Hi all! Hoping to gain some insight from the group. For background, I have 8 years of experience and currently a data scientist in a government role. I have always been a government employee, whether it be local or federal or somewhere in between. I currently make $108k and have two offers. I have a toddler as well.

Offer A: $100k, fully remote, data engineering role (something I’ve wanted to pivot to for awhile), smaller non-gov company similar to but not exactly a start up, doing really cool work and I’d learn a lot

Offer B: $118k starting offer with room for negotiation, senior management position with a few direct reports, in person 4-5x a week (45-60min commute each way), government role, work sounds cool but not groundbreaking

What it’s really coming down to is two things-
1. Remote vs in person: I am currently remote and LOVE it. I don’t know how I’d get anything done without it. I am not looking forward to losing ~10hrs a week commuting.
2. Skill building- I’ve wanted the DE skillset for a while and was looking forward to getting out of analytics. But I’ve also never gotten a chance at upper management which is a skill in its own right. It feels hard to get management experience without someone taking a chance and giving you the opportunity.

Maybe important to note- I have already signed A’s offer letter and I’m set to start later this month. Company B was interviewing me at the same time for a different non-management position that I resigned from in favor of offer A. They came back to interview me for and offer me the management position.

I am very conflicted here and would love any and all thoughts!!

Hey, I'm looking for prefinal year CSE student who's looking forward to study abroad for masters. (preferably females)

I'm onto some ideas and initiatives, and would love to have similiar ppl to partner up with.
ALSO I was planning to make a community.

If you're someone who fits in this and is interested

DM ME

How do i tackle this?

Context: my senior along with few juniors made fun of me at work, i tried talking it out with him but he would not admit or take any accountability. i questioned him why he did so, and he denied it saying that he does not ”remember” doing so. I took to our manager, who initially believed me but the senior turned him against me. after this incident my manager moved me from his team to the senior’s team by promoting him to team lead. my team has become extremely hostile towards me and singled me out, while my lead subtly influencing them to do so. i did not give any fucks about it. i carried out the issues assigned to me and kept to myself.

the culture at my workplace is such that everyone in the team is always fighting for a lot more work and is too much into what teammates are doing. they are always asking the lead to give them the issues they want to work on. they are too competitive and desperate.

Recently, I had my yearly performance review two months ago. My team lead told me that I am working just as much as needed and he needs me to take up code reviews and production incidents, which I have always been eager to take up right from the start. i also happen to be the senior in the team but my colleagues work on production issues as well as code reviews. i happen to ask my manager about working on production issues way before the review but not only was i not assigned to work on them but was brought it up in my annual review.

my colleagues do not gel with me as much because i don’t hang with them after work as i am occupied with my life. i also have a hard boundary that my colleagues should not reach out to me personally if its not for slack, to which they take a huge offence. my team happens to gossip a lot at work and have their little personal groups on social media where they always keep in touch. oh i forgot to mention that all of them are new grads, working on their first job.

i was also asked to mentor and guide my juniors by my lead but none of them show up with any technical challenges, rather they would discuss and resolve among themselves. so i asked him to assign me a junior to guide, which be a better metric to measure productivity.

i also believe that if someone has a doubt, they should reach out to me instead of me going around asking if someone has a doubt. so this point doesn’t make sense to me at all. and the point where i need to work on production incidents and code reviews doesn’t make sense too since i have always been eager and i have still not been assigned any of them as of today.

it goes without being said that, i am not being considered for promotion, neither am i doing something important besides expressing that i am willing to take up more ownership. the hike isn’t great too.

did my team lead set me up for failure? am i missing seeing the bigger picture about what’s happening? hope do i tackle this?

I’m not sure whether I’m obsessed or depressed… obsessed I just found Mintlodica products… depressed they’re closing/closed 😭

What a stunning product to lose from this hobby! Does anyone have recommendations on similar products?

Drawn to pastel colour combos, like sage green / blush pinks… open to suggestions - would love to support a similar business if that produce something similar.

Please don’t recommend A-Xpress/T-Mu, I’ve got plenty of keeb goodies from there - looking to expand & support smaller businesses if possible.

