Truly sorry you feel this way. For what it’s worth, this was common for people graduating into the 2008 financial crisis, too. It’s actually unusual that we went for so long without another period of contraction.
From last time around: The people who kept pushing and took any job, anywhere turned out okay. This translated to a lot of people taking jobs below what they expected to get or having to move when they didn’t want to, but it was ultimately temporary.
The people I knew who turned cynical, let negativity take the wheel, and checked out of the job market struggled much harder to get back in.
You’re early in your career. This current period of turmoil doesn’t mean that much, even though it feels like everything right now. Keep at it, work a little harder than your competition, and put a little more care into your applications and it will work out. Stay away from the doom spirals on Reddit or Blind. Uninstall those apps (and others) if they’re making you worse.
Anecdata to try and level expectations. As someone who *eventually* came out of that era fine, it wasn’t without hardship. Expect to graduate without a job. Expect to continue the grind for many many months. Expect to get rejected not for not meeting the bar, but for not exceeding everyone else who also passed that bar. Expect to very likely settle for a job that doesn’t meet the expectations that college (and the previous 10+ years of history) sold you on. Expect that financially, you will end up years behind the curve and that many life plans (ex: home ownership if that’s one of your goals) will be delayed. Expect that you will meet many people younger than you who will be at your financial level because they graduated post-recovery.
If you can accept that you just happen to be born at the wrong time, you will be in a better place mentally than where I was at for a long time. I won’t say it’s easy; it will suck. But it is possible to make it out ok. I luckily had some financial and emotional support from my family to keep me going. I don’t know your situation but hopefully you are able to find support too. I wish you the best of luck.
Huh. This is making me realize that perhaps my situation is more bizarre and unstable than I realize...
How uncommon is it for someone with no highschool diploma (GED), or college diploma to get a job as a software engineer at a Fortune 500 company? Am I completely fucked if I ever lose this job? It's my second SE job...
Like OP may have been hinting at, I had a really fucked up family situation and this path was the only one that I could take- should I plan on going back to school just for future job market security?
I wouldn't worry too much, 20 years ago when I entered the industry (with a philosophy degree), the adverts which emphasised degree pedigree over experience were common.
I have watched that diminish over the last 20 years.
The unspoken secret in programming is that a CS degree basically signals absolutely nothing about programming skill. You can get a 1st in CS and be a rubbish programmer, you can get a chemistry degree and be an amazing one. A lot of CS is utterly irrelevant to programming, and the vast majority of programming skills are not covered by CS degree.
Once you're past 2-3 years experience it stops being relevant, before that it's a way to filter CVs by managers who want to pretend their CS degree wasn't a complete waste of time.
If they're asking for a CS degree for a senior role it's basically advertising they're a clueless company.
I'm in a similar boat. I dropped out of uni for reasons (a bit of a story, I can tell it if you buy me a beer) and ended up making a career out of software engineering.
The main thing to do IMO is spend time building a network. A recommendation in the right place at the right time can open doors that would otherwise be closed to you.
School is an option, but the opportunity cost has been too high so far for me. Though doing a freelance PhD thesis probably wouldn't hurt.
Yeah it sucks, but for many even in a good economy, you will struggle like that coming from a small college that isn’t well known or just not looking the right way. Life isn’t fair, just do what you have to, to get by
> From last time around: The people who kept pushing and took any job, anywhere turned out okay. This translated to a lot of people taking jobs below what they expected to get or having to move when they didn’t want to, but it was ultimately temporary.
I'm going to challenge this as you didn't give specific data to back it up. I read an article recently that did have data, and it made the argument that first jobs, and first salaries, tend to be remarkably "sticky". That is, if you are desperate for a job out of college so take one that causes you to be underemployed and underpaid, that doesn't just stick with you for your first job, but data showed that people were underemployed and underpaid for at least a decade after college.
The advice in this article was to hold out as long as possible for a desirable job, which meant a ton of networking, taking internships if possible, and also possibly additional schooling.
Apologies for not having the article on hand, but here's another one I found in 30 seconds of googling that makes the same argument, with research:
This sounds correct? I think I’m living evidence of it. The sad reality is that sometimes you can’t hold out long enough and you just gotta take what puts a roof over your head and food on the table. Everyone graduating now just got unlucky with when they were born.
Edit: that said, I think the majority of what the parent wrote is good. Esp the part about negativity. That hits hard and is good to be aware of.
The stats bear this out, but you can usually pivot to something better, especially if you have the skillset and drive to continuously up your skillset and find parts of industry that are in demand. It’s the companies where you learn nothing where you stagnate.
I doubt there’ll be a shortage of ML jobs in the next few years, unless somehow the AI industry completely collapses somehow.
This makes a lot of sense to me. The stats basically say that "if you start out underemployed, you stay underemployed for a long time", but my guess is the causation isn't necessarily as it's implied (or, indeed, as I implied it in my first comment).
That is, I think it's likely that a lot of people who start out unemployed are just comparatively less motivated, less aggressive, "go-with-the-flow"-type people. These folks do better when the market is good and worse when it's bad. But, as you put it, someone with a lot of drive and the skillset is not necessarily doomed to be held back for years if their first job sucks, as long as they set their sights on getting ahead quickly and don't let their stagnant environment rub off on them.
> The advice in this article was to hold out as long as possible for a desirable job, which meant a ton of networking, taking internships if possible, and also possibly additional schooling.
Emphasis on the next actions to take.
Being in a graduating cohort affords you certain opportunities -- internships, career fairs, faculty-connected networking.
Post-graduation, and especially post-college, people don't have these same opportunities.
Fwiw, I'd lean very heavily into interning. Take an internship at the best company you can, that's likely to have solid financials and be hiring when you finish the internship.
Intern -> hire is a ridiculous cheat code for your first "in industry" job.
The employer decreases the risk of making a mistake on an unproven new grad. You get a job offer if you do enough solid work. Win/win.
