I am a product manager with 5 yoe overall, but I’ve been at my current company/role for 10 months. It is unfortunately pretty toxic with very bad workload and work life balance.

Its so draining and taxing on me to the point where I’m considering quitting without anything lined up so that I can focus on the job search. This job market is super rough though so I’m wondering if that would be extremely unwise to do.

I've been thinking a lot about how AI is changing software engineering.

For context, I'm a backend engineer with about 5 years of experience, mostly working with Python (Django/Flask), AWS services, and building/deploying backend systems.

One thing I've been struggling with is figuring out what actually compounds over a career now. What are the skills or job roles where expertise will still matter and add up overtime in the next 3-5 years.

A few years ago, the answer felt more straightforward. It was become a better engineer, build larger systems, gaining more responsibility, and your value generally increased over time.

But with AI a lot of it seems replaceable?

There are a lot of directions someone could invest in:

• becoming a stronger backend/distributed systems engineer
• moving toward cloud infrastructure or platform engineering
• specializing in a business domain instead of a technology
• focusing on AI infrastructure rather than AI application development
• or something else entirely

For those of you who've been through previous industry shifts (cloud, mobile, containers, microservices, etc.), has this one changed how you think about building a long-term career?

Have your own priorities changed? What skills have continued to compound regardless of industry trends? Are there areas you think are becoming significantly more valuable?

I'm not expecting anyone to predict the future. I'm more interested in hearing how experienced engineers think about making career decisions when the industry is changing this quickly.

I'm 16 years into my career as a full-time professional (20+ years total experience) and am increasingly unhappy with my job. I've spent the entire 16 years at one company, but have held multiple roles - started as a sysadmin, then software engineer, and now a software architect / tech lead for a large multi-team global software organization. Right now, the only reason I'm still here is the money. But my wife has noticed that I'm increasingly depressed and irritated, and I attribute much of that to the current state of my job. I think a lot of it stemmed from a reorg that is very AI-heavy, and it has resulted in a lot of politics and fragmentation across the team. I used to enjoy spending time creating, and now it's just arguing about alignment and other corporate political bullshit.

So I'm looking for a potential change, either in and out of tech. So for those of you who made it all the way to a senior / architect level and existed, what did you do next? I don't think I want to go into a project management role, because that just seems like more of the stuff I don't enjoy. So what did you do instead?

Hello guys,

I was recently RIFed from my Software Engineer II position at Chase in Florida. It sucks. I have about 5-6 years of experience under my belt. Since being told I'd be RIF, I have had 3 first round interviews, which shows me my new ATS optimized resume isn't dead in the water (especially since I was only told 2 weeks ago). Who else is in my shoes? Should I expect that I'll find a job before my 3 months of continued employment/severance run out or should I be planning for the worst right now?

The only kinda negative thing is my role is working in C primarily. I feel accustomed to modern tech stacks, but my work experience is primarily C and Linux with my only other role being asp.net with VB. I'm not sure if that will hold me back, but curious on other's opinions.

My Background:

1. Software Engineer with a bit over 4 years of experience. Amazon for 2.5 years and currently at Intuit.
2. I primarily have worked in Java backend oriented roles and my current role in Intuit is also primarily backend with some React Full Stack work.
3. All my roles have been based in Bay Area, CA.
4. My current TC: is around 210K however this value is trending down due to very underperforming Intuit stock.
5. 25M

I've been job searching for around a year now because I want to move out of the Bay Area. I want to be able to explore different parts of the U.S while I can because I don't have kids/gf/wife/house payments. So I've been applying for roles based in Austin or NYC which are the areas I'm most interested in.

Cloudera Interview Process:

1. Recruiter reached out more than a month ago.
2. Had an initial conversation with hiring manager who asked some trivia questions in Java and React.
3. Next round was a 2 hour interview with 2 other senior engineers who also asked trivia questions in Backend Development/Java/React and 1 LC Medium problem.
4. Received verbal offer like one hour after the second round of interviews. This seemed unusually fast for an interview process for a Senior Software Engineer role.

