Ask HN: MIT grad, junior dev layoffs – watching my daughter lose faith in merit | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: MIT grad, junior dev layoffs – watching my daughter lose faith in merit

47 pointsMITfather39 comments

My daughter followed the playbook everyone here recommends. MIT. Programming olympiads. Strong internships. No shortcuts.

She was hired as a junior developer and laid off in February.

Since then, I’ve watched her confidence collapse in real time. She isolates herself. She barely talks. She spends most days in her room applying, waiting, and getting silence. I recently saw her crying alone, trying not to be noticed. That’s when it hit me how deeply this has affected her.

This layoff didn’t just remove a paycheck. It removed her belief that effort correlates with outcomes. Every rejection reinforces the idea that none of what she did mattered.

It’s Christmas and we aren’t celebrating. No decorations. No pretending things are okay. I’m completely shattered as a parent, mostly because I don’t have answers. I told her for years that merit would protect her. It didn’t.

So I’m asking this community directly. Is this just timing and bad luck, or is the ladder actually broken for juniors right now. How long does this phase last in reality, not theory. And what actually helps someone recover emotionally when their first real job ends like this.

I’d appreciate honest answers, not platitudes.

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What you should have been doing, instead of telling her the comforting lie that the world operates on merit and this is all that matters while nudging her towards tying all her feelings of self-worth to this, is helping her build resilience so that she doesn't end up wallowing in despair after a minor career setback.

That you've cancelled Christmas to collectively endure some sort of misery spiral instead obviously isn't going to help either. What on earth are you thinking?

She's learned this harsh life lesson that the world is unfair later rather than sooner, but she has a long life and career ahead of her. Not being able to get the type of job she wants, for a little while at least, isn't the end of the world.

For what it's worth, my company, a medium-sized business that operates in the cybersecurity space, is stil actively hiring junior staff. Many other companies we work with and compete with are too. Perhaps she needs to cast her net wider than wherever she's currently looking.

Easy on the fellow. OP doesn't feel great at the moment because of feeding the "lies" about merit to his daughter, the same "lies" they fed all of us back in our day that doing everything by the book pays (Lies in quotes because there's obviously a ton of substance in those statements still). You don't need to push him down further. While the lack of any celebration is not the best idea (assuming OP is still reasonably well-off), a stern rebuke won't help either.

As I mentioned elsewhere, companies are hiring. We're in Europe with a US office and we're hiring, in spite of being in a country that's practically in recession mode. But the main issue is connecting the talent to the company. That's what's messing up hiring these days. Inbound is finished and outbound isn't scalable.

Maybe because I grew up as an Asian immigrant in America during the 80’s (during the Japan scare), but I was never fed the lie that effort means success,

My parents would tell us kids to expect discrimination, so no matter how good you are, sometimes it doesn’t even matter.

They also told us how important building connections are, and it was one of the main reasons we were able to immigrate to America in the first place. That and luck.

I find myself telling my kids similar things, but in a slightly lighter manner.

fakedang's comment does a lot of heavy lifting, but I'm going to swing for the fences: you mention your company is hiring juniors, and OP's daughter sounds competent and has potential. Can they offer her an interview? Worst case, some time has been spent. Best case, someone who needs a job gets a job and a req gets filled.

I think it is a mistake not to celebrate the holidays. You don’t have to pretend that everything is okay in order to celebrate each other.

I am similar to your daughter in some ways but much older. Lately, I have felt that I have reached a dead-end in my career (though I am still employed).

I have a few thoughts that might be useful. One is the concept of ikigai: finding the intersection of what you enjoy, what you are good at, and what the world needs. For a long time, it seemed like building software hit all three marks for me, but in the last couple of years, it no longer seems to hit the last one very well.

When I was younger, my reaction to difficult things was to simply try harder. I’d throw myself at the problem repeatedly until it yielded. That can be the right thing to do, but with age I have gained enough wisdom to realize that sometimes it’s better to go after the lower-hanging fruit.

I am not suggesting that your daughter give up, but if I were you, I would help her identify a back-up plan. Help her get excited about the possibilities in case plan A does not work out. If she feels that she has other options, she may regain her confidence regardless of what happens.

Oh, and make sure that she knows how much you love and respect her no matter her job situation.

