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Ask HN: Any advice on navigating this job market or pivoting out of tech? (US)

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Re: Ask HN: Any advice on navigating this job market or pivoting out of tech? (US)

#91

Post by dsattt »

15457345234 wrote: post #77
nmca wrote: post #50

Few counterpoints: * AI is better for juniors than seniors. It doesn't do legwork; it just provides knowledge. * Blind is a toxic hellscape and redditors are broadly pretty dim. Plausibly AI is a problem for your employment in like ~2 years; so I'd speedrun into SWE somewhere where you can make as much use of AI as possible (e.g. ask about whether the firm allows copilot, etc). There's no better industry to be in tha…

> * Blind is a toxic hellscape and redditors are broadly pretty dim. Reddit is, at this point, a literal mirror held up to reality. Everything you read there isn't happening. Maybe people want it to happen and think if they spam it enough times people will believe it is happening and report that it is happening, but it isn't. If you read something on reddit, believe the opposite.

It’s the same here as well. Everything you read about tech is wishful thinking.

Re: Ask HN: Any advice on navigating this job market or pivoting out of tech? (US)

#93

Post by jotjotzzz »

About 16 years ago, some of us in Tech graduated and started our careers during one of the greatest financial collapses (2008/2009). Yes, the market will always have ups and downs, but you choose Tech for a reason. Hopefully, you have some love for this industry. You haven't started your career yet, but if I was in your shoes pinpoint an exciting area you want to go into and dive-in from the bottom. I think I started my career doing some XML/HTML formatting back in the day. The pay was meh, but it gave me so many eye-opening experiences about all the available areas, from design, content management, programming, project management, etc... Get work or freelance, do something that creates value, and start somewhere. The market will always go up and down, but the best thing that no one can take away from you is your experience, know-how, and the expertise you develop within yourself.

Re: Ask HN: Any advice on navigating this job market or pivoting out of tech? (US)

#94

Post by charlie0 »

jyunwai wrote: post #40
charlie0 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a huge bet and it's going to further increase their student debt. If it doesn't pay off, they'll be much worse off than just moving back home with their parents and trying to say, start a business or freelance.

The soundness of the advice depends on the person's specific situation. I've known a person who benefitted from a Master's as the degree gave the person access to certain internships, which helped the person break into a specific field that would've been difficult to enter otherwise. Another person who earned a Master's found it easier to get a work visa working in a foreign country with a better market for that pers…

Agreed. Getting a Master's should be part of a well defined plan, not a "I don't what else to do and the economy is bad so I should stay in school for a few more years to pass the time" deal.

Re: Ask HN: Any advice on navigating this job market or pivoting out of tech? (US)

#95

Post by tensility »

hifromLA wrote: post #80
15457345234 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> * Blind is a toxic hellscape and redditors are broadly pretty dim. Reddit is, at this point, a literal mirror held up to reality. Everything you read there isn't happening. Maybe people want it to happen and think if they spam it enough times people will believe it is happening and report that it is happening, but it isn't. If you read something on reddit, believe the opposite.

I don’t disagree with this, but when did this happen? About a decade ago I remember Reddit being pretty decent. Did Reddit change or did I change?

Everything on the internet has been seriously enshittified over the prior decade. It isn't just you nor just Reddit.

Re: Ask HN: Any advice on navigating this job market or pivoting out of tech? (US)

#96

Post by prossercj »

askhn234 wrote: post #58
readingnews wrote: post #28

You need to do some soul searching (or, I like punk rock, "you've got soul doubt", to quote Fat Mike)... Are you just nervous because of the news you are reading OR "my interest in webdev is still dead" Have you gone through your college career and you realized you do not like CS? You need to answer this question first. Then you have the answer... if you love CS, the the job will come. Forget what you are reading and…

I think I do like CS, but dislike the domain I'm in. I think webdev is pretty boring, both frontend and backend. So this recent shift in the job market makes me think "So I have to go through the applying/interview grind again, this time with much fiercer competition, all for a job I won't even like?" I have always found game development more appealing (tools programming, game design and gameplay programming in parti…

You remind me a bit of myself. I work in web development now, but took some games classes in college and thought I might go that route for a time. My true passion has always been poetry. Here's my advice. Don't look for fulfillment from your job. It pays the bills, and if you don't hate it, consider that a blessing. Find something that occupies you only from 9 to 5 (plenty of web dev jobs like that), and use your free time to pursue the the music and storytelling that you really love. You would stop loving them if you had to do them for money. Might actually be better to do something that you don't love for money. I know this is the opposite of what they say at school, but it's what I find in my own career. You can't hate it, but it may be better not to love it too much. Best of luck.

