Ask HN: I have many gaps between jobs: should I quit being a software engineer?

If you have friends, use them. Avoid HR at all costs. Steer the conversations of interviews to your technical interests and current projects and away from your past as much as possible. If a potential employer asks about the high turnover, don’t dismiss it: just make it clear that you WANT a stable job for a good few years, and that you’ve have a hard life that you’d rather not go into details about before immediately shifting back to impressing him about your knowledge on whatever the actual programming work is about. Make sure you have some other aspect of your life that is going forward, even if it just getting in shape, and keep it strictly segregated from the job hunt.

They are hiring the current you, not the past you. If you yourself are utterly convinced of this, you stand more of a chance of convincing others.

I’m in the same situation. It’s rough. Doing this job hunt constantly with no support and no money can wear you down to the point where you can’t even look at applications without feeling sick unless you are careful to make sure that it doesn’t block your mental rebound. I’ve got nothing but sympathy for you. If you ever want support, let me know. Practical help, can’t promise anything given my own desperate situation, but I can try to get you on some old recruiters radars or potentially an employer or two.

All other things being equal, short stints with gaps is not helpful for job applications.

That said, it is possible to get a job. I struggle with ADHD and have had many short stints in my career (6 months to 1 year).

Your resume likely looks terrible (mine does). I drop the months of my resume to try to hide the short positions. I miss off really short jobs (2-3 months). Try to find ways to get work without needing a resume. Warm introductions from friends and former colleagues. Meeting other engineers at events. Giving talks at events and getting your name out there. Make a really impressive portfolio site (you can't change what you were doing 4 years ago on your resume, but you can add to your portfolio site today and give an appearance of longevity without lying).

Look into jobs where you can use your tech skills without them directly being "tech jobs". They might not have the same tech gatekeepers that are keeping you out at the moment.

Do you have someone you can trust to give you feedback on your work style and communication style? Getting fired again and again is obviously not ideal and you may have blind spots. If you can improve upon them you increase your chances of doing better in the next job.

During your gaps you were doing freelance work. Not that uncommon in this line of work. I have a couple gaps I filled in with that (when in one case it might more accurately be described as working on personal projects, I released a game), and no one's ever even asked about it.

Also short stints isn't as bad as other people make it out to be. Yes, some people will filter you out, but not everyone. While I was in the game industry, I worked for three companies in a row that failed to release a hit game and I was laid off with the rest of the team after just over a year. Then I worked as a contractor at a another company in the marketing department that had the lead dev suddenly quit and they decided to outsource the rest of the project, killing my contract after only 8 months. And then I have another job right before all that where I worked in a student job at a faculty department at my college for a year, but then graduated, so I was no longer eligible to keep working.

That's five jobs in a row with just over a year's worth of experience, some of which I had several months of unemployment between (especially when I switched from game industry into enterprise web development). Hasn't stopped me from getting interviews and job offers.

I was worried about my short stints as well though, and I do have a job I stayed with for over three years (when I should have left earlier) to get another longer job on my resume again, but yeah.

You don't have to quit software development. You just might have some people skip over you, but that's okay.

> the other companies where I worked all fired me many months after I had been working there.. I am only giving my side of the story (I don’t know their side)

I'm surprised you don't know their side. Getting fired (not laid off) from multiple companies is unusual. They typically try to cover themselves by establishing a months long paper trail to justify the termination, e.g. bad performance reviews, performance conversations, PIP, etc.

From your description, I have to wonder if it wasn't more a matter of how you were presenting your progress on things and your own estimates of accomplishments.

People aren't really any good at understanding what other people are up to, especially if they are first time managers. It is also pretty much impossible to compare two programmers given two different tasks since we regularly are off on our estimates of everything.

AFA, continuing, I would say yes, if you can handle it emotionally. It's actually quite good in many unemployment systems to have these kinds of phases and pretty hard to make as much in a lot of other roles that are easy to transition to. The stress of unemployment is substantial though. Jobs that involve programming but aren't directly programming may provide a more average level of stress, I.e. support and software maintenance roles that are more focused on customers than code.

Fill in the gaps with something interesting. Like that you volunteered doing something, or you traveled somewhere. I have a gap of time where I lived on a farm and learned farming for a while. It's easier if what you fill it in with are true, but you can stretch reality to make it sound more exciting.

