[snvzz]

Minimize your expenses. Find and work any job, it does not have to be tech related. You can quit once you find a tech one you care about.

Put all gains towards a safety fund (enough to support your expenses for 3 months) first, and after that fully towards paying debt back, until you have paid it in full.

A pain, but that's life. Sometimes, you just have to grind. In the future, you'll be glad you got rid of debt and your struggles are behind you.

[JasonBorne]

This. Good advice on the logistical side. My two cents for mindset: Life is going to be hard for everyone at some point on average. But if you understand that it's hard, you will get satisfaction and a huge sense of accomplishment out of navigating it. If you think things are going to be easy, it's going to make things grueling.

[life_questions]

Yeah I get that. I'm not opposed to the pain of grinding hard. My first search to break into the industry took 2 years (existence was pain), my last job search for Senior Software Engineer took 3 weeks. The uncertainty is the biggest problem, I'm getting complete radio silence from all applications which is really weird. Maybe I should look for a job outside software engineering?