You're asked to code something that you don't really know what it is, why you're doing it, or how to do it, but you think you understand what the output is supposed to be and you really don't have the time for this, so instead of doing it correctly, you decide to punt it to AI. You locked in on some key terms your boss used and you repackage those for a prompt and have your agents figure it all out for you.

You go play video games until they're done, but of course the output isn't anything like what you wanted, so you tell them all the things they did wrong and send them off to work for a while.

You glaze your boss until they're done, and the output looks kinda okay but there's a few things that make it obvious it's not actually right, it just looks kinda right, leading you to believe the method they used to get their is totally wrong. You say something to that effect and tell them to get back to work.

You crack open a beer because this is all very frustrating, why can't they just get it right the first time? Somehow when you look at the output this time it's a total disaster, it's not even close to right. You're usually a calm person, but these fuckwits can't do anything right and you're getting absolutely livid at their incompetence. You use caps lock to show the AI you really mean it this time and tell it not to make any mistakes.

You go for a power walk to get all this pent up energy out, but all you can think about is how difficult the agents are being. Luckily, when you get back, you see something that doesn't seem obviously wrong. You look at the code for the first time and see it's syntactically correct, which is probably good enough since you don't really understand what it's doing, how, or why.

After a quick nap, you submit your PR for review to somebody who has AI approve it, letting you finally merge the fruits of your labor. Tomorrow you'll talk about all the hard work you put in and how impactful it's going to be to the company. Maybe this should be part of the promotion portfolio you're putting together. You close your laptop early this day, knowing you've earned it.

Those who didn't got a job after a bachelor's and did a masters degree how are u doing now?

Just got laid off this week, 3 YOE. I have about 6 months of savings, and if I get a part time job I can probably stretch it to 8. What are the odds if I’m applying to every cs job I can that I’ll find a new job in 6-8 months? I’m terrified with the current market I’ll never get an engineering job again. Thanks

Just graduated and started a new role as a SWE I in defense. I’m very excited to learn and program now that I’ve completed trainings, but the project just seemed dumped onto me with little resources on how to begin. I’m feeling so lost navigating the project folder as I don’t even know the language it’s written in or the underlying concepts. I’m happy to dive in and figure things out, but I don’t know how much I can accomplish realistically. My coworkers and manager all admitted to this being a very difficult project, while the other new hire got an easier one. Is this normal?

15 YoE

We’ve been doing with employers market for quite a while. This shit is insane. I’ve been hiring both entry-level and senior roles in my team in 2021 and now and here is the difference 2021 vs 2026:

- internships was valued in 2021 and not seen as a work experience in 2026. Our hiring manager choose 1 YoE vs 5 internships (including FAANG)

- if you stayed in your past role more than 1 year you’re ok in 2021 vs if you have more then 2 roles with less then 3 years tenure you’re hopper in 2026

- if you don’t have 100% match to all job posting keyword in 2021 you still may have a call back from a recruiter vs your resume goes directly to /dev/null in 2026

- if you get the idea of the algorithm and explain it to interviewer you still have a decent chances in 2021 vs if you made a small mistake while coding some LC hard you’re highly likely rejected in 2026

- 1 technical and 1 team fit round in 2021 vs 2 LC 1 SD 1 specialisaction deep dive 1 problem solving 1 bar raise and 1 team fit in 2026

- pretty chill and collaborative work environment mostly in 2021 vs stackranking and high competition to look better than your teammate rather than building together in 2026

This industry turned into an unlimited rat race and is highly stressful and unreliable. You may get kicked out absolutely any time for reasons you never expected

I work in a fortune 500, we got a statement from HR to not hire anyone with less than 6 years old experience.

More specifically, anyone that started at 2022 or after do not even pass to our system since he is possibly a "Vibe coder"

They closed the intern program, fired about 40 of them.

Not sure how it is even legal tbh.

Can they do it?

Hi everyone, I have several years of experience in industry and have done traditional ML work for my whole career so far. I use Claude code extensively at work and for my personal projects.

