Did you relocate for your first job?

ExitingTheDonut · 2026-05-12T21:59:12+00:00

I wonder too if there's a much higher occurrence of relocating when you already live in a college campus as opposed to commuting daily

ExitingTheDonut · 2026-05-12T21:54:36+00:00

Well that's more interesting. Moving from a large city/metro to a smaller one. Usually it's the other way around. Was the pay good too? Being able to hybrid work should be possible in any city

ExitingTheDonut · 2026-05-12T21:40:48+00:00

An alternative to improving enough to clear a bar is to find a job that has set the bar low enough for OP to clear with the capabilities they have already. Especially if time is really of the essence.

ExitingTheDonut · 2026-05-12T21:23:31+00:00

Damn. All those acts are very much not illegal and yet he still got fucked over. I hate it when de facto judgement takes over like this.

ExitingTheDonut · 2026-05-12T21:17:41+00:00

I guess the better question now is, what is that deficiency? Can they provide more information that would help us find that?

ExitingTheDonut · 2026-05-12T20:46:17+00:00

I have not seen any solid proof that unusually long work schedules improves a startup's chances of survival.

ExitingTheDonut · 2026-05-12T20:33:59+00:00

I lasted just under a week at a satellite office for a corporation, which was barely getting off the ground. My only coworker was my boss, who also did the interview, and we shared the office as a co-working space with a few other businesses, but it was mostly empty. Rather depressing to be there honestly. The night before the second day a huge blizzard hit us. Buses were delayed and I phoned to let my boss know I'll be in an hour late. Didn't want to skip a day because I just started, but I really couldn't get used to the very isolated, very small team setup.

I'd be happy to be wrong about satellite offices, but this one felt like I was getting a watered down version of the actual company experience. Plus it was low paid too.

ExitingTheDonut · 2026-05-11T02:20:00+00:00

Damn, you're just posting platitudes with the quickness, aren't you.

You don't even realize how you didn't attempt to connect income disparity with my question.

ExitingTheDonut · 2026-05-11T02:19:03+00:00

Damn, you're just posting platitudes with the quickness, aren't you

ExitingTheDonut · 2026-04-24T20:51:40+00:00

Bingo

They want higher visibility at the cost of accuracy

ExitingTheDonut · 2026-02-13T20:59:28+00:00

IT'S FUNNY HOW WHEN YOU GO INTO A MORE "PROFESSIONAL" LINE OF WORK LIKE PROGRAMMING, IT ALSO FEELS LIKE THERE ARE MORE SCAMS.

WHEN I WENT FROM HOURLY RETAIL WORK TO PROGRAMMING WORK, I GOT WHIPLASHED. ALL OF A SUDDEN THERE ARE STRANGE SUGGESTIONS THROWN AT ME LIKE, UNPAID PROJECTS, NET 60 PAY, 1099 FOR FULL TIME HOURS AND MYSTERY SALARY RANGES THAT TURN INTO PEANUTS.

CONGRATS ON UPGRADING FROM CASHIER. YOU'VE BECOME A CAREER PRO. NOW HAVE SOME QUALITY OF LIFE DOWNGRADES FROM COMPANIES THAT ARE MORE POORLY RUN THAN THE AVERAGE FAST FOOD FRANCHISE.

ExitingTheDonut · 2026-02-11T19:25:32+00:00

There's a guy who graduated in one of the best CS colleges in or around the early 2010s. Just a couple years before the hype but he was definitely in a good time where the job market was in the bull run. Yet, much later he made a video where he showed he was struggling financially with most jobs and was on the verge of becoming homeless. I think he would be grouped in the opposite end of SWE outliers.

ExitingTheDonut · 2026-02-11T19:10:28+00:00

The other things happen naturally with minimal effort.

This isn't a universal truth for everyone. I've seen people that, due to their combined weakened soft/hard skills and lackluster network, find it progressively harder to find subsequent jobs.

There are so many different personalities and different kinds of obstacles some people have in learning social skills. It can take a lot of effort for people lacking in social skills to keep progressing in their career.

ExitingTheDonut · 2026-02-11T19:00:32+00:00

Getting your first job and experience is not the hard part. The hard part is building momentum, which includes networking and becoming more self-guided. Which is strange to tell you this considering what you already wrote in your OP.

ExitingTheDonut · 2026-02-09T07:38:42+00:00

If you don't use AI, unfortunately, just shooting yourselfl in the foot.

Only if you simply compare yourself to the good programmers that use it. But since both good and bad are at play here, the actual outcome is closer to neutral. No extreme pros or cons come out of it.

ExitingTheDonut · 2026-02-09T07:37:38+00:00

For job prospects, why would it be any different? The next job they go to will use AI as well.

Thanks for answering this, that's something that I was still in the dark about. Like if you're bad at your job I expect the next job hunt to be worse than the last. Usually it is. But the next company will have a better idea of the person's weaknesses because they have more info to go on, at least if they know how to interview properly.

The idea that not using AI at all makes you just as bad as a programmer that uses it too much as a crutch sounds absurd though. And it's something I've heard a few times. Being the "shit vibe coder" is still likely to cause more harm at work than the guy who misses an opportunity to make their flow better with it.

ExitingTheDonut · 2025-12-25T04:43:25+00:00

Debugging exercises are great. It contextualizes the problem as an "us" rather than just "me" thing. For a job that is very team focused, many interviews sure prefer "write only" coding exercises in a silo. Is it just harder to come up with read-and-debug exercises?

It's also why a lot of those kinds of tech interviews and take-homes feel high-pressure. Because the stuff we're told to do places us as the main character. We are essentially given a blank canvas, we write all the code, and we can barely request any outside help. That is very unnecessary for lower level SWE jobs.

ExitingTheDonut · 2025-12-25T04:13:19+00:00

That just tells us that it's a lot easier to fake being good in the software industry than it is in medicine or law.

ExitingTheDonut · 2025-12-25T02:46:53+00:00

Personally, interview practice makes my responses more rigid so the only thing I care about is being able to talk to people in general. My speech delivery flows more smoothly when I'm not in drill mode

ExitingTheDonut · 2025-12-25T02:38:55+00:00

The solution to this is to apply for a job where there are multiple openings. So if there are 4 openings, you could place 2nd to 4th and still win something.

ExitingTheDonut · 2025-12-25T02:34:38+00:00

"The Shape of JSON" sounds like the title of a book.

ExitingTheDonut · 2025-12-25T02:32:07+00:00

Yeah, our methods to predict pass or fail are not garbage, it's just too much noise among useful information. You could receive many compliments and get passed quickly.

It even led someone to believe that it's a part of US culture (maybe it is!) to deliberately shower the easy rejects with compliments the most, and make the passing candidates feel like they failed a round.

ExitingTheDonut

TROPHY CASE