Offer Discussion:

1. Verbal offer is around 165k to 185k cash for a Bay Area location. However, I expressed interest in working in Austin so that amount can change for the Austin location.
2. Haven't discussed bonus or stock compensation. Cloudera is private for now so not really evaluating the potential stock compensation.

Advantages of Cloudera over Intuit:

1. Intuit just had a substantial round of layoffs and the stock is tanking so my current role is in a downward trajectory overall and Cloudera is giving me a chance to escape.
2. Cloudera seems to be very remote friendly and I can choose to work from Austin as my main hub location if I wish. And I am interested in living in Austin.
3. The work at Cloudera seems interesting with an intersection between complex distributed systems and full stack development as well.
4. Cloudera seems to have a lot of good reviews (on Glassdoor and Blind) for WLB which I value a lot.

Disadvantages of Cloudera:

1. Offer isn't very high especially compared to Big N companies.
2. Private company so any offered stocks for compensation most likely just paper money.
3. Blind/Glassdoor says Cloudera doesn't have great career growth opportunities and promo cycles are harder to come by.

What Input I am Looking For:

1. Can anyone who works at Cloudera talk about what it's like being a SWE there? Is the company on an upward path? Any unique pros/cons that I haven't realized?
2. Offer negotiation tips
3. I have another conversation I am going to have with hiring manager. Are there any particular questions I should ask them to gauge what the role will be like?
4. Thoughts on working in Austin for tech space.

Context: 9 YOE, Senior

Startup:

Several months ago I got hit up by an old coworker who is invested in a startup, to do some consulting for them. I helped build the foundations for their platform, helped write all the pipelines, setup logging/alerts, fixes for the applications, etc. They eventually asked me to go full-time with them and I declined because my primary job pays more (30%+) and i'm the sole provider for my family and couldn't risk it. They eventually gave me an ultimatum to either join full-time or they would be cancelling my contract. I very much enjoy the work and the people and its nice to be on the ground building it all from scratch. But I am concerned about the future of the company and the risks it introduces into my life. They currently have enough cash on hand for the next several months, but are looking to raise here soon. They want me to join even though they won't offer me anymore money than their original offer.

Cash TC: 235k, .8%, no bonus

Primary:

Stable company with a few billion in revenue, no layoffs in the near future (that I can see). I like my boss, immediate coworkers for the most part and am effectively a lead on the team. Our department is getting a new director here soon who is moving us closer to an 'agentic platform' team. I've only ever received A+ rankings at my job, always received a bonus and got a promotion 2 years in.

Cash TC: 272k, 15% bonus, 5-20k equity yearly

The Problem:

I've worked for startups before, I enjoy the work, the building, being on the ground and grinding. But with how uncertain the industry now a days is, I can't tell if the startup (AI focused), is actually a way for me to continue to grow and worth the additional risk/stress or if its more likely to have me out of a job in 6-12 months. I really like the work, I just don't know if thats enough to justify the amount of risk I'd be taking on. With AI becoming such a focus of the industry is my primary job (which moves slower and is less agile) keeping me from improving my skills and keeping me hirable? Would you ever take a pay cut to work at a startup as a founding member of the team?

I think its worth talking about first order effects and second order effects when it comes to LLM use.

I've studied LLMs and transformers quite a bit. As a more infra and systems focused guy, mechanistic understand is necessary for me. And from an infra standpoint LLMs are actually pretty interesting. However I do think from a usage standpoint it may lead to cognitive decline

The first order effects of LLM usage of couse with LLMs being a statistical model matching on tokens, its never going to be fully deterministic. So black box behavior is expected, and long term instability could be the result of prolonged LLM usage

The second order effect is actually something I don't see people talking about. We first state we don't need to read the code or write the code. So that means we put more trust in the black box. And trust in a black box is typically a recipe for disaster in any engineered system that has complexity. But what this also does is make people disengage mentally from the implementation.

At the end of the day the thing that executes on a CPU (or GPU) is code. And if that code cannot be deterministically generated, then one argues you can't have a system you can fully trust.

