I was laid off & can't find work (as a software engineer) (Longer Rant)
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- Опубліковано 2 жов 2024
- I already made a brief video detailing this situation (that you all loved!) so I’m once again opening up about my being laid off as a software engineer but with way more detail. I take you through my ups and downs, the challenges I've faced in finding new opportunities, but also in general as I debate continuing in this field. I also detail my (ideal) vision for a future in software engineering... but nothing is set in stone
Here’s what I’ll be discussing:
The Layoff: Details on how and why I was laid off, and my initial reactions.
Job Search Struggles: The difficulties I've encountered in the current job market, the hurdles of finding work and interviewing.
My Technical Strengths: Highlighting some of my skills, expertise, and the projects I’ve successfully completed.
Past Work: A deep dive into some of the work I've done so far, including key projects and accomplishments.
Future Goals: The kind of work I’m passionate about and aspire to do moving forward.
Industry Gripes: Honest insights into what I don’t like about the tech industry and how it could improve.
This video is not just about the challenges but also about perseverance, hope, and the pursuit of meaningful work. I hope my story resonates with you and maybe even helps those in similar situations.
🔔 Don’t forget to subscribe for more personal stories, career advice, and tech insights: / @jaulpanos
👍 Like this video if you find my journey relatable or insightful!
💬 Join the conversation: Share your experiences or advice in the comments below. How have you navigated career challenges?
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Thank you for watching and supporting my channel. Your encouragement keeps me going!
#SoftwareEngineer #LaidOff #JobSearch #TechIndustry #CareerJourney #PersonalGrowth
Once again thank you all for the comments and thoughts. I'll try to go through as many of them as I can. Some of you have already said some really nice and or practical things and I appreciate it! Idk if I'm glad to be connecting with so many people over this unfortunate situation, but I am glad to be connecting with you all
EDIT: I'll be making a follow-up video to respond to some of the comments!
Any interesting in pivoting to AI and ML?
Ah, I just watched the last part of your video.
For ML and other AI topics. Spend more time working on projects and learning basics. It is just a basic tool like state machines, trees, dynamic programming. Spend some time using langchain or llamaindex with RAPTOR based RAG. Something simple and get your hands dirty. This will give you energy and excitement. Algoexpert does have a basic machine learning component if you get a discount on the package.
You got this! I mean you already got hired once, you will do it again. It might not be today, unfortunately, but you can do this
@@askholia thanks for the kind words!
nobody asks an experience accountant to do an hours worth of tax-planning on the spot with eyes watching, nobody asks a heart surgeon to crack open a chest during a live Interview ... why do software engineers put up with this nonsense ?!
PREACH 🙌
There’s a huge culture of elitism and superiority around the ability to solve these specific types of problems, since that’s all it takes to get into FAANG. Meanwhile, any good engineer is too busy building and maintaining the success of their company to play with toy problems. Companies, often afraid of bad hires, turn to FAANG’s interview techniques out of fear because “it must be a good way to evaluate candidates or FAANG wouldn’t do it”.
Well probably because they don't have books called become a heart surgeon in 21 hours that you can just read and claim you know how to do the job. To be heart surgeon you've gone through tons of schooling, residency and whatnot to back up your claims.
For software engineering you don't need any of that and to be honest, probably not for accounting either.
To be honest, I feel a lot of people that are "software engineers" probably don't fully live up to that title. Part of this is due to a number of factors, stack exchange/github where you can just copy and paste code, easy mode languages where you don't really have to any deep understanding of computer architectures, memory allocation, data structures and algorithms, etc...
Now, to add fuel to the fire, you have LLM's that will write the code for you. Granted it's terrible code for the most part, barely complies and for the use cases I've thrown at it gets it completely wrong. But people are relying on it and other things like copilots and what not.
So yeah given all that, I can see the need for coding interviews to see if you can actually solve problems.
Because there are a lot of frauds/imposters. But I still agree with your point
Right ... every interview do this Question and make this type of function lamb lamab so on..
Its not possible to write the code exact the same that's you want everycode need time for implementation. This want human become ai so its work as cheap price so one buy expensive ai tools
They need to get rid of:
-Cover letters
-Unpaid take home assignments
-Nonsense theoretical questions
I'm lucky that I've never had the second one before. But I've given up on cover letters. Definitely need to do away with the third one!
I prefer a short take home assignements to being asked a ton of leetcode. It all depends.
@@opa-age why’s that?
@@Thepippinator2 because it takes hundreds of hours to get ready for difficult leetcode. Take home projects are usually not a problem if you are a good engineer and are a good fit for the role.
I agree , a 2-4 hour take home is not bad and can quickly show your skills, but the live coding I hate because after the fact I always remember something I could of done better. With a take home I can take my time and do a much as I like
I enjoy writing code, but I can't stand the industry.
I do feel the same I am Just a begginer though but I started foi rmyself to build something for me, I cant Take the idea of Being in from of a computer in a Office while the timing is slipping past out there.
It's ironic when coal minners went extinct coders where all shitty saying #learntocode . Now coders are facing the same shit. #learnplumbing
@@deliveryproductstore7548 lol you are so stupido man
@@TheThetruthmaster1 It's what happens to a career when everyone got a degree in it and everyone grinding leetcode. Then the degree and the leetcode no longer can help distinguish the quality and becomes less valuable. :/ IMO all SE need a specialization because simple coding task can easily be replaced by automation through AI. Gotta have a specialization also to distinguish yourself from the 50k other codes looking for jobs.
Look into the singularity group volunteer group. They work on projects with the intention of doing good in the world. plant based food and accommodation is covered.
They will destroy you in the interview. You could be the most brilliant programmer, but when they put you in front of that whiteboard...they will say things like, "Technically, your answer is correct. But it wasn't the answer we were looking for." The interview is a way for the current employees to blow off steam by roasting a potential candidate.
One of the best programmers I ever met warned me about the interview process. He said the panel interviews were brutal.
😂. What is this take? Yea, we're so pissed off at work we want to roast random people who are in the same field as us. Your comment deserves to be on Reddit.
I spent 2 days interviewing with Google in Mountain View, CA and yeah it was one of the worst experiences of my career.
"Sir, in this field technically correct is the best kind of correct. It's clear you are in desperate need of someone like me."
I was going through a divorce and lost my job in the early 2000's. It was the first time I didn't get a job right away, it almost took me 6 months and I was months away from living in my car. Scary time for me. I managed to get a job at a startup in LA and it went for almost a year and then I got back in a normal full time job. I had one interview in San Jose and the head hunters stopped calling after I failed one interview. I was lucky the economy came back but it could have been a depression that lasted longer. All I can say is this is the best thing in one way, you will save money after you get back one your feet. I remember a guy that worked at HP and was asked in a interview what the cost was for a electronic component and he failed the question and didn't get the gig. He was living in a barn on a friends farm for almost a year. He got back on his feet too. hang in there.
It's the American Dream.
@smallbluemachine You got to be asleep to believe it.
This is quite the story. But when things like this happen, it just makes you appreciate the little things that much more. So glad you got back on your feet! I will too (eventually lol)!
Perhaps its just my personality style but looking back over my career (I'm 54 now) going broke and climb back on my feet was the only times i truly felt alive!!! Whenever I was making good money for too many years in a row I may as well have been dead ..something in me was temporarily lost. Its probably this: Stressing about getting job/money/staying alive is like a video game providing you have no wife/kids. You are one man in a world of characters, its a war, and you need to fight.