Worst case (no job offer), you should push really hard for a solid recommendation letter from your direct or second level manager.
Completely agree on internships. I really think universities that have an integrated co-op program, like Northeastern or Drexel, are much better for the significant majority of students than just a "standard" liberal arts or even an engineering degree.
well anecdotes are anecdotes. But tech tends to be much less sticky in this regard. And west coast much less sticky than east coast. My first job was 28/hr and the next roll almost tripled to 120k base 3 years later. It does partially mean hustling in some regards (be it on portfolio or leetcode), but when tech needs workers, they care a lot less about your piece of paper.
But then again, we are definietly not in times of normalcy. If nothing changes quick we may all be losing our spending power.
+1 to this. If I go look at social media the job market is ending. But if I look at the signals around me there's plenty of opportunities.
Also consider taking something below (or even much below) expectations. It's much easier to work your way up with connections than it is to get in the door with no references.
The ones I've seen aren't good. I see some jobs in companies with shitty pay or shitty culture (my bar is not high). It dies look like the past 6 months have been better than the previous year or so. But overall, it looks pretty dim. I'm getting PIP'd soon. I am expecting that I will likely lose my job. If that happens, I'm expecting that I will end up as a Walmart greeter. As someone with a disability, I expect my application will go right in the trash if I answer yes or blank on the disability question. Or get fired if I mark no and then do need accommodations.
I'm desperately looking for a new job. I hate my current job, the constant stress is taking a real toll, and I'm more tired than I've been ever before.
I'm quite literally applying to all sorts of developer jobs that I'm well overqualified for, in any honest assessment, for a lot less than I make now. These roles are far from "premium" gigs. I've no diva expectations or hope at this point.
The only places I even get rejection emails from are places I've had a referral.
Things are bleak.
I'm in a similar place wrt job "security."
Current gig will end soon, one way or another, and the future doesn't look great.
> As someone with a disability, I expect my application will go right in the trash if I answer yes or blank on the disability question
That's an interesting hypothesis.
I've seen many people suggest just the opposite- pretending to have a mild disability when filling in the form so that they get the boost from companies which use recruiting software that prioritizes diversity and inclusiveness in candidate pool.
Federal contractors are explicitly required to "take affirmative action to recruit, hire, promote and retain" people with disabilities, with a target of at least 7% of their employees be from that group. https://www.dol.gov/agencies/odep/program-areas/employers/fe...
MIT students expect (not unfairly) to work at Jane Street/HRT/Jump/Citadel Securities/OpenAI/Anthropic and then "settle" for Google or Facebook. They're not going to work for Fidelity or Raytheon.
That's a bit of a charcacture of Course 6 at MIT. Course 10 is chemical engineering and plenty of them go into industry at all the major oil companies. Lots of MIT students go into aerospace and defense (Lincoln Labs is directly federally funded) and MIT holds a yearly Soldier Design Competition that also helps students go for SBIRs. Raytheon is a big hirer of course 2 (MechE) MIT grads.
That's only true of the ones on ROTC or similar military related programs, everyone else goes straight to Wall Street, big tech, or MBB or med school.
At the annual Fall job fair, 80% of students queue up to less than 10% of employers. Most companies never show up because it's simply not worth the cost and time to try to recruit spoiled brats of MIT
I find this specious - why would they do that when this is basically the composition of the MechE, AeroE, and ChemE (except no Intel for ChemE, we send our EEs to intel) at my public school undergrad?
Why would they work with people that they perceive to be beneath them and have worked far less hard than them?
Perhaps I don't. I don't know why someone would expend 100x the effort and be labeled at minimum 10x the person by MIT admissions to end up at the same place that people with 1350 SATs from Auburn or 1450's from NC State or 1420 from Binghamton would go to after graduating MechE.
As someone who's worked at Lincoln Labs, I do wonder if the poster here has considered this. Although, it is worth noting that LL requires citizenship for many/most of its divisions.
MIT kids get part time jobs waiting tables or working retail while in school, just like other college kids. My first job out of college was non-elite aircraft manufacturer... guy on my left was MIT, on my right was CalTech.
I absolutely second that - MIT students of 70's, 80's and even early 90's were from different social class, demographics and personality types, than todays students.
Today, MIT is nothing but a shadow of its better known academic cartel up the Mass ave. Those who hire MIT students know that and plan accordingly. The only reason to hire MIT students is for branding propaganda, you get nothing more from them.
As an MIT reject (technically waitlisted), my very first post-graduation job was at Raytheon and much later in life, I ended up at Facebook, where I managed a team that had several engineers that joined directly from MIT. While I can't speak to the entire MIT grad cohort, fFacebook was the first-choice for everyone in this particular group.
> But if I look at the signals around me there's plenty of opportunities.
The signals around me in LA are pretty damn bad. several friends laid off, many others worried about layoffs, and a very weak pulse on the market in terms of roles. I still have part time work but who knows for how much longer at this rate?
At this point I'm fine taking up anything that pays and doesn't potentially sent my 8 YO car into retirement even faster.
Indeed. I found myself unemployed and having a very hard time finding work after the '08 crash. My newly minted degree turned out to be worthless in that environment. It worked out for the best as I took a low paying job as a technician that at least let me make enough money to pay the rent and buy food while I continued building up skills. It's a raw deal and it's not fair, but the only thing you can control is yourself. Try to keep a positive attitude and understand that it won't be this way forever.
> You’re early in your career. This current period of turmoil doesn’t mean that much
Is that true? I seem to remember data showing that the 2008-2010 graduate cohorts never overall caught up to the ones that came immediately before or after them.
Like sure sure OP has an engineering degree from MIT they're more like the ones that did catch up. But I'll bet there are a lot more people reading this who are about to graduate with degrees from perfectly adequate state schools and I'm not sure this unalloyed optimism is exactly correct for them. I don't think it turned out to be for their 2008 predecessors.
