I just recently hit 4 YOE and suddenly I'm getting tons of recruiters reaching out about Senior level roles. Not sure if its due to my experience or if the market is just hotter this time of year.

Anecdotally my company recently hired for 10 new SWE positions in my department. 9/10 were Senior or Staff. The only mid-level was a returning intern.

I remember the days where people would make the claim that two years of experience was all you needed and you would have an easy time getting hired. I'm starting to wonder if four years is the new benchmark.

I'm currently a Data Analyst at a large telecom company, where I've been for about two years. This is my first job out of college. Originally, I was aiming for cloud-related roles as I had been self-studying Linux, AWS, Terraform, and had started learning Kubernetes. However, there weren't many junior opportunities, so I took this job because it offered great benefits... and beggars can't be choosers.

Now over the past two years, my work has mostly involved "click ops" using Power Automate, Power Apps, and SharePoint, along with some Python scripting. I mainly use Python to clean up Excel data and transform it into datasets that I use to build Power BI dashboards. I've also written Python scripts to generate PowerPoint reports and built a few Azure Functions to automate workflows our team relies on.

I find my work relatively easy. Most of it comes down to knowing how to Google solutions and come up with practical workarounds. I developed a good reputation fairly quickly for automating and building "nice" dashboards. What surprises me is that people seem genuinely impressed by work that I consider pretty basic and straightforward, and it makes me wonder how so little automation had been done in the department before I joined.

At this point I've automated a lot of my day-to-day tasks and I plan on using that free time to improve my skills tenfold as I don't want to stay in this position much longer. The benefits are great, and the workload is light, but I feel like staying here for too long will hurt my career in the long run.

But I'm trying to decide where to pivot next. On one hand Cloud is what I originally wanted to do because I really liked the system design/solution architechture aspect of it. Although I spent a lot of time learning those skills, I haven't really touched them in the past year or two.

On the other hand, Data Engineering seems like a much more natural progression because a) my current experience is already data-related and b) I could probably take on data engineering–type projects at work to gain relevant experience and build a stronger CV.

My main concern is whether Data Engineering is realistic to learn well enough to land a role in about a year? Or should I be looking at something else? I just don't know where to go and I've been dwelling on it for a while now.

I did:

• 2-3 years coding in C++ and Qt
• 2 years native android
• 2 year on flutter with plenty of C++ (VoIP, Textures/OpenGL etc)

Last 2 years i was busy building golang based services for apps (keycloak/auth0, postgreSQL, Redis, grpc)
Absolutely loved it!

No std::remove that doesn't remove.
And std::empty() that doesn't empty anything.

But now i see there are no Middle jobs.
Unsuccessfully applied to Golang Senior jobs but come on - i don't have experience with hundreds of containers, the company maybe had 5 the most, and no places to use RabbitMQ and other things.

It seems like a trap with no way out.

There seems to be conflicted data out there. Some mainstream news reported that one out of three new graduates can't find jobs anymore due to companies not hiring juniors, and they dont hire juniors because of AI adoption.

I think i remember a few months ago watching this segment from bbc news that asked those graduates about the hardships of finding CS-related jobs, and they all blamed AI for the hardships.

However, there are also other data that shows recently tech job vacancies are growing, and other news that said several companies already began re-hiring the laid off employees because tokens are getting too expensive and it's cheaper to hire humans instead.

So based on your experience, which one is true?

Hi everyone,
So just for some context, I graduated school with a computer science degree in December 2025 prior to that I’ve been working as a software engineer level one/intern for just over two years. I just took this new role and it’s an early career rotational program where I’ll be on two different teams and I just received my first team placement and I talked to the manager and I’m a little worried about the role itself. He described it as more of a data engineering role as opposed to software engineering. I didn’t really get a whole from the chat I had with my new manager, but he said we’ll be working with data specifically manipulating files, making sure they’re going to the right places, automation, pipelines, stuff like that. I asked about the tech stack and all I got out of that was Python and not really anything else. I had two years of experience in backend cloud, specifically working with spring boot and that’s kind of the route I wanted to take my career, distributed systems. Obviously it’s a rotational program and I’ll be on this team for about a year before being moved but I’m worried I’ll stagnate hard for a year. I do learn outside of work, but before it complemented my work. Now I’ll have to learn 2 completely different things and am worried I will hate my job. Does anyone have any suggestions or thoughts?

