this post was submitted on 02 May 2025
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Extremely hard even for a experienced engineers to find a job? (lemm.ee)
submitted 2 months ago by 10001110101@lemm.ee to c/cs_career_questions@programming.dev
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I'm curious if it's just me or not. I'm an SE with 10+ years of experience, mostly in full-stack with a wide variety of languages and stacks, and my last title was at the "staff" level. I'm almost 40 years old; not sure if age discrimination is much of a thing (my interviewers have been mostly around my age or younger). I've been looking for a job for months. I've been applying to just about every job posting where my skills match on LinkedIn, Indeed, and ZipRecruiter (mostly just the Easy Apply option lately, so I can send more applications out). I've even been applying to positions that just require 2+ years of experience; I'd take any job (except defense or big tech). I've probably sent something like 400 applications out at this point. I've gotten a few interviews, and think I did OK, but I guess not good enough since I was still rejected. Is this normal?

The last time I was looking for a job (2021), I only sent 20 applications out, and landed a job on my first interview. I also tried Upwork for a couple weeks, but wasn't able to land any contracts. I think everyone there is either looking for very cheap devs in the developing world or rockstars with tons of contracting experience and large portfolios.

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[–] Botzo@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

Thought I'd chime with a similar background to say that after a year and a half of sabbatical and occasionally putting in great effort (4 hour projects and 3-6 technical interview rounds per opportunity of which there were a couple dozen), I have a job again. And all it took was a referral and a 30min phone conversation with the hiring manager. I'll make a little less than I did before, but have zero expectation of overtime or after hours or oncall bullshit, and I won't have a bunch of smartasses constantly tilting at windmills and bike shedding everything.

Don't worry about saying/writing whatever you need to get over hurdles. We're not playing in a field where bona fides matter anymore. LinkedIn is a cesspool of fake ads and fake applicants, indeed and monster are just openings for recruiters that will mostly waste your time. And remember to treat startups like the ancap throwaway experiences they are.

I will say I encountered a situation recently where an opportunity vaporized due to "economic uncertainty." I expect those will continue to increase in the next few months.