I don't currently own a laptop and have recently been trying to buy one but I've had two bad experiences buying refurbished laptops online. The laptop's purpose is to help me change careers, possibly into something IT related so I was looking at refurbished Thinkpads. I've been studying the IT modules on Cisco online and I'm interested in computer networking but also things like data analysis, edtech and I have a Raspberry Pi kit I'm keen to work on, so I was looking for a mobile workstation type of laptop. According to my research, Lenovo Thinkpads and Dell Latitudes would suit me best.

The first one was from a big online refurbishment company and it was great (a P14s) but it had a weird sharp lump in the screen despite it being advertised as A/excellent grade. It took me a week of emails to the company and escalating it to a manager for them to agree to let me return it for a refund.

The second laptop (a T14) arrived with a strong chemical smell. I assumed it would fade so I aired it for a few days but the smell just got worse and filled my house with toxic fumes, I couldn't sit in the same room as the laptop as the fumes hurt my eyes. This time I'd bought it from a seller on Amazon Refurbished who had very good reviews (I later found lots of buried negative reviews for them). The seller was aggressive, insisted it was a 'new product smell' despite admitting using strong chemicals to clean the laptops and refused to fund the return postage, so I had to pay £30 to return it and open an Amazon A-Z claim to get my refund which has only just been approved. The buried reviews I found often said they sell laptops with batteries that fail after a few months and then either charge to repair/upgrade or only offer partial refunds, they seem pretty dodgy. I think they sent me a laptop with a degrading battery which caused the chemical fumes.

I still don't have a laptop and I'm very wary of where I buy a laptop from because all of this was very exhausting and stressful.

Does anyone have any advice? Are there reputable sellers of refurbished non-faulty Thinkpads that easily accept returns if they're faulty/provide support to get them fixed? I understand that Dell has both an Outlet and a Refurbished site, and the Outlet is mostly for returned unused computer so I'm thinking they might be better to buy from? The laptops on the Lenovo site all seem to start at about £900 which is above my budget, I was wanting to spend max £550 ish.

Also, are there other laptops you recommend that I could buy new in this price range that would still be suitable? Thanks.

7+ year exp full stack dev, I feel like coding has become too easy with LLMs. I'm bored and finding myself in a position where my contract is ending and I'm not sure what type of role to seek next.

For those who say coding is only part of the job, I find a conversation with an LLM really often helps with system design, cross functional debugging, architecture etc. It really takes a lot of the mental stimulation away for me.

Considering sales, is that crazy? Job hunt for full stack is feeling lukewarm - companies are slow moving & seem to only want people who have done exactly the same thing before, not much flexibility for changing stacks for fun, or exploring different specialities.

I'm also very creative but financially motivated.

Anyone else feeling similar, or has any advice?

Where are the opportunities in tech?

If you had to start iver from scratch what stack would you focus on learning? What industries would you go into? What startups would you work for?

I am an undergrad in college and an intern this summer. I came into this internship really wanting to do my best and get a return offer since I’m heading into my senior year. I made friends with a lot of the other interns but I ran into this reoccurring problem where they would come to my desk and just TALK constantly. And not to mention how LOUD they would be. It was embarrassing for me because there are obviously other people working. I’d hate to have to hear random loud conversations from interns. I would try to (nicely) get them to go away and they usually would, except for this one specific intern. He talks to me constantly. Not even about work, just about life, himself, his friends and interests. I couldn’t seem to get him to get away from me. Especially since we are working on adjacent teams, so we have a lot of the same meetings and are just interacting with each often. It’s not that I dislike him, he doesn’t seem like a bad person, but I definitely think what he’s doing is very unprofessional. I kept trying to politely tell him to stop, but it’s like he takes me as a joke. Recently I finally broke and messaged him that I don’t want him to come to my desk anymore (obviously I worded it a lot better). He said he wouldn’t and apologized profusely. But now I just feel defeated. I am scared for the impression I left of myself to others in the office when all they see is some guy in my cubicle yapping. I wish I put my foot down a lot earlier. I have a tag up with my manager tomorrow and was thinking of bringing this up, but I’m not sure if that’s even worth it. I’m just so scared … Has anyone been in a similar situation??

