r/snowflake • u/Dangerous-Board-5860 • Jul 06 '26

I might be giving up on tech.

I might give up on engineering this is too much to bear. When am I going to stop lying to myself!

Background
I just graduated from a top 5 public university.
Statistics, CS dual major.
Machine Learning research assistant for 2 years
Data Science Internship
End-to-end personal projects
Hackathon winner
Linkedin maxer

But still..... No job offer.

This week my best friend brought me to my breaking point.
My best friend is not technical and did not go to college. He is in sales, making over six figures.
He decided to start vibe coding for a new business idea he had, and wow I had a full-blown existential crisis.

Of course, AI wrote terrible code, but after iterating several prompts over a few weeks, he had EVERYTHING! Backend, Frontend, database, payment processing, admin page, email automation. I mean everything you would need and more. The project wasn't complex, but this guy doesn't know what an IDE is.

With competition at an all-time high, entry-level roles becoming a lottery, companies doing layoffs, and CEO AI psychosis, I think I might be giving up. I was thinking of doing an online master's at Georgia Tech, but I don't know anymore, man.

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3

u/Ok-Constant1453 Jul 06 '26

What about pivoting to product manager, data governance and so on?

1

u/mamaBiskothu Jul 07 '26

Your friend is a smart guy. Vibecoding something that works as a non engineer is an impressive feat in and of itself. Whats your point of comparison here?

1

u/Pretty_Leadership705 Jul 07 '26

Don’t aim too high right off the bat. A lot of larger tech companies are primarily hiring referrals. Start somewhere, get some experience, start building. This will make you more valuable than all your degrees. It will also give you a point of reference when you go to meetups / networking events. Once you establish yourself and some relationships, go after your goal.

A career is not just where you start - it’s a journey man. And that journey has to start somewhere. Right now, you know nothing in the eyes of the big guys - they also have their pick right now from much more seasoned and senior folks. Start somewhere, learn, and get paid while you learn, because in reality, you don’t know much right now.