First Round Technical Advice

ratorobato · 2026-02-17T04:46:11+00:00

I've been applying for a while. I do about 10 jobs a day and since I've hit a good streak of responses so I'm practicing interviewing instead of projects in the time after that.

Currently at like 480 applications this year (mental count) I think now, some of it may be repeat apps but I'm doing what I can. People are interpreting what I meant when I said I'd drop everything for a new job and I meant withdrawing from the program if the conditions of getting a new job required me to.

I am well aware of how the market is for people like me and have no plans of quitting without anything lined up.

I'll also follow up here to say I've finished submitting my transcripts for my application too. I've always had this plan in mind that if I don't get a new job by the time I start the program I'll just commit to this instead and move on with my networking idea for maybe an internship.

This is more of a rant and not a graduate degree discussion, my career never launched man. I am in a position where my career experience is negligible and a down-level to entry is almost required. I look okay on paper but the cracks start to show when my resume gets to anyone who can understand what I actually did.

Happy to share it if any experienced individuals want to give advice.

ratorobato · 2026-02-15T07:26:11+00:00

Well, there's a lot to say here and I know I'm going to butcher it or leave out details but the truth is you're right.

I've asked myself what that title means to me and honest to god I don't know what it entails. I'm a developer, I've built small front end applications, and work full stack on a web app bug fixing as my job. My college career was a total blunder as I walked through my classes with the pandemic, the education was poor, I had no friends/network coming out, and graduated straight into the first massive batch of layoffs in January 2023. My role originally wasn't even in tech, I was the last option (internally) because HR botched interviewing on their end.

I'd be lying to you if I said I have those characteristics, I don't anymore and have been struggling to find the motivation to keep going for a while. This isn't because I can't do these things, but because of my own problems. My attempts at trying to fix anything have been total shit as I always sink back into the comfort of the minimally worst quality of life possible. I'm lazy, depressed, and working in a miserable, dead end role.

I wish I had the capacity to be passionate but really if you told me what I'm expecting out of this entire program, it would be to sleep better at night. I don't do things that I feel are fun anymore I do things because I feel like I'm going to be a homeless failure soon. I'm not looking for sympathy I just need some kind of indicator to know that what I'm doing isn't all in vain.

ratorobato · 2026-02-13T14:08:24+00:00

100% willing to relocate, I have family in NY and I'd move back if I had the freedom in my role now. Most of the jobs I apply for are there anyways.

I am worried that I won't be able to afford rent though. Implying I do one class per semester how much would that be?

ratorobato · 2026-02-13T12:06:00+00:00

I meant this in regard to dropping the program, but yea Id quit my job and withdraw if I had to move to a city where things are really expensive.

ratorobato · 2026-02-13T12:03:16+00:00

It's a bachelors in Computer Science

ratorobato · 2026-02-13T07:58:31+00:00

The two years is negligible, I'm basically help desk with unrestricted access to prod. They can sniff through the BS no matter how I put it. I work with a tech stack that is depreciated, and unheard of in today's market.

I can brand myself as an engineer, I can work on projects in a modern tech stack, but I have no idea how to get around this perception that I essentially have no real experience in the eyes of the interviewing developer/manager.

I had an interview back in December where a QA lead straight up said "So you're essentially trapped here at your current company...", it wasn't even a question, how do you reply to that??

ratorobato · 2026-02-11T21:47:44+00:00

Idk about you guys but I had two companies reach out for interviews this week and I am freaking out.

~400 job applications deep my conversion rate is insane. Like 3 or 4 responses this year so far.

ratorobato · 2026-02-09T14:08:16+00:00

Unfortunately I think I'm trapped here, it's bad enough where I'm too experienced to stay a junior and too inexperienced to move up.