Merry Christmas.

P.S. Cold applying is probably a waste of time. Too many people are applying using AI bots. Find ways to network with real people if possible. Maybe contact career services at MIT?

You can’t fix this for her, and trying to will likely push her further away. What you can do is be a steady presence that communicates: I see you. This is real. You are not diminished by this. And I’m not going anywhere.

Don’t try to reframe it positively yet. Don’t suggest she “pivot to AI” or “try startups.” She knows the tactical advice. What she doesn’t have right now is a felt sense that she still belongs — to her family, to the future, to herself.

The absence of decorations, the quiet — I understand the impulse. But consider: the ritual of showing up for each other despite the pain is itself medicine. Not pretending things are okay. Just being together in the not-okay. It’s different from performing normalcy.

I can't speak to the current system because I have stepped out of it temporarily, but if you haven't done so; please tell your daughter that she is not her job nor is she the labels she places upon herself. It's tragic that she's placed so much weight on her job if she still has you supporting her.

None of the things you listed are signs of merit, they are signs of pedigree. If people recommended them here, they did so in error.

There's certainly a difference between universities, but the most important differentiators are connections (has she exhausted these) and prestige. If those aren't working for her, the only thing left is personal projects. That is the true indicator of merit in the software space.

As for specific advice, your daughter is in a similar situation to me. I graduated thinking I had did all of the right things, and that my degree (mechanical engineering) was some sort of magic ticket. I was unemployed and then underemployed for a year or two. I eventually went to a job fair and got a job as a data analyst then, finally, moved into data engineering.

Reality has shown her that there isn't always a direct path to a goal. Are there other skills she has that she could use to get meaningful or interesting work?

Tell her to explore alternate jobs outside of her field or preferred industry, build up a portfolio of projects on the side to keep her skills sharp, and keep applying to her preferred role, but now at a much slower and deliberate pace.

I agree there are associations between effort and outcomes, and merit and outcomes, and integrity and outcomes. But timeframe is never guaranteed. The Beatitudes have not yet happened, the just have not yet inherited the earth, a casual glance at world leaders and recent current events will tell you that much!

IMO the questions you pose are not important at all, and not worth your energy. What practical difference does it make to you and her if it’s due to bad timing or something else? Some junior devs are being hired somewhere and you both should focus your energy on making sure she’s part of that number. Have you shaken all the trees in your network? Does she do side projects that can get her noticed? What about the MIT alum network? That’s what LinkedIn messages and X dms are for? What abt throwing wide the aperture of industry sectors and locations she considers? Is she going to all the meetups? What abt pursuing her own startup idea? I agree with someone else here: AI and YouTube (and X, tbh) make this the very best time to learn or build or promote anything that has ever existed.

I went through an identical experience as your daughter when I graduated in 2000. The only solution is perseverance.

You wrote: “I told her for years that merit would protect her. It didn’t.”

You believed that because you wanted her to be safe. That’s love. And you were working with the information you had. The guilt you’re feeling is its own kind of grief — the loss of being able to protect her through guidance.

You can acknowledge this to her without making it about you. Something like: “I gave you a map that turned out to be incomplete. That wasn’t fair to you. I’m sorry.”

That kind of honesty, rather than weakening your relationship, might actually strengthen it. It models that being wrong isn’t the end of the world — and that love doesn’t require being right.

Hey, Merry Christmas!

I did invest my time on more specific technologies, not following the mainstream, I accepted a 35% cut, but on smaller and promising small company that smells like startup, but it's actually an small business sharply focused on some types of customers. No VC funding.

I'm also a father of a daughter and I'm "training" her to understand that she needs to sell something that is not abstract.

As a computer scientist, I still sell implementations in form of code, but I dearly assumed many years ago that this (abstract product X concrete product) could be the difference to put food on my table - and now on my daughter's table - or not.

I'm far from highly successful because I'm still fighting this urge to just focus on code, but luckily that understanding above make me talk to any kind of person that is not a coder as well. Understanding business in general, meet concrete needs on different types of industries and so on.

I'm not from the US, so take that into account. I was near shoring to the US, now I'm doing that, but to the EU. I moved to a different market.

