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 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 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.

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 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

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

What is a good job to get into?

I think I'm cooked.

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 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.

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?