I feel like I've wasted the better part of my twenties trying to be a professional software engineer and founding two companies. Fortunately I have some money to show for it and I learned a lot, but at this point it seems I'm functionally unemployable / have skills that just don't make the cut anymore.
Building with AI is incredible, but when I get interviews I just flat out can't pass tech screens anymore. I've gotten lucky with a few "forward deployed" roles but for whatever reason, never get a callback after the final round.
I really enjoy software, but I need to actually figure something out that's a real career (earns more than $150k per annum). I'm sort of freaking out given that all this time and money I spent to become an engineer appears to be going to waste. It's been about four months and the prospects just aren't showing up like they used to.
Also, I have zero interest in 996 startup culture. How on earth it became impossible as an american to get a job in software where you make a decent salary and work 50hr weeks is sort of beyond my comprehension as someone in Gen Z.
Curious for advice or if anyone else has made the leap outside of tech. I fear for my mental health and stability if I don't figure something out soon. I flat out just don't know where I want to go next, even applying to sales roles has fallen flat.
I have good contacts for law school, but the notion of burning $200k on the chance that law is still a viable career with AI seems like an even worse decision than logic I applied in my 20s.
Cheers.
Otherwise it might make sense to move out of the bay area to where there are lower costs of living and then lower your salary expectations to match.
Bear in mind that being a good corporate drone or middle manager requires different soft skills and attitude than being the CEO of your own company. You have to march to someone else's drum which can be hard.
You need to prove to yourself and others that you can be a regular developer now, you're in a position where you might need to sacrifice salary, job description and/or working conditions to get a foot back on the ladder.
Beyond salary, the culture of working hours in the bay area might be a bad fit for you. If you're looking for a boring (in a good way) salaryman programmer role you might need to see where those sort of companies are centred.
Note, I live and work outside the US so I can't give specific US advice.
I was previously in the bay, but I'm back in Austin for a while - which fortunately is dirt cheap.
- A salary that is ~15% higher than the median Bay Area household, which consists of ~2.6 people. And as an individual you’re calling it “barely survivable”.
or a
- A salary that is 40% higher than the median household in Austin TX, which consists of 2.7 people. The median individual makes about $52,223 in Austin.
Am I reading this right? On top of this you seem to have a negative and entitled attitude, based on your other responses.
What is your depth of knowledge in? You say software?
Law would be an risk idea if you don't love it with all your heart, even people who love law hate it by the end of law school.
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competitive in other parts of the US, perhaps, but for serious dyed-in-the-wool devs it's piddly
I've started two companies, exited one and technically have the skills of a "senior engineer". I've managed teams of engineers and have architected remote factory production systems for one of my companies along with a dozen or so relatively complex web apps in the fintech space.
Maybe your attitude is why you can't find a job?
Nothing in your post indicates you're "in the bay", and in the other 99% of the country $150k is a decent salary.
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I know good developers who’ve done more impressive stuff than that, making at or under this $150k cut-off.
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Check out data fields. I’m in data analytics, no I don’t make 150k, but it’s a good living and I consider it real. I do a lot of good and save government a lot of money with my tech skills.
I'm embarrassed by this whole thing.
OP comes off as hugely entitled to be honest.
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Seems like the interview pipeline is geared towards new grads and junior engineers and penalize senior and staff. At what point do I stop having to do these silly coding interviews?! At what point does my resume and 20 yrs of experience speak for itself? So called senior/staff interview loops are a joke with toy system design questions. What do you really learn asking “design twitter” 100 times?
The only answer I can come up with is networking. Basically, don’t bother interviewing. 4 of my last 5 jobs were via networking—no interviews.
Agree with your points on networking being the only way. Interviewing is super broken right now.
My main point is that I would NOT be shocked if VP/CTO interviews still asked candidates to code on the whiteboard.
frankly, if an offer presented itself for $80k a year I'd take it (it's embarrassing but that's just where I am at the moment)
Networking seems to be the only way to get past the HR filters.
Was out of work for a year. The magic solution was a nepo referral.
I love this world!
This expectation is why software development has become the neo-yuppies of the 2010s-2020s, people with overinflated expectations because they are keeping-up-with-the-Joneses from the internet being loud about their high salaries. Yes, there are people earning a lot in this industry but it's definitely not the norm outside of the inflated US salaries, the USA is the outlier.
I don't really have any interest arguing what a respectable salary on HN is. The recruiter I was working with clearly stated that $180-200k given my resume was reasonable. America isn't europe.
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I wish you all the best in this current situation and hope, things will fall in place quite soon.
I really enjoyed the process engineering and problem solving of running my own companies. It's how I ended up managing a small team of engineers. I even lived in China for a few months getting our production setup.
Unfortunately, most companies don't seem to care about this experience or think because it was my own org (with references) it doesn't stand up to actual "PM" / "management" experience.
"make a decent salary and work 50hr weeks"
You sound incredibly privileged and entitled. I this just a ragebait post?
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