It doesn’t mean much in the course of an entire career.
Comparing to other cohorts isn’t useful because you can’t pick your cohort. You are born into one timeline and you play the hand you’re dealt.
There’s a lot of research that people who graduate into bad job markets are more cautious and less risk taking which can make them look like they’re behind peers who are more risk hungry when the market is up. I wouldn’t be surprised if it also makes them come out ahead in periods where the market is down.
I graduated in this time period and that makes sense. I definitely didn't start doing what I wanted until some time later. I guess in a sense that makes my career overall a few years behind resume wise but at this point, being in the industry 15 years instead of 17 probably isn't going to move the needle too much in terms of salary but who knows. Either way, at this point in time, I don't feel like I've missed out really.
Also, I graduated from a pretty mediocre state school. I'm by no means starving.
Yeah fwiw I think the ones that managed to get and stay in the industry are doing ok now. I had in mind someone I knew who graduated in 2008 with a CS degree from a state school and needed work immediately, took a helpdesk job, then took the promotions into mid-management, now is a starbucks district manager making like 95k. Never did get to realize that dream of coding professionally.
I believe he finally gave up studying & interviewing for junior dev jobs in 2016. At that point why take a "stale" graduate when you can just get an actual 22 year old from the same school, seems to have been everyone's reasoning.
I saw a similar thing a bunch when teaching at a code school ca 2018 too. It was a great move if you had savings or support for 6-18 months of job search. The ones that got in are still doing ok. But a lot didn't, they had to keep working at what they did before "temporarily" while interviewing and most of them are still doing exactly that.
So idk, I'm not sure how you would even get numbers on this. How many people would have excelled in this work if they had graduated at a different time, or with more support, but they didn't and they simply aren't here.
I suspect what really happens is you're set back a few years compared to someone with more fortunate timing. In a away, this is never catching up, but framing it as a setback gives a better picture of what happens.
My path into this career was completely different so I have no first hand experience either way. But my observation has been that you don't really get to just hang around for a couple years then pick up where you left off. When the job market picks back up the new grad jobs go to new grads, which you aren't, quite, anymore.
It's a more difficult path and people navigate it but I don't think everyone does if you see what I mean. I think some of who should be our colleagues are simply missing because they did what they had to to pay bills in 2010 and never made it in here.
This was true even a few years after 08/09. I applied to about 250 positions and lowballed my salary. I did get a job after 5 or so months of looking. I will say, that lowball salary is still impacting me today. If you do lowball yourself, you have to do a bit of job hopping when the market gets good to boost it.
I don't think it was that bad. I graduated 12/2008 in aerospace engineering from a big state school. Not MIT. We all had at least 1 offer from big companies, even the middling students. I had 2 offers, and probably could have swung a third. It felt like the recession mostly affected the housing market and older career folks, but for us new grads things were mostly normal. This feels like a permanent shift due to AI in part, and interest rates going back up since pandemic.
Yeah, I agree with you here. Most of the people I know in tech got laid off in 2001 due to startups failing. I think the only person I knew that made it through worked for Yahoo.
> It felt like the recession mostly affected the housing market and older career folks, but for us new grads things were mostly normal.
Yeah, they weren't. You were in a STEM bubble, which back in 2008 probably was the only bubble that could still get jobs "the old way", without going through application hell.
Also, the job market was way worse in 09-10 than it was in 2008, especially first half of 2008.
Same in 2001. Took 8 months to get my first job. I started the hunt after graduation to avoid job interviews interfering with study (an 1 hr interview would be a 1 day affair with commuting).
Had I got a job before I graduated that company may well have gone bust or laid people off anyway.
Had some bad interviews including being beaten by a other candidate on a job writing access databases for a 1 person business, and a job where they said they interview girls to see what they look like (not a girl but was disgusted... I carried on the process anyway because need $)
its different this time. the work isnt coming back because the market is now saturated by an oligopoly. IP law and anti competitive practices have effectively stopped upstarts. thats why old tech corps like IBM, Oracle gave trump money and align with their politics.
There are as many startups now as ever before. It's probably pointless to compete directly against an established company in a mature market like relational databases but there is unlimited opportunity for new stuff.
devs dont understand IP law or business. it doesnt matter if youre “innovative”. the concept of your techn was already R&D by someone else. you are beholden to them and they may license it but you will never own it. innovation is over.
It was probably the worst economic crisis of the last fifty years. It went on forever, particularly in Europe and the UK (mostly because of a bunch of bone-headed moves by politicians).
Even the US basically didn't get back to where it was pre-2008 till 2019.
Tech was fine because mobile was happening, but it was incredibly grim everywhere else.
It's hard to face this when fresh out of school, but one piece of advice I can offer is to network as much as you can. Talk to folks you know that graduated before you and have a job. Talk to professors who might have industry ties in their history. Talk to folks in the career center. Try to be as visible as you can. Yes, I know that seems trivial considering you don't have job experience, but even building relationships at school can pay off.
Those types of connections are CRITICAL in the age of scorched-earth AI centric hiring. I spent 9 months recently jobless after getting laid off, and its damned near impossible to get a job through the usual resume farm (LinkedIn job board and the like).
Also, look for jobs local to wherever you are that don't look all that glamorous. RTO is a big thing now, and smaller organizations struggle to hire locally without the brand recognition of the big guys. That might be your in for your first job.
And the biggest thing, keep your head up. Keep pushing. You just got a degree from an extremely difficult program, and you can hang your hat on that. The factors affecting the job market are not within your control, and your skills will outlast them.
I agree with the emphasis on networking. At the risk of sounding like I am doing an advertisement, last month I gave away 5 free tickets to graduates of Fullstack Academy to come to my event, and one of those people found a part-time connection to a startup via the event. I'll do the same again, if you're in New York City, I offer 5 free tickets. Reach me at lawrence@krubner.com. Mention this Hacker News post. We will have entrepreneurs at this month's event who are hiring. Come join us. Details:
I second networking as the thing to do in this job market.