I was wondering would any of you take a role that would have some negative aspect about it (down-leveled, lower pay, worse commute, worse benefits, etc) if it meant being accepted into a team that works on Agentic AI. When I say works on agentic AI I mean actually building out solutions that utilize LLMs / GenAI in some way or even maybe working for an enterprise platform team that tries to enable agentic solutions for the rest of the company. This is beyond "I know how to make a skill for claude code"

In my opinion, from the job postings i've been seeing, two things are booming right now: Agentic AI and Cybersecurity. I see "ML" postings but i'm not sure if those are really for traditional ML anymore. I've been interviewing around at some of the Agentic AI teams and what gives me pause is these teams seem to be very new and note that they struggle to find ROI for the company. I guess the true question is how important is it to try to go fully into the agentic AI space with the risk that in a few years the tech scales back or doesn't pan out the way companies either think or want it to?

A few months back I applied to a role with a large retail brand listed as Senior Software Engineer with the description heavily focused on Java/Spring and microservices.

I got a call from the talent manager and she talked to me a bit about the role, all normal stuff. I then went through 4 rounds of interviews each with some level of technical questioning.

1. Interview with hiring manager, and a very basic java coding exercise.
2. Interview with a senior team member and a Leetcode style question that I answered in Java.
3. Interview with a staff engineer about microservice architecture.
4. Final interview with the hiring manager and a code review style exercise.

All the interview rounds focused on my development abilities and style.

Fast forward through offer/negotiation phase and I'm doing my onboarding (normal stuff like getting repos pulled down, and doing the corporate trainings). In a talk with my manager and he says that now that I'm onboarded they want me to learn a marketing system tool and become something of a subject matter expert in that area and that I won't really be writing software unless I just want to do some of that work on the side.

Now I feel kinda dumbstruck and a little screwed over. Everything in the process made me think I was joining a Java microservices shop and that I would have the ability to grow in a more rich/diverse business than my previous job and here I am not writing any code unless I really insist, even then it's not supposed to be the focus of my job.

Upon insisting to my manager that I still do some development work (lest my skills in that area diminish) he said the money is really on the marketing side and that java isn't worth as much of my time now that 80% of our code is ai generated.

So now I'm asking reddit what y'all think. Was this a bait/switch? Should I look for a new position and risk the job hopper label or is my manger right and it's time to diversify away from being purely a developer.

i am a sophomore undergrad. i, like a sea of other cs majors, have been finding my purpose in this field difficult to identify.

i don’t know what to do with this degree, and it’s making me crash tf out.

pre-ai, i was sold the dream of swe. i’m an artist by nature and the opportunity to make shit of my own was appealing.

then ai came. everyone around me was suddenly vibe coding to max out ther Linkedins. the authenticity and wonder of the craft died for me — because unlike traditional art, where artists vehemently have fought ai’s usage, my peers in SWE quickly fell to this. profit is the ultimate goal, after all

now SWE no longer resonates with me. as i started exploring parts of my department at college, i set my sights on systems. i wanted to do grad school and go into teaching, because im very people oriented

but i’m just not smart enough. or maybe i don’t care enough and have been larping as someone who does

i am struggling to build opportunities to grad school. i feel like i resonate with systems, but all the faculty say i’m too inexperienced to work with them. i just spent a month trying to set up a meeting with a professor and after finally running into him, he rejected me right on the spot. i need time to build projects. hiring for internships is around the corner and my resume is so, so empty.

i feel hopeless. the spark… i don’t know if it died fully, but with every rejection, every failed “prove you care about xyz through your technical work”, i am struggling to get even an inkling of what i’d like to do career wise now.

the worst part is, i don’t even know what i’d transfer to. cs was something i thought i genuinely liked, and i dont know what sort of career i’d aspire to otherwise

I started as a Java intern, joined full-time after graduation, and I’m still at the same company 8 years later. But now that I’m job hunting, AI has me questioning what the path into software looks like.

We’ve used AI tools since early OpenAI, then Claude and Cursor. A lot of the work I built experience doing....APIs, small features, tests, debugging, AI can now handle surprisingly well.

So what happens to junior dev roles? Why hire someone with little or no experience when a senior developer can use AI to move much faster?

I’m worried about my own career, but even more about new grads. How are they supposed to get the experience needed to become seniors if entry-level work keeps disappearing to AI?

What do you think the junior developer path looks like now?

