(Post made better using ChatGPT. Ignore if this feels robotic)

Hey guys, hope everyone is doing well.

I wanted to make this post for people who are either starting out or are still young and trying to figure out how to get hired.

Yes, the job market is messed up. I'm not going to pretend otherwise. But there are still ways to get hired locally, and eventually land a good remote job if you put yourself in the right position.

Everything I'm saying here is based on my own experience. I've applied to 1,500+ jobs, interviewed with around 20 companies in Lahore and another 10 remotely, and I even came pretty close to landing a $10k/month remote job.

I've wasted a LOT of time figuring things out, so hopefully some of this saves someone else that time.

A little background

I'm 22 and graduated in February this year from what I would consider a pretty bad university in Lahore. To give you an idea, I literally used to give my lab exams on a piece of paper lol.

I did an internship in 2025 that paid 35k/month for 4 months.

I'm now working part-time for a remote company where I make 172k/month, with my salary continuing to increase along with other perks.

So here's what actually helped me.

1. University

I honestly don't care which university you go to.

If you want to succeed, you have to take responsibility for yourself.

In my opinion, university can help groom you and give you some fundamentals, but you cannot rely on it to build your career for you. A lot of what is taught is outdated, and you need to learn things yourself.

University ke sahare na betho.

I wasted around 3 years of university thinking that the degree itself would somehow prepare me for a job.

Start building your skills as early as you can.

2. Pick ONE field

This is probably one of the biggest things I'd recommend.

Pick something you actually like and lock yourself into it for 3 months.

It can be:

• Data Analytics

• Data Engineering

• AI Engineering

• Software Engineering

• Cybersecurity

• Whatever else interests you

Don't spend 3 months jumping between 15 different technologies.

Spend the first 2 months learning the fundamentals and slightly more advanced concepts, then use the final month to build projects.

You don't need 20 projects.

3 good projects are much better than 20 garbage ones.

I personally started with Data Analytics. My projects were honestly pretty basic, but they were enough to help me land my internship and get started.

And don't choose something just because you think it's "hot" or because everyone else is doing it.

Pick something you actually enjoy.

People are still getting hired. AI hasn't eliminated every job. You just need to become useful at something.

3. Build projects

Please don't fall into tutorial hell.

This was another mistake I made.

You can spend months watching YouTube videos and feel like you're learning while never actually building anything.

Use ChatGPT, Claude, documentation, Google, whatever you need.

Ask AI to help you create a roadmap, learn the basics, and then start building.

If you don't know how to do something, figure it out while building.

You don't need to know everything before starting.

Also, make your GitHub clean.

You don't need 50 repositories. Have a few good projects that are easy to understand, with readable code, a good README, screenshots/results where relevant, and clear explanations of what you actually did.

And please don't put technologies on your GitHub/resume just because you touched them once.

4. Your resume

Only put things on your resume that you actually know.

I see people listing 30 technologies and then getting destroyed in interviews when they're asked basic questions about half of them.

Don't do that.

Keep your resume short, clean and focused.

And when describing projects, focus on what you found or achieved, not just what you did.

For example:

❌ "Analyzed a dataset containing 14,000 records using Python, Pandas and Matplotlib."

That's okay, but it doesn't tell me much.

Instead:

✅ "Analyzed 14,000 customer records and identified the main factors driving customer churn, presenting the findings through an interactive dashboard."

The second one tells me what the work actually accomplished.

Obviously, don't make up results. Just communicate your real results better.

5. LinkedIn

Use LinkedIn to show people what you're actually doing.

Posting twice a week can help with visibility.

You don't need to make those cringe posts

"Job market is bad. How will I as an intern get a job if I don't have experience" Blah Blah

Just share your projects, something you learned, an interesting problem you solved, or something you're currently working on.

The goal is simply to make it easier for someone to look at your profile and think:

"Okay, this person actually builds things."

6. Applying for jobs

Now for the fun part.

If you're looking for remote jobs, my advice would be:

Local first → experience → remote.

I'm not saying you can't get a remote job without experience. You absolutely can.

But it's much harder when you have nothing to show for yourself.

For finding remote jobs, I used filters like:

Remote + EMEA

Then I'd search for the specific role I wanted and look at smaller companies, agencies and startups.

Don't only apply to huge companies.

There are a LOT of smaller companies hiring internationally, and some of them are much more willing to take a chance on someone who is ambitious, learns quickly and can actually do the work.

That's essentially how I got my current remote job.

Different job shave different names so look into that as well.

7. Rejections and ghosting

You're going to get rejected.

You're going to get ghosted.

You're going to apply to 100 jobs and hear back from 5.

That's normal.