@@stoneneils I have to say it's the same for me. I have to say it was a challenge to get back on my feet. I've noticed when my job got too predictable I would move on. I'm close to retirement and my job right now is a great place to work so I've stayed. I can promise I wouldn't have been on a corner with a help me sign. I would have done something to get by.
Software engineering is an extremely scary, unstable industry… I’ve had +30 jobs over the past 20 years, with dozens of “vacations” in between to recover between “jobs”. Been reinventing myself every 2-3 years to stay on top of the new techs. Extremely exhausting as you get older. Only escape route is to set up some sort of passive income/investment and move to become a “manager” ASAP and then just try to survive. Why so many no longer even dare to start a family. No stability anymore, no matter your skill level
Makes me think I should have learned plumbing or construction instead. Now every single SWE job requires 5-10 skills exclusive to that job (e.g. Azure, React, BigQuery, Kubernetes) and you must have perfect memory of all aspects of them, else you will fail the interview. You know React, but not Angular? T-SQL, but not BigQuery? Never worked specifically in Insuretech/Health/Industrial Automation. Off you go.
Thanks for the insight. This is very frightening to me... I've been thinking about trying something else for the long term, maybe I'll pivot
Yeah, you have to keep learning things that will be outdated very soon, only to repeat again.
@@cadcad-jm3pf That's my plan too. If programming ever become untenable, I think I might try welding. It's something I dabble with on the side.
@@cadcad-jm3pf I moved to software engineering from the trades (painting/plastering a bit of carpentry. It's a big thing right now - learn a skilled trade! Always have a job! EXCEPT it's not easy to become a plumber or a carpenter. And it's very hard on your body. People I know still in the trades 50+ are finding it harder and harder.
Yeah coding interviews absolutely suck for anyone other than recent graduates. They always ask you some question that someone would realistically spend a day coming up with a solution that will work forever, but they want you solve the problem in 15 minutes while being watched.
I saw an AI constant have requiring 12 years of AWS cloud experience. Most of AWS didn't exist 12 years ago...
Where do you have money for travel after paying for housing in US tech hubs?
Yup. Also, when I was called to the white board, the engineer who interviewed me presented a very cryptic problem (with a weird accent) that I had only 20 minutes to solve in Python. It took me 16 minutes to wrap my head around what I was being asked to do. Then I could not finish the problem at the end of the 20th minute, and it bothered me so badly that I went home with it and tried the coding out myself. Finally it was just nothing more than a bunch of calls to the os and subprocess libraries to get to different locations in the target's persistent memory to open some files for reading and execute corresponding binary files mentioned in the files read. It was like coding in a sweatshop. I knew then my brain could not think that fast under that circumstance. Such is life.
I have been in this field for over 20 years. I can’t even recall one time where we used any of these algorithms. When we interview, we don’t give tests. We just go through a candidates experience, why they like doing what they’re doing, etc. these software interview questions today are a load of shit.
you guys are rare. Although, I enjoy leetcode but still I find it hard
and now they're asking new grads system design as well
IT hiring is like dating apps for the average male.
Women are the employers. You are the candidate out of many who might get lucky.
Lol this is true
@@GoonCity777funny because most hr is women 😂
I feel 'ya. Back in 2012 I was laid off after 22 years as a Senior Software Engineer. I was laid off on a Friday and by Monday, my job appeared on the company job listings at half the salary I was getting. I spent a year applying for jobs with no luck. Finally, I just decided that it was time to call myself retired.
If you're old it's a double-whammy.
You have magnificent beard!
In short, they paid you too much😂
Right there with ya brother. I got outsourced after 25 yrs as a Telecom (VoIP) engineer. Here we all are laid off with years of experience that bring value to the industry and yet can't get work but some girl can be interviewed on the street and talk about spitting on a guys junk and she's making millions... What a country we have right?
@@quademasters249agreed. This decade taught youngsters to hate "boomers" and blame them for everything. These kids end up as hiring managers and look at you with contempt when you show up at the interview.
Yeah Apple laid off our team two years ago and I still can't find work. Now live in my parents basement at age 34, lost everything, wife left me, and can't provide for my kid. Car repo'd last week. Zero money in my bank account and can't transport anywhere. Life kinda sucks. I will own a mistake I made with a margin call too. Lost about 200K in savings thinking I could cover the call with my salary. And for those who say this is bs.. wake up. Layoffs have been soaring since 2022. First big tech now the rest. Banks are failing and you are the problem if you think that things are roses right now.
Dude.. you couldn’t be a server or something meanwhile? A CS teacher at a school?
@@briani466 From my experience (similar position to dj), I was laid off from companies closing 4x in the last 3 years. I had to make my own company, and skill up in 3 different domains, just to even have a (pitiful) paystream.
@@briani466 right? have been applying non-stop. Hopefully you don't find yourself in this situation because it's not easy out there.
I’m so sorry to hear that. There have been a lot of casualties like this in tech, with no way out
@@monkeyshinserman you are a good human. good karma headed your way
I e been working at a job for over a year and I’m moving to a new team. They just gave me an assignment Thursday, they want done by Monday. Expecting me to work over the weekend to build a fully functional web store with login and register, shopping cart, use web sockets, make it scalable, write tests, allow for product search and more. I’m not getting a raise or a new title. This is a placement test for a company I’ve worked at for a year plus. When asked, they basically want me to do something while they set up my accounts for this new team. Not review code, documentation, or shadow a team member. They want me to do a dam evaluation test….
Best part though, all this crap is on the internet so I’m literally going to copy someone else’s work and modify it to have less features so I get placed at a lower position so I have less responsibility. Because why look like a genius when I get the same pay as a fool.
It's a goddamn insult! I ran C++ libraries at a Microsoft, then later a Principal in MSR. Been CEO of multiple startups. Then went to do some contract at Tom Tom and they start giving me questions on the Pythagoras theorem. I'm completely done with this industry. I don't need it. I have been doing advanced crap since the 70s and kept on top of the field. Everything from distributed database design to advanced graphics engines and AI. Get out of here with this low level interview crap. Whatever. Now I make music and have fun. Screw those people. I'm with you brother. Take it easy. It's their loss not yours. ❤❤❤
100% agree. The title "software engineer" portends status but is meaningless as you get older. I saw an experienced software developer treated like crap at my last company because of his age. He complained that his wife made more as a triage nurse. There is nothing more shameful than getting into this field. Now I just make silly videos and apps that feed users bad human attributes. I don't care anymore about ethics in my app or anything at all.
@dollarette Hehehe your alright mate 👌 🤣 👍 Love it ❤️ It just takes a while to come to terms with but we get there. I still get moments when I accidentally pay attention and want to shout "wtf are you doing!" to the whole industry, but not my problem anymore. I'm also happy making my silly music videos and text games of Hammurabi with GPT agents as the citizens 😂 they really start to cooperate when you unleash a natural disaster!! lol. You take it easy man. We're alright ❤️❤️💫
@@jumpstar9000 darn it took me a decade to figure this out. The IT industry has failed because unlike law, mechanical engineering, architecture, medicine, accounting.. well let's say ANY field requiring an education... there is no governing body for software workers. The field devolved into a nightmare of exploitation with only a few in the USA working for the largest companies, treated reasonably well with stock options. I don't even know how well they are treated. Glad you also discovered this truth. My child will definitely have nothing to do with the industry.
