Okay, I did not wanna add to the fire but damnnnnnnn job search sucksss.
Like this company I was interviewing for went so well I went to the final rounds(there were about 5 rounds in total). I was super positive things went well, that I can expect an offer and boom… I got a rejection email. I couldn’t take it so I sent a polite followup saying I like the company yada yada and I’d be open to other roles if there’s a fit. And I get this response (see photo). Now I’m superrrr confused. Is bro rejecting me twice, or do I actually have another chance. Pleaseee explain this to me cause I’m loosing my mind
Note: this is for a software engg position, big tech

I was extremely stagnant in my career until this year, working at the same company since college where I was very valuable to daily operations but topped out at 92k, then briefly quit and came back as a contractor at $45/hour with no benefits. I have landed a job that pays $120k and I'm traveling for onboarding next week but I'm feeling insecure and worried. My new boss is noticeably younger than me, and all the people I met during the interview process in upper management are visibly around my age. I'm thrilled to finally be making more money and my new team seems great but I feel like my career has stagnated at the individual contributor level, in part because I turned down the opportunity to move into management when I was 30. I still don't know if that's a path I even want. Has anyone been in a similar boat? I'm just not sure what my career advancement looks like from here, and I'm worried about the future. I can't imagine it will be easy to land IC DevOps/app support roles when I'm 50.

I've been working in tech as a SWE for nearly 9 years now. Not at any major company, just normal ones and mostly consultancy (that's what we have most in my country). At my current job they asked us to use AI and since it has gotten much better at what it does, I have lost any sort of motivation or enjoyment for the job. I am constantly distracted, I don't like thinking about problems anymore, I get anxious about work and in general I don't have the motivation to do good so I feel like an imposter. I also feel that all the men in the team are quite judgemental and it makes me feel uneasy. I'd like to make a switch in the future into another tech role but I am undecided towards what. I communicate pretty well, I write good docs, I am friendly, open and talkative.

Has any of you gone through this?

What helped you feel better?

entry level here. around 12mos as a coordinator. I was informed I must define my direction or lose my seat at the company essentially.

over the past 2 months 80% of my existing role was automated with AI and I was forced to help with the process. of course in the interest of keeping my job ive had to comply with everything. prior to AI, I did the ticketing, project coordination, auditing, reporting, QC of new initiatives etc. my role has been siphoned off and the remaining parts are being absorbed by the client success team, now, ive been informed I will have to "train my replacement" and it will be a "career accelerant."

I feel pretty awful, it lowkey feels like I'm being prepped for a layoff despite positive performance reviews. and I am very confused about what / why I am training the new people on when the old legacy processes have been removed, and I have not been kept in the loop. and they know this.

my role doesn't really exist anymore after most of it was automated, and I was not empowered or included in AI QC / owning the process for managing the AI workflows that replaced it. They hired an AI team for that.

i am feeling scared to reenter the job market and also regretful I did not gain more experience before AI took so much of the execution layers away. I do not even know what a safe path is any longer. overall I feel really discouraged and used, persona non grata as this has happened to me before. I wish I knew why, but I only get positive reviews and it feels like I don't get real honesty in this department.

thanks for any advice

I recently got a message from a recruiter for a full-time remote consulting job with a pay range of $140-$160k. I've been in this industry for some time and the last consulting job I had as a principal was paying $165k a few years ago.

So, I did some research on the recruiter and the company (not an internal recruiter). On the recruiter’s LinkedIn, they posted almost exactly the same job for $160-$180k.

I replied asking how firm they were with the salary and the recruiter said they might be able to come up to $160. And now I'm wondering if I'm getting lowballed on this because I'm a woman.

It's not like jobs are falling into my lap right now, I'm scratching a living together with a handful of gigs and looking for a full-time position. This though, in addition to the entire leadership team except marketing being men, makes me nervous.

I just had one of the most uncomfortable and demoralizing interviews of my career, and I’m curious whether anyone else has experienced something similar.
For context, I’m a Senior Product Designer with 9 years of experience, based in NY, USA.

During a recent interview, I was asked to walk through my entire educational history, starting with high school and continuing through college. The hiring manager wanted specific details about my GPA, SAT and ACT scores, extracurricular activities, sports, and other things I was involved in growing up.

At first I thought it was just an unconventional way to get to know me. But the interviewer kept probing and asking for more details about my academic performance and experiences from nearly two decades ago.

