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Ask HN: Junior dev and I don't want to compete in this job market. Any advice?
61 points by thirdacc 53 days ago | hide | past | favorite | 87 comments
I'm about to finish my BS in CS from WGU (remote accredited college, about as good as a state school, not a target school). I've struggled with health issues for many years which made remote the only option for a long, long time. Health is better now, but I'm still scarred.

Long story short, health and living situation made me lose nice full-stack remote dev job, networking opportunities, my confidence, and my motivation to compete in this job market. As I said, my health is better, but my will to grind leetcode and apply to a million job listings that might not even be real is gone. It's not just time-consuming, it's demoralizing and messing with my head big time And as I said, I have no network.

Remote is no longer a requirement for me, but flexible or second/third shift jobs are ideal. Sleep schedule is still a struggle, even now.

I've got some thoughts:

- Apply only to federal and state government software dev/IT jobs for new grads. These listings have specific requirements (you must be a new grad and an American citizen), so it might not be as saturated as the private sector. I've read online that the interviews are easy, no leetcode.

- If that doesn't work, look into which certifications would help me land a job in a tech adjacent role that isn't dev and isn't as competitive. Would appreciate guidance here, because from what I've seen, IT appears to be just as bad as dev right now.

- If that doesn't work, look into pivoting to tech recruiting. Hopefully I wouldn't need to go back to school for this.

- If none of that works, forget tech jobs altogether, and apply to jobs that are less competitive and only require a degree.

- I have been seriously considering selling software dev courses. Always had an interest in this, to be honest. I'd also love to build a one-man SaaS business too, at the intersection of these (e.g. software for Instructional Designers). Both of these are just dreams or potential side hustles, as I don't have the capital to sustain a solo/bootstrapped business right now.

Any advice, ideas or feedback on my current options would be appreciated.




I think you might be over-indexing on the process of getting a job, and under-indexing on the process of /doing/ a job. Yes, getting a job sucks -- for a few weeks or months as you work through the process. But once you have that job, it will take up more than a third of your waking hours for, ideally, years. What can imagine doing for 2000 hours of the next 8760? What would you /enjoy/ doing? That, more than the concerns over the hiring gauntlet, should be your motivation to choose a direction -- and should motivate pushing through the hiring process.


This feels a little tone deaf and a bit useless.

OP does not have a job and, especially in a the crumby market that we’re in for tech work, they just need anything they can get. You’re speaking from a place way higher on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs than where OP is currently.

It’s hard to imagine yourself in a position where you can casually choose who you want to work for if you are not even getting interviews or offers in the first place. This is therefore not a strategy that leads to very motivational results.


They are trying to tell OP to figure out what motivates them in the first place. Getting into a programming career via non traditional routes, including working non programming jobs to scrape by, is not at all unusual. The main asset you have is your desire to learn and to code. The people I've met who made it non traditionally all code constantly and are hungry for whatever they can get. The people I've met who don't make it don't seem to code all that much; I can only surmise they don't like it very much. And if that's the case, how are you going to motivate yourself to grind not just leet code but all the other crap you have to learn. The job has lots of ups and downs and enjoying coding is what seems to make it sustainable. It seems like a pre-requisite not only for getting that first job, but for keeping it long term.


You have a point, the OP did say that they were having mental health difficulties. So the interview process can definitely make this worse given where this person is at.

But think Addaon also has a point. Yeah, the interview process can often be horrible. It can be demoralizing, especially after what the OP has gone through with their health (I have major health problems too, so can sympathize). For me at least, my solution was to treat a tough job search like a job. And in this way, you don't take all the rejection so personally (it's just apart of the interviewing).

Think this requires more context then what's possible in a post, but the OP may benefit from learning techniques for handling rejection? (I use them myself)


Well said.

Approaching the challenge of looking for a job is similar to the psychology required by salespeople, who face many more “No” responses than “Yes”es.

On podcasts I’ve heard salespeople talking about the need to invert your thnking if looking at success. To treat every “no” as a win. Count the nos, focus on that. The inner game of sales requires different strategies than other parts of your working life.

It is as if, for the sake of professionalism, they deliberately inhabit an impenetrable optimism, but remain detached enough, at a deeper level, that the rejections are understood as just part of a game.