The fact that you have significantly more experience than me but still had to go through the same bull crap, scares the hell out of me. Maybe I need to pivot 😂 glad you are now enjoying being out of it!
@jaulpanos Hah, well, I had a good run. It wasn't all bad for a long time. It started sucking around 2012 and progressively went downhil from there. Meetings to talk about meetings. I got so sick of it that I stopped showing up for work at some point as a test, and nobody even noticed. That confirmed things were bad. 😅 It isn't all bad, of course, I'm sure there are pockets of fun everywhere. I think the best thing to do is pivot to not taking things so seriously and wasting the best years of your life chasing a Fugazi. At least if you know things are broken, at least you can entertain things with a bit of a wry smile. :-)
The sad reality is that since 2021 the number of laid off went from 151,000 to a total of 500,000 over 4 years. Structural unemployment is the great transformation coming to the tech field. The new book, The Bubble That Broke the Bank argues that hi-tech is one of the first victims of real estate crashes.
Take a pay cut and I'm sure there will be jobs. Can't demand 200k/yr jobs when harder working engineers in India and Asia will work for 1/4 the pay
Tech is a cesspit from top to bottom and across different branches. Get out while you stil can. You're still young enough to make a total switch.
ah shit I make a mistake choosing computer science route 💀
To what? Everything sucks.
@@trancendental5373 medicine and law are much better.
@@trancendental5373 exactly. I would also like to know to what, and what about us who are not young but still far from retirement age.
I’m in the UK and have been out of work for 11 months. I’ve never seen the market this bad for developers. Good luck to you.
Are they doing massive layoff in the UK too?
I wanted to persuie masters in CSE in UK as it's much cheaper than American but is it actually worth it? Or should I change my field to management and join MIM program in UK? I can't do MBA because I have 0 work experience and about to graduate next year in bachelor's degree so I can do MIM
@@Jaffy. TBH I don't know. I've not seen any reporting about it. I think it's mainly a hiring slowdown, and/or the industry is shifting money to AI engineering (which is not that easy to break into if you are say, a web developer like me). There's definitely jobs out there, but 100s apply for each position. In my own case at my last job, I was let go individually, but so were all the other recent hires at that job, and they backfilled with contractors.
@@calvinripley9093 I don't know that I can give reliable advice. I personally think software engineering as a career has maybe 5 years left tops. I hope I'm wrong, but I know of at least 5 software engineering AI startups. I think software design and QA might remain viable but the codemonkey aspect will likely be taken over by AI. Also, if you have your own startup ideas you might be okay (and probably empowered by AI). But in general I'd advise to do something that you find fulfilling (and hopefully it pays the rent).
Everyone looking to for jobs … why not help others with the talent ? Why not make your own software ? Why rely on others to create jobs and not help make jobs ? Why not create videos that teach? Why identify and put your self in a of by identifying as software engineer / coder / dev ? There is much more to it and logic does it come so on from knowing maths as there is real world scenarios where I have seen the smartest people become victims of their own mindsets
The problem with software vs other jobs is that there's infinite ways to do things and the rate of change is fast.
If you are a doctor, knowledge changes but the human body is still the same.
If you are a physicist, chemist, traditional engineer, the laws of the physical world doesn't change.
If you are a lawyer, most of the legal system stays the same, some laws changes but not at a breakneck speed and the language stays the same.
If you are a software engineer...Hardware change, cloud tech changes, new tech everyday, new programming languages and tooling all the time, stuff done differently in every company. Sure some basics like how computers work and general control flow stays the same but everything else keeps changing
I've been at it for a long time in hands-on software development and even though things are always changing, there are general concepts about architecture, design, and problem solving that carry over time. Regarding medical doctors, the human body stays the same, but the work and schedules are typically very demanding and largely unforgiving in that they have to get it right with minimal mistakes because they're dealing with living patients, whereas in software we can often try different things with impunity, depending on the type of environment we work in. And software development does not require a massive investment in education and training to be qualified for the profession, as with doctors and less so with lawyers. It's a matter of what fits for the person.
Its like that Boards of Canada song, the constants are changing.
The constant change is what I liked about programming. Although it's a desk job, what you work on day to day can change dramatically. Also, you learn how to learn quickly. It helps to be thrown into new tech, get confused, then get a formal class. All the questions get answered. So I guess that was on the job apprenticeships. It was great. The cream always rose to the top.
Now the interview process doesn't allow on the job learning. They're asking new hires to know everything before walking in the door.
@@mettamorph4523 It has been like that since the 1990s, really. Companies don't want to sink money into a trainee who could then take a better offer several months later. I had worked as a programmer in some unusual proprietary languages from 1988 to 1995. I discovered that even though I thought "code is just code" that employers demanded specific training. I re-applied to a local college in 1996 (even though I already had a Comp Sci degree) just so that I could compete against other interns - and get some cash going again, and learn some marketable entry-level skills. Thankfully I learned enough VBscript and SQL on my own to surf into a few more jobs later.
Absolutely. Doctors and Nurses are in demand all the time. US/CAN/Middle Eastern countries do all paperwork for foreign nurses and doctors, because of heavy shortage.
And what abot it? We saw not only Linux/Mac/Windows, but 3 major cloud platforms not include baremetal. And as developer the one can't be the best in ll 3 platforms.
I think you are delusional. But no worries so am I :D
At least we are self aware 🤣
Honestly at this point if you’re smart enough to get a cs degree and have a software engineering job before. It’s best you learn some trade as a backup like being an electrician or hvac technician. It’s about to get pretty rough boys
How much can one person possibly do just to earn a stable income? Bro is an engineer, that alone requires full time attention
@KazuhiraMiller-e7o He is not telling you to do that in your free time. He is saying to learn one such skill so as to be prepared just in case.
Quit my job over a year ago in one of those, "quit and get a nice severance or possibly get laid off later" situations. 12 year long career, been everything from a frontend web developer to a platform engineer. After a few months of looking for jobs, and 2 incredibly insulting interviews where the interviews arrived late and insisted I was a junior despite my experience (being a woman in tech is very fun), I started doing freelancing. Work is slow, and truthfully, I'm living mostly off my savings. I am debating swapping out of tech entirely. I taught myself how to code 20 years ago when I was 13. Tech has been my life's passion. The market right now is just insanely demoralizing.
Wow, I'm sorry to hear about your experiences. I can empathize with your struggles but glad you're at least able to freelance. Maybe you could take this opportunity to try something outside of tech! That's where I'm at rn
I don't think being a woman is the issue. The industry is plagued by ah with huge egos who barely know about tech but are good at manipulating people, unfortunately
@@jaulpanos Thanks man. Yea, I'm considering that. A lot. I hope you're able to find success in whatever you choose next. Things are wild out there.
@@Jaime-eg4eb I'm not trying to pin the entirety of my negative experiences on me being a woman. If someone is going to be an asshole in the first place, yea, I am going to get caught up as much as anyone else. I fully agree that the industry has propelled too many egotistical people into positions of power.
@@Jaime-eg4eb This! It's hunger games there now 😅
I would never, ever, suggest people study computer science. The more experience you gain, the worse you're treated as the technology outpaces you and employers consider software engineers as too old. Always choose a field that values experience, where knowledge elevates your status. The only way out of this shameful situation is to start a software company and hide behind a computer interface charging for every service. Be ruthless: over charge and underdeliver, string your customers along (especially those without technical knowledge), then close up your business or get another customer. Invest all your savings.
