I went to a bootcamp in 2019 and successfully landed a job at a startup where I worked for 1 year. The pandemic hit and the position ended, so I went back to being self-employed working on my previous businesses that felt more stable and brought in more money than tech at the time.

Fast forward to today, I am reentering the tech world and prepping to be interview-ready. Yes, I understand the job market is in the tank right now. Prior to my bootcamp, I was pursuing a Bachelor's in Psychology and was just 3-5 classes from finishing this degree. I'm thinking about going back to finish this degree just to have it (since I'm so close), but debating about getting a minor in CS while I'm at it.

As a BootCamp grad with 1 year of professional experience, does it make me any more competitive to finish the degree? Is getting the additional minor worth it?

I'm open to any career advice. Having experience professionally is great but I'm a little lost with what I should do right now to help me be competitive, especially with 5 years of being self-employed.

Hi everyone Quick question for those looking : would you be interested in working with peers and people who are employed to help get the feedback you need?

My thought here after opening up my DMs and getting a good amount is that there are some great people on this sub who just need a small bit of coaching.

My thought is we match a few up with near peers in an effort to keep the experiences and roles in line and relevant to today’s needs.

Let me know if you think so.

That’s it . Toss a comment or shoot me a DM.

-HackVT

I gave my final interview for 2025 SDE intern last week and I’m waiting on the results, Amazon says within 5 days but from what I’ve seen on this sub it can be pretty inconsistent.

Also last week, I got an offer for “Gen AI Software Engineering Intern” at a mortgage insurance company that pays $25/hr. They said they want to hear back from me ASAP. Should I tell them that I’m waiting on Amazon and to push back their offer deadline as long as possible? I also am thinking of using my possible Amazon offer as leverage to get a higher salary because Amazon pays 40-50/hr.

Additionally, should I email Amazon recruiting and tell them that I now have a pending offer? I didn’t have an offer prior to taking the final interview at Amazon, so maybe if they take that into account they will have a faster response.

Hey hoping to get some insights and opinions. Background for reference:

6 YOE in cleared gov 3 YOE as a software engineer Undergrad CS, 2.5 semesters left for masters in CS Base pay is about $125k, fully remote Fiancé, no house, no plans on kids

I just got an offer from a small consulting company (around 100 people) that focuses in tech. Job would be modernizing legacy Java and C# systems, they’ll maintain my clearance, and fully remote with pay at $135k

I also passed the rain_forest OA for SDE2 and have the tech screen in about 3 weeks. I’m in a medium COL city (think Denver, Phoenix, or Austin). Struggled a bit with the second OA question so was planning on cramming.

Don’t feel like cramming for an OA due to limited time for school, finance, and recent family death. Plus if I were to get an offer would have even less time and more stress. Although their comp package would mean I could finally buy a house. Would probably get to work on some interesting problems at scale.

On the other hand for my current offer never worked for such a small company before, also gov consulting being what it is I don’t want my skills to go bad.

I appreciate any opinions on people switching from gov consulting, or working in small companies, or anything else to think about.

Thanks

Hello, I work as a software engineer at a company that makes/sells retro fit upgrades to OEM gas turbines for power plants. I know my digital product pretty well now being here almost 2 years but I am still lost when speaking with some of the aerospace/mechanical engineers on combustors, compressors, turbine and etc.

I want some up to date study content that goes into depth these parts and how they interact. A bonus if it explains the relationship of IGV, CPR, fuel splits etc.

I have a bachelor's in CS and was also wondering if I plan on staying in this sector (very intriguing stuff) would it be better to get a masters in CS or pivot for gas turbines some how? I feel like CS can be learned much easier on your own through online content like udemy and writing your own apps/code.

I have posted this in aerospace subreddit as well but wanted to post here since I am sure there are some CS/Data scientists in the same field.

I want to move jobs for higher pay. I am already on £110k. But I know the highest risk is me not pass probation or I am more vulnerable to lay offs because I am new. So this is a big risk is there a way to mitigate? Only thing I can think of got for higher paid jobs to match the risk e.g. £150k. I wonder what else can I do to mitigate? I heard of golden handshake where they give you a lump sum on your start day and can you negotiate severance when you join? I know it is a backwards thing to do when joining a company, but how do I reduce the risk or have something to fall back on if they lay me off?