Easier said than done, of course… I wish you luck, and urge you to take one tiny step at a time, even without motivation, as motivation is something that builds up — “motive” being derived from the same roots as “motion” — as those tiny difficult steps at the start, create motion that brings about momentum and motivation all by itself.


Agreed. Rejection and struggle is fundamental to attaining anything worthwhile, and gaining the right mindset is a key to this.

Hoping for the best for this person too.


Was the OP edited? I don't see anything about having gone mental in it.


ah, think you're right, the OP didn't mention mental health directly. although, the OP does mention, after a very tough struggle for many years, and not wanting to compete in the job market because it is "demoralizing and messing with my head."

But you're right, OP didn't mention it directly:)


This. If you haven't been naturally excited to work on your own projects during this downtime, this field might not be for you.


To counter that, when you have a team with external accountability and teammates relying on you and a salary, that can be far more motivating than working on personal projects by yourself. I wouldn’t discount the field just because of that.


Agreed. And I don't blame mid career workers for not having time to do much after full-time jobs.

But this is an individual who is early in developing their skills and indicating they may not have motivation to do that. That's an essential step.


I once held opinions like that, but overcame them long ago.

I came to realise that this kind of stereotype was effectively a narrow minded form of gate-keeping that contributed to the myopic tech-bro dystopia that’s been swallowing all that is good in this world.

Additionally — the original poster has been living through some very difficult times, it would be perfectly normal, and not a sign of job fitness, if motivation hit zero during a period like that.

I just urge them and others to ignore what you’ve said, and to look for a broader worldview.


Do you think you can become a really good engineer without being personally motivated and curious? I don't.

That's not to say you can't have seasons of more or less interest, but this guy is at the starting line.


I think that success isn’t from individual “great engineers” but from excellent teams and collaborations.

We over emphasise the myth of the solo genius, for example, as it fits neatly into “stories”.

There are many cases where the heroic genius “great engineer” seems to be the solution to all of the problems… until they get sick or fired and suddenly the remaining team becomes far more productive than they were before.

It’s a bit like in “moneyball” — how the talent scouts were looking for batsmen that could hit a home run, but the real value was in the batsmen who could consistently make it to first base.

Attributes like “personal motivation and curiosity” — are also filtered through the interviewer’s perception — they become: “personal motivation and curiosity in a form which I can immediately recognise because it fits the patterns I am predisposed to expect” - and this lead to very narrow selections. By looking for this trait (and believing that you can detect it), what other traits are you missing? (Hint: all of them)


So no such thing as a good or bad engineer? Just teams then? Have you ever worked by yourself?

I think the bias today is actually against individuals and for community.

Money ball didn’t get them the best team it got them the better team than others expected for less money.


In my opinion, you have a very simplistic view of the world and our industry. I formed this from reading quotes like the following:

> If you haven't been naturally excited to work on your own projects during this downtime, this field might not be for you. reply

Being successful in this field doesn't require programming in your spare time - especially so not while going through a difficult period in life. To think that is the case is a case of pattern matching on a simplistic pattern.

> Do you think you can become a really good engineer without being personally motivated and curious?

No one said that OP wasn't personally motivated nor curious. Again that (in my opinion) is faulty pattern matching. People can be both motivated and curious without taking your one prescribed path. Separately, nothing in this question was about OP trying right now to become a "really good engineer". If your top goal in life is only to be really good at your job, you may want to broaden your horizons w.r.t. your priorities in life. Studying a field, becoming good at it, and making a living doing that is a very wise choice - none of that requires becoming one of the top 10% at that role.

> So no such thing as a good or bad engineer?

No one made a statement even remotely like this. This is a strawman you chose to "reply to" rather than respond to what the prior commenter said.

I don't think your advice is good advice for OP nor a good outlook for anyone starting their career regardless of how ambitious they may be.


> Being successful in this field doesn't require programming in your spare time

I already addressed this point.

> No one made a statement even remotely like this. This is a strawman you chose to "reply to"

No. My argument was that it’s important for a new engineers to have drive and curiosity to get started. The other poster replied that this wasn’t true because “teams”. So I was checking for understanding about why this individual does not need to take their personal development seriously.

> I don’t think your advice is good advice

This is why I am asking questions that seem stupid to you. You don’t think someone should have strong natural interest at the beginning of their career?