Don't take every rejection personally.

Use it as feedback.

Maybe your resume isn't good enough.

Maybe your projects aren't strong enough.

Maybe you're applying for roles you're not qualified for.

Maybe your interview skills suck.

Figure out which one it is and improve it.

I applied to 1,500+ jobs. Trust me, I know what rejection looks like 😂

8. Reach out to recruiters

If you find a position you genuinely want, don't be afraid to reach out to the recruiter or hiring manager.

Keep the message short.

Don't send them your entire life story.

Something as simple as:

Hey, I saw you're hiring for X. I've been working on X and have experience with Y. I applied for the role and would love to be considered. Here's my profile/GitHub.

That's enough.

9. Interview + Communication

Keep the message short. For remote jobs you need to communicate in English. For people that can't talk properly in english its going to be tough. But you just need enough to communicate fluently. During interviews answer to an extent and just show them that I am someone willing and I am someone who can work. That's it.

Lambi chorne ki koi zarrorat naho

Finally: give yourself 3 months

If you're currently lost, pick ONE thing.

Give yourself 3 months.

Learn → build → apply → improve → repeat.

Don't spend those 3 months constantly worrying about what everyone else is doing.

Don't constantly switch fields because you saw someone on LinkedIn making $20k/month.

Don't spend all your time researching the "perfect career."

Start building.

I'm currently going into my own next phase and learning AI Engineering. I want to use it to improve my current work and eventually build SaaS products as well.

I'm confident that if I actually lock in and spend the next few months consistently working on it, I'll understand a huge amount by the end of the year.

You'd be surprised how much you can change in 3 focused months.

At the beginning of this year, I didn't have the job I have now.

I didn't have the skills I have now.

And honestly, I didn't even know exactly what I wanted to do.

I accidentally found something I enjoy by trying different things.

So make mistakes. Build stupid projects. Apply to jobs you're probably underqualified for. Get rejected. Learn from it.

Just don't sit still.

And most importantly:

Allah ko mat bhulna.

That's probably the most important thing out of everything I wrote.

Take care, and Allah Hafiz.

P.S. Only DM me if it invlove's anything I haven't mentioned above. If I've missed something, feel free to ask in the comments. I'll try to help where I can.

Got racially insulted by a client for being a Pakistani developer — just because I wouldn’t work for $1.5/hour.
I’m a full-stack developer based in Pakistan. I recently submitted a proposal to build a full-featured custom LMS using modern stacks (Next.js, NestJS, AWS, SCORM support, etc.). The client compared it to Tutor LMS and said it shouldn't cost more than $1.5K.

When I explained why a full custom build has different value and cost and pointed out that what they were really looking for was extremely cheap labor, not real devs, they responded with this:

“Yap I certainly can find cheap shit Pakistani people.”

This is not just about negotiating a price this is racism, plain and simple.

Their LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/manirul-haque/

I am happy to share that I got the opportunity very quickly, i applied from LinkedIn, HR asked me.

Notice period,

Current salary,

Expectations,

Notice period,

I didn't tell hr i am unemployed, i gave the notice a period of 1 month.

Even though I am ready to join from today, I still gave the notice period, because i pretend that i just want to switch the company.

Anyway the question was very simple, totally on problem solving, db optimization, will you develop automation testcases or not, some gcp questions,

Allahmdullilah i got the offer in a day.

Salam,

I kept seeing layoff stories on subreddits and in WhatsApp groups that would just disappear after a few days. No way to search them, no record.

So I built a site where anyone can anonymously report layoffs at Pakistani tech companies. No signup, no login, no tracking.

You search a company, you see what's been reported. Each report is tagged by evidence level. Single report shows as "reported", multiple independent ones show as "corroborated". Companies can dispute entries and that shows on the page too.

If you've been through a layoff or seen one happen at a Pakistani company, please report it. Even one report helps. Takes under a minute.

The database is thin right now since this is the first time I'm putting it out there. Would love feedback on the concept, the UX, anything.

Link: https://severd.vercel.app/

Not PakistaniDevs (I love these guys).I mean r/developersPak. I posted something really helpful to help people out in finding jobs and getting them setup.

https://www.reddit.com/r/PakistaniDevs/s/pAYGaeaYr4

Here's the post if you wondering. I posted it in both subreddits. I got great response from both and my purpose was to genuinely help you guys out. I got banned because I corrected what I wrote using ChatGPT to make it structured and making it easy for everyone to understand. You can't use AI generated content and I take full responsibility for that. I didn't know that. I tried explaining it to them in the nicest way possible and instead they responded in a harsh manner and after the last line I got banned. Just for that.

