Ask HN: Has anyone else been unemployed for over two years?
How are you coping?
Crass's song from the 1981 Systematic Death last verse seems prophetic, "They'd almost paid the mortgage when the system dropped its bomb".
You can't for example, use manager of a McDonalds to qualify as a manager under a TN as far as I understand it. If you are a manager, you need to be technical in nature.
There used to be a 0% chance of being tossed on a plane and deported somewhere else in the world when visiting the US. That chance is now non-zero, which is an unacceptable level of risk for many.
That and everything else going on. There's a reason Canadians have stopped traveling down south...
Meanwhile, total spending in the US from int'l visitor tourism is up in the US (see: https://www.hotel-online.com/press_releases/release/internat...).
Honestly, I think macro factors -- namely, poor Canadian household finances due to increasing cost of living and declining real incomes in Canada coupled with a strengthening US dollar against the Loonie -- are what are killing tourism from CAN to US right now.
I firmly disagree.
There are plenty of other places to travel is the rationale. besides, if a strong greenback was the reason for decrease of leisure, wouldn’t it also be responsible for a decrease in business travel, too? Certainly businesses are also bound to macroeconomic shifts.
> There are plenty of other places to travel is the rationale. besides, if a strong greenback was the reason for decrease of leisure, wouldn’t it also be responsible for a decrease in business travel, too? Certainly businesses are also bound to macroeconomic shifts.
Canada has shockingly little choice when it comes to trade partners. They are literally physically attached to the US and trade is much simpler when working with the US, whether Canada likes it or not. CETA hasn't yet been ratified; Canada has bungled trade with China since harper; Mexico is at best a cheap labor destination that can replace India for Canada. The only real staying power Canada has is exporting raw materials, and even that effectively turns Canada into a resource extraction colony. That's not a happy ending, either.
Canadian businesses have fewer options than many would like to admit, so it makes sense they are keeping up their economic activity with the US.
July 2024 through Jan 2025, the YoY numbers are always in the 7%-9% range. Averages to 7.7% across those months.
Feb 2025 to July 2025, there's only a single month (April) in that range. We've got 2 months at 1% YoY growth, one break even, and two negative. Those months average out to about 0.7%. If you include Jan 2025 to align to the calendar year 2025, you get 1.57%, which seems to be the number that becomes 'nearly 2 percent' in the text under the chart.
While it is still positive growth, it's 20% of the YoY growth trend for several months heading up to 2025. If you take out Jan 2025 (2/3 of which Trump was not yet president), it's only 10%.
The number of international arrivals is down YTD (-3%): https://www.trade.gov/i-94-arrivals-program
You are disingenuous and spreading a false narrative. Look at that graph's growth numbers. Look at it.
9,8,7,7,8,8,7, Trump takes office, 1, -5, 8, 1, 0, -1. 6mo average from 7.5 to 0.6%.
A seven percent drop to near a zero average propped up by one historic looking value. But 0.6 _is_ "up" so you can be technically correct.
People read headlines, lock themselves in a cage of their own making, and assume the world is on fire. People would do better trusting their own eyes and ears.
I’m in CA vacationing right now for a month, flew in last week. Literally the same experience getting in, and on the daily, as it’s been for the last decade of visiting annually.
I was talking to my +1 at work before I left, he’s just gotten back from living in OH for the last couple of years for his wife’s job. As much as stuff is seemingly a shit show at the highest levels (which we can all agree on, I reckon), the day to day hasn’t changed all that much. At least not for us privileged techies.
But hey, that’s just two datapoints, so what do I know really.
Have you asked past bosses, co-workers for referrals?
Edit: misunderstood "referrals" for "references" so edited my reply out. No, I've never asked for referrals from past colleagues.
If I disclose an email address that's directly traceable to my current employer---or even one provided to me by professional organizations I'm registered with---as adequate "social proof" (whatever that means) that I'm not "likely a bot/scammer", and a company's hiring manager is too blind to see the signal, then I'd write that off as a hidden trap passively dodged with confident relief.
Absolutely stupid advice for people who actually look for a job. You're participating in a social game, with well-defined signalling functions. If you'd like to actually have a positive outcome, you'll need to make use of the signalling functions commonly recognized, even if you don't like them.
(Plus, opting out of a commonly accepted path with the reason that you personally think other signals are as good and the other side is just too blind to see them sends a large amount of information about your ability to collaborate in larger teams)
You do you. There are jobs where you can get away with this, there are people with networks that allow them to play different games. But as advice to job seekers, it's actively detrimental.
Not finding a LinkedIn page for someone can range from a neutral signal to a negative signal depending on the hiring manager. I personally don't read anything into it, but I know many hiring managers who feel that lack of a LinkedIn page is a negative sign. I don't like it, but it's how the world works some times.
A seasoned LinkedIn page is also becoming very valuable for applying to remote jobs. Remote employers are getting nervous with all of the overemployed people and fake applicants. Having a mature LinkedIn page with a decent number of connections to real people is a major positive sign for remote hiring.
It's not something you will be able to see or detect as a candidate.
OP appears to have neither.
If someone isn’t on it, the chances are significantly higher they are fake or trying be be “overemployed.”
Does not having LinkedIn mean you’re not qualified or not real? Certainly not. Does it mean I will pass your resume over when sorting through a stack of qualified applicants? Absolutely.
This isn't universal in every market. Business is very insular here and work follows referrals and introductions. You have those and you have work. Without them, Linkedin won't help.
I'm 35yr in IT; I plug into my clients in a way that I learn their processes - inc hiring. Few white collar employers here use Linkedin. I've never worked with one who did.
You refuse to change anything about your process, you aren't working to improve it, you are arguing against people telling them you don't need to do common/standard things.
This thread is a pretty good insight into why you are failing and what you need to work on.
They said it's necessary, not sufficient.
I have a couple dozen open roles right now, at a 50-person company. Each posting gets thousands of applications. Most are fakes, or AI-generated, or AI-generated fakes. Realistically, we're going to respond to 1%, maybe 2% of them, because again, 50-person team. Half the time, you get someone named Ralph McGuinness on for a quick code screen and they have a thick Mandarin accent or something equivalently implausible.
The best first filter we have at the moment is to programmatically toss out any resume that doesn't have a LinkedIn, that has a hallucinated LinkedIn that doesn't resolve, that resolves to a name that doesn't match the resume, that has no connections or history, etc.
It's an absurd state of play that hurts those of us trying to hire and those of you trying to get hired, but also a trivial hurdle for you to clear, so stop arguing and just do it.
Just saying.
I hate LinkedIn too but i very much consider it an important part of the "finding a job post pandemic" game.
I’ve seen all sort of false claims, but ultimately small programming task is best to sift out people.
You made a big jump from “post your work history” to “commit fraud”, so you can justify ignoring consensus.
Imperfect, but effective enough that this is how the world has solved for this forever.
YMMV. White collar work here follows connections and introductions - nearly exclusively. A few of my clients might have poked around Linkedin in passing but most have never used it.
As an aside, I deleted my LI because I've never had a legit contact thru it, only spam.
source: 35yrs in IT
My primary reason for this was that unfortunately some resumes seem to include quite of bit of creative writing -- creativity which the applicant could bet only I, and my company, would see. If, however, the applicant had posted similar claims about past jobs on LI, it was public for all to see so somewhat likely to be less "creative" as most people find it embarrassing to get _caught_ claiming credit for work that someone else did or giving an overblown explanation of the import of their work. This is, of course, not 100% reliable as I've seen coworkers and past employees posting on LI claiming things they were "responsible for" or "implemented" when, in fact, they only had a tiny role (or, occasionally, even no discernible role) in.
Also, if I happened to notice a "connection" that I also knew, I could potentially ask them about the applicant (using due care to make sure that the applicant wouldn't be "outed" at their current job by my doing so).
This is a good observation.. rumination.. contribution? I can't find the right descriptive noun. Anyway, I get it. Perhaps the board is divided between regions inclined to use LI and not.
Didn’t my new employer want me to update my LinkedIn? That never came up, but if it would have I would have delayed. Why should I support their business model.
At its most basic, this is a cult of qualification which no longer provides real value, it fails for a number of reasons I won't get into here.
When you disqualify arbitrarily, and can't find anyone because of that, its your fault for disqualifying everyone, not the market's fault for not having the ballerina that doesn't exist.
Want a programmer in a language thats only 10 years old with 15 years of direct experience? You aren't going to find it even when the creator of that language applies.
You pay to have the work done. That is the only legitimate requirement for hiring someone and remaining employed, and you can't go and change the requirements later when they show they can do more. Doesn't matter if they moonlight, are overemployed etc. That view to disqualify such people are in fact monopolistic practices designed to disenfranchise wages that are already low and distorted because of money-printing, they are not red-flags.
Its like the flawed type of thinking that "We need someone to do this work, but this guy is so overqualified he'll leave first chance; so we won't hire anyone".
You hire to have a job done. You don't get to be an arbitrary slave master. The moment you lose sight of this is the moment you ignore your immediate needs, and drive your company on a path towards failure, and if its a consolidated large company, that failure and bad decisionmaking will impact a lot more people because of the centralization/concentration.
Financial engineering can decouple the need for immediate action, but the tradeoff is that the risk of not doing things you should have done becomes far greater to your long-term sustainability, and its completely invisible. There is no place for deception and coercion in the hiring process. If the job doesn't exist, don't jam communication channels. Jamming channels is tortuous interference.
The answer is simple...
Require that they come in and show up physically to the office to verify their CV/application/Driver's License, and at that time since there will be cost on the business side, also cross-check if they fit other open positions you have, or if they are interested in hearing about other positions (the answer will almost certainly be yes). Rapidly promoting from within naturally bubbles the competent to positions without a lot of external risk like what you've described.
This is how you build a resilient pipeline of talent, and vet the soft skills people who would be good at the job that you'll never find through an interview except by moonshot chance. When you structure it from the get-go to exclude excessively and use bad indicators, you have bad data in and get bad outcomes out.
> LinkedIn Profile is a good way to sort through.
Its not, there are plenty of fake LinkedIn Profiles. You can't stand out as a real human when you have pigeonholed everyone into a circular peg and set the sieve requirements to a square peg. Forcing people to all go through a online centralized portal, even when they show up in person, is what promotes these perverse incentives. Not rocket science.
As a business you can do a lot to solve problems, and there's no way you can stand out as a human among the noise of digital artifacts where bots mimic real humans in the same digital environment. Go physical.
I've friends who are executives that do hiring, their main complaints were we've tried to hire people for X positions, and our top 10 candidates were all fake, we spent months on this with numerous interviews (cost) and have to start all over from scratch.
I pointed out the answer is rather stupid simple. Go old school verify the inputs are real at the beginning of the process, not at the end after you sunk all those costs. That's what they've been doing since then and it works.
Finding the right talent is a cost you have to pay that you can't push off on other businesses through use of products or services where that business may lie/misrepresent because each business is different, and if you depend upon that one pipeline for talent they can and will eventually cause issues where you can't find talent.
The attitude you seem to have mirrors the same things I see in people who simply don't want to pay the cost to get competent people, and by extension don't want to actually be in business.
