r/cscareerquestions

I’m sorry for the language but this industry is currently absolute shit. Seriously what are us young people supposed to do? Just pray we don’t get laid off and can never come back? Work a 996 culture 60 hours a week to prove we’re valuable? Then still get laid off? And now have to compete with tens of thousands of senior engineers from the likes of Meta, Amazon, Snap, etc.? Learn a bunch of skills like prompting an AI because they companies tell us to use 100% AI now? So have to study actual important things in my own free time in top of the 996.

Feeling like I chose the wrong career. There will be so much friction the entire way up the ladder now. I’m disheartened about this field and it hasn’t gotten any better since 2022.

hey everyone, i've graduated last year and managed to land a swe role at a local logistics firm, but i’ve basically spent the last 8 months doing nothing but fixing selenium scripts and dealing with legacy portals that have zero API access. our dev team updates the site layouts almost weekly and my whole workflow just collapses constantly. honestly feeling super behind my peers who are building full-stack apps. i’ve been trying to keep up by messing with newer stuff on the side like i’ve been using skyvern lately to handle some of our automated form filling via vision models instead of hardcoding everything, which saves me time, but i’m worried i'm just becoming a glorified script maintainer. is the market for automation and testing engineers completely dead right now, or is it worth trying it out? what your take on this job market rn?

I'm currently a Senior Full-stack Dev with over 10 years of experience.

Towards the end of 2025, I have noticed that I have started feeling burnt out. My project is shipping fast, the growth of the actual app is also at a rapid pace, and with that comes the increased workload, demand, and time. I feel like I'm on my toes every time and I don't remember if we ever had a "chill" sprint this year. I wanted to stay longer in this company but this feels like it isn't sustainable for me in the long run.

I'm considering getting a new job and have interviewed recently but I would fall along the lines of a "freelancer" because they don't have an office in my country and they don't have the benefits that a regular office employee gets in my country
Pros:
- fully remote and full time contract
- Salary is 50% more than my current pay
- employer is based in a Nordic country so I know their work ethic and habits. Had experience with a Norway-based company and I had a good time there
- good work life balance
- flexible shift
- 25 days PTO

The biggest con I think, personally, would be that this job is a VueJS/Laravel stack with heavy emphasis on front end. Currently I am an Angular/.NET dev and have around 5 years of experience with .NET. I have experience with Laravel and Vue before for around 2 years and I don't mind getting back to it.

With that, in my current company, this is the setup:
- been here for 3 years
- hybrid (in the office once a week)
- with good HMO / insurance, and the usual employee benefits
- I am well established with my team. I can feel that I am reliable and I produce good output. I like my boss (which is rare for my experience lol)
- good upper management support
- overall, I know I have stability in this company despite having AI
- BUT I'm just burnt out and I don't think I can sustain this for the next 2 - 4 years. My health has declined a bit too.

Dilemma:
Do I choose the stable job I have right now or take the risk and go to a new environment?

I'm worried about my experience in .NET, this helped me build my career. and I like .NET too lol. Laravel is okay for me, but I have noticed more .NET related job openings and bigger companies tend to use them. Would it hurt my future chances if I deviate from it now?

The flexibility and chiller workload is also tempting me. I'm in my 30s and I'd like things to be a bit calmer since I already hustled in my 20s.

What do you think?

https://www.trueup.io/layoffs

When you click this link and go to “Layoffs by Year,” it looks like we are about to have the worst year of layoffs since the 2023 post-COVID bust. Why is that?

A lot of people discussing layoffs usually say they are due to overhiring, but I don’t see how that can still be used as an excuse anymore. I also don’t think it is purely economic, since many of these companies have reported huge earnings beats over the past few months but are still laying off thousands of employees.

Is it time to accept that AI will take many jobs?

Edit: However, when I look deeper, these companies still have a lot of open tech roles, and those openings have continued to rise even since the release of tools like Claude and Codex. My current theory is that the goal of these layoffs may be to start lowering salaries.

For example, instead of paying $170K for one senior engineer, a company may prefer to hire a junior engineer for $90K and give them AI tools. Even if that junior engineer burns through a lot of tokens, at the current stage of AI, they might still be more cost-effective than the senior engineer.

Strongest patterns Across Levels: Job Switching Is seen as the “Fastest Growth Lever”

It is true that Loyalty doesn't pay in IT. Even in FAANG or Product roles, “loyalty” is highly overrated. Your skills and experience are highly transferable and mobile.

Corollary to loyalty is switching strategically - every 12-18 Months or when the right opportunity comes along.  A random switch for a 10-15% jump every year is not going to take you far beyond your peers.