Software engineers face age discrimination?
@@boratsagdiyev522of course they. I am 50+ , and I see that. My sister is 50+ but she is doctor and the older she gets the more money she makes. My brother is lawyer, 60; and he charges now more than when he was 30. If I am 18 now, I would never go for IT / sw engineer
Hell yes! Older people are (should be) wiser, and so they kick us out before we catch onto their next scheme. There is truth to the expression "young and dumb". It doesn't mean stupid or poorly educated, but not yet street-wise to the sh*t people do.
@@boratsagdiyev522 Yup. A lot of startups are very gimmick focussed and are derisive about "dinosaurs" and their "old" technology i.e. established practices and frameworks/languages.
@@calmhorizons A lot of startups fail, more precise about 90%+, so I wouldn't consider them environments with good decisions making or good management. If you want to understand how software engineering is perceived look at the big companies and form your opinions based on that.
Sorry for what you are going through mate. Many company have unrealistic scenarios when it comes to interviews. They google some hard question and bring some concepts that nobody uses or cares about in real life.
I feel you bro. Layoffs are the worst. I got laid off in March, and the tech industry is in a plight right now.
I've been a developer for 7 years. In full stack web apps, we only use JSON/dictionaries and lists of JSON objects.
THAT'S IT!!!!
even in my personal projects, its just queues/lists filled with object IDs or dictionary objects.
I've never heard of anyone i know IRL that has used a link list, binary tree search, etc (including other Senior software engineers)
That's wild but can relate, in my first job I exclusively used dictionaries in Python to organize a lot of the data and objects I was working with
I'm a newgrad and I implemented a BST in my open source project since I needed the data to be sorted while having no duplicates. Pretty cool datastructure.
In my 12 years of experience used a bst twice and DFS once
A mates partner spent 2 years going through various contacts and interviews with Google. After getting the job he did work that was the embedded software equivalent of turning a html button from blue to red. After a year or so of that he got retrenched in the great cull of ‘23. Having worked for Google will look good on his resume but that’s about all he got out of it.
I remember years ago companies requiring "8 years experience" with x ..... When "x" was only in the market 4 years.
Just a bunch of human resources turds cutting and pasting buzzwords.
Well over one year following redundancy here without a single offer of work. Over ten hard fought years of experience across web stack, plus some embedded systems experience and an honours degree. Had to make the crushing decision last month to leave the space. The market is broken. Employers and hiring managers in this space have proven themselves by and large to be reckless, callous, short sighted and greedy. As the saying goes, it is often the scum that rises to the top.
I was a software tester in the 2010s. Took a job in 2013 at a company which demanded even QA people do technical support, and anything else they could throw at you. Was let go because I couldn't cut the mustard after 18 months. My career started tanking, and never recovered. Left it in 2017 and never went back.
so what are you doing now?
My previous employer was moving, taking the grant money with him, and laying off the entire office(well, he offered some of us to move but wouldn't pay for our move so I declined).
So, I applied to literally 1,000+ jobs over 2 months. I ended up getting 3 offers... It's rough out there. But I'm glad to have found a new job that pays 50% more than the last, started 3 weeks ago.
I have learned a lot from my many interviews, a lot of it actually comes down to just being able to socialize well, memorizing interview questions, and being honest with your shortcomings and how you'll overcome them. I didn't have issues with algorithm questions.
Like you said, you NEED to study. Some need to study more than others, I'd try to understand the logic behind anything you learn so that you can make assumptions/theories when similar things appear. I have used my vast knowledge A LOT in interviews, but I preface my answers with "I don't know x exactly, but I assume it's y because of z." If your answer is correct, then they know that you are logically smart regardless of being book smart. Being logically smart lets you catch onto many things quickly.
PLEASE APPLY TO JOBS FOR MULTIPLE HOURS A DAY! Do not be lazy. Keep applying, write cover letters, and adjust your resume. It's just a numbers game. They hire social fit over skill fit. They'd rather hire someone they enjoy that can grow than someone who only knows how to do their current role.
For the first week, I applied to every job posted in the last 2 weeks. Then, every morning I applied to every new job that I was a good fit for and that gave good benefits/pay. I just set it to the past 24 hours, adjusted responses/resumes/cover letters, then applied.
I'll sub to see how you do!
@@KevinEF
Underrated comment, but this is what it pretty much boils down to. It's literally just a numbers game.
@@russeldioneo5187if the numbers game ain't working, try something else
No it's not. It's just that there's no work and capitalism is about to fail @@russeldioneo5187
The Interview Process for Tech Jobs is just ridiculous, and has nothing to do with what we actually do on the Job as Software Engineers. I have never had to write a binary search tree algorithm to loop through all the nodes in a perfectly balanced binary tree and log everything on the console. It's just so ridiculous that we focus on only Algorithms and Data Structures instead of core knowledge like what's an API, can you find and read Docs, how do you go about solving BUGS, how do you break down big Jira tickets into smaller subtasks, how would you implement a more distributed and scalable cloud solution for large applications, etc.
But, all we focus on is silly Leetcode questions that have no basis in Reality.
Honestly, I love pages like this because this feels like real stuff people should know.
Yes, totally agree. These dummies sitting in that interview chair hardly know stuff. They google questions and ask us to code it 🙄
The interview process, particularly for a front end dev definitely doesn’t match the everyday reality of the job. Having to know algorithms for the interview when the realistic everyday work is “hey, can you move that image up 10 pixels?” Is maddening.
@@jeyzur That's wild to think about
not sure why interviews don't plunk you into a legacy codebase and ask you to track down the bug .. then the way to fix it is not to figure out the best dsa: it's to figure out the most seamless way to integrate the fix with the existing code so it's understandable while meeting requirement. the score should be based on how easy it is for someone else to figure out wtf you did. seems more relevant to work i have had as a dev
I've noticed that the job searching experience of my fellow software engineers is very different and much more difficult than my own. I was part of the layoffs, like everyone else, but I'm a senior platform engineer, a subset of DevOps with about 15 years experience. Most of my technical interviews were very hands-on, emulating my real-life work experiences, which was a pleasant surprise; I was expecting the usual LeetCode stuff. Not to brag, but it was easy to get interviews, and I stupidly even forgot that I had one in all the mess and missed it. As a result, it didn't take long to find my next role.
Not saying you should change, but the experience has hinted to me that there is a skill shortage disparity between traditional software engineers and more operations-based roles.
That's interesting to hear. What kind of skills make up these "operations" type roles?
I have also noticed this. I’ve been able to 5x my regular programming output with AI tooling, but when I try the same with cloud solution architecture and devops I 0.25x my output with all the wasted time.
To name a few, my experiences involved using Linux, Kubernetes, AWS, GitHub Actions, etc. I am involved in managing production environments, building pipelines, and development environments for the software engineers.
Glad to hear that you found a new job so quickly! It definitely has to do with your years of experience, and I agree that pivoting into the operations-based roles was a good move. I'm not opposed to something similar, but I guess we will see how things play out for me
@@MrKpinganot to be intruder but could I contact you to learn more about the Ops field? I am a software engineer with 4 years in backend. Really appreciate your time
Imagine an employer after 5 interviews: 1 guy/gal knows his shit, 4 have a master and experience but fail. Whom do you choose? Coding Interviews don’t go away so better get good at them. Sitting at home solving puzzles for lots of cash is an attractive job.
