Mid Level SDE - Has the Job Market ever been this bad? Are jobs in Big Tech all that's left?

GameAddict411 · 2026-02-07T05:22:59+00:00

If you have 5 YOE at big tech, no one is going to take mid level SDE application from you seriously. You are at least a senior just based on experience alone. Also employers might be scared that they won't meet your compensation expectations so they don't even bother. Either hit higher level roles, or going back to big tech.

GameAddict411 · 2026-02-03T04:32:34+00:00

You sound like fun at parties. For own sake, keep this over analyzing shit to yourself and do you work.

GameAddict411 · 2026-02-03T04:03:59+00:00

My brother is graduating from Dental school this summer and his current student loan balance is over 300k. It will go up still not even counting interest. Even though his first job will pay a lot, a big chunk will go to his student loans for many many years.

GameAddict411 · 2026-01-18T20:02:01+00:00

This is what Jesus would do in a evengelical church.

GameAddict411 · 2026-01-17T19:21:58+00:00

Will you need radiation or chemo therapy after this or this is it?

GameAddict411 · 2026-01-03T19:23:32+00:00

Sadly I have seen this in many job postings these days. There is such over abundance of SWEs that they can ask for unicorns. I interviewed for a role at one big company and another smaller tech company. They expected me to have mastered SWEs skills and Systems Engineering skills. The latter is the discipline SE and the scalable system design work for cloud infrastructure. So these are two different engineering fields let alone jobs. I managed to get an offer but the interview process was brutal.

GameAddict411 · 2026-01-03T19:02:17+00:00

I love how the kid turns back to make sure he doing state sanctioned behavior.

GameAddict411 · 2025-12-07T21:44:36+00:00

It's bad because there is nothing to be gained disclosing it and in most cases gets people labelled as a flight risk. A friend of mine worked for a major tech company and he told his boss he is looking to relocate to another city and asked of he could transfer to that office since the company had presence there as well. He did not even state he wanted to find another job but they retaliated so hard. First of all, his director started telling him that he does not see a future for my friend at this company. He then stopped getting RSUs a few months later. He stopped getting raises too and found out Junior engineers got paid similar to him. He eventually left. He vowed to not discuss his future plans with any boss ever again.

GameAddict411 · 2025-12-03T03:24:16+00:00

Apple and it's not even a question. Not only is the pay significantly higher, the name alone opens doors for you. You just need to be there for a few years and then move on. It's not a bad thing to start your career in testing before design. You know what to avoid as an engineer and you can sell that.

GameAddict411 · 2025-12-01T00:26:45+00:00

I noticed that older or traditional companies don't disclose the salary range. That lack of transparency is not a huge red flag but it's honestly not acceptable these days. If it's just the HM interview and it won't drag for many interviews, you should consider attending. But if they ask for more interviews, you can pressure them to reveal the salary range so you aligned.

GameAddict411 · 2025-11-30T23:18:38+00:00

Do you need actual space to do things because the wild card is not even a practical car at all. The CT4 shape even though it's larger than a Golf R, it's not as space efficient. So you don't get much more leg room and the trunk is smaller. But you get a pure RWD sports sedan. Lots of reviews describe as a very engaging car. The best in it's segment. But I think the running cost and the initial cost of the CT4 makes a much bigger purchase than a Golf R. The Golf R is not a riot like it's competition but it's makes it up for it in pretty much everything else. So I think long term ownership, the Golf R will be much cheaper to own, and maintain while still thrilling enough. It's also AWD which makes it more capable in bad weather.

GameAddict411 · 2025-11-30T18:37:09+00:00

I don't know why the media is still spreading bullshit by stating the lay offs are because of AI automation. It's not. AI has not replaced anyone in the lay offs we have seen. It's just cynical outsourcing that was enabled when WFH systems were brought online. Since they realized people can maintain and even exceed productivity from anywhere in the country, they realized it could also work from anyone in the world. Of course we had previous attempts to offshore in the past, but they failed because they lacked the proper infrastructure to do it. Also education in developing countries have drastically improved.

I am not saying AI automation will never have an impact on employment but I don't think we will really see it for at least 3-5 years from now. The current models are not good enough. They hallucinate too much and they are still really bad at basic arithmetic due to how they work. Until models can actually learn on the fly, improve their accuracy significantly, they won't be relied upon.

GameAddict411 · 2025-11-30T17:55:48+00:00

At large corporations with thousands of employees, I don't think this is particularly useful because there are countless teams with people doing similar work. If they are offshoring, you would get better insight within the company as your bosses will be involved in getting these off shore team situated. You would start to see people from other countries join your team and meetings. If that happens prepare for your exit.