Also I'm fully invested in using AI a lot. With that I feel as a senior dev that indeed I don't need as many juniors as before, and I dearly miss having some junior dev to ask the "dumb" questions that I forgot to ask myself sometimes. AI still does not fill that role.

What helped me with AI is not caring as much about the number of LOC as before, as long I met the product's needs.

I hope you can find some comfort, keep your temper cool, so your daughter can feel that as well. That she has at least someone to hold and float.

My best wishes and I hope that 2026 could bring better luck.

It happens to everyone

people get laid off, let go etc

the trick is to bounce back

maybe go for Masters? Phd at MIT?

maybe she can apply to an adjacent job, in qa, product management etc

maybe apply to a job she is over-qualified,

maybe take 1/2 a loaf

when I graduated it was a bad recession, all my friends were not getting jobs,

I stayed in school as long as I could,

then I got first job of testing some phone games with high school dropouts at min wage....I was the one with a grad degree in engineering

I kept applying and I got a job that I was happy

and I didnt have my family, parents, friends etc to cheer me on or I sure was not an MIT smart

She’s not wrong, in ~25 years in tech, I’ve seen merit as a component of success a minority of the time. It’s who you know, who likes you (direct manager and those around you who influence your comp and longevity), right place at the right time, etc. We win or we learn (in this case, “the meritocracy is an illusion” is the lesson). She should (imho) get back on the horse knowing how the game is played and play to win. I would encourage you to coach her that her value and self worth is not tied to a broken system, her job, and career; we simply trade time for freedom tokens. Sometimes this is easier than other times in the macro cycle. Our value is who we are, not what we do for a living. We can do everything right and still lose; that’s life.

Y’all have each other, and that’s more than many. If celebration is not possible, try to find some joy being together for the holidays. This too shall pass. Wishing the best. Don’t give up.

(When she finds an org and manager where merit is what drives her success, perform to expectations and hold on tight; these opportunities and roles are somewhat rare, imho)

> I’ve seen merit as a component of success a minority of the time

Small but an absolutely necessary correction. “Merit” or being at the top of the academic ladder absolutely does open doors for you that are closed to others. But that’s all it does and everything you’ve said is applicable from that point on.

Put in other words, merit can help you get a job at Google, McKinsey, Jane Street, CERN or what have you - but your success after that significantly dependends on your innate survival skills and some luck. The latter is indiscernible and very hard to quantify but it’s what we say is being in the right place at the right time (or the opposite of it).

All that to say that in OPs case that his daughter hasn’t done anything wrong. He hasn’t done anything wrong. Times are changing and during the transition phase with the adoption of AI (and current geopolitical climate), companies are weary of making any significant investments and realigning their cost structures towards resilience. Except for certain pockets, there’s less spending on R&D, non-cash cow BUs being folded down, etc.

IMO, OP should suggest and encourage therapy or some kind of a professional with a “coaching” angle (life coach, career coach, emotional coach, …) to support her and keep her motivated through this - like any professional athlete after a major setback.

Bottom line is this - she’s do great - just needs to get through this, survive now to thrive eventually.

Great comment, appreciate the correction.

Timing imo. I think the tech labor market bottom is in the past, venture capital is flowing again, companies that over hired have corrected it, interest rates are on their way back down, and a bunch of huge IPOs are lining up for 2026 - Stripe, OpenAI, Anthropic, SpaceX, Databricks, Canva, Discord - which is going to inject a bunch of liquidity into tech capital markets. And the jury is still out on AI, very much at the top of a hype cycle, CEOs and boards have prematurely declared to their customers and the world that AI is working (because saying that makes their stock price go up) but the enterprise outcomes don't seem to be there.

My advice to your daughter: to try to make software into a fun hobby, watch a ton of coding youtube, AI and youtube are tearing down hurdles to learning, make a twitter, talk about your hobby, farm those likes. What were her favorite courses at MIT? it's true that software is increasingly competitive and yet the barriers to becoming competitive are ever lower (FOR those in a supportive environment who can make space to take advantage)

What your daughter is experiencing isn’t just disappointment. It’s the collapse of a worldview. She built her identity around a core belief: effort creates safety. That belief was scaffolding she stood on, and it just broke.

