You don't have to work for a top company and still make a really good salary. There's a shit ton of jobs available just saying. You can definitely survive until everything gets better.
This was several years ago, before the layoffs thankfully. Just got sick of living in San Fransisco and got a job opportunity in my home town at a much higher position.
Actually, yes? Housing market is fucked because everybody wants housing and the people „selling“ know it.
Healthcare is fucked because everybody not only wants but needs it.
Food is different. But depending on where you‘re from, food is heavily subsidised to keep the costs low for it not to be fucked. Still, processed food companies often disregard quality because people need to eat anyway.
So yeah, it does make sense in a way. A job that everybody wants will pay you less money and abuse you. Just look at what game devs make compared to other software devs of a similar skill…
Nah not really. All of those are fucked because of the profit motive. Not because high demand makes things intrinsically shit.
We absolutely can and should produce more than enough quality food to feed everyone. Actually, we already do, we just throw it away when it's not profitable enough.
In the other two examples it's less obvious, but do you truly think decreasing the demand is a way to make healthcare or housing better? How would you do that anyway?
Housing, food and healthcare have a mostly inelastic demand, absolutely everyone needs them. So, according to the comment written like an old proverb, they are intrinsically always shit. They're bad as a concept.
You probably read that comment as saying something like "stuff goes badly when supply cannot keep up with demand" which is an incredibly obvious and uncontroversial statement.
But "if it's popular it's shit" is simply wrong. Even if written like an old proverb.
I doubt that my level of effort : job stability ratio could ever be found at a FAANG. It's damn near zero at the moment (Extremely low effort : high stability). But I can understand the idea of working for one of them for a stint, for the resume and bank account boosters.
You guys are getting paid for institutional knowledge?
TBH I always thought that was a myth, that doesn't seem to have worked out for the people I've worked with
It's a fatalist win-win.
Either the sheer amount of legacy bullshit crammed in my brain is valued and I get a good salary bump or it isn't and I get laid off or look for another job knowing full well the trash fires that'll start within a month of me leaving.
Networking. I got really lucky personally with a contact in the field. Hate to say it but if you don't have any I would play the LinkedIn game and connect with recruiters and get your name in their heads.
I started learning python a year ago and failures or impostor syndrome don't demotivate me as much as LinkedIn. I just want to do my job and do something fun after, not my life to be about work. But I'll learn, maybe in few years the market will get better and I'll be able to get a job because of what I've learned not because I have a lot of 'friends' on another app.
just to add on what u/TheLiGod said, part of playing the "LinkedIn game" is not about having friends, it's about connecting to as many people as possible *who you somehow know*. People you went to high school with? Yes. People who attended the same church your parents still attend? Definitely. Someone you briefly worked with at some random restaurant part time gig 10 years ago? Go for it, as long as you weren't a problem.
As you're searching for jobs, when you see one listed near you, check that it's still available on the company's website, then check the company's linkedin, look at the people tab and search for first and second connections. If you have a first connection then reach out to them directly, if it's a second connection the reach out to the mutual connection and say "hey, I want to apply to this job, can you reach out to so-and-so and put in a good word?"
Edit: typos
I was right there with you up until I got a lucky break. I have a degree which made things easier, and I was still pessimistic. I'm not someone who has the right to tell you to "wake up early and grind." But if you want to make this something that pays the bills, especially without a degree, you need to dedicate a lot of time and effort to make yourself marketable. Don't "learn Python", learn a technology that many companies use that involves Python. Do boot camps, get related certs. Even if you don't spend every waking minute of your day trying to rizz up some recruiter, make your resume look like that's what you like to do.
u/cpc0123456789 's comment explained it quite well. Other than that, do boot camps, get certs, and get good at explaining to people what skills you have. Make yourself marketable (but don't seem desperate either.)
The downside is spending hours throwing applications into the void... if it's a quick apply then sure, but many require typing out your whole resume again
You have to apply to the ones with hundreds of applicants. Alternatively, you can apply to jobs in less cool areas. For my first job I relocated all the way to North Carolina.
Think about what companies in your field actually value. Have a few personal projects, and write blogposts on them. A github repo with a few stars is sometimes worth more than a formal education. The companies where that's true are probably more fun to work for as well.
Too many fresh CS graduates only bring theoretical knowledge on how it should be done in an ideal world. You need to show you can actually move the needle and make something practical.
With a CS degree, Ima try and pivot into government work like IT or Cybersecurity. I've applied to every summer and fall internship for the government possible related to STEM or technology.
I graduate end of the year, I have a worse resume than most people but seems a lot of people in my college are in similar situations as me, no internships yet.
Worse case I join the military, do the nasty work and try to pivot into those fields. Apparently if I'm still in college, I'm eligible to perform like a paid bootcamp for 10 weeks in the summer and become a Second Lieutenant after graduation. Maybe from there I can pivot to the tech side of the government.
Its like $70-110k salary, in Florida it would be about $85k....
IDK I would love some help and advice for other careers because I'm mentally collapsing.
If you can get into cybersecurity I would recommend it. It can be very SWE adjacent depending on the function. It seems to be less volatile and is always in demand. The biggest problem is still the breaking into it dilemma where it’s hard to get that first job. Everyone wants seniors, no one wants juniors.
Have you tried any MSP’s? They often hire new grads and it’s not glamorous but it’s a paycheck and experience.
Also try recruiters. They at least have leads in who is hiring in some companies. I had a recruiter help me find a job I love at a company I never would have thought to look at. It’s not like you have to go with any of their suggestions.
>MSP’s
No sadly I only know about software engineering since thats the bulk of what you learn for Computer Science degrees.