> You don’t think someone should have strong natural interest at the beginning of their career?

Again I never said nor implied that. In fact I specifically commented about how incorrect this statement was. I see your line of approach consistently appears to be rather than reply to what is posted, pick a easy statement that nobody stated and argue against that instead. I think it's not a productive use of my time continuing further discussions with you as you are unable to engage with what's actually being said.

Take care.


> So no such thing as a good or bad engineer? Just teams then?

Buddy I understood your original points — and once held them myself — but if this reply is how you construe what I’ve tried to share with you, you have not reciprocated with any genuine care in trying to understand the conversation I thought we were having.

Good luck!


To refresh. My argument is that if you are starting out you need to have drive and interest. That’s it.


Counterpoint. One of the best engineers I've ever managed, nearly a 10x engineer, never coded outside of work. The dude was a bass guitarist and cyclist, never opened a code editor or terminal outside of his 9-to-5.


This seems a little trite to me.

For example, I'm excited to work on my own projects, toying with new languages, teaching my kids, etc, but the overwhelming priority is to find something that pays the bills, and after a long and demoralizing day following that goal, I have little energy to invest much in a shot-in-the-dark side project, even if I had a good idea for one.


Consider federal government remote work. You're not going to make FAANG money, but if you're remote, you don't need it. You need a job that supports your living needs and your mental health goals. For folks who have a STEM degree, the US Patent and Trademark Office is currently paying ~$90k/year for remote patent examiners.

This macro will pass, you just need a place to hang your hat until you've gotten your foundation poured and cured. It will also help you build your resume while others cannot find junior work. Best wishes.

https://www.usds.gov/apply

https://18f.gsa.gov/join/

https://www.usajobs.gov/search/results/?rmi=true

(Your state gov might have great remote opportunities as well, I would encourage you to spend a few hours researching)


What exactly is 18f?


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/18F


You are literally one day away from the who's hiring and who wants to get hired threads. Review and apply, be willing and honest to discuss strengths and weaknesses. Have interesting projects that you have worked on and can speak about.

Best of luck!


I always felt discouraged from even applying to those. They usually say they're only hiring one candidate and I know a ton of other hackernewsers are applying to the same posting who have a good chance of being much more tryhard at fleshing out their github portfolio et cetera.


I don't mean to push back too hard, but this is pretty defeatist. You really have no way of knowing what exactly the person on the other end is looking for. There's a very real possibility that you are an ideal fit for some teams out there, but you'll never find out if you don't even apply. Regardless of your qualifications, it's a numbers game.

As an aside, my more general advice is to find the one thing that makes you stand out among the sea of other candidates, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant it is, and focus on that in your résumé and cover letters. I have been hired at past jobs for all sorts of crazy/dumb reasons. After I got hired at my first "real" (9-5) software engineering job, my boss later told me that he picked me because I mentioned Clojure once on my résumé and he thought that was cool, and I didn't even have any professional experience with it, just a curiosity for it. (This was over 12 years ago when Clojure was still relatively new.)


I must have applied to hundreds or even a thousand jobs in the months after graduating college. Besides the standard good GPA etc. I had a significantly above average amount of experience and knowledge at the time, glowing recommendations from my internship, my own website/github stuff/etc., all stuff that's baseline on this website but was far and above the norm for my average classmate.

Honest question, am I vastly underestimating the average student and vastly overestimating myself at the time, or was this above the norm for a new grad? https://external-preview.redd.it/Sfx4gvcEZXKXr8cxBseyyW2ycGP...

It was radio silence for almost a year until I eventually lucked out and got contacted by a recruiter for Tata Consultancy Services. From what I hear they only really cared about GPA and it may have only been part of a hiring glut that had something to do with increasing on-shore employment numbers for some political reason.

Once I was actually in I was able to luckily get a great career going and join another company some years down the road. My experience says that applying to jobs as a general activity is a total waste of time, you can essentially only get a job through luck and increasing the surface area of that luck with networking. Even now I dread the thought of having to job search again. It's like none of the postings are real, for reasons such as the posting is only there to satisfy a legal or HR requirement but they already had a specific person in mind. I've never had anything good come of sending in a resume. I have no reproducible steps to give advice to anyone coming into the field how to get a job though except to apply to something like Tata.