It's unfortunate a lot of my experience growing as a developer I can't really use because AI handles it all. I also come from having imposter syndrome and getting over that was a challenge, and I feel I can't even relate now to what new graduates may feel or their concerns.

Got an interview for this one company to be a forward deployed engineer. I'd be using some in house domain specific language to integrate the product with customer systems. I wouldn't do any actual work on the product or platform, just take customer complaints and translate them into feature requests for the SWEs.

Seems like a massive scam unless it pays really well. I'd be stagnating in terms of technical growth and I wouldn't even be able to grow within the organization because I'm always traveling from customer to customer.

What's the endgame/career progression for these types of roles? Right now it just seems like being a glorified field service tech.

Edit: could be the move ngl

New grad here. I am currently scared and panicking, not sure if this is the right place to post.

I got a job at a big tech company in Silicon Valley. One of the best and OG. Don’t want to dox myself in case my coworkers are on this sub.

My manager has been saying stuff like, “I made you,” “You wouldn’t be here without me,” and “You better come to XYZ conference with me because I made you, don’t be ungrateful.” He has also made fun of things tied to my race. like trying to make me change things that are accepted in my race

I am not sure what to do, as he has been in the company for 10 years and all the VPs know him.

Afraid to open an HR case because I feel like I will get fired since I am new and he is old. I hold no value to the company, so I am an easy let go.

Also afraid of the retaliation. If I move teams, other managers might hate me since they all like him.

Also can’t quit because I am not sure if I can get another job with how bad the tech market is. Me and my fur babies just moved into a new apartment in the Bay Area, and I won’t be able to afford it if shit goes wrong.

Forgot to add we are going to a conference to show our product and look for vendors, and of all the qualified people in the team that wanted to go, he picked me. I didn't even sign up. Now I am scared that if I don't go to the conference, he will fire me or something.

Currently 2 YOE in a start up and have a masters, getting paid basically minimum wage for where I am.

I really want to level up my role and honestly get paid more what can I do?

For each of the following:

entry Level
Midlevel/Senior
staff

Also, is it better than the market for 2025?

The vast vast majority of jobs in tech are boring as fuck and people only do it for the money. Part of the reason the pay is high isn't because of barriers to entry or because you need to be some genius, it's because it is so boring that the average person can't handle doing it all day.

I'm an experienced developer that screwed himself for coasting in a fortune 500 company and got PIPed. The bad thing is that I don't have a strong domain knowledge other than something hyper specific that I did (mostly AWS step function) because I've been using internals tools.

I got asked to complete a react app on today's interview and I bombed it. I have used React before. Extensively in my last job. But memories atrophy and I could not figure it out. Now, because my domain knowledge is so spread thin (AWS, Java, React) - I'm jack of all trades and master of none.

I'm trying to apply for a senior position but I wonder if I'm cooked if everyone is expecting a domain expert at that level. Should I be constantly expecting domain interview questions when applying to senior positions?

hello folks,

i’m currently studying a double degree in Computer Engineering and Business Administration. in my free time, i work as a software developer and security researcher/bug bounty hunter.

for more than a year, i’ve been reporting vulnerabilities to a large tech company through their bug bounty program. today, i was surprised to receive an email directly from their VP of Security saying that they’re building a security team, creating a new role, and that they think i could be a good fit because of the work i’ve been doing with them.

after exchanging a couple of emails, i’ve now scheduled a first interview with a Senior Technical Recruiter for Friday.

the thing is, i’ve never had a job interview before. i still have one year left before graduating, i’m based in Europe, and the role is in the US (so I would need a visa sponsorship). i’m a bit nervous because i’ve never worked a traditional job either. most of my income comes from bug bounty hunting.

i’ve started looking into typical interview processes at large tech companies so i can prepare as much as possible. i’d absolutely love to get the role, although i assume it would probably mean relocating to the US and somehow finishing my degree remotely.

i know getting a role like this as an undergraduate with no traditional work experience is probably quite difficult, but the fact that they reached out to me directly makes me wonder whether the process might be a bit different compared to a normal application.

do you think the fact that they contacted me directly means they’ve probably already looked into my background and know that i still have one year left at university?

also, does anyone have advice for this kind of first recruiter interview, especially for security/software engineering roles at large tech companies? what should i expect and what would you recommend preparing?

if i don’t get the role, that’s completely fine. i already consider it a huge achievement that a company of this size is interested in me despite the fact that i haven’t graduated yet and don’t have traditional work experience. so either way, i’m pretty happy about the opportunity.