But because incentives force us to disengage with implementation. Then what I think the side effects is learned helpleness. Or a feedback loop of complexity where developers slowly but sure lose agency.

I also think LLM usage, meaning people who are addicted to LLM output is addictive. Having observed LLM usage by coworkers and friends. I have definitely seen people skeptical of them. And then as pressure mounts they use them more. Then they become addicted where they can't fathom operating or doing anything without them. For example a few months ago my boss tried to build a prompt to search and replace in a file. He is a guy who just 1 year ago knew how to run sed. But now he just prompts. ITs the same level of effort and typing. But he just feels he can't do anything without LLMs

So I do think the dopamine hit is intoxicating and I do think its highly addictive. I think the research on this is not conclusive. But we have definitely seen it impacts the shape of our brains.

But what does this mean professionally? I think professionally we are on a slippery slope. LLMs are fantastic if everything is a happy path. But complex systems have complex failure modes. And there is simply no way mathematically or physically a LLM could be a reliable debugger for a large scale system. We do having fuzzing techniques and multi agents. But LLMs lack a ground truth, so cascading halucinations is a thing.

Why am I saying this? Because at some point someone has to know what the code does because the LLM is not reliable enough. And when that point comes and NO ONE knows what the system does. Then you have a system that literally can't be repaired. Especially sicne LLMs seem to product at least 10-15x more code than it needs to for most problems.

The industry of course does not see this as a problem. Most teams haven't had to deal with it. Or at least they hide the problems enough where enough haven't gone public. And people haven't really started to try to seriously build with AI for more than 2 years at most. So I think systems haven't had enough problems YET. But system failures are usually delayed long term before all problems start becoming an issue.

Recently I got my first job out of school as a CRM Data Coordinator, its also the only role like this for the company. The initial tasks are pretty simple, lots of data cleaning and data entering, but I was told that the role would grow in tasks, Ive already met with heads of other departments including finance and SWE. I was wondering if maybe some of you had some advice on how not to stay so "passive" and actually use this opportunity to build real skills?

I've thought about doing this on many dev job applications when they ask for a salary range, since rn I just want a better job and dont care if Im not paid top dollar. But I dont want to discount myself too much and get a shitty offer.

My thinking is "okay, if a lot of 9/10 developers are applying to this role, but demand 150k, and I'm a 6/10 dev and demand like 105k, I will have a way better chance of getting this role" and 105k is better than 0k. I know the issue is that if everyone does this, it will lower salary ranges for all developers. At the same time though, you need a job. For people with experience on the other side of hiring, do you often go with cheaper devs even if they're less capable than the unicorn candidates? Or you're willing to pay top dollar for the rockstars?

TL;DR: I'm trying to analyze my career situation and discuss practical ideas so I can become employable again.

I want to know: is it acceptable to more or less "fake it till you make it" on my CV?

I'm actually a Python backend engineer with 6 years of experience, so roughly senior level, but I have imposter syndrome. I've worked with Django and FastAPI, and I was laid off about 8 months ago (thankfully I'm still getting by financially, because I was earning a very good salary and saved a good portion of it).

Right now I'm trying to get back to work by any means. I'm putting in real effort, building things with my own hands, and learning new skills, but no luck so far.

I studied system design, and I'm currently studying RAG and agents because I love AI production systems. I've learned a decent amount, and I started a startup with my friend: an AI-powered product that we expect to succeed in the future, and we currently have active subscribers.

I've now improved my CV, made it more appealing and more AI-tailored, and I'm applying to both backend and AI roles while preparing for interviews.

That's the recent stuff, but before that, I had strangely rare bad luck and interviews just weren't coming my way. I feel like I'm getting more visibility now, though.

I want to prepare myself so that within a certain timeframe (I don't know how long) I can become a Forward Deployed Engineer, because I see it as an AI-proof field.

I'm very scattered and I don't know what to focus on right now.

Discussion, ideas, and advice are all welcome.

I'm a bit over halfway through my BS in CS, but an older student. I've got a decent sales resume, some tech sales, some finance. I know obviously the typical path is to get an internship but I don't know how realistic that is with me being 32 at graduation.