Over the last 10 years, I've gotten every job except one through Hacker News or a referral from a co-worker I met at a job. I got way more callbacks fresh out of school as a 21-year-old living in Canada (aka no USA work permits) via Hacker News than any other channel.

Focus on sending 3-4 _excellent_ applications a day rather than 3000-4000 AI-generated garbage ones. Also, go through your text message history and text every person on there the following:

``` Hi $NAME! I just saw you on $SOCIAL_MEDIA doing $THING and I thought about you? What's the latest with you? No rush to respond if you're busy.

wait for response

Great to hear! I'm currently looking for a software engineering job, do you know anyone who's hiring? ```

You do those two things consistently, you'll have three job offers within 3-4 months.

Now the tricky part is getting the confidence to ACTUALLY DO THE ABOVE. What helped me is going outside and getting involved in ANY club. In the past for me it's been salsa dancing, stand up comedy, and taking a cooking class. Replace those with any other activity you're remotely interested.

Good luck. You got this. The first job or two in tech is tricky. After 3-4 years it gets way easier.


I got my current job on the Who Wants To Get Hired post. Granted it was in late 2022, right as the market began to crash, but still. You never know.


Apply at companies that are really big, really old, and are pretty bland. Like insurance, banks, retail. Basically apply to everything in the Fortune 500


Yes get a job outside of "tech." Every company has a website, most of them have dev teams for them. Some of my happiest friends have got jobs doing web dev for companies whose products they use because of hobbies: sailing, climbing, kitchen equipment etc.

These are often less competitive than startup or tech companies too. By some measures the work can be less exciting but it varies quite a bit so don't judge in advance. Also it will be in support of things people actually want and use and are willing to pay money for, in sharp contrast to tech industry adware and VC rent seeking.


My 2 problems with these jobs are that first, they 99% not remote, and second, the pay is half of what I get in the "tech" field.


This is great advice and i think in some ways, if you land a job with a big bank that's old with a massive legacy ecosystem, you learn a lot more about support, change management and actually delivering in adverse conditions.


All of my friends who work remote for these companies do like 45min of work per day; this is the answer


The rest of the time they're sitting in camera-on meetings. No, thanks.


So true! I have a tech job at a Fortune 100 building unique and interesting distributed systems in Elixir and get to work on open source libraries through the company. You won't make as much $$$, but you can potentially work on more interesting projects that overlap specific domains.


This....


If you're reading HN, you're already a few steps ahead of your peers. When hiring people just starting out, I'm primarily wondering:

- Can this person be a sponge and soak up knowledge?

- Can this person do basic tasks unsupervised, like generate an ad-hoc CSV report of customers that logged in the last 30 days?

If you possess these qualities, you're likely to be a valuable asset to seed or Series A startups. Many of these companies have a general recruiting email address. I recommend crafting a concise yet impactful email that:

1. Expresses your genuine interest in the startup's mission and goals

2. Highlights your eagerness to learn and contribute

3. Acknowledges your current skill level while emphasizing your potential for growth

4. Frames your application as a mutually beneficial investment - they invest in developing your skills, and you invest your dedication and fresh perspective into their company

By joining a startup you'll likely have the opportunity to work alongside some of the industry's brightest minds. Most high end software engineers actively seek to work with newcomers to the field. Teaching and mentoring often challenge seasoned professionals to reassess and articulate their ideas, leading to fresh insights. It not only accelerates your learning but also contributes to the overall growth of the team.


I think a wider issue I'd like to see a discussion on is the current workplace. I think employers are pushing individuals and teams beyond their limit - what are you going to do? Quit in this job market?

I'm literally doing the math on what sort of pay/title cut I'd be willing to take to move from a large corp to a sane, non-toxic workplace. I'm mid-career and know some people my level who have just exited the rat race. I was hoping once US rates get cut, things get less meaner .. but looks like this will continue for a while longer.

As it stands, tech at large companies has become a terrible career. I'm saying this as someone who is deeply passionate about technology and work at the cutting edge of AI. I think a big part is cargo culting and MBA-think in management. Instead of working, we spend months and months planning to do work. Other people in this boat or just my pond?


If I understand correctly, you're about to get a degree but you have several years of software development experience. If that's the case, you should have a significant advantage in 'new grad'-advantaged jobs: you have the experience that the vast majority of your competitors do not. Go for that.