I got my first job out of college as a Front End Developer. I worked at a very small company for the past 7 years, making internal employee apps.

Mainly worked jQuery. Strongest in CSS.

Not proficient in Angular or React. No experience with next, testing (we did it manually), monorepos.

I was laid off 3 weeks ago and got a rude awakening realizing how outdated my former workplace was. My skills do not match up to current job postings. I had two interviews last week, secured through referral, and both told me my skills are too far behind.

I’m panicking because I have a family I provide for, including two young kids. In my previous role I was making 90k…. Now I’m fearing I can’t even make half that.

I need some advice on how to improve my marketability FAST. What’s the fast track to boosting my skills and making me employable again?

Please, no snarky comments. I feel low enough as it is. I’m honestly depressed.

So I’ve been in the industry for 7 years now but had a degree in social sciences and later attended a bootcamp before getting my first job.

In light of current events, I’m just puzzled that there are engineers that are so willing to deploy their skills to achieve nefarious ends. We have the ability to impact the world in major ways with our knowledge and expertise, I would assume that CS programs would understand this and require course work on the moral implications of technology. Even in cases where what we are doing is technically legal. We are not mere tools for the business of others, this should be kept in mind.

I've been in my current role for 2 years now (graduated in 2021) and I'm frustrated and looking to leave for a variety of reasons, but I'm totally rusty when it comes to the job application grind because I was referred for this position and it didn't include any technical interview in the process besides some softball questions. I'm remaking my resume, but I'm anxious about how much prep I should do before I start applying, or if I should start applying simultaneous to my leetcode, system design studying, etc.

How do you personally know when you're "ready" for certain interviews, or applying generally?

I have a pretty good job right now, working there for 2 and a half years. It has a lot of pluses; growth opportunities, exciting projects, recognition, fully remote, fair compensation ($170k base, mid col), and overall really like working with the people I work with. However, I’d be lying if my mind hasn’t been wanting to find a position with a better compensation package, and I’m sure with that I’d probably lose the fully remote benefit. What would you do in my position? Continue at this company or start looking? Because I do have recruiters reaching out, but not for fully remote positions & my interview skills are next to non-existent right now (technical, but everything else I think I’d do good in)

Today during a project meeting I was really nervous and had to take a shit. But because of the tight time schedule of the day, I couldn't really get out of the room. And the urge to shit just got worse and worse, I couldn't handle it.

Now here is the embarrassing part. I sat in the corner furthest away from the front of the room so nobody could see me unless they turned their heads around. In the corner there was a trash can and... I really don't know why I thought of this... But I decided to have a ninja shit in the meeting room.

When I'm in a meeting I usually like to have a mountain of papers to scribble on. So I thought that I could use some of it to shit on. I took some paper and slowly slid it down my pants. Then I released my bowels...

The shit clumped up on the thick layer of paper and when satisfied I took out the papers to throw it in the trash bin. But just as I smeared the shit all over my ass and aimed for the trash can, a colleague who sat next to me saw me. And this colleague wasn't just an ordinary colleague, it was my childhood crush. She saw the shit-filled anal mucus paper wrap and instantly puked. To my demise the whole room looked back to see my hands in the air holding that burrito of pure shit.

Everybody I know has heard what happened and I've been getting roasted 24/7 since the incident and I'm not sure what to do. There is a decent chance that my boss will find out. If they do find out, is there a chance I could get fired?

I recently graduated with a CS degree, and am now in the trenches. Looking through this sub, I've decided that I should just throw applications at all positions, even senior. I have a couple of questions for those who have made it.