The vast majority of the recent interviews that I have gotten have been through networking. Sometimes just asking the right people works, but obviously you have to know who to ask, when to ask it, and how to ask it to make it work. There are also more passive methods like the HN monthly job threads, but you should do active networking as your primary networking method in this job market.
Even if I apply via a job board to positions that I am supremely qualified for, there is a good chance I'll be auto-rejected within a day. It has happened multiple times to me and I shrug it off at this point.
I know networking is hard, especially when you are just starting out, but I just wanted to write a post saying that it does work if you stick to it.
(That said, I would also prepare to be unemployed for an extended period. Even if you are actively interviewing, it can take months to get a job offer. For my current position, it took 5 months to get an offer and I started 4 months later due to a housing storage where the job was located.)
Agree with everything here, with one minor addition: talk not just to professors who might have industry ties, but everyone in your orbit with whom you have reason to think might help -- even those professors (or research scientists or postdocs or grad students or what have you) who entered MIT as a freshman and never left will have had many contacts (e.g., former students or classmates) who are in industry, and in many cases people do keep in touch.
Indeed, this is a big benefit of being from MIT. Most professors at most schools don't have good connections in my experience, but that is not the case for MIT.
Asking for referrals/connections will be more effective though if you have an interest and focus and can articulate that to the prof. Imagine they are the first link in the hiring chain and treat them accordingly. You need to sell yourself to them before they'll sell you to their network.
I second this. I haven't had to do the typical recruiter channel since 1998. I have plenty of people I've worked with in previous jobs whose companies were looking for good people. This only works if you work hard enough to make a good impression.
I would suggest for your first job, take whatever you can get, as long as it is in your field, and deal with it for the first two years to get your foot in the industry. My first job was notoriously horrible, but after two years, I got a really good job with a company you've heard of through a recommendation.
Also, I would suggest looking outside the typical mega tech companies. There are plenty of other industries that need good people.
Networking is the most OP "soft skill" one can learn in the long run, takes time to properly have enough people who trust you (and that you trust as well), but its definitely worth it specially in bad times (like the ones we're having right now).
You can also "start small" and network via FOSS communities, I met one of my best friends while contributing to niche projects and we ended up working together because of it.
This is just old school fatherly advice, which doesn't represent today's reality at anywhere, let alone at MIT.
Most profs these days, went to grad school right out of college and never stepped foot in the industry. If they've had any contact within industry it's through some R&D grant with other PhDs. A few are in start-ups which means they only hire interns for $20/hr, and fresh off the boat indians and asians grad students.
Small or local companies don't want and can't pay salary of MIT grads; they've plenty of salt-of-the-earth local engineering school grads to chose from.
Send me an email — I'm an '18 and if you're telling the truth about side projects, interview skills, graduating, etc. then I should be able to help you find a job very quickly, either in my own org or with someone I know who is hiring.
> I’m facing the very real possibility of moving back home to an unstable and abusive environment while continuing to job hunt
You don't have to do this. You can do anything you want you're a free person with your own agency and plenty of skills. There are a million ways you can work around this.
> What helped you push through when it felt like the system failed you?
Realizing that I am owed nothing, and focusing on ways to get what I want. With your background and skills I am certain you can achieve anything you set your mind to as long as you don't put yourself in a subordinate, dependent, position.
> Realizing that I am owed nothing, and focusing on ways to get what I want.
I don't think the system _ever_ fails people with "merit" like MIT grads. It fails people like me that can't get into top schools that went to 50% accept rate public schools.
I graduated in 2018 too - I guarantee people like you consider me and my career accomplishments in the intervening years to be failure worthy. I genuinely think a typical MIT Course 6 grad from 2018 would be clinically depressed if they were in my shoes.
Even your gilded claim is breaking down these days it seems.
I started in state schools and leveraged that into one of the world's best (half the MIT professors had graduated from my alma mater when I was deciding where to go) for my MSc.
As [likely] one of the people you reference, I am a counter example to your guarantee. No one should fail who contributes in good faith. Live life well, be responsible, have fun, spread joy, and no matter what happens in your career you'll have succeeded.
How dare you guarantee that I'd consider you a failure? You don't know me, don't put that on me. In fact I am pretty sure I wouldn't consider you a failure. You're saying a lot of negative things about yourself and I don't know you or your situation but I hope you don't give up.
I recognize your username and I've followed your career since ~2017 or something. I never got an interview at Stripe, not that I would have ever passed it. I'm not a L6/L7/L8. I worked at Amazon, and people think my class of people are subhuman.
I see that your username is “laidoffamazon.” It seems that you are allowing the low points in your life to define who you are and what you think you can accomplish. Have you considered therapy?
Levels.fyi has L5 at Amazon making $150k base, $220k TC. You might not be Jeff Dean or Andrej Karpathy but there's only two of them. None of us are. That's not remotely subhuman failure.
There is no help that will stop me from being an untermensch and failure? It's not going to get me a 1600 or get me into a top school or make me earn $800k a year.
Like Peter, I do recommend talking to someone about this. You don't sound content, and life is too short to miss out on the journey.
I say this as someone who earns much less than you (never mind 800k), and who didn't go to a top school.
I'm no psychiatrist but your posts suggests that you see yourself as a failure, or possibly you've gotten that feedback from others directly. Perhaps at Amazon or elsewhere.
Projecting that feeling onto others suggests you would really benefit from talking to a professional about this.
I don't think you're a failure, I don't know you. But from what little you've revealed I'd say you're not a failure. But perhaps you had your own goals you failed to achieve?