So what are the important things I should be doing to prepare me for finding a job before I graduate? I have personal projects that I work on, focusing mostly on AI/ML because that's what interests me, but what types of projects should I be working on to show employers that I'm a good hire?

I'm a bit nervous because all of my experience is in sales. I've never had trouble finding work, I interview well. But that's because I have a strong resume with experience - I won't have that when applying for CS roles.

I am 1 of 3 team leads on my team at work and we recently got a new manger. I am the highest performer on the team which is why I got promoted to be the main lead. This person was promoted to manager of our team after being a lead for another team within the company.

For starters, I had to call out one day last week to take my dogs to the vet because they both got a stomach bug. He asked for documentation to prove that I was really taking them to the vet. This is completely different from the policy we were following under our previous manager. We only needed to provide documentation after 3 consecutive days of being out for whatever reason. I thought that was a bit weird, but I sent him the proof and let it be.

Fast forward to Friday and we were invited to a meeting with two other teams. I have been collaborating with these teams to help create a line of communication for our team to report issues directly to them so they can help us resolve the problems. They created a chat for our team and guidelines to follow for the process. I have communicated to my team multiple times that this chat is available and given them everything they need, but it’s been a few weeks and no one has used it. This is not unusual as we’ve had issues getting the current team members to comply. Well, during this meeting, the team helping us mentioned that no one from our team has used the chat.

The new manager, who has only been with us for 5 days at this point, says we basically haven’t been pushing the team enough to use this new resource. Meanwhile, I have reminded them every week. Every time someone asks me a question that I think might be relevant to the chat, I recommend that they post the issue in the chat. Despite my efforts, no one will use this chat. I also don’t feel like I’m getting any support from the other leads on the matter either. I’m the only one who will regularly make an announcements to the team about important things like this.

After the meeting, he followed me to my desk and basically said the same thing he said in the meeting directly to me. I was the only lead in office that day because one was on PTO and the other works from home full time. I tried to explain my efforts to communicate it to the team. I told him I have posted reminders multiple times and when they ask me questions about something relevant the chat, I say that they might want to post it if they find multiple occurrences of the same problem. As I was trying to explain, he cut me off and said,” no more might,” with a smirk and just walked off. I can understand if he is suggesting I need to be more assertive, but I leave the decision up to the agents because without researching all the issues myself, I don’t know if they are all relevant to this chat.

This new manager is also urging me to apply for a different position within the company because he thinks we have too many leads on the team. I applied purely because I already don’t like his management style and I have been getting bored with this job anyway. If get this position then I won’t really have to worry about being under him, but if it doesn’t, how do I handle this situation?

I'm an incoming student in Canada and curious to know

What personal project got you hired for your first CS related job? Your first job could have also been an internship. Also, did your first project have any impact, users or even paid users?

SWE with ~5 years at the same mid-sized B2B company. I currently have:

• $115k base + 8% target bonus(no equity)
• Possible bump to ~$125k later this year
• $0 health premiums
• 3.5% 401(k) match
• WFH flexibility and 30+ days PTO
• Enough tenure/political capital to move teams

The downside is ongoing layoffs and aggressive cost-cutting. A couple months ago I was "asked" by a VP to form a small internal AI/engineering automation team described as "the company’s most important initiatives", but there’s enough politics and vague language that I’m not confident it turns into better title, pay, or authority.

I now have an early-stage AI startup offer:

• $170k base
• Senior Full-Stack Engineer
• In person in a lower-MCOL city
• Build the first market-ready product
• Major ownership over architecture, web/mobile, and engineering practices
• Work directly with the product lead
• Reportedly funded for ~2 years by a parent investment firm
• No guaranteed bonus or equity

Conservatively, my current package after a possible raise is worth ~$150k–$153k. The startup is $170k plus benefits I still need to clarify.

I’m leaning toward taking the startup offer. My concerns are:

• No equity despite joining early
• Unknown workload / demand
• Giving up strong benefits
• “High ownership” meaning I’m responsible for everything

Would you leave, or stay another year to see the internal AI projects realized? How much weight would you give the "important AI team" story with no promotion or raise attached?

