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Job hunting absolutely sucks right now
Feeling pretty discouraged after taking yet another spin around the tech interview circuit for naught
I was feeling pretty good this time around as I've interviewed with this company before and was runner up for previous role. The hiring manager contacted me for this new one, and again I aced it until the final stage where I got punted for the all nebulous "culture fit" reasoning. My mood isn't helped by the constant AI doom clouds hovering overhead that makes me wonder if I need to make bigger career changes.
How's everyone else fairing out there?
I was also laid off from my SE job back in October due to "restructuring." I've been in the field for 17 years and I'm just so burned out from repeating this cycle every 1-3 years. All I've ever wanted was long-term, stable employment doing what I love without waiting for the axe to fall. AI has changed my relationship with coding, I still enjoy it somewhat but I sure don't want my job to be babysitting Claude while it makes subtle questionable architecture decisions in customer-facing products I'm supposed to care about. I've always hated the tech interview process. Just looking for a radical change now, because I can't keep spinning in that hamster wheel.
Yep. My s/o has been out of work since last August. They get interviews but they’re out of practice so keep failing the tech interview. Its a matter of time I think.
Its cause they worked at a bank for over ten years so when they see problems they read it, walk away, go pee, make coffee, go for a walk, maybe make lunch, oop now its 5pm. Mull it over in the shower. Do morning meetings the next day. Mull it over some more. Two days later have an idea how to start. A day after that get mostly done but that last 10% of debugging is a killer. A week later finally finish just in time to prepare a 20 min demo for the end of sprint demos.
Tech interview is like nah do this shit cold turkey you have 30 mins good luck
I had been constantly searching on and off for the better part of a year with not many bites.
Some that could have gone further had I tried a little harder I think. And only recently had I found a new role (a few months ago).
It's a rough market, and I've got about 12 years of professional Software Engineering experience. It is very strange indeed. Let me know if you need coaching or resume review (if you're in the same area or tech as me).
I'm happy to help how I can.
Also in Software Engineering, and have been not so seriously looking for 12-18 months
My perception is that employers are looking for a deal right now. Everyone seems to want to pay a bit less than they were because of AI, market/economic concerns, or some other nebulous reason. In a way, I feel like this is the pendulums return swing from the great resignation a few years back where it seemed like everyone in the field was hopping to new opportunities for significant salary bumps, but I have no doubt that employers are trying to play any advantage that they can get.
I'm lucky to be fairly comfortable in my current role. Excuse the pessimism but I don't envy anyone urgently looking for a position in this field
I'm an independent IT guy. Been doing it for 25 years. It has never been as hard as it is now to get good work, and I know I have it luckier than most in that people will always need tech help. But damn, it's rough right now. I post in commiseration, fellow techies. Good luck out there.
You're certainly not alone in your struggles, the market feels similar to what it was in 2023 amid similar mass layoffs too. Some of my friends graduated undergrad in 2023 into that crappy market, decided to get graduate degrees, and are now about to graduate again into a similar crappy market. I truly feel for them as they're all brilliant individuals. Another friend of mine unfortunately got laid off last summer and he's been interviewing heavily since the fall. They've gone through I believe 110 separate interview rounds at countless companies. I was fortunate enough to land a mid-level engineer role last Fall, I don't think I'll be changing companies again anytime soon. I'd be happy to review your resume if you'd like! My experience is primarily backend technologies (Java, PHP, Python, Spring, SQL) and I'm still fairly early in my career so I'm not sure how helpful my reviews would be but still, happy to help!
Software engineer interviews are also evolving in this AI age so I do wonder if you might have some better luck in the near future, at least at bigger tech companies. Previously, these companies relied heavily on Leetcode and Leetcode-esque puzzles to evaluate engineers, along with system design questions for mid-level and senior engineer roles. However, it seems like going forward, companies will evaluate you more on your engineering skills along with your AI prompting skills. DoorDash just published a blog about this a few days ago where it seems like they will be evaluating your real-world skills more. In their blog they wrote that they want to evaluate how well you:
all while explaining your "why" as you normally would in an interview. From what I heard from my friend at Meta, they're also moving towards an interview process like this. Meta's been trialing this since October as far as I know.
Doordash blog about rebuilding engineering interviews around AI usage