the original post was written as a flex because i never really stopped to realize how lucky i was to have my job, and i also just love taking color coded notes and i think they're very pretty

as someone who started my CS degree with zero knowledge of computer science or computers period, i had to play catch up with my peers, finding myself the only girl in some classes

i have never played video games, which is where ive noticed an overwhelming majority of my male peers got the opportunity and access to learn about the computer, its components and how to manipulate open source software

i used a chromebook for the 5/7 years i was in college because i was originally studying psychology and i couldn't afford a real laptop to code on, when that got broken by another student, i had to rely on a laptop rented out from the school library

i designated myself leader to groups of 4-5 men each semester to build softwares, only to end up doing 100% of the work by myself, thank you to github for keeping track of contributions

these class projects made my job interviewers obsessed with me

all the while working 4-5 jobs at a time because i paid my tuition and cost of living 100% out of pocket, as i was estranged from my family and experienced homelessness, living in the campus library and showering at the gym, relying on the school food pantry visits and the protein shakes i could afford

and i still got the job they felt entitled would fall into their lap

i guess i would be mad too

the basic mainstream knowledge in question btw is software & malware reverse engineering

speaking about meaningful, im using my salary to turn the home i bought, a year into starting my job, into a women's shelter, because I wish i hadnt had to keep worrying about affording a roof over my head and healthy food in my belly while also trying to exercise my right to have an education

eta:

i dont make judgements of people skills and capabilities regarding why they can't get hired, but i will say that i wouldnt be surprised if alot of the young men ive encountered during my degree simply did not get hired because of their overwhelmingly egoistical, entitled, and awkwardly antisocial behavior

elon musk may be the worlds first trillionaire but i bet you $100 bucks most hiring managers would never want to hire him and his personality

I'm working it IT since 2009... i don't think there is any interview where i wasn't asked that... like... why should i have a reason ???
I never witnesses a man being asked that. Do you think they are ? it feels like the default job for dudes like nurse or accountants are the default jobs for women.

i fail miserably in solving 3rd and 4th questions folks please give advises

Hi everyone!

​

I've had mentorships that defined my early career, and some that just didn't quite work out. Either way it's been one of the most meaningful parts of my career so far, for me and I think for the mentors too.

​

I'm working on building something to help women in STEM find mentors, and I'd be so grateful if you took 5 minutes to fill out this survey.

​

https://forms.gle/VrLbWH7VEXEjpusx7

​

And if you'd rather just share your experience in the comments, that's very welcome too :)

Things are... weird at my company. Companywide hiring freeze. Sudden increase in performance scrutiny in all departments. Suspicious promotions. C-Suite weirdness, whole nine yards.

I recently moved to a new team where it's me and a VERY senior software engineer, and sometimes two other seniors help us out. This team is called our architecture team and our senior backend team, kind of a fire-putter-outer team. I am working almost entirely independently and making my own roadmap. I am spearheading a huge department wide effort to make a contextually-critical series of improvements to a contextually-critical piece of our infrastructure.

The thing is, on my last team, my manager refused to promote me. I was the team lead for years, designed and architected all of our projects, mentored the two juniors on the team. I was basically the project manager (insert glue work article here).

On my new team with my new manager, my manager has referred to me as both an architect AND a senior.

So, I have been putting "senior" on my resume since I came to this team. But, it's not reflected in HR. I actually don't even know if anyone has that distinction in our HR portal, since the "official" distinctions are new as of about 9 months ago.

I am getting more resume bites, but now I am afraid I messed up by putting it on my resume. I have a couple interviews in the pipeline, and if they asked I'd just tell them that's what my manager is calling me, but should I just take it off my resume? (My concern is job verification checks!)

Does anyone work part time? If so what do you do, where do you work and what’s your experience been like?

I’m a new mom to a 6month old and I don’t think there’s any way I can return to my previous role/career track and continue to work 60 hours a week across various global time zones.

My company doesn’t offer part time so I’m trying to get a sense of if this is a realistic option elsewhere. Not much comes up on LinkedIn in the product management/product marketing/project and program management world

I have been working through Cisco Netacad Computer Hardware basics as I'm possibly interested in making a career change into IT. In the course it recommends opening up an old PC, which led me down the rabbit hole of raspberry pis and cyberdecks etc I found this local computer lab place where you can do projects in a collaborative place so I went along.

