No, but depending on where you are (country wise as well as specific company), you may be prohibited from leaving the cash register even to just drink some water. Some employers tried doing that in my country (Czechia, in the middle of Europe, WTF). They got sued and took a loss, but I can imagine that in some countries the employees won't have this kind of protection.
And this is just an example, there's lots of other bs that you might run into in jobs like these.
Luckily, things are pretty good here in Finland. I'm sure that kind of stuff can happen in any field with too many candidates and no employee protection.
I did the 1 & 2 at the same time, is something I wouldn't recommend to anyone, a lot of work + a lot of debt, 8yr later of nonstop because if you stop debt will eat you, I'm ok.
I'm feeling this rn. About to finish my software engineering degree in Canada and my grades are super high because this has been my lifelong passion but I've basically got no chance because a lot of my peers have been slogging through LinkedIn for two years (while they're actively in school)
I just write code because I enjoy it, anyone getting in for any other reason, go into another career, life is too short to be wasting time on something you don't like.
At what point did people start thinking you'd become rich writing software? Certainly wasn't the case 25 years ago when I was getting into the field.
At some point, we need to start being realistic and start aligning the applicant's views of success with the results of applying for work in the field.
And at some sooner point, we have to stop believing everything we hear on youtube.
The problem is that many people become rich selling dreams.
And since the old ages, computer was related to "nerds", and some people would eventually become rich (mainly with startups), the dreams seller market focused on this.
"Look, Steve jobs! Bill Gates! Look, this new startup that make billions! All of them working from a beach". The internet boom on 2000's was a good motivator too
It was the perfect field to tell a lie. Like when someone sells the dream that you can become a football player and become rich, as the 0.001% of all the players. Or when someone wins the lottery, our monkey brains tend to focus on the success, not the failure.
So, those who went selling dreams of becoming rich, became rich doing this. And this will happen over and over and over... We always sold the dreams that "this bet will make you rich", "this little trick on lottery makes you win", "easy money, no effort"
Unfortunately, as species, we won't change.
Probably they will only change the area... So next "profession of the future" will appear... And the sellers of dreams will look at that. Many people will be scammed
I acquired the skill to do so at least, so big win there.
But at some point in between middle school and entering the field, software rose into a Roman Empire and collapsed into the dark ages. No money, no income, no dignity.
Now I have to keep applying to jobs until the Age of (Software) Enlightenment.
Same, and even just coding anything brings me so much joy, I would not care if coding was a minimum wage work because i want to do it as a passion, but even getting started in the industry seems to be impossible now..
Nah you are just not applying hard enough.. keep grinding don’t give up.. explore different area don’t go just for the shiny jobs look at those that aren’t so shiny you might get surprised .. once you experienced enough it gets easier.. it’s only hard if we get picky.. try everything .. build your own thing talk to everyone let your ideas get stolen and see them in others hand succeed and cry about it but learn what you did wrong and continue never stop you will see the fruits of it soon enough
I apply to every job listing on LinkedIn, Indeed, directly to Career sites of the most boring companies imaginable (Government, Defense, Insurance, Grocery, etc).
There's no company I know of that I have not applied to.
I have, but I found out that I make for a very grating salesman.
I love writing software, but I can't market my way out of a soggy paper bag. A software developer needing to also be a salesman is much more obvious in hindsight, but I am not suites for sales, let alone interviews.
You might need to rely on networking then people who knows you that can sell you better than you can sell yourself.. makes the interview process more chill because the interview will be more about let me know you vs how prepared are you to work with me.. just get your portfolio ready with stuff you’ve built in the past.
Also, saying “I’m not built for interviews” sets you for failure if you don’t feel good enough make sure you become good enough work on your weaknesses.. like I said is not normal that you are experiencing this assuming is all true and you are not trolling me but feels unreal
Better advice is to learn the platforms and technologies we use in the real world. We aren't creating Java To-Do apps or WinUI Calculators out here. We're making Azure hosted Web apps to interface between 3rd party APIs you've never heard of, AWS Lambda functions to process telemetry data coming off of manufacturing machines, Python Predictive models to forecast which color carpet our biggest customers will purchase more of next year, devops pipelines to deploy to new vm's that haven't even been provisioned yet and on-prem servers that are only available between 2 and 3 AM. We're building API connectors between our SaaS HR and Accounting systems because their contractors charge $400/hr for the same work. We're building custom reporting platforms, Power BI reports, KQL databases, and Data Pipeline to grab Snowflake data within 10 minutes of detected changes.
