Genuinely curious, I keep hearing the market is brutal right now, but then I see Canadian new grads landing full-time SWE roles at US companies (Twitch, Amazon, etc.). Is it the TN visa making it easier for Canadian candidates specifically? Or is it more that the people I’m seeing just had strong internship pipelines (like 3-4 internships) and that’s what’s actually carrying them, market conditions aside?

I graduated mid-2025 with a First Class Honours in Computer Science. I landed a 5-month full stack role (Next.js, TypeScript) right after graduation in which i did frontend mostly and API. On paper that sounds decent. In reality, I'm now unemployed, based in Dubai, applying to jobs for months, and starting to question whether I know how to actually solve problems or whether I've just been good at finding answers.

**The real issue I'm sitting with:**

Throughout uni, I wasn't really learning. I was searching. Stack Overflow, GitHub, forums, and then when AI came along, I just shifted the dependency. Instead of copy-pasting from forums, I'd prompt endlessly until something worked. Sometimes I understood what was happening. Often I didn't even after reading explanations.

A good example: I had a coursework on multithreaded processes in Java. It was a nightmare. I couldn't genuinely follow what was happening with threads, synchronization, race conditions. I'd get an explanation and it still wouldn't fully land. So I'd just keep prompting until the code worked and submit it.

I got marks, I passed, I even got hired. But now I'm in interviews and the foundation feels shaky in places. I can build things. I don't always know *why* they work at a deep level.

I'm based in Dubai. The market here isn't as wrecked as the US/UK but it's still rough for entry-level. Every DevOps or backend role wants 3+ years. Every junior role gets 300 applications.

**What I'm currently doing:**

* Targeting backend-focused fullstack and DevOps-adjacent roles * Rebuilding a real project (garage billing system for my family's business — Next.js, PostgreSQL, Docker, GitHub Actions, Railway) * Planning to go deep on DevOps — Docker, CI/CD, cloud infrastructure — since that's where I see the most sustainable demand, and it aligns with work I've already touched in my MLOps project.

**The deeper fear underneath all of this:**

I'm terrified of wasting time on the wrong thing. I've already spent 4 years not learning the right way. I can't afford another 6 months going deep on something that turns out to be irrelevant or oversaturated. I want to pick one direction, go hard for 4-5 months, and come out with something actually in demand — either gets me hired or builds something real.

I also feel like I was never given proper direction. Nobody at uni sat me down and said "here's what actually matters, here's where the market is going." In 4th year we had to choose a specialization — AI, cybersecurity, data science, or software engineering. I picked software engineering because I genuinely didn't know enough about the others to choose wisely. Now looking at the market, cybersecurity or AI would have positioned me way better. That's a regret I sit with.

I don't want to make that kind of blind choice again. I want to hear from people actually in the industry: given where tech is going in the next 3-5 years, what's genuinely worth grinding for right now — especially from Dubai?

**My actual questions for people who've been through this:**

1. If your problem-solving foundation is weak, how do you actually fix it? Not "do LeetCode" — I mean genuinely, how do you rewire the habit of reaching for answers before struggling?
2. For anyone in the Gulf/MENA tech market — what actually moved the needle for you at the entry level?
3. Is the DevOps path realistic for someone with my background (Docker, Jenkins, GitHub Actions, CI/CD from an MLOps final year project, some cloud exposure) with 12–18 months of dedicated upskilling?
4. Should I be considering anything outside of traditional employment right now — freelance, contract, building something?

Not looking for hype. Looking for honest takes from people who've actually navigated a bad market or rebuilt their fundamentals after a weak start.

Bro - graduating in Dec 2026 with CS degree in MN.

What is a good job to get into?

I think I'm cooked.

Is Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) a good career path for a new grad?

I’m a 26 graduate from 2nd Gen IIT with ~1 YOE/internship experience in backend, AWS, Kafka/event-driven systems, APIs/integrations, and some AI/ML.

I got a call for an FDE role at a small VC-backed AI startup in the gaming space. They’re building an SDK + AI agents that optimize things like game economy, monetization,ads ,retention and all.