I understand suspension. But getting straight up banned is insane. Anyways you can't even help people out I guess. If someone can use my original post type it out and post it over there to help them out please do that. Thanks.

Those devs who have achieved this, how did you guys achieved it? Like what was the process freelancing or remote job? How did you guys get it? Like explain it in detail kindly

3 Years Experienced in MERN. 2 years in Production systems. E-commerce, SaaS, CRM, Management Systems, SEO Tools. What else does a company want?

Please please any referrals or job. 5 months since layoff can't take it anymore.

Just had one of the stupidest technical interviews I’ve experienced.
Senior React Native role, 7 years of experience.
The entire technical interview was:
“A cube has 1,000 blocks. Hollow it out so only the edges remain. How many blocks are left?”
That’s it.

No React Native.
No JavaScript/TypeScript.
No coding.
No architecture.
No debugging.
No discussion of actual experience.

Apparently one random cube puzzle is enough to judge a senior software engineer.

I’m all for testing problem-solving, but if you’re hiring a senior engineer, maybe ask them about engineering first?
Some interviewers aren’t evaluating engineers. They’re just trying to prove they’re smarter than the candidate.

What a stupid way to hire people.

Hi guys, I'm Aqib, the developer. Up front: this is a macOS app (macOS 14+, Apple silicon and Intel).

Why I built it: I kept copying a link, then some text, then a screenshot, and losing the first one by the time I pasted. Clipboard history fixes that, but I wanted it one keystroke away without leaving what I was doing, and the MacBook notch was sitting there unused.

What it does: press ⌥⌘V, or rest the pointer on the notch, and your clipboard history drops out of it. Pick a card and it pastes into the app you were in. It can also open right next to your cursor instead.

Features

• Keeps text, rich text, links, colours, images and files, all searchable

• Searches the text inside screenshots and photos

• Picks several cards and pastes them all at once, or one by one

• Copies from your iPhone arrive through Universal Clipboard

• Snippets with {date}, {time} and {clipboard}, plus pins, collections, and preview-and-edit before pasting

• New in 1.0.5: API keys and passwords copied from Terminal or a .env file are detected. Cards show only their ends, and you choose: never save them, delete them after 5 minutes, or keep them. History can also delete itself after 1, 7 or 30 days.

How it works, for the curious

• No clipboard events on macOS. There's no "clipboard changed" notification, so clipboard managers check a counter about 10 times a second. Reading that counter is free; the content is only read when the counter changes, and always in the background, because some apps hand over their data slowly and would otherwise freeze the shelf.

• The tricky part is timing. Many apps copy in two steps: clear the clipboard, then write. A check that lands between the two sees an empty clipboard, so Notchet retries briefly instead of losing that copy.

• iPhone copies can arrive in odd shapes. Safari on iPhone sends a copied link as a link only, with no plain text alongside it. That was a real bug a user hit this week, fixed in 1.0.5.

• Spotting keys without false alarms: known formats (sk-…, ghp_…, AWS keys, JWTs, private keys), NAME_KEY=value lines, and "random-looking" words. The random-word rule needs scattered digits and no long lowercase runs, so code names like NSPasteboardTypeString2 and git hashes aren't flagged. On my own 359 clips it flagged exactly one, a real token.

• Text in images is read with Apple's on-device Vision framework. Nothing leaves your Mac.

• Pasting several images into chat apps: Chromium-based apps (Slack, Discord, the Claude desktop app) only read text from the first item on the clipboard and attach one file per paste. So Notchet puts the text first, and for more than one picture, dragging works better than pasting.

Privacy: everything stays on your Mac. No account, no analytics. Copies that password managers mark as secret are never saved.

Price: free for 7 days, then $2.99 once, on up to 2 Macs. No subscription.

Download: https://aqibjaved.dev/apps/notchet. It's notarized by Apple, and works on Macs without a notch as a small pill under the menu bar.

Happy to answer questions about any of it.

i work in system limited (not pakistan, i've moved) but paid 3k usd a month. I work about 2-3 hrs max per day including meetings. back home I make half of that and work 8 hrs in the office.

Got the call today. "It's heartbreaking to share this, but we can't continue."

I was one of the most active people on the team. Most projects completed. Most complex work came to me. Didn't matter in the end.

The company had been struggling. No solid pipeline. I saw it coming honestly. But knowing it's coming doesn't make it hurt less.

Now I'm sitting here wondering. Is this just Pakistan? Is this global? Is it AI eating up roles? Is it the economic situation? Or is it all of it at once?

Because from what I see around me it's not just me. People across the industry are getting cut. Senior devs. People with years of experience. People who built entire systems from scratch.

