Anybody else feel like you are at the mercy of the industry?
Posted by phantom3535@reddit | ExperiencedDevs | View on Reddit | 88 comments
SSE with 7 YOE here. I’m burned out. Not because of anything specific to my current role really, but more with the tech industry itself. I’ve worked at 4 companies in my 7 years. Three of those hired me because I was an internal referral. I’ve performed well, getting promoted frequently and taking larger and larger initiatives under my belt.
When I started learning to program, and even more so when I got into the industry, I thought I would get to work on really cool cutting-edge projects. I know that was naive. Of my 4 jobs, only one satisfied that desire and only for a couple years.
I’ve been steadily employed over the 7 years. But that’s because each job search followed a similar pattern. I would apply, study, interview, retro on what I can do better, and repeat. Every company I was super excited about rejected me, and after being mentally, emotionally, and physically exhausted from job searching I typically accept an offer I’m not crazy about. And that offer is the only offer, and only exists because of referral.
It really feels like I have to accept whatever this industry is willing to offer me instead of going after the things I really want. Not that I don’t pursue the opportunities I’m super interested in, but they just never seem to result in offers. So inevitably, I end up taking yet another opportunity I didn’t really want, and the cycle repeats.
I’m very lucky that I’ve been steadily employed, and I am certainly paid very well. So I can’t complain about any of that. I just wish I could do the type of work I really want to do as my primary job, and successfully target opportunities instead of just wasting a ton of time, energy, and emotions only to end up right where I started.
And it’s not like I haven’t worked to improve my interviewing skills. Grinding DSA, leetcode, brushing up on system design & star questions, building portfolio projects. Taking an honest look at my deficiencies and filling those gaps. I’ve done it all, but while the number of technical & final round interviews has certainly increased over the years, the number of offers has not. I’m just tired. I know the market has been a dumpster fire the last couple of years, but damn.
Anybody relate to this? Or am I just crazy?
jglazer@reddit
Are there unrealized business goals that tech can help your company achieve? If the job is boring, can you make it not boring by automating the boring bits? There is inherent coolness in perfecting execution to help the company generate more value for customers. Can you find those bits?
If you can, I suspect:
1) you might be more excited about the current job 2) you will have a much better story to tell in your interviews, and be much more attractive to the “cool” projects. At 7 yoe, the interviewers might be considering behavioral and experiential questions over whether you can balance a red black tree. The best way to prepare for interviews now is to have a (true) story about how you moved the revenue needle of your previous company
Good luck!
PimlicoResident@reddit
The software industry is becoming not worth it over time to me personally. I can relate to not being able to work in a job I really wanted. Nowadays, I decided that working on almost anything is fine by me and I will treat this work as a true professional: I will do my best work and make sure the output I produce is of high quality (I hate trash being produced by people who call themselves engineers), but I don't have to love the work. I will make sure that my pay matches the BS I have to deal with. When it stops being the case, I will look into doing something else (our principal engineer quit recently to start a bakery lol).
The goal is to escape the race by achieving semi-financial independence because having to work is an overall bullshit waste of life to me personally. We have to work because we need to earn money to live - rich people do not have to work, they can live off stock market returns. So can I.
Beginning-Comedian-2@reddit
Anybody relate to this? Or am I just crazy?
You're not crazy.
Inevitable-Waltz-889@reddit
Man, I feel this so much. 7 YOE and absolutely bombed a technical interview a yesterday during a code reading exercise because I didn't know a specific keyword in a language unfamiliar to me. Looked it up after and realized how basic the question they were asking was. But once I got fixated on that unknown, with 6 sets of eyes watching in a panel interview, my brain just shut down. Super embarrassing.
Beginning-Comedian-2@reddit
A coder’s job:
99% alone time figuring out code alone with the whole internet and coworkers as a resource.
A coding interview:
all eyes on you to code on the fly without any resources.
Inevitable-Waltz-889@reddit
Yep. It's totally broken.
thekwoka@reddit
I don't think so, but it does depend on the nature of the interview.
Is this junior level javascript (which you said you're great at), and you get stumped by
const? That's bad.Is the context advanced Rust (which you have said you have only dabbled in) and you're getting stumped by
Char::as_ascii?WebDevMom@reddit
This could not be more spot on
thekwoka@reddit
Was it something you were meant to know?