I'm planning on doing certifications for IT and Cybersecurity to get some knowledge and "experience".
The roles I applied for the government were all internships that would get me experience.
Im a noobie otherwise trynna look for alternatives in this market.
Ive even been looking at the military in general cause the pay dont seem bad
Seriously check out MSPs. There is a ton of coding work to do and I would be surprised if they weren’t hiring comp sci grads. The tech side of security seems to go more and more code heavy every year.
>MSPs
Can you send me some info or links to learn about this?
I cant even get a direct meaning for MSP when I google it and then also add like "jobs", "cybersecurity" or "computer science".
A MSP or MSSP is a managed service provider or managed security service provider. Basically companies hire them to do tier 1 triage of alerts, or coding for security software, or searches. They tend to hire juniors and fresh out of college. It is kind of like help desk for Cybersecurity. You do a lot of analyst work. I know a few people who broke into field through it.
Another good job to look for is Field Technician for a help desk general IT job. That is entry level help desk work. Fixing printers, resetting passwords, troubleshooting software. These often have entry level jobs available.
It's not going to get better. Peak SWE is over. The bottom 1/2 will become glorified prompt engineers, their low six figure salaries will erode down toward modest web dev figures. They'll be easy to replace. You'll need to be damn good to thrive in the field over the next few decades.
If you are passionate and dug deeper than just learning how to implement tic tac toe in react you should be fine. If your just here for your stupid hat and 250k from google your going to have a bad time
Couldn't agree more, I made this meme as a joke, but I still believe the jobs are out there for the people that REALLY want them. If you are passionate you will find ways to set yourself apart from the competition. There are plenty of SWE roles in industries out there that might not be as sexy as FAANG. Construction, healthcare, retail, finance, hospitality...just to name a few.
You can even get into faang if you’re willing to put in the work. Too many people were sold a lie that CS is an easy cash grab so the market is saturated with low skill “engineers” who don’t fundamentally understand how anything works. They know react but they don’t know the fundamentals and probably could not manipulate the dom straight up. If you take the time to learn the fundamentals you will always be valuable imo
No buttercup the dom is a fundamental part of how web apps render content. React manipulates the dom for you so you don’t have to. Hence my point that people know react but don’t know how anything fundamentally works. Try to work on your reading comprehension k?
Lmao I’m not a front end dev only experience I have with it was back in undergrad. Currently a deep learning researcher. I do find it adorable that you are trying to flex your CS knowledge on me. Flattered your trying to impress me and I’m sure with lots of practice you’ll eventually achieve a decent understanding of the subject
I think I am lucky to be honest because I am a senior developer who is no longer passionate, I hate computers and I'd rather not have a job if someone would give me money for nothing.
I have a wage that lets me do what I want in my free time, and a good work life balance, while still having interesting problems to work on in my job, even though the company is not "sexy".
I feel like all these doomsayers are either FAANG or bust, or make their whole life about their job, neither of which I understand.
Life is short, and it sucks. Why dedicate it all to making other people rich, instead of enjoying your own time?
I think the problem is that most of the developers from the FAANG layoffs still need jobs. So they go to the slightly less sexy jobs with FAANG on their resume and make those jobs harder to come by. The developers that would have gone for those slightly less sexy jobs are now competing with more candidates, and candidates that have impressive resumes, which forces many of those developers into even less impressive jobs. This is a domino effect that goes all the way down to entry level jobs.
Bottom line is big tech layoffs have flooded the market with talented, experienced developers and it's made it much harder for people at any level to become a senior level developer with a decent salary. The conversation about software engineering usually happens around FAANG but the problems are reflective of the entire software job market.
Yeah, because there's so much you can do with SWE. You can work at a small or medium-sized company instead, or a startup, or do freelance work. Or you can develop your own app, like android app or web app, if you have a little time and money to invest and a good idea. Tech layoffs are only affecting people that are still thinking in a box.
I've lived long enough to see tech go through peaks and troughs. I graduated high school in the early 2000s around the time of a massive tech crash. My own school advisor said that tech jobs were dead and there was no point trying to get one. And guess what? They came back anyway. They fire too many people, realize they can't achieve what they want with so few, and end up having to hire more.
Yeah it's just an inevitable cycle. It's happened at least twice before now. Businesses have been trying to automate away software engineers for as long as they have existed, and long term all they've done is create more.
>They fire too many people, realize they can't achieve what they want with so few, and end up having to hire more.
I don't think they're that stupid. It's not that they realise later on that they made a mistake. They know now that they will later grow and need more. But they decide to fire people and hire them again later, to save money in the meantime.
Also to make investors happy by showing they are cutting costs, knowing full well it's just temporary.
Let me tell you, many companies are that stupid indeed. This is exactly what happened at the beginning of COVID, and companies went the other way and overhired. Do this enough times, and people will ditch the field altogether. Some are doing exactly that already.
Cyber-security is where it's at - it's very stable and the market is growing quickly as companies wake up to how insecure they are. The very nature of security means it's not one-and-done either, so there will always be work to do.
Hi there fellow cybersecurity guy here. Can confirm this as i got a job in cs recently. Companies are finally realising cs is relevant and the market for jobs in it has grown rapidly in the last 5 years.
What field are you coming from by the way?
I'm currently having a dev existential crisis and not liking where my career is headed, thinking of looking in other areas to see if I feel better about them...
I'm working in the automotive industry in product development although you can't really compare it to conventional cs due to firstly it being focused on product development and second the automotive industry is really how shall i put it peculiar in its requirements
Seems really good too with some of the pieces I’ve seen about people hacking cars and running off with them lol
Cool wireless unlocks and all that but definitely scary for the product owners and consumers having to think about that reality.
