[DANmode]

> it should be said regularly that almost no engineer can afford it nowadays.

Everybody is not you.

The market is bleak - but don’t mistake everyone’s leverage - or understanding their leverage - for your own.

[ethanrutherford]

> Everybody is not you

Perfect example of a non-sequitur. Irrespective of whether or not the statement is true, it has no bearing on the veracity of the original claim: that in the current market, the majority of workers simply do not have this leverage.

[DANmode]

The original claim wasn’t “the majority of workers”, though.

I likely would have avoided commenting, if it was.

The original claim was “almost no engineer”.

Anyway, the point is, if you take little interest in the “full stack” of whatever you’re working on (the technical stack, BizDev, whatever),

you will obviously be easier to replace with an automaton - AI or human.

[pdimitar]

Same can be said back to you. Obviously mine and 50+ acquaintances experience is not the entire world but geographical clusters and/or work-area clusters do apply.

Can you pick up the phone and be in the next job the next week?

[DANmode]

Coming off of a health sabbatical, yes, I have more contracted work around than I can commit to.

I can’t even imagine having 50 acquaintances I see in a year, currently, so I don’t know I’ll be able to offer advice specifically…

but generally?, I think I’d be pretty upset if I knew 50 people and none of them would bring me on their team, or start something up with me.

[pdimitar]

Well, I am upset. But -- bubbles. My health has been in decline for years and I am very slowly making some strides. Missed on a million networking opportunities by being unable to go to conferences and... yeah, I'll not turn this into a sob story.

LLMs really accentuated the importance of networking, did they not?

[DANmode]

They really accentuated the importance of continuing education, continued interest, continued ownership,

and, failing all of that, networking and nepotism type of safety-nets.

100%.

[pdimitar]

I envy your bubble, and I am not being snarky or vile here -- 100% honest.

My education and experience matter exactly squat. And have not ever mattered in my 24 years of career.

I know I've done a lot of things wrong but I can't spend the rest of my life beating myself over it. Trying to find a way to attack the problem from different angles. But it's impossible with a hugely demanding job and my fear of being let go and how generally terrible the market is for niche-ish languages (like Elixir that I work with; I am pretty good at Golang and Rust but have not actively worked with them professionally in years; really went all-in).

So currently I am trapped. We'll see if I can figure out an exit. So far it seems mathematically impossible. If I don't change the game, I am toast.

[DANmode]

A few questions that may help your next steps:

1.) What do you have to be doing, daily, weekly, to be happy?

1a.) What do you have to NOT be doing, daily, weekly, to be happy?

2.) Do you prefer to remain an individual contributor, for one reason or another? Said another way: are you the right fit to seriously look at the path to management or consulting roles?

3.) You mentioned your bubble - a few times. Are you willing to move? Otherwise shake that bubble up?

PS my situation is not that enviable - the work I’m being offered is far from what I’d like to be doing - or enough to be comfortable financially.

But, I am finally sleeping well.

and that’s more important to me than anything.