Ask HN: Junior dev and I don't want to compete in this job market. Any advice?
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.
94 comments
[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 176 ms ] thread- 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.
Best of luck!
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.)
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.
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.
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.
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)
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.
Hoping for the best for this person too.
But you're right, OP didn't mention it directly:)
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 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.
That's not to say you can't have seasons of more or less interest, but this guy is at the starting line.
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)
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.
> 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.
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?
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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?
Yeah, I probably wouldn't trust anyone who only looks at social proof to determine who's a good person and who isn't.
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
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.
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!
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!
Tune in to what you love doing - that's where your job is.
Domain specific jobs tend to be much more rare, but also much easier to get if you have the unique skill set needed.
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)
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
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.
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?
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 not, is there anything adjacent you'd like to pivot to?
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.
working for interesting people is a joy.
no one interesting is on linkedin.
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.