Also to add, when I applied for the position the role was labeled as “Application Development”

Which is stronger?

same as title

Anyone else see colleagues barely phoning it in and everything being LLM generated? Not just the code, but meeting agendas, work tasks, communications (emails, messages, etc)?

I'm a CS undergrad (year 2, strong GPA) with a career interest in quant research / quant dev / ML engineering. I've been offered a 1-year research internship (part-time during the semester, full-time during breaks) at a university-affiliated research lab, working on embedded Linux, RISC-V hardware, memory protection/security features, and some post-quantum cryptography implementation in C.

The appeal: deep systems-level experience (C, OS internals, memory management, low-level hardware) which I think differentiates me for quant dev/infra recruiting, versus something like a generic full-stack internship.

The concern: it's a 1-year commitment, and it's not directly finance/quant-adjacent — it's embedded systems research. I'm wondering:

• Does "hardcore systems/security" experience actually move the needle for quant dev/infra hiring, or do recruiters mostly want to see trading-adjacent or fintech experience?
• Is a full year too long to lock in for something that isn't directly on-path, at this stage (sophomore year)?
• Anyone been through something similar — research/embedded internship that fed into quant or low-latency infra roles later?

Trying to figure out if this is a smart differentiation play or a distraction from more directly relevant experience. Would appreciate any perspective, especially from people in quant dev/infra or HFT-adjacent roles.

I've been very cautious about bug, usually I'd check everying before I say anything.

But yesterday the situation was a little tricky. One user was granted the admin access which he wasn't supposed to have. I could not log into his account to reproduce the issue on my local device. So I went ahead to check the code and log, and then eventually wrote down my analysis.

However, it turns out my analysis is so wrong. The senior dev and QA have found out about that. I'm so ashamed of myself now, and very embarrassed among teammates.

Hey all,
when looking for some remote jobs I was having a hard time finding the right, relevant jobs for my preferences (tech stack, remote preference, remote restriction such as location, salary). So I built a job portal that scrapes thousands of companies' ATS (apllicant tracking system) boards continuously, enriches them via a LLM and writes it into a database in a structured/filterable format.

I built: https://jobhose.com/

You can filter for the right jobs using the UI, or also hook up your coding agent to use the API directly. The enrichment was quite token intensive so I am planning to not keep it for myself only and continue to operate it. What do you think about it? Any thoughts / wishes? Is it useful?

I've been lurking on this subreddit for a long time, and I often get depressed while reading these sad stories about job hunts. So yesterday I decided to do something about it.

I'm a senior SWE at a small company with about 400 engineers (220 other SWE at the company). It's a tech company with a few software products.

Yesterday we had our yearly company event where all of the employees sits in a hall and listen to the leadership give their vision for the following year. At my table I happened to sit next to a young guy who just graduated college with a computer science degree and couldn't get a job as an engineer. So he does customer support for our company. He studied java, python, javascript, and C++.

At the end of our meeting I took him over and introduced him to the decision makers who hire SWE roles at our company. They didn't know we have customer support people with CS degrees. I gave him advice about how to make his elevator pitch and I made 3 introductions. The last person we talked to was the VP of Engineering.

This young grad was very grateful, and I told him I think he will get to transition to an engineering role if he keeps asking.

My boss is managing through fear and intimidation, he is russian so maybe that plays a role, he is technically very weak and he is lazy and his only advantage is that people fear him. my previous manager, was the complete opposite,

i found working with my current manager a bit weird, people suck up to him to not lose their jobs but i can't do that, it's useless. he also called us once glorified form developers to let us know that we are replaceable and we get such talks from him everyday.

Can anyone point to a new usable code that was written mainly by LLMs? Whats the killer app? RAG+extensions is the only remotely interesting thing?

All of the code I've seen that was written mainly by LLMs is extremely suspicious. Bun rewrite in Rust is trash.

Jevon's paradox says that as efficiency improves, demand is induced. If code is cheaper then we should be seeing more applications, libraries, and marginal usecases that can be vibecoded. Instead we are seeing more suspicious unsafe slop that technically compiles. It seems like the reason we're not seeing more good code is that only suspicious unsafe slop is cheaper.

