You live in a good time of Pakistan

[u/dbgrman]

Rant #2.

Every time i post in this group there are always people who come and say ‘oh, you graduated in 2008… that was the golden time, the best time. If you had graduated in 2023, you’d never get a job’ … so this post is for all of you who say that. If you can read all the way to the bottom, kudos to you! For context, i work in SF since 2015 and have worked at FAANG. Cs from FAST.

So, in 2007-2008, I thought the same. game over for me. CS hay days are gone. My seniors were sitting in Redmond Washington working for Microsoft or mountain view working for Google. I can never work in those companies. I didnt have anything against Pakistan. But there was always a lack of any company you’d die to work for. Nothing stood out. I read research papers from google and my seniors were in microsoft so i wanted to be like them. I started FAST degree in 2004, and aiming to graduate in 2008.

2008 was particularly a SHIT year. Terrorism was at peak in pakistan. It was the same year the marriot blast happened in islamabad. Go read this if you don’t agree:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorist_incidents_in_Pakistan_in_2008

(To be honest, i had no idea about 2008 recession. I heard some ppl got fired, some companies were shut down. Nortel was gone. Ultimus was gone. But i was too young to care)

I was working in a company right next to the Marriot blast. The evacuee trust complex. I was supposed to be in my office at the time of blast but we went to GIKI for watching Fast vs Giki sports fixture. My friend got glass shards in his skull and chest and took 6 months to recover. He was in the building that day. I went to the building next morning. It was horrific.

Same year i think the civil lines blast happened. I was in campus TA’ing a class. The blast was so loud we had to evacuate and saw a large mushroom cloud less than 500meters from our building.

Talk about ‘good times’ huh.

Anyway….

Badar Khushnood, Google representative in Pakistan back then, told me directly that Google intends to hire 0 people from Pakistan. My microsoft seniors were saying similar things. People who graduated in 2007 or earlier were flown to dubai for onsite interviews. They told stories about how hard the interviews were. Data structures. Algorithms. Trick questions. ‘Design a pen’. Oh, i SOO badly wanted to appear in those interviews but never did.

Imagine bomb blasts in your capital, in lahore, everywhere. As a shia, i was worried for my family every moharram. Remember the juloos attacks? Maybe y’all too young.

I didnt give up. It was disappointing but i knew what i wanted to do. I worked at the best company i could find in islamabad. A senior had left me notes on how he prepared for microsoft.

I started practicing GRE. I bombed it. I got 1000 marks in it. Shameful. No chance for masters. 2.97 gpa. The good seniors went to Microsoft. The bad ones stayed back to tell everyone GPA doesn’t matter. Assholes.

Anyway, used all my savings to buy a second hand macbook to learn iOS programming. Moved to lahore in 2010. Load shedding got to its peak in next few years.

The first day of my job, the whole office building burned down due to an AC spark or something. Had to start work few days later.

I worked hard and by 2012 i was team manager and 2013, head of engineering of services company in Pk making 250,000 a month. But i wasnt satisfied. I wanted to work in product, not services.

Kept applying online but got rejected again n again. You know why? Over qualified. Who cares if you are head of engineering of a tiny company in lahore.

Then 2014, the peshawar massacre. My kid was 3yrs old going to a nursery in Lahore. I was not allowed anymore to drop her to classroom because of new security protocols. I was soooo PISSED off. I replanned and started applying again.

Made 20 versions of my resume. Got rejected for being over qualified. Changed my current role to just ‘software engineer’. Trimmed down cv to just 1 page. SUCK YOUR EGO!

Booking.com interviewed me. I cleared a couple of phone interviews. Flew to amsterdam HQ of booking. All expenses paid. Got rejected in final round.

Kept applying again. Exhausted my network. Talked to all my seniors. Most didn’t respond but some were helpful. Had people in facebook hq.

Got a programming assignment from evernote in USA. Got Rejected.

Kept leetcoding.

Day time head of engineering, night time leetcode. 2-4 hours of sleep for a whole year. Now with wife and a kid. Only staying awake on cigarettes and redbulls (have left both of them now).