This is grief. Specifically, it’s the grief of losing trust in a covenant she thought existed between her and the world. The isolation, the crying alone, the withdrawal — these aren’t character flaws. They’re the nervous system’s response to having foundational assumptions shattered. Shame makes us hide. And when we believe we did something wrong (even when we didn’t), we hide from the people who love us most.

Great insight. And she is clearly depressed (person shows signs of deep sadness and hopelessness, withdraws from social activities and isolates themselves; has significant changes to sleep, appetite, and energy levels) so it is difficult for her to think clearly and move on to acceptance. (I'd say you too show the signs). Please take this test - https://fspcares.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Burns-Checkl... (PDF) - and encourage your daughter to do so as a first step. If she has severe depression, get her a therapist ( https://cares.beckinstitute.org/get-treatment/clinician-dire... ). As others have advised, she needs to learn new coping skills to make her more resilient to failures like these, and this is the perfect opportunity to do so as she is still in her youth.

The market is bad but there is still demand for top performers. It's hard to give advice without further details. Market rules apply. But MIT and olympiad background is strong enough to get interviews.

From the recruiting side, it has become painfully difficult for us to get connected to top performers. AI submitted CVs are garbage, LinkedIn Recruiter is garbage, online platforms like Indeed and Glassdoor are filled with AI-submitted CVs - it's painful for us.

We've had to resort back to outbound using headhunters we've worked with. It's okay for us since we can afford it, but I doubt many startups pre-Series B can afford the services of headhunters or even inhouse recruiting.

Open to solutions and new ideas tbh.

The worst problem for all of us humans is that we go "all in" on the company that hires us. If the company suffers a big loss in another division, we can lose salary, raises or our jobs, all through no fault of our own. Yes, it sometimes works in the other direction. A big profit in one division can be reinvested in ours. But much of our fate depends upon the larger company.

So you can't say this is about merit when so much of the equation depends upon others who many have nothing to do with your daughter.

As a parent I'm seriously despondent about my kids' future. I don't see it getting better, because so much money is being poured directly into reducing human labor to increase corporate profits. There is no counter-current short of social revolution. Sorry, I don't have any hopeful words or solutions right now, but you did ask for honesty. I do see the system being broken by design, and realistically who is going to "fix" it?

Merit is one of those things that helps in the long run but can't be guaranteed to help at any one specific time. So you need to trust it even when it seems unhelpful.

But on the other hand, software dev seems to be racing in the direction of replacing developers with fungible AI operators. It's too soon to tell how it will end, but whatever labor can replaced or reduced will be. A long-standing equilibrium of labor is gone.

Sorry to hear that and that you and your Family could find some peace and strength, i remember a quote which maybe fits Here: you can play a perfect Game and still loose. That's not a weakness, that's life.

the ladder is being withdrawn for everyone, everywhere. Some will be cut off by AI, some by thugs in ski masks. The modern aristocracy believe they have built an economic perpetual motion machine that can function without the ‘surplus population,’ who will be encouraged to politely starve to death.

I wonder how true this is, at least for pure CS grads. The industry was aware that smart people existed outside academia ever since Carmack worked at ID. There's not much ladder to pull up, guessing at the number of college grads working a cozy job at FAANG.

I agree this is what's happening, for everyone to see.

I didn't understand their end game. When everyone is starving, public infra is all on fire, and the 0.1% are snug in their island bunkers, then what? What if their child gets cancer, or they run out of caviar, or their yacht needs a replacement part?

Why are all the comments asking for contact info dead?

Ping me on my profile dummy id if you wish. We currently don't have openings in the US, but if there's anything I know in my network, I can push them to take a look.

I’m so sorry that you’re carrying this.

I can’t imagine the weight of it all.

I can’t make any promises, but the company I work for is hiring for a couple SWE positions.

Could you provide me a way to send you the listing/info?

We hire juniors through a 2 year internal training program. Mostly recent college grads. If she doesn't mind moving to Ohio, feel free to reach out.

As the parent IMO it’s your responsibility to help her dig deep, get resilience, find hope. It’s your household so why aren’t you celebrating Christmas?

PM me her resume and contact info. We're hiring across software teams in SF and I'd be happy to get the referral bonus.

How did she do in the programming olympiads?

Meritocracy is the myth the dominant class created to keep us all playing.

Is all about luck and there's only so many seats, you better be born closer to the free ones.