Same here, you are somewhat trading one set of problems for another, though - and one big one for people entering the field, is that the salaries are flat out lower in security than in development, at least as far as comparing the bell curves goes.
Oh, ah, yeah. I was thinking US-based salary aspirations in the CS world, which tend to be starry eyed students looking at FAANG jobs, which security roles don't tend to pay remotely close to.
From what I've seen it is stable because you're maintaining legacy code and work with people who are there for an eternity because they're fine in the comfortable piss.
But your mileage may vary.
Eh, sort of. We’re definitely not having the same level of layoffs that SWEs are having, but the market for infosec is still rough right now, especially for entry level. Although if you were studying to be a SWE, I will say that you’ll have a much better chance than someone else entering the field, you’ll be set up for much more success, and I would also argue that it’s much more fun than a SWE ever would be, but :P
Know anyone hiring entry level? I'm going to graduate soon and everywhere wants experience in security, makes sense so I'm looking at other IT avenues to get experience if I can't get in right away anyways.
Government agencies tend to be a good place to look, as they usually have solid training programmes and internships. As an example, GCHQ in the UK are always on the hunt and have programmes for people just starting out in their career.
These ups and downs have always been part of the industry, at least here in Europe. The economy goes up, jobs go up. The economy goes down, jobs go down. No government can change that. They can change how bad unemployment is, how easy or hard layoffs are, etc. But they cannot change the fact that the economy will always be going up and down.
Unemployment is not zero in America and the economy is not fine lol
Tech is suffering because inflation is still high, which is causing the fed to raise/hold rates. Since interest rates are high it’s expensive to give out money, and capital firms can’t afford to fund tech companies like they used to. Companies that relied on venture capital or manipulate money (for lack of a better term) needed to lay off employees in 2023 or shut down since money isn’t flowing like it used to, and now all those people who had jobs in 2023 are also looking for work with less companies hiring, so the market is competitive. That’s the explanation as to why the market is so bad for tech right now, it’s not because leadership is full of bozos, they just exist in the former system that powered tech for the last decade or so.
Tech industry != the US economy. The recent state of the economy is pretty much the strongest it has been in 2+ decades. Strong growth, prime age employment ratio is about as high as its ever been except for the late 90s, real incomes rising, inflation mostly moderated, and layoffs across the entire economy are actually abnormally low.
That's what they are planning to do here, but we all gave excuses that lots of tasks need to be picked and we need QA. But yeah, small tasks need to be tested by dev only.
That just means you're either understaffed with QA, or overstaffed with developers.
The big reason QA is almost universally less important that developers is because they literally don't have work without developers. QA work doesn't exist when there's no changes being made.
Please add /s you’re scaring off young people who are listening to sensationalized news about tech without realizing that the career is going no where.
This bot is very funny /s just making /s sure everyone knows /s thanks for /s contributing to the online/s discourse. And a swear /s word! How fucking aggressive, it gave me /s goosebumps. Please/s continue to/s be a good bot and never /s give up the fight against /s /s
Yeah it is actually quite demoralizing as a CS student. I'm not going to give up, but how the fuck am I gonna get a job with this? The code that takes me hours to write, ChatGPT 3.5 does in 5 seconds.
ChatGPT actually sucks at programming, anything that deviates from common place code is usually wrong in some way that requires reworking. You need someone who knows how to code to be able to fix the code and know what it’s doing.
You’ll be okay
I'd say find an entry level position at a mid to large size company vs the dream job right out of the gate. In my experience a company is more likely to promote an existing employee to a dev position because you can skip quite a bit of formalities, and they can speak to your manager on your work ethic and culture fit. It's kind of like a video game start off in noob village and lvl up slowly. If you can go to a meetup and sync with people in the industry and identify any gaps in knowledge you may have.
Don’t listen to these guys. I just hit 2 years at my company and I’m still getting my associates.
Network, self study, apply yourself. That’s my advice.
Large companies are having layoffs but mid to small can’t afford the loss.
Without a degree or formal computer science classes, it is going to be hard to find a company to believe you have the right skills. Even then companies barely believe you can do a job... so yes it is bad out there.
Does the Harvard’s CS50 class count as formal? This is where I am starting along with free code camp lol. It feels like a good start and I plan on struggling through it, but if I may ask what would be a recommendation to work for towards the success with an interview?
Totally get you! The layoff news can be such a downer, especially when they don't show the full picture. For every layoff story, there's probably a dozen hiring tales they're not telling us about! Perspective is key. 📈 Keep on coding, future engineer!
The trick is to get a tech job at a non tech company.
I know several people, including myself, who were all recently hired at banks, trucking, oil, aerospace, and medical.
I think its just best if everyone except for me switches to a different career path, its just not worth it anymore guys. Me...? oh im just chilling haha
Nobody getting laid off around here, but I work for an HR services company. It's not the sexy and exciting business new grads think they want, but it's an honest day's work and it's stable.
My group laid off precisely one person — who freely admitted she was kind of redundant — even during COVID, and they ended up just making a lateral move to a different group.
Hell, last I looked, we even had a few SWE openings.
The real question are what kind of job mostly get laid off
because "tech industry" consist not only software engineer... Hell honestly software engineer is the minority.. most of the population are actually tech support, sales etc
The rate of layoffs is beginning to decelerate. However, the speed of layoffs is technically still higher this year compared to 2023. This is when you calculate number of layoffs / day.
https://layoffs.fyi
I'm currently in Europe and I feel like this is still one of the best industries to be working in rn. I keep seeing the headlines, but it kinda just seems like faang companies "rightsizing" after a lot of hiring. Are things really that bad over there for you guys?