Also, conditions worsen when you spoil an entire labor pool over decades through bad management in consolidated hands, it gets harder and costlier to find qualified labor. Its the nature of ponzi; costs go up unti outflows exceed inflows.
If you don't get ahead of the labor crunch, it will crush you, and most competent people given the adverse circumstances in hiring are now retraining resulting in brain-drain, a hollowing out and watering down of the competency in the labor pool. What happens when you can't find qualified people at any cost because your practices drove them to other sectors. They won't come back because they wrote it off as a bad investment. Its psychologically sticky.
People always have a choice, even when others try to make it so they don't.
If anybody used to enjoy working with you and they know of something it, should be easy enough from then on.
It used to be a thing of the past - people don't seem to bother now. Go ahead and create the profile. Search and connect with your colleagues.
You can also make one, add people, and then ask for a few references. "I just finally made a linkedin in 2025 on a lark" is a perfectly cromulent icebreaker/reason to ask.
And arguably even a negative signal. Productive people have jobs to do instead of grinding Monopoly karma. Yes, this absolutely includes LinkedIn thought leadership.
I know MS and recruiters love to push the 'it matters' line, but I'd ask the reader -- who would you rather hire: someone who wow'd in an interview or someone with LinkedIn flair?
Who would you rather interview: someone who has a great resume, and a strong LinkedIn profile, and connections to a strong peer community who can endorse them, or a faceless rando that shows up in your inbox with a PDF, amongst thousands of others, with zero referrals?
I'm not endorsing LI grind -- I too hate it, but ignore at your own peril. OP seems to be in a rather precarious situation, so maybe it would help being a bit less dogmatic.
As I said:
> anything past where you've worked on LinkedIn is a waste of time
Because everything on LinkedIn literally exists to be farmed. And why wouldn't it? LinkedIn's customers are recruiters. Users are the currency.
OP would be better served by actually networking with their peers. Not in app-mediated (and -monetized) ways, but in normal social human ways.
Sometimes it's like people forgot how to say "Hey, want to grab a coffee and catch up? What's been going on with you?"
Exactly this. And recruiters are the ones finding candidates and scheduling interviews.
You may not like it. I certainly don't. But that's the world we live in.
> "Hey, want to grab a coffee and catch up?"
This and the comment above are not at odds. If you're looking for a job like OP, at minimum you should do both.
Wrong question. This is not about the hiring stage.
Who would I rather move on to a phone screen: someone with an empty or nonexistent linkedin profile, or someone with a profile which matches their resume and has many connections to other people who worked at the same companies?
While I hate to have to say it is the latter, that's where we are today with AI-generated fake resumes.
I have 344 resumes left to review tonight. Those that don't match their linkedin profile history have no chance (unless they are a direct colleague referral).
> anything past where you've worked on LinkedIn is a waste of time
Putting your work history in LinkedIn is the maximum amount of effort you should make. Any additional effort, beyond that, is a waste of your time.
I hardly use LinkedIn, but it does show work history. As someone else said there was a flurry of “endorsements” but I haven’t seen many since.
I would suggest creating the linkedin profile but be sure to fully populate the job descriptions for each job (or as far back as you care to go) and spend some time looking up past colleagues from each one and send them invites to connect.
I'm finding that a completely blank linkedin profile (listing only companies but zero detail) is a bigger red flag than not having a linkedin profile.
But having a profile with job description info and a network of connections from each job adds credibility. When a resume looks borderline suspicious, I dig through the persons connections in linkedin to see if it looks like they really worked at each of those places. Even better if I find any shared connections, which is a stronger signal that I'm looking at a real person not an AI bot.
Also, building that network of connections can be a source of job leads on its own.
I'm in a terrible position for when I need to find a normal job, and comments like this don't let me forget it!
From where I sit, it's a tool for marketers and recruiters to gather data and it's otherwise completely useless.
Whether I like LinkedIn or not is completely irrelevant. I play the game, add connections, post a few banal “Thought Leadership” posts, ask for recommendations, etc.
My remote job at BigTech fell into my lap in mid 2020 and at 46 because an internal recruiter reached out to me, I got my next job two years ago within a week after I started looking because of targeted LinkedIn outreach. My current job also fell into my lap two weeks after I started looking because an internal recruiter reached out to me.
It does absolutely no good being good at your job if no one knows it.
I think even in the current job market, someone would give me a job or a contract relatively quickly if I needed one based on my network, LinkedIn profile, and positive impressions I’ve made in my niche over the past 7 years.
I’m not bragging, I’m old. I should have that type of experience and network.
I think that's the key difference. For strategy folks, it makes sense to demonstrate this kind of work through that kind of channel. But LinkedIn posts aren't relevant for non-networking roles.
How does LinkedIn factor into your experience and network is what I mean. You can’t tell me people cold call you through linkedin. If people contact you it might be through linkedin, but that’s only because their friends have been talking about you. LinkedIn isn’t what gives you work, it’s the fact that you’ve done good work for others.
Yeah and LI is a terrible way to show it.
There is a better way, and will be a better way. With time.
For now I agree - have to play the game.
What “better way” is there?
As opposed to claiming whatever the hell you want in resume.pdf.
I gave two examples of secondary sources, but what I’m really getting at here is that the numbers and noise are so, so high now (not to mention staffing firm fronts and foreign actors) that I usually need more signal than a solid-looking resume before investing even 30’ in a screening call.
Last I checked, verification requires people to install the app. No thanks.
Absolutely ask for referrals. You gotta painfully get on LinkedIn for maximum effectiveness -- if you're looking at a company and an ex-coworker you got along with knows someone there, ask for the introduction. It feels awkward and weird but it increases your chances somewhat.
I strongly recommend you show your CV to someone and get feedback.
I am not the original commenter but I think something that younger people forget is that when you reach 2 decades or more into your career, your network starts to dry up for you. This is in addition to your skillsets and work cultural fit being suspect because of your experience and age (set in their ways, old thinking, etc…).
I have been in tech for nearly 40 years. Almost every one of my former bosses is either out of the industry, retired, or dead. My network is useless to me. If my current job ends…I won’t find another tech gig.
I've been developing for over 25 years and my early bosses are almost certainly retired but I still have connections from back then in colleagues that are still wording I could reach out to. Unless you stopped interacting 40 years ago you should still have current people regardless of time in the industry.
Current colleagues and bosses would have to cycle out themselves and land elsewhere before they will be a help as a network resource.
Also, for current colleagues—-consider the case if your whole team gets RIF’d. At that point they are no longer your colleague, nor really a good network resource until they land. What they are is a competitor and a competitor likely similarly skilled as you, competing for the same roles that you are.
Your best network resources don’t currently work with you, but are secure in a gig, and someone you have worked with or for in the last 3-5 years.
If you don't keep any connections with your previous colleagues then you are self limiting your career options. But the second best time to plant a tree...
Applying with a CV from Canada with canadian details would probably eliminate you from the process early on. I say this as someone who was trying to work in the UK while living in Germany. The minute I changed address/phone things started to look better.
You may even mention this on your CV sayong that you are looking to move or already moved to that country.
I have been there, and I saw my father — there is nothing good about it. You have my sympathy and I wish you the best.
I know they said they applied to anything - but still anything for that profile might be a bit more broad - entry level IC to FANG may be which pays better or a role that is open to leveling or start up or any other combos.
Very reckless finance management, so I wonder if this correlates with not finding a "managerial" job.
First, "set out to explore Europe" immediately says "expenses". Without an income, that's teenager-level mentality.
Secondly, unless the house was still on mortgage, definitely it's cheaper to live on your own property and only scrap money for bills and food than paying rent on top of those. Also, and I'm not generalizing here, but people in general have parents / relatives. If times were that tough, I would retreat to my parent's house and rent the city apartment, that definitely buys me time.
And last but not least ... there are blue-collar jobs out there as a last resort. A friend of mine who lost his QA job, couldn't find anything else so he apprenticed as an electrician and now has got a license and works as such. Says he makes about the same as previously. There's "stacking the shelves at Lidl" also, not paying much but at least you're making something. And if you're willing to put up with the hard physical work and risk of accidents, there's always decent-paying construction jobs.
I'd say 2-3 months of looking are acceptable. After 6 months, some "plan B" needs to kick in, including the very mentally difficult idea of letting go of the past. You may have been a managing director but for the moment, the only option could be Lidl employee.
You just had to take the European tour for your health.
I think I was earning less than you yet managed to save the vast majority over my 15 year career earnings. Then my partner died and I was left raising a toddler by myself. It wasn't easy, but at least I don't have financial problems, thanks to a little financial planning.
But yes, for some years I was earning a couple times more than the average person, while spending slightly less than the average person...
Had he support his parents, paid for the high school of his niece and for grandma' foster home?
Hadn't his wife left him with kids, taking the home and his new home was far from being paid off?
Are his parents owners? Is he going to inherit their house? Or other assets? Can he stay at his brother's place once he uses up all the money from the proceeds of house sale?
It's really hard to judge without asking lots of questions first.
Coping by trying my best to become the type of person that I aspire to be. Quit weed, alcohol, caffeine. Lost 20lbs of fat and put on some muscle. Run 6 days a week, lift 3-4 days a week. Meal prep all my foods and getting into a good routine about those things.
Taught myself Rust and ECS and tried my hand at building a game. Built an Arduino prototype of some hardware a friend wanted to see exist, but ended up not trying to take it further. Built a website to help people play a video game better, it became popular while the game was trending, and made ~3-6k/mo running ads on the site. Went to Burning Man for the first time.
Now I'm kind of out of things that sound fun/purposeful and having a purpose dropped into my lap by working on an ongoing project with an existing team sounds more appealing than it did when I left the work world. So, slowly going back that way and hoping to hold onto all my good vibes and positive habits as I do so.
It's not exactly what I expected to spend three years of unemployment doing. I wish I felt more "accomplished" in how I used my time. But idk. Just kept myself busy with things that sounded meaningful in the moment. Now making money sounds more appealing than having more free time so hopefully jumping back in isn't too much of a shock.
I learned react, go. Played videogames and had a child. Things are going well.
Part of me is afraid that too much time off the market will make me not fit for the workforce anymore but tbh I feel like my mental health really needed this.
Now I'm faced with a dilemma. Go back to my home country where I probably could retire now at 40 or stay here and try to get back to work. Trump administration has been making my decision easier by the day.
May want to consider that things won’t stay the same price for 40 years?
https://hsph.harvard.edu/news/is-coffee-good-or-bad-for-your...
CYP1A2
Increased heart attack risk: A 2006 study found that slow metabolizers who drank four or more cups of coffee per day had a 64% increased risk of a nonfatal myocardial infarction (heart attack) compared to those drinking less than one cup daily. The risk was even higher for slow metabolizers under age 50, who experienced more than four times the risk
No increased risk for fast metabolizers: In the same study, fast metabolizers did not experience an increased risk of heart attack, even with high coffee consumption.
https://www.geneticlifehacks.com/caffeine-metabolism-and-you...
Like the other commenter alluded to, if you consume caffeine and your BP remains really elevated past two hours, you’re probably a slow metabolizer.