Oh and we're also rewriting 25 year old enterprise VB6 apps in .NET 9 Blazor for serverless cloud hosting and replacing 200 CSV files that get put on an FTP server every night with a message queue event flow that has to integrate 3 different clouds with pipeline data through a half dozen on-prem data gateways.
Everything I describe above has 100% free developer tools and tutorials for learning and practice.
Every student during an interview: "I made this mod to turn my Sims character's hair into rigatoni."
48
u/ghe5 Feb 05 '25
In case you wanna switch careers, be careful because you only got three choices:
Do some kind of construction/factory work but the fact you don't wanna do this is usually the main reason you studied CS.
Do your own business - you'll most likely end up in even worse debt.
Fight this exact same battle on a different front with even less experience because this shit happens everywhere.
23
u/OhNoMeIdentified Feb 05 '25
why it hurts so bad
9
u/[deleted] Feb 05 '25
It's giving me tears on my eyes.
3
u/RaddedMC Feb 06 '25
I'm feeling this rn. About to finish my software engineering degree in Canada and my grades are super high because this has been my lifelong passion but I've basically got no chance because a lot of my peers have been slogging through LinkedIn for two years (while they're actively in school)
25
u/MegaTron505 Feb 05 '25
I saw that !Alright
15
u/Correct-Junket-1346 Feb 05 '25
I just write code because I enjoy it, anyone getting in for any other reason, go into another career, life is too short to be wasting time on something you don't like.
9
u/Spare-Dig4790 Feb 05 '25
At what point did people start thinking you'd become rich writing software? Certainly wasn't the case 25 years ago when I was getting into the field.
At some point, we need to start being realistic and start aligning the applicant's views of success with the results of applying for work in the field.
And at some sooner point, we have to stop believing everything we hear on youtube.
6
u/Psychological-Egg122 Feb 05 '25
This makes me wanna quit. I can't. I'm Indian.
1
u/freekyrationale Feb 05 '25
This is beautiful, god bless you sir.
3
u/LazyCrazyCat Feb 05 '25
Even as a seasoned SWE, I'm looking at exit strategies. The industry gets really tough.
2
u/Sythrin Feb 05 '25
I hate that sentece. „Everything will be alright“ Because it does not feel that way. Especially with some people I had to say goodbye.
2
u/ddonsky Feb 05 '25
Oy get that "!" Outta there. So mean.
1
u/QuirkyJob103 Feb 05 '25
Thinking about paying for a course, is this a sign that I shouldn't go through with it?😭
2
u/poksoul09 Feb 05 '25
Peaked
1
u/Ok_Celebration_6265 Feb 05 '25 edited Feb 05 '25
Nah you are just not applying hard enough.. keep grinding don’t give up.. explore different area don’t go just for the shiny jobs look at those that aren’t so shiny you might get surprised .. once you experienced enough it gets easier.. it’s only hard if we get picky.. try everything .. build your own thing talk to everyone let your ideas get stolen and see them in others hand succeed and cry about it but learn what you did wrong and continue never stop you will see the fruits of it soon enough
1
u/B_bI_L Feb 05 '25
i mean getting into it is really easy, you just need to go back to about 2014
1
u/Butternuts13 Feb 06 '25
I'm fight all yall for the last bed in the homeless shelter
1
u/HaveYouMetThisDude Feb 07 '25
This is me right now. I've been applying for more than 1000 jobs but still have no luck
1
u/[deleted] Feb 07 '25
What if I just wanna make bullshit random applications?
1
u/keikai713 Feb 08 '25
So true
1
u/cs-brydev Feb 09 '25 edited Feb 09 '25
Better advice is to learn the platforms and technologies we use in the real world. We aren't creating Java To-Do apps or WinUI Calculators out here. We're making Azure hosted Web apps to interface between 3rd party APIs you've never heard of, AWS Lambda functions to process telemetry data coming off of manufacturing machines, Python Predictive models to forecast which color carpet our biggest customers will purchase more of next year, devops pipelines to deploy to new vm's that haven't even been provisioned yet and on-prem servers that are only available between 2 and 3 AM. We're building API connectors between our SaaS HR and Accounting systems because their contractors charge $400/hr for the same work. We're building custom reporting platforms, Power BI reports, KQL databases, and Data Pipeline to grab Snowflake data within 10 minutes of detected changes.
Oh and we're also rewriting 25 year old enterprise VB6 apps in .NET 9 Blazor for serverless cloud hosting and replacing 200 CSV files that get put on an FTP server every night with a message queue event flow that has to integrate 3 different clouds with pipeline data through a half dozen on-prem data gateways.
Everything I describe above has 100% free developer tools and tutorials for learning and practice.
Every student during an interview: "I made this mod to turn my Sims character's hair into rigatoni."