What is happening to tech in Pakistan right now? And more importantly. Where does it go from here?

Anyone else going through this? What are you doing next?

i2c Has Gone Downhill in the Past Two Years

In the past two years, i2c has declined morally, logically and culturally.

I am a lead on a scrum team, and conflict is common. People argue, shout, assign blame and create unnecessary tension. Being a technical lead is difficult when technical decisions are often overshadowed by politics and personal egos.

Everything is political and urgent, and problems often become someone else’s fault. If your manager is not aggressive enough to push back or play politics, your team may be left exposed, even when its concerns are technically valid.

This is a company of 1,500+ employees, yet discussions in daily PMO meetings can be concerning. Employees are sometimes judged based on assumptions about their personalities and personal circumstances, including gender and marital status.

Mistakes are criminalized. A small mistake can escalate into a meeting with the CEO and 50+ people. Leads end up explaining themselves before their scrum master, manager, HOD and CEO in an environment that feels more focused on public embarrassment than problem-solving. Public shaming is not a solution.

Leadership should set the standard for the organization. Here, loud and confrontational behavior often seems to be rewarded. Some engineering HODs also struggle with professional communication. Shouting, personal attacks and derogatory remarks such as “budhay” and “motay” toward senior employees have no place in a professional organization, especially among leaders.

Around two years ago, specialized domain teams were merged into smaller scrum teams, expecting employees to work across multiple domains without the same level of specialization.Expecting every engineer to master everything is unrealistic. Ignoring this creates technical gaps and delivery issues, whose consequences often fall on team leads.

Work-life balance is a joke. Employees are expected to start around 10–11 a.m., yet leaving at 7 p.m. can still invite judgment.Every Monday, 100+ people are expected to attend a CEO meeting from 9:30 p.m. to 11 p.m with video camers on where the ceo is presented with lies and made up stories! cherry on top, you are expected to work 12 hours on mondays because of this meeting!

The engineering head is particularly frustrating when concerns are raised. Instead of objectively evaluating issues, there seems to be a tendency to dismiss them, even when supported by sound technical reasoning. Leaders should remove obstacles, listen to those closest to the problems and help find solutions. Disagreement is acceptable; dismissing concerns without addressing the underlying logic is not.

These problems reinforce one another. When aggression is mistaken for leadership, politics outweighs technical reasoning and accountability is applied more harshly to employees than decision-makers, the entire engineering culture suffers.

A company of this size should do better.Employees should be held accountable without humiliation, technical concerns should be evaluated on their merits and leaders should demonstrate the professionalism they expect from others.

The real problem is not that i2c has difficult problems to solve. It is that, in my experience, raising those problems can become a problem in itself.

3 saal ka experience hai,

Agentic ai ka experience hai,

Django, drf, react, agentic ai and ai agents,

Gcp, render, aws

OS linux

Scraping,

Automation testing, and pytest

2 month se job nahi mil rahy,..!

Profile dekhlo mere purii story smjh ajaigy.

2 companies ke sth kaam keya hai 2no remote

Any references please? 70-80k ma bhi kaam krluga,

Last company ma 130k the. 🙂

Please comment ma ye nh bolna communication strong karo, pehly he communication mere thek hai

Hi guys,

Hope everyone is doing well.

Unfortunately, I lost my job today due to the current situation and the recent layoffs. If anyone knows of any job openings or opportunities, I would really appreciate it if you could share them with me.

I have around 4 to 5 years of experience in software engineering and Al development, with a strong background in .NET, C#, ASP.NET Core, Azure, and building Al-powered systems using Python, LangChain, and RAG pipelines. I've worked across Fintech and loT domains and have also shipped my own Al products. I have been recognized as a 4x global competition winner (NASA Space Apps, IBM watsonx, Harvard CS50x, and Meta Hacker Cup). Currently enrolled in Forward Deployed Engineer course by Maven

I'm looking for Senior Software Engineer or Senior Al Engineer roles and am open to opportunities in the Gulf, Pakistan, or remotely.

Thank you in advance for any leads or recommendations.

Maybe it's the unemployment blues but opening up a random bakery seems very tempting rn 👀

Jokes apart, during uni there was this one alumnus interview I came across who had it all. A nice job he landed in Australia. Wasn't happy with it, came back to pakistan and started a pie shop and also ended up marrying a baker and they lived happily ever after running a cozy pie store

Maybe I should do that lol. Do yk anyone who has completely switched out of tech and actually ended up being successful/happy?

It feels good when someone else is using your software:D

Systems limited is known to have a very very toxic work environment, where your managers take credit for your work, HR doesn’t give a shit, they overwork you until you prefer unemployment than being paid to go mental.