Coding interviews are different than DSA interviews. Most companies need someone who can come in and work in angular, react, c#...not someone who can invert a binary tree. However, tons of companies want to interview like google and end up missing out on a lot of candidates or making bad hires. For example, I read about an guy who was ex google and ex apple. He was hired by a fortune 500 company as a senior software engineer and in 4 months produced nothing because he struggle to learn their practices and stack. He was also over engineering the parts he was assigned to the point it never made it to production
Enjoy then your employee that had to waste weeks learning tests instead of real work.
This mindset hurts us all
Until your ass gets dragged back in because companies do not like to see their real-estate unoccupied. Wake up and smell the coffee.
I graduate college next year with a degree centered around AI, not software, but I’m so nervous about finding my first job. Your story is not the first I’ve heard and they all also had over five years of experience. I’m in my late twenties, so I haven’t been able to afford to get an internship. It’s a stressful time for tech workers right now.
Bummer dude. AI is really just a design pattern and what they say it can do will never happen.
should have picked up the core subjects bro. ai is best left to PhDs.
Remember when they told everyone to “learn to code”? Well, companies don’t hire novice coders. Even experienced programmers are getting laid off.
I’ve been a software engineer for over 20 years. I was laid off last month. I have always struggled with interviews even though I’ve developed many things. I refuse to do any leet code or other type of riddles during the interview process. I rather become a plumber. I will continue trying to get a job but will also try to start my own software business. If that doesn’t work I will leave the industry which regardless, only has 5-10 years left before most code and systems are designed by some sort of AI, controlled by some AI handler. One AI handler could replace 50-100 software engineers.
refuse to do leet code but you claim you know programing, youre a sham. do the code or go shovel shit 😂
I support this....I would like to join you in this new venture... creating a start up company.
Your understanding of software engineering and AI perhaps explains why you were let go.
@@theveryhungryghost4077 essentially yes, because for every one of ‘him’ I can find you 10 others who actually understand software engineering and AI who have companies (including yours truly) still contacting them regularly in a supposedly tough job market. If you are a good software engineer, you are eating well and are not fearing for your job, the LEAST from AI.
spot on... I feel the same.. I'm a Java developer with college, certifications and all stuff you can imagine.. I just hate this idea of job interview.. I now have a stable job but I keep planning to change careers to truck driving honestly
I have almost 20 years experience and i still get asked these questions.
What i do now is i give the coding project 4 to 8 hours and turn in what i have. If they care about it being done then they should pay me. If it takes longer than 4 to 8 hours then it isn't worth doing.
8 hours unpaid work for an interview that you may lose? That is way too much. If they expect 8 hours of unpaid work even before knowing if they hire you, imagine the amount of unpaid work they demand after hiring. So I avoid these from start.
I have over 13 years of professional experience and it took me more than a year to get a Job, Yes you are delusional to think "I have 5 years of experience", it doesn't matter how much professional experience you have, algorithms require extensive practice that you can't get at a job. I have denied any request by recruiters that use codility or test gorilla for assessment
one year ? I don't even know what any algorithm, data structures or O notation is and got 2 contracts in under 3 months as a startup. Either you guys are not as good as you think you are or are just bad. I just made programs in C/C++/Python that solves real problems and are robust. All these guys doing leetcode and learning useless stuff and not actually spending time writing good software is the main issue.
This. As if I'm not wasting enough time with all the recruiter crap without take-home assignments or some similar bullshit.
@@raptorate2872this makes no sense. You use algorithms and data structures even as a beginner coder.
@@raptorate2872I doubt you are writing high quality Software if you dont know the fundamentals. If you own a startup, and you convienced people you can do the job then thats awesome. As your project grows, you are going to need to learn all those algorithms or you code going to become extremely slow the more your data grows. Customers will want to speed up an query or sort massive email list once those companies grow. You need to know how fast your code is running and how to speed up the processing. Building projects are a must without them you wont evem get an interview. Passing the coding test is another skill. Based on what you written, you would not pass these tesr because you would not know where to start.
In the end, I believe the better path is working for yourself for job Security.
@@raptorate2872I've been thinking about this lately. As in should I focus more on exercises etc or on projects
Wow that's crazy. I'm 8 months into my first front-end dev job. If you're not worried about getting a huge salary you should come to Japan. They are hiring people with 1 year of self study and people who went to 2 month boot camps.
Japan has very long work hours, I worked for a Japanese companies and regretted working there, no work life
hey can you tell more on this? im working as a front end same as you (8 months) is there a language barrier there?
Doesn't sound legit. I have 8 years of experience and a degree in CS. Applied for jobs in Japan many times and did not receive any feedback whatsoever.
Doesn't sound real, from what I know it's not that easy for us to get a job there
@@cadcad-jm3pf Having at least some conversational Japanese language skills is a plus. And already being in Japan helps. But Japan-dev and tokyodev (websites) have jobs listed that will hire from overseas.
20+ year veteran here: if you truly don't enjoy coding to the point where you can't bring yourself to get into a side project learning something new, if that doesn't sound fun to you to the point that you seem offended at the idea, then long term this probably isn't the industry for you because you're going to have to go through at least a few rounds of reinventing your skill set before you retire.
No one enjoys half the mess we do. It’s not just coders. You just also proved a point and outcome of what all this is for, to drive people to learning. Going to learn is probably back at a school then online learning. They purpose of all these moves is to keep learning in college on its last leg for the next 10-20. Government already is informing nationally going to “college” isn’t a requirement this year slowly to the masses….college owners want to get paid….
I'm mostly a freelancer (with a small web/mobile dev agency) who has been living the turmoil that is having variable income for 13 years (not easy), I was considering some full-time position for more stability, but to be honest, If I don't have many clients at some point, I will very likely be coding some side project, I enjoy coding and learning the new tools/apis/sdks/whatnot, it's tiring being so much time in front of a computer, but like, if I have no work, i'll surely be creating work for myself, talk to friends, look around, being a dev means you can solve real world problems, and there are Many, if that's what you want, better say, if that's what you enjoy doing.
So I absolutely agree here. If you don't enjoy spending free time around new languages/software/sdks/devTookits, be it using/experimenting/contributing, this industry is probably not for you in the long run.
Follow your passion.
if you don't enjoy doing this I would imagine it is painful to force yourself to learning. I find it all fascinating and my youtube is full of tech videos that I am listening to and watching. I am a college dorp out. Self taught. Not that smart but I find it all interesting and love to keep learning the new things and that helps me at job interviews.
I'd like to see marketing people or accountants doing "side-projects" in their FREE time. Software developer is just another boring office job, like any other. It's difficult to get, is paid badly (outside of Silicon Valley) and definitely does not warrant you whole life energy being invested into it.
@@cadcad-jm3pf being boring is something of a personal choice for yourself not for all
so you still have to do leetcode even after having 5 years of experience. that's fked up
10+ years experienced dev here. Laid off about 7 months earlier. Still asked to do leetcode, hackerrank, testgorilla by various top companies in Pakistan. Its sad to see your hardwork go to waste and that too without your fault. I've done it all, backend frontend, devops, managing tasks and teams and now Im supposed to study and recall DSA and other academic stuff to prove my experience like dude WTF really?? Applied to hundreds of jobs got some interviews done but then got rejections for expecting too high of a salary ☹️ which I know is false as I did my research before applying for industry average. At this point Im honestly fed up and thinking of leaving software engineering forever
@@danythegrappler+1. I am 30+ years in software development and really full of that b/s of endless learning, certifying etc. my friend is a truck driver by Walmart and makes $95.000 / year
@@zoranpavlovic3319 Its disheartening to know that people having more experience also are going through the same nonsense in this field as I am.