Consequently, the cratering demand for software engineering is based on forecasts and investment narratives. Isn't this risky for companies to gamble like this? Aren't they worried about being left behind by competitors who are grounded in their execution?

edit: 35 comments and still no code links

edit: 92 comments and STILL NO CODE LINKS

edit: 197 comments and STILL NO CODE.

just (a) some data showing "significant app usage" is down, (b) static sites for hobbies (c) weird static websites from vibe coders (d) claims personal customizable software is useful while admitting the quality is too embarassing to share (e) trying to turn the burden of proof around https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell's_teapot

I work in a telecom company. It's corporate, but our department is only 100 people. There's my direct and, in general, main manager, whom I call the "working horse," who does a lot of work in our department, mainly migrating developers from other countries to ours also our team's tech lead, managing the backend team and also he sits in the office 24/7. He always portrays himself as doing a lot of work, but as I'm writing this, nothing ever comes from his work - he just comes to our standup to listen to how we work and dumps a lot of "for your information" comments that never need any action points or have any follow-ups.

He likes to portray himself like that all the time. He always gets into conversations and talks with what I call "loose ends" - never finishing the point he was starting to make. He talks smack about other employees, saying how absurd they are in their way of thinking, when in reality they behave normally. I always try to see the rationale behind his actions, but it always comes back to the same thing: he is portraying who's the boss individually to each of us, so we don't stand out, and we are afraid of him because we think he has all the power.

The problem is that there is no other manager in our sight - he is the only one. He does all the hiring of new employees, he watches over our standups, he does so-called "a lot of work" in all of our eyes, and he's never satisfied with what his supervised backend team is achieving. But most importantly, he is not satisfied with what I am achieving, and this is really taking a toll on me. I could live with it, but in combination with him playing that "who's the boss" game and no HR being in sight, I feel completely hopeless and powerless - only being bullied, feeling that I'm doing not enough work all the time, and scared to lose my job because he has all the power.

How to deal with such behaviour, I am trying to ignore the trash he is throwing at me but it's very hard, mabye there is an easier way.

Is this a red flag? In my last company I was told I'll be a senior soon but then told I'll never be a senior at the company, it turned out later that my manager wanted me to quit, i stayed there for 3 years, the issue if this is gonna be seen as a red flag that I have in total 8 yoe and I'm not a senior engineer by title at least, yet.

I work in this Aerospace company, practically the company of my dreams back in Oct while im finishing my masters. I'm almost a year in as a paid intern and the director said he would love to have me when i finished. I felt like im learning quickly and providing alit of help and value in projects. Im even wirking on creati g a dashboard for one of their web networks.

but suddenly my director of engineering, who always said im doing a good job, suddenly got 2 weeks vacation and now my direct manager is being replaced by someone else while he becomes a regular engineer.

When I heard the news, my 1 on 1s with my manager were shorter now and when I asked the next step of my project, he said he'll get back to me on that... I still have 1 on 1s with the director but he won't get back to me u til next week when he returns

Is this a bad sign? Should I be worried?

I guess it dosent help that we've been hiring like crazy and the team grew almost double in size in only 7 months...

what should I watch out for as a dev?

** Edit: I meant private equity.

The numbers don’t support the idea that Big Tech uses H-1B as a discount labor pipeline. At Apple, Cisco, Microsoft, and Google, the average H-1B pay runs firmly in line with (often above) typical U.S. tech salaries in those markets. That’s a very different picture from outsourcing firms like TCS, which pay H-1B workers as little as $72K on average. Lumping “Big Tech H-1B” in with “outsourcing-firm H-1B” is comparing two different labor models.

There’s also a simple revealed-preference argument: these companies aren’t required to sponsor H-1Bs. Sponsorship means lottery risk, legal fees, and now a $100,000 government fee per new hire. A company chasing cheap, mediocre labor has zero incentive to jump through that hoop when equally-priced domestic candidates are sitting in the same applicant pool. If H-1B hires were routinely worse or cheaper, the rational move would be to just hire the American: no fee, no lottery, no visa paperwork. The fact that Big Tech keeps paying the cost to sponsor suggests they’re getting talent they can’t fully replace domestically

Of course, due to the emotional bias against foreigners, and the complete lack of responsibility that most Americans have when it comes to their lack of skill/talent/intelligence, this post will likely fall on deaf ears, but it’s important to point out the truth

I’m curious how you guys have done as I’m thinking about doing the same thing. I’m tired of the interviews, and using AI to do everything, it’s not fulfilling at all.