Did they actually tell you that? I highly doubt it. You've created a preconception that I guarantee is not accurate at all. You have multiple people here saying it's bullshit, and we're not lying or trolling or anything like that. I replied somewhere else but I want to reiterate - why would you even want approval from people who dehumanize others on the basis of TC? It's like being upset Martin Shkreli doesn't want to be your friend. I really hope you'll believe me
It’s not just TC though. TC is an imperfect proxy for ability and class. If I’m just permanently in the underclass - unable to be compared to you people - it’s obvious that y’all wouldn’t even see me as human.
I have no accomplishments, nothing to be proud of. Freshmen at MIT have more potential and prior accomplishments than I do.
As Percy Shelley said about Ozymandias, "Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!" We're all sand on a long enough time scale, and getting a TC 800k+ will not save you from that fate, in the same way that conquering an empire will not save you either. Other people have pointed out that you likely make a decent wage, but understandably that does not address your concern. If you feel that your only value is your accomplishments, then no matter how much you achieve it will never be enough. You get to decide your own goals, and whether you're reaching them. Don't let these proxies for ability and class decide what you want or how fast you should get it.
Mah bro, such is life. In fact the entirety of humanity is like that. Unfairness is everywhere.
There is nothing wrong being under accomplished. Let me tell you a secret that helps with mental sanity. All humans are sinful creatures. We indulge in lot of these sins. If you go through this chain of thought you arrive at conclusion, everyone is inferior to one another. The material superiority you yearn for is a momentary fleet in the river of time.
Sometimes just reflect on yourself. One perspective of life is your world governs you. If you are happy in your own world, try to let go of it. Just enjoy the moments and don't hold on it.
You are the actor and creator of your reality. Your objective reality is making you feel inferior. Define your role, change your actions, and act accordingly.
The inability to act according to your role is the probably reason behind your feeling. You probably see yourself through some different lens where your actions and objective reward do not align. All you can do is control your thoughts and actions. So act.
You make more than $220k. Holy fucking shit that's a giant ass pile of money!
Objectively, you. are. not. a. failure!
Ninety-five percent of US households earn less than that. Ninety-five!
The material fact here is you have this made up story in your head that's not supported by the limited facts you've given us. I'm not going to change your self image by yelling at a stranger over the Internet; if traditional talk therapy with a human didn't work, discuss it at length with ChatGPT, or go see a sex worker, they're surprisingly good for talking to. You're also welcome to email me, link in bio.
Don't worry. There are people with privilege who would never understand the mean. They fly high due to their circumstances and are just lucky.
Us, we have go strive for living. That's the unfairness in life. It would have been so much easier if lucky ones would acknowledge their luck than attribute for hard work and what not.
Everyone discounts luck while it is the biggest factor. Only action you can do is increase the surface area of your luck.
Try to find meaning beyond career. There are multiple ways to get lucky. Find your own luck. After all we are in an era where people get wealth screaming on top of their lungs to the internet.
Yeah that's okay. You're suffering from a common thing. You just need therapy and then you'll learn you're good enough without accomplishments. Right now you think you need to accomplish things to have value. That's a really basic textbook mental illness caused by parental neglect. Usually something like intermittent random love / neglect. Study attachment theory and you'll learn all about it.
What I'll say won't help you now, but: this will help you later.
Don't assume you'll always be able to find a job. Work towards financial independence early. Avoid debt. Don't get some fancy car as a "treat" to yourself, counting on your future income to make payments... that income might not come.
Sorry it sucks right now. Don't give up, don't let your skills dull. Keep grinding and take any programming job just to start getting that 2-3 experience that locks out so many of the labour market.
> Take whatever job you can now while continuing to look for your next role.
This. And by any job I mean any job. McDonalds, book store, what have you. A good friend of mine dropped out of Harvard sophomore year. She found work at the COOP, then CVS, etc. It was definitely better than going back to an unstable and abusive environment while continuing to job hunt.
I graduated in ChemE in southern California in 1999 when there was a major downturn in the job market. One or two big chemical engineering design firms closed their SoCal offices flooding the market with qualified chemE's, aerospace companies were consolidating, etc.
Some of my school colleagues got good jobs at refineries and whatnot... but they were the fortunate ones. It took me 12 months to land my first "I made it" engineering job with a good salary. In the interim, I worked hourly jobs making between 13-18 USD an hour.
Don't let the current job market deflate you. You are young, intelligent, and you have a degree from MIT... you are going to be fine.
For what it’s worth, I’ll soon be looking for new PhD students to join our lab in Belgium (Europe). It’s a great, dynamic environment, and we work on exciting problems in 3D and computer vision. Feel free to reach out if you think it could be a good fit!
Service industry (waiting tables is my go to) doesn't pay well but it does pay...
I worked at Stinkies Fish Camp as a dishwasher fwiw after my 6 years as a Cyber Threat Operator in the AF (2012 government sequestration did wonders to clearance renewals). It sucked, but I lived. Well, survived.
Best of luck, always keep a candle of hope to a wildcard interview!
I graduated in June 2009 from a UC just after the crash. It took me until September 2010 to find a job in the field I wanted and get my career going. I got super lucky and found that job off a Craigslist ad. Just remember the system isn't set up to support you, so you are going to have to be proactive, creative, try and network and be uncomfortable asking for what you want until you get it. These are core life skills. Grit 'n' Grind.
Yeah I'm sorry for your troubles. I have 8 or so years in the industry and some decent names on my resume, and nothing is really sticking for me either. It was bad in 2023, horrible in 2024, and maybe outright catastropic in 2025. You may indeed be way way smarter than I am, but if are this stiff with their senior market, the entry level market must be absolutely dead.
I wish I had better advice. I really only have some decent part time work from a blind linkedIn message. Luck really is opportunity + preparation. And these days, you REALLY gotta get lucky. Keep every channel up to advertise yourself, talk around to everyone in your community, and keep bolstering your portfolio. Grab any sort of job possible if you don't decide to move back. If you're willing t relocae for any role, all the better. Just be keenly aware of CoL, because it may slip under your fingers in these times.