My reason for wanting to quit caffeine was related to willpower and self-control. I wanted a stronger mind-body connection where I'd readily act on my desires rather than delegating to "I'll do that once I feel properly caffeinated." I was finding that I wasn't doing much with myself after work hours because my energy levels felt low once caffeine wore off and because I wasn't training myself to be comfortable doing things even when I didn't "feel" like doing them. Those behaviors made me uncomfortable with myself, but I never felt like I had the time to address them while working a full-time job. At best, I'd get two day "detoxes" over the weekend and then hop right back on the bean juice Monday morning.
fwiw: what you did is pretty impressive and hella brave, respect
The difference is that my anxiety is more interesting (to me) than distressing. I can sometimes leverage it as a mechanism for change.
Granted - this also possible because my anxiety (currently) falls within a range. Turn it up a ½doz notches and I probably won't be mining it for usefulness.
5 cups of coffee per day is moderate?
Typically, when someone cites these numbers they're referring to total caffeine intake under 400mg. It would be 5 small cups of mild coffee.
You can exceed this number with a single drink from Starbucks.
It's enough work as it is staying fed, hydrated and getting a solid 8 hours of sleep. 20 minutes a day on getting your coffee fix is like 2 hours a week you could put to better purposes. Your article doesn't quantify the benefits, it just says there's some, that leads me to suspect that they're fairly minimal. Maybe getting an extra 2 hours of sleep or exercise would do more for your health.
edit: So it is not only about health but also about satisfaction and well being.
Worst case, you can work 8hrs during the day and study 3hrs in the evening with or without Red Bull: in both cases you’ll end up burnt out, you can just force it for a few months more with drugs.
In my experience, the people who benefit from quitting caffeine were either using far too much of it, were drinking it too late in the day (interferes with sleep), or were using it to cover up other problems like poor sleep habits.
The person drinking a cup or two of green tea in the mornings after going to bed on time is going to have a different relationship than the person drinking very strong coffee drinks all day long to stay awake because they've been scrolling on their phone until 2AM every night instead of trying to sleep on time.
Idk man I think a lot of people here would be proud to have knocked off even one of those things on that list. The lifestyle changes alone are huge accomplishments. I also wouldn’t downplay the significance of spending a little time doing nothing. Probably added some years to your life
Windows just feels irredeemably mediocre at this point. Maybe Windows 12 will improve things, but I’ve been pretty down on 11.
It's really fulfilling to be able to show people your work and have them play with it. It's so different than like.. spec'ing out a new database schema and then building some APIs over it. They're both coding, but one's a little harder to have a convo about at the dinner table.
Rust is such a mature language to use coming from a JavaScript background. I don't think it makes the best language for writing good games because it's too challenging to write bad prototypes you intend to throw away. You have to refactor frequently and code-compile-run loop is so slow. The lack of quick prototyping discourages me from playing around with ideas that might not work out and that makes for a worse game. However, as a programmer, Rust is an incredibly satisfying language to write in. Everything you do always feels very technically correct. The Rust quip that "if it compiles then it probably works" is very accurate and is a continuous source of pleasure.
In principle, I don't see why not. In practice, yeah I can see it. In both cases, can't know without checking, and I haven't. Bevy is pretty cool though!
My drive-by suggestions would be more along the lines of https://github.com/mattwparas/steel, or the very ad-hoc embedded language of https://github.com/elkowar/eww, or perhaps most pertinently https://kdl.dev/
Maybe one of those would be minimal enough for the rest of the engine to not manage to get your way, as frameworks are known to do. As always, happy hacking!
It helps with commitment and pursuing a deeper learning of the activity instead of doing quick and dirty stuff in my experience. Just don't expect it (or aim for it) to be a steam top-seller, my aim is usually to have at least one other stranger get some amount of value out of what I produce.
Not to say there isn't a place for quick and dirty projects, of course. Bespoke 3D models to fix things around the house are my current favourite category for that.
There is no "accomplishment". Get off twitter and instagram, and seek contentedness. Everything else is creative self-deceit or comparison games on a rubric that is artificial and asinine.
No one actually cares about your title. Or rather, you probably know that them validating your title isn't really what's going to matter to you? Or is it? Why?
I say this with love, I spent a lot of time (albeit voluntarily) unemployed asking myself such questions. Good luck.
After I left, the PE firm finished the ~failed merger, flipped the company to another buyer, and the PE firm placed the CTO at another company. I've remained friends with the CTO and we have a monthly/bi-monthly check-in. He was very supportive of my side-projects and would've helped fund anything that I said had legs, but is equally eager to work with me again if given the opportunity. The company he's working at is going through a reorg and a position he thinks I'd be a good fit for (admittedly a growth opportunity) should open up.
If that falls through and I'm not able to get a warm intro somewhere then you're absolutely right. I'd focus on applying for IC positions, but clearly communicate that I'm interested in taking on leadership ASAP.
I'm not coping terribly well. I think what is most distressing is that I am observing a decline in my capacity. I feel mentally sluggish. I frustrate more easily. I tire more easily. Probably most worryingly to me I get spikes of aggression that lead to combative outbursts. I feel less empathetic, even mildly sadistic at times. Very hard to control the envy and the average person I interact with evokes envy.
Everyone in my life tells me I need to get working again (yes thank you it's obvious). Not even for the money, but just to have a purpose and structure and a social life. A common sentiment. But I've come to understand that it is backwards. Employment is secondary, and it follows from having a social network and being embedded in a social context.
Poverty alters your brain in strange ways. For an example I've been thinking about lately, the world is getting very small. I was late for an important appointment. It simply did not occur to me to take a taxi. I just don't do that anymore. It's sort of categorically ruled out as "expensive luxury". Such a difference from a few years ago! Would have ordered the taxi without even thinking.
On the plus side I quit smoking and lost a bunch of weight and I'm physically in the best shape I've ever been.
The comment was clear that these symptoms appeared after the job loss. It's a match for the symptoms of a depressive episode (which can and does appear after a difficult life situation) but not ADHD.
Suggesting that the commenter seek out stimulant medication is not good advice.
Many (including myself) have been successfully living with symptoms without treatment, but seeked my eoctors advice after having similar symptoms after a similar situation, and the result was adhd medication which helped.
Suggesting that someone talks to their doctor about symptoms is reasonable advice.
Edit0: and I wouldn't go around diagnosing people with depressive episodes from a single comment, were I in your shoes. Let their practicians do diagnoses, you know?
https://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/news-and-features/latest-news/deta...
Is that link about accessing your GP?
I'm not sure what you're trying to get at. Good luck going forward.
This is textbook major depressive disorder. I know you probably don't want to hear that, but you're basically describing a classic case of depressive symptoms.
> Employment is secondary, and it follows from having a social network and being embedded in a social context.
I'm sorry, but viewing these two things as connected or expecting one to follow the other isn't helpful. We all need a social life and we all need employment, but tying the two of those together isn't healthy. It's important to have a social life outside of work. It's important to have a job that isn't equivalent to your social life.
It's been tough. The hardest part about being unemployed is it is very hard to structure your days because work is no longer the thing that is forcing you to get up, get out, go to bed on time, etc. It's also a strange feeling having to spend from your savings/emergency fund without money coming in, you feel bad and guilty for doing so, it's weird.
I'm changing careers. I've always liked teaching, so I'm doing volunteer english teaching while preparing to apply to go back to school in order to get a Masters in Education.
In the mean time, I'm also doing other small things. Learning about AI, going to board game meetups, doing some traveling, overall it's not the most fun part of my life, but I'm treating it as I will look back on this and realize this was necessary.
The irony is that it takes a lot more personal discipline to remain productive without any sort of feedback loop, but the unemployed are presumptively regarded as flawed and lazy :-)
I've lost that identity, and despite extensive therapy, meds, etc. I still haven't found myself yet.
I know I'll be okay, however.
Stay frosty. Things will work out. Cheers!
One thing I worry about is getting a stroke or become blind, paralyzed or similar.
Having lost people around me or seen them fall seriously ill , made me realize things can change so quickly.
I admire ppl like yourself who keep going.
Or people like Paul De Gelder, who lost the majority of their limbs and then just keep going and seem to thrive.
I wonder how ppl like that change their mindset after such life events. What happens in the brain? Is it via therapy or effectively deciding to make the best with the cards you’ve been dealt.
From what you wrote, it sounds like you haven’t lost a core pillar of your identity, which is a positive mindset.
Wishing you the best on your new path ahead.
He's been in an intensive care neuro unit for the past month. I visited about 10 days ago and he was having trouble talking, and... I suspect it might be long lasting or permanent.
We'd just spoken the Friday before, and had a meeting planned that morning. It all changed instantly, and there's no going back. It shook me up some, and I'm not affected at all, really, but seeing this happen to someone you know directly is... hard to take (for me anyway).
Best thing I’ve found for structure is renting a desk in a coworking space
Cheapest are taking a walk at the same time and putting on “work” clothing
But now I'm hitting 2 years and the money is starting to dry up so I need to find work again. I always thought working on this type of project would be a win-win for finding work again, but it hasn't helped much. It may even be a hinderance. Employers/Recruiters don't take it seriously or see it as some exotic work experience. I try to tell them - Distributed Systems...the concepts are the same wherever you go. No dice. I'm on the younger side and have 3 years of professional experience at a payments startup doing backend + devops + AWS. Sometimes I wonder if I screwed myself out of the job market. I'm seen as a Junior Dev with a 2 year work experience gap.
I cope by staying in shape. I have a good routine and I even got into swimming over the past year! I think if it wasn't for these activities I would've fell into despair some time ago.
Nvm found it will try later since I’m on mobile.
List what the technical challenges of the projects were, what its promoters expected, and how you addressed everything. Don't let entrepreneurial merits overshadow technical ones, especially if you're not after a position like product manager in a company that truly understands how to employ entrepreneurs.
Another way to think about it is that the perception that someone else took a risk on you seems more valuable to employers than you being crazy enough, audacious enough, or courageous enough to dare take on life.
You pay for connects and most proposals aren't even read.
Then if you do land work, you pay a % to the platform.
Seems to me like it should be one or the other not both.
Check this out. By directing your attention, you should be able to flip the polarities of either circuit and/or the "cyst" (i.e. the connection your mind makes between the two, before proceeding to disavow it; speculated transmissible). If works anything like a logic gate which determines the content of your spontaneous reaction and/or reflection to contradictory percepts and/or concepts, by messing with its truth table you should be able to switch between selective deafness, a Freudian slip, stuttering, and the one you're currently having.
Source: never sat, just hung out. "You thought radical freedom is the answer? Let's see how you handle being locked up with all other people who thought radical freedom was the answer!" is a pretty fucked up basis for a society and also a thing.
The only time I've ever seen "jail" spelled this way was in Elden Ring, and I had to look it up to see how it's supposed to be pronounced to learn that it's an Old English way of spelling "jail" and is pronounced like "jail".
Curious if you've been playing a lot of Elden Ring or if there's another reason you chose this spelling.
but yeah making a cop stub their toe is gonna make anyone have a bad time. im sorry the justice system is failing you.
Or at least realize the existence of it happening all around us (crim recs, credit reports, ever harsher laws driven by crim-just industry lobbyists, etc).
Working on self-improvement: excercise, eat/sleep well, defeat phone addiction, become social. I enjoy drugs once a week. I travel all year in some beautiful places. Spend ~2 hours every day trying to find a wife.
