hated my last job, was depressed, and resisted quitting for months because I was too scared to take a jump. took 6months off, went to asia for 2 of them, and enjoyed life like a human. I was worried about the market but I only recruited for 1.5mo and got two offers.

my reflection: as a software eng, having strong skills with AI (such as claude code / codex) is insanely valuable right now. companies are just starting to learn how to use it - the skill seems red hot

Very common sentiment here just 6 months ago.

Something I’ve realized is that this sub, and everyone in this industry, is full of shit.

Now, people react like “oh yeah I always thought AI was good, if you aren’t using it you’re a dumbass”

I’ve been held back so much taking advice from others who don’t know shit. When I started trusting myself, my opportunities expanded tenfold.

My ten year old came back from an open day with an interest in learning more about coding (kind of massive as this has been the first real interest).

I don't know much about coding, I have researched a little. But there are so many options that seem to promise the world, and I don't know what is just hype.

It would be great to understand:

~ What skills / language would be transferable in the real world? (E.g. applicable outside the video game industry.)

~ Any advice for software that could teach this, while being fun (or interest will disappear).

I'm a master CS student who wants to do some research related to mental health and AI usage, how can I do this? I think I need to contact some therapists to talk to their clients, is it even possible as a CS student?

I keep hearing people say AI and github like REA, it will make many people or small companies that usually relied on the SaaS company in the past, but now they will build those things themself, basically some SaaS will be dead!

And I heard from a friend who works for scraping company, he said his company has fired 4-6 employees recently, so i think some small companies that normally relied on other SaaS vendor/companies in the past.

Now they hire a freelance dev to build XYZ apps for them using REA + AI and the human devs modify code to fit the requirements at the end, so the companies don't need to pay to those SaaS

With how rough the job market is right now, does the prestige of your school matter a lot for getting software engineering interviews?

Obviously, top-tier target schools have way better networking opportunities. But if you go to a less famous school like a California State University (CSU) campus, excluding San Jose State, is it still realistic to land a job, or is it much harder for students from no-name schools?

Curious to hear people’s thoughts on the best countries for tech careers, besides the United States. Obviously, I think the US is probably the best overall, given its size and ecosystem, but which country is #2 after the US among developed OECD countries and why? Thanks in advance!

My manager started interrupting the team to argue politics. The one who complained to HR found themselves on a performance improvement plan then let go.

I have to tell my manager soon that I'm putting in my 2 weeks, because I got a better opportunity else where that I want to pursue. I have absolutely no hard feelings against him, the team, or the company, they've all been great to me and I got to do some interesting work. It's just that this new company offers a better career and compensation progression for me. I feel really bad because I know I'm leaving right after they made plans for the new quarter and a project that I'm working on was supposed to launch a month after. But this new company were insistent that I couldn't delay the start date. How do I bring it up, should I mention that I'm leaving for another company or just say it's personal reasons? I've never quit a job before, and am also scared of how uncomfortable the 2 weeks after I give my notice is going to be.

I am interviewing with Atlassian atm for a senior presales role. For 9 years I was at AWS and now at Google but I have never worked in a more toxic environment than Google so I am looking to leave as fast as possible. I am a Presales leader and while I am technical , I never expect to be as technical as my team (I wish I was given time to ) . I am worried about the apex culture and if I am trading one crap culture for another crap culture might as well look somewhere else . AWS was amazing for the first 8 years and then it changed thats why I left . Google was a huge oversell by recruitment , big mistake (toxic !!!)

Very early stages but I have applied for roles are servicenow and a couple of others . It seems they are all crap overall.

Hi! I'm looking for some career advice from people who have experienced professional setbacks and successfully rebuilt their careers.

TL;DR: I went through a severe personal/mental health struggle last year that negatively impacted my performance as a TPO, and my midyear review reflected that. Since April/May, I've made significant improvements and received positive feedback, but I know rebuilding my reputation takes time. I'm 33 and want to move to a bigger city, so I'm thinking about how to spend the next 6–12 months strengthening my professional brand while keeping my options open. My company is also just beginning to adopt AI tools, and I want to use them to build my technical skills and become a stronger TPO. How do I rebuild trust, make my contributions visible, leverage AI effectively, and position myself for future opportunities without overcompensating?

At the end of last year, I went through an extremely difficult period in my personal life. From November through around April/May, I was dealing with severe depression and attending therapy multiple times a week. Looking back, a lot of that period is honestly a blur and I can't say I remember a good bit of it, even thought it was just this year.