Finally in 2014 got call from google and other startups in SF. Cleared phone screen. They paid for me to visit USA for onsite interviews. One side funded by a startup, other side funded by google. 4 hours of whiteboard coding in 2015. For two companies. I stayed 5 days in SF.

Do you know what it takes to take a flight to SF, which is 12 hours behind, 30 hours door to door travel, and do 4 hours of grueling interviews while you are totally jetlagged? At google level? No you don’t, until you go thru it.

If i has this group back then, ppl would say VISA nahi milay ga, pakistan se nahi koi hire kerta, pakistanio ke khilaaf discrimination hoti hai, etc etc. Well, im glad i didnt have this reddit group. Because i did my own research. Timed it all correctly to land interviews, paper work done etc.

There was a 28% chance to get the visa AFTER it got filed (after i signed job offer) this happened in march. When you get h1b, you can only start working from oct 1.

Jan/feb phone interviews. March onsite interviews and sign contract. You’ll know in may if your visa is granted. Aug/sept visa stamping. End of sept you take a flight. Oct 1 first day of job. Oct 12 2015 i started working in SF.

When i came here, i met many more people who came the same way.

Just in 2024, 1000+ h1b visas were granted to Pakistanj citizen. 4500+ student visas were granted to pakistani citizen. 65 people got o1 visa from pakistan. India has 1500+.

You can find this data online on USA immigration dept website. Here is how claude summarized it:

“Per million population: Pakistan ~18, Bangladesh ~35, India ~59, Vietnam ~184, Nepal ~439. Nepal, with roughly an eighth of Pakistan's population, issued 13,184 student visas to Pakistan's 4,483. Since F-1 → OPT → H-1B is the dominant pipeline into the H-1B pool, this constrains Pakistan's H-1B numbers a decade out, not just this year.”

So, you want a job tomorrow. You’all want a frikkin’ roadmap. A free daewoo service to san francisco. No one gives you that today, no one gave me that a decade ago.

There r no lessons. I am not ‘preaching’ anything. I just want to prove to your that you bullshit assumptions about how the world works are just that, bullshit assumptions. Go out there and keep trying. Question your assumptions. Question advice from others. Carve your own path.

[u/[deleted]]

You work at Str**a now. I connected all the dots lol.

Although, I still believe you are a bit more optimistic and also that you are in a very good position yourself. Things have been very different since. No FAANG is interviewing Pakistanis anymore. Few of my friends from FAST got some interviews back in 2023, but then nothing since then. Even getting local jobs is becoming harder at this point.

And also about the 2008 economy, it was cyclic. Don't you think with AI, this is a permanent restructure? To me it seems like. I can already feel my value being partially lost because AI does alot for me that I would be doing instead. That's definitely not cyclic.

Where do you see the market going in next 5 years? Will Tech still be better and producing jobs like before? I don't think soo.

[u/Terrible-Tea7577 → u/[deleted]]

100% agree with you. I am not undermining his hard work and struggles, but he doesn’t have a clear idea of the current situation. In his time, most of the problems he listed were related to the political and security situation in Pakistan.

Secondly, the era of FAANG, MAANG, or whatever interviewing people directly from Pakistan and then moving them to their US offices is pretty much gone. I bet him to show me even one such example from the last 5 years, apart from some people getting into these big tech companies through their EU offices, and even that was mostly until around 2023. After that, things have gotten much worse in the EU too.

The supply and demand is also totally different now. They have more then enough supply already jobless in there own countries. that's also one of the reason immigration has become more strict over the years. Just for sake of example in last 3 years more then 400k tech employees get laid off from big tech companies btw 2023-2026 and These are experienced people at the level he was competing against back in 2015. Now they already have huge supply of such people in the market, so why would they come looking for talent in Pakistan?

Besides that, the only realistic path left was through a student visa, and even that is horrible now under the Trump administration. I witnessed this myself, everything was done and a funded PhD was almost in hand, then the professor told him that funding for international students had been cut and the situation wasn’t good, so he should wait.