Like the position uses that language and you said you were good at it?
Feels like you could just mention that you're not familiar with the language specifics and either look it up or ask about it.
WebDevMom@reddit
I deeply appreciated your comment
Beginning-Comedian-2@reddit
Thank you.
unsteady_panda@reddit
"Really cool cutting-edge projects" are by nature, outliers. I don't think you can go into any field, whether it's tech or business or fashion or art, and expect to be involved in outlier outcomes without being an outlier yourself.
You can try to level yourself up to the point where you're qualified for it. You can take a chance and start your own thing. Or you can do what the rest of the world figures out eventually, to be satisfied with what you've already got.
thekwoka@reddit
Yup, my wife is a Hotel designer, for like, REALLY high end hotels.
Not every project is super cool. Many are, but some are very "cookie cutter".
PragmaticBoredom@reddit
When I first started mentoring juniors I learned very early on that expectation setting was one of the hardest parts of my job. In the age of the internet everyone collects bits and pieces of what they think the ideal job should be. Commonly, it was a combination of very high total comp, remote work, low delivery pressure, high job security, no on-call, and only working on fun things (no legacy work).
We all wise up to reality over time, but some of these lofty ideals persist. It’s only natural to always want a better job, whether that’s more comp, less work, more interesting projects, or higher job security. The real strategy is to identify the most achievable path through your career that accepts the right tradeoffs to match your level of ambition and what you’re willing to sacrifice.
The jobs working on really cool cutting-edge projects are in high competition. If you want one, you probably have to be willing to sacrifice either compensation or low delivery pressure. The jobs with high comp are also in high competition. If you want one, you have to work hard for a long time to get there and then work hard again to keep it. The jobs with high job security usually come with lower comp and maybe boring work.
There are tradeoffs everywhere. You can’t have it all. Identify what’s important to you and learn to accept the tradeoffs that come with your personal priorities.
joelypolly@reddit
It is very much the Hollywood style love story vs reality, and especially now that you can find communities that will agree to anything reality really has to be lived before it sinks in.
thekwoka@reddit
So, just a normal job then?
You can always make a really cool cutting edge project on your own time?
met0xff@reddit
For me doing a PhD was my entry pass from standard dev work to cutting edge work. I worked in embedded dev and networking monitoring and things like that, it was fine but ultimately all the cool sounding jobs wanted higher education than I had at that point. So I started to specialize, did a master in medical informatics, a pretty cool master's thesis at a hospital in medical computer vision and had various options for a PhD in that direction. But I got a better paid PhD at an industrial research center with a full-time, unlimited contract in speech technology so went with that. Since then I worked on tons of interesting projects although over time everything really became deep learning.
But still, I feel if you want cutting edge work you really have to dig deep into a topic. Be it computer graphics, compilers or whatever else. When I was searching for a PhD there were tons of smart grids opportunities for example.
Informal-Dot804@reddit
Do you have any advice on how to research PhD programs ? My friends (who are in phd programs) keep telling me to talk to professors, but (1) most of them don’t have their websites updated, even papers are a year or two out and may not reflect their current research focus and (2) the hell do I know about their research focus enough to talk to them about it.
spoonraker@reddit
Out of curiosity, what exactly is the kind of cutting edge work that you're trying to break into and failing to do?
This might give additional insights into why you're falling short, because the stuff you've described as preparation (LeetCode, system design, and STAR questions) are all very non-specific interview preparation stuff that to me read like your goal is simply to get into a FAANG company and not to work on specific technologies or products.
If your dream is just to work for any big name company that pays top of market without concern for what org/team/product you work on, keep doing what you're doing, but if you have a more specific desire than that I think you need to start refining your approach to target that thing more.
I know that big tech hiring is, overall, incredibly generic and you've got the preparation nailed down for a generic SWE hiring pipeline, but if your motivating factor is something more than just money and a big name, give us more detail!