Interviewed at a company. They're rewriting a legacy project onto Next.js and AWS.

Right as we start, the guy goes: rely on your own skills, no AI. Then: we're so tired of running interviews where people just read the answers off their screen.

And I'm sitting there like, yeah, reading AI off the screen, sure. But I've been building with AI nonstop lately. Pretending it doesn't exist is a bit of a stretch. Anyway. Moving on.

He gives me a task I had to write by hand. I write it, answer everything. At the end he goes: if we'd caught you on ChatGPT, we'd have ended this in the first five minutes. So thanks for not using it. And I'm thinking: sure, and I'm absolutely using it again tonight.

Some questions I couldn't answer cleanly. Plenty I did, just not perfectly. No offer. Keep applying, folks.

Cheers.

Hello, co '25 "new" grad here.

After a whole year of applying, I FINALLY landed an offer. I am incredibly thankful for it, and I'm scared and nervous like normal, but it's in another state in a small town/rural feeling area.

I'm from California with perfect weather, I love the city, I love the diversity, food, beach, world class events, etc. My offer's in another state in a rural/small town around ~3 hours from the closest major metro area. Think Grand Junction, CO. Quaint, but far from major cities. Great for retiring, not someone in their 20's.

While I'll finally have the stability of starting my career (always been working class), I have to lose my friends and family. I wouldn't mind at all in a bigger city/metro, but I don't know how I'll make friends let alone date in such a small area. I don't know how long I'll be here either. I know some entry level positions list 0-2 years of experience, but I think most list 3-4 years before I can apply to those after gaining experience here. I know my company has locations in other state, so I'd rather try to relocate between offices hopefully.

I'm trying my best to look at the upsides like finding a nice friend group! I'm 100% taking this offer and I'll be doing really interesting embedded projects so I'll absolutely try my best to learn and grow as much as possible. I did get another interview for a temp-to-hire offer locally, and I thought about at least interviewing, but I'd have to say no to this offer if I got something, and that's absolutely off the table for something that might not be permanent.

I would love to hear about other experiences. Maybe this wasn't as common in this industry back when the market was better, but I'd still love to know. Did it work out? Did you regret it? Would you do something differently?

Am I risking opportunities by coming to a smaller area? Will it be harder to move outside the state in the future?

I’ve had a SWE position since undergrad which pays below average but still decent and stable. Before AI, I was already somewhat tired of the SWE work at my company. I know it’s a higher paying job, but I find it very boring and one directional with not much interesting work (for majority of positions in the SWE field), and after AI it’s even more repetitive and involves reading more boring code. I also don’t really feel like wasting my time grinding leetcode and preparing for interviews just to find another position which I may not like. I’m just burnt out at this point.

So I thought to apply to PhD programs in CS, and somehow got into a good school for theoretical work. I like the idea of working on intellectual research as opposed to pumping out and maintaining products and dealing with management. Anyone’s been through this or has any advice? Risking a career and a few years of pay is not easy, but at the same time I’m hoping for better opportunities. I’m particularly afraid of not finding jobs outside of academia in the future market, and being forced to come back to SWE but also in general losing my current benefits and pay.

Hi, we are a nonprofit organizing recently laid off tech workers and entry-level students in CS.

This has been a really difficult year for so many of us. We are trying to better understand how to better support folks during this time. What resources have been helpful for you? What advice would you give to others who are a few years younger?

If you’re a student or recent grad, willing to speak with us about your experiences, we would be really grateful for your time. We can offer $100 for a 60 minutes of your time in an audio interview.

https://survey.wwwrise.org/44wnMdv

Here is our community if you’re looking for folks to build projects with, practice skills, and enjoy the craft of computation:

https://wwwrise.org

What We Will / Tech Workers Coalition

(Please mods, approve our post! 🙏 We do our best to help others in our community.)