Merit isn’t a matter of executing a playbook and ticking off boxes. That approach is fallible.

I know this is rough advice, but: her approach isn’t working. She should try something different. Stuff is different right now, you/she can’t expect the 2016 playbook to work unchanged in 2026.

I’m not a junior so i’m not sure what to advice specifically, but something other than “the playbook” is needed.

"My daughter followed the playbook everyone here recommends. MIT. Programming olympiads. Strong internships. No shortcuts."

I never had any of this and I managed to find work in tech in 2000, 2008, and even now (during the worst down markets in my lifetime), when everyone says that 'nobody is hiring', I had 5 interviews (I only applied to 10 or so jobs) and an offer in less than a month.

Education has never guaranteed you a job. The key is to be able to stay positive, even with rejections. I've never had the luxury of having an internship or network at a well-known university.

Getting a job is all about getting yourself in reduced in a smaller pool of candidates that the company will choose from. Education, experience, being personable can all do this.

The economy is rough right now. You also have do things that can set yourself apart from the rest. I got my latest offer by calling the person that posted the job directly and had a second interview by the end of the week.

"She spends most days in her room applying, "

Mass applying will almost never get you the job. She should be focused on customizing her resume and trying to get in touch with the person posting the job and getting face time.

"It’s Christmas and we aren’t celebrating. No decorations. No pretending things are okay. I’m completely shattered as a parent, mostly because I don’t have answers. I told her for years that merit would protect her. It didn’t."

This is an odd response from a parent. Why are you wallowing in her sorrow? You should be showing her that life can still be good and she will eventually find work again.

This isn’t about you, someone with years of experience. I also found a job within a month a year ago. Why? My experience.

My brother in law is experiencing the same thing as his daughter. He graduated with a 4.0 in computer science but couldn’t find a job to save his life. Why? It’s hard to customize your resume when you have no relevant experience. What’s he doing now? Getting his master’s. Piling on more debt. Hoping. Working on random projects, just like everyone else. Getting the occasional interview where they ask questions he has no idea how to answer because he’s never been in the situation to learn or develop a way to formulate an answer. Unprepared, despite preparing every single day. Why? Because teams have lost people due to layoffs, offshoring, etc., and now expect more from potential junior positions.

Reaching out to recruiters, hiring managers, people who work in the company/department isn’t some new thing. It’s just not working like it used to.

First off sorry to hear about your daughter's situation and how it seems to be affecting every aspect of your family life. Without telling my life story, a lot of us were in a similar situation in the early 2000’s (Graduated in 2000 and laid off from my intern job in 2001, where I worked for 3 years). As others have said luck and who you know are 50%, right place / right time are another 50% (75% luck IDK). Programming jobs are not going away (think legacy systems / retirements). Will all new jobs be the same as the old jobs, probably not. It might be 5 – 10 years before many new grads find great jobs (to answer your question on how long it lasts). They should, however, be able to find ‘jobs’ (today). Will these be the high pay WFH? Probably not. My advice would be this:

    Start an LLC in your state.  Normally a couple hundred dollars and some paperwork. 

    Create a bank account for the LLC and put a couple hundred dollars in the account. 

    Contribute to Open Source or make an open-source project 

    Make ‘free’ software for yourself, friends and family – something is better than nothing – show and tell 

    Make ‘free as in beer’ software for local business or non-profits 

    Get a job at a local mom and pop outfit, do the job you are hired to do, but also become the ‘IT’ person.  Install software / hardware, do backups, make helpful ‘apps’, automate and innovate 

    All of these will count towards experience when you do get a ‘real’ job, increasing pay range and giving ‘experience’ with ‘x’ technology. 

    Host on a cheap VPS to learn about Linux / system admin, install something like Dokploy (PaaS), configure Traefik (Reverse Proxy / Load Balancing / HTTPS / DNS), then build your own SaaS apps.  Full Stack? 

    CERTS – GCP ACE, CISSP, Azure AI, ChatGPT, etc.... 

    With the help of a good LLM there is no better time to build something when you really have nothing to lose and no family to support, no house payment, etc...