Oh, and to answer your question, yes, it's very easy to feel this way, especially with the market conditions of the last few years. When the tech market and offers seemed to only be able to go up, it felt like being an SWE was the cheat code for beating the system. We weren't expenses, we were the value creators! We were the rock stars! We got paid like rock stars, and treated like rock stars with lavish perks and eye-popping offers. The last few years have been a reminder that just because we're among the most relatively well paid wage slaves -- even today -- that doesn't mean we're not still wage slaves just the same. We haven't beaten the system; our path to freedom is still to hope the forces that be pay us enough to "get ahead" or otherwise we have to compromise our lifestyle to achieve that, we just have the luxury of generally having that be easier because the industry is overall still high paying. You're now relating to the common wage earner more, but ya know, please keep in mind we're still privileged in this industry and don't make the faux pas of complaining about "only" being able to land a $200k offer to your friends outside of tech. They won't be particularly sympathetic to your plight. Their goal isn't how fast they can achieve financial freedom, their goal is probably more like hoping they can retire at all, ever. So a bit of a confirmation of your feelings and also a reality check. Hope that helps!
phantom3535@reddit (OP)
The "cutting-edge" piece was just a reference to my flawed expectations very early in my career. I'm not targeting anything special or particularly crazy now, and honestly never really did. I'm paid well, but not FAANG well and while I would prefer not to take a massive paycut I'm not chasing higher salaries. I think my main scenario has been that anytime I want to look for something new for X reason (different industry, tech stack, etc) I run into the same old problems.
I guess I expected that getting new opportunities would get easier as I became more experienced. But while my skillset, network, and overall ability have grown exponentially over the last 7 years, the job search results didn't change much. I don't care much for big names or a bigger salary, it would just be nice to come into work and enjoy what I'm building/working on and get some sense of fulfillment.
spoonraker@reddit
What makes you think that the nature of the thing you're building will give you fulfillment? I promise you the teams building the cutting edge products that seem really exciting are dealing with the same corporate BS that you are day to day. They have boring meetings, unnecessary bureaucratic process, annoying colleagues, bad managers, ridiculous expectations tied to performance reviews, tech debt, company politics, and more! Just like you! There's no magical force that causes a cool technology product to necessarily mean working on it is a good experience.
You sound like you're just getting burned out in general. My advice for this is simple:
#1 just means work to live don't live to work. It's fine to treat your job as a paycheck to fund your life and not your life's mission itself. If anything that makes the drudgery of climbing the corporate ladder easier, because you can think of it like the game it is instead of tying your self-worth to it. Making top of market tech company money is great, not because you're some prestigious tech rock star, but because more money more faster means you get to do more of the things you really want to do with your life sooner.
#2 means stop assuming that every bad feeling you get is tied to something outside of your control. You're not unhappy because you don't work on an exciting cutting edge product, you're unhappy for all the normal boring reasons people are unhappy. Get back to focusing on the basics of life: sleep better, eat better, exercise more, and nurture relationships. While you're at it, I recommend disconnecting from the internet as much as you can. The internet has become pretty terrible to be perfectly honest, and the mobile phone is the object you carry with you all the time the most dangerous to your mental state. The internet is constantly trying to push itself into you via your mobile phone. The more you can disconnect the better, and the phone is the place to strategically deploy aids to help you. Block websites and apps if you must. Seriously, it's liberating.
Don't mean to sound super preachy here, but it's easy to forget sometimes how simple -- but not easy -- the path forward can be. I just figured I lay a lot of stuff out in broad terms to remind you of this.
knoland@reddit
This is the number one take-away from this whole thread.
Informal-Dot804@reddit
I don’t know man.. every identity has the same pitfall that when our experience doesn’t match some ideal or compare with whoever we see, we feel .. empty and discontent.
morclerc@reddit
And what would you like to work on, that you think would give you fulfilment?
phantom3535@reddit (OP)
Working on something mission driven that is actually meaningful and has a positive impact, or just working with a tech stack I enjoy. Nothing wild. My current role satisfies neither of those points.
seminole2r@reddit
I’ve found that switching to new tech stacks is pretty tough especially when most job postings want people with experience. For instance I’m interested in working with AI image generation. Even postings for this fairly new field require already having experience with their tech stacks. I’m at the point where I saved enough money to quit my job and focus on learning and doing projects/certs in this stack for a few months. After that I’ll start freelancing if I can. I don’t know what else you can do past that point. You either have to get experience on that stack in your current company by switching teams or spend your nights and evenings gaining experience which I don’t recommend.