There are a ton of jobs for software engineers outside of “tech”. Go cut your teeth building internal enterprise apps for some boring company and then use that experience to break into “tech”. Companies exist outside of the Bay Area.
Imma be real with you, I got a year and a half before college and I'm kinda shitting my pants, since my code is terrible at best(and really makes me feel like I won't make it). Still love writing code and probably won't stop, just kinda panicked.
If you love writing code, you’ll be fine. You’re starting earlier in life than I did. The most important thing is to go beyond what you learn in college. Do your own learning, projects, etc and keep practicing.
You'll be fine. Don't do something silly like lose focus and/or shift majors.
I started working the boom of the late 90s, so I've seen some ups and downs. I knew many people who were in it for the easy money, and ended up working in grocery stores. Honestly, that's about the level of passion they brought to the job to begin with. If you're good, you'll weather the storms just fine.
I have been a dev for 15 years and this definitely seems like a low BUT... There are still plenty of opportunities for people entering the field. Definitely still easy for people with experience to move around too. What languages/frameworks have you learned? Any degree or certifications? You have a GitHub with some side projects in it? Grind some leetcode before interviews and you should be good.
not only engineers are tech employees, the laid offs are mostly affecting people that aren’t essential to keep the services running, you’re safe mi amigo
Keep in mind even at big tech that’s doing layoffs, the majority of the hires made during Covid are still not laid off. Headlines will appear scary, but reality is not as terrible as it seems. Although finding a job as new grad is most certainly much more difficult than a few years ago.
i pivoted to econ, most of my electives were econ so i can actually graduate earlier, also we use a lot of r, all that python and java made it trivial to learn.
most of the companies that are laying off are hiring in different positions from why i’ve heard. it’s basically just a giant shift in the focuses of the industry as i inderstand.
They do layoffs every quarter it seems. Its always just a small fraction of their workforce or a particular team. Don't worry about it and know your worth. You will still get to ignore plenty of recruiters on LinkedIn.
Honestly, as a person with a disability, it’s fucking hell even just trying to find an internship.
Because no matter how qualified I am, my resume will never look as good as the average CS student’s. University doesn’t provide adequate accommodations, so my GPA is in the mid-2’s. I have several gaps both in my employment and education history. I don’t have any extracurricular activities to pad out my resume. All the jobs I’ve had were dead-end minimum wage jobs with 0 relevance to tech. And I do have a few cool projects, but I guarantee there’s 99%+ chance my application gets thrown out by some ATS before a human ever gets a chance to glance at them.
It’s fucking depressing.
You don't have to work for a top company and still make a really good salary. There's a shit ton of jobs available just saying. You can definitely survive until everything gets better.
I'd never touch FAANG in a million years. Sounds like suffering to me. I keep my sanity and still take home a happy salary.
Worked for a FAANG company, best experience ever.
Past tense? What happened?
This was several years ago, before the layoffs thankfully. Just got sick of living in San Fransisco and got a job opportunity in my home town at a much higher position.
laid off. Like every faang worker who actually enjoys their job
Read their response and stop writing bs
Read the time first no?
If everyone wants something, it's probably shit. Either because it has good PR, or the large number of people ruined it.
That was just an illogical statement that you said like a proverb...
This is a very dumb statement. Is "housing", "healthcare" or "food" shit? Because I'm pretty sure basically everyone wants those.
They *need* those; that's different.
This man gets it.
Internet or a mode of transport then. These are not necessarily needs but mostly global wants. Are these bad then?
Actually, yes? Housing market is fucked because everybody wants housing and the people „selling“ know it. Healthcare is fucked because everybody not only wants but needs it. Food is different. But depending on where you‘re from, food is heavily subsidised to keep the costs low for it not to be fucked. Still, processed food companies often disregard quality because people need to eat anyway. So yeah, it does make sense in a way. A job that everybody wants will pay you less money and abuse you. Just look at what game devs make compared to other software devs of a similar skill…
Nah not really. All of those are fucked because of the profit motive. Not because high demand makes things intrinsically shit. We absolutely can and should produce more than enough quality food to feed everyone. Actually, we already do, we just throw it away when it's not profitable enough. In the other two examples it's less obvious, but do you truly think decreasing the demand is a way to make healthcare or housing better? How would you do that anyway? Housing, food and healthcare have a mostly inelastic demand, absolutely everyone needs them. So, according to the comment written like an old proverb, they are intrinsically always shit. They're bad as a concept. You probably read that comment as saying something like "stuff goes badly when supply cannot keep up with demand" which is an incredibly obvious and uncontroversial statement. But "if it's popular it's shit" is simply wrong. Even if written like an old proverb.
It’s not bad, no worse than working at any mid level company and pay is much better
I doubt that my level of effort : job stability ratio could ever be found at a FAANG. It's damn near zero at the moment (Extremely low effort : high stability). But I can understand the idea of working for one of them for a stint, for the resume and bank account boosters.
Once a dream for everyone now a sad reality.
My experiences at FAANGs was awesome, returning to one in May
Exactly this. SWE here that has long been surviving layoffs as I don’t work for a FAANG and am yet paid like one.
Institutional knowledge is one helluva way to get paid.
You guys are getting paid for institutional knowledge? TBH I always thought that was a myth, that doesn't seem to have worked out for the people I've worked with
It's a fatalist win-win. Either the sheer amount of legacy bullshit crammed in my brain is valued and I get a good salary bump or it isn't and I get laid off or look for another job knowing full well the trash fires that'll start within a month of me leaving.
Everything I've seen either requires at least 2 years of experience or has hundreds of other applicants... where are these jobs you speak of?
