Ask HN: Lost My Software Engineering Job, Now What?

[OulaX]

I've always been passionate about coding. I earned my BSc in Computer Science, thrived in university, but struggled to find software engineering opportunities in my developing country. Freelancing kept me afloat for a while (mostly website development), but the pay and project flow were terrible.

To make ends meet, I became a programming tutor. It wasn't my dream, but I was good at it. After two years, I finally landed a remote software engineering role at a US startup. It was challenging, well-paid, and a fantastic growth experience... until the startup failed, and I was laid off.

Now, finding another job feels impossible. The market's brutal, especially for someone like me – aiming for remote work from a developing country. Plus, all the buzz is about AI. I'm at a crossroads:

- Pivot to AI? Web development feels saturated, but is an AI shift the answer?

- Get my Master's? But what's the plan after the degree? The competition is fierce.

Honestly, I'm lost. Any guidance from you would be hugely appreciated.

[AnimalMuppet]

You now have something you didn't have before: two years of experience. That matters.

The first software engineering job is the hardest, because software engineering isn't actually the same as computer science. You wind up having to learn what software engineering is on the job. Now you have been there and done that, and you are considerably more employable as a software engineer than you were.

So don't lose heart. You managed to do it before, and you're in a better position now.

[k310]

Would you consider systems administration/related work? When I started out, it was mostly manual work, and I automated things as I went along. It's much more sophisticated, large and automated (run by software tools) than before.

In other words, could you support what you used?

In effect, doing larger scale things with less complex code?

My feeling is that companies are betting on AI at the expense of everything else at this time, but I imagine that results are going to be very unevenly distributed, since so many are new to the field, and like software engineering, it may be easy to get started, but very hard to do well, so there is a lot of uncertainty right now.

However, big systems seem to be getting bigger. I tell low-tech people to become electricians, because energy demand is skyrocketing.

Just some outside the box ideas, in case they help.

[0x00_NULL]

I run the ML team at a larger unicorn. I fully agree with this. We are multi & hybrid cloud with global SD Wan and everything on CI/CD. There is still a ton of maintenance, patches, deployments, and updates that require us to manually intervene in our otherwise automated systems.

If OP were to learn sys admin skills, CI/CD, and Terraform, he would be a key candidate for any ML team globally. They’re all going in that direction. We work closely with Google and they coached us in that direction. Sys Admin skills will always be in demand.

[linguae]

Even if you pivot to AI, the technology advances have been so swift that even AI practitioners need to keep up to not fall behind. While certain fundamental skills such as statistics, linear algebra, and elementary machine learning algorithms (including neural networks) are important and I don’t believe will fall out of style anytime soon, the cutting edge is evolving at breakneck pace. It seems right now that large language models are the rage now. Just a few years ago there was a major emphasis on deep learning, and before then was “big data.”

My advice is to continue searching for jobs in various fields of computing; it’s a tough market right now and it may be hard to specialize. In the meanwhile, use your time unemployed to get up to speed with AI as well as to practice Leetcode. I believe you’ll find something eventually, but it is a tough market.

[Tabular-Iceberg]

The job market problems are way overstated. I was recently not just laid off but fired for incompetence and insubordination and had no problem getting the next job.

[foobarbaz33]

> Get my Master's?

No, not worth it. A bachelor's in comp sci can be a handy credential. But anything past that has diminishing returns.

[toast0]

A US based Masters is very helpful for immigration, if the OP is interested in working for US companies in the US.

A Masters in comp sci/eng may make sense for someone with an unrelated Bachelors. Otherwise, I agree. There are some employers who prefer candidates with PhD and grudgingly accept Masters, and really grudgingly accept Bachelors... But based on my experience with colleagues with PhD, I really don't want to work there (I've got a BS CE).

[daviddever23box]

Try pivoting to MLOps, where you can get a taste of systems programming plus a bit of high-level machine learning.

[fuzzfactor]

Instead of working remotely for a company that makes software, why not try working locally for those that use software. That's a lot more potential opportunities.

Your qualifications are now phenomenal compared to when you started out.

[itake]

I'm in thailand and I met a frontend engineer working for the mono-rail company. She is paid top 10% for her age-group, but her salary is still like $4k usd / mo max.

If (s)he can score another remote job, then that will be much more profitable.

[hiAndrewQuinn]

That's not a good reason to stay unemployed. You can always continue to search for the better paying remote job while holding something down locally just to keep the bills paid.

[itake]

idk, maybe? I think its difficult to job hunt and have a job. Especially with the amount of prep work required.

I think part time + job searching is ideal.

[austin-cheney]

Do what most skilled former developers are doing and migrate to cloud infrastructure and/or enterprise API management. The jobs are more stable, and your coworkers are more mature.

[badpun]

What does enterprise API management entail in practice? Configuring endpoints and services on Kubernetes?

[clinkz_eastwood]

Maybe get some certificates for Azure or AWS? I heard good things about them like AWS Solutions Architect, lots of job positions on glassdoor and indeed for that.

[datadrivenangel]

Potentially try a near-shoring development company?

They handle the staffing and tax logistics in exchange for a cut of the compensation.

[WheelsAtLarge]

I can't really give much advice but I can tell you a master's degree will not add to your job prospects unless you want to change your focus. Employers in tech are looking for your ability to do the job not advanced degrees.

I do know that looking for a job in tech is a never ending struggle unless you are lucky and land in a growing successful startup or a stable large company. Good luck.