MoreRopePlease@reddit
Mission driven is largely incompatible with for-profit companies. My nonprofit company got acquired by a for profit and my job satisfaction tanked. They killed everything I loved about my job, which i'd had for 10 years. It was perfect except for feeling a little underpaid. Now it stinks and I'm still underpaid. :(
teslas_love_pigeon@reddit
To be honest, this is pretty delusional and to be even more frank this is quite a sad indictment on your life if the only meaning you have on this Earth is by working for someone else.
Please heed the advice of other commentators, trying to gain satisfaction solely from your job is a disaster and you will never be happy.
phantom3535@reddit (OP)
I'm confused by this sentiment that I define myself by my job. I don't. I have many hobbies and things outside work I enjoy, and I view work as a way to fund those things and my investments so that eventually working is optional.
That doesn't mean I can't also look for a job that i would enjoy more than the current one. At no point have I indicated I get satisfaction only from working, nor would I ever recommend anyone else to live that way.
escape_character@reddit
I suggest you define for yourself what “cutting edge” is. Like write a diary entry about it. Cutting edge could mean what bloggers think is cool, what your non-tech relatives think is cool, what programmers you admire think will be cool (but might turn out not to be). Lots of things that were cutting edge at one point were pretty mundane beforehand; imagine working on deep learning in the 80s or something.
Your personal definition for cutting edge might turn out to just mean “exciting”. Lots of mundane stuff can be pretty exciting! Making up an example: software running on embedded electronics in mining trucks that deal with lots of corruption/signal loss/temperature-related reboots. Not Silicon Valley cutting edge, but if that scratches your particular itch, could be extremely exciting, and lucrative. However, if you define feeling like being on the cutting edge as feeling like you’re in demand and the general public reads news stories about what you do, robustifying mining truck microcontrollers ain’t it.
Witherspore3@reddit
You might try a consulting company that specializes in the cool stuff of interest. They will try to rinse and repeat your work, but , if you are really good at innovative solutions, they will put you on the coolest of what is your definition of cool.
dryiceboy@reddit
I don't get OP's point. Is there a career that's not at the mercy of their specific industry? At the end of the day, every job and company's goal is to make money and is highly dependent on how the economy flows.
If that doesn't work for you then treat development as a hobby.
jek39@reddit
I don't feel like "tech" is one industry at all. experience vary wildly
ElliotAlderson2024@reddit
Go big or go home. 90 hours a week and loving it.
HeyHeyJG@reddit
in 2024, it's a rare and lucky thing for work to be truly fulfilling. IMO. YMMV.
java_dev_throwaway@reddit
This stings with how true it is. So sick of being treated like trash and constantly being forced to justify my existence within organizations. Constant threats of layoffs, offshoring, non technical people ultimately making key technical decisions and cleaning up their mess, etc.
Meanwhile my friends in sales keep getting internally promoted, huge raises, working from the golf course, and running up the company card at fancy steakhouses.
ivancea@reddit
Well, 4 jobs and N rejections isn't "the industry".
Keep trying at companies you like. Just that. And you may eventually enter in one. It consumes nearly no time, and you won't enter a company you dislike.
About the projects, there's no perfect project. Find whatever you like (web apps, mobile apps, microcontrollers, AI...) and look at what you find. But don't try to find a very specific project, as every company has interesting and not-that-interesting projects
ivancea@reddit
Well, 4 jobs and N rejections isn't "the industry".
Keep trying at companies you like. Just that. And you may eventually enter in one. It consumes nearly no time, and you won't enter a company you dislike.
About the projects, there's no perfect project. Find whatever you like (web apps, mobile apps, microcontrollers, AI...) and look at what you find. But don't try to find a very specific project, as every company has interesting and not-that-interesting projects
drew_eckhardt2@reddit
A very small fraction of software engineering teams work on cool cutting edge projects.