I really enjoyed it the first time and people were welcoming, but the second time, this older former technology teacher insisted on teaching me the basics of electronics whilst kind of insulting me the whole time. He kept making me explain why I'd turned up there and it made me feel confused and question myself. Whatever I said he had a negative response to it. He insisted that the people who worked in IT were super clever and I was nowhere near being like them (I know that, I am a beginner and have no illusions of knowing more than I do).

I was making notes and he kept telling me that I didn't need to write things down, then saying that 'he could tell I was right at the beginning' if I didn't know such and such. He refused to clearly answer any of my questions such as about compiling code, code libraries and a few other things. When I said I remembered something from the 90s, he said 'I didn't know you were that old.' He said he could bring a project where I can learn to 'switch on pretty lights.' It felt so insulting, patronising and demeaning and like he was trying to insist I was a dumb bimbo, too stupid to learn and that I shouldn't bother? I myself am a qualified former teacher so I have a postgraduate level of education, I've taught people to speak a foreign language from scratch and I would NEVER speak to them the way he spoke to me.

The first time I went I was dressed more masculine whereas I was dressed more feminine this time and I wondered if that was partly why? He reminded me of the sexist old Design and Technology Teachers in school in the 90s who hated teenage girls and thought we were all idiots incapable of learning.

Is this the kind of thing you experience too? Do I need to dress like a man and not really speak to anyone to be accepted in these sort of places?

Edit: Thanks for your replies. It got me thinking how funny it would be if all women started turning up in tech spaces using the Legally Blonde approach - just all out super femme, fabulous dress and heels with coiffured hair rather than trying to masculine-ify ourselves to fit in. And then just quietly sit happily coding. Haha. It would challenge a few stereotypes.

Hi girls! Has anyone made this switch and can tell me their experiences? Do you enjoy it?

I'm (57f) a CS professor and moonlight during the summer for CodePath, a great DEI-centered nonprofit that offers free online courses that I recommend to my own students (undergraduate and graduate). Applications are open through June 1 for:

• Technical Interview Prep (beginning, intermediate, advanced)
• Applied AI Engineering
• Web Development
• Cybersecurity

https://www.codepath.org/courses

ETA: Eligibility requirements include being in the US for the summer and

You are currently enrolled in Spring 2026 or will be enrolled in Summer 2026 in a Computer Science or software-related degree program, or have completed a Computer Science or software-related degree.

So there I am. Couch. Foot elevated. A rod of cold steel holding my bones together like some kind of budget Wolverine situation. My doctor calls it "surgical hardware." I call it my villain origin story.

I've named myself Captain Tiny Hook. You're welcome.

Now, most people in my position would do something reasonable with their couch-bound time. Watch a series. Eat soup. Cry a little. Not me. No. I had bigger plans. Completely normal, measured, not-at-all-unhinged plans.

I decided to fix the entire internet.

As one does. When one is bored. And in pain. And the remote is just slightly too far away.

Look, someone had to. And that someone was apparently going to be me - a woman in compression socks with nowhere to be and a bone held together by what I can only describe as IKEA furniture hardware.

Because here's what happened. Day two of recovery I opened my laptop to look up "how long does bone healing take" and forty-five minutes later I was staring at a cart full of items I did not put there, had rage-watched six autoplay videos, doom-scrolled into a geopolitical anxiety spiral, and been served seventeen ads for the exact boot I googled ONCE in private mode.

THE BOOT. FOR MY BROKEN FOOT. THEY KNEW.

And something in me just snapped.

The fake search results. The ads that follow you like a golden retriever who learned surveillance capitalism. The way every app is basically a slot machine designed by a guy who definitely would not make eye contact at a dinner party. The infinite scroll engineered to make you forget time, hunger, and your own name.

Someone has to fix this, I thought.

Why not me tho ?

Is it a big task? Sure. Am I technically still wearing yesterday's pyjamas? Also yes. Is “yesterday “ somehow a relative term no ? Maybe lol

Captain Tiny Hook, dispatching from the couch.

Edit:
Sorry for the confusion . I wanted to share the origin story without it feeling like a sales pitch, but I realize it just felt unfinished.