I was sent out to an okay enough market that was still looking for people. You were sent out into a wasteland. Just remember that absolutely none of this was your fault. But unfortunately your goal right now is to survive and ride the storm out.
I was in a similar or worse state in 2017. I was on my OPT (International student). I was hugely successful in my job, then my company was taken private and I was laid off. Without job for a year and no visa either. Mounting debt too. Took a low level job that promised my h1b and slowly worked my was up through multiple legal (visa) issues, layoffs, abusive environments, and financial ruin. Now a senior director at a mid level company and going steady. Took me 6 years. Sometimes all you can do is just hold on to any strand of hay that you can get to stay afloat to survive, then you can crawl, sprint and thrive. At this time you only need one -'Yes'. It could be your next attempt or your 100th. Just keep going and you will be alright. I know it. What you feel is normal, I used to feel like that. Sometimes I wake up in the feeling that way, even if there are no threats. It happens.But you will be alright - just keep trying, and keep moving
I entered the workforce in 08/09. At that time things seemed really dire. It felt to me like the whole house of cards was coming down, and I told myself that I would take any job that I could get.
I ultimately landed a job with an odd startup, eccentric founders, working out of an attic. In hindsight I couldn't have asked for a better start to my career. But, my expectations were rock bottom at the time.
Anyway, keep your mind open to all possibilities. You never know where an unlikely choice may take you. And, good luck!
To me, it sounds like you need professional experience on your resume so that should be your goal. However, professional experience != a full time software engineer role. Can you find something really small that pays from a freelance site? Maybe it's just a python script that takes 4 hours and pays $10 - but with that you are a professional software engineer. Do you anyone who owns a website for a business? Ask them if you can do some really basic work for $1 - because if you do that, you're a professional software engineer.
Once you have some professional experience on your resume, it should get a little easier - it's still going to take some time and grit, but it should work out.
Yeah, the world is a illusion, it tells you "study here or there and you'll have an amazing job and will win a lot of money!" but a lot of times, that never happen. You ended up felting like "was all for nothing?". I see my dad now working with his 60+ years old and I can't say to him "You can rest now, I'll pay your bills", at least was something that I was dreaming for a long time and now I know that will never be possible. I can't give you advice since you and I are on the same boat (I'm not an MIT senior but you get it, right?) but try not to lose hope and don't be harsh with yourself
> What helped you push through when it felt like the system failed you?
The feeling of inadequacy is an absolute self-esteem wrecker such that it distracts you from reality. You and your friends got into MIT, that's a big accomplishment. You're like a Tony Stark or whatever. Be proud of that attribute.
But I'll give you some reality: accept that you probably won't find a job in your field any time soon. It may take years. Once you accept that you don't have the cards, your mind starts thinking up more possibilities.
There is no shame in serving happy meals for awhile, but start aiming for a trade, perhaps some city/state work.
Many student loans can be put on basically indefinite hold via income based repayment (if you make little enough, your minimum payment is zero, but the interest keeps accruing). This gives you some flexibility to take any job you can find, even something that doesn't require a degree.
You might also look into trades, depending on your engineering specialty. A machinist with a MechEng degree from MIT or a millwright with something related to manufacturing will be extremely valuable, especially if you're willing to move where the work is.
There's some evidence that your career success depends heavily on the timing of your entry into the job market. That is, if you start working during an economic slump your career will suffer but if you wait and enter during a peak economic period you will always "ride the wave". I've seen this happen to individuals.
So I suggest that you stay in school, take a Masters degree and try to enter the market at a better time!
Don't go any further than a Master's. Here's why:
Philip Greenspun has provided the following graph at the URL titled "Career Guide for Engineers and Computer Scientists" at https://philip.greenspun.com/careers/
THIS IS YOUR EDUCATION, THIS IS YOUR SALARY
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$50K!
! **
! ** *
$40K! ** * Any Questions?
! ** *
! ***** *
$30K! **** *
! **** *
! ***** *
$20K! ***** *
! ***** *
! *** *
$10K! *** *
!** *
! *
0
+--------+----------+-----------+------------+---------+--*--------->
no high some Bachelor's Master's Doctor
high school college Degree Degree of
school diploma Philosophy
diploma
I graduated in 2009 in the middle of the Great Recession. I lived in a basement after graduation and did odd jobs for 9 months while learning how to build web apps. Then I took a job teaching English in South Korea.
After I got back from Korea 2 years later I faced a similar situation. Be flexible, take odd jobs, don't be afraid to work in the trades and use your free time to build durable economic skills for a job that you really want. Conditions will change (and they do so unevenly throughout the economy).
Get by and get ready. They can't repossess your brain. If you're from a financially unstable background - live cheap and be creative until you've built the stability you want.
You keep trying. You may have to take a lesser job to pay the bills, but you keep trying until you succeed. You also need to understand that the CS market has something of a glut right now and with companies downsizing for various reasons, jobs in CS are tight. When I went through the same thing, I took jobs at small companies, startups, etc., to pay the bills and I kept applying to other companies until I landed a job with one of them. You might also consider talking to consulting firms for contract work, something I've done before.
If you give up, you will certainly fail, so don't give up and realize that the hardships you may experience will make you stronger, more resilient, and better prepared to deal with hardships in the future.
Is there no pipeline--or a job fair? A way to get a moment with prospective employers? It seems tragically stupid if MIT offers no such thing. Applying into the void seems like a fool's errand.
You can always teach English abroad or join the air force both of which solve the environment problem. Going back home isn't a great option unless you have a high paying job lined up and can save a lot of money. The main issue with staying home is your days become monotonous and years can pass just treading water. It is also a huge hit to self confidence and mental health at least for a traditional US household. While you're away, it will be vital to keep learning new skills and trying to find better opportunities or you will get stuck.