For good odds you need to move to the San Francisco Bay Area to give yourself a wide range of startups to choose from. A small fraction of those are doing things aligned to your technical interests, just landed series-A on a slide deck, and have plausible business plans.
lurkin_arounnd@reddit
DC also has a lot of good tech startups slurping up that government funding
Key_Supermarket_8578@reddit
It’s like you are speaking out my mind
CowBoyDanIndie@reddit
Outlier here… I actually do work on cool cutting edge stuff (senior robotics engine working on perception on a project at field trials phase) …. I have 18 yoe, I didn’t start to work on cool cutting edge stuff until about 4 years ago. I only switched into robotics about 5-6 years ago after I left google, google was actually boring, everyone wants to work on cool stuff, lots of boring work to go around, very depressing time of my life…anyway…
When I took this job even though it was a robotics company, I got boring work for a long time. I also did some sorta exciting but not cutting edge work about 10 years ago at a startup. Heres my lesson… nobody, and I mean nobody will give you exciting work initially. You have to take it. Most of the people I work with have decades of robotics experience and/or PhDs, I only have a BS. In order to get exciting work, I had to take it upon myself to do it, make my own ideas, pitch them, get buy in, often uphill. This can be inherently dangerous, you can step on toes, you can be shot down, and you can be told to stay in your own lane.
Something like 12 years ago I challenged my then CEOs business plan in a company meeting (70 ish employees). We ended up doing my idea instead, he took me out to lunch to thank me, nobody else would challenge him. Later at the same job I just built a new product prototype, pitched it in a meeting I setup, ended up getting funding to build it and nearly doubled the company’s revenue in less than year. Now I am blazing paths in my job in a domain completely new to me. I am working on cutting edge algorithms along side PhDs with 2-3 decades of experience in this domain.
This sounds like I must be some super awesome elite skillz programmer, I am not, I am just a shmuck like everyone else.
Tl;dr If you wanna do cool stuff you have to take it. Nobody assigns the cool work.
a_reply_to_a_post@reddit
yeah that's kind of the trade off, especially if you still are holding on to a remote job which adds a whole other layer of anxiety since it's pretty common to just open up your work computer and not have access or getting fired via email when shit goes tits up
doesn't get easier as you grow in your career either, getting used to a good salary then getting hit with a layoff can take years to recover from, especially since hiring tends to be cyclical, but senior staff tends to have higher salaries and sometimes are targeted first
tr0w_way@reddit
That's actually why I stopped trying for FAANG. I sometimes work with Google services team and saw their layoffs up close and personal. Their 2 best engineers just disappeared over night. No transition plan, no replacements. Haven't considered FAANG since
seminole2r@reddit
Some of it is based on politics as well. FAANGs are always looking to cut costs through layoffs so the “bottom” performers will be always be on the chopping block. Someone’s gotta go. Some people enjoy politics, others have no choice if they are on some immigrant visa so they get worked to the bone.
tr0w_way@reddit
Oh yeah for sure. But the fact that nobody they directly worked with was aware of it makes me think C Suite just picked a list of names of people they've never met. Even the person managing the project was caught flat footed
phantom3535@reddit (OP)
The two worst engineers I've ever worked with ended up at google. Both were toxic narcissists that brought the whole team down (different jobs, different teams), and thought they were so far above the rest of us that we were all terrible for not realizing their greatness when most of what they produced were shit code riddled with bugs.
Anecdotal for sure, but I lost interest in ever working there a long time ago.
tr0w_way@reddit
Toxic engineers are everywhere. Idk if that's a reason to avoid such a giant company. I'm avoiding it because I don't wanna live in fear of layoffs. Knowing not amount of skill or hard work can protect me
MoreRopePlease@reddit
Layoffs are a risk everywhere, unfortunately
phantom3535@reddit (OP)
A big part of it is those things, and the fact that I know several very talented engineers laid off from google while the two I mentioned are still there.
NullVoidXNilMission@reddit
Not really. I've been really lucky with jobs and I feel like I'm not close to burnout because my I have healthy boundaries. It more seems like the industry is at my mercy.
TopSwagCode@reddit
Sounds like your in a "good" place currently. You need to have a prioritized list of what you want in a job. And so far by your post it sounds like "fully remote" is on the top of the list. eg:
1: Fully remote.
2: Works with Java 1.4 or below :P
3: Processes are in place
4: Wage
5: ......
Of course it would be nice to have it all :D Currently I have most of the things on my top 10 list, but I have to live with strange politics at work. Stupid things at work used to burn me out and make me sad. What I did was take a big look inside and made this list. I made a "Circle of Influence" to take a step back and see, what can I do to improve my situation and what is beyond.
I follow the 4 D's ( Do it, Drop it, Delegate it, Defer it ). Because in most jobs you simply can't do all that is asked of you and you need to prioritize your tasks.
