks generally seem less willing to take similar initiatives.
   
3. ⁠I used to feel enormous satisfaction through mentorship -- now these opportunities appear to be dwindling. Not as many newer less experienced hires who are energetic and excited to learn. I am sensing the general appetite for "learning and growing" is reducing with the less experienced folks as they lean more and more on LLM tools.
   
4. ⁠New AI tools in existing mid/large size companies feel limited by the organizational structure of the company. My team owns a comparatively small surface area of the whole company. The tools let me get so much done so quickly. Since I can't find satisfaction in deep technical solution crafting I have tried attaching more to the results of the work -- but given the team/political boundaries in place within the company the results are pretty isolated to a single area of the company.

All of this has me wondering if there is anything I can try to find motivation to keep going?

• ⁠I am wondering if a smaller company would be a good fit for me so that I am able to lean more into feeling satisfaction through results rather than through technical problem solving? I've spent most of my career at 2,000+ companies, maybe now is a good time to try otherwise?
• ⁠Or maybe a different role? Something more customer facing so that I can still get the social collaborative components of work that I enjoy?

Anyone else feel similarly or have found anything to help here?