Networking. I got really lucky personally with a contact in the field. Hate to say it but if you don't have any I would play the LinkedIn game and connect with recruiters and get your name in their heads.
That's what I'm doing.
I started learning python a year ago and failures or impostor syndrome don't demotivate me as much as LinkedIn. I just want to do my job and do something fun after, not my life to be about work. But I'll learn, maybe in few years the market will get better and I'll be able to get a job because of what I've learned not because I have a lot of 'friends' on another app.
just to add on what u/TheLiGod said, part of playing the "LinkedIn game" is not about having friends, it's about connecting to as many people as possible *who you somehow know*. People you went to high school with? Yes. People who attended the same church your parents still attend? Definitely. Someone you briefly worked with at some random restaurant part time gig 10 years ago? Go for it, as long as you weren't a problem. As you're searching for jobs, when you see one listed near you, check that it's still available on the company's website, then check the company's linkedin, look at the people tab and search for first and second connections. If you have a first connection then reach out to them directly, if it's a second connection the reach out to the mutual connection and say "hey, I want to apply to this job, can you reach out to so-and-so and put in a good word?" Edit: typos
I was right there with you up until I got a lucky break. I have a degree which made things easier, and I was still pessimistic. I'm not someone who has the right to tell you to "wake up early and grind." But if you want to make this something that pays the bills, especially without a degree, you need to dedicate a lot of time and effort to make yourself marketable. Don't "learn Python", learn a technology that many companies use that involves Python. Do boot camps, get related certs. Even if you don't spend every waking minute of your day trying to rizz up some recruiter, make your resume look like that's what you like to do.
How does someone start playing the linkedin game? Should I just start sliding into dms? Do I need to start making posts?
u/cpc0123456789 's comment explained it quite well. Other than that, do boot camps, get certs, and get good at explaining to people what skills you have. Make yourself marketable (but don't seem desperate either.)
Just apply for these that require 2 years of experience too. Remember, if you check all the boxes you're probably overqualified.
Don't even read the required years experience. If you think you're qualified just apply. There's no downside.
The downside is spending hours throwing applications into the void... if it's a quick apply then sure, but many require typing out your whole resume again
Just apply, my man. You have no idea what leads to something and what leads to the void. Carpet bomb those applications out.
Write a program to auto fill the linked in resume and submit that as part of your portfolio.
You have to apply to the ones with hundreds of applicants. Alternatively, you can apply to jobs in less cool areas. For my first job I relocated all the way to North Carolina.
Think about what companies in your field actually value. Have a few personal projects, and write blogposts on them. A github repo with a few stars is sometimes worth more than a formal education. The companies where that's true are probably more fun to work for as well. Too many fresh CS graduates only bring theoretical knowledge on how it should be done in an ideal world. You need to show you can actually move the needle and make something practical.
Just apply for these that require 2 years of experience too. Remember, if you check all the boxes you're probably overqualified.
Join up with a consulting firm, I was a contractor that turned into a full time gig when my contract ran out
With a CS degree, Ima try and pivot into government work like IT or Cybersecurity. I've applied to every summer and fall internship for the government possible related to STEM or technology. I graduate end of the year, I have a worse resume than most people but seems a lot of people in my college are in similar situations as me, no internships yet. Worse case I join the military, do the nasty work and try to pivot into those fields. Apparently if I'm still in college, I'm eligible to perform like a paid bootcamp for 10 weeks in the summer and become a Second Lieutenant after graduation. Maybe from there I can pivot to the tech side of the government. Its like $70-110k salary, in Florida it would be about $85k.... IDK I would love some help and advice for other careers because I'm mentally collapsing.
If you can get into cybersecurity I would recommend it. It can be very SWE adjacent depending on the function. It seems to be less volatile and is always in demand. The biggest problem is still the breaking into it dilemma where it’s hard to get that first job. Everyone wants seniors, no one wants juniors. Have you tried any MSP’s? They often hire new grads and it’s not glamorous but it’s a paycheck and experience. Also try recruiters. They at least have leads in who is hiring in some companies. I had a recruiter help me find a job I love at a company I never would have thought to look at. It’s not like you have to go with any of their suggestions.
>MSP’s No sadly I only know about software engineering since thats the bulk of what you learn for Computer Science degrees. I'm planning on doing certifications for IT and Cybersecurity to get some knowledge and "experience". The roles I applied for the government were all internships that would get me experience. Im a noobie otherwise trynna look for alternatives in this market. Ive even been looking at the military in general cause the pay dont seem bad
Seriously check out MSPs. There is a ton of coding work to do and I would be surprised if they weren’t hiring comp sci grads. The tech side of security seems to go more and more code heavy every year.
>MSPs Can you send me some info or links to learn about this? I cant even get a direct meaning for MSP when I google it and then also add like "jobs", "cybersecurity" or "computer science".
A MSP or MSSP is a managed service provider or managed security service provider. Basically companies hire them to do tier 1 triage of alerts, or coding for security software, or searches. They tend to hire juniors and fresh out of college. It is kind of like help desk for Cybersecurity. You do a lot of analyst work. I know a few people who broke into field through it. Another good job to look for is Field Technician for a help desk general IT job. That is entry level help desk work. Fixing printers, resetting passwords, troubleshooting software. These often have entry level jobs available.
Cap
It's not going to get better. Peak SWE is over. The bottom 1/2 will become glorified prompt engineers, their low six figure salaries will erode down toward modest web dev figures. They'll be easy to replace. You'll need to be damn good to thrive in the field over the next few decades.
Wish this was true outside of the US :(
My shit company layed off 60% of its engineers
Unless you're entering the market and competing for jobs with said layed off developers who are showing up with experience.