And much of the stuff also goes over to my personal life. I rarely watch TV/streams anymore. I have cut down on reddit content that is braindead stuff / clickbait.
Some of your priorities are going to to overlap and some are going to work against each other. Eg. being 100% remote is cutting lots of jobs away.
phantom3535@reddit (OP)
I like this approach. I don't have a literal list but I'm going to sit down and make one after reading this. Thanks for the input!
TopSwagCode@reddit
Your welcome :)
randomInterest92@reddit
I know this is obvious, but have you ever considered starting a side business? You could delve into any tech you want. You have zero pressure, you could take 10 years to develop your MVP.
I've started doing that earlier this year and I look forward to working on it almost every day. Sometimes I spend hours simply thinking about my software architecture and it's really fun because you have no managers, no deadlines, no teammates, no weird guidelines or bloated processes. You can simply do what you want in peace.
phantom3535@reddit (OP)
Actively considering it, but no definitive plans yet. Prob going to do some open source contributions in a couple projects aligned with my interest and go from there.
madmars@reddit
I feel like I'm more at the mercy of stupid leetcode and interview games than the work itself. More than one interview to get any job is just psychopath behavior. We need to have an honest discussion about this. About companies wasting our time, our mental health, and stealing resources from us that would be better spent on leisure, family, open source software, etc. Literally anything is better than grinding leetcode. And I'm not saying to not do competitive programming if that's what you crave after work hours. That's your time to do as you wish. But stop making us all do this shit for the rest of our lives. Because leetcode is not something you just learn and it's always there for future interviews. Leetcode effectively is a second job you have today. You will forget LC the second you stop grinding it.
As far as the work, itself, goes. The movie Office Space came out in 1999. And Dilbert goes back to the '80s. White collar work always sucks. FAANG sucks. No matter what you do at nearly any FAANG, it's all tied to immoral privacy invading ad tech or worse. Took a good look at IG? It's filled with pedo shit. It's gross and exploitative. I don't care that you're working on some cutting edge VR thing. Your paycheck is supported by getting children and minors addicted to unhealthy habits and self-image problems. Once you have a child you suddenly realize how fucking disturbing much of YouTube is, and how little Google cares because they are making money.
My expectations for work are basically this: I hope to have few major nasty bugs or architecture issues I need to work around (these are the absolute worst), and I want to work with a stack and process that I can mostly tolerate. Jira micromanaging agile crap? Sure, fine. It's better than a boss on your back about deadlines. Take the minor wins when you can, keep your head down, and try to be reasonably nice to your boss and coworkers. We aren't family. It's not a college dorm (sorry Google, Apple, etc. you weirdos). It's just a job.
levelworm@reddit
I guess that's the norm. We don't get to work on what we want because we are not competitive/lucky enough.
I'm also burnt out after 7 yoe so not sure how long I can drag on.
agumonkey@reddit
aren't we all
pythosynthesis@reddit
Not sure if I got your post right so correct me if not. I understand you do job search in "bursts", where you dedicate your soul to it. Then you fail and you feel miserable. This is the "hare" approach, give it all you've got for a short period. Instead I'll suggest doing the "turtle" approach, which you can afford since you're fully employed. That is, done job application per week, or even less. This doesn't lead to job hunting burnout, and you can keep it up for way longer. Until you find something you like.
You can also try talking to recruiters, though how to deal with that group is an art in itself. But they will be hunting jobs for you, so they'll be submitting your resume and organizing interviews etc. Saves you time and effort.
Slow and steady. In the meantime you're paid well. It really doesn't get to be in a better position as a job seeker.
WolfNo680@reddit
how do people do this exactly? My only experience with recruiters is by them messaging me on LinkedIn and (most of the time) never actually responding back when I reply to them. Just today I had a phone screen scheduled with a recruiter that was supposed to start 20 minutes ago - and the guy never showed up, just have me sitting next to my phone like an idiot waiting for a call.
Is there some hidden recruiter website that I just don't know about?
pythosynthesis@reddit
Well, that's why I said this is an art in itself.
Understand one thing - You're just one of the many candidates they message. With a copy/paste email. "Tailor your resume for the position!" my buttocks. They send the same email to everyone.