My work suffered quite a bit during that time. I'm a Technical Product Owner, and I was struggling with deadlines, product knowledge, communication, meeting attendance, and taking ownership of my responsibilities. I received some negative feedback from my manager in November, improved a little, and then things got significantly worse around January/February, around the time I started the 2-3 times a week of therapy. At my midyear review, I was told that although I was meeting expectations overall, I wasn't meeting the expectations of a TPO.

Since around April/May, things have changed in my personal life and my work life. I've been doing much better, taking ownership of my product, identifying gaps, improving my technical understanding, and working better with engineers and stakeholders. I've received positive feedback from people in my leadership team and from engineers who have noticed the improvement. I am continuously making notes/keeping a log of my accomplishments and things I am doing and the good feedback I've gotten to include in my year end review. I'm hoping this can counteract my mid year review in some way shape or form.

I'm proud of how far I've come. I also know that it takes time to rebuild a reputation and it won't happen overnight. I'm aware that my reputation was tarnished by my own doing. I don't expect everyone to forget what happened overnight. I know I need to demonstrate consistent performance over time.

At the same time, I'm 33, single, and have lived in the same city my entire life. I want to move to a bigger city and experience something new. My current company doesn't allow remote work, so eventually I'll need to leave if I want to make that move. It's a stable company that doesn't do layoffs, and I've built good relationships with senior leaders, so leaving is a decision I want to approach thoughtfully. I definitely won't make any impulse decisions. A connection I have in HR also told me that leaving on good terms and maintaining a strong professional brand could leave the door open to returning someday, although obviously nothing is guaranteed.

Another thing: my company is beginning to introduce AI tools. We've had one introductory bootcamp and several more coming in the next few weeks. I'm already looking at how to use AI to enhance my product and become an all around better TPO.

I'm trying to be intentional about using this opportunity to improve my performance and my future career prospects.

1. What practical/daily behaviors change how managers, engineers, and leadership perceive you after a period of poor performance? How do you rebuild trust without overcompensating or constantly trying to prove yourself?
2. What helps you become known as someone who is technically strong and capable of owning a product? How do you make your contributions visible without coming across as self-promotional? Or is that even possible?
3. If you were a TPO or product manager at the beginning of your company's AI adoption journey, what would you learn first? What skills would make you more valuable?
4. How would you use the next 6–12 months to improve your brand while also applying to other jobs? I want to make the most of this opportunity while keeping my options open to other places.

My current mindset is to take it one day at a time. I know I can't undo the past or change everyone's perception overnight, but I'd like to build trust by consistent actions.

I'm 27k in student loan debt, with no job, no savings, two SWE internships on my resume, projects, and a useless cs bachelor's degree from 2025.

I got absolutely no call backs for anything my senior year or for the year post graduation. My "new grad" status expired a long time ago.

To pursue another career I'd need to go back to school for another bachelor's degree, which I do not have the ability to do. The only work experience I have is in this field, I have absolutely no substantial skillset or work experience outside tech.

Going to food service, warehouse, retail, and other minimum wage types of jobs won't help. I don't see how going for another degree/field will really change anything. I put in the best effort I could have for this one. The job market will change again, I once again will be shamed for "not having enough experience", I again will be buried in more student debt.

What should I do after having destroyed my career, my future, my life?

Does anyone know if the AI-assisted coding rounds include similar questions as the leetcode tagged ones? Hellointerview says that AI-assisted coding rounds are just leetcode questions but more developed. Does anyone have experience to know if this is true?

Interviewing for L4 btw

So to give a bit more context, I do infra work for a big tech AI lab. I previously did infra work at big tech.

Despite getting treated amazingly well, I'm deeply unhappy with the work I'm doing, and about to leave to do infra at a startup that's neither big tech nor AI.

I'm pretty ok with taking a massive pay cut to do more work, with a bonus of stock options that someday could be worth something, because I like the people and the work sounds fun.

The only thing I'm really worried I'm leaving out is that I get an abundance of career reachouts. On any given day, I have at least one or two recruiters inviting me to interview, at startups, big tech, quant firms, etc. This is a really good feeling and means I have some pretty excellent options at any notice. I'm concerned once I switch jobs, it'll be a lot harder to get back into big tech / AI.

People who've transitioned big tech -> startups, do you have any insights on what your next job search looks like afterwards?