Freshers:

The most common concern is getting a job (any job!). Many posts are from developers earning modest salaries but worrying more about “not learning anything.” Common concerns include

• How do I avoid getting trapped in a low-growth role (Bench, maintenance, support role etc)?
• How do I get out of this toxic workplace at a startup?
• I have experience in XYZ, but recruiters are looking for ABC

Pro-tip: No coach or consultant can help with these concerns. If you haven’t been able to get  campus-interview, you must network offiline and online (e.g Linkedin) and repeatedly applying for relevant jobs. Tailor your resume for EACH job.

Junior-Level (3–8 YOE):

• How do I stay relevant and avoid stagnation? Can I move from back-end to front-end?
• I am expected to use AI tools but all I do is consume tokens in ABC tool. How can I be more productive and learn more?
• Other common issues  - AI disruption  / Career pivots  / Burnout or WLB / Leadership transitions / International opportunities

Pro-tip: Read and learn more. Raise your hand if there are opportunities at work. Tailor your resume for EACH job you apply to.

Mid-Level (8–14 YOE):  

• Do I continue in IC roles or move to PM/Leadership track?
• How do I address the fear of becoming outdated due to AI automation?

 Pro-tip: Start taking a holistic view of life beyond your job – find a passion, start a family, build on financial security etc. A coach/mentor cannot “guide you” but will ask relevant questions. You must reflect on them yourself and take a decision. 

Senior-Level (14+YOE):  You may already have a blueprint for where you see yourself.

• How do I balance all my life expectations (family, aging parents, EMI etc) against job and commute?
• Do I start thinking of Life after IT?

Pro-tip: Talk to peers and your mentors to ideate. Continue holistic view of life beyond your job – find a passion, start a family, build on financial security etc.  

During my mentoring, I wear the hat of a “life-coach” and look beyond career.

Techies at every stage think their problems are unique, but they are not 

• Freshers fear being left behind in the AI era. Mid-level engineers fear becoming irrelevant in the fast pace. Seniors fear losing leverage
• There is a lot of focus on salaries, but most of us forget that consist earning is a key more than a periodic bump. Getting a 50% salary hike and getting laid of in 1 year is going to leave you back in the same treadmill
• Questions about ‘investing’ are common, but very few have financial acumen or discipline
• Many come to rant about ‘family issues and baggage, but don’t have the resilience to address them

In the end, most career problems in tech are rarely just “tech problems.” They are problems of mindset, discipline, resilience, emotional stability, and long-term thinking.

Hey folks,

I'm an experienced engineer - got years of experience in the industry and well versed with cloud technologies and distributed systems. However, my understanding of the whole AI/ML field is little to none, the most I have done is use GenAI/LLMs in order to supplement my work. I do not know what I do not know, and do not know where to even start. In fact, I even struggle to find the words to describe the problem below

With the industry shifting so fast, I have started seeing a lot of skills within jobs being around the ability to build backends for AI systems. Whether it is building data pipelines to feed into vector databases, scaling vector databases, embeddings (or whatever the heck that is), RAGs, MCPs, Agents, Agentic AI, etc

Does anyone have any suggestion on how experienced engineers can learn/prepare for the engineering part of AI systems ? For example, I would suspect system design interviews will start shifting to scaling vector databases (instead of just SQL/NoSQL), how to build scalable RAGs/MCPs/fine tuning, etc

Furthermore, are these considered 'ML System Design Interviews' ? Since I have started seeing that word being thrown around a lot. I do not intend to become a scientist that makes models, or understand the maths that make LLMs work. I want to learn the ENGINEERING side of it that can take existing models and deploy them as SCALABLE systems, along with scaling all its related surrounding infrastructure.

One of the ways I started learning System Design was by going through examples & problems in the book 'System Design Interview'. Is there any book or course that would cover the use case I have above ? I know they have new books such as 'The GenAI System Design Interview' and 'The ML System Design Interview', but I am not sure if thats for scientest/ML engineers or for regular engineers who are deploying these systems.

Please suggest !

I've said in two previous posts that the last 2 years has been bloody abysmal for finding any kind of job between graduate to junior to senior (as I sit at senior who somehow "lacks experience"). Recently one of the jobs advertised by an agency that I applied to turned out to be for my former employer who laid me off and I have mixed feelings about returning but I'm biting the bullet anyway.

It mostly comes down to having lost 2 years to a career coma with people I worked with having progressed in their career to the point that some I mentored are now in a managerial position. My coming back feels like I've "lost" almost because I was semi-optimistic about finding a new job or transitioning to a different career path that I was equally qualified for.