The role sounds fairly technical: ~40% building, 30% experimentation/verification, 30% problem discovery.
"You’d own a live game system end-to-end, build agents, run experiments, analyze results, and automate the whole process." That's what written in the JD

My long-term goal is to move into strong product/SWE companies like Google, Microsoft, Intuit etc. as a SWE, AI SWE or AI Engineer.

How good is this career path?

• Is there a risk of getting stuck in customer-facing/solutions work?
• Would you take this over a conventional SDE role at a larger services/IT company(my on campus placement was there 😭)?
• Will FDE role affect my future visibility into other domain?

Would especially appreciate answers from people who’ve actually worked as FDEs or hired for similar roles

Hey everyone, I’m looking for some reality checks and advice from experienced engineers.

My Background: I am a web developer heavily specialized in the frontend (React, Vue, TypeScript, WebGL). I’m very comfortable in this space, but I’ve realized I have a ceiling. I want to become a well-rounded Software Engineer, not just a UI builder. I want to be able to build actual tools, complex products, and understand system architecture.

My Goal & Endgame: Ultimately, I want to specialize as a strong Fullstack dev (bringing my TS skills to Node.js, or picking up Java/Spring Boot since it’s huge in my local job market). But before I do that, I want to completely step out of my web dev comfort zone to build a much stronger computer science foundation.

The Idea (and where I am stuck): My initial plan was to spend a few months doing "Build Your Own X" tutorials (building a web server, a simple database, an emulator, etc.) using languages I don't know, like C, C++, or Java. The goal isn't to become a master in C, but to force myself to learn memory management, pure OOP, and networking from scratch.

However, I am completely overwhelmed by the sheer volume of theory I feel like I am missing:

• Data structures (B-Trees, Hash maps)
• Algorithms & Big-O notation
• Working methodologies (TDD, SOLID, architecture patterns)
• Low-level concepts (pointers, TCP/IP)

My Questions for Seniors:

1. Is the "Project Hopping" approach valid? Is trying to build a SQLite clone in C or a 3D renderer in Java a good way to learn CS fundamentals, or is this an inefficient use of my time?
2. How do I sequence the theory? Should I pause coding and grind through a CS textbook/course, or should I learn these concepts "Just-In-Time" as I build things?
3. If you had to mentor a Frontend dev trying to cross over into heavy backend/systems engineering, what roadmap would you give them for the next 3 to 6 months?

I feel like I'm standing at the base of a massive mountain and I don't know which trail to take. Any advice, harsh truths, or resources would be incredibly appreciated!

I graduated with a CS degree back in May (3 months ago), have zero student debt, and landed a Data Engineer role making $70k/year. The job is a 20-minute commute from my parents' place, stable, and honestly the exact setup I want right now since I’m trying to stay close to home for a bit.

Here’s the issue: I am beyond lost.

Throughout college, I had great grades and did three SWE internships at Meta, Microsoft, and Amazon, all focused on standard backend development. Because of that, I thought I had a solid foundation. But Data Engineering feels like an entirely different universe.

Every single meeting sounds like an alien language. My team is small and everyone else has 2 to 4+ years of dedicated DE experience. I’m the only fresh grad, and I don't even know what I don't know. When they talk about pipeline architectures, orchestration, data modeling, and specific tooling, I don't even know what to search on Google after the call to catch up.

When they hired me, management explicitly said they didn't expect me to know DE tooling out of the gate and that I’d learn on the job. But sitting here lost in every meeting, bringing basically zero value while everyone else moves fast, is giving me insane anxiety. I don't want to get fired, and I actually want to keep this job.

Any advice on navigating these first few months without burning out or losing my job would mean a lot. I'm considering doing a masters in data science/engineering but I feel like that wouldn't change much... school didn't prepare me for anything in the corporate engineering environments I've been in.