If you don’t have a degree you almost certainly don’t have years of (professional) software development experience.

The only exception in my experience (and this helped me get a job when I was a new grad) is having a large portfolio of tangible projects. Not just react tutorials, programs that solve a problem someone had or did something interesting. For example, I did a lot of programming in middle school and high school related to automating games like RuneScape. Also had a win at the international science and engineering fair in the computing division. It’s safe to claim years of experience when you’ve got something to show for it.


... there are still a lot of people in this business who don't have a college degree. Doesn't stop them from being professionals.


My response was about a person that is finishing up the final year for their degree


My response was about what the original poster wrote, which is that they previously had employment as a full stack dev.


That's harsh. The world is a grinder and if you fall for a second it's really harsh. I know the feeling myself. That being said, a lot of smaller tech jobs like coding for startups don't require a ton of leetcode. I once interviewed for a startup that asked some very basic coding only: open a file in Python, go through the file, replace some stuff, some basic array questions, etc. And I also got a job at another company where the interview was a bit more advanced but no leetcode or puzzles -- just something any competent Python programmer could do.

I would also just look outside IT as well. I eventually left IT and I actually like it a lot better. I actually still code here and there but it's not a main part of my work any more.


[deleted]


This comment rings true for most hard situations in life. Community, loved ones, friends, whatever. Have other people in a better situation pull you up.


Best advice I can give is what a buddy of mine did to go from a junior dev to a senior dev in a little under 5 years. He took his first JS job and didn't do anything for a year except learn everything about JS/Angular/React.

Now when I say he did nothing but that I mean exactly that. He lived with me and he went to his junior dev job, came home, made dinner, and went into his bedroom and worked on his dev job and studying everything about JSAR. He took on as many extra stories he could, cleaned up code to make the work easier, and asked 10k questions.

Then he found his next job after about a year, and found a better job. That one lasted about 2 years, and he did a similar thing, he helped clean up code, make the projects easier, and took on stories that he could do. And he played a little bit more but he still put more hours into his work than into his play time.

At this time he had 3 years, and moved on to his next job and did it all over again. And when he left this third job or his fourth he was the senior dev.

Also, he always worked with the team and didn't isolate (though above it sounds like he isolated - maybe from me but not from the job or team). He learned everything that he could during all this time and he helped newer developers or developers that were struggling with things that he wasn't. He was a team player and always helpful to everyone.

He is a senior developer, owns his on town house, commands a 6 figure salary and is bored so his time off is between learning new things, and taking time with his friends.

Also, every job was a different industry meaning he didn't specialize in a type of industry. Financial, travel, etc. He specialized in JSAR and he's an expert in Full Stack systems.

So if there is any advice I can give, from the immortal word of RuPaul - "You Better Work!!!" and become an expert and team player.

It wasn't about the first job he took as a junior developer - it was about the work and always doing more.


> look into pivoting to tech recruiting.

Lots of good advice in this thread already. Just a note on this: when the market is tough for getting hired as an engineer, it’s REALLY tough for getting hired as a tech recruiter.

So if the market is a main concern, recruiting probably isn’t the best fallback.


> If that doesn't work, look into pivoting to tech recruiting. Hopefully I wouldn't need to go back to school for this.

The market for tech recruiting has been hit as hard and in some ways harder than the market for tech workers. Most folks are finding or placing jobs through in-network referrals and recruiters are finding much lower demand for their services after a long period of having it good.

I know some actually good recruiters and really feel for those folks right now, as well as early career folks like yourself. It took me 8+ months to find a job myself in 2023.

Wishing you the best of luck in your search! Sincerely rooting for you and hope your luck will turn around.


By the way, this is a very tough job-market for tech, as after the pandemic, most major tech companies downsized by huge numbers (like 10-20% or something). And for a new grad, this must make it even tougher - have gone through this myself a long time ago after a huge tech downturn after college. It took me a year of intense searching to get a job - So many sympathies.

You may want to play the long game, and just assume it might take awhile to get the next job (but keep trying, it'll eventually work!).

