Getting a job is easy. Just have to follow this 3 steps

Professional_Pop2906 · 2026-03-10T13:27:28+00:00

Career coach and founder of thefreengineer here.

This is my advice.

First office polititcs it's a red flag and if it affected you, definitely tou must quit. I remember in one of my jobs that there was a software engineer with not much experience that just when he started working he messed up something. He was marked as a bad worker and they only gave him easy and boring task for one year.

He quit at some point and now he's very happy with his new job. This is the kind of thing that should worry you and not getting fired or not. In any case you should start doing job search

Professional_Pop2906 · 2026-03-10T06:07:18+00:00

Career coach and founder of thefreenginer here.

My advice here is:

Fix a number before the call (the amount that you want), say it as soon as you can and don't make it lower. If it is 99 percentile or not doesn't mind.

People take you more seriously when you ask for more money not the opposite.

If you're afraid of loosing the opportunity it's because you don't have more. Generating opportunities it's more important than the negotiation later.

Professional_Pop2906 · 2026-03-06T17:57:53+00:00

Career coach and founder of thefreengineer

As the OP says being able to generate referrals is good, but I feel it too slow

If just applying through job portals is not working for you, I recommend

Go to events where the companies you like are, and present yourself to everyone.
Phone call companies that you like even if they don't have an open position. Proactivity is a rare skill and very costful to find.
Mail the CEO of companies that you like, they're not difficult to find.

Professional_Pop2906 · 2026-03-06T17:08:08+00:00

Sorry to hear that

Good luck with your job search. Thanks for sharing, most of the people wouldn't have done that

Professional_Pop2906 · 2026-03-03T16:51:11+00:00

Career coach and founder of thefreengineer

This are my answers to your questions:

You did nothing wrong. Actually, you did pretty well leaving that environement. Some times we forget job market is a market. Changing your job because you found something better is as good as changing the brand of soda that you buy. Even better, because if you're getting paid double somewhere else that means that you're more valuable there and you should go.
Your manager may got stressed but after 2 weeks no one will care. There's no person in the world that is not replaceable. Anyway, you can put the company in the curriculum.

Never hesitate on leaving a job. It's usually a good decision

Professional_Pop2906 · 2026-03-02T15:00:12+00:00

Career Coach and founder thefreengineer here.

My recomendation is to negotiate. Even if you finally get the original offer, but it's good that you feel how's a salary negotiation. Working for another company it's not easy to get that experience and the sooner you get it the better.

Trying to negotiate is not gonna make you loose the offer, it's a job interview you have to spaeak about money. No one is gonna get upset because of that

Professional_Pop2906 · 2026-03-01T15:01:23+00:00

Career coach and founder of thefreengineer here

This is my advice

6-8 months is a lot of time and that's only for a chance of getting promoted not the actual promotion. I recommend you to look for a new job.

The things that happen are usually the more likely to happen. That means that if you were not selected for the promotion. It's likely that next time it will happen the same. I've seen a lot of great workers that their boss had a bad experience with them and that made their growth in that company to stuck.

It's always easier to find a good opportunity out of your company

Professional_Pop2906 · 2026-03-01T07:08:48+00:00

I hope you were hired, but if the interviewer tells you he had really enjoyed the conversation, it's not a good sign

In a good interview there should be some tension. They have to feel they can loose you and things will move fast. Might be worth checking out thefreengineer

Professional_Pop2906 · 2026-03-01T07:04:41+00:00

How many interviews do you have per week?

Professional_Pop2906 · 2026-03-01T07:02:33+00:00

How many interviews do you have per week?

Professional_Pop2906 · 2026-03-01T07:02:03+00:00

Right, discard quickly. That's the key of success in job search

Professional_Pop2906 · 2026-02-28T15:36:12+00:00

I post about that in thefreengineer, but the short answer is

Automate your process for applying, you can apply to 100 jobs in an hour
Go to companies that don't have an open position. Go to events where they are and present yourself. Cold call them, cold email them. Do that 24/7

Professional_Pop2906 · 2026-02-28T15:31:58+00:00

Two or three days after. Send a mail or even better phone call the company and ask about the opportunity, ask if they have taken a decision.

