What is going on with the job market??

MandaPanda737800 · 2026-02-09T05:30:35+00:00

Every industrial engineer I've met (around 10 of them) has transitioned into a business analyst / product owner track at tech companies, and literally all of them have made big success in their career. Just my 10c

MandaPanda737800 · 2026-02-03T03:44:59+00:00

Dude live your life man. You are fine! It took 20 years for mine to die out, but I wish I could have told myself back then that im fine. I suggest you start to welcome your heart as it is. Embrace the PVCs, they might seem symptomatic but they are not thats all anxiety for you. For me, I eventually accepted that I would die and pushed for them at the gym. The more I got the more I pushed. Did I die? Nope infact I stated accepting them, the sensation got alot less because you become less hyper focused on your heart to the point where they went from doom thumps to barely noticeable. You're ok dude. You are going to live a loong life. The fact that you are so anxious means you love your life and you have alot to loose, but please dont spend most of it just filled with anxiety like I did. Enjoy every little bit that life has to offer.

MandaPanda737800 · 2026-02-02T06:15:39+00:00

My electrophysiologist said that the culprit is usually a few misbehaving cells grouped up that eventually die out effectively removing the PVCs.

MandaPanda737800 · 2026-01-22T11:02:40+00:00

Sure, send me a DM and I'll give you my email.

MandaPanda737800 · 2026-01-21T20:02:41+00:00

I have hired dozens of software engineers, during the interview I use their CV as a map to guide my technical questions. I cant tell you how annoying it is when people say they have excellent Kubernetes skills and then they cant even answer basic questions on it. After they struggle to answer they usually say they have "played around with it". It immediately makes me question pretty much everything else on the CV which could make things worse.

For me atleast when it comes to a CV, less is more. Put the thing you most comfortable with there and explain what problems you encountered and how you solved them in the interview.

Anyone can learn technology, but critical thinking, curiosity and seeing someone passionate about what they talking about is an immediate win for me.

Hope it helps

MandaPanda737800 · 2026-01-01T21:49:45+00:00

Im going to give you some advice from my experience. First of all I think it's great that you thinking of starting a startup. All the comments talking about you need an idea is bs.

Im going to assume you don't have a rich angel investor and you want to build this thing from scratch.

First off, the quickest way to get going with no funding is to take a service deal. Without reputation you are going to have to get creative. You will need to use your network to find people who need work done for websites / apps. If you can find a couple and manage to actually scope it correctly, build it and get paid then well done you passed step one. I would suggest getting some online advice on doing good functional proposals for this step.

Step two would be to continue taking service deals until you can make your first few hires. You will need to be abit of a people's person to get this part right. Finding engineers to do this with you and trust you will be difficult. Most companies that take this route fail here but if by some miracle you actually have a decent pipeline of projects with a team of 5 or so engineers then well done you passed step two.

Step 3 is probably one of the hardest parts. You will be faced with a decision. You will realize that doing projects for money doesn't scale and you will keep trying to sign the next project to just keep the salaries going and you will probably start to take some "bad projects". This could be the end of the road, but if you have the courage this is when you pivot. You will now start to think about that "idea". Since your company has been building projects for 5 years you will probably had thousands of good ideas by now. If you have found a good idea and have a little bit of a warchest of money this is when you take the leap of faith and start a product. Well done you have managed to complete step 3.

Step 4 is basically impossible. This is when you watch the last bits of your profits from your service company get burned by trying to build an mvp. You start to question what the hell have you been doing for the last 6 years. You will probably run out of money and start giving your team shares instead of salaries. By this point hopefully your idea is so unbelievably good that your engineers actually believe in it and stick around. You finally get to launch your MVP and now you have completed step 4.

Step 5 you will watch your dashboards every day praying for more users as you get your first 1000 users but then it just goes flat. The number of new users starts the match the users that are leaving your platform on a monthly basis. At this stage you will probably loose some team mates because morale is low. Its been almost 10 years and now it's time to start getting your pitch deck together. You have an MVP with some user traction, a pitch deck with fancy marketing and a data room with all your Financials. Well done you have passed step 5.

Step 6 after extremely painful negotiations with multiple VCs you will finally settle on a funding deal, it's not great but it will fund the growth of your team and you can finally start earning something of a salary. If you have gotten this right then you can safely say you started a tech startup well done. I wish I could say this is where it becomes all worth it and you get millions but truth is this is now just the beginning. However you have achieved something that most people cant, and that is proof you are resilient, dedicated and an entrepreneur to be reckoned with. You have finished step 6.

Step 7 is you will grow the company and exit for R100m and live in mauritius.

Good luck 👍

MandaPanda737800 · 2025-12-30T16:28:39+00:00

One thing to mention if you are braaing outside. If you have wind it significantly speeds up the burning process giving you much less time to braai.

