Leaving Tech

andsoitis

> I’m going to chat to some people to figure out what’s next. One idea would be for the author to ask questions here that they think the answers of will be good input into their reasoning process.

enjoyyourlife

Is this satire? Ragebait to draw attention to your looking for work page ( https://ryanbigg.com/work )? It's really well written!

usui

I understand the stated feelings of indignation and resentment toward a process that was broken well before the current market conditions, but given the current conditions, isn't applying to 36 jobs and deciding to back out a bit hasty?

talon8635

Are there other industries with comparable or even living wages that support full time remote and are easy to transition into? I’m all ears, so please let me know

brcmthrowaway

It's the worst possible time to leave a job right now.. anyone else agree?

daishi55

> I’ve now applied for over 3 dozen jobs and I’ve heard back from 24 of them with a rejection Sorry is this a troll? Go check out the SWE subreddits, people are sending out 1000s of applications before they get something.

Capricorn2481

I don't know this person, so maybe there's a greater embarrassment to him getting rejected based on his previous experience, but this is kind of a puzzling read. He applied for 36 jobs and he cannot take the rejection? Isn't that an extremely modest amount of applications to already be claiming mental anguish? This seems like a lot of doomerism for not that much effort wasted.

blovescoffee

"Applied to 36 and been rejected by 24" as in interviewed with 24 (which would be incredibly good) or been passed on by 24 which is frankly totally normal?

fred_is_fred

Last time I look I applied to over 50 - and that was in a better market.

socializer

What we're getting now is small potatoes compared to the job market apocalypse of 2007-2009, and before that, of 2000-2003. What's different is that back then, I think you could blame the downturn on external factors outside our control and still have plenty of faith in the future of software engineering. Now, we only have ourselves to blame: we built this technology, we enthusiastically embraced it and one-upped each other by showing how much we can vibecode. And now, we're queasy about what comes next. In my view, probably nothing pretty. I suspect we might wake up in a society that looks much like how it used to: cancer still not cured, poverty and hunger not solved, but now with tech jobs that pay less and suck more because you're just thoughtlessly babysitting agents and are a lot more replaceable in that role.

diurnalist

> The industry at the moment wants people who know how to use AI to further the business goals but here’s the thing nobody wants to admit: not one person knows how to use AI to actually do that. I use it to write a lot of my code and then I critically review that code before it reaches production. Unfortunately I think the real sentiment here is "here's the thing I don't want to admit: I don't know how to use AI to actually do that." It's not at all clear to me that nobody knows how to utilize AI practically. It's more clear that you have to be working in an environment that values developing this capability enough to pay a lot for tokens and let employees be free to explore, within reason. Or, you have to be willing to spend a lot of free time and cash doing that yourself.

tschellenbach

I've met a guy who went from software into being a sherpa. Taking people up the mountain for hikes. Kinda fascinating. But this post is not representative of the state of the market. The market for tech talent is still very hard/scarce. Finding good people is very difficult. You can validate that by seeing the trend of software salaries. It's not coming down.

danpalmer

Reading this, I wonder if the problem is AI or the remote market. From what I've heard, here in Sydney the market is pretty hot, at least for experienced folks. My experience matches that. That said I know that remote jobs are uncommon. > I know I can work remotely effectively because I did it for the last 6 years. 6 years means that Ryan started right around COVID. Looking back I don't think COVID was the remote renaissance that it appeared at the time, I think it was a temporary blip. That sucks, I'd much rather it was permanent, and some things have changed for the long run, but unfortunately I think this is likely a much bigger factor. Remote jobs have always been few and far between, and super competitive.

ianm218

> I’ve now applied for over 3 dozen jobs and I’ve heard back from 24 of them with a rejection. I wouldn’t encourage anyone who wants to do something else to stay, this just read as strange to leave to me. If he wants to find a job in tech surely he could reach to many of the people he’s worked with in the past or connected with at various events before throwing in the towel.

Cakez0r

> The industry at the moment wants people who know how to use AI to further the business goals but here’s the thing nobody wants to admit: not one person knows how to use AI to actually do that. Of course there are people that know how to do that. If you work an office job and don't know how to do that, you'd better learn to do it fast or start learning to weld or something.

delfugal

It's time for you to buy a leather tool belt.

quantumwoke

While I agree the job market is tough right now, for context OP is living in Australia in what looks like a regional town, so set expectations accordingly.

rDr4g0n

seasoned software engineers are experimenting with using AI to ship actually maintainable software with varying degrees of success (i am doing it, my peers are doing it. it actually can work. it requires immense budget and organizational support for experimentation) patterns and best practices will emerge. old stuff will be rediscovered. some hard earned wisdom and knowledge will become obsolete while other hard earned wisdom and knowledge will be more valuable than ever. some good "traditional" software engineers make terrible "AI-engineers" (or whatever the term will be) and will either grow and learn, try to fake it as long as they can, or leave. lots of us will leave the industry because we're tired. we don't want this new thing. our work was fulfilling because reading and writing helped us learn and grow and become better. asking an LLM to "figure it out" followed by "ok, do it" (or, if you're company is actually funding you, creating loops that do that) robs you of the joy you used to feel. we will realize that our passion and pride in our work was not really valued by employers. the value was us shipping shit that generates revenue for them. the interview treadmill is fucking soul crushing. we will leave and take 75% pay cuts. but our mindspace will belong to us again. we will struggle, but we will be happier.

deadbabe

I think this is a bit fatalist. All 24 of those jobs the author was rejected from likely went to 24 other people who just got hired. I doubt they'd be saying the tech market is cooked. It's more competitive than ever, but that's not the same as cooked. Looking over the author's achievements, they are great but it's not clear for instance how those kind of things would help at our company, and I'm sure other companies would think the same. We don't care about Ruby or even Javascript... AI has made experience with programming languages more as a footnote rather than a core feature of a resume. I hope the author will rebrand themselves for the AI era rather than just leave the tech industry entirely. Times are changing, we need good people.

tty456

Is WFH allowance still dwindling among employers? I'm not in the market so unsure