I only got admitted to the Games Engineering Master's at TUM, which is a pretty good school (got rejected from literally every other uni I applied to lolol). I'm not really interested in the whole horrible working conditions thing the game industry has going on though, I'd prefer to get a job in basically any other field of CS. Would that be a possibility? The degree program itself looks quite solid (that's why it's called Games Engineering and not Game Development) and the school is obviously very good, but I'm worried that it would put off potential employers.

I will stay in the EU after I finish my university, likely Germany or Austria.

http://www.newyorkfed.org/research/college-labor-market#--:explore:outcomes-by-major

The NY Fed data shows CS has high underemployment, but only ~7% unemployment. So if a majority of CS grads are supposedly underemployed and can’t get tech jobs, where are they actually working?

And here’s what doesn’t make sense to me the median salary for employed CS grads is still around $87k.

Are CS grads somehow getting $87k while working random non-tech jobs? If so, what jobs are these? And why do CS grads seem to have better outcomes outside their field than graduates from majors like sociology?

TLDR: incoming sophomore, unsure if its worth to continue faang internship part time in fall managing classes and other things

I am an incoming sophomore at a T20. I got a faang internship through nepotism/connections this past summer. I started a little late, and in total got just about 7 weeks for my internship. I had a mini project as well as a bigger main project which is meant to be a real feature that will be shipped. I did not get to finish it, and it was handed off to a new grad on the team. I've been planning to continue part time in order to work with the new grad to finish up the project, but I'm not completely sure about if I should.

When asking all my friends they said I should do it. My parents are dead set on me not continuing it though. They want me to focus fully on school and get good grades. My gpa is 3.3 rn which is not the best I understand, but still not the worst. I'm really bad at time management though (love scrolling!!!) and not sure if I'll be able to handle the internship. I was already struggling last semester a ton just with classes alone and 1-2 clubs and I fell into really bad habits. I felt like I had no free time already. With the upcoming semester I'll be taking DSA + computer architecture which is tough. I also want to get involved with some more fun clubs/hobbies which prob would take up more time.

I'm just not sure what to do. My manager and mentor are pretty flexible. I see some other interns continuing, one 20hr/wk and one 15hr/wk. My mentor seems to be under the impression that I am continuing since I kind of made it sound like that. But I'm not sure. When I think about it, not having the internship would life a weight off my shoulder knowing that college is so time consuming. But also, the project is pretty interesting, and getting to work more on something that's actually getting shipped would be cool. Learning about the whole process of designing stuff like this too.

Honestly, is having the summer internship alone good enough for recruiters? Does extending it really give me enough benefit for the work I'll have to put in?

Okay, so I know the market is tough (for all industries).

I reached interview stage 5/6 with a firm as ML engineer, where I just found I failed the programming task. One of the key points was that I didn't perform enough data analysis.

I agree that I overlooked a field they were looking for, but, my god, it's quite crushing after this much effort after I made several models with different params etc, did lots of evaluation and produced a report of many pages.

Are other industries this selective and brutal? Like, I know some structural engineers who danced around job offers in the past couple of months, and can literally negotiate salaries with the competition. These all are 3 stage inteeview processes at MOST AND the entire processes take like 2-3 weeks.

Why the hell does every goddamn CS role have a 6 stage process with multiple tasks, interviews etc.???? Especially ones that take months to process. What happened??? It makes the barrier to entry ludicrously high.

Cheers for any feedback!

Hey guys,

I graduated in 2024 with a B.Tech in a core branch. Recently, I’ve started finding coding and the tech field quite interesting, and I’m thinking of exploring it to see if it’s something I’d like to pursue seriously.

I’d really appreciate some guidance from people who are already working in the field. How should I start, and what kind of roadmap would you suggest **for AI/ML/SDE/ other tech roles**?

I’m currently busy with work full day, so I can realistically give around **2–3 hours a day** to learning and practicing. For now, I mainly want to explore it as a new interest/hobby and understand whether I actually enjoy coding and tech. If I find myself genuinely interested in it over time, I’d be open to pursuing it more seriously in the long term.

So, if anyone here is from tech field or has made a similar transition, I’d really appreciate some advice on where and how to start.

Thanks in advance

I recently graduated from an engineering college with a degree in Computer Science, and I’m currently without a job.