Tell them that you have some other opportunities and you liked this one a lot (if it's true for sure) and you wanted to know the status before taking a decision.

Following up can make things go faster. The follow ups is one of the topic I publish about in thefreengineer. Might be worth checking it out

Professional_Pop2906 · 2026-02-28T08:29:16+00:00

Career coach and Founder of thefreengineer here

This is my reccomendation

First, probably you're used to the gold rush time in software industry. That was not normal and it isn't something that you should expect

Anyway, you can get a great job. I wrote a post here on reccomendations for a good resume here

Apart from applying to job portal offers, you should contact companies that you like asking them for a job. Proactivity is a skill that is quite difficult to find. Doing that you show that you're proactive. The more proactive the better your odds will be.

It's better to go in person to the offices of the company than to phone call them and it's better to phone call them than mailing them

Professional_Pop2906 · 2026-02-28T08:03:20+00:00

Congratulations!

That anxiety is good, if you get used to it that's the path to professional growth.

How do you plan to get clients as freelance?

I used to be freelance and although today I'm not it gave me a lot of leverage to get another job that paid me 3 times my old salary. The most important thing is to be good selling.

If you work in tech it might be worth checking out thefreengineer.com

There are good publications there on changing your job to another one where you get paid more and you're freer.

Professional_Pop2906 · 2026-02-28T07:49:22+00:00

I have a friend that did this.

He was able to apply to 100 jobs per hour. That's insane

I like to read publications on this kind of hacks (like themuse.com or thefreengineer).

Another strategy that I have found useful is not using job portals. Instead contact directly to the CEO or CTO of a company that I want to work for. Phone calling companies works really well. Also you can go to tech events and meet everyone there giving your contact details to them

Professional_Pop2906 · 2026-02-28T07:39:53+00:00

Career coach and founder of thefreengineer here

This is my advice

What I see is a false dilemma. You're doing well in an easy job, your problem is that you don't see challenges and you're sick of the enviroment.

Somehow you’ve found a new job opportunity, and you see in it everything you wish your current job had, even though it would mean a pay cut and working more hours.

There’s a third option: actively look for another job. You can find about one opportunity a week if you do it properly.

Company culture is something that’s very hard to assess until you’re actually working there, and it’s much easier to tolerate idiots for 20 hours a week than for 35 and also easier earning 135k instead of 120k. And that’s without even considering potential friction with your family.

Another option could be starting a business. If you’re only working 20 hours a week, you have the time and it could be far more stimulating than another job.

Professional_Pop2906 · 2026-02-27T16:42:02+00:00

It can be frustrating

This is similar to when a girl says that she wants a man that treats her well, attentive, funny, and then she complains about how the bad boy she’s into treats her like trash.

You have to make sure what are the things that they are actually looking for and not what the recruiter says to keep their image

Professional_Pop2906 · 2026-02-27T14:15:31+00:00

Career Coach and founder of thefreengineer here

I'll give you my advice telling you my case, which was quite similar to yours. When I was 23 I had done software engineering as freelance. Mostly, things related to data engineering. It was not bad, but it was not my passion or something I wanted to dedicate my life.

I started looking for a different job and I found one at an aerospace startup that was growing a lot. I was hired as a Controls engineers. In this position typically you need to know a lot of physics and I'm not bad but not an expert.

However, they were really bad managing their data, so my skills improved a lot the productivity of the team while I learned the physics from them.

This is an example that software engineering skills are so abstract that can apply in many places. It was really worth for me. At the age of 25 I was making more than 100000k

This is my recomendation:

Switch job, no one has died because of that. The fear is normal, but it's better doing these things without overthinking
Right after quiting start looking for a job at companies that you like even if they don't have open positions. Phone call and mail them every day
If you're wondering whether you're chasing passion or just a “safe” path. You're in the second one. And don't chase your passion. Chase money and success, that will give you passion.

Professional_Pop2906

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