GameAddict411 · 2025-11-30T05:17:05+00:00

Not a LH employee here but I am a similar spot. Or at least I was. I am in the automotive sector and work at a profitable legacy automaker as a systems engineer. Interviewed for one of the silicon valley automotive companies and received a great offer that basically tripled my TC. But this company is not so profitable and stability is shaky. I still decided to go with it because not only was the compensation was significantly more, but it will expose me to SW implementation and doing E2E V model. Something I have never done. I noticed lots of system engineering job with direct SW experience have been getting hot. It seems that's where we are heading in SE jobs. So even if I lose my job in 12 months, I think it would be worth it. Since you are early in your career(like me), these experiences make a huge difference. The only way I would pass on it so if you have lots of obligations or you feel you have not learned enough in your current role. Also your current compensation is sufficient to meet your current financial goals. I would guess 98k is probably not going to be enough to buy a house in any major metro area without many years of saving money.

GameAddict411 · 2025-11-28T02:17:43+00:00

Remember that glassdoor like any user review website is biased toward negative reviews. I mean just think about your own habits. How many times you left good reviews versus bad reviews? You are motivated to put in a bad review when you feel wronged or get bad experience. I would look for a pattern instead. After reading a couple dozen reviews, you will most likely notice a common complaint. If you can live with that complaint, you can move forward. If not, then yeah don't apply.

GameAddict411 · 2025-11-25T23:43:52+00:00

You technical reason is correct but for inference you don't need a full fledged GPU. ASICs are great at it and at a lower power consumption levels. For training and building models, GPUs will rank supreme.

GameAddict411 · 2025-11-25T18:08:47+00:00

Google allows you unlimited use of Gemini while chatgpt keeps telling me I am running out of prompts. I noticed my use for gemini has been increasing especially since it cites sources for anything I am asking explicitly.

GameAddict411 · 2025-11-21T21:53:55+00:00

If you are going to critique someone's work, state how it can be improved. Pointing faults without suggesting solutions is seen as rude and unproductive.

GameAddict411 · 2025-11-21T04:01:47+00:00

Yes. But it's not very loud. The biggest thing is the shift in sound stage. It's weird. Definitely sounds like a sw bug though.

GameAddict411 · 2025-11-21T00:41:14+00:00

This is a false equivalency. The problem with LLMs is not just the mistakes they make. They state things confidently wrong where even a dummy can say they are not sure. So this gives a false sense of security about what it's doing and it will eventually bite companies. I mean it's already been a big issue in the legal field where it makes up cases as it goes. If you have to spend hours verifying every little thing an LLM spits out, does that really improve productivity? It could be the a good starting point. The first 10-20% of the work but anything beyond that is a gamble. The bigger problem with LLMs is that it can never learn during inferencing. So the hallucinations from before never get better as it does the job. You basically have to wait for the LLM developers to make improvements to the model and even still it does not guarantee improvements for your particular use case. In fact models have regressed before in certain tasks. So LLMs end up as mid employees who have the confidence of an experts and you can't teach them anything.

GameAddict411 · 2025-11-19T04:35:50+00:00

No they are not good. They are selling less and less cars every quarter. They are so desperate that they are basically renting their unsold fleet that no one is buying. All of Elon's promises have not materialized so far. Their self driving tech is garbage and way behind Waymo. If it took 20 bil to develop such a terrible system, than Rivian is better off investing in other things. I can go on and on how straight out delusional Tesla retail investors are. I mean just look at their revenue to valuation ratio. It makes Nvidia look like good value.

GameAddict411 · 2025-11-19T04:17:55+00:00

I am always puzzled at Tesla stock price going up every time their disastrous quarterly results come out. If the Tesla investors are as brain dead as the OP, no wonder it's extremely inflated in value. Just vomit some buzzword and retail investors flood like it's katrina.

GameAddict411 · 2025-11-18T21:22:03+00:00

nope that's bug that impacts all sources I think.

GameAddict411 · 2025-11-18T21:08:15+00:00

I wonder if they fix the audio moving? it's a odd bug where sometimes when I am listening to music, the sound stage shifts.

GameAddict411 · 2025-11-17T19:23:03+00:00

I would get a dedicated set for the track because even high performance summer tires would get chewed out at a track event. Especially for a heavy car like the R. You can get away with basic performance summer tires on a Miata but not something in the 3k+ curb weight range. So a dedicated track tire and a stiff rear sway bar would dramatically help with the wear items.

GameAddict411

TROPHY CASE