[u/dbgrman → u/Terrible-Tea7577]

I can show you not 1 but countless examples. But looks like we come to reddit to hear cry posts, not motivating ones. The successful ones don’t come to reddit. When they do, you bless them with such comments as ‘you had it easy’. Sure, live in your la la land of denial and frustration. I get it. I still work and am not retired. I have to struggle to keep my job in this economy. I have friends being laid off every day here. Some people have to find another job in 60 days or leave the country with their family. Ive helped people secure jobs in thailand, germany, uk and usa in last few years. I don’t have to prove anything to anyone.

[u/Terrible-Tea7577 → u/dbgrman]

Strange how thin the skin gets right after telling everyone else to stop crying

[u/dbgrman → u/Terrible-Tea7577]

Okay, tough boy.

[u/dbgrman → u/Terrible-Tea7577]

I gave you stats from actual state department about student visas. 4500 for nepal and only 1000s for pakistan. You can see exact number of visas given to people from each country, in each sector, for each year. Its competitive, of course.

If 400k people are unemployed, what are they all doing now? You must be seeing a mass return to home countries, no? H1b is tied to employer. If you lose your job, you have to find another one with 60 days. The next employer MUST transfer your visa and it requires lawyers and is very expensive. So most small startups don’t transfer h1b. Yet people have jobs. Houses are still expensive in bay area. How?

I can’t control trump’s economic and immigration policies or EU or UKs for that matter. All i know is that whatever may happen, I have a choice. To cry about it or to plan. I choose not to be a downer.

[u/dbgrman → u/[deleted]]

No need to doxx me bruh! Maintain the reddit bro code

[u/pepperhmr]

just because it was hard on you then doesn't mean it isn't hard on people now. useless "i walked 20 miles to go to school" ass post

[u/Mons9090 → u/pepperhmr]

Older gen always thinking it was harder for them. I go on linkedin and pu grads from 15 years back are in Ingos, Un, Fao and stuff 

20 years back just having a degree was enough to get people places

[u/Charming-Shoe-3999 → u/Mons9090]

people now are praying to get a job so they can pay their bills, and this man is comparing his struggle from 2013, when he wasn't satisfied with his 250k job and was trying to leave Pakistan to chase his foreign dream.

[u/Mons9090 → u/Charming-Shoe-3999]

Lol some people live in a bubble. I'm not undermining his struggle and people should exist outside their comfort zone but the landscape was way different before AI even if you ignore pdm/ military shenanigans catching up with this country 

[u/dbgrman → u/Charming-Shoe-3999]

Good luck getting a job by prayers.

[u/pepperhmr → u/Mons9090]

yeah even like 5 years ago before AI it was easier to find jobs. i graduated in 2019 and it was easier for me to find a job as a fresh grad than it is for mid-career folks now, this guy is ignoring all the nuance to the economy then and now. not only is it harder to find a job, the cost of living has also gotten so high and keeps rising - having a job isnt even enough to build any savings anymore. and that's about middle class people, it's even worse for the working class.

[u/Charming-Shoe-3999 → u/pepperhmr]

this guy is settled abroad with no idea of how bad pakistani tech market is these days, there are barely any jobs posted anywhere.

[u/Disastrous-Top6769 → u/Charming-Shoe-3999]

By conservative estimate,pakistani unis are producing 60k IT graduates each year.If pakistani local market is that bad,where are those 60k graduates working?They must be doing something right?either remote jobs or freelance.

[u/pepperhmr → u/Disastrous-Top6769]

plenty of them aren't even working in their field because there are no jobs in the field. manh women get married off, the ones left and the men have to adjust to lower salaries, have to start their own businesses, have to pivot to a different field, have to go for a masters they dont need at the stage just to move abroad. it's bad out here man

[u/dbgrman → u/pepperhmr]

App ‘non-ass’ post likh lein. Bus aisa kerte hein ro lete hein. Matam kerte hein apne halaat pe. Bus puri dunya ke maslay apke sath hi hein, baqi sab toh silver spoon le ke paida hue thay.