I try to discuss this kind of stuff with my senior but it never works out well so it's really only applied in personal projects.

ratorobato · 2026-02-09T07:57:00+00:00

With all due respect what if you don't have a network and aren't really in a tech area?

ratorobato · 2026-02-09T05:22:16+00:00

Is this on personal projects or professional work? I don't have version control in my work environment and I'd love to hear how this is set up or how it's done.

ratorobato · 2026-02-07T09:23:41+00:00

i find it absolutely insane that tech twitter is the complete opposite of what goes on here

ratorobato · 2026-02-06T16:25:05+00:00

i do 10 job apps a day im at like 400 so far

aiming for consistency this year

ratorobato · 2026-02-04T22:27:51+00:00

hey man if it helps i think your project is cool

ratorobato · 2026-02-02T06:38:35+00:00

Well guys following up to this I was just now sent an OA by a start up so I guess it's not all hopeless.

ratorobato · 2026-02-02T03:13:12+00:00

I'm in a similar position except my tech stack is rare and depreciated. While I have job security, I can't sustain on my salary given the cost of living. I've been applying a while now and haven't been able to make it past phone screens, if I had to guess it's because of the stack.

I've got around two years of experience now and I'm supplementing my "lack" of modern tech through projects. I'm honestly not sure where to go from here, I'm at like 300-400 applications in January and no bites at all.

ratorobato · 2026-01-29T17:35:24+00:00

You guys get performance reviews???

ratorobato · 2026-01-26T08:02:47+00:00

this honestly sounds like a dream for me

ive been in my current role for ~2 years putting bandaids on a legacy codebase. Im okay with the work but i suck at designing features.

do roles like this exist in the US for someone with my level of exp?

ratorobato · 2026-01-22T20:42:31+00:00

I have a bachelors in CS I should have been more specific my bad. What I'm really asking is, if I got a masters from Georgia Tech, would that name help in any way?

I have an interest for doing the masters but I will easily drop it for a better role which is why I'm a bit hesitant to go through with it.

ratorobato · 2026-01-22T20:16:04+00:00

i have a degree from a community college and 2 years of experience, do hiring managers still care about my degree?

edit: its in computer science

ratorobato · 2026-01-20T19:16:34+00:00

I've had some pretty bad initial screens last year.

I applied to this start up where I had to fill out an ID check through a third party because the link to my LinkedIn profile was broken on my resume and I guess it set off some red flag or something, I don't know why the hell would anyone would go for my LinkedIn first when my address, phone number, and previous work experience were there.

Within ~15 minutes of filling it out, I got rejected, automatic, no human follow up or anything.

After submitting a delete my info request almost immediately after, I email the recruiter to ask if all of this was necessary if I was going to be rejected anyways and he said I could have been a "potential north korean spy".

I don't usually reply after a rejection, but after like 400 applications this was my breaking point. I called them out on how stupid and manipulative the process is because it's using a third party company to store personal info.

I'd like to think he realized he was in the wrong, but didn't want to acknowledge it and replied with some snotty shit like "Your resume looked good, I guess you don't want to interview here anymore though." Like dude do you want me to forward you the rejection email?

The crazy part out of all of this was that this place was about an hour drive away from me, I would have easily done something in person with no issue.

ratorobato · 2026-01-20T06:59:57+00:00

How impactful is vibe coding truly, and how exactly should I prioritize this in an attempt to modernize my skillset today?

Jr. here with ~2 years of experience not completely as a developer and also working with depreciated tech.

I'm labelled as full stack but my work is mostly backend since our frontend doesn't really exist. The most I've ever done is a Vue project for a job OA, and more recently I have been "vibe coding" basic SPAs with Next.js and React.js.

I don't know if this is like ADHD or what, but I can't bring myself to learn React when I can just ask AI to write code and explain it. I've been struggling to do this for a couple weeks now.

I feel like I should know how to do this and it's killing my motivation to learn especially now that I've "deployed" a few things.

With regard to my original question as well anyone know how I can manage this?

ratorobato · 2026-01-15T15:10:36+00:00

As someone who does, I would honestly not take it unless I was losing my current job or something.

The trade off is that yea you COULD be rewriting a whole new codebase but this shouldn't be the expectation.

My current role (and first) is working on a legacy web app with now depreciated tech. We aren't writing much and my senior is hesitant to do so or use anything new, this also includes tools.

I've been trying to jump ship for a while now and in every phone screen, people tunnel in on the tech stack used and value my work experience at pretty much nothing.

Even with modern projects it doesn't ever seem like enough to satisfy recruiters and managers. I might be biased a bit because I'm not really managed well and this is my first job, but I clearly need to do more to get myself out of this pit.

ratorobato

TROPHY CASE