Ps - I have health problems too, and for me at least, trying to problem solve to work around health issues is what tends to work for me.


Applying to a bunch of job postings isn’t really going to help. If you’ve already had a job as a dev than you’re already ahead of the game.

I’d recommend spending more time on networking, it’s a lot easier to get an interview when you have a connection with the company/hiring manager. Just keep up your coding skills in your primary language so that when the interview comes along you’re ready.

Also it feels like the job market is getting a little better as well.

Someone else commented about startups, that’s also great advice and that was how I got my first FullStack job. Funny enough it was actually from a Hackernews who’s hiring!


    > I’d recommend spending more time on networking
Can you provide some concrete examples that have worked for you?


College hack nights, geographical meetup groups, contributing to open source projects.


“…forget tech jobs altogether, and apply to jobs that are less competitive and only require a degree.”

Lots of small businesses need tech support. Maybe you can find a local business, get any job in their office and find ways to make your technology skills useful after you learn the business and determine if there is a personal fit with your colleagues? Sounds like a lot of work if you have tech skills, but that is a need and those are the hoops you need to jump to get that work.


Salesforce/ServiceNow/Snowflake all offer certifications I believe for roles where you are basically just using their platform. Not the greatest jobs but usually less competitive to get than traditional development roles. Government jobs are probably a good idea as well (not very flexible I imagine though). IT jobs can be high pressure w/out any of the salary and other benefits of software dev so I would stay away from those options if you have the chance


If you’re looking for flexible work accommodations, I doubt state/federal gigs would be a fit. Not sure which state you’re in, but those tend to be much more conventional “9 to 5” than you might find at other tech companies.

If you want time-of-day flexibility, look for either a distributed startup OR a giant company that has presence in lots of different timezones


You might be surprised.

I applied to a few federal jobs after grad school, and some of them offered flexible arrangements (e.g., 4 days a week x 10 hrs or 9x9 hours with alternate Fridays off). Telework is often an option too.


Apply for jobs at HN Who is hiring, workatastartup.com, wellfound.com, and builtin.com page for your city (if you are in the US).

No leetcode in most cases, but you will have to apply to a lot of jobs (but they are definitely real in those sites).

Keep a spreadsheet to organize yourself and keep applying. It’s kind necessary, but worth it.

Don’t give up! Good luck!


Acquire some special skill, don’t be a fungible software engineer. Learn C and contribute to an OS kernel. Learn FORTRAN or COBOL and learn to read and maintain ancient codebases.

Domain specific jobs tend to be much more rare, but also much easier to get if you have the unique skill set needed.


"I have been seriously considering selling software dev courses. Always had an interest in this, to be honest."

Have you considered DevRel? It might be worth looking into if you're interested in the teaching aspect.


Have you considered putting a profile on upwork?


> I have been seriously considering selling software dev courses. Always had an interest in this, to be honest.

How can I contact you?


OT I suspect this is American terminology, but what does it mean to be or not be a "target school"?


Assume not elite in compsci/EE. American corps rely heavily upon university rankings when hiring for STEM roles. It does make a difference in candidate quality.


"elite school"


You and Junior dev should reconsider quitting -applying to a million jobs isn't the answer.


Do you like this field of work? Do you love it?

If not, is there anything adjacent you'd like to pivot to?


Do you like programming or love programming?

Tune in to what you love doing - that's where your job is.


work for interesting people, not companies. do lots of interviews until you get an offer and like your boss/manager/etc.

working for interesting people is a joy.


how does one find these interesting ppl to work for. linkedin?


i’d start with hn who’s hiring, then direct apply to companies on github’s hiring without whiteboards.

no one interesting is on linkedin.


I see a lot of comments here and a lot do mention working on your own projects while seeking a job. Unfortunately, I do understand you need/want an income (I was in the same boat when I started in tech) and have financial obligations so you need to make money. I went to a coding boot camp to learn Ruby on rails and while I was the best in my class I couldn't land a role mainly due to no college and lack of experience. I did land some project work and a few roles but none lasted longer than a month or so because they weren't hiring me for a full time role but more contract related work. It still wasn't enough to get hired anywhere.

The BEST advice I can give you is to make a real world project to send to potential employers. Show you have what it takes from wireframe to MVP and beyond.

Show the process. You can do this all via git and commits and PR's.