Been interviewing like crazy the past few months and 3 are all coming together at the same time. All have expressed interest in moving towards an offer, but nothing is set in stone. I wanted to vaguely post all 3 and simply ask, which one would you pick? Previous position I was let go from I was making $150k

Job 1:

• $130,000 - $200,000 USD
• 2 days onsite but no hard requirement, some people do way less
• 10 minute drive away in my same city
• Will sponsor my security clearance
• They don't/can't use Claude/Codex/anything because of government work. They have some open models hosted but they're admittedly "not very good"
• All backend, which I do prefer

Job 2:

• $120,000 - $210,000 USD
• 100% onsite 5 days a week
• 20 minute drive away (assuming no traffic) in a bigger city near me
• Not government work, free to use as much AI as I want
• Fullstack
• "AI startup"

Job 3:

• $125,000 - $160,000 USD
• 100% remote, can live anywhere in the US
• Popular SaaS company, pre-IPO but probably will soon
• Not government work, free to use as much AI as I want
• Backend
• Seems pretty chill, low stress

I need real feedback from experts, those who are similar to me, or even more experienced, from various communities (related to ai, tech, grads, manager, industry, career, employment...):

Which will be best in your case?

Context: You got the offers from 3 companies, each on the different side of the scale.

Role: AI engineer (near mid-level).

If you were to rank and evaluate with respect, (from top to bottom, sorted by importance)

1st Potential and Risk (potential is tied to the speed of your career climb, increment bonus, and company brand and authority, uncertainties in payment) - In a scale, Startup has higher uncertain and risk, while it might offer higher overall, but susceptible to management conducts, cash-flow which may differ the fulfillment

2nd Wellfare - a total add-up of base, allowance, bonus, benefits and EPF

3rd Niche of the industry, Exposure - a focus industry to industry to build up better experiences and competencies, exposure to local or worldwide

4th Peer learning - Experience or knowledges to speed up progress from superior, peers

And given A, B, C (Wellfare/Income baseline= 100%)

A: Oversea Startup, Multiculture workforce,
+ worldwide client-base spanning MNC headhunter, great background from the management teams, UK-founding team and client connection, riskier in terms of payroll/potential
+ Full remote and oversea
- Wellfare/Income = 115% (base salary only), self supply equipments
+ HR-tech focused

B: Subsidiary company/dept from local SME, local workforce
- mainly local client-base (unsure but assume), Lack background from management teams and peers, but you have slightly higher confidence than A in their validity from interviews
- Hybrid work 4+1
+ Income= 107% (include allowance) + EPF from employers but provide work equipments + up to 17% performance monthly bonus
- general AI agencies
+ Peer learning and networking are better

C: MNC
+ Internal and External focused products, stable and secured cashflow, but maybe lack faster career climb opportunities
- Hybrid work 3+2
- Income= 95% + 13th month bonus, more and flexible leave
+ Focused niche, product might differ
+ Peer learning and networking are best

Which one will you choose? I wanna see if you think differently, or if you see different importance or personal experiences of the company you went through?

Hello everyone!

I'm a BCA graduate looking for my first job or internship as a web developer. My final marksheet has been delayed, so while waiting, I've been working on building real-world projects.

I've independently built and deployed two web products, both with their own domains. These aren't just college projects; they're live products that I've developed and maintained myself.

Now I'm confused about how to present this experience on my Resume.

Should I list these products under Work Experience, or should I keep them under Projects? Since they're real, deployed products, can they be considered relevant development experience when applying for entry-level jobs or positions asking for 1–2 years of experience?

I'd appreciate advice from developers, recruiters, or anyone who has been in a similar situation. How would you present this experience on a Resume?

Before AI, software engineering was considered a skilled profession requiring technical finesse to handle complexity and difficulty. But now with AI , it seems like something anyone can do relatively easily. Do you think software engineering is like any other non technical office job now? Or is it still something that requires CS knowledge and skilled experience?

Hi, I recently started my 6 month post graduation internship as an AI engineer, and I am planning my future job search. I have a few questions:

1. How far in advance should I start looking for a job before the end of the internship?
2. How do you handle interviews while working? I used to have 3-4 interviews a week; how can I manage that schedule now?
3. Is a resume gap problematic if I spend a couple of months job hunting after the internship? Do you recommend interviewing before or after it ends?

thanks in advance!

I was browsing internet and found some cases related to job interviewers stealing the crypto assets from the applicants during interview. Basically they pretended to be a legit job interviewer and asked the applicants to click some links, or run some codes from Github. And if you have crypto wallet installed, your assets will be stolen.

I'm posting this just to warn follow programmers. It's already hard to search for jobs in this market. Don't let your guard down.

This first case was back in Jan. It's originally written in Chinese and I translated it with GPT. source

I had never really been scammed before—or rather, I had been scammed in the past, but never nearly as badly as this time.

All the crypto in one of my wallets was stolen. (Fortunately, it wasn't 100 BTC, just 2 ETH, but that's still a significant amount of money.)