As a hiring manager I don’t care about gaps. What you did then is your business. I do care about a string of short stints, and unless you want me to draw a negative conclusion you might want to have a narrative for why this time will be different, circumstances willing. Your reference checks will also be more important than usual, and I might go out of my way to find someone in my personal network who has worked with you to get a (hopefully) unbiased POV. All of that said, if I’m actively hiring and you interviewed well, chances are we would make an offer and simply hope that you are worth the investment of time to ramp you up. It’s not like there are so many qualified candidates for a role that we can afford to be ultra selective.

I agree with 3minus1, you should definitely know why you were fired. New managers seldom want to fire someone without cause and typically have HR hoops they need to jump through to do it. I have never let anyone go that wasn't first given verbal warnings, daily check-ins and at least one formal write up that outlined the job requirements and what was needed to set things right. Hiring good people is hard and it is better to get the most out of the people you have before giving up on them. Of course this isn't always the case but some of your managers or HR should have shared something with you.

How many jobs are you applying to each week? I would think 1 or 2 each week would be a minimum.

Do you have a portfolio? Some code you can point to online, any open source projects you work on?

How many interviews do you average each month? If you are applying to tons of jobs and not getting any interviews, this is a reflection that your resumes might need work. Resumes, plural, in that you should probably have several depending on what type of job you are applying for and what skills you need to emphasize. Maybe you need to drop some jobs off of it or rework it to look more like you have been courting contract or short term work and now you are ready to "settle down". Have you filled gaps with additional university courses? Pursued a Masters degree? Certifications? Traveled the world? Volunteer work? Freelance/Started your own business?

If you are getting interviews, but not job offers then this indicates it might be a problem with your interview style. You mentioned depression, could this play a factor? Hopefully you don't bring up medical conditions during interviews. It could be some of the things you say during the interview process, not saying enough, questions you ask, what you wear... any number of things. I almost didn't hire someone because of the socks they wore but my team defended their choice of footwear and we hired them in the end... though the guy in the Christmas sweater wasn't as lucky :)

Have you tried teaming up with a recruiter? A good one would help you with your resumes and interviewing skills. Are you keeping in touch with former classmates, colleagues and managers? Not just email, set up lunch dates with them to stay in touch. Set up a small lunch reunion from a company you worked at where several people were all laid off or have since quit. They may have leads from time to time. Looking for a job can be a full time job in itself!

Good luck!

> I almost didn't hire someone because of the socks they wore but my team defended their choice of footwear and we hired them in the end... though the guy in the Christmas sweater wasn't as lucky :)

... what?

> I do genuinely enjoy writing code when I know what is being asked of me and when I know that it will help the end-user(s).

Look for the individual who you can actually help, NOT the job.

That is to say, try to connect with the Hiring Executive versus getting blocked by the HR filter.

Small & Early stage companies are your best bet.

Let me preface that I'm from the another side of the Atlantic Ocean, so maybe my advice is totally wrong because of my limited knowledge of USA workplace particularities.

The gaps in your resume are not a good thing IMHO, could you try to explain them by saying you were on hiatus, you have family issues or even better you were learning/working on your own projects?

If you don't like/stand the pressure, you could search for a less-demanding job. Maybe something in the public service?

Besides that, maybe working from home could help you? Maybe that way you feel less stressed because of the commute?

Good luck brother/sister and keep fighting!

If those gaps are there because you don’t like the job, then yes, maybe you should think about quitting and try to do something else.

Seems to me the tech industry is more forgiving than many jobs, in the area of gaps , perceived "flakiness" etc. Many employers just care whether you can crank out the required features whilst getting along with colleagues. If yes, you're all set. Maybe you should look at contracting?. No-one cares much what you did before with that, just, can you meet the specific requirements for the next few months. Also, there are startups out there that are open-minded. Its supply and demand. If you work somewhere that can't offer as much pay, they can't afford to be picky about gaps. And a job like that can be a stepping stone to a better one. Been there, done that myself after a couple years out of the industry when younger. Good luck :)

Can't you just make something up? Put 3 years employment into your CV instead of 1 year, problem solved.

I think you do a Skill Based CV instead.