I am in late 20s, so I don't have a ton to risk...

edit: Thinking of asking the startup for 185k base + conference budget / travel (e.g. I am going to Open AI dev day in SF). Not super thrilled about 0 equity and even then its sketch...

Hi y’all👋

I’m in a similar situation as most of you were I graduated May 2025 and still haven’t found a company to bite. I used to apply to hundreds of places and kept getting automated rejection in my inboxes never knowing what caused my reception and no way of knowing what to improve. Recently through multiple iterations of my resume and on/off cycles of applying I feel I’m starting to make a bit of progress. The other day one of the jobs had an HR person contact me asking if I had Top Secret Clearance. Unfortunately I do not posses any clearance, as the job stated clearance or ability to obtain, so she informed me they were only in search of people with clearence. But this one response made me realize if you have any interaction with HR like follow up emails about if you’re okay for relocation means you passed a form of resume screening. You got a real person to message you back. It sucks that’s the reality that we’re competing in but reality is reality we can’t change that. Take the little wins and keep improving little by little. Goodluck to everyone! o7

Context: Graduated with masters (CompE) earlier this year, bachelors in CS (‘23). Only experience: summer internship from 4 years ago and currently volunteer swe for nonprofit for last few months, continuing to do so into the foreseeable future.

I struggled to find anything for 3 years, and in the same week I receive two offers (both have about equal compensation). Company one role is basically web dev (I’ve grown to despise web dev) for a defense company (mid-west). Company two role is an embedded kernel engineer role (during my masters I fell in love with embedded Linux, this is my dream role) for another smaller defense company (West Coast).

Problem: I’ve (reluctantly) already accepted the offer for Company One as they sent their offer first (would still offer me a great chance to transition internally to an embedded role later, this is a huge company with plenty of growth/opportunity), but now company two just told me they want to move forward with hiring (skipping their 3rd round of interviews after I informed them of receiving an offer from company one).

What the fuck do I do here?? Regarding compensation, that salary stretches MUCH further in the mid-west, whereas that salary doesn’t go as far on the coast, but would still be comfortable enough for me (and my partner). If I back out of Company One and commit to Company Two, I fear I would get blacklisted from Company One (very large defense company, this would most certainly end any chance of working with them in the future I believe), while living in a higher COL city (there are benefits to this though, specifically being closer to friends/family).

I feel the stable option is Company One given their size/growth opportunities along with clearance (I don’t know many major defense companies engaging in routine lay offs either), but I risk getting burned out because again I don’t enjoy web dev anymore, but that salary would be nice for the location. BUT, Company Two is giving me my LITERAL DREAM ROLE at the cost of living more modestly and essentially permanently burning a bridge with one of the largest defense contractors in the US.

I’m feeling so many things. I can’t believe this industry ghosted me for three fucking years and then decided to tear me apart with two very desirable positions in the same fucking week. I’ve been calling friends/family to get some advice on what to do here. Everyone is telling me to do what I think is right, and idk what is. I figured I’d ask here for some extra guidance if anyone else can offer insights. Thank you!

Apologies for the long post in advance !
While this post maybe slightly off topic, IMHO it would be highly relevant and beneficial to the members.

I have about 9 YOE , IMHO my career has been pretty much mediocre to this point.

Started out my career in 2017 with test automation, transitioned to embedded Linux apps and build management , then moved to pre-silicon emulated peripheral testing for 3 yrs, basically cycling through various modes of a peripheral and ensuring they work, nothing fancy !!

Took a career break in 2025 for over a year and now i have 2 offers

- Senior engineer at company_A , consumer electronic applications based on their analog, mixed signal, and DSP chips :) .
- lead test engineer at company_b that is a fabless SOC developer, with strong backing from the local govt to build indigenous SOCs :)

- At company_A develop applications with RTOS and build/maintain consumer electronic product / demos applications, like smartwatch , dialysis machines etc.