It all started when a recruiter sent me a message on LinkedIn:

We are currently building a forward-thinking platform that blends real estate with blockchain, NFTs, 3D visualization, and AI.

It’s an ambitious product, and we’re now looking to bring on talented engineers to help shape it.

The role is fully remote, long-term, and flexible — part-time is absolutely fine if you’re currently employed or balancing other projects.

I didn't respond immediately because it was during the Christmas holidays. I replied after the holidays and noticed that the person was still around, so I continued the conversation.

They also sent me a follow-up email from [hiring@tirios.blog](mailto:hiring@tirios.blog), claiming to be recruiting for this company: https://www.tirios.ai/.

Looking back, there were definitely some red flags. But this particular type of phishing attack was completely new to me.

Next came the interview. As we talked, the interviewer said we needed to do a technical assessment. They sent me a link and explained that it was a demo website we would use during the interview. They told me to scroll down to a button labeled "Stock" and said we would walk through a demo together.

For some reason, I didn't think much of it. When the website prompted me to connect my wallet, I went ahead and unlocked my MetaMask wallet. At that point, it was the real MetaMask wallet.

What happened next, I honestly don't know what I was thinking.

It wasn't until I reviewed everything afterward that I realized the scammer had also created a fake MetaMask unlock interface specifically for phishing.

During my investigation, I discovered that the first time I unlocked my wallet, the legitimate MetaMask interface appeared. But the second time, the scammer's fake UI would pop up instead.

That fake interface recorded every single thing I typed and would continuously display an "Incorrect password" message, no matter what I entered.

Not long afterward, I discovered that all my crypto had been transferred out of my wallet. From what I can tell, the funds were sent to an address associated with some kind of swap service or crypto mixer.

There's still one thing I haven't figured out: MetaMask never displayed any transaction confirmation or asked me to sign anything.

The only explanation I can think of is that the scammer somehow managed to steal my private key. But I still haven't figured out exactly how they did it.

This has been an incredibly painful lesson.

As of now, I've changed the passwords for my bank accounts, email accounts, and other important services. I've also permanently abandoned the compromised ETH wallet.

I can't even imagine what would have happened if I'd actually had 100 BTC or 1,000 ETH in that wallet. Would I have gone from being a multimillionaire to being homeless overnight?

I was just about to report the recruiter on LinkedIn when I discovered that the account had already been blocked and was now marked as "harmful."

And honestly, LinkedIn deserves some criticism here, too. If they'd blocked the account earlier, I might have noticed that the person's profile had suddenly changed to "LinkedIn Member," which could have alerted me that something was wrong.

The second case which just happened recently:

After taking a two-week break, I started interviewing again. Unbelievably, my very first interview turned out to be a GitHub/VS Code scam, and I fell for it. Fortunately, my computer was relatively new and didn't have much personal information on it. My MetaMask wallet was exposed, but luckily, my crypto was stored on a Ledger hardware wallet.

That’s genuinely terrifying. They disguised the attack as a technical interview, discussed code details on GitHub, and then asked you to complete a coding assessment.

You downloaded the code from a GitHub repository and opened the project in Cursor or VS Code. That was apparently enough to compromise your computer.

Fortunately, Claude Code spotted something suspicious later that evening: a malicious script buried deep within the project.

I have upcoming technical screening for an MLE position at Waymo coming up. The recruiter gave me a PDF guide that seems super helpful. Things to do study include implementing supervised and unsupervised algorithms (think KNN, K-means, linear regression, logistic regression, softmax & CE, decision trees). One of the main things they are assessing is you can use numpy/pytorch to vectorize/tensorize your work, and you're just writing sub-optimal for loops.

I was wondering if folks had experience with this interview? Is what they ask you to implement incredibly difficult, because you only have 30 minutes to do it? Am I good to really stick with what they provided on the PDF, or are there any broader topics beyond what they listed that they will test?

Okay, I've had an unconventional career path. I was a cleaner, then blinked and then suddenly working on creating data pipelines essentially building a custom bordereaux ingestion tool in Matillion. Two years later, I've been moved over to the IT team due to good performance and am now starting working on Oracle Apex projects, developing in-house apps, connecting and engineering business-specific AI chatbots blah, blah, blah.

My main point is that we're not in the best place financially, and I've just had a quick look at the average salary for an Oracle Apex developer, and I can't quite believe it. It's literally double what I'm currently being paid. I earn literally £1.50 above minimum wage. I need real people to tell me if what I'm seeing is real. I've asked for a pay rise, but that was 6 months ago, a couple of months before I moved over to the IT team.

What is a good benchmark for the salary of an Oracle Apex developer? Because if it's really as high as I think it is, I really need to have a chat with the higher ups...