In 5-10 years (wifed up or wifeless), I'll buy a house in the forest and spend the rest of my life playing piano, studying math, and creating tech for fun.
I think most people just don't get this. It's quite possible to be happy not spending that much money.
My best friend lives of about E500/mo; hates travelling (so never does) and has been the happiest person I know since he moved from north EU to south. Sold his company before the move for a few 100k and as such can do what he wants the rest of his life. Most people would not consider him rich ; quite the opposite, but most people want 'stuff' and travel, both of which are usually costly.
That sounds rich to me.
What complicates things for me is being legally blind. I have enough vision to use a computer, but not much else and so I don't have the breadth of career options available to me that most people do. I need a way back in.
I keep reading, and I keep playing with code like I always have. I'm comfortable with C#, JavaScript and their respective ecosystems. It's like riding a bike. But convincing other people of that, recruiters especially, is proving to be a problem.
As for how I'm coping, I'm very up and down. It's hard not to feel that my career might be over. So when interviews have come up, I'm extremely nervous despite never having that problem in the past where I'd usually interview well.
Somehow, at least for now, I've kept going. Thanks for starting the thread.
Ive long thought about this problem. I think the issue is we dont have an objective mechanism to understand ones capability. Because thats really what matters.
Two people can have the same YOE, but how do you know which is more capable? Interviews are a terrible way to guage this, but is the present day mechanism thats used.
The question is how to get that thing to exist.
You're correct about becoming an independent developer though. This whole experience made me realise that needs to be my goal if the tech industry can toss me aside at a moment's notice. I need a job to do that safely though. It's too risky on its own.
Edit: was speaking from a US perspective before realizing you were in the UK, but would be surprised if you didn’t have even better protections
Extra edit: this hit the front page a while back about a blind developers dev setup: https://www.vincit.com/blog/software-development-450-words-p... it may be outdated at this point but maybe worth reaching out for best practices these days?
My current problem is different: getting interviews at all.
Wishing your best of luck on your search in any case.
For recharging batteries, I warmly recommend to join the A11y Slack: use its search function, explore your idea further, or find interesting new contacts.
I’ve requested an invite link for you. When it gets accepted, you should get an email – feel free to click (or ignore) it!
If you need any software job you might even have luck with graduate schemes at companies like BT who I believe will have similar shortcuts through recruitment for those with disabilities.
I didn't know about this! For anyone else who might benefit, it looks like it's the Disability Confident Scheme: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/disability-confide...
Thank you so much.
But emotionally, much better off than last year.
Making ends meet with a return to non-tech after a 3 decade break. Won’t ever stop doing that at least part-time, going forward, for security. For tech, focused on a body of work to create opportunities.
Optimistic.
It definitely hit my self-esteem, as well as 401(k).
I ended up taking a job with Microsoft, but it was a poor fit because I hate the company as well as the product area I was in.
As soon as I could I found another employer that, while not perfect, I'm much happier with.
Don't know if true and if not might be close, but I recently saw the average compensation at Microsoft is ~200k...
And I didn't stay long enough fory stock grant to vest at all (IIRC).
Edit: was slightly lower than the number the sibling comment mentioned.
I'm commenting because I get self-conscious of over sharing. Being asked a direct question and answering it, should be good shouldn't it?
> Has anyone else been unemployed for over two years? How are you coping?
I view the first question as actually being more of a selector trying to narrow down the discussion to people who are in the same boat and are currently unemployed for 2+ years. So not applicable to the parent. And they don't even attempt to answer the second question.
Of course anyone is free to comment on HN, and discussions in comments frequently go off topic. And I do think that 14 months is a long enough time to be able to empathize with with the OP is going through.
But I guess what I personally would like to have seen is some acknowledgement that "I know the question was directed at people who are unemployed for 2+ years, but..." and trying to answer the OPs question of how to cope. And also some acknowledgement that a job at Microsoft, while maybe not a good fit for the parent, is actually quite a privilege.
Discouraging people from posting positive anecdotes is not the goal, either. If anything, positive stories are very valuable in threads like this.
FWIW, the main points I was trying to convey are:
1) Even 14 months was really hard me.
2) Only because I had a 401(k) to tap did I avoid disaster.
3) Even after long unemployment there can, in some cases, be a path back to a reasonable career.
EDIT: Oh, wow, so much disagreement. 30 minutes, 3 downvotes, 0 comments. So tell me _where_ I am wrong.
The defeatist "all corps are evil" mentality will not do you any good.
It always fought against open source. Embrace, extend, extinguish. It always stifled innovation. Internet Explorer 6. And now, it bought GitHub and then plagiarized all public and private projects hosted on it. GPL cannot exist in a world where you can build a statistical model of the code and mechanically reproduce its functionality while somehow losing the GPL licensing in the process.
Also, calling it "defeatist" has no base in what I wrote. I didn't even write anything about corporations. Abuse has a much simpler description - using a power differential to benefit yourself at other people's expense.
A confusing distinction to make in a thread about employment.
> It always fought against open source.
They've since admitted this was a mistake, and in 2020 were cited as the single largest contributor to open source projects: https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/18/21262103/microsoft-open-s...
> And now, it bought GitHub and then plagiarized all public and private projects hosted on it.
This is news to me. Are you claiming Microsoft/GitHub used or sold private source code for training LLMs?
Don't anthropomorphize organizations. It was no longer beneficial for them to openly fight open source so instead the people in charge decided they needed to get developer mindshare by changing their public signaling. The sad thing is many people fell for it. They can just as easily switch back at any time when it becomes beneficial.
BTW, the phrasing "Microsoft has embraced open source" is very ironic and given my previous paragraph, it is a nice foreshadowing or what can come next at any time.
> Are you claiming Microsoft/GitHub used or sold private source code for training LLMs?
I have not seen it denied in any official communication. After skimming this question[0], nobody else could either and the phrasing in their FAQ is oddly specific about Business and Enterprise. So yes, given their patterns of behavior, it's very likely and I will consider it true until proven otherwise.
But that's not the biggest issue. That is that every LLM or LLM-adjacent company (Microsoft included) seems to suddenly argue that a mechanical transformation of input data is enough to erase licensing and attribution.[1] Free software licenses like GPL simple cannot exist in this environment. In fact, any licenses would have exactly 0 meaning.
See a program you want with a license you don't want? Just run it through a sufficiently complex black box and out the other side you have an identically behaving program which according to big-tech has no relation to the input. You can even do this with closed source software if you run it through a decompiler first.
I recall a MS CEO shouting something about developers when developers were the thing they needed most. Now they can train NNs on the devs' own work to imitate and replace the devs so devs are no longer valuable and get thrown under the bus.
Oh and MS employees are apparently forced to use LLMs by management...
[0]: https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/135400
[1]: This is a convenient 180° turn after for example people who had ever seen windows source code could not contribute to wine.
When I took an offer at Google I had literally been searching for months and had no other offers.
Years later, after a couple years career break I had been searching for months and could hardly get startups to talk to me, but X and Meta seemed very interested (I was not interested in them).
I know it sounds intuitive that if someone can land a gig at one of the large companies then they can easily get a job at someplace that's doing "good work" but this is often not the case.
I was very burnt out after being fired / laid off from multiple unethical tech startups and a divorce.
During the ego death I realized that I no longer had any desire to do work that wasn't making the world a better place. I considered changing careers because it's very hard to find software jobs in that space but I kept searching. I remained sane by reminding myself that suffering is temporary and the world is still beautiful in many ways.
I got hired by a local community college to work on some very hard software problems and I couldn't be happier. I get to continue working with the stuff I love while helping people achieve upward mobility.
Working on projects that help society and people can give you so much energy. I experienced it once and want to get back to that. Especially important during these trying times.
Curious to know, what are those hard software problems?
Long term: Add in machine learning to automate the most tedious parts of the college's processes. The idea being that we could automate query writing, data linking, etc for reporting, grant proposals, etc. Not without human supervision of course but still saving a ton of time.
The software problems themselves will be hard but I'm sure there will be a lot of hard social problems too.
When I say I have not worked since, I am only referring to taxable income. Helping my mom put down mulch for her flower garden didn't require a W-2 or I-9 but I still was paid. That's mostly how I have been getting by, odd jobs for family members and friends, with a bit of reselling junk I find on the street as art.
I also live in a very low cost of living area and am very fortunate that my landlord has never increased my rent. My rent is considered shockingly low, even for this poverty dense area. I am by nature very frugal, to extremes at times, like with clothing (all from a thrift store, frequently repaired myself with needle and thread) and furniture from the side of the road.
I always wanted to work in tech. College did not work out for me (I've tried 5 times at 3 different schools) thanks in part to ADHD/bipolar/autism/whatever they call it now, with the closest I've come being a job at a call center. At this point I'm too old for food service and was never good at it anyways, too old and not strong enough for local manufacturing jobs and there are not many opportunities around me for anything else.
I keep a spreadsheet of applications I've turned in and the results of followups. There are just shy of 400 entries currently, most never get a callback or any progress from followups. I've landed 6 interviews in that time, none worked out. It's been close to a year since I added a new entry, I've pretty much given up. I'll call it retirement for a laugh but I'm only 43.
I was a huge gamer for years but quit playing them as a new years resolution (along with watching TV and movies) the same day I lost my job, so I could improve myself and learn more.
I've learned how to install Linux. I haven't used Windows since September 2021.
I got my amateur radio technicians license 2 years ago.
I've programmed "Hello world!" in 14 different programming languages, because that takes about the same amount of time as I can maintain my focus. I've only written a few programs outside the Hello World ones, most of which do not work.
I've built every computer I've owned that I've used regularly (3 total) and feel llike I have a better understanding of them than the majority of people I know (non tech types mostly) and occasionally make money or end up with hand-me-down parts, by helping friends pick out compatible parts and assisting with assembly of their builds.
After I stopped using Windows, I lost alt-keycodes for special characters, so I made a custom keymap/keysym setup that includes characters not normally on keyboards but still are frequently needed. ≈ ± ≠ ∞ √ ∅ Ω © ® ™
I've penciled out and/or made somewhat tech-related things, like costumes and props that use simple robotics (moving hand for Halloween) and LEDS ('magic' wands made of wood that light up from the inside with certain movements).
One project currently in progress (i have 100's in progress) is a little box that has sensors for weather, an RTL-SDR to pick up aircraft and a raspberry pi in a 'hopefully' weatherproof case, with the goal of data collecting from locations near me.
I make a ridiculous amount of directed graphs and diagrams.
I have a memory map like a wikipedia of my own life and knowledge.
So yes, I am interested in a little bit of everything, possibly to a fault.
After recovering, the Swedish employment office pushed me into a program for "job training" saying that it would help me ease into working again after my illness. I was already recovering and feeling well, working out and doing occasional charity work. I wanted to change career and get job market training to become a machinist (a non-declining job market where I wouldn't have to be exposed to AI), but was barred from that because of the program.
The company I was assigned to intern at (as an A/V programmer) claimed they wanted to hire me afterwards. It wasn't really what I wanted but I accepted it as a "consolation price" because it was at least (supposed to be...) a job. They conspired behind my back to extend the internship period into a full year. First on my last day did they offer to hire me ... except now only if they could get a government handout for doing so — and that handout would be granted only if I had a disability. I told the employment office No when they asked, but they still required me to continue working until the decision was cleared, which took another month and a half. I am not disabled ... so I didn't get hired.
