71–80 of 270 posts
Try not living in an high-cost area or above your means, you can coast for a couple of years in some random corporate environment, then you could apply for some FAANG when positions reopen.
But they may not be closed for your role.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Connections, connections, connections. Reach out to every friend, old coworker, etc. especially those that are in management now. Catch up and get a pulse for how their company situation is right now--if they're weathering the downturn well, going through layoffs, etc. If you do get laid off you can reach out to these folks immediately and get recommendations or even just feedback on your resume. The sooner you start…
> New grads have it a lot easier in the open market IMHO. Maybe the top 10% of new CS grads have it easy, by virtue of having easier access to university -> big tech hiring pipelines for junior engineers. But there’s no comparison to the ease of being a senior and having job offers flood in to your LinkedIn on a weekly basis. Getting a new job becomes a function of simply contacting the past 5 recruiters and asking f…
Splitting hairs a little here, but I've got > 25 years of experience and have not once, ever, received a job offer through LinkedIn, let alone weekly. I've had recruiters showing varying levels of interest contact me there, but never "Hi, person I've never met, great resume! Here is your job offer letter, we're offering $XXX,XXX compensation..."
Senior people do get contacted by recruiters, but they're fishing, and all of these contacts are extremely early in the pipeline. We have to go through the whole process, just like junior folks. The endless phone screens, the whiteboard hazing, the ghosting, the salary negotiation. Being senior and experienced doesn't let you bypass it. "Networking" doesn't let you bypass it.
I know that's probably what you mean, but the simplifying-meme "job offers flooding your inbox" gets repeated and I think people get the wrong idea about how easy it is.
I like the advice here: https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/advice-for-junior-softwar... (didn't write it, but it jives with my experience). I also wrote something here on how to stand out: https://letterstoanewdeveloper.com/2022/09/19/ways-to-stand-... Finally, you ask: > Is it better to get any job than keep searching for the job I'd be most suited for? That depends on your financial situation and emotional runway,…
Good advice from the pragmatic engineer article. Particularly the advice to "aim wide". It is so tempting to put all your effort into that one perfect job. But in down times, you want a steady paycheck and to start getting practical experience under your belt. The only thing I would add is to always try to shoot for a company where technology is seen as an asset and not just a cost center. Traditionally, that was sof…
On the hiring side, I've found quite a bit of anecdotal success finding really talented junior engineers who have fallen into this trap, where a close read of the resume and cover letters shows a passion that's not covered by the actual keywords on the resume. I'll often stretch our requirements to give interviews to people I have a good gut feeling about - "diamonds in the rough" so to speak. But it takes a lot of time and focus to not simply screen out a resume based on these negative keywords - and given that recruiting teams at a lot of companies have been reduced as well, many won't have the time to do this well, if they ever did to begin with.
As a candidate you can absolutely mitigate this with open-source contributions, if you have time. But it can be hard to find that focus, time, and mentorship/community, especially if the day-job environment is toxic.
MechE so I don’t fit your CS/EE ask exactly. I posted this before, tech is a small percentage of engineering. There’s plenty of good engineering jobs out there. Sure, the pay and benefits won’t be as good as tech but it’s still fulfilling in its own way. And you’ll still make a relatively cushy wage where you should be able to thrive, not just survive.
I haven't seen any reduction in demand for devs in my region, but that doesn't necessarily mean they aren't coming.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The stories of "getting three job offers after four interviews at five companies" are no longer reality. Yikes. I have been in Software Engineering for about 11 years and never had it any other way and even then interviewing and managing applications was stressful. Having to apply to 10s, 100s of companies would destroy me. I am very, very scared of my company going under and me having to compete in this market. I…
If I'm unemployed and dropped out from college due to stress and burnout (still ongoing, compounded by a psychologically-unsafe living environment), and would have to fill out hundreds of job applications to find a job, and doing so is unmanageable and beyond my capabilities, is it easier to not find a job and stop trying to stay alive?
I‘d recommend trying to lobotomize yourself with a few psychopharmaca prescribed by a psychiatrist first. What‘s the worst that could happen?
You probably haven‘t tried everything yet and you can always try to stop trying to stay alive at a later point.
You should probably call your countries crisis hotline. You can ask google how to commit suicide to get the number.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> New grads have it a lot easier in the open market IMHO. Maybe the top 10% of new CS grads have it easy, by virtue of having easier access to university -> big tech hiring pipelines for junior engineers. But there’s no comparison to the ease of being a senior and having job offers flood in to your LinkedIn on a weekly basis. Getting a new job becomes a function of simply contacting the past 5 recruiters and asking f…
> there’s no comparison to the ease of being a senior and having job offers flood in to your LinkedIn on a weekly basis. Splitting hairs a little here, but I've got > 25 years of experience and have not once, ever, received a job offer through LinkedIn, let alone weekly. I've had recruiters showing varying levels of interest contact me there, but never "Hi, person I've never met, great resume! Here is your job offer…
And we're not talking some fluke small company with no controls. This was a fortune 500. The job had no particularly interesting requirements so I guess somebody just said fill the seat for a few months and I was just grabbed. At the time I was doing a lot of international wandering so it was a nice easy refueling top up stateside.
I like the advice here: https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/advice-for-junior-softwar... (didn't write it, but it jives with my experience). I also wrote something here on how to stand out: https://letterstoanewdeveloper.com/2022/09/19/ways-to-stand-... Finally, you ask: > Is it better to get any job than keep searching for the job I'd be most suited for? That depends on your financial situation and emotional runway,…
I'd say, having experiences at bad workplaces can still be valuable. This isn't to say one should seek out toxic colleagues and horrible working conditions, but knowing what you do not want is valuable too. And having bad workplaces early on is cheaper than having bad workplaces later in life. All in all, I'm trying to emphasize that a job in the field you want will almost always be beneficial when you're starting ou…
As far into my career as I am at this point, I've both a finely honed radar and zero tolerance for toxic bullshit, but as a new developer, it's a whole lot harder to have both the self-confidence and self-awareness to recognize that the reception you're getting isn't because you're an unqualified idiot, it's because Sr. Developer Jim's dad was an asshole and Engineering Manager Bob doesn't know how to or have the confidence in his role to rein in his Sr. Developer from berating the new grad for things that new grads do until emotionally balanced mentors teach them not to. I have good friends who've spent a lot of time in therapy undoing what toxic workplaces did during vulnerable years.
I've been through the dotcom slaughter of 2000-2002 as a new grad (undergrad) and the comparatively small slowdown of 2008 (grad school new grad). Get ready to hit the Submit button... a lot. The stories of "getting three job offers after four interviews at five companies" are no longer reality. My application:interview:offer ratio has always varied from 50:5:1 to 100:10:1, and I would expect something like that or w…
I'm curious what your discipline is in?
That said, a lot of the big companies have frozen hiring in AI along with a lot of unicorns who focused on AI but haven't been profitable. Some of my own PhD students who are graduating soon are worried, but they have been able to get interviews at non-FAANG companies for doing AI research.
There are a lot of faculty openings for AI, and while they are competitive, it isn't nearly as competitive in the past if you have been productive during your PhD. You would have to wait until Fall 2023 to apply for them, so you would have to do a postdoc or something like that for a year.
I think money is going to flow into AI start-ups doing foundation models and generative AI, so if your AI-related work is in that space, you could be well positioned. It would be potentially risky if you are not a US citizen due to visa issues.