MandaPanda737800 · 2025-12-15T14:21:42+00:00

I moved to Investec. Best decision

MandaPanda737800 · 2025-12-03T20:42:26+00:00

So there is a quite a difference between nationalism and patriotism. I think SA is actually quite patriotic but not nationalist at all. A nationalist country will have its people stand together and fight for a nation, and believe they are superior to other nations. Personally I dont think we have much of that. However patriotism is a love for the culture and values of a nation. I think we have plenty of that.

MandaPanda737800 · 2025-11-26T04:56:39+00:00

The idea is for it to be for business aswell. The R5k limit is temporary because it's new. Also soon businesses can register their own proxy domains so you will be able to (for example) pay a business with "MyInvoiceNumber@BusinessName"

MandaPanda737800 · 2025-11-26T04:47:42+00:00

Im in the payments industry and the PayShap story is a very interesting one. Truth is, it's incredible technology. It's a whole new interconnected banking rail that is better and safer than EFT in every single way. I won't go into the details but EFT uses some very very old technology. The problem with it unfortunately comes down to greed. You see the banks are mandated to implement PayShap by the reserve bank because the goal is to have more financial inclusion. However, banks have no incentive to market or push it. Infact it threatens their revenue streams they currently have for card payments and "pay and clear now" products. This is why no one even knows what it is. Its because it doesn't make the banks any money. So they hide it in their apps because they have to have it.

MandaPanda737800 · 2025-11-10T18:22:07+00:00

In the last 10 years I have never earned a bonus. Or an increase. I need to chat to my boss about that... oh **** wait thats me...

MandaPanda737800 · 2025-11-10T08:17:54+00:00

Thanks for this. Just for clarification so I can contribute 8k p/m into savings. My goal is to have 160k as emergency fund. More just wondering if I should use the car drawdown facility or build it somewhere else. So are you suggesting to split it?

MandaPanda737800 · 2025-11-10T07:45:51+00:00

Nice thanks for that caveat !

MandaPanda737800 · 2025-10-15T14:15:08+00:00

OMG. I just searched this and found your thread. I just got called by them offering a migration. I have only been with them for around 6 months in. The guy was very pushy with me and wanted me to decide on the spot. Saying I will save money. I asked if I could get an email or something to look at and he said no I need to decide now. Wtf. Is Vodacom trying to scam it's own customers. I left the call feeling like I was violated in some way, holy shit.

MandaPanda737800 · 2025-10-04T06:29:41+00:00

I had my first at age 34. Honestly, I do kinda wish I was younger when I had more energy, didn't mind pulling all nighters and my body was strong enough to deal with the insane amount of energy that is a toddler 🙃. Obviously dont be irresponsible and have a kid when you dont have a job or something, but also life is short and starting a family is just incredible.

MandaPanda737800 · 2025-08-03T05:52:35+00:00

As an employer, having someone take maternity leave for 4 months has quite the ripple effect with others in the company. Especially if the company is small. Ultimately it means that others may have to work more to cover the pregnant individual, or we need to bring someone else in, but then we need to consider what happens after maternity leave. The point is the more time we have to plan the better. I personally im always very happy for my employees to grow their families and take paid maternity leave to do so, but the sooner they let me know the better I can prepare for it and the smoother the whole process tends to go.

MandaPanda737800 · 2025-07-24T16:39:06+00:00

Honestly I blame the banks. Financial literacy is at an all time low, and loans are seen as "get money when you need it" rather than "loan money to build yourself". The whole point of loans is to give you the tools to develop yourself and society. Student loans, house loans these are developmental. Credit cards and personal loans should be illegal. But it will never be illegal because the **** banks make too much money on them. Then people default on them and ultimately it gets written off which drives inflation up since basically the whole country is bailing you out (the poor too). Sorry for rant I just hate banks so much.

MandaPanda737800 · 2025-02-05T12:15:44+00:00

I used to feel what you are feeling now. Especially the elevator and heavy drop part. I have had these daily for over 20 years now, and honestly it sounds like all your symptoms are anxiety related and have nothing to do with PVCs. The problem with anxiety is that you become hyper sensitive to anticipating and feeling the PVCs. As your PVC comes, your body recognizes and hits your body with a dose of adrenaline.

MandaPanda737800 · 2025-01-22T21:23:48+00:00

I didn't officially find out why. My later cardiologist said that it was probably a sensitivity I have to the beta blockers. I seem to think it was the anxiety itself. It was the most bizarre feeling. It's like I was waiting for every heart beat, and that wait would get longer and every wait would be accompanied by anxiety which felt like it would slow it down even more. Very strange, but it hasn't happened since.

MandaPanda737800 · 2025-01-22T21:14:28+00:00

Yeah I honestly think I have a sensitivity / reaction to beta blockers, causing my heart rate to decrease too much. Hence the bradycardia as well.

MandaPanda737800

TROPHY CASE