[uniclaude]

Which toxic world have we built that let people think that tinkering, exploring different facade of life, and not being able to find a programming job at 22 is called failing?

The glorification of 400k packages right after graduation, of founders becoming paper billionaires before they have their first gray hair, the lack of representation of various software dev career paths... All this (and more) is giving an unrealistic and fake vision of what we do and become as software engineers.

Many of us here like to look down on what social media does to the life of teenagers, creating insecurities and disturbing development, but we’re doing the same exact thing in our industry.

The last sentence in the post gives a glimpse of hope, but the general tone resonates with something I’ve heard too many times around me. Life is short, yes, YOLO if you want, but no, not being a top software dev at 22 is not “having failed”.