No training, no job, a year of work for only unemployment checks, and overstressed with new physical outcomes: I've got a cold, the shingles and lichen ruber planus (stress-related rash) during the summer.
You sound tough as nails overcoming all those things.
What I did learn, and what should have been obvious, is that the longer you are out of the market, the more they think you are damaged goods.
Moved to bay area a few weeks despite the cost, both bc i want to be here, but also hoping that maybe some in-person networking pays off and i can find something. i'd honestly be happy being an office manager, i don't need a high paying dev job. but even stuff like office manager requires 5+ years experience doing that.
I dunno, it sucks and its painful. You're constantly worried and people who at first try to support you then get pissed off at you for something you can't really control. I hope you can find your way through it.
Can you help me understand it too? I don’t get it either.
As for me, and most motorsport fans I know, it's very much about the sport and skill involved. Sure, there's other aspects to it (people like their drivers/teams/etc) but I would say it's primarily for the sport, not the stories. I can't really speak to any other sports though.
In general, I get very few replies, even fewer interviews and 100% eventually "freeze the position" or simply ghost me. I've heard that too many companies are currently spending their HR budgets in market research and have no intention of fulfilling most of the positions they advertise. Not sure if that's true, and maybe there are other reasons for that, market-related and/or related to my resume, but applying to jobs is feeling just a huge waste of my time currently and I'm tending to apply only when I see a great fit.
How I cope: I could save a fair amount of money during the startup frenzy in the course of the pandemics and am living off it right now. But it doesn't generate enough passive income, not even close, so I'll have to find a job eventually. I'm seriously considering another profession. Maybe trying to ingress in the education field with my masters. Despite tech job market being at the rock-bottom, the unemployment rates in Brazil are at a historic low.
Now, despite this gloomy report, if you ask me, I'm feeling optimistic, happy even. I'm really seizing the opportunity to study a lot and spending time with my family, so I feel all this is doing me well overall.
- Java, Python - React, Angular - Postgresql - Docker, Kubernetes
I've only managed to get sesonal summer jobs, in 2023 I finished my higer vocational studies as a frontend developer.
The jobmarket is a shitshow here in Sweden now tho, few people are getting hired, companies "can't find" anyone to hire bc they want unicorns and you read about bigger layoffs a few times a month.
All the while our politicians are ruining our welfare..
I'm honestly barely coping. I'm so glad I have my partner (who also struggle to get a job) and two cats.
I'm going to the gym twice a week, bake sometimes, cook daily sleep quite a bit as I'm tired all the time. I'm kind of just trying to stay active and stick to routines.
I've recently started seeing a psychiatrist as well
How I coped?
* I helped run a gaming community. I threw myself into the work full time, building up a great gaming server with strong player count. This gave me social connection in an area I couldn’t openly be myself in.
* I minimized expenses, including buying delivery meals (lack of an inspected car) and making one delivery stretch two to three days' worth of meals (~$1.50 a meal back then)
The one regret is I didn’t take my friend up on their help sooner. It meant relocating to a new city, but within two weeks of putting their address on my resume I had found new work. Not stellar work, but good enough to close out my old place, pack up stuff to storage, and move out to the new city.
Definitely take up friends on their offers of help. For resumes especially, borrowing a friend’s address can give you a “local” presence and make you a better candidate. Don’t feel bad taking a career step downward if it saves your ass in the immediate - there will always be opportunities to move up again later.
You’re not alone in this. It sucks, supremely sucks ass, but you’re not a failure just because the market is in a downswing. Don’t beat yourself up over things out of your control.
There is a light at the end of this tunnel. You’ll make it.
So that's where I'm at right now. I've spent this time picking up new hobbies (currently 3D modelling, branching out to add some electronics elements right now), programming board game probability aids for fun, learning some university level courses from my partner and teaching her some myself, getting more active (my last month has been the best physical shape I've been in since university).
My personal project list keeps growing, so I have plenty to tackle and "keep me busy". Though I do want to move on from toy personal stuff to more meaty stuff in the near future. Yet, figuring out the exact nature of that is a work in progress currently.
First year was an intentional "sabbatical" after never taking longer than a 1 week long vacation in seven years of full time SWE.
Second year... Well, I've applied to probably around 500 jobs this year, from the smallest to the largest companies, and I've gotten ONE video call interview. And as much as I would want to thank that one VP Eng at that one company for even interviewing me, after the interviewer directly told me that I aligned with what they were looking to hire for the role, and that I would be scheduled for technical interviews the next week, I ended up *ghosted*. Not even a rejection email.
Of my IRL SWE friends, I know many like myself who have been laid off and can't find new work (it seems like the longer the gap gets, the more it self-reinforcingly leads employers to think you're damaged goods); I know others who have been laid off and found new work within a month or two; and I know a few who are continuing to climb the comp ladder at big saas corps, seemingly completely unaffected by the job market.
The strangest thing to me about this wave of SWE unemployment is that it seems to be totally violative of supply and demand. Yes, I know that all SWE workers aren't equal fungible goods, but I would have thought that there are tiers or specializations inside of which there can be some rough supply and demand. Yet, I haven't gotten any lowball job offers - just complete lack of interest.
For past context, I didn't even have to apply for my last 2 jobs - a technical leader at each company (CTO, Dir Eng, etc) reached out to me unsolicited after finding my resume on a job board.
There's no shame in being a homemaker, and heck, I'd do it myself if I had a partner that could provide for the two of us. Cooking, cleaning, laundry, landscaping, repairs, upkeep, finances...I like the appeal, but that's because I like the job of a homemaker. It might be worth broaching that topic with your partner, see if maybe they can begin contributing in that sense. You're less likely to resent someone who has a home-cooked meal for you when you get home most nights of the week, or the laundry being washed, folded, and ironed.
And if they balk at such a notion, well...there's more data for you to act upon in your relationship. Either way, you'll feel like you're moving forward instead of stuck in place.
Just an eRando's two cents. YMMV, take with a grain of salt, etc.
The parent comment didn't mention that at all.
> And if they balk at such a notion, well...there's more data for you to act upon in your relationship.
Wild how quickly a comment about someone's husband being out of work but applying for jobs jumps to assumptions that he's a deadbeat and suggestions to "act upon" it.
Now we're wondering which comment you read.
shame will have opposite of intended effect
I hope you guys work it out.
She would often be “dragging her feet” when it came to applying for jobs.
I’m convinced it’s part of why our marriage failed, it created a lot of tension between us. It’s not the only cause, but it contributed. I’m not sure what I could have done differently, but I empathize with your situation.
Coping - generally fine - helped by building up a new network of friends and doing things like going clubbing and going to music festivals and giving talks and running voluntary orgs. Just been out for beers with my mentee; he will be giving a talk at a session that I am running tomorrow with the local council.
Where would you start?
Curious, what bit are you working on to help fix this? Research as you’re doing a PhD?
Reading “Reinventing Fire” currently. So much needs to change, but it feels like there is zero political will to address this crisis.
There are so many things to work on, some can be tackled as a start-up, which is HN territory! My last start-up developed a domestic heating control to save energy by setting back temperatures a little when a room is empty and likely to stay empty for a while. There's >500k units installed.
My PhD is finding how to best improve decarbonisaton of UK home heating (~14% of UK GHGs). Mainly by replacing gas boilers with heat pumps. Did my own at the end of last year.
Meanwhile, I focused on learning trending tools and skills, and was coping by working on DIY projects involving 3D modelling and printing, electronics, programming. Wife was very supportive during that time <3
Around the end of August I got the first offer, and two weeks later another better one.
Market is awful. Much worse than the last time I was looking for a job, 5 years ago.
Keep up!
It started with a maternity leave. Then after a year, I tried going back to my old job and it was a disaster, so I decided to delay it for a bit longer. Then COVID hit. Then I had another child. Then one day you realize, "has it really been 5 years since I stopped working?"
Coming back at that point felt impossible: I wanted a part time job, my skills were outdated and rusty - I didn't even bother applying anywhere, I wouldn't stand a chance. I started searching for alternatives: small freelance gigs, bounties, personal projects... None were a success.
This year I mustered the courage to start applying to jobs again, only to realize that my most pessimistic fears were totally falling short.
I haven't burned all my rope yet, but It's not looking great.
If you're wondering: the way I'm surviving financially is because my spouse does have a full-time job, so we adapted to live with that.
In a good headspace now, right after the first year was feeling lost on where to go next.
Glad to hear. I had a similar experience, people act like "being in transition" where you are unsure what is next is solveable in a month, maybe three months. After that first year I still felt so unsure what I was supposed to do.
It’s free beyond the cost of the book (which you can probably find in your public library) and has helped thousands.
Good luck!
Best time of my life honestly, after 15 years of working. I realized I get 0 pleasure from working and have plenty of things to occupy me if I wasn’t. I learned I don’t need a purpose in life. What I really love is running, woodworking, reading, eating, lifting weights, traveling and spending time with my family.
Listen and follow carefully:
(1) Fill the current gap in your CV with “Job Sabbatical”, make it span up to now. Else people will be put off by the fact you didn’t find work.
(2) Id you want, send me your CV and I’ll audit. 30% of cases people focus on the wrong stuff, 50% they don’t sell it well (presentation, communication, annecdotes) and the other 20% is not sticking to cultural norms / non-CV related stuff
I'm now doing temp office work for my local government. I actually prefer the job setting, aside from the low pay. I would encourage everyone to try getting work in their own local governments, especially around big events like elections, when there's need for a lot of people at once.
My girlfriend is currently suffering a lot because of this because she had to go on extended bereavement and now no one will hire her.
When you say abusive manager, do you mean micromanaging and the likes?
If not, is this something HR could have helped with. But then again the saying goes HR is not your friend?
What would be your advice how to deal with abusive managers? Especially not letting it get to a point where you need therapy.
The first few months I spent trying to make my own work, since my tech background is great, but really, that led to nowhere, especially in this economy (Canada), so I started looking for a job. Now 1.5 years of active searching and only 4 interviews, yes, only 4 where the job description was as if it was written to match my resume, yet I got rejected, just to see how bad it is, compared to before until 2021. I used to get contacted for jobs, some were in big companies like Amazon for 180k. All other applications just go to the void, or cliché "we went with another candidate" but the posting remains open 3 months later. Sometimes I would receive the rejection two hours after applying after midnight, so it's just automated.
It's been tough, mentally demoralizing and I borderline went suicidal at some point. Even now, if some burglar came to shoot me in the face I wouldn't even flinch, completely hopeless, not because of not finding a job, but because of 15+ years of education and experience and you are just invisible, no matter how you perfect the resume or whatever. Meanwhile I see fresh co-op students are hired in good companies and good positions, mostly girls too, making me believe that HR (mostly women) and managers (mostly men) prefer hiring fresh especially women for all sorts of reasons, and also company-wise too because they can pay them peanuts without an issue. I deeply regret becoming an engineer, waste of time and money. If I had invested that in other education or even becoming a plumber I would be in a better position now.