-Create the readme with the wireframe and photos of whiteboard if that's your thing. -Create the project and keep track of all progress via PR's and explain your logic and reasoning for decisions. -Once your at a place where your at MVP show the release process in your readme. -Once at MVP make sure you focus on performance and track the changes you make in PR's.

This will let employers know you can work on a real project with real value and understand how pieces fit together way past writing small feature code. This needs to be beyond the skill level of your project work in school.

I WISH I would have known this when I got into tech. I now work as an SRE and still code a rails web app but not for my day job.

I see a ton of listings wanting cloud experience along side the dev work. I think its very important to know. For example my rails app uses S3 for hosting tons of images. I not only know AWS as I use it daily in my day job but know it well enough to utilize it in my rails app and make the most of it. S3 is a simple example but you get the idea.

You can also play with release processes and pipelines and have a solid release plan for your work so that employers see okay the application not only can code a project from start to MVP and beyond BUT you can also get it out in the world. If your project makes sense to containerize into micro services then use Kubernetes. Use ArgoCD or similiar to deploy it, etc...Be able to roll back the app and have that built into the functionality that roll backs are possible. Have a DR plan and especially around data integrity not just infra. Use terraform (infra as code), etc...A lot you can do to really impress employers.

I really wish you the best of luck and don't give up. If you have to get another role that's not what you want until you can get hired as a dev do it but don't give up on the dev side. Hopefully my advice helps.

If your curious about my transition from a wanna be dev to SRE I was told that the world needed more infrastructure guys and I happened to be a Linux nerd in high school so I learned cloud online (linux academy but its now a cloud guru) in a few months and was able to land my first role. I was able to prove via code (terraform and an entire release process) in git for a sample app that I had what it takes to do the job.


Probably get downvoted for this but seek a job outside a computer. Plenty of engineering gigs onsite, petroleum, civil, mechanical, etc. tbh you sound depressed and sitting in front of a computer will only compound the issue. IMO- Comp sci jobs are crutches at best. Best of luck.


Would've been good advice before OP spent 4 years getting a degree in computer science.


Mechanical engineers stay in front of their screens for the most part too. Same for electronics/electrical engineers apart from some niche fields.


    > IMO- Comp sci jobs are crutches at best.
Can you explain more what is meant here?


Staring at a computer screen for a career will result in a net negative life imo. I meant that as the money will keep you happy enough but you’ll most probably lead a very hampered quality of life.


    > Staring at a computer screen for a career will result in a net negative life imo.
I am struggling to parse the sarcasm here. Literally, all office jobs in 2024 are "[s]taring at a computer screen". I don't get it. Does that mean anyone with an office job has a "net negative life"?


Ironically lots of my friends work at chase bank in dallas and they only spend around 1 hr sitting infront of computer/day.


You only need to compete in dev/IT when you lack relationships. It's not about raw talent or raw output but instead absolute trust. Confidence that you (or whoever) has a good sense of direction and is grounded in their work. I don't trust anyone in this industry who has never had a mentor. I would never work with anyone else in this industry who is themselves not already a part of an active community where they are valued and can make their own valued relationships/experiences. An eagerness to "do more" is great but i'm more worried about ones' ethics under immense strain.


> I don't trust anyone in this industry who has never had a mentor. I would never work with anyone else in this industry who is themselves not already a part of an active community where they are valued and can make their own valued relationships/experiences.

I think I can understand where this statement comes from, and it's generally a good idea to stay away from those with bad track records and no signs of change. The wording does rub off wrong a bit because I think it's important to give unproven people a chance, especially if their circumstances have been very unkind to them. What would you count as a sufficiently active community or a qualified mentor?


and like...if you don't have a community, how to get into one in the first place?


Interesting comment. I've always suffered in aspect of my career due to high amount of shyness and introversion.


I don’t trust people like you that are all about appearance’s and groupthink.

Nothing wrong with keeping to oneself, in fact, I would rather trust someone who is self governed than a sheep that needs to be in a community.

Also, who deals in absolutes? People are complex. Very stupid take


Ah yes, it's not actually hard in the job market: just call up your rich friends!

Yeah, I probably wouldn't trust anyone who only looks at social proof to determine who's a good person and who isn't.




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