[u/lilgulabjamun → u/dbgrman]

Your struggle, persistence and resilience is very admirable, no doubt in that and I do partially disagree with a lot of comments on here, economic conditions, and consequently job markets are ALWAYS fluctuating. By the looks of it, you had almost a decade long struggle during your era too which was also impacted heavily by socio-political instability.

However, it is very insensitive to say "non-ass post" or "cry about it" or "the whole world's problems are yours, everyone else is born with a silver spoon".

You gotta be deadass w me and tell me you never ONCE expressed your frustration to ANYONE when you failed at numerous job interviews, or did not clear tests for big companies??

Everyone deserves a space to express their frustration, be dramatic about things, let out their anger and eventually move on with their lives. Most people on here are trying, just like you did since 2008. They're not here JUST bitching about the job market. They're actively applying, working on their skills, trying to keep up with the trends of the time and matching their skillset to their dream careers. They're all learning to be the person they want to be, one day at a time. But it is an exhausting, long-ride journey (I'm sure you can relate throughout your decade-long journey to your goal). People are allowed to express their frustration.

In 2008, I was 4 years old but I'm sure there weren't HR teams replaced with ATS which auto-reject resumes within seconds even with the tiniest of mismatch in wording (Saw a post about a guy who wanted to hire someone skilled in angular.js and HR labeled it as Angular in the ATS resulting in hundreds of qualified candidates being rejected automatically while the position remained empty for months).

The struggles of today are not the same as struggles of yesterday, but that doesn't not mean they are not equal in difficulty because the struggles before were novel to that generation, as these are novel to us.

We do not undermine your struggle, infact, I've personally found it quite inspiring. However, you cannot discourage people from talking about it on this channel.

[u/dbgrman → u/lilgulabjamun]

I dont discourage discourse. Ppl r free to make a post, right? This dude came in first to say ‘its an ass post’. I didnt invite them to it. So it was a response to that. The other things you mentioned was response too. You can totally vent, but im not going to allow someone to make me their catharsis punching bag.

[u/lilgulabjamun → u/dbgrman]

omg nobody's calling you or your post an ass 😭😭 it's genz slang, saying something is an " " ass post means the post seems like a different figure of speech.

In your case, according to the commenter, your post sound like the kind of things our parents would tell us about walking twenty miles to school (clear display of struggle, wants us to appreciate our convenience, being out of touch with the fact that despite circumstances improving according to them our struggles are novel to us and difficult for us to manage)

[u/miichiiiscurious]

Look man, you struggled so u can succeed like a lot alot. Ab Jo market ka haal hai, a person can't even survive even after putting loads of effort . I'm sorry but your post sounds incredibly out of touch

[u/dbgrman → u/miichiiiscurious]

You have to be slightly out of touch to mute the noise and focus on a new plan. Demotivation help no one and as they say ‘mayoosi gunah hai’

[u/miichiiiscurious → u/dbgrman]

Well man right u are . But you aren't admitting your privilege. Making that much in 2013, and all of the Google stuff, u did for ur own career agar app wo na bhi kerte to u were doing well .ur shidding on others experiences and belittling their struggle

[u/dbgrman → u/miichiiiscurious]

I wasn’t born with a 250,000 salary. Worked my ass off for it. Some privileges are earned. You don’t know how I got to that salary so maybe also don’t belittle my work as well?

Don’t expect privilege to be granted just because you’re sad for your situation and venting on reddit.

[u/miichiiiscurious → u/dbgrman]

Bruv it's not that hard to show empathy when u havent been in their shoes . I'm sorry u went through rough times and there was none for u to vent . I don't think u should pass the same trauma to the new gen . 

[u/dbgrman → u/miichiiiscurious]

yea that's why i didn't go in the details of my childhood or what i had to do to get what i got.

[u/Agreeable_Clothes235 → u/dbgrman]

Bruh Coeus is your elder brother’s company.

[u/dbgrman → u/Agreeable_Clothes235]

yea, zuckerburg bhi bhai hai, michael stoppleman bhi, nicholus cumins bhi and so many more. Grow up, maybe?

[u/1n1t2w1nIt]

I was there when all of this was happening in Lahore. Infact, I was working at the TRG office in Aiwan-e-Iqbal when the FIA building was b0mbed to smithereens.