1. How accurate are these Job postings? All these job postings require knowledge of every language and framework. Is this real, or are they just using buzzwords? Here are some requirements "Programming experience in Visual Fox Pro, PowerApps, PowerShell, Python, Batch, C#, VB.NET, and JavaScript. SQL Proficiency - strong knowledge in database design, optimization, and management. Experience in Virtualization and managing Hyper-V servers/workstations. Understand HTTPS and have experience in Flask framework." I only comfortably know Python, I could stumble my way around Java, and I have casual experience with HTML and JS.
2. If you get an interview, how does it work? I'm worried I'm going to sit in a room with interviews and have to code whatever random things they ask. It doesn't seem realistic, but idk. Also, I've heard of Leetcode but I've never "done" it, should I?
3. What jobs should I look for? Right now I go on Indeed and search "Developer" or "Jr. Developer." Like I said I only comfortably know Python, so do I need to look for Python jobs only? I'm confident, that given the opportunity, I could learn C# or some other languages, but I don't want to spend all my free time learning all 15 gorbillion languages and frameworks, just because one job posting says they need it.
4. I also do have some personal projects, like a basic, video game guide website (built from the ground up on github pages), and a large, Python-based Discord Bot (It announces the day's sports games, and sends a reminder just before a game, among other things). I know you'd would probably need to see them to be sure, but are these enough?

This whole laid off experience is new to me after being with my first company for 5 years and they just randomly laid off a portion of the staff. Not really sure what to do from here. Brush up resume and start applying. I've also been hearing nothing but doom and gloom from the recent job market and that doesn't exactly set my mind at ease. Any tips from other people who went through the same thing would be incredibly appreciated.

I’m about to be 25. I only have an emt cert under my belt. I’ve been looking into a return to school. Cyber security seems promising. I’m just not sure if these course are where my energy should go. I see community colleges advertising 10-18 week courses. But that seems kind of short. Is this a realistic time frame for becoming career ready? Should I be learning something else alongside the school’s curriculum? Is there anything else I should look into? Are the prospects for the industry on an upward trajectory? Any help is appreciated

I’m crying right now and feeling very hopeless. I got this internship as a software engineer with this real estate company and they assign mentors to each intern. Anyways we had our introductory meeting today and I asked him about advice for a new grad looking to get his foot in the door and start their career. He basically says to me “from my perspective if I’m hiring for a dev role why would I hire in the US when I can pay someone in India 30,000 dollars?” And also “I never look at education it really doesn’t matter.” Putting emphasis in experience, which you can’t really get without starting out somewhere…

So yeah feeling pretty absolutely hopeless I was hoping that getting a fresh perspective off of Reddit would be a breath of fresh air and maybe be a reassuring conversation and instead I left and started crying. Feeling like I wasted 4 years of my life and I may end up homeless in a decade or so.

So I gotta ask if this is something globally or just across big tech.

I have worked for a few different places but current position is 5 years working for generic big tech company. And the office buildings are not at all what you imagine as office building.

The old office block pre pandemic had a games room and beanbags, so on lunch breaks people would do games tournaments. And then free lunch and drinks and things like that provided.

A few teams got moved to another office building due to growing company sizes, this place feels a little crazy for an office building, we have

• Gym
• Food court
• 3 Billiards rooms (pool rooms)
• Leisure centre
• Cinema room

And then even things like drinks machines on each floor with options like hot chocolate for free.

I have been in meetings and spoken with people responsible for building management, and our company spends about 10 million per contract period not sure if that's per year, just for this building. They also own another 4 in the same town.

I'm just wondering is more and more tech companys starting to go this way with crazy office spaces as they try to enforce return to work ?

Hey everyone,
I’m writing this post because I’m at a crossroads in my career and I’d love to hear from anyone who’s been through something similar.

I’m 28M and I’ve been working in IT consulting in Italy for four years. I’ve learned a lot, met some great people, but I can’t deny that this environment just doesn’t feel right for me. I’ve always had the impression that only the "smart" or "slick" people get ahead—those who know how to sell themselves—while more introverted people, who just focus on doing their job well, eventually get sidelined.

Right now, I’m in a Return to Office (RTO) phase without being assigned to a client, and this situation has forced me to stop and think: does it really make sense to keep going? The truth is, I don’t feel fulfilled, and I’m starting to think it’s time for a change.

The two things I truly enjoy in life are art (drawing, painting) and computers. Lately, I’ve been seriously considering whether I should try to start an art career, maybe as a digital artist. I have no idea how realistic this would be or where to start, but the idea of finally doing something creative is really appealing.