Second part of the puzzle is that many of them, especially the young ones, have quotas for resume fishing. Once you send it to them you're a lot less interesting, they've done their job.
So what I do is ask for the job description before I send them any resume, especially if it needs tailoring. If they do, I'm more open to talking on the phone. Still no resume. Ask for availability, and see how that goes. If they ask for the resume "so we can base the conversation off that", remember, in their email they said they "saw your profile on LinkedIn and it's a great fit for the role they're hiring for"... so "we can discuss on the basis of my LinkedIn profile, it's a good picture of my skills".
Only after a successful conversation, and if the job is interesting, I'll send my resume. But lately it very rarely even gets to conversation stage because I tell them upfront I want fully remote or nothing, and in my area this is objectively less and less likely. So I stay put with my hybrid job, which I kinda like anyway.
Over time you'll develop your own approach to recruiters. Best possible advice is to treat them as transactionally as possible. If THEY can do something for YOU, use them, if not, discard and move on. Ofc, if someone is really helpful, it's fantastic to develop the relationship further, they'll think of you first when they have the next opportunity.
WolfNo680@reddit
I guess this is why I could never run my own business - the cold logic of it all just doesn't sit well with me. But I take your point, at the end of the day it is a transaction; you get me a job, I get you a bonus or commission or what-have-you.
Make1984FictionAgain@reddit
Yes, I am with you. The interview process has made me depressed again and I feel like giving up
phantom3535@reddit (OP)
It sucks for sure. But keep in mind that none of us are defined by work, and most companies are happy to accept a large number of rejected, qualified candidates in exchange for (ideally) avoiding bad hires. Feel it, acknowledge it, but don't allow it to control your emotional state or the other aspects of your life.
Make1984FictionAgain@reddit
thanks <3
pinpinbo@reddit
TC and NW?
phantom3535@reddit (OP)
TC: 165K
NW: 387K
Very remote, 2 hours from the nearest Hub (Moved a few years back)
pinpinbo@reddit
Well, it is what it is. You need to move to a major tech hub for more.
phantom3535@reddit (OP)
I'm not looking for more $$. If I was then yeah I would likely need to relocate again for a big jump.
pinpinbo@reddit
Not just more $$, more opportunities and bigger network as well.
numice@reddit
I've never got interviews at the big names nor landed a job that pays well nor got a promotion and never got a chance to work on cutting-edge or any interesting projects. So, I've never experienced the 'downfall' just because I've never really seen the upside (only it was easier to get interviews). Just so you know that you can also get burned out while not being paid well so I'd rather choose to feel burned out but paid well instead.
Best_Fish_2941@reddit
Where do you work
phantom3535@reddit (OP)
Remote in the U.S.
Bakoro@reddit
Seriously, stay at a company for more than two years.
Please understand that I say this without any malice: reading that you have been at 4 companies in 7 years tells me you're one of two things: you're a chronic job hopper who is chasing paychecks, or you sat at one job for a few years and then very quickly jumped from one place to another, either of which would be very concerning.
Any which way, it is difficult for me to believe that you have any specific expertise on anything. An average of less than two years per job says that you are at best a mid, who has junior experience times four.
A project of any substantial size and complexity is going to take six months to a year to get comfortable with to the point I'd let people start making significant solo decisions about the product.
Maybe you really do have skills, maybe you actually did well and did good work. As a person who doesn't know you, and who is jaded from seeing a bunch of people who have juniors who have a decade of experience, I am not inclined to give you (or anyone who doesn't have a referral from someone I trust) the benefit of the doubt.
I am I am thinking this way, then a thousand other people are thinking this way, and that is at least part of what you are dealing with.
The other part, which you have no control over, is that the job market has just been getting harder over the past 10~15 or so, for a lot of reasons. It's not something that a lot of people at the top like to admit, but getting a software developer job is a hell of a lot harder than it was pre-2008, and it just kept getting worse from then.
Like I said, you don't have control over that, but you're not doing yourself any favors by not having at least a couple long stints on the resume.
Businesses are increasingly hostile to job hoppers, and the labor pool is big enough that they are increasingly holding out for a unicorn.
phantom3535@reddit (OP)
Fair points, although it's a bit skewed in my case. My first job was on-site over an hour (2+ with traffic) from home and lasted 8 months (I took what I could to get in the door of tech). Second job did mass layoffs after about a year. So my third job was a 3 year stint, and I'm at almost two years with my current company.