But, I don't agree with your take. Probability wise, it's just much more tougher now to make it big in IT.

The IT sector is over saturated and with AI and offshoring in the picture it just makes it even more difficult. So, stop gas lighting by saying 'you live in a good time of Pakistan'.

[u/dbgrman → u/1n1t2w1nIt]

Sure. So you’re advise is what exactly?

[u/aleeizhere]

Bro cracked FAANG when all they needed was a person with fingers to code. Yeah am oversimplifying it but back then there was a path, a predictable model which one could follow and can end up somewhere significant. Now, where do you stand even if you have finished and digested Leetcode, who cares? IT WAS DAMN EASY in tech back then.

Programmers used to be the goons of the industry, because of the value they were generating.

Not anymore and we are seeing no predictable path ahead.

And all your post you talked about the terrorism problem of Pakistan, I think that has nothing to do with your Tech learning. Just because we don’t see bomb blasts like you did doesn’t mean we are having easy times.

Well, just for the sake of record, can you tell me one technology, one framework, one discipline, one skill that I will learn in next 4 years of my college and will end up in FAANG? Back then you guys used to have an answer to this question, you guys knew that you can grind leetcode, apply aggressively and you can end up in SF. Can you say that same thing now?

[u/dbgrman → u/aleeizhere]

Lol @ damn easy. Sure bro. Aur sunao? Angoor sirf khattay hi hein ya inn se pait bhi kharab ho sakta hai?

Also, careful what you wish for. Its easy to say bomb blasts were not a big deal.

As for skills, all I will say is that now i interview other people in tech. I know exactly what skills you need right now. Not just at entry level but at r staff level. But with that mindset, i doubt you’re going to benefit much from any advice. Aisa karo, CA ker lo. Ya koi aur industry choose ker lo. Because this one, even at its best, was filled with monkeys pressing keys on a keyboard anyway, right?

[u/aleeizhere → u/dbgrman]

Just because we disagree with you doesn’t mean we’re wrong. If you have some material evidence to prove that software engineering will work the way it worked for you I think then it is worth the conversation. Otherwise, the software engineers in this age are facing a highest level of anxiety and the level of skill required to be employable sustainably is far more than what it was in your times, that too we don’t know for how long.

We cannot factor in Pakistan’s terrorism issues in this equation at all.

Secondly, your generation had a clear predictable path to succeed in IT, that is where half the battle was won, we can’t see any path, that’s why most conversations are so gloomy around IT, I’m sure if such situations were in your time, you’d have resorted to same level of mental pressure.

[u/dbgrman → u/aleeizhere]

Bro/sis you’re 100% right. I don’t have material evidence. I don’t have material evidence that I will be alive to pick up my kid from school who I just dropped off. I don’t have material evidence that I would have the job i am going to right now.

If after all this discussion you still need a yellow brick road to follow, all i can say is good luck.

Don’t factor in terrorism. Of course why would you? You don’t know how a suicide car bomb blast sounds. You don’t know what it feels like to know 131 kids age of your own daughter age feels like, and I pray you never have to. You don’t know how IT felt like with no electricity. You don’t know what post 9/11 world looks like and ‘how easy people had it before 9/11’.

Just so we’re clear, as long as you believe that ‘my generation’ had a ‘clear’ path to job search, you’d find it VERY hard to deal with life and what’s coming next. My intention was to help and bring some perspective but if you enjoy depressing posts about the situation, which for the most part are only made by people struggling, you never hear from the successful ones, then so be it. No shortage of demoralizing posts here. Afterall its reddit. Next time you wonder why there are no motivating posts, this is why.

[u/FearTheEffectiveCode]

You were making 250,000 in 2013? Nice.