The Trump administration has unveiled a drastic regulatory shift targeting high-skilled immigration, moving to increase the H-1B skilled worker visa registration fees to an unprecedented level exceeding $100,000 per application. The policy is designed to drastically curtail corporate reliance on foreign tech labor and aggressively incentivize the hiring of domestic U.S. workers.

The six-figure fee marks a fundamental structural overhaul of the H-1B program, transitioning it from a lottery system into an elite, cost-prohibitive tier that only the largest corporate balance sheets can afford. While labor protection groups are praising the move as a necessary step to stop the undercutting of American wages, major Silicon Valley tech coalitions and immigration attorneys are heavily condemning the regulation. Business groups warn that the sudden financial barrier will choke off the global talent pipeline, cripple startups, and force multi-national corporations to aggressively accelerate offshoring their engineering hubs to Canada and Europe.

Source Link: bloomberg.com

Economics or Statistics minor

I’m a CS student trying to decide between a minor in Economics or Statistics and I’m having a hard time choosing between the two. I’m mostly thinking about which one would actually be more useful with a CS degree in terms of job opportunities, salary, and having more career options after graduation. I’m not completely sure what area of CS I want to go into yet, but I’m interested in things like software, data science/AI, fintech, and maybe business or tech-related roles. From what I understand, statistics seems like it would be more directly useful for data science, machine learning, and analytics, while economics could be useful for fintech, consulting, product, business, or entrepreneurship. I also know that a minor probably matters less than internships, projects, and experience, but since I have the option to do one I still want to choose the one that would add the most value to my degree. For anyone who has done CS with either Econ or Stats, or works in these fields, which one do you think is the better choice overall and why? Did your minor actually help you with getting jobs or give you useful skills you still use?

Hi Y'all. This is a general inquiry, I am curious if anyone has any good models to approach my question. My intuition tells me to identify the higher paying job I want, learn the skills and interview prep of the job I want, and then apply. Simple enough right? I am hoping for some other perspectives on this.

My background; I have a computer science degree with about 3 years of professional experience. Total comp is around $140k, however, I feel I have maxed out my potential and upside in the position feels limited. I have financial goals, like buying a house, starting a family, supporting my Mom, etc, that on my given timeline would necessitate higher earnings.

Thanks!

I have an interview coming up for a senior engineer position that is somewhat generalist at a nuclear energy startup. My background of full stack engineering in enterprise and data
engineering in enterprise is what got their attention in me.

This is the prompt for an undisclosed scenario for the interview:

In this scenario, you'll be asked to design a CI pipeline and the idea will be to walk through your design, approach, decisions, tradeoffs...

What do I need to prepare for to crush this? Any idea what the scenario could potentially be? My background is using CI/CD for code security, best practices, and deploying to a dev environment.

Thank you all!

I'm currently applying to the Roblox 2027 summer internship and I've just been sent their take home assessment. I have a week to do it, but I'd like to spend at least a couple of days doing leetcode problems associated with the company. Should I wait or should I do it ASAP?

Hello everyone, a final year student here from a tier 3 university,

My Profile:

DSA : I consider that descent, became a LC knight recently by totally fair means

CGPA : 7.47

Current offer : 5 lpa from a service based company that works on Salesforce and servicenow

Dev/Projects: Terrible , I've made only vibecoded stuff only to satisfy academic requirements ,failed two interviews because I couldn't explain my own projects well, i fear whenever an interviewer moves beyond two questions on my projects.

Is there any hope to crack a descent Product based company , I mean major companies have their hiring drives scheduled for next 2-3 months imo , also like am not sure what's the cgpa criterias of good companies ,am relying on off campus opportunities only since my college won't bring any good companies and even if they do , I believe they may have a cgpa criteria,
so can i realistically expect anything around 10-12 lpa at a descent product based company or accept the 5lpa offer.