Another option I’m considering is sticking with IT but shifting my focus toward game development. It seems like a way to merge my technical skills with my creative side, but I don’t know if it’s too late to start or how difficult the transition would be.

I’ve been looking into UI/UX design, digital graphics, and 3D art, but I have no idea how realistic all these options are or where to start.

I’m also considering quitting my job to take a break and figure things out, but of course, that’s a scary decision. Has anyone here been through something similar? Any advice on how to transition into a more creative career—or into game development—without completely wasting these years of experience?

Thanks to anyone willing to share their story or advice.

Looking for advice on path to choose. I’m a new grad currently working for a startup. Base is comparable to Palantir’s Base. Equity is around .5%.

The startup’s seed raise was sub 5 mil and are raising 20m Series A in the next coming months. IMO positioned nicely to succeed (but obv startup so never 100%). They’re UK based but global remote (I’m US based).

Recently got an offer for Palantir FDSE in NYC

Long term I want to do startups/be a founder.

I know FDSE will teach me how to interact w customers, learn their problems, and build them solutions. I know the startup will teach me how to scale fast as they’re currently scaling rn.

What should I do?

I'm graduating this coming semester, and my software engineering job application process has not been very successful. I've applied to 200+ places, have gotten ~3 interviews, all of which eventually ended in rejection. I've gotten my resume reviewed many times, I'm leetcoding everyday, I'm working on personal projects to try to improve my skills, and I'm still applying for jobs and occassional internships. But I'm feeling very unmotivated in the process due to my lack of success.

Does anyone have any advice on the best way on how to proceed? I'm finding it difficult to manage my time and figuring out what to prioritize. Do I just need to send more applications? Send less and tailor each application more to the company? Write cover letters? Focus more on leetcode or project building and developing relevant skills? I have a couple of internships, but nothing too prestigious so I'm wondering if that's my biggest issue. I'm not sure if this type of post is allowed but I'm honestly just feeling very stuck right now.

I just sent in an application but did not get a confirmation email, so I'm wondering if it went through or not. Unfortunately there is not a Glassdoor entry yet about this organization or the salary bands associated with it so that would have been slightly helpful to know ahead of time.

I'm not really looking for interview advice as must as trying to gauge how many graduates / professionals are looking at positions there and what the vibe is like. It's hard to tell just how many people they have working there or what specific roles are still open.

Cheers. :)

Task was to write unit tests to ensure that a certain workflow retries properly. This is my first task on a new codebase. Nobody else on my team is familiar with this codebase, and nobody who owns the service was willing to help me (I reached out to them multiple times and they ignored me). I've run into so many issues with this task and I'm at my wits end:

• The existing unit tests don't even run the workflow that's supposed to retry. There are only unit tests for running each of the workflow's sub workflows.
• In order to make unit tests that invoke the workflow itself, I had to fudge the test class to make it async. This worked for some of the approaches, other times the compiler threw errors that I was running an async method in a sync class
• Couldn't figure out how to make the first few workflow runs error out while the third run succeeded (so in the end the whole thing would still return success)
• Not possible to access the retry scope and check something simple like numberOfRetries > 1
• While the retry functionality is used elsewhere in the service, it is not tested. So I can't copy from existing tests
• It took me a week of digging through readmes and asking people until I figured out I can't even run the workflow in a testing environment. I have to run integ tests, didn't even know there were integ tests
• Integ tests were a pain to set up. Then they randomly fail even without me making any changes
• Integ tests for this workflow are disabled. I tried reenabling them just so I could verify visually that the workflow retries and it broke a bunch of other seemingly unrelated workflows
• Project takes half an hour to build (randomly fails building halfway through sometimes), then the workflow as launched by the integ test takes half an hour to run. Sometimes it exceeds the timeout for the integ test as set by the integ test package, so it can't retry itself because the whole test is canceled
• SSH connection to VM randomly getting severed and can't reenable it

My manager's pissed that I'm not making progress, and I don't even know how to tell her all of these reasons without sounding like I'm making excuses. I spent all of last week plus the weekend working on this and I'm nowhere close to done.

I'm so confused because on paper it shouldn't be difficult, but the execution has been a rabbit hole of frustration

Context: Currently a second year undergraduate (Expected graduation Sp27) weighing the pros and cons of a co-op offer for Spring 2025.