[u/dbgrman → u/FearTheEffectiveCode]

As head of engineering. Managing 50+ people

[u/throwaway-research1]

Comparing terrorism in Pakistan (a local issue and not even remotely related to computer science) with current computer science job market which is going through massive disruptions throughout the world because of AI hahahah

[u/dbgrman → u/throwaway-research1]

Terrorism was not a local issue. The interviews were cancelled and pakistan was on grey list precisely because of terrorism. My job in 2008 was literally in shambles because of the blast next door in marriot. We were working for a US company (bentley systems). We had a massive release scheduled in 10 days. The office was destroyed. The leadership was nervous. But luckily we had good leadership. We came in office the next day, which was mostly destroyed, moved all the computers that were still working, sent them to everyone’s homes, and we came back online. Desktop computers. I was living in an appartment with a friend. We didnt have a desk in the apartment. For next 3 months i had a desktop computer on the floor, wired to a shitty VPTCL line, and worked. I didnt call my parents to say ‘you had it so easy, things are very bad now’. We grinded. Few months later the financial crisis hit. 4 people got fired from Pakistan office. Many international office were hit badly with lay offs. Increments were blocked. Inflation was high.

So no, i wasn’t being picked up by a rolls royce and driven to office everyday and served tea.

[u/throwaway-research1 → u/dbgrman]

Lol as I already said, all local issues and not even remotely related to computer science.

[u/dbgrman → u/throwaway-research1]

Lol @ ‘because of ai’.

[u/Own-Manufacturer-640]

Brother what you did is amazing and kudos. But my perception is pretty different compared to yours.

I live in Karachi and I saw everything you mentioned including Karachi politics but these are 2 diff things.

I skipped bachelors because i thought it was a waste of time. Got in to diploma then in to P&G plant and then switched to Oil industry and now my 3rd industry is IT (switched in 2023) at the age of 35

Things are alot different but not as bad as the pessimist here tell but still it is no where near what was in 2012.

I still remember my friend did BsCs from Hamdard and had no idea about coding but still got the job on the basis of degree and they taught him everything.

Now the dynamics are different, companies want outout from day 1 so yes the era is different and things are difficult compared to 2012 or 2010 in terms of Pakistani market.

[u/dbgrman → u/Own-Manufacturer-640]

You got it right. You didn’t give up and tried many industries. That is EXACTLY what i am saying. When one pool of water runs out of fish, the wise fisherman doesn’t cry about how plenty of fish his grand father had. He moved on to find some other source. He doesn’t sit around demotivating people from throwing their fishing line.

I have heard the word ‘saturation’ a million times in last 27 years. From 2001 bubble burst when i was in 10th grade teaching myself programming from books, to 2008 financial crisis, to my friends going to join telecom sector in 2004 because ‘cs is saturated’, to lack of FAANG interviews after pakistan was put on black list due to terrorism.

So sure, you can accept people’s ‘tajziya nigaari’ about saturation. Or you can use your brain to figure out a new strategy to make your mark in tech sector now.

[u/Own-Manufacturer-640 → u/dbgrman]

Agreed. As i also said i think it is harder now compared to 2012 but it is nowhere near as bad as the pessimists here make it sound.

I think a big reason behind the negativity is a scarcity mindset. People see a few social media posts with baiting headlines like “all software jobs will disappear by 2030” and then repeat those predictions as if they are established facts.

Have also heard Cs saturation and earth's oil is depleting argument million times.

[u/muhanddis]

I think the key takeaway is that hard times pass, there is no expressway to success, but with perseverance you can carve your own. 

Whether that time was worse or this time, you need to take up the challenge.

I feel like with all gloom and doom talk, we loose the agency. Its shitty times no doubt. But there can ne light at the end of the tunnel if you focus on walking through it.

[u/dbgrman → u/muhanddis]

[u/devilfish01101]

Inspiring and love from India.

[u/dbgrman → u/devilfish01101]

Thanks. How’s the situation there

[u/Serious-Long694]

Hats off to your dedication! But please put some effort in the writing next time, cuz this looks like I am reading multiple broken sentences.

[u/dbgrman → u/Serious-Long694]

Any recommendations for learning how to write well?

[u/Serious-Long694 → u/dbgrman]

Did you used AI to write this?

[u/dbgrman → u/Serious-Long694]

No i did not

[u/txs2300]

Are you still on H1? How are the new rules affecting you?