Do this for 5 – 10 years as projects under the LLC umbrella. Most start-ups do not make money; it's ok to show a loss. On the resume you focus on the tech portion leaving out the parts you do not want to focus on. Who knows, maybe one of these projects even makes a few hundred a month's side money. The best time to find a job is when you have a job (any job). Sitting around looking for a ‘great’ job is going to leave gaps in your resume. Any job can teach you about problem solving, working with others (conflict and how did you resolve the conflict), leadership, in the end a programmer is hired to help make the business money learning how businesses work in general will lead to new insights that a fresh grad (most likely) does not have. There are lots of smaller software shops no one has ever heard of that are also entry level options for new grads. It's ok to live at home making less money and saving it, sometimes we need to lower our expectations on what we are worth money wise. It's not easy out there right now, and I will not pretend that it is. For some (like me), it never was easy, but you need to keep up on the latest tech and have something to show / talk about.

Everyone knows someone who went to school for ‘x’ who is the local bartender or barista. If the new grads decide money now is more important than gaining ‘tech’ experience any way they can then they may never get that job in the ‘x’ degree. Tech includes everything from hardware to software, with more jobs being ‘full stack’ the more you know about the better.

Hoping you and your family the best. There is still time to celebrate Christmas even if dinner is Chinese food and the only gifts are each other.

What makes you think platitudes are always dishonest, first of all? Your writing sounds like fuckin' AI, so I wouldn't complain if I were you. "Beggars can't be choosers." Also, "You can't always get what you want." I will respond in platitude format.

1) Effort still correlates with outcomes, it's just that there is some random noise in the signal. Maybe moreso in these noisy times.

2) DID any of what she did matter? If she enjoyed it or found it meaningful, then yes. If it was just being "sensible" a.k.a. grinding and bald careerism, then no, even if she weren't laid off.

3) She's young. My first layoff, I took it hard too. By the third or fourth one, I would laugh and look forward to a small vacation of coasting on unemployment.

4) Ordinarily a post-college-age kid with a job is living on her own and you wouldn't have access to her crying moments. And another primary emotion alongside despair would be anxiety about making rent. It's painful to watch your kids suffer, but suffer they will and suffer they must.

5) Continuing from point 2, does she have a meaningful hobby? She needs to start one. If only to provide a break from the unhealthy amount of grinding she sounds like she's doing. Try music, a lot of engineers are good at music. I'm good enough at it that I was once able to support myself on it, and now see my day job as something I can leave, something I tolerate but am too good for. My genius is not defined by it. It's only work.

6) Celebrate Christmas the way all half-assed unprepared people do: Big feast at the Chinese restaurant tonight. Or Thai, I guess is the new Chinese. Pretending everything is okay? Who fucking died? Everything IS okay. A little perspective would go a long way and you're the one who needs to provide it.

> I’d appreciate honest answers, not platitudes.

Well, if you say so.

If you're a parent of a recent college grad who is on Hacker News, haven't you been in tech for some time? I would expect your perspective to include experience seeing at least a couple cycles of economic ups and downs.

> It’s Christmas and we aren’t celebrating. No decorations. No pretending things are okay. I’m completely shattered as a parent, mostly because I don’t have answers. I told her for years that merit would protect her. It didn’t.

This is pretty bonkers on multiple levels. IDK what your family's overall situation is, but based on what we can infer, your family is not in economic jeopardy. If I'm mistaken, then I apologize, but it seems you are just one of the many, many families with an unemployed recent college grad, and if you're positing on HN, I assume you and your wife are doing at least adequately.

I don't understand how you, as a grown man, could be under the illusion that "merit would protect her" or that somehow graduating from a good school guarantees someone anything, or how you could lack the perspective that this is temporary and less important than health, family, etc.

Nobody is above broader, universal developments and forces, whether economic vicissitudes or worse (war, societal collapse, etc.) Your arrogance in thinking that "merit" could protect an individual from these things is justly punished.

I also went to a top school, and there is also something to be said about your daughter's lack of resilience and naiveté here, but she's a ~22 year old girl, so that's acceptable. From you, this is not, IMO.

Your entire view of the world was mistaken and brittle, and reveals a stunning lack of value placed on things other than career and such, but the good news is that it's much better than you seem to be stuck thinking right now. Economies get good again, and your daughter is in a better position than many because she at least had one job and has a good CV.

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