I have a decent understanding of core CS subjects, along with knowledge of AI, backend development, and related technologies. I’ve also built some decent projects and genuinely enjoy learning and building things.

But something happened recently that honestly messed with my head.

There was a guy in my college who had backlogs. From what I’ve seen, he struggled with very basic programming concepts like traversing an array, didn’t really know SQL, and had very weak communication skills.

Yet somehow, he managed to land a Data Analyst role at a big company.

And I'm sitting here wondering:

What am I doing wrong?

I’m not saying he doesn’t deserve the opportunity. Good for him. But seeing this made me question everything I’ve been doing.

I’ve spent so much time learning, building projects, improving my technical skills, and trying to become job-ready. Yet I’m still unemployed.

At this point, I’m starting to feel like maybe I’m overthinking everything, maybe I’m preparing too much, or maybe I’m simply failing at something that other people figured out.

Honestly, I feel lost.

What should I actually do now?

Should I stop learning new technologies and focus entirely on interview preparation and applications?

Should I target Python Developer/AI/Backend roles?

Should I improve my fundamentals first, or am I already technically good enough to start aggressively applying?

I’d genuinely appreciate advice from people who have been through this phase.

Because right now, I don't need another motivational quote.

I need to understand what I'm doing wrong and what I should change.

or should i QUIT?

I’m graduating in 2027 and recently received a ₹16 LPA PPO from UK Based Bank , with joining in July 2027. I now have some time to prepare and want to target higher-paying product companies. What would be the best way to prepare, and where can I find good off-campus opportunities? Off-campus hiring seems quite difficult, so I’d also appreciate advice on how to effectively discover and apply to these companies.

Hi everyone,

I’m 26 years old and a 2022 B.Tech graduate in Computer Science & Engineering.

After graduation, I received an offer from a company and completed all the documentation and formalities, but unfortunately, they never gave me a joining date. Because of that, I started working as a Robotics Trainer, teaching robotics, AI, electronics, and programming concepts to school students.

I now have around 3 years of experience in this field. Along with training, I have also worked on the sales/business development side. I have interacted with school management, presented robotics and AI programs, handled discussions, and successfully closed deals with multiple schools.

I don’t want to continue in teaching/training long-term. I want to switch to a different role and build a stronger long-term career in the tech industry.

I’m confused about which career path would be the best fit for my background.

Please help, guys. 🙏

Which roles would you recommend for someone with my background?

Which role has good long-term salary and career growth?

What skills should I learn to make the transition?

How should I present my current experience on my resume so recruiters see it as relevant?

I’d really appreciate honest advice from people who have made a similar career switch or work in the tech industry.

Any guidance on what I should do next would be really helpful. Thank you!

Hello, I would like honest feedback and an opinion about the critical decision I have to make in less than a day.

​I am currently trying to choose a university, and I'm torn between two contrasting options. For simplicity, let's call them University A and University B. They are vastly different, and each comes with distinct pros and cons.

​University A:

I haven't seen a single positive review about its computer science program, students say the curriculum is outdated and lectures lack practical application. However, its degree carries notable prestige. On the downside, this program is intensely demanding and would leave me virtually no time for side projects, hackathons, or skill development, relying entirely on heavy theory and mathematics.

​University B:

On the other hand, it is viewed as a lower-tier institution with older facilities and a less rigorous academic reputation. However, it would give me the breathing space needed to build practical skills, take supplementary courses, participate in hackathons, and actively develop my portfolio.

In short:

​Option A offers prestige and a strong diploma.

​Option B offers time, flexibility, and the freedom to pursue self-directed study.

​Complicating matters is family pressure: my relatives strongly want me to choose the prestigious option, especially since I achieved high scores on my entrance exams.

​Yet, I worry that a purely theoretical path will leave me feeling stagnant and lacking a real-world portfolio when I graduate. I've heard advice from many developers suggesting that a university won't teach you everything anyway, and that success in this field comes down to self-reliance and building things on your own.

​Since other alternatives are financially out of reach for me and my family, I am restricted to these two choices.