I'm gonna keep looking for a better job while I go back, but I'm worried about spending another 5 years there for fear that I'll just be laid off again back to another 2 year job hunt. Has anyone else been a boomerang employee? What are your experiences dealing with... *gestures vaguely into the yonder*?

So as we all know there is slim pickings in this market. I have 3 YOE and considering moving across the country for an offer. They are offering a relocation bonus as well. I also have offers in my local area but they don’t pay nearly as much + state income tax. I’m wondering if relocation is even wise given that people get laid off a few months after moving for a company? AFAIK, I’ve never seen a “safety net” in my job contracts to prevent me from getting laid off after a move.

Feel like we all bottom of the barrel engineer having to pass quiz and mind game to get hired for job. Begging to get hired by passing quiz lc sys design agent usage llm mastery

What point does company chase u? Wat kind of value do I need? Do you need to make global product? How successful? Or make open source tool that get adopted by one of big company?

Looking to start interview preparations. Would like to hear your experience and suggestions.

I’m in a really frustrating situation with HCL Tech and could use some advice.

Currently, I am working remotely for a US-based startup and earning in USD. Since the company doesn't have an office in India, the owners pay me directly via PayPal/Remitly from their personal names instead of a company account.

I recently interviewed for a senior WFH role at HCL and cleared it. I was totally transparent with the HR about my payment setup and even shared my bank statements to prove my income. Initially, the HR told me that the least they could do was match my current US startup pay, and I was okay with that.

However, the official offer letter I just received is shockingly low.

They completely ignored my current startup salary. Instead, they looked at the previous Indian company I left back in November and only added a 10k(annually) hike to that old salary. This is way less than what I am making right now.

When I asked why, they basically said they can't consider my current role because it doesn't have traditional Indian payslips. Now, the HR has stopped responding to my calls and messages.

Is there any way to negotiate this, or should I just walk away?

Currently in a start up which while it does seem like it has potential for growth and I genuinely do like the people the maintainability of this entire codebase is not looking as good. 99% of what the other engineers commit is using ai.

I’ve been here for a year but I want to move to a better position where I can get used to how tech is supposed to be run with potentially some mentoring opportunities as well.

I don’t really want to leave my position unless I find a top FAANG like position however. So how can I go that direction? Is it as simple as just keep applying and developing completed portfolio projects as well as the classic leetcode?

Curious about how long it took people to find a new job after losing or quitting an old one.

I am grinding so much I am tired but I feel scared that I have to grind cause if I don’t i’ll get let go and never find anything else.

Please reassure me 🙏

(idk if this matters but I am about to finish year 1 at a FAANG rn)

I’m an experienced dev with ~8 years experience in full stack work between both startups and large tech firms. I’ve been casually applying to some jobs/putting out some feelers the last month or so. Overall in the last month I’ve probably put out ~50 or so LinkedIn applications (or applications via a companies job site) to jobs where I meet all of the qualifications and I don’t think I have received any kind of positive response from any of of them.

Conversely I’ve noticed an uptick in recruiter outreach and so far all the calls I have had have gone incredibly well and the recruiter has been very excited to speak with me.

Which leads me to wonder is job seeking through traditional avenues just a dead end at this point? Or is there something else I should be doing to outbound apply to jobs (assuming I have no connections at the company).

Hey everyone,
I have an upcoming behavioral interview for a tech role at IBM, and I wanted to ask for advice from people who have gone through the process before.
For those who interviewed for software engineering, data, cloud, infrastructure, or other technical roles at IBM:
What kinds of behavioral questions did they ask?

What do IBM interviewers care about the most?

How should I structure my answers?

What made candidates stand out positively?

Any common mistakes I should avoid?

Thanks for your time.

I worked one company that was ultra strict. I mean as in, they’d comment on the grammar in your pull request descriptions and grade it like a school assignment. They’d barrage people less than a minute (this is literal, as if the manager was just sitting there watching) after submitting code reviews with tons of nitpicks on slack

Often reviews were unclear, slow, or even contradictory. They’d ask you to do something one day, only to say the exact opposite the next day. Trying to figure out what you should be working on with your manager was like pulling teeth, almost like they didn’t want to give an answer

I asked about HR, they said we don’t have it then didn’t direct me anywhere about it

I assumed this was bad management, but is it something more than that? Maybe conspiratorial but it kind of seems like they were trying to set up everyone for poor performance to justify letting go of anyone

same location and similar pay. which is better for new grad swe in terms of better exit for faang?

Anyone here work in Blockchain Industry? Not crypto stuff but enterprise software.