If I decide to take the offer and work this co-op, I would be able to take asynchronous classes at my currently university, but only up to 12 credit hours (full time student status). Seen as I am on track to graduate by normal standards, the co-op would prolong my graduation by a semester and I could take some amount of credit hours to lighten my load for the remainder of college. I like this idea, but I was wondering whether or not the cs job market would be more or less kind to me if I were to graduate and enter the job search in the middle of the year in the fall/winter as opposed to the usual spring/summer. Any and all advice is welcomed. Thank you

Say I have a list of companies I like but they don't always have the role I'm interested in. Any tips on keeping a pulse on these specific ones somehow in a low effort way?

SWE, 11 YoE, previously at BigTech, but got PIPed.

I started applying for SWE jobs recently and noticed that I reach the intro call with recruiters only in 1/30 - 1/40 cases.

Is it currently considered normal or it's better to rework my CV/cover letter?

Considering studying something like Network+ or CCNA possibly leading onto security+ and cybersecurity.

Main thing motivating me is just general interest but if I’m going to study is it worth going this direction, what could I even do with knowledge as both a coder and in IT/Cybersecurity.

Or is there a different path suitable for coders to upskill.

I guess something important to me is being able to specialise and be an expert in an area which lacks, for example I’ve heard cyber staff with good programming skills are rare.

In truth I have no idea but with how easily tech gets laid off and how hard it is to get a job I guess this is something I want to keep in mind.

Hello everyone.

Im soon starting a new role that focuses on entreprenuership and strengthening relations with the users.

I'm currently a senior SWE and will be working with users of the system I had developed.

My goal is understanding the users better, and figuring out what tech solutions they actually NEED. Then, I need to find the best solution (research/POC), and finally, present it to the directors so the devs can start development and the architects can start characterizing the chosen solution.

Im struggling a bit with finding a proper title for the role, and looking for suggestions.

Thanks in advance!

I sent my availability to a company I'm interviewing with, but I haven’t received a response in three business days. I'm wondering what might cause a company to go silent after interviewing a candidate twice and inviting them to an onsite interview? Could it be they found someone already?

Currently at a crossroads between two opportunities in Switzerland:

Current Role (Energy Company):

• Senior Data Engineer / Solution Architect
• Team Lead (4 developers)
• Modern tech stack, great WLB
• 118k CHF
• Comfortable position, good recognition
• RAG, AI Agents

New Opportunity (Transportation Company):

• Junior Enterprise Architect
• Clear path to Enterprise Architect (2-3 years)
• 126.5k CHF total comp
• Potential EA salary: 140-180k CHF
• Better networking opportunities
• More structured environment

The dilemma: Stay in comfortable team lead role, or reset for 2-3 years with higher stress but better long-term prospects as Enterprise Architect?

Anyone made a similar transition to EA? Was it worth the temporary "reset"?

Thanks!

how often do you think about switching career directions? i'm a frontend engineer, and i've been thinking more and more about transitioning to full-stack development. but honestly, i'm also curious about changing not just my role but also my tech stack. for example, i'm interested in Clojure/Haskell/etc, but i'm not really sure how to pitch that to potential employers or present my experience in a way that makes sense.

update 1:
you know, it's just pretty hard to even show that in your CV. it's like a list of companies where you're a senior frontend dev, and then you send that to apply for a Clojure Engineer position or really, insert any other programming language instead of Clojure. you get what I mean?

what's your experience with this? maybe you're going through something similar right now?

Hey everyone,

I'm looking to add Generative AI (GenAI) skills to my LinkedIn profile and improve my understanding of the field. I don’t necessarily need an advanced research-level expertise, but I’d like a solid foundation that could be useful for career growth.

Are there any certifications or courses that are actually valued by employers? I see a lot of options but it's hard to tell which ones are actually useful vs. just a LinkedIn badge.

Also, if prior knowledge of Machine Learning (ML) or other topics is required, what would be a good learning path? A sort of pyramid of prerequisites + GenAI-specific certs would be really helpful.

Would love to hear from people who have taken these certifications or work in the field!

Thanks!