The plan right now is to find anything, work and save a little then completely change my career, no more engineering or tech stuff despite my passion in this field, but if it doesn't pay bills, it's becoming like an art degree now, especially when the industry doesn't have any measure to protect the profession. Anyone can be an engineer, meanwhile I see a nurse (which seen as the janitor of healthcare jobs) is paid ~90k on par with a senior engineer, if you found the job anyway. You know something is not right, hell, even a landscaper makes better than that. Leaving Canada isn't an option right now due to some reasons.
Your first hand experience with how brutal the job market is is real. And it definitely feels like zero sum when it comes down to "a woman gets hired for reasons over me" but i must call out how dangerous this line of thinking becomes.
Also obviously not anyone can become an engineer. please don't be so dismissive of others.
if you're willing to put in the learning to become a plumber that seems like a positive path forward.
I don't know but among healthcare practitioner apparently it's seen like that. It's brutal, but out of all white collar jobs, only engineering is suffering, and especially males, yes, women are hired for 'reasons' over males, you can check any unemployment rate between males/females, now it's called he-cession https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2025-08-05/us-job... What is the ratio of females posting not finding jobs in social media compared to males? I personally never seen a single female complaining not finding a job, instead, they are dancing in the jobs for tiktok and posting how their 'lazy girl job' is going, meanwhile for guys, it's all over the place, especially in tech/engineering.
Engineering isn't guarded as a profession, there's no designation like other white collar jobs that you need to pass and have to be called an engineer, the 'engineer' term is so diluted that it's meaningless now, and even to be a plumper, you should have apprenticeship to practice it, it's even more guarded than engineer. Total waste of time to be an engineer, my advise to anyone who's getting in the field or thinking about it, do NOT, you are better dancing on tiktok than wasting your life in a useless degree.
Janitors and cleaners of all kinds are essential workers. And nurses keep you alive. Both type of workers add more value to society than I do (working on products to make numbers go up).
Your evidence is all anecdotal. Go om LinkedIn and you see plenty of posts by women who are also struggling.
If you want to be mad at someone then be mad at the Epstein class not at your fellow class mates.
You're the exact kind of toxic employee that companies avoid hiring.
If you ever want to have a good job again you need to change your attitude.
If you do take a job, I wouldn't be surprised if you eventually find a passion project that'll make everything fall into place. Its ok that it takes time to discover that passion.
(I took 2 years off for an entrepreneurial project. Finished it in the first year, bummed around purposeless for the next one. Went back to work early. 15 years later, beginning to get curious/driven again.)
I spent much of that year on personal projects and family before I could seriously commit myself. Then covid happened.
It took 2.5yr before I worked again, in FAANG. There were many moments of feeling down and alone.
I'm unemployed again, 3 months now, this time after being laid off. I wish I could just concentrate my efforts on developing products and monetizing them. But since I have a family to support, I decided to spend time on these projects only to reward myself for grinding leetcode & system design.
The leetcode and system design can FEEL productive but it’s 2 steps removed from what you want and what’s probably uncomfortable.
I've gone through my network multiple times, asked for referrals, have applied to 2,000+ job openings that I've seen on LinkedIn, have tried networking meetings, you name it. I'm in NYC and not geographically mobile (raising 2 kids, divorced), but I've applied to jobs in FL, Chicago, etc where I would try to make it work being in an office part time around my schedule. I've applied to totally different sectors.
The recruiting merry-go-around is brutal. ATS to enter resume data, automatic rejection emails (sometimes within under 24h!). The "what have you done the last two years" question kills me -- I've looked for a job, that's what I've done.
I would say even before this all went down things were going badly for me. I had lost my passion for tech for a long time and wondered if that would ever come back... Well, after spending an entire year not coding anything I woke up one day... and felt excited again?
I think that maybe I just had burn out and had never taken a proper break in my life. Makes me realize that a lot of the way I operated was unsustainable... And if its going to end up in me being severely mentally broken to protect myself from stress that I'm self-inducing... its not worth it. Proper rest is the essential piece I never took seriously.
I don't know if I'll end up being hired again and I don't really care. I'm currently working on my open source projects and having a lot of fun. Feels good man.
I'm coping by executing a plan that leads to retirement.
I hope you find some friends
Sometimes it feels like the sum of all the little projects I've been working on amounts to nothing, and I wouldn't even know how to go through a full-time job interview process again. Freaks me out.
I ended up having to come back to the bay area prematurely. I want to live here long term but it wasn't the right fit for where I'm at in life. (Single mid-30s male - dying alone) I'm working at a FAANG. I've studied well over 1000+ LC problems, paid for professional tutoring/mocks in LC and System Design, dozens of free mock interviews, and several hundred actual interviews over the years.
The way I coped was working even harder at studying and having an otherwise busy life in other aspects. When I looked for jobs in the past - it was a full-time job just from the studying aspect.
While I'm not unemployed, I've followed the layoffs and salary trends. I keep wondering whether holding out for old salary levels is a big reason some people stay on the sidelines. The "golden age" of huge tech compensation feels over, and the market has normalized a lot.
Does long-term unemployment partly come from struggles to reset expectations, especially for those anchored to past highs? It's tough to accept less. I'm already preparing to apply for jobs with much lower pay if it comes to that. It's not great, but shelter and food for my family will always come first.
Curious if others see it the same way.
(1) Big issue, barriers to entry: In the US, for plumbers, electricians, lawn maintainers, ..., they get little competition, i.e., no supply from more than, say, 100 miles away and, thus, none from Asia or Europe.
E.g., a guy down the street was injured so needed someone to mow his grass. My older brother had the job, was too busy with college, so I got the job. They kept asking me to accept a higher fee, but I was afraid I didn't deserve it and didn't want to disappoint my customer. The guy had a next door neighbor who called me to weed their garden. Another guy had an overgrown hedge and called me to cut it back. Another customer had a hedge about 3' high and for neighborhood status wanted it cut to a perfect box and asked me .... Didn't realize that customers were calling ME -- in business, a dream situation, but at 16 didn't appreciate that.
Instead, could have gotten some books on Horticulture 101. With a little marketing, e.g., business cards, a sign could display when working on a yard, a professional look, have the neighbors compete for the best looking yards and proud to be paying my high fees for status, .... Work by "Appointment Only", and maybe by the season only. In a few weeks could have made money enough for a year of college tuition, but college, already had a better career than college offered.
(2) In the US, during the Cold War and the beginning of computing, at least around DC, employers were desperate for anyone with talent, interest, and any experience at all in computing, demand was much greater than supply, and for a job just look in The Washington Post, ..., and have a job in a week.
(3) Still in the US, by the 1990s, some big companies would fire half their computing experts, then could send 1000 resumes and go for years without a job -- could wish could swap AI expertise, background in teaching computer science in college, relevant Bachelor's, Master's and Ph.D. degrees for a slot as an apprentice plumber -- literally, no exaggeration.
Evidence: For a career, a Ph.D., publications in AI, etc. can be worse than a felony conviction. Literally.
If 1000 resumes and more than a year looking for a job, then conclude no fish in that lake and need to look elsewhere.
But college is MUCH better than grass mowing? In the US, not necessarily!
Lesson: Start a business, maybe even one exploiting some aspects of computing and even with some barriers to entry or plumbing, grass mowing, ....
No joke, folks.
I'm coping by building a system to solve homelessness in general which I've concluded is impossible by getting a menial job and saving ("just get 2?" Logistics, I have answers for everything).
I'm guessing someone will eventually get me some freelance/contract work and that's how my situation will be resolved ($10k over a month would do). Just building online brands with innovative techniques and sharing results until that day. Yeehaw.
But still will continue on sending out proper CV.
Isolation and poverty of unemployment was only exacerbated by dealing with dumb team dynamics.
That said, I forced being motivated, and I did whatever took, and still failed interviews. So, now I know it's not on my hands to pass or not.
But I also understand them, if they don't like the offering and also have enough money or don't have to have a job to reside in their country then why not.
I've gone back to education, having found a free course in computer hardware. (I really know only software and web, and have till now kept away from hardware.) However, taking the course for some reason interferes with my unemployment benefits, so I'm going to have to juggle some stuff. Apparently one option is to take the one-year course part time over two years. The other option, of course, is to find a job that pays enough to get by on without taking up too much time.
It's hard to remember beyond vignettes, but around when I left my last regular job it felt like my world was collapsing. I'd drifted out of a relationship, I was struggling with mental health just as my physical health was improving, my social and political environment started feeling uncomfortable, the small startup I worked for was struggling to pay me (at all, let alone on time), and Mom's illness was becoming terminal (eventually I lost Dad too) and I moved back home to help look after her.
Even before that my employment record had been kinda spotty but I was blessed to have a supportive family and very frugal habits that let me start building up some savings. But I also definitely counted some unhatched chickens. At first, putting the world of employment completely out of my mind was part of how I coped with the stress. Then I started deluding myself that I was "semi-retired". By the time reality fully hit me, the self-doubt from the existing gap in my resume was self-reinforcing. And my "professional network" feels like a joke now.
I'm trying to shake myself out of it, force myself to build a portfolio and go looking again. It's brutal, though. Hard to even find the words for this post, and read them back and wonder what I'm doing with/to myself. And the world is different, too. Even without thinking about AI. I have deep expertise in some tech stuff but no obvious way to show it off (of course I want to write good code rather than clever code). I don't want to do all this new "web 2.0" (is it 3.0 now?) stuff. It looks and feels awful to me, on every level. I just want to make simple, practical, really well designed tools (it was strangely hard to phrase that).
I feel this. I don't know if I can/will post. I wish you the best of luck.
I've spent the last two years volunteering a local bike co-op and getting way to into bike building and cycling generally. Additionally, I spend a lot of time doing what I can to help my local trans community (that I am a part of). This work has gifted me with perspectives I would never have seen otherwise, and has really helped my organizational and soft skills.
Tech wise, I only do hobby projects now, and it's really wonderful in some ways. Having the professional experience I do, but the free time to work on projects that I want has helped me learn so much and really push my understanding of all sorts of technology.
When the job market eventually gets better, I will be able to approach it with a confidence that I didn't feel was earned before. That's really my cope lol
---
Fwiw
https://elanora.lol/resume resume@elanora.lol
Not asking to be mean, asking because I am afraid of that happening to me and looking for perspective.
My impression from the resume is that she's relatively junior with limited experience, but not zero, and her experience is in unsexy tech stacks, and she did a bootcamp. So she is fighting am uphill battle in a tough market. But I don't get the impression that she's unprofessional or immature because of the whimsical website.
I'm any case, I wish her luck, and I believe that there are roles out there that would be a good fit for her and she can gain more experience. She just needs that first break... Which is hard to get
I would recommend everyone hunker down and do what you need to survive, including selling things and moving to lower cost locations and combining assets with family where possible.
Stay lean and prepare for tough(er) times.
Two years is well past the point of having to throw the kitchen sink at the problem. Months in, it's worth having projects in some key technologies. A year in, I'd re-train. I'd also scout out some grants for school/training available to those who've been laid off.
It had me thinking of what I want to impart to my children. I don't want to strike the fear of God in them that you're always on the precipice of doom, but I don't want them complacent either. Robotics x machine-learning/LLMs presents a lot of uncertainty.