Actually, the farther out you are from college graduation, the harder it is to take the code challenge like leetcode. It's simply because software engineers work on the same boring stuff and attend boring meetings day after day.
@@kenchu5900 Exactly we don't program to solve obscure academic material in our daily jobs then why we are evaluated on basis of such B.S its mind boggling. No Sir what we are doing is attending daily meetings scrums, status meetings, client meetings, working on creating and managing devops pipelines and git branches, managing junior resources and guiding them to deliver the sprint tasks, Working on securing the applications and coordinating with offshore teams on performance and automation, We are not solving some stupid sorting/searching algorithms. If required we work on Concurrency and custom algorithms which are specific to a business but No these HR people focus too much on whether or not a Senior developer can solve a linked list or binary tree SMH and if you cant for obvious reasons you are terminated from probable hiring process :(
Hello, me again. I agree with you, but it's similar to school. You have to learn what you don't want to learn in order to move onto what you do want to learn. Maybe give that book a read while you work on your photography?
Remote work has erased all boundaries of the hiring process. Now it feels like winning a lottery 😮
Not when you are planning to retire in first world country. The pressure to save is almost immediate.
Cracking the coding interview is outdated, the best thing for you to do is pick a plan like the Blind 75 or the Neetcode 150. I recommend the Neetcode 150, there are video explanations for every problem, and it is very comprehensive.
It doesn't matter how much experience you have, this is just how it is. None of us can control it. Just play the game, and try to get something out of it, try to see the Leetcode style problems as a challenge and as a way to develop general problem solving skills.
If you can get past that, your experience will shine through and get you higher TC or a higher position.
Yeah the fact that he was using C++ for a Leetcode problem and then saying he wasn't that comfortable with C++ was a big warning flag.
@@opa-age He said it himself his experience is basically working on tooling and traveling. Issue is that people in tech are suppose to work and learn on their free time or just be super intelligent.
This is probably not the profession for him.
Also if you dont brush up on a language before a test you will fuck up.
I am an expert with my language of choice but tests are sometimes done with older version or new versions. Just brushing up on those differences can take a while. Especially for major changes, ie changing how data structures and string manipulation works.
Yeah thankfully i am seeing some changes outside of FANG. FANG is still all leetcode but i had a interview at a smaller company who asked me to write a game of Tetris. It was a fun challenge.
yes they fire people in one day no notice and they expect you to give them 30 days or 2 weeks notice before you leave
Rookie mistake. You never turn down a job offer, because your current company is simply not going to give you a proper raise.
So don't want to be harsh but if your company is not doing well your #1 priority should be looking for a new job not planning vacations.
I would disagree. He likes travelling and photography. He was preparing for a new period in his life without realizing it. I went out of my programing job because of burning out. Payment was relatively high but I just got mad at ever having to discover how the system works and what is the plan. For ten years I had been working on a project of my own. I devoted all my time to it after I left the last employer. I brought my idea to a conference. I applied for a grant. I founded a one person company. I know now that time is required to make changes in your own life. When you work 9 to 5 your brain is just consumed by your boss. The brain has a limited capacity to grow new axons. If you give some of the capacity away for your employer, less is left for starting your own business. I don't live in the USA though, so my situation is different from yours.
@@odiiibo Nobody is talking about you and nobody cares about your particular problems.
If your company isn't doing good and you need the money, is not vacation time, Period
@@FellTheSky you are 2 extremes of the same coin... One too conservative to save money and not focus at all on vacations, which is good advice but like odiiibo said if he likes travelling then working just enough to afford travelling is the ticket to happiness.
The other extreme is pointing out the importance of independent thought and financial independence, but that is when you're properly invested in yourself for a long time, not something you do overnight when you're about to hear you're being laid off.
Maybe he did, but at the same time he needed a vacation, too. Nothing wrong with that.
I think with the "Covid-19" the tech jobs went on the rise due to people going full online, and since it was a very fast and extreme change the industry was imbalanced (more offers than demands) and we can see that with the videos about people being laid off, those videos are very common nowadays. So my take in all this is maybe (a big leap of faith with this maybe lol) since a lot of people are being laid off, the industry will balance itself at some point and it will be easier to find jobs.
And yeah, you shouldn't be taking coding interviews if you have even +3 years of experience(let alone 5), that's just plain wrong. I was a watching a hispanic youtuber sharing a story about a girl who had 10 years of working experience and CS Degree and every company was requesting an interview. I think HR Departments need to know that you can even code without knowing how to code, coding is not sitting down and doing a software from the get go like they watch in movies.
I can put dirt into my coffee machine. The dirt will act as a filter. Doesn't mean that dirt is a good filter. Same thing with LeetCode. LeetCode is just an extremely low effort way of coming up with a sandbox problem for candidates to solve. These DSA problems were relevant when you were in university, learning DSA and preparing for the exam. But outside of school, the smallest percentage of engineers will have to dabble with these structures and algorithms. Most of us will use prewritten library code that has optimizations for these structures built into it. That has optimized these algorithms. You won't spend your time analyzing these structures.
Folks - I'm 71 years old, still workin in the 'tech' industry (we used to call it computer programmer in the mid-70s - lol) - y'all just need to ride out this downtrn... it prob is worse than the 2000-2001 downturn, but I'm 50 years in this business, it will flip, likely in late 2025, and yuo'll all get more offers than you know what to with - semper fi
I appreciate your optimism, I literally know nothing or know what to expect. I hope you're right!
@@jaulpanoshe is. Less of us, more mess is here to clean up. Eventually it will collapse 😅
Check hacker news. This comes from your mates. How long do You think we can be over worked and under budget till it collapse?
Banks softs are terrible too.
Dude. I have 25+ years of experience and I still have to play the game and go through those types of interviews. I've worked with over seven startups and NEVER NEVER NEVER are any of those coding tests a reflection of what the job is actually like ANYWHERE. But that's the game and you just have to suck it up and prepare and do your best. It's sad but true. The other thing that is true is that these types of interviews very much screen out anyone with untreated, possibly undiagnosed, ADHD (specifically impacted working memory and drifting focus). And that's just the way it is.
The key indicator that there's something wrong is the fact that a whole cottage industry has popped up to serve the crowd that needs to prepare for these coding, design, architecture interviews. That book that you mentioned (Cracking the Coding Interview -- by Gayle Laakmann McDowell) just fits into that puzzle. In most cases, you will not be prepared if all you do is read that book.
“I shouldn’t have to do that since I have 20 years experience” - I’m still being asked to do the same BS tests with 25 years prof experience and 40 years programming experience and still failing 50% 😅
That's how software industry is, we never know if we actually finish the complex tax
Leet code problems are NOT what you will be doing at your job lol. Maybe you can ask that to a junior/trainee position to filter out the whole crowd tryng to land a place but doing that to a embedded systems developer? LOL no way he is ever using that sh*t
It took me 15 years of hard slog and low pay as a software engineer in order to become "established in the industry". After this I worked contracts that were obtained mostly by word of mouth. The interview process shifted from me explaining why I am the best person for the job to, well, them selling me the Job as if I were sitting there wondering, why should I work for you? I think the best approach is to take a job, any job, any pay. It is easier to find a better job when you are working than it is to find any job when you are not.