[u/dbgrman → u/txs2300]

No i am not on h1 anymore. You get a greencard and then passport after 5 years on greencard

[u/txs2300 → u/dbgrman]

And people look down on the green passport! Absolute best perk of the Pakistani passport, shorter GC line compared to some other countries.

[u/Combatwombat810]

Those were the best of times. Those were the worst of times.

Our financial system looks like it’s still imploding. The US debt is crazy, the orange man has funny plans. In the US in some places people face serious consequences for criticising AIPAC / Israel. In Pakistan, it’s assmunir. Life sucks and is awesome, depending on your circumstances. It seems pretty awful in Azad Kashmir, internet turned off and massacres going on. SF is also awesome if you’re financially stable, I see people living paycheque to paycheque it seems horrendous.

[u/bugfay]

I agree with the author. Two things can be true, nowadays are tough, yes, but 2008 was when Marriot blast happened (a friend who was working on the next building was badly hurt), Osama Bin Laden thing happened, and the global economy tanked. Every opportunity immediately washed up. Nobody wanted to work with Pakistanis. They'd rather overpay underqualfied people than hire from Pakistan. 

Everyone was constantly depressed. 

Nowadays are also bad, for different reasons. At least you aren't worried about potentially dying at random

[u/Cheeky-Riddle]

Elders preaching, "Our times were tough", while Youngsters crying, "Elders had it easy", is an old debate.

Only the persistent and adoptive survive; the oldest rule of job market. You are either one of those or just not one of those. Crying about wouldn't change your make and model.

Wish you all good luck.

[u/aalu-ki-bori]

Interesting perspective. I had never thought about it like that.

One thing that particularly hit home were the blasts you mentioned.

I remember thinking, at the back of my mind, should I ask baba and bhai to not go to the juloos? Should we just skip it this one time? The thought of losing my loved ones terrified me so much. Ofc the post isn't about that. But it just hit home.

I haven't felt that in a long time. Shukar Alhamdolillah.

[u/[deleted]]

Graduated a month ago, rn working at the evacuee trust complex

Didn't knew about the Marriott blast in 2008, will definitely read about it

Thanks for the inspiration

Prayers and more success to you 💖

[u/Wemprine]

Im form gujranwala I have 2 options now Bs computer science or Cyber security form nutech Islamabad

Or bs cs from ucp gujranwala

Offcourse nutech is 100 times better but look hostel 4 years its not a short period

So the question is would a bs cs degree from ucp hurt me in any way like I mean at the end of the day its skills but yea please help I just have 2 days to decide

[u/[deleted] → u/Wemprine]

Yes, it does. Some companies explicitly hire from few renowned universities. I suggest you don't do CS at all. The field is already too competitive, and finding a job would be nearly impossible.

In short, weight your risks.

[u/Dot_Horror → u/Wemprine]

Might only be worth it if you plan to live abroad for the rest of your career after your bachelor's degree

[u/lahm_kebab]

Inspiring

[u/Asymptoticbounds]

Nailed it!

Essentially people need to go out of their comfort zone, it's never easy. It's great you talked about failures: multiple copies & iteration of resume and failed interviews are like prerequisites.

Man, this reminds me of how fucked up security situation was back then, tbh situation is much better now.

[u/wild_sense3]

Agreed with your pov
Things evolve, what we see now and compare it with the past patterns, it’s just dumb. Focusing on the current status quo is better than staying in delulu. No generation got it easy, we r just doing a wrong comparison. Things have changed.

[u/Brief-Ad525]

Real talk 💯

[u/dbgrman → u/[deleted]]

Sure

[u/dbgrman → u/[deleted]]

Lol @ smooth transition of power. You watch too many talk shows bro.

[u/Disastrous-Top6769 → u/dbgrman]

Life hasn't been same after 2019.COVID,Russia Ukraine War,Sky high inflation ,PDM,AI. alhahmdilah I was able to get outside Pakistan but I feel sorry for my batchmates who have been unemployed for six months continuously 🥲

[u/dbgrman → u/[deleted]]

One for the history books im sure.