It sure would be nice if one of those bitcoin millionaires came out of nowhere willing to sponsor me. I'd love to focus on open source, without worrying about making rent or eating this month.
Shameless self-promotion, sorry..
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your hometown / Waiting for someone or something to show you the way
At 11 I started writing software, with entrepreneurial aspirations helped by my parents. Over my teen years I must have designed a dozen sites I never published. I did alright in school, but I was never on time. At 18, out of high school, I got my first job. I moved to the city, went to college, and flunked out. I couldn't get up for class on time, I couldn't understand the "basic high school review" math course.
So, at 19 I moved back home, worked a year, and moved back to the city to work as a developer. I applied here and there, there was never much interest. I got comfortable, and although ashamed to sickness, I managed to spend the pandemic years not working at all. I suppose my ego and immaturity "prevented" me from working a regular job.
At 23 I moved back to my home town, to work my 3rd job ever, as a cleaner alongside a bunch of teens. After a year of that, I moved to a new big city, swallowed my pride and immediately got another cleaning job. I hoped to move on from that, maybe to software, maybe some new calling.
A new life circumstance hit me like a truck, and I had a very dark year. Stayed at that minimum wage job. 24, 25, moved back home.
The last year I've been trying to improve, taking online courses, going to the gym, building a piece of software that has real value, as in, can actually make money. But, well, I have a hard time believing anything has much of value. I'm 26 now. Spent most of my year "improving", a small portion working.
I maintain the polite fiction because I don't like people asking me why I do the things I do, I don't really know. I guess I do what's easy. A younger me would've chalked it up to "trauma", "anxiety", "depression", or some DSM-able disorder. An older me doesn't believe that at all. But I barely work, don't drive, and I really isolate myself. This was all quite bad before, but after the "circumstance", the last point is especially true.
I know how to get out of the "not working" cycle, I have to get a job first-and-foremost. But I don't know how to get out of the isolation cycle, it's been getting worse and worse. I try and read up on it, but all the advice is about "making friends". That's not really my issue. I feel like an alien, and most everyone drives me insane. Well, at least I can appreciate Kafka.
(After all that, I've never made a dime on software)
Go for a walk and talk to a stranger. I talked to a random dude for 45 mins the other day and he showed me all the fish he’s caught. Epic.
Sounds like you like software. Go to a software meet up and geek out.
The friends will come but even a 5 min conversation can have a huge impact on your psyche so just get out there in a way that you feel comfortable with.
I have times of regularity, where I'm charismatic and talking with people. But even then I find that all my stories end with "... that person drives me crazy!" ... Well of course they do, seems like everyone does.
The faults I judge the most in people are the ones I struggle with, or ones I've seen other loved ones struggle with where I wasn't able to help. I want to be kind, to be empathetic really, but I feel so afraid, so incapable of helping, guiding, or even listening empathetically in any way that my reactions are ...bad. Unkind, or alien.
I've been trying. But it's been getting worse.
I've been in fact outside of my home for some weeks, visiting a sibling in a different country and helping with the new baby and other household stuff. It's been a bit stressful (hard to have structure when you're sleeping on the couch and there's a newborn), but mostly quite nice to be part of a whole. I help out with the baby, cook, socialize, and work on my software when I have time. I wish I could've had more structure, but the "limited time" aspect is a great motivator.
Now I'm heading back home, and that worries me. It feels like I've been outside in the fresh air --to a degree-- and now I'm opening the windowless, stuffy shed and walking back inside for the winter. I do have to go back, even if I'm to leave I need to make some money to launch myself out. But it's like a tar pit of the mind.
trauma and disability can look like a lot of things, and the things in your life that you may think aren't a big deal actually can be, and you have no idea because you've never had it any other way.
realizing i have intense trauma and C-PTSD and a real disability made me shame myself so significantly less, and while it doesnt make me act like a victim or that im helpless, it gives me a butt load of compassion for myself. because the real basic things that people find easy, i find difficult, and to get the same results requires 3x more effort for me. people can view this as me being lazy when in reality im working much harder than they are.
not trying to diagnose you. maybe just keep an open mind, because the way your life is operating is not typical, and there's probably reasons for that.
> designed a dozen sites I never published > I was never on time > I couldn't get up for class on time
And depending on why
> don't drive > I feel like an alien, and most everyone drives me insane. > most of them I cut off without a word, and those that reach out I resent
also sounds like how someone with ADHD could describe themselves, and the other issues could be downstream from that
If it makes you feel any better, this song about the fleeting nature of time is fifty years old and Roger Waters is still touring.
Think about it logically, if you had a kid would you let them end up like you?
You need like some complete psychological and lifestyle reset. Consider joining the military, volunteering in Africa, working on an oilrig, anything as long as it's extreme. Like, whatever most firmly cuts off your whole thread of lived experience and mindset so far but which has structure you can hang on to.
Also find an aggressive therapist who'll get in there and work out what's going on and clean it up, and pay them whatever they ask.
I am not stopping until I am a successful entrepreneur. I refuse to go back to a full-time software job. I have had to do some long stints freelancing or agency work to make ends meet. Gotta do what you gotta do.
But I'm not going back or stopping until I make it.
Any tips or advice on staying balanced?
I didn't scatter shot submit my CV to everything under the sun - tried to keep it in my current area of residence, with the technology stack that I actually want to pursue.
I applied for around 4-5 jobs a month (which included tuning CV and cover letters for each of them). I got around 10 interviews during all this time, so far being rejected across the board, mostly with pretty risible reasons. This number includes both rejections after first screening call, or after technical interviews. (As an example, one company - to which I reached from one of the HN jobs threads - rejected me for doing a manual Pythagoras calculation for computing some coordinates instead of using a library.)
In the past month or so I've finally started getting more invitations back instead of being ghosted or getting generic "we're moving on with more suitable candidates", so things are looking more promising.
Overall I'm not worried, I have a good support network, and I keep preoccupied with open source stuff.
The only problem is that the latest rejections kinda dented my self esteem a little, but I hope that's temporary. :)
I was always made to feel fundamentally broken, and I wondered if I was really that terrible. I had no clue why I was treated with such malice and made to feel so unwanted.
Adding my story to the hat - graduated in 2022, naively thinking the world was eager for new contributors, and having finished my degree, I could start working on interesting real-world problems right away. Instead, I got nowhere and spiraled into the most severe self-doubt, worthlessness, and depression in my 20-something years of life.
I had the opportunity to learn and contribute through volunteering, joining my first organization in 2023. Used to be a full-time thing, even what one may consider overtime. Now, I'm kinda spread thin with projects, and also done everything important to where the projects are in maintenance mode.
But finally having that proof - that I could learn, contribute, and do well. I think it was life-changing. Yet judgement and imposter syndrome still hits like - "well, you didn't get paid, so it doesn't mean anything. That's not real work experience." Heard that's basically what someone said about my CV.
Did a smaller project across 3 months, then joined a third org in 2024. Obviously, not pulling 40+ volunteer hours a week anymore, but I still do what I can. Big progress through small changes, doing more in less time, and all that.
I got to work on these projects, learn a few lessons, and I can now bring my ideas to life using what I know. It's relieving to have some control over my endeavors finally. I don't really need a tech job anymore, because I've gained the insight I once thought I could only get from having one.
Technically, I'm employed, but it's on the retail floor. Though I was unemployed for 27 months beforehand, over 3 years without starting what I once thought would be my career. And I'm about to be on the search again.
I think more physical jobs are catching my interest. I'm just focused on seeking novel experiences and further knowledge to broaden my horizons.
Keep your head up! What you’re up against isn’t a reflection of your worth but the state of things right now. That doesn't make the situation any better but it does mean it’s not a judgment against you and hopefully knowing that makes it easier to keep your head up high!
I just do some preparation walk into the building and announce i want to work there. You dont even have to pay me. Ik im still heren by the end of the month we talk. Stop thinking about it, we have work to do!
This is not a great formula but it is a great filter for the kind of company I want to work for. If it cant detect a good deal im out.
Most of the companies that I'm interested in seem to require me to move to places I don't want to move to. And most of the ones open to remote work seem pretty uninspiring.
Doing my own projects
It’s much harder than just going to a company and clock in 9-5
Working in an Amazon warehouse for example, being a labourer of some kind (removalist for example). It really is a luxury to sit in front of a keyboard and monitor and think and solve problems and get paid for it.
I've been in my current job for 6 years but I'm on leave at the moment and look to take a few months off next year caring for our newborn.
After 4 years at AWS, and ~20 in the industry, I was utterly burnt out, and needed a break. So I took two years off.
Being middle age is a risk for sure, but also keep in mind you have only one or two big changes left before you're done. It matters more to get into a spot that can take you where you need to go.
Good luck with it.
Been about eight years, and, after I got over the butthurt of not being hired, I leaned into retirement (I am grateful to have the means).
Best thing that ever happened to me.
There's a lot of bad hiring teams, though. So, I totally get it. Retirement is also nice if you can afford it.
It’s all turned out OK, in the aggregate, though.
I still do plenty of ship-level coding (but for much smaller scopes). I really like it.
If society wants to burn itself down by forcing competent people into poverty and homelessness, then it loses the benefits that those people would bring. That can only go on for so long, the worse it is, the more violent the times become because people become more desperate and without future; a complete abandonment of the social contract.
Its a sticky choice of recognizing bad investments. If the loud voices want to pretend its not happening, they can pretend, but they aren't fooling anyone. They just show how malicious they are, and while violence can never be justified in a civilized society, when you have systems forcing people to poverty/slavery you are no longer in a civilized society.
All it takes is around 10-20 years of continuous systemic abuse, the people remember and talk, and the generation that comes after are not fooled by the lies. They come prepared to do what's necessary, such is the rise and fall of empires historically.
Are people who look for jobs asking for too much money? They are not qualified enough and US just has no other way but to go for H-1B workers? It's hard to believe that.
Are companies playing various shenanigans with legal loopholes? I heard recently there was a database someone created of "hidden" jobs these companies post, where nobody would be likely to see them so they can turn around to Uncle Sam and say "oh well, looks like nobody wants to work here, we'll just have to go for H-1Bs".
As a hiring manager in a big company, salary isn’t really much of a consideration for me. The company has salary bands per role that I have very little control over. If a candidate is above that band and unwilling to come down, then I probably won’t even hear from our recruiters that that person applied. So in our process, somebody wouldn’t accidentally price themselves out of an opportunity.
So it’s possible that job seekers are making themselves uncompetitive via high salary demands, but I have my doubts whether its a major factor.
> So it’s possible that job seekers are making themselves uncompetitive via high salary demands, but I have my doubts whether its a major factor.
Generally, you’re hitting the nail on the head in the immediate. The only reason I landed on my feet after this Big Tech layoff cycle is because I ate a $25k/yr pay cut so I wouldn’t lose the remaining $150k/yr in salary at a new firm.
That being said, the job market is irreparably broken at the moment, because of what you just mentioned about high salary demands. The high demands are due to higher costs, which employers aren’t willing to compensate for in salary. As the cost of everything goes up and labor gets let go, there’s this expectation for salaries to go down due to oversupply. This was correct in the era of the Great Recession, but people in all demographics other than the tippy top are out of breathing room. Everything is too expensive to survive on the subsistence wages being offered, and employers have responded by using AI tooling to automate what should really be a fully-human process (hiring), leading to clogs in the gears of the job cycle.