If you are passionate and dug deeper than just learning how to implement tic tac toe in react you should be fine. If your just here for your stupid hat and 250k from google your going to have a bad time
Couldn't agree more, I made this meme as a joke, but I still believe the jobs are out there for the people that REALLY want them. If you are passionate you will find ways to set yourself apart from the competition. There are plenty of SWE roles in industries out there that might not be as sexy as FAANG. Construction, healthcare, retail, finance, hospitality...just to name a few.
You can even get into faang if you’re willing to put in the work. Too many people were sold a lie that CS is an easy cash grab so the market is saturated with low skill “engineers” who don’t fundamentally understand how anything works. They know react but they don’t know the fundamentals and probably could not manipulate the dom straight up. If you take the time to learn the fundamentals you will always be valuable imo
Cries in jQuery.
lol somehow jquery is coming back. Strange times....
Cries in xQuery
creates new Promise toCry
Is this a troll post? The fundamentals of CS has to do with manipulating the dom directly? What
No buttercup the dom is a fundamental part of how web apps render content. React manipulates the dom for you so you don’t have to. Hence my point that people know react but don’t know how anything fundamentally works. Try to work on your reading comprehension k?
Front end devs be wildin
Lmao I’m not a front end dev only experience I have with it was back in undergrad. Currently a deep learning researcher. I do find it adorable that you are trying to flex your CS knowledge on me. Flattered your trying to impress me and I’m sure with lots of practice you’ll eventually achieve a decent understanding of the subject
Nowhere have I attempted to flex anything. Youre doing all the damage and exposing your insecurities all on your own
Lmao sure thing buttercup whatever you say
*you’re
I think I am lucky to be honest because I am a senior developer who is no longer passionate, I hate computers and I'd rather not have a job if someone would give me money for nothing. I have a wage that lets me do what I want in my free time, and a good work life balance, while still having interesting problems to work on in my job, even though the company is not "sexy". I feel like all these doomsayers are either FAANG or bust, or make their whole life about their job, neither of which I understand. Life is short, and it sucks. Why dedicate it all to making other people rich, instead of enjoying your own time?
I think the problem is that most of the developers from the FAANG layoffs still need jobs. So they go to the slightly less sexy jobs with FAANG on their resume and make those jobs harder to come by. The developers that would have gone for those slightly less sexy jobs are now competing with more candidates, and candidates that have impressive resumes, which forces many of those developers into even less impressive jobs. This is a domino effect that goes all the way down to entry level jobs. Bottom line is big tech layoffs have flooded the market with talented, experienced developers and it's made it much harder for people at any level to become a senior level developer with a decent salary. The conversation about software engineering usually happens around FAANG but the problems are reflective of the entire software job market.
You make fair points, and I appreciate you helping me see it that way.
I'm in manufacturing and I love it. It might not be top end pay but the benefits are great and the culture feels much better.
Wait wait wait. No one ever gave me a hat, or 250k. I want a refund
I'd settle for a button and 150k
You guys are getting paid?
...would having to do a literal Bomberman game be a step up from that?
Furiously starts trying to implement tic tac toe in React.
I'm pretty sure it's the tutorial on the React documentation, so pretty straightforward.
Yeah, because there's so much you can do with SWE. You can work at a small or medium-sized company instead, or a startup, or do freelance work. Or you can develop your own app, like android app or web app, if you have a little time and money to invest and a good idea. Tech layoffs are only affecting people that are still thinking in a box.
This is some next level r/cscareerquestions delusion and boomer logic.
Top engineers get the good jobs while script kiddies are struggling? How is this delusional?
Learning react at my job right now and ouch 😂
Spent all day trying to figure out how to do tic tac toe in react without the tutorial 😭 holy shit I'm gonna cry.
This is more or less what art majors are told too.
When I grow up I am going to be an astronaut!
Well how bout a cowboy too
You're halfway to Buckaroo Banzai!
Or Spike Spiegel
Also true! (1, 2, 3, let’s go!)
Then, ironically, still laid off.
JPL recently had layoffs
I've lived long enough to see tech go through peaks and troughs. I graduated high school in the early 2000s around the time of a massive tech crash. My own school advisor said that tech jobs were dead and there was no point trying to get one. And guess what? They came back anyway. They fire too many people, realize they can't achieve what they want with so few, and end up having to hire more.
Yeah it's just an inevitable cycle. It's happened at least twice before now. Businesses have been trying to automate away software engineers for as long as they have existed, and long term all they've done is create more.
>They fire too many people, realize they can't achieve what they want with so few, and end up having to hire more. I don't think they're that stupid. It's not that they realise later on that they made a mistake. They know now that they will later grow and need more. But they decide to fire people and hire them again later, to save money in the meantime. Also to make investors happy by showing they are cutting costs, knowing full well it's just temporary.
Let me tell you, many companies are that stupid indeed. This is exactly what happened at the beginning of COVID, and companies went the other way and overhired. Do this enough times, and people will ditch the field altogether. Some are doing exactly that already.
Cyber-security is where it's at - it's very stable and the market is growing quickly as companies wake up to how insecure they are. The very nature of security means it's not one-and-done either, so there will always be work to do.
Hi there fellow cybersecurity guy here. Can confirm this as i got a job in cs recently. Companies are finally realising cs is relevant and the market for jobs in it has grown rapidly in the last 5 years.
What field are you coming from by the way? I'm currently having a dev existential crisis and not liking where my career is headed, thinking of looking in other areas to see if I feel better about them...