I came from a background that sounds a lot like yours. I didn’t get to go to MIT; I just taught myself, also during hard economic times. My way of getting jobs was learning skills that were difficult for most programmers so that having a degree wouldn’t be as important. I also applied only to places that interested me and where I thought I could contribute. Therefore, I applied to very few places. I have always thought that it is my job to be irresistible to a hiring manager. No one owes us a job.
The most important skills you've gained from your education so far is the ability to learn and process. Take any tech related job you can right now, don't be picky. Strive to excel in whatever that job is and not just from the tech standpoint; the business and the processes are equally important. Keep your eye on the horizon for what role it is you really want but be aware that that goal might change over time.
And keep in talking to your friends. Who knows if between the lot of you, you've already thought of the next big thing.
When I graduated in 2011, the Great Recession was just beginning to unthaw. I nearly joined the Air Force as an officer. I even went to MEPS and did the physical but decided against it at the last second and joined a military contractor instead.
It was a similar situation, but honestly nowhere as dire as yours. Even in that rough situation, the best of my state college were at least getting one offer. I cannot imagine how rough it must be for MIT grads to not be getting job offers.
I'm not proud of either, but I did what I needed to so that I never moved back home.
If you can self-host or publish a demo of your work that is open-sourced, I find that that really opens the door for a lot of web dev positions, regardless of what particular languages you know and/or what’s in vogue.
(Mine would be https://jonline.io/jon, part of a larger project that does federated social media, but just a “hello world” portfolio server app that you open source would be quite effective, I think. This is all based on recruiters’, hiring managers’, and other devs’ responses when I link them to it.)
MIT class of '75 in course 18 (math - 3 years) and class of '76 course 6.3 (CS - fourth year). I stayed for that 4th year because the job market and grad school pool were awful. Was unemployed when graduated in June '76. Took advantage of that to take a cross-county motorcycle tour. Finally got a job in mid-September. That company went belly-up 6 weeks later. Remained unemployed until January '77. With the dream job that really launched my career. I wish I had more encouraging words for you, but what worked for me was - stick to what you love - eventually it'll work out. But don't be afraid to do what it takes to survive. I made ends meet by working as a bartender - moonlighting during that first job, and then as main income for a few more weeks until I got that wholly unexpected call from a headhunter that changed everything.
Since there are currently no posts mentioning this, if you have down time, build something.
Not because it will make you rich, but because it shows you have the grit to actually do something. It will also keep your skills fresh and/or grow them.
These things do make a huge difference to hiring managers.
Hunting for work in a down economy is hard and depressing. Building something is a excellent way to stave off depression. Much better than self-pity, alcohol, drugs, videos games, or doom scrolling.
This is more or less the advice that I was going to give. I would add on to it by recommending that, if you don't know what to build, go find an open source project with open pull requests and start fixing broken things. Keep track of your submissions and use them to start creating a portfolio of the professional work that you've done this way a gratis.
In addition to doing volunteer work this way, also look for various "bug bounty" situations for accumulating similar "professional micro-experiences" that you can also use to show that you have been crafting and delivering functional code into one or more projects.
1. Go for masters in a field where you can get TA or other stipend. Masters is generally worth it because it will give you more experience. There are lots of places outside of US that are starting to invest into AI infra, and having advanced knowledge gives you an edge. Don't limit yourself to MIT - other universities (even overseas) have funding. A lot of times, especially in US, the graduate projects are basically company funded tasks that they can get done while paying way less than the market price, so plenty of those are floating around.
2. Look outside US for jobs. There are remote opportunities everywhere, and at your young age, its not super hard to move. Even China has some startups that can hire within US.
3. In general, even in recession, there are companies that end up making big as demand shifts to more fundamental things. Most companies need IT support. Generally, as a computer engineering grad, you should be able to do the full range of IT support (and if you can't ask yourself why not).
Talk to peers, friends, even people you do not know that well and ask about their plans. Don't be afraid to ask for help. Crash on a couch for a few months. Keep refining and sending out resumes. Take a job that you might be overqualified for. Early in your career you should accept and work for entry level positions and anticipate that you will be doing this same thing every 2-4 years in order to get to a salary range you are hoping for anyway.
Don't expect or even look for a dream job straight away. Lower your standards. That's what I did, and I ended up where I'm supposed to be in my career after a few years. I took an early risk on a personally important project early in my career and found myself broke and headed home afterward. I just committed myself to taking entry level work and moving jobs several times in order to catch up with my peers who went straight into industry.
Broaden your search. Apply to startups, for less money / more equity - there are plenty of them in the Boston area. Basically just do a sober assessment of how much you need to live on (perhaps with a roommate), add 30% to that and that's your minimal acceptable cash-side compensation. Do that for some time (a year or more), learn, move on. While you work, set aside some money for the rainy day. This is not optional, you have to do it even if you don't set aside a ton. Fundamentally, you have to stand out and you have to start building a track record. How much money you make in your first job is not very important. I'd say what you _do_ in your first job is more important. That's what people see in the resume. Good luck, and remember - you've got the very best education available. Do not sell yourself short in job 2 and so on.
having worked in professional setting for more than 7 years, I've given up on getting a job. I'm starting my own venture (although ive been trying to get that up since I was in school) with full commitment and almost no alternative of getting into the job market.
The job market is skewed and gamed.
You should change the way you're applying to jobs, and on the side, try to find cofounders who are starting some startup.
You can also join new ones who recently got funded. Some of the MIT folks work at windsurf, you can find similar startups that are need of engineers.
1. new founded startups
2. start one yourself (although this is risky, only reliable if you can get funding)
3. networking and meeting folks from your college
4. get a job you're overqualified for to keep your visa, (given you talk about going back to home)
Me personally have given up on jobs so im starting something of my own, although i dont have the pressure of going back home cuz thats already done, i'm back to my "toxic environment".