In 20 years of professional software development experience I have never seen a data structure built outside of a college classroom. It's like asking house builder to cast his own nails from iron ore.
That was a very honest talk; I appreciate it. Those coding interviews are just a low-hanging fruit for a bad or lazy interviewer who is incapable of actually extracting the nugget of gold from the candidate in a conversation alone. If they see a coding challenge as being required at all, they should always allow for the interviewee to talk through the problem instead, explaining the steps that are necessary to solve it. The actual writing of the code is only the last 20% of software development anyway, and sometimes they require a language you're not yet fully familiar with. It is silly to over-emphasize this part to the degree we're doing it.
Anyhow, I hope things are looking up for you, and you're doing well out there. Best of luck!
My first 15 years in tek my interviews were often white boarding a complex problem I had solved. After that it became the type of test a 1st semester comp sci student would take. Meanwhile there are virtually no entry level positions for young grads. Best thing I did was shift over to GIS, it opened a whole new career path for me and I prefer working in science not business. Be nimble and not afraid to explore entirely new directions.
Actually, I find this video extremely interesting. I hear a lot of “I don’t want to do…”, “I shouldn’t have to…”, “I don’t really care for…”.
The answer is to develop your own idea, get funding (or use your own money), develop the product, and be your own boss. Then, if/when your company is successful, you can set your own hiring standards.
Making it easier for those of us that are willing
I don't understand why companies are so bad at interviewing. Nobody can figure out a good way of screening applicants when there are so many. As someone who's been on the hiring end, I've seen teams get starstruck by charismatic candidates, and dismiss others who had a great background for the job. Ultimately they end up with subpar choices and people who would really be good at the job get filtered out by the lousy process.
Many people call themselves software engineers but they can't code - so stop complaining and spend time to brush on all the skills you are lacking - you may 5 years of experience or 5 years of the same experience
You’re 26?! I would’ve guessed you were in your 40s haha. That’s a compliment btw
me too! Lol
sounds like an insult 😆
recently laid off too. I agree, those types of interview questions are ridiculous past a certain number of years experience. As is daily standups because "Oh, that's Agile, Jeff". That's not agile.
Currently in my first dev job but it’s a really stagnant position, team isn’t great etc ( I appreciate I have a job). No idea how I’d make the time to brush up for interviews, build a new portfolio etc whilst working a full time job. Evenings and weekends but could see my health nose diving if I have to do 6 months, 24/7 at my desk… it’s mad
You basically have to start your own company if you don’t want to deal with this.
Or wait for another tech boom.
I have 5 yoe but no degree, finishing up my BS degree but maybe i will also get an accounting degree for the job stability.
The process is completely broken. It’s too exhausting to even talk about. I have over 10 years of experience and haven’t been able to find a job for over a year.
That's the issue with those stupid programming problems. They are not good indicators of talent. Now imagine being asked those questions after you have 20 or 30 years as a working software engineer.
- I wanted to go to Thailand and Peru but those are the only two vacations I planned THIS year, oh yeah and also I planned on working remotely and travel the US.
People like you are in for a very rude awakening.
These were my thoughts exactly. Companies don’t want their software engineers running around the world.
I'm an almost 40 year old software engineer, entrepreneur as well. I work for a startup currently and a small company that contracts with the local government. No benefits, and the startup has failed to the point they can no longer pay for the work, literally....second time it has happened. AI, eventually, sooner rather than later is going to take over this space, like many others. We are just proverbial coal miners in this industry. It's not going to get better, just way, way worse. It's quite ironic that tech built a system to make themselves essentially useless. Chew on that for a bit...
C++ is one of the hardest languages for code interview, but your language of choice also depends on the position you are applying for it. If you can choose a language go for Python. In my case I use Kotlin.
Same deal here. Laid off. Major company. Frontend. Ridiculous take home projects, with unrealistic timeframes. No feedback afterwards, just the most generic of "thanks but no".
Lots of competition too. I see one job go up on linkedIn. Day later there were over 100 applicants. So what can you do? Low ball yourself? Lie on resume? Situation screwed. It's all going full stack. I'm going to learn to drive a bus.
As a hardware person, I can tell you might have a bit trouble to transfer your skillset to embedded, because embedded systems is so much more than just programming on C. It also includes knowledge of hardware - such as how to built circuit to interface with sensors/motors/other subsystems. If you have EE degree, that's more possible.
And yeah, most interviews right now for software is related to LeetCode, for hardware/embedded - it's both actually. =) At least software guys have something to prepare! It's much easier already if you know they will ask you in interview, so you can take some time to prepare.
For hardware engineer - it could be anything - circuit design, embedded programming, LeetCode, motor control, signal processing, robotics, etc. I got once both interviews - hardware interview and software interview. 😂 Sometimes it's a whole day of craziness of different topics in interview.
I pivoted to the company who decided to do a test paid project with me instead of traditional interview. However, this approach is not scalable cause you can't do projects for 10 companies!
I did assignment and got an offer, literally the next day I got another offer from another company I did not need to do assignment for. I took the second offer ofc.. the mistrust is not that cute. One must ask self if the manager will clock your performance also once you have accepted.
Hell yeah man!
The reason these jobs are so hard to find and the environment is so bad is because these large corporations have been laying off Americans, then replace them with imported H1B visa workers moved from India. Where I've seen it, they now only hire 100% Indians. It is an attack on Americans ability to work and start families and erode the asking salary across the industry. They can treat people like crap because there is so much labor supply. They know exactly what they're doing.
I do uber eats and code my own software. If i make it i make it, if i dont, well i only work part time so could be worse.
“I can’t find a job in my industry”
“Learn to code bro”
“I am thinking of an Arts degree”
“Haha idiot, do computer science, you’ll never be out of work”
I guess people took the advice and now your being out competed by those who are younger, hungrier and will spend the time to grind the interviews, take a lower salary.
It’s been like this in other fields forever, welcome to the club. Sorry.
That code challenge with the 2d arrays is stupid as fuck.
And don’t give up. Not all dev teams make their candidates go through arbitrary code challenges that we rarely ever use on a daily basis.
I completely agree. The interviews don’t make any sense.
Interviews are worst everywhere... Not sure why interviewers are asking to write code even for experienced.... Its tough to remember syntax
Don't feel to bad brother. I use to be a Telecom (VoIP) engineer with 25 yrs experience coding in unix, C++, Java, Perl, and Python, got outsourced and could not get back in. I went from being highly needed to suddenly overqualified. I am currently teaching Python and block style coding to middle schoolers. Education only ones that would hire me and that is only because of my MBA....Outsourcing has got to end. We can't keep giving away our tech jobs to overseas cheap labor. They will eventually get to Trades as well. As I've said before, when no one is making any money then who buys the $500 PS5 or Xbox????
I started scientific programming about the 1960s and there were periodic layoffs back then too.
Join the military , get a government job , become a police officer , think outside the box
And then grow the hell up
Life’s hard -and isn’t fair - you live in a predatory capitalist society -
The sooner you accept these things the better of you’ll be
This is just all too common now. I appreciate your story and insights. Wish everyone the best.