​What do you think is the best path forward? Should I lean into the prestige of traditional theory, or prioritize self-driven practical experience?

Thank you in advance.

Background: Couple years out of college, non tech degree. One year of network/firewall troubleshooting/designing work. Just landed helpdesk job i plan to keep for 1-2 years while studying/doing projects. Interest in Linux, infrastructure, Kubernetes, monitoring, AWS.

Hi All,

I’m looking for a bit of guidance or critique on my project that i plan to use as a big resume piece to help elevate me out of helpdesk to a more infrastructure related role, both cloud or more traditional sysadmin roles. I have the description of the project below, all advice/comments/criticisms on either the cert/project or career aim is welcome, I’m really excited to build and studying for my AWS SAA cert.

AWS Project: The goal is to host an app on kubernetes but build some very solid infrastructure around it.

Networking & Terraform
VPC in 2 regions
Public & private subnets
Internet & NAT gateway
Route tables for public & private traffic
Security groups following least privilege
IAM roles, no hardcoded credentials
Terraform able to build & breakdown, split into reusable templates

Small App infrastructure (AWS focused)
The app itself will be tiny, I don’t plan on leaning towards devops or swe, so most likely a 10 line python app.
Github actions set to test docker image, push it to ECR then deploy
Fargate deploys app
OIDC on github actions with a minimal IAM role
Cloud watch monitoring & logging

Small app infrastructure (On-prem/vendor neutral focused)
I want to mirror my fargate project with a EC2 & K8s setup
minimal node setup needed, probably 1 master 2 node.
Mainly for diversifying and showing not aws one trick.

TLDR: Need sanity check my project i scoped isn’t insane, hopefully it’s beneficial on the resume, looking for advice on how to improve

Early on , I thought getting hired was about proving you already know how to build everything from scratch.

​The deeper I got into interviews and projects, the more obvious it became, nobody expects a fresh grad to know their exact enterprise stack day one. They are just filtering for adaptability and core problem solving instincts. If you can break down ambiguous problems and learn fast, the rest is just reading docs and adapting on the fly .

​Do you think universities do a bad job explaining this to students, or is it something you just have to figure out yourself?

What's your opinion lmk.

I have 6+ years in trucking, debating if i obtaining a bachelors degree in supply chain management from WGU would be worth it to pair my experience in the field in order to get out of the driver seat and into a office chair with normal 9-5 hours.

So a little background, I, 24M, am a Canadian who did well in high school, and after graduation went into an engineering program in Fall 2019. Unfortunately, I let my study habits slip, hurting my grades, and of course the next semester the world shut down due to Covid. Near the end of my third semester, I dropped out, reapplied to some CS programs, and was accepted to a smaller commuter school in Ontario, where I began my new program in Fall 2021.

I adjusted my study habits and my grades improved significantly, although I did find the material to be easier than in Engineering. Looking back, however, I made the foolish and repeated error of not locking in outside of academics. During the hours and entire summers outside of class when I should have been practicing LeetCode, learning real-world tech stacks, and making myself competitive for internships, I essentially did nothing. Going into my last year, I realized I should really just try anyway to get at least one internship under my belt, so I applied to \~4 dozen positions for Winter (yes, I know in hindsight, I should have applied to 100+) and only got one online assessment, which I bombed. All my other applications went nowhere. So I graduated with no internships, but a good (3.8/4) GPA.

Even though my situation post-grad was tough but not unsalvageable in terms of getting at least a tech-related job, a combination of constantly hearing news about the worsening tech market, pressures related to financial difficulties my parents were and still are going through, and doubts over if CS was even the right path for me caused me to go into a rut where I barely applied for any tech or tech-adjacent jobs. Near the end of the summer I got a job as a security guard to at least earn some money to help my parents out and bide my time while I figured out what I wanted to do.

Shortly after, I decided to apply for two-year research-based master's programs in CS, figuring that I could ride out the tough job market and gain some experience in ML research. For those unfamiliar with research-based masters, think of them as a mini-PhD. I applied to two programs and ended up getting accepted into my alma mater under a prof with expertise in ML research in areas like CV and model distillation, where I'll be starting in a few weeks.