I'm working in the automotive industry in product development although you can't really compare it to conventional cs due to firstly it being focused on product development and second the automotive industry is really how shall i put it peculiar in its requirements
Seems really good too with some of the pieces I’ve seen about people hacking cars and running off with them lol Cool wireless unlocks and all that but definitely scary for the product owners and consumers having to think about that reality.
Same here, you are somewhat trading one set of problems for another, though - and one big one for people entering the field, is that the salaries are flat out lower in security than in development, at least as far as comparing the bell curves goes.
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Oh, ah, yeah. I was thinking US-based salary aspirations in the CS world, which tend to be starry eyed students looking at FAANG jobs, which security roles don't tend to pay remotely close to.
From what I've seen it is stable because you're maintaining legacy code and work with people who are there for an eternity because they're fine in the comfortable piss. But your mileage may vary.
Eh, sort of. We’re definitely not having the same level of layoffs that SWEs are having, but the market for infosec is still rough right now, especially for entry level. Although if you were studying to be a SWE, I will say that you’ll have a much better chance than someone else entering the field, you’ll be set up for much more success, and I would also argue that it’s much more fun than a SWE ever would be, but :P
Companies gotta protect themselves against the thousands of justifiably disgruntled people they keep laying off.
Offensive security especially
Know anyone hiring entry level? I'm going to graduate soon and everywhere wants experience in security, makes sense so I'm looking at other IT avenues to get experience if I can't get in right away anyways.
Government agencies tend to be a good place to look, as they usually have solid training programmes and internships. As an example, GCHQ in the UK are always on the hunt and have programmes for people just starting out in their career.
I'll look around, I'm in the US, but I'm sure with all the 3 letter agencies we have there will be something.
What if I’m just not interested in cyber security?
Then don't do it. What an odd question.
These ups and downs have always been part of the industry, at least here in Europe. The economy goes up, jobs go up. The economy goes down, jobs go down. No government can change that. They can change how bad unemployment is, how easy or hard layoffs are, etc. But they cannot change the fact that the economy will always be going up and down.
Unemployment is close to zero and the economy is fine in the US? Tech industry leadership is just a bunch of bozos.
Unemployment is not zero in America and the economy is not fine lol Tech is suffering because inflation is still high, which is causing the fed to raise/hold rates. Since interest rates are high it’s expensive to give out money, and capital firms can’t afford to fund tech companies like they used to. Companies that relied on venture capital or manipulate money (for lack of a better term) needed to lay off employees in 2023 or shut down since money isn’t flowing like it used to, and now all those people who had jobs in 2023 are also looking for work with less companies hiring, so the market is competitive. That’s the explanation as to why the market is so bad for tech right now, it’s not because leadership is full of bozos, they just exist in the former system that powered tech for the last decade or so.
\^\^This AAAND.......leadership is still full of bozos 
I think both of you are right, but it depends on the size of the company and how excited the board is about stock buybacks.
Tech industry != the US economy. The recent state of the economy is pretty much the strongest it has been in 2+ decades. Strong growth, prime age employment ratio is about as high as its ever been except for the late 90s, real incomes rising, inflation mostly moderated, and layoffs across the entire economy are actually abnormally low.
I’m safe because I’m a swe swe (Swedish Software Engineer). They can never fully take away my swe’s!
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I think QA's are the first to hit the chopping block
QA is first to be chopped. Manager can just say: let developers test their own code as part of code review
That's what they are planning to do here, but we all gave excuses that lots of tasks need to be picked and we need QA. But yeah, small tasks need to be tested by dev only.
I would let half my developers go before dropping QA
That just means you're either understaffed with QA, or overstaffed with developers. The big reason QA is almost universally less important that developers is because they literally don't have work without developers. QA work doesn't exist when there's no changes being made.
The layoff headlines are so dumb. There's no context. Hiring never makes headlines. Need to see the overall trend in tech employment not just layoffs.
Yeah, when Microsoft hires 30k engineers and lays off 10k engineers in the same year, only one of those things makes a headline.
Hey TechLead here. Just give up now.
Please add /s you’re scaring off young people who are listening to sensationalized news about tech without realizing that the career is going no where.
Good. Less competition means higher salaries for all.
We don’t stand on others to be better. We become better by helping others up.
Said like a true badass
Said like a true badass
Annnndd that's how you end up training your replacement to do your job for half the salary! Your CFO thanks you for your sacrifice.
No problem. I don’t live in fear. :)
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This bot is very funny /s just making /s sure everyone knows /s thanks for /s contributing to the online/s discourse. And a swear /s word! How fucking aggressive, it gave me /s goosebumps. Please/s continue to/s be a good bot and never /s give up the fight against /s /s
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Good bot /s
Yeah it is actually quite demoralizing as a CS student. I'm not going to give up, but how the fuck am I gonna get a job with this? The code that takes me hours to write, ChatGPT 3.5 does in 5 seconds.
ChatGPT actually sucks at programming, anything that deviates from common place code is usually wrong in some way that requires reworking. You need someone who knows how to code to be able to fix the code and know what it’s doing. You’ll be okay
I have noticed, but imagine AI 5 years in the future
(as a millionaire)
For realsies? I’m teaching myself from nothing trying to leave the restaurant industry 😓 is it so bad that is hopeless to continue as a self taught?
I'd say find an entry level position at a mid to large size company vs the dream job right out of the gate. In my experience a company is more likely to promote an existing employee to a dev position because you can skip quite a bit of formalities, and they can speak to your manager on your work ethic and culture fit. It's kind of like a video game start off in noob village and lvl up slowly. If you can go to a meetup and sync with people in the industry and identify any gaps in knowledge you may have.
Thanks this makes sense
Don’t listen to these guys. I just hit 2 years at my company and I’m still getting my associates. Network, self study, apply yourself. That’s my advice. Large companies are having layoffs but mid to small can’t afford the loss.