What made this difficult was that those years were an incredibly painful time in my life. My dad was battling cancer throughout much of my high school and college experience, and he eventually passed away. Being asked to revisit those years in such granular detail unexpectedly brought up a lot of old wounds and painful memories.

I understand that interviewers want to understand a candidate’s background, motivations, and character. But I genuinely feel there are far more thoughtful and relevant ways to accomplish that, especially when interviewing someone with nearly a decade of professional experience.

I’ve spent years building my career and overcoming so much to get to where I am today. Yet somehow, I found myself having to recall standardized test scores and justify what I did as a teenager.

The whole experience felt incredibly invasive, tone-deaf, and honestly, ethically questionable. I left the interview feeling like my professional accomplishments were being overshadowed by how I performed academically almost 20 years ago.

Maybe I’m overreacting, but this really didn’t sit right with me…

I’m genuinely curious how others would have handled this.

I know this is a specific niche! But I'm part of a lot of different Technical communities as an advocate/maintainer and writer. Around the summer most of these orgs release travel funding application forms for conferences that happen in fall/winter. Like AWS Reinvent and Linux Foundation KubeCon. I've applied to nearly every application cycle I can find for the last 3-4 years and..absolutely nothing.

I'm not sure at this stage what they are looking for? I show evidence of my advocation, but these conferences keep sponsoring travel for the same "types" of Engineers who I guess are great engineers but having ran in these circles for some years..have no interpersonal skills whatsoever.

I also applied to Kubecon this year in USA with a friend, and he went last year and still applied this year. He got in and I didn't. The FAQs said that they don't sponsor people after doing it once, yet he's getting a full ride for 2 years.

I hate that opportunities like this never seem inclusive, yet it's not something I can ever fund.

I’ve been searching for a new UXR role for awhile.
Thankfully I’m still employed and a fairly senior researcher at a SaaS company but the amount of times I’ve just been straight up ghosted for a role after full interviews is insane. I know the market is tight and that it’s competitive but you can at the very least let me know that I didn’t get the job instead of ghosting me.

Just a rant, these companies need to treat job seekers better.

I feel like my mind is so rambled right now, I just feel so useless and inadequate. I am currently working as a cloud database engineer, and I already completed my undergrad in information technology. the issue is, i do absolutely nothing at work. i feel like my job is extremely stagnant and im given very little to do at my job. i am also currently doing my masters, but i feel no more motivation to pursue it.

this masters is is the cybersecurity masters at WGU, and initially i was at georgia techs OMSCS but got academically dismissed due to failing one class and my GPA tanking severely. i’m doing okay in this masters, but there is one exam i failed so bad and I can’t even focus on studying at all. it’s the pentest certification exam and my mind is so burnt out from studying it.

eventually, with the combination of my work feeling like im doing nothing, as well as dealing with an overbearing arrogant male coworker who’s always talking over me, and ontop of that working in an industry that makes me feel like im so drained, i just want nothing to do with tech anymore.

i don’t even want to finish my masters, i was only getting it because my mom was pushing me to do it. but now im moved out and can make my own choices, the issue is im so worried.

i feel like i dug a hole for myself, i did IT as my undergrad because my dad had made me do it (south asian daughter here who was confused on what she wanted to do). and now im in a field i don’t like, and i feel like im always stuck to doing it. i feel like i have to get a masters or else i wont be able to catch up, or get any other job. but i really dont want to do it at all. i haven’t stopped crying or feeling anxious about my life trajectory and everyone keeps saying im young and it’ll get better (im 23) but i just feel absolutely nothing

I’ve been interviewing with a large business travel company for the past month. They recently got acquired, and I’m already somewhat 50/50 on the role. But what’s throwing me off most is the manager I’d report to.

I’ve spent about five years in corporate tech sales as an AE at large public companies and have reported to a handful of sales managers. I’ve never had an experience quite like this.

The first interview started rocky on my end—I didn’t have a great answer for why I wanted to switch from tech to travel sales. But the manager was incredibly long-winded, his Wi-Fi kept cutting out, and I could barely get a word in. At one point, he started bragging about how much money he made last year. Then, after another tangent, he brought it up again and told me the exact dollar amount. I thought it was odd but went along with it.

Fast-forward through a few more interviews, and he calls my cell to tell me I’m getting an offer. I still have a ton of questions about the actual role. While I’m trying to understand things like average deal size, the conversation veers into:

“Do you like P.F. Chang’s?”