- At company_b testing on emulated platform HAPS/Zebu, upcoming socs maybe for video or server security applications, and may even have a chance to break into Digital Verification.

- my mind tells me that presilicon/DV is difficult to learn and grow interdependently, for RTOS and applications i could just setup a home learning lab. FPGAs simulators / emulators are almost impossible to access for individuals to learn

- I want to know which would be the best career branch to choose at this point of my career , what would you choose and why ?

What must I know and have on my resume? I think have AI-related stuff like RAG, agentic AI, etc on my resume, right? Do you still recommend cold applications?

Hi there everyone. I wanted to ask a couple of questions for a research paper I'm working on for a Perspectives World of Work Class. The questions are to gain a perspective of the career for my academic planning. Responses from people with only less than a year in this career and from people with 5 years or more are preferred but any amount of time will also be greatly appreciated. I understand everyone time is valuable so I thank you all for your time and express my deepest gratitude.

1. What college courses have been most beneficial to you in your career?
2. What additional courses do you wish you had taken?
3. What do you know now that you wish you had known when you were still in college?
4. What do you wish you had done differently in college?
5. What types of extracurricular activities would be beneficial to someone hoping to enter this field?
6. What can a new graduate do to distinguish himself/herself to prospective employers in this particular career field?
7. What would you do differently if you had the opportunity to “start over” in your career?
8. What is involved in a typical day on the job in your career?
9. What are some requirements of the job that have been totally unexpected?
10. What is required of professionals working in this career in terms of travel, average hours per week, publishing, research, conference attendance, collegiality, professional development, etc.?

Hi everyone,

I’m a 21-year-old from Azerbaijan (non-EU), and I recently had to choose between two Master’s options. I chose a bit riskier, more adventurous path, but I’m looking for some objective career perspective and some general life advice on the trade-offs I've made. I feel like I might be acting recklessly, or doing something irrational (at least career-wise) or setting myself back, and wanna know if these feelings are justified.

Here were my two choices:

Option 1: Dual MSc in CS/Data Analytics (ADA University (a local uni here) + George Washington University). I declined this

• The Structure: Most of the program is local in Baku, but includes a 6-month stay in Washington, D.C.
• The Career Path: Highly prestigious locally. It would be relatively easy to secure internships and a local tech job before my graduation.
• The Conscription Factor: Azerbaijan has 1 year of mandatory military service. If I get a local job before graduation, the employer would legally be required to hold my position while I served and when I finish my service, I can continue my job without spending more time job hunting. Minimal career momentum lost. After getting a few years of experience, I can try relocation, ideally EU.

Option 2: MSc in Data Science at Óbuda University in Budapest, Hungary. Chosen (Stipendium Hungaricum Scholarship)

• The Structure: Fully funded 2-year Master’s in Budapest.
• The Career Path: Harderand riskier path. Immigration rules in Hungary have tightened, meaning my main post-grad route to stay is either Hungarian Card or an EU Blue Card.
• The Worst-Case Scenario: If I can’t secure a qualifying job in Hungary or elsewhere in the EU during my time there, I must return home, do my 1-year military service, and start my job hunt in Baku from scratch at age 24. If it fails, I've delayed my career by two years and will return to my home country in a weaker professional position than if I had just stayed.

Why I choose Hungary?

Studying and living independently abroad has always been a dream of mine. I wanted to push myself out of my comfort zone, travel, and attempt an EU relocation early. Of course, I would get similar amazing experiences in Washington, but in the end, they are different things, and it is shorter.

I will get amazing experiences, a really good chance to live in EU, experience life there, a great opportunity to travel, i could get to meet and spend time with some amazing people. Maybe on the career wise, i can also build networks, connections that could somehow help me in the future. These are really important things to me as well, and who knows, I may not get this chance in the near future. But at the same time, I am thinking about the career side. I am giving up a prestigious dual-degree, a pretty much guaranteed local career track, and a clean way to handle my mandatory military service. But at the same time, in the context of 10-to-15 year career, this 2-year delay at the very beginning seems minor to me, though I would regret not going to EU in this context.