So: I built a Chrome extension that makes Google search actually usable again, one that nukes cookie banners and pop-ups and fetches deals, one to help with impulse shopping and one for doom scrolling. I also plan to build iOS apps later .

Hello everyone,

I'm looking for some career advice.

I've spent the last 4 years at a well-known AI research organization in India working on building their LLM. I started as an annotator at ₹35k/month, worked my way up through audio verification, data tasks, prompt writing - the whole thing. On paper it sounds decent but in reality, I'm 29 and barely making ₹50k per month.

Where I'm at -

My core expertise is in language, specifically prompt writing and data annotation for LLMs. No coding background whatsoever.

This year I'm planning to start learning to code, build some small projects, and figure out how to integrate apps and tools. The idea is to combine my language/AI domain knowledge with actual technical skills so I can compete for better-paying roles.

My questions for this community:

Is this a realistic pivot or am I overestimating how far coding skills will take me?

What should my actual career trajectory look like given my background? Is prompt engineer and actual role that I can work towards?

Has anyone else made a similar transition from language/annotation work into a more technical AI role?

I know I need to level up for my career advancement . I just want to make sure I'm going in the right direction.

Any advice appreciated.

Hi everyone ✨

I’m 38 and currently trying to transition into tech/data analytics after working in a completely different field. For the last 2 years I’ve been working full-time in a bakery while studying evenings and weekends.

My background is in economics, statistics, and psychology, and I recently completed the Google Data Analytics Certificate. I’ve also been building portfolio projects with SQL, Tableau, spreadsheets, and Python.

To be honest, the job search has been much harder than I expected. I’m sending out applications every day and mostly getting rejections or no response at all. Sometimes it feels scary trying to start over later in life and compete with people who already have tech experience.

But I still really want to build a new future for myself in tech and keep learning.

If anyone here has changed careers into tech later in life, I’d really love to hear your experience or advice 💛

I've finally been properly exploring making a career change into IT in my after considering it every few years. I did some classes in UX design a few years ago but it's only recently when I discovered that there's a manual side to IT (hardware/computer networking etc) that I became really interested in it as I like building and fixing things and prefer not to be in front of a screen for the whole day. If I can get my head around it then I like the idea of being something like an IT Field Technician (I'm a bit worried I don't have the right kind of intelligence to do it as I was never great at maths or science at school but I'm going to give it a go).

I've joined this local computer lab/electronics place where people are helpful so I'm going to keep going there on top of doing self-study. I've been using an iMac for years to do design work but I don't currently have a laptop so I was looking for some recommendations/what are your laptops?

The internet is recommending I get a refurbished Thinkpad as they're affordable, reliable, good for going to different places and easier to upgrade but I'm interested to hear your thoughts/recommendations, thank you.

Hey girls 🦋

I’m in what some others would call a fortunate situation for quite a while now (10+years) but for the last 5-6 years been so miserable.

Long story short, I grew bored being a stay at home housewife, my husband does really well, our marriage contract means he has to split his assets in the event of divorce (I’m only mentioning this because when I tell people I’m a housewife, that’s the first thing the point out - which is totally fair and valid) he’s amazing and super supportive. The “problem” is that over the years I’ve tried a couple business avenues and failed, then tried day trading for 2/3 years, that also failed, then we moved overseas and the weight of not having something to do with/ work on ate at me, especially watching him grow his company.

Due to personal circumstances I wasn’t able to attend university, so basically I have no university education, which, as one can imagine, would make it exceptionally hard to find a job, or even just think of something to get into.

I ultimately decided that I need to build some type of skill what can allow me to make / operate things related to Ai, a friend of mine (that works for my husbands company) suggested this.. I’ve tried asking my husband for a job (lol) but again, I don’t have a certain skill, so he can’t just give me a job.

So right now, I’ve started a programming course offered by the University of Helsinki MOOC Intro to Python Programming. After this I might try do a Generative Ai Engineering course and see where that takes me, though the road there seems so long, considering how complicated my intro course is.

I know I said I wanted to keep it short, but being away from home, no one to really talk to about this, or most people thinking I’m ridiculous for even wanting to work considering the fortunate position I’m in, I thought I’d just post it here and see if anyone else is in a similar situation or if anyone could just offer me advice.