The advice I give to students is to leverage connections, especially family connections, as much as possible. Take any job you that have a family connection to, even if it isn't in tech.
Learn the business as well as you can and then apply your technical knowledge to it.
To OP, sorry you're experiencing this. If you want 1:1 help debugging your job search, feel welcome to email me directly (contact in HN bio). I probably won't be able to get to it until this weekend, but I will try to help if I can.
If you can get support, staying for a graduate degree is a time honored way of riding things out when you graduate into a recession. And if the stock charts are an indication, industry is bracing for the mother of all recessions.
for now, if you get a job you're overqualified for OR even its not upto your "standards", I would suggest to take it.
I had one such offer that I thought was not worth my time because I presumed I'll get more offers, Sike, I didn't. Now I think about if had taken that up, I would atleast have some stability while I plan my next steps.
food on the table > rocket on mars
stability > ambition
Pickup anything you can get, dont stay stuck on the old ways of getting a job, they are not working anyways.
Cold call business owners and ask them if you can bring some technical value and potentially convert that into a long term relationship. This doesn't have to be this way for years but alteast you'll be able to get into the workspace and use YOUR SKILLS to create impact in OTHERs company/industry.
I’ll echo a couple of other people who have said to network. This was many years ago, but when I was in college and applying for jobs I was getting no interest at all. No interviews… not even an email response acknowledging receiving a resume. Then a person that I knew who had graduated the previous year was at a campus event, I started talking to her, and she told me the company she worked at was hiring. I emailed the hiring manager the next day, attached a resume, mentioned the woman I was talking to. Got a call 2 days later, an interview the following week, then an offer after later.
I find this seriously unlikely. Most MIT grads are getting into Jane Street or at minimum Google - they literally think working at Amazon is beneath them. Course 6 grads are not going unemployed.
It is funny to hear that this person might have an unstable environment though - that isn't the profile of someone that gets into MIT.
If OP is actually serious I'm more than willing to give resume advice - including in person living in the area. But again, I seriously doubt this is real, or if people like OP are willing to take advice from failures like me.
I was an undergrad and this is just wrong. Most are not going into HFT, and a bunch don't go into FAANG either. And not everyone who gets in was raised in a perfect upper middle class life. Do you really want to care about judgement from people who think not working at a trading firm is a failure? Those people are insufferable anyway
Yes. I mean if the point is that MIT grads have unfair advantages sure, but he's built a quite unrealistic image of MIT/its students. There is a whole spectrum from IOI gold medalists to students who fail intro classes.
Most current MIT students (except ROTC) don't get out of bed until 10, have never worked a day in their precious little lives and prefer hot-pot to McDonalds.
That sounds bleak. If I were in your shoes I'd probably join the military. I'm thinking Air Force. They can use people with advanced technical skills. Plus, you get a bed, food, and a job. Regarding family (Spouse, Kids) there are financial benefits, cheaper housing, the ability to live and shop on base, etc. If it were me, I'd choose that over going back to to the environment you described.
> If you've been through something similar—late job search success, unexpected turns that worked out, or just any advice—I’d really appreciate it.
So, I can provide my anecdote, at least. It took me the better part of a year after I graduated to find my first job. (That paid real poorly.) I lost that job after a year due to the role being eliminated and my contract not being renewed. I lost my next job at a startup after six months due to the company pivoting. I’ve been at my following job for 10+ years now.
2002 felt similar, although it was never so bad that even MIT grads had trouble finding jobs, just those of us from low tier schools.
The classmates who took non-tech jobs after graduating in 2002 never came back to the industry. They generally did alright, but taking a job outside the industry makes it really difficult to get back in. Employers expect to hire people with no experience straight out of school.
That MEng sounds like the best option to me. That was definitely the best option for my 2002 classmates.
Start going to tradeshows for every possible industry you can think of, and bring resumes.
People who network in person almost always have an advantage compared to people with similar qualifications who sit at home and send out resumes.
You are guaranteed to make more connections if you speak to people at the booths. If you take a genuine curiosity in what they do there's usually something interesting to talk about.
I am seeing this in my community as well, it has become nearly impossible for early career folks to find opportunities and it is due to a number of factors. In addition to economy, the fast ramp up of hiring in covid and of course AI, we now have geo-political headwinds in the mix. If you are in this situation, or if you would like to help make a difference, please reach out to me, email is in profile. @Dang, if this is not appropriate, please let me know.
I received a campus offer in 2008, but then the recession hit. Since it was with a large company, I graduated in 2009 and was supposed to join afterward. However, just a few weeks before my start date, they postponed it indefinitely. I found myself back at square one and it took more than six months to land a job at a mid-sized company with a lower salary. Eventually, things worked out. So, don’t lose hope—just keep trying. Best of luck!
MIT has resources, at least a huge alumni network (that is one of the reasons you paid so much), you are going to have to shake some palms, get a list of recent graduates, they should supply and start asking, most companies offer a referral to the employee
I've been in this position and for me the motivation to keep pressing on came from still staying out there and at least hanging out and talking with like-minded friends in the tech space. Without that my tendency would be to wallow and do nothing. With that being said... lots of people are hiring -- share a resume!
You and your friends should email me with your resume and anything you're proud to have built. I'll extend that to any MIT senior/recent grad who wants to discuss moving to SF and helping us apply LLMs to build product features that solve interesting customer problems.
I'm at james.peterson@fathom.video. Include "[responding to HN thread 43614795]" in the title. I'd love to chat.
I never had any internships and I didn't gradute from a well-known university. During my senior year of college, I took on low-paying software development contracts I found on craigslist.
I used this as previous experience and found a job right out of college. I also learned a lot from this experience and used the same skills to find work during the 08 crash and never really had a loss of income during this time.
I was in a somewhat relatable situation around 10 years ago after I'd finished a coding bootcamp right after graduating college. I