Personally I think it takes 18 months+ to become deeply knowledgeable at a given company and all of it's various business needs, code repositories, tooling, and products. Obviously you become competent and make solid contributions long before that, but in terms of "I can jump into any problem, in any of our codebases or areas of responsibilities, and have a pretty good idea of how to solve a critical prod issue" I think it's 18-24 months.
life_on_my_terms@reddit
I feel you.
Did 10 years in this industry and I can't even stomach the thought of going back.
TDLR what you are really looking for is something exciting: a domain that you are excited about, cutting-edge or not.
My gut tells me the shops you worked at merely treated you like a blue collar factory worker, and the stuff you worked on you dont really care about and the shop's domain you don't care about either.
So now you're just putting in time, do whatever XYZ management tells you, collect your pay and moving on.
Am i right?
phantom3535@reddit (OP)
Haha. Pretty accurate. One job was an exception, the rest were exactly what you described.
life_on_my_terms@reddit
im on the same boat.
So my gut feeling tells me that doing FAANG nor grinding leetcode is gonna make your life more exciting. It's not. You are going for it cuz they pay $$$$, but won't bring the excitement and meaning you are looking for.
I'd suggest exploring a domain that you are truly excited about and see how your skills can fit in, instead of chasing the $$$ like so many sheeple do. It won't bring you the excitement and fulfillment you are seeking, i can guarantee you that
day_tripper@reddit
I want to try audio development. I have over a decade of C and C# experience. How would i switch to something like that?
horizon_games@reddit
One of the big things that has helped hold me together with professional development is having a hobby project or two on the side. Something you build in a stack you're interested in or want to explore (and is often DRASTICALLY different from what you use day-to-day at work). And something that will make a measurable difference in your life or those of your friends and family (recipe app, scheduling system, remote game, whatever).
phantom3535@reddit (OP)
I love this idea, thanks for sharing. I am ramping on a couple of things completely different from my day job and this could be a great way to leverage them.
donttakecrack@reddit
Yep, right there with you.
Similar to you, I had these early year expectations but I feel I had already tempered that at year 3.
Right now, I'd say I'm okay with being at the mercy of the industry but the interview process and amount of prep for it does drive me crazy.
bonzai76@reddit
Working corporate is always going to be somewhat stable but the work is helping someone else chase their dreams, not yours.
schmypescript@reddit
Yeah unfortunately this is sort of reality for everyone, in any field right now. Markets bad, which is really just a way of saying economy is bad, which is really just a way of saying the system we work in is bad. I'm not really saying anything new or profound, but this is only going to get worse.
WolfNo680@reddit
Right there with you buddy - what's worse is the added stress that I am the breadwinner for my household and as such being out of work for an extended period of time - which I would love to do because honestly one or two week vacations isn't cutting it anymore - is not really feasible, so I end up applying for 3 to 5 jobs a day, forget about them the minute after I apply, and end up taking the first thing offered to me because I'm just so worn down.
I'd love to work at a FAANG company one day - just for the experience but, the effort required and the time commitment for someone like me who isn't the greatest engineer means I'd have to spend months, if not a year or two studying up and even then there's no guarantee that I'd get the job, so I just keep scraping by. It doesn't help that all the tech hubs are in places that are absolutely miserable to exist in, in my opinion, so I'm just praying I can find a remote job that pays at least relatively close to a FAANG salary (or hell, at least gives me RSUs) and be happy.
AnimaLepton@reddit
I mean that's life. The best you can do is to get value from the time you spend outside of work, and long-term aim for financial independence. Live frugally/spend less than you earn, invest the difference, and over the course of a decade or two you will comfortably hit the point where you have the option to retire early or downshift.
You can dive deep/open up new referral opportunities through education, or set out on your own to make a startup or have your own services/consulting business. But those have their own risk, and in that case you're still beholden to your customers and whatever actually generates revenue, rather than indirectly beholden to the same thing through a company.
Orca-@reddit
Welcome to being an adult. Sometimes we don’t get what we want. Sometimes you need to settle for being employed.
Things are turning around right now, but you may need to compromise on location to chase the cutting edge.
As someone who has spent his career on one cutting edge or another.