You'll always know more about your last job in your next job so dont waste time reflecting now. Get hungry about solving enterprise needs and your skills will fall in line. Employers dont want to hear that you're not interested in dedicating more time in you're craft because you've already dedicated 7 years, i think you said.
You're 26, so at least father time is on your side.
I have a PhD in pure math, I am working as a full time lecturer at a well known university in Manhattan and make 70K a year. I work on yearly contracts. If my contract is not renewed, I will have to teach part time for the rest of my life (yes, once you lose a full time position, no way to get another full time again Academia sucks much worse that what I hear about software engineers. I am trying to learn Python and learn data science. I am over 40. It seems I will never retire. I just wanted to let you know that there are people doing much worse than laid off software engineers. I mean well, good luck..
thanks for validating my decision to drop the PhD after finishing the masters. got a kind of semi-professional job, really glamorous and pays lots of money.... just kind of tiring, some nights, but...love it!
I also have a Ph.D. in math, and I have a tenure position at a state university. Academia has its perks, a more flexible schedule, long breaks, travel to conferences, working with students, but the pay is definitely better in industry. I always thought that software engineers make 500K plus stock options, they work crazy hours, but they can retire early as multimillionaires. But apparently that's not always the case. I also learned Python and a bit of data science recently, cause it's very popular these days. Phyton is not bad if u can already code in another programming language. And for data science it helps if u have strong background in stats. Good luck with it!
I am in the quite opposite direction: Been in software for 15 years and want to thisft to academia . Will be 43 when I am done with my Phd in math (either applied or pure, dont know yet) . Do you think that would be too old to pursue a life in academia? Dont care about payment/tenure track , or where, as long as i get to publish i can survive without
You can work in finance and make a lot of money. Math PhDs are very valued
$70k in Manhattan is not much of money. Why don't you find a job somewhere else?
The issue is covid an wfh. Along with day in the life of software engineer videos where they work for an hour in their high rise in new york for 150k a year. The market has been flooded
Brother, I feel this. I went through something similar. Got laid off in January, actually started my new job today! I basically went on "vacation" for 3 months, then started interviewing. The amount of applications that went nowhere, including the ones i sent directly to HR people, is too high to count. I got lucky in that some recruiters reached out and 1 of 100? jobs responded to my resume.
It's hard out there but you're not alone. Programming and software are great skills that should not be abandoned, especially in a digital age. Leetcode style interviews suck, but it won't stop because there's a segment of the population that will do them.
My advice, study leetcode passively, or find creative ways to use your software engineering skills. One person mentioned Sales Engineering. You can also do Indie Hacking, or freelance and build websites/apps. Don't give up.
I appreciate the thoughtful words and encouragement!
I've actually been thinking about trying sales, because I've turned into more of a people person than I thought I'd be when I was younger. But even still, I will persevere!
I’m having similar issues to you, but I will say that 2D array program is a fairly trivial problem in current software industry. You can’t just be a developer anymore, you’re forced to be an engineer if not an architect.
the few times where I've gotten to interview candidates for developer related roles I've asked 0 DSA problems because unless you are doing low-level stuffs such as performance optimization of game-engines or something you have plenty of time on the job to research that 1 exotic algorithm you need to figure out once a year
Finally someone with common sense. A far more useful interview question would be systems design and implementation in order to see how candidates reason about requirements and offer practical, high-to-low level solutions.
Accurate. I worked for Rivian and I was there for about 18 months. Then laid off. About 14 months in I did an algorithm. It took about 3-4 story points to build the feature with the algorithm. So I just did one in one year. I researched it to figure it out. Ive had 12 interview since I was laid off. 3 Leetcode style problems. I couldn't do them so im still unemployed.
I hate HR - the most useless bunch of people imaginable. I long for the day HR are replaced by AI.
I cannot help much so sharing this link of a controversial figure, Jon Blow (a dev who made a successful indie game) about his thoughts on how people can limit themselves: ua-cam.com/video/6gakofGPZ6Q/v-deo.html
i agree with most of jBlows arguments but his products are pretty mediocre. braid != cave story or stardew valley.
Oh sar, you are competing with the rest of India sar.
How to prove you're out of touch with the majority of the country. "I only had 2 vacations planned for the year".
...am I supposed to apologize for having a good job? 💀
@@jaulpanos You don't have a job anymore bro.
@@loryhoof *am I supposed to apologize for previously working a good job with the benefits that allowed me to take two trips in a year
There I fixed it for you
@@jaulpanos thanks I can sleep now
Move on to the next interview. It is also fun to be good at C++ on the side and then you will be surprised you've already mastered it :)
Work at McDonald's leave software engineering for Indians. 😥
Thanks love! I actually earn more than east Europeans, more then the poor whites. Blows my mind
I feel your pain, and everybody else posting here. I think we in tech need to start living like we're desperate even when we're not. That means saving and scrimping when we don't need to and learning/expanding/studying like we're beginners even when we aren't. When the work is good, we do pretty well. But the market moves fast and it's darn near encouraged to be ageist as heck these days.
Dude I have 27 years of experience and I'm experiencing the same thing you are. It is so stupid.
With all those years of experience,cant yiu open your software business.
That's unfortunate to hear, but best of luck to you!
I was a software engineer for 26 yrs and I'm out of the industry and I now work for myself as a real estate developer (construction). My advice, for the short term - concentrate on getting contract jobs, the interviews are much less painful. Head hunters are always looking for a contractor to warm a seat probably at much less pay but it's something for the short term.
That's the problem in our field. You work as a software programmer on day to day, but on interviews you're tested as a computer scientist.
Hey man, I hear you. The current Soft Engineer interview is screwed by those Big tech firms that everything is focused on Leetcode. That ends up with non-coding newbie could get a SE jobs through 2-month code camp training, whereas people with many years of SE experience cannot pass any interview unless they spend several months going through the same Leetcode training or code camp. Once you get the job, Leetcode has 0 value in real work.
I hear you on the technical interviews these companies want leet coder even though the job itself doesn't require ever using those skills only interviewing. The job market for SWE is so flooded with many qualified candidates there just isn't enough jobs to be had right now. People are staying put in jobs too because the market is bad. I've watched a lot of blogs of other SWE laid off finding their next role too. I took a gamble on a startup that ran out of funding so they cut their costs. Hopefully things will improve, I'm considering short term contract work just to bridge employment for now.
Same position, I literally going to clean tables at my aunt restaurant. NOBODY NEEDS IT, the market is oversaturated. and people with a 6 months degree are competing with a 6 years degree. because in the job you use 0.1 % of what you know.
The industry is highly competive now, more so than it has been in the past ten years, the short of it is developers cost more now than they have done, so companies need to be very confident that they are going to deliver value quick (within 3 months), your resume/application needs to look like it will - if you're response to that is "its does" then get someone to take a look at it, and let them give honest feedback.
You're right that the interviews are mostly catered towards academic type of problems, to me there are two problems that I can see, (1) thats a major red flag for that company, the team either doens't understand the product well or they don't really know what problems they are solving that you will be working on. (2) You're not being specific enough in your job search (it sounds to me like you're applying to every company under the sun), be lazer focused in your application for a company - of course this takes time, and if you're response is "i don't want to spend that time" then I don't know what to say, you're putting yourself at risk at not finding a secure job.
These are all components in your control, how they conduct the interview is not.
Hope this helps, good look!