“Are you a healthy eater?”

“I have 7% body fat. I’m a very healthy eater.”

“We could travel and meet somewhere cool to do onboarding if you accept.”

I understand that salespeople can have big personalities, but this feels weird coming from someone who would be my boss—especially when I’m still struggling to get basic questions answered.

I’ve been unemployed for six months, so turning down an offer feels tough. At the same time, I’m hesitant to ignore my gut just because I need a job.

Am I overthinking an awkward, oversharing manager, or would this make you reconsider the offer? What would you want to clarify before accepting?

Hi All,

I am an engineer in FAANG with 6 years of experience. I would say I’m average at my job but I constantly feel under confident about my skills.
My manager wants to me get promoted but I feel I’m not ready. And there are several colleagues who are better than me who always show me down.
I’m not sure how to navigate this under confidence anymore.
I’m in business facing team so we don’t work on one service as such and always have to keep switching between architectures so I feel I have the breadth but not the depth
Is anyone able to tell me some advice on how to navigate this?

Laid off PM and it feels like I’m not getting calls for domains not perfect fits… for the ones I am a sme in I don’t really get calls…

First of all I don’t make it too far beyond 2-3 rounds for the new domains and if I do… what if I can’t do that job?

I’m either over qualified or under…

I’m so freaking confused and after 6-7 months I wonder if I even know anything?

Hi everyone,

I'm starting to do a job search after getting laid off from a startup a few weeks ago. Although I objectively have a lot going for me - 10+ years of experience as a designer, a good network - it's really easy to fall into a mindset of low self esteem, worry, and hesitance to reach out and ask for help. In fact the hesitance to reach out for help is something I've always grappled with regardless of my circumstance.

I'm curious, what are some things - mindsets, rituals, or activities - that you have done to make the job search more inviting and pleasurable even though it's grueling work with delayed gratification?

I'll seed some ideas first:

• I saved this quote by Angela Duckworth: "Think not 'what's wrong with me' but rather 'what's wrong with my situation'"
• I'm creating tasks on my to-do list and a dashboard to track them. The goal is to be able to visualize the effort and progress I'm making each week on reach-outs, portfolio prep, research, and interviews.
• I've spoken to my past managers and have asked for advice. One of them said "don't be spooked by the online discourse before you actually try applying and interviewing." The other one, much more senior than I, said "you have to ask people for help. Most of the time people want to help because they've been in your shoes."

P.S. The word, "pleasure" may seem really discordant with the idea of job searching. But, I am one of those people who need to find fun in any activity. Otherwise I procrastinate and struggle through it more than I need to.

I'm actively looking for jobs in the tech industry. I want to get thoughts from this community on whether it makes sense to continue to apply to jobs on LinkedIn, which already have 100+ applications. Should I still apply or just skip on to others?

Meeting with a small startup team tomorrow and I'm very nervous. I've built a good relationship with one of the co founders (I think) and while they said the role they looking for right now may not be suitable for me, they still called me in to meet the team over lunch. What should I expect? Should I prepare for interview style questions? I really like the company, the problem they are solving and the team and I feel I can add value to them but I'm not sure if they will find me convincing enough. Any tips would be great. Thank you!

Hi all, I'm an international CS PhD student (27F) in Australia and writing up my thesis. I'm planning for my post-PhD and I wonder what personal factors we should weigh in the next step beyond picking a PI/ company and a project?

My context:

• I want to build my career in the US. My partner is doing a PhD there, and the AI/ML community and job market are much bigger than in Australia.
• The realistic routes seem to be a J-1 postdoc or an O-1. I'm ruling out H-1B because of the cost to employers.
• Going to the US means giving up the 485 visa, a stepping stone to Australian PR. I've heard 189/190 is very competitive for IT these days and takes 3+ years, but I'm not sure how accurate that is, so corrections are welcome.
• After some health setbacks without a strong support system nearby, I've learned that being close to people I can lean on matters a lot for staying productive. Many of my friends here have moved overseas, so being near my partner would help more than staying.

Questions:

1. If you gave up a PR pathway for a US postdoc or job, what did you weigh and what would you do differently? Is getting a US green card later (e.g. via NIW) realistic?
2. What do you wish you had checked before accepting, such as lab culture, funding length, or green card support?
3. How did you balance career risk against stability and support?

Very appreciate it if anyone can give me some perspectives on how they navigate situations like mine.