Ultimately something must give, if the ruling powers don’t want to have riots. Either wages have to go up to meet the increased costs of housing, transport, food, healthcare, education, etc - the basic necessities of life - or those costs have to plummet by orders of magnitude that it’d be market-obliterating.
It’s an easier pill to swallow to pay people more, but the pressure isn’t there to do so yet.
For recruiters like yourself, I’m hoping you’re taking hard looks at the market fundamentals and cost of living, and applying pressure to compensation-makers to raise it upward now while the market is broken, rather than trying to catch up to their wiser competition when something snaps. It's cheaper to pay $20k more today, than $35k + recruiting fees tomorrow.
I think this happen higher up. Policies like work from home or not or how many roles to open in what region, how many H1Bs to sponsor is something that happens above the hiring manager roles. Hiring managers sort of work on standard bands or levels I think in most larger companies.
> So in our process, somebody wouldn’t accidentally price themselves out of an opportunity.
The way I had seen it work, is usually positions have to open first. They would be something like "we're opening 3 architect IV positions in Poland and/or UK". So that kind if indicates there is no point in interviewing someone from Seattle asking for a architect V salary band.
I saw this coming for a long time and kept my lifestyle simple and expenses low so that I'd be able to retire early. I'm happy to work again if I can find something reasonable but I'm not going to kill myself anymore faking my way through some "agile" AI/ad-tech company job.
On the plus side, were trying to be very scientific about our approach, and have been hosting sessions every morning where we apply for 2-3 jobs documenting the entire process and sharing encouragement and hoping to avoid burnout.
I've been thinking of opening this job hunting session to more people so we can start collecting some really good data on exactly how hard it is to get a job, and maybe help get a better understanding of what strategies are most effective when looking for a job. If you're interested I'm collecting some feedback here: https://forms.office.com/r/kKk7e6Wvre
Good luck out there.
Taking breaks has been very good for my soul, and I've quieted the fear of instability with surrounding myself with people who I know will be there for me when things get rough.
It's surprising how cheaply you can survive when push comes to shove and you have to make concessions, live with roommates, live in small housing, going to the foodbank or getting on food stamps.
Although, runway is slowly dwindling and am unsure what's next for my future. I'm not too worried, though.
Doing okay. Building my friendships.
After my last client 2 years ago, I got into reading/listening to philosophy, which eventually led to a steady contemplative practice. 3 months into it, it became difficult to motivate myself to do anything except listen to guided meditations, satsangs by various teachers, contemplate into the sense of self, or go on daily long walks across town doing the same.
A year ago, some motivation came back, which allowed me to do a few coding problems every day. Then about 5 months ago, I started to let go of some personal attachments (identity patterns, beliefs about me, about life, about the world, about my place in it) and motivation started to steadily come back in, but with a lot of detachment. 3 months ago I started prepping to find a job again. I bought a few books and joined a few online courses to fill the gaps in my resume. I've accepted that I may need to get back on the horse at half my previous salary. I think I would be fine with even a third and probably less, if it didn't look so suspicious to my would-be employer, lol. I have an unwavering trust that things will work themselves out just fine, so even when I experience bouts of stress, they're quite brief.
I have some short term goals, but little ambitions. I can still see the achiever in me, but he's slowly dying. I'm fine with that. I'm trying to be fine with how the world is generally. If I feel that I can help make things easier for someone right now, I can try. But I've accepted that I'm no messiah. There are no messiah. Nobody knows shit about how this or that ought to be. Now or in the future. I'm coming to peace with success really meaning experiencing breath or taking a step.
Lately, I've started adding some of the new skills that I acquired in my resume and it correlated with some reactions on my latest applications. Causation? Maybe, I don't know, but there's hope. One thing that will probably change even after I find work, is that I'll execute on my other interests, which I kept putting off, because of some far away grandiose objectives. My recent struggles with money and employment in tech have also revealed a vulnerability and a dependency. I see that I need to be more resilient and adaptable. Next time the industry comes up with new interesting shenanigans to test me, I'll probably be moving on to something else. Beekeeping, fungiculture, soap making, or whatever. I'll probably even start a few projects on the side while employed. I love coding and will probably keep doing it until my mind wavers, but it has to stop being my identity.
I was a bit concerned at the time as the previous couple quarters had seen a LOT of tech layoffs and I had also already seen a lot of anxiety in the industry about the changing supply/demand landscape. I ended up getting a new job I was excited about in less than a month, which I was very much not expecting when I began job searching. Unfortunately I may have been too quick to jump into the first thing that came along - after 2 months of onboarding I was out of a job again, as the team lead role I was hired for suddenly didn't have a team to lead and not much use for me without one. Oh well.
I took the holidays off and figured I'd spend some time playing with all the emerging AI capabilities. I figured I'd hack on some fun stuff for a few months, see if I could build a product business around it, and go from there. I ended up building something along the lines of Windows Recall, but when Microsoft announced it in May 24 and I saw the reception, that was the end of that.
I started job searching again, but then my wife got diagnosed with cancer and I decided to extend my time off to focus on her treatment. Fortunately treatment went about as well as we could hope and this summer she went back to work again.
So I've been applying again over the last few months. Initially I focused on local jobs as I've been mostly remote since 2018 and frankly miss the office environment. I got 3 final round interviews in the first month of applying and got ghosted by all 3. That was unexpected and frustrating. And for one job, in my last interview round with a VP, he said he wanted me to come back in a few weeks to interview for a more senior role instead. Which I did, and then they ghosted me. I don't necessarily mind not getting the job (I'm awesome but hey I get there might be better fits out there for particular role requirements) but I don't get the unprofessionalism that has seemingly become so common these days.
Now I'm starting to focus on remote jobs again as well, but it's tough constantly seeing day old job posts on linkedin with 100+ applications already.
So as for coping, I'm doing alright all things considered. Definitely didn't expect to go this long without a 9-5, and I know I'm fortunate to have been able to absorb it financially. Most importantly, I'm grateful that I spent the last year+ making sure my wife was taken care of. And of course that experience really puts into perspective the importance of how we spend our days, while we still have them. I will say that I'm disappointed (with myself) I haven't been able to launch a viable business during this time, but that's how it goes sometimes. I'm looking forward to 2026.
Don't believe for a second that these figures are real. And I recommend that you apply on the business' own site, never through Linkedin's own process.
It's great that you and your wife are healthy and in a good place! Keep going.
Once I was lucky enough to get a miserable job I could began from the ground up all over again. It hasn't been easy but as the time passed felt like I was regaining my inner peace and as I see it now that is the source of happiness. Not everything is perfect but in 2016-2017 I couldn't even imagine I would escape that situation.
Am a bit scared because the project I'm working on is reaching its final stages so I can be completely unemployed anytime soon once again, but at least this time I'm prepared for it and am doing much better than 10 years ago.
I wish nobody ever has to go through a situation like this. Hoping you all are doing great.
It tremendously helped me recover after someone close to me unexpectedly passed away.
Sadly (?), I don't have any higher education and I'm too "self-employed" for corporate jobs (corporate jobs really, really don't like having someone build their own startup on the side). And on top I'm 26, not 36, so there's no way I'll have the experience required for someone truly "Senior". I get by on German social security, I get exactly 560€ / month and that's it (plus health insurance, 220€). If you wonder how someone can live on that low amount of money, it's because I accidentally inherited a paid-off house and don't need to pay rent (state covers any taxes, would be even more ludicrous if they didn't). So I have very, very few expenses, no liabilities and a few close friends.
I never wanted to be a drain on society (heavily socially punished in Germany), so I try to stay active and use my time for open-source projects. But since my net loss on society is relatively low anyway, I see it as morally justified to develop my "cartographic AI solution" while being a bum on paper. Let's just call it "government-subsidized startup seed funding". At least the thought of "finish your startup or you'll one day die of starvation" does do wonders for my motivation.
If people want to judge me for being on social security, I don't care anymore. I have my goals and I'm not running out of work, technically, despite being "unemployed". I care about building my skills and my startup and having "something for myself" so that I don't get financially torpedoed every few years (2008 crisis, 2015 crisis, Corona 2020, AI bubble 2025, ...). Once the job market gets better or I finish building my startup, I'll be better off. Until then I just have to deal with judging looks. How on earth someone is however supposed to build a stable family life from software engineering if the job market shits itself every few years is beyond me. I guess I lack the firm handshake and smile.
I did buy "Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata", once I'm done with my programming projects, I'll focus on that. Some of my friends can speak fluent Latin, I gotta catch up. And learning math properly, working out, etc. But yeah, I'm lucky that I don't have many expenses. Stay active, don't waste time.
You’re doing something that will move you closer to getting a job or earning income (ie paying taxes).
What do people do if they don’t have a house? You can’t live on 500 if you also have to pay rent.
I’d probably have a similar mindset as you, but responsibilities for others is one force that keeps us going.
I don’t have any advice other than finding a support group online or offline.
Hope you’ll experience brighter days.
Does that have any basis in anybody's personal experience?
Do I have any more information on the subject than anyone else? No.
I know it's hard out there (at least where I am) but I have helped a few people get jobs in the last 90 days, so please share the barrier you're facing and maybe someone can help.
I will note I at the time had 5 YOE but no degree so that is a factor (many I don't qualify since no degree).
Reading r/cscareerquestions is depressing not that I go on there much now. People talking about applying to thousands of jobs.
And I'm not saying this from an ivory tower, my first job took 700 applications in 2021. But until you have a job, your job is to apply 8 hours a day
I have a friend who is a SSE. Mid 30s. Been fully employed his entire life. No degree. Has been writing production code since 15.
His entire local professional network got nuked and people stopped hiring because of that stupid software engineering R&D amortization budget deception of Section 174. And I assume the double whammy of ai.
He had his resume reviewed, ran it by friends it looked good and solid.
Applied to about 300 roles before realizing it was a non starter and he was getting automated rejections for everything.
He had to automate his application process around a full career CV and Ai.
He would spend all day copying in role descriptions and urls and had cursor spit out custom .MD resumes and then run a pdf generator on them.
It was kinda ok and also kinda like each resume was a hyper specific lie. It definitely hallucinated.
He still hit 3k resumes before getting hired and he still only had like 4 companies give interviews.
And that was only after that stupid tax law was revoked.
One persons past suffering and struggle cannot be so naively extrapolated to anothers current suffering.
Needing to amortize expenses over 15 years puts a big damper on anything corps may be excited about today but with less than 100% assurance of in the long run? Restoring the pre-2022 regime for domestic expenses only is for the most part supporting domestic workers? So your friend is back in a more familiar job market... maybe college grads too? Thanks.
It's been reversed now, but the inertia is still being felt. The backlog of highly qualified engineers ares still competing for positions, and other factors such as the interest rate and the effect of AI on positions for younger engineers are still in effect.
those didn't come back with any more frequency than the auto-apply
Now? It seems a waste of time because no one responds anyway. I'm incentivised to apply to as many as possible in the hope of having a conversation with someone.