Re: Ask HN: Any advice on navigating this job market or pivoting out of tech? (US)

#97

Post by 15457345234 »

dsattt wrote: post #91
15457345234 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> * Blind is a toxic hellscape and redditors are broadly pretty dim. Reddit is, at this point, a literal mirror held up to reality. Everything you read there isn't happening. Maybe people want it to happen and think if they spam it enough times people will believe it is happening and report that it is happening, but it isn't. If you read something on reddit, believe the opposite.

It’s the same here as well. Everything you read about tech is wishful thinking.

There's a lot of very weird optimism here for technologies that are VISIBLY making the world worse or aren't appropriate for the use case.

So many comments praising Discord in the 'why you shouldn't use Discord for FOSS' thread, all of which were basically 'yeah you should use it; it's cool and has a great UI' and zero substantial discussion of how it meets the needs of a support platform (because it doesn't, the searchability and retrievability is terrible.)

Re: Ask HN: Any advice on navigating this job market or pivoting out of tech? (US)

#98

Post by blharr »

hifromLA wrote: post #80
15457345234 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> * Blind is a toxic hellscape and redditors are broadly pretty dim. Reddit is, at this point, a literal mirror held up to reality. Everything you read there isn't happening. Maybe people want it to happen and think if they spam it enough times people will believe it is happening and report that it is happening, but it isn't. If you read something on reddit, believe the opposite.

I don’t disagree with this, but when did this happen? About a decade ago I remember Reddit being pretty decent. Did Reddit change or did I change?

It's progressively gotten worse, but the point for me was when they removed access for third party apps. Many people who contributed meaningfully left in protest.

Re: Ask HN: Any advice on navigating this job market or pivoting out of tech? (US)

#99

Post by jamil7 »

acheron wrote: post #36
readingnews wrote: post #28

You need to do some soul searching (or, I like punk rock, "you've got soul doubt", to quote Fat Mike)... Are you just nervous because of the news you are reading OR "my interest in webdev is still dead" Have you gone through your college career and you realized you do not like CS? You need to answer this question first. Then you have the answer... if you love CS, the the job will come. Forget what you are reading and…

> "my interest in webdev is still dead" > Have you gone through your college career and you realized you do not like CS? The Venn diagram of “web development” and “computer science” is two separate circles.

You can say the same about a lot of SWD roles, even the ones considered "harder".

Re: Ask HN: Any advice on navigating this job market or pivoting out of tech? (US)

#100

Post by 15457345234 »

blharr wrote: post #98
hifromLA wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t disagree with this, but when did this happen? About a decade ago I remember Reddit being pretty decent. Did Reddit change or did I change?

It's progressively gotten worse, but the point for me was when they removed access for third party apps. Many people who contributed meaningfully left in protest.

The comments were delusionally disparate from reality for a long time before that.

Reddit always leant left, but pre... idk, 2014 you could imagine the conversations you read on there occurring with someone you might conceivably meet in real life, even if they would be a bit of an outlier.

After that, no chance - everyone on there had the personality of a delusionally dug-in activist, the type of person you'd instinctively flee from if you met on the street. And the level of bullying you'd encounter if you went against 'the narrative' went up by a huge factor, as in, instant bans in just about every subreddit, 'if you're not on this side of the issue you're supporting genocide, this is a fact not an opinion' type of interactions. Then reddit updated their blocking system so that blocking someone cut _them_ off from contributing further, which basically made every user a mini-moderator, which was (and is) of course massively abused.

The place is long overdue to go under; offlining it would remove about 50% of the overall negativity from the internet, and considering it's such a small space compared with FB/Twitter that's really saying something.

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