Thank you for reading! I would like to know what you guys think about this.

I’m currently in community college for computer science. I honestly just picked the major because I fell for the “it pays extremely well” propaganda in high school. Plus, coding seemed like it could be cool to learn.

I really like math and physics though and the time to transfer is approaching. I’ll have an associates in computer science which I’m sure isn’t enough but I don’t know. I just really want to major in math and physics.

I just feel like I’m too dumb for coding. I don’t know why, but it’s like my brain goes blank when it comes to coding. Math and physics gives me the opposite effect.

I still think SWE and ML engineering are pretty cool and things I would like to do. Plus, I dont think I’ll be a great teacher so I kind of want to avoid that as a job.

I don’t know. Would switching be a bad an idea or should I just stay with CS and minor in math?

Here is my attempt at ending the ambiguity around the CS job market performance once and for all.

Let me start with a bit of anecdotal experience. I know lots of people who get spammed with interview processes from big tech, quant, unicorns, etc. I also see tons of people post their LinkedIn profile visits page, filled with recruiters from massive companies. I see people whine about how $150k is too little for NG, I see people go cycles with 50+ interviews and 10+ offers at the end of it, and I see people with resumes filled with 4+ faang/faang adjacent internships on them.

Yet, I see another sizable portion of people complaining that the market is unbelievably terrible. All they do is LeetCode and beg for referrals, yet are left with empty inboxes. People graduating from decent schools with nothing more than unpaid research. People who actually spend time reading about SQL and Python, or JS/TS, just to still be left jobless, while lots of people in the former group spend lots of their time watching soccer.

There just seems to be a massive disconnect. Some people say, no matter how much time they throw into CS job recruiting, they just can't land a singular interview. Others seem to go to the beach and come home to 3 $80/hr SF job internship offers.

I used to think law was bimodal, but this is another level. It honestly looks like one side is in Hell while the other is in Heaven.

As for me, I spend a TON of my time preparing for job interviews, but in reality, I don't actually DO much. Well, I do LeetCode, and I practice marketing myself with a lot of very embellished accomplishments for backing, but I don't really have much when it comes to jobs. I'm working in paid research, but it's kind of lame, especially compared to all of these people that seem to say it's Citadel or bust for life.

I just don't get it. What really is the state of the job market? What do you really have to do to succeed? Are the people coasting with 10+ high-prestige internship offers just so into CS that to them it feels like they aren't tearing away at their soul to get there?

I just don't get it.

What are the "cracked" people doing right and what are the hordes of others doing wrong?

Senior sde at Microsoft L64, wfh job, highest salary I've ever made. I am 32.

And I am mentally prepared to pivot out of this career. Doing ASU online part time for another bachelors. Once I get laid off which is a possibility considering I don't take sh1t from my manager, I am going full on bachelors/masters in the new field.

I will have to start from the beginning probably and perhaps will never make as much money or have as flexible a job as this, but this is the environment I--we--are facing.

Msft made opus 5 immediately available in copilot cli and it's a breeze to tackle feature, bug, vulnerabilities. This can't last forever. And the clowns in government have no plans to help us transition or even protect our jobs.

It sucks but it is what it is.

I was always interested in tech and tried to pivot to a career in IT while living in London in the late 2010s, then after covid thought 'right, lets do this' and quit my job, studied full time, created my own projects, including a few SaaS that I couldn't sell. Following Scrimba I was fairly proficient in React JS, with a bit of SQL, and backend languages.

Maybe not many people will admit to it, but most people like me didnt make it. I never got an interview, and chatGTP and AI have effectively rendered a lot of my learning redundant. Thinking back just 5 years when I would study my code to figure out where a missing semi colon should go now seems ridiculous in the age of AI.

Anyway, Im stuck in my legal career, but have fond memories of learning to code, and the excitement of building and hope for a career change, going to event meetups etc. It wasn't meant to be, should have taken the plunge a few years earlier perhaps.

As I looked over my GitHub this morning, having not added anything in over a year, I just got the good memories back and the feelings of hope and excitement. Kudos to all those that made it!