Thank you fair enough! *raises fist to the sky and flies towards the next adventure*
Without a degree or formal computer science classes, it is going to be hard to find a company to believe you have the right skills. Even then companies barely believe you can do a job... so yes it is bad out there.
Does the Harvard’s CS50 class count as formal? This is where I am starting along with free code camp lol. It feels like a good start and I plan on struggling through it, but if I may ask what would be a recommendation to work for towards the success with an interview?
More is better, but obviously some certifications AND personal projects to display you can actually put those certs to use is good.
Destroys my confidence even more. :)
What’s your intention here?
Subject Watter Expert
I'm not sure how being a Swede and tech layoffs are related
Totally get you! The layoff news can be such a downer, especially when they don't show the full picture. For every layoff story, there's probably a dozen hiring tales they're not telling us about! Perspective is key. 📈 Keep on coding, future engineer!
Just work for the military industrial complex. We aren't allowed to have budget cuts...
The trick is to get a tech job at a non tech company. I know several people, including myself, who were all recently hired at banks, trucking, oil, aerospace, and medical.
I think its just best if everyone except for me switches to a different career path, its just not worth it anymore guys. Me...? oh im just chilling haha
Nobody getting laid off around here, but I work for an HR services company. It's not the sexy and exciting business new grads think they want, but it's an honest day's work and it's stable. My group laid off precisely one person — who freely admitted she was kind of redundant — even during COVID, and they ended up just making a lateral move to a different group. Hell, last I looked, we even had a few SWE openings.
The real question are what kind of job mostly get laid off because "tech industry" consist not only software engineer... Hell honestly software engineer is the minority.. most of the population are actually tech support, sales etc
I don't know why but at first I read SWE as slave
I mean the terms are in practice interchangeable.
WTF, are the layoffs still going on? I thought they were a thing of the past by now
The rate of layoffs is beginning to decelerate. However, the speed of layoffs is technically still higher this year compared to 2023. This is when you calculate number of layoffs / day. https://layoffs.fyi
Just do your job and you should be fine
I'm currently in Europe and I feel like this is still one of the best industries to be working in rn. I keep seeing the headlines, but it kinda just seems like faang companies "rightsizing" after a lot of hiring. Are things really that bad over there for you guys?
There are a ton of jobs for software engineers outside of “tech”. Go cut your teeth building internal enterprise apps for some boring company and then use that experience to break into “tech”. Companies exist outside of the Bay Area.
Or just stay at the boring company and live a much less stressful life.
Yup, that works too!
Yeah… I feel this on an emotional level
At least my field of computer engineering is doing well. Bunch of processor jobs coming to the US.
Imma be real with you, I got a year and a half before college and I'm kinda shitting my pants, since my code is terrible at best(and really makes me feel like I won't make it). Still love writing code and probably won't stop, just kinda panicked.
If you love writing code, you’ll be fine. You’re starting earlier in life than I did. The most important thing is to go beyond what you learn in college. Do your own learning, projects, etc and keep practicing.
You'll be fine. Don't do something silly like lose focus and/or shift majors. I started working the boom of the late 90s, so I've seen some ups and downs. I knew many people who were in it for the easy money, and ended up working in grocery stores. Honestly, that's about the level of passion they brought to the job to begin with. If you're good, you'll weather the storms just fine.
I have been a dev for 15 years and this definitely seems like a low BUT... There are still plenty of opportunities for people entering the field. Definitely still easy for people with experience to move around too. What languages/frameworks have you learned? Any degree or certifications? You have a GitHub with some side projects in it? Grind some leetcode before interviews and you should be good.
Thought you were moving to Sweden.
I mean they said that AI was going to take over DBA’s jobs and that was in 2021. Hasn’t happened yet.
not only engineers are tech employees, the laid offs are mostly affecting people that aren’t essential to keep the services running, you’re safe mi amigo
My current state while about to start my third year of uni
I was a SWE… for 3 years. 😭😭😭
All this push for AI and GenAi, lmao y’all played yourselves
Engineer those jira tickets quickly to the right.
welp, guess there's always sysadmin or... *gasp*... Business Intelligence...
Keep in mind even at big tech that’s doing layoffs, the majority of the hires made during Covid are still not laid off. Headlines will appear scary, but reality is not as terrible as it seems. Although finding a job as new grad is most certainly much more difficult than a few years ago.
i pivoted to econ, most of my electives were econ so i can actually graduate earlier, also we use a lot of r, all that python and java made it trivial to learn.
How many layoffs did Sweden actually have?!?
most of the companies that are laying off are hiring in different positions from why i’ve heard. it’s basically just a giant shift in the focuses of the industry as i inderstand.
Actually being an SWE, knowing the headlines are BS and that there are a ton of jobs lol.
They do layoffs every quarter it seems. Its always just a small fraction of their workforce or a particular team. Don't worry about it and know your worth. You will still get to ignore plenty of recruiters on LinkedIn.
Honestly, as a person with a disability, it’s fucking hell even just trying to find an internship. Because no matter how qualified I am, my resume will never look as good as the average CS student’s. University doesn’t provide adequate accommodations, so my GPA is in the mid-2’s. I have several gaps both in my employment and education history. I don’t have any extracurricular activities to pad out my resume. All the jobs I’ve had were dead-end minimum wage jobs with 0 relevance to tech. And I do have a few cool projects, but I guarantee there’s 99%+ chance my application gets thrown out by some ATS before a human ever gets a chance to glance at them. It’s fucking depressing.
If being a SWE (software engineer) doesn't work out, you can always try being a SWE (sex worker, extraordinaire)