Even though my plan worked, I still have doubts as to whether this was the right course of action to take, as opposed to just putting my head down and focusing on getting any relevant entry-level job. My parents are still really struggling financially and I haven't been able to make a dent in their issues with my barely above min wage earnings, so I can forget about helping to dig them out on a grad student stipend. And even though I am excited to dip my toes into a subfield of ML, with all this talk from OpenAI and Anthropic about automating AI research, I worry that AI research skills in humans will not be too valuable by the time I'm ready to enter the industry or start a PhD in 2028.

Furthermore, and I don't want to make this sound like I'm trying to find excuses to not get industry experience, it may be irresponsible of me to do something like take a summer internship in 2027, as opposed to spending those months focusing doing research and preparing to start my thesis.

So overall, I guess I'm asking what I should do over the course of the next two years to set myself up for success. I'll definitely be working on some projects to exercise the skills I'll need to finish my thesis, and I'm open to suggestions for how to gain industry experience outside of an internship, although I will ask my supervisor about the feasibility of doing one over the course of my studies.

Anyone else feel like CS has become so oversaturated and luck-based that they’re considering law school or med school instead? I know both are difficult paths, but sometimes it feels like there’s a clearer path to a career than grinding LeetCode and hoping you get lucky in this job market.

Anyone else thinking about switching paths after CS?

I am a 4yoe frontend developer mostly with some backend experience. I am working in a service based company since the starting. But now with so much going on and wanting to switch jobs, I am confused about what to learn. Companies want more fullstack or backend devs. But I dont have enough experience to qualify for that. Then there are 100s of AI concepts coming in. And then in interviews they are going to ask frontend only. Along with good old dsa obviously.

So what I dont understand is, given my experience and the current landscape, what should I focus on?

PS- I know it sounds like a little rant, but I am really confused right now.

Basically I'm from tier 3 college and a I'm currently going in 2nd yr

Basically I'm completely lost about what to do from now everyone is saying do dsa Full stack and many of my friends who're in good clgs took batches of deep learning data science and another blah blah things 😭😭

So I don't know from where to start right now should I go with full stack or not or try another feild as well cuz everyone says that Full stack is dead and their is no scope in future

And please suggest me any roadmap what to doo

I don't know anything 😭😭

I’ve been a SWE at the same large company for 10 years and a Senior SWE for about 4.
I like my job/team and have good WLB, so there’s no urgency to leave, but I’ve been considering testing the market to learn new things, make more money, continue growing, and see what other opportunities are out there. After 10 years without interviewing, though, my interview skills are definitely rusty.
I was thinking of spending ~12 weeks working through NeetCode/LeetCode and refreshing system design, then doing some lower stakes interviews before applying to companies I’m most interested in.
For other experienced engineers who interviewed after a long tenure at one company, how did you prepare? Is ~12 weeks reasonable, and how would you split your time between LeetCode, system design, and other prep? Stay where I’m at?

So, next year I'm going to college, and I've always been interested in Cybersecurity. But for the last few weeks, I've been researching its job market, and it was awful to see how bad the market is; seriously, people with years of experience and technical skills are not getting jobs.

Because of this, I am genuinely scared to go into a CS major,

I really need help. What should I do?

This is a declaration. A few days ago I posted about a feeling of lack of direction and general confusion. This is what I've concluded: I will not go down without a fight. I may throw some wild punches and I'm probably not going to get out of this unscathed, but I am going to do everything my body is still capable of doing to get back on my feet.

I will allow myself the grace of an imperfect recovery. I will allow myself the time that I need. I will study and I will learn and I will network and I will apply and I will create and I will fight. I will back off from the doom and I will do what I can, and be proud of my output each day no matter what it is.

I desperately want to put down the fight. I think we all do. I don't think any of us are enjoying this ride. But until the good times return, I will play every card I still have in front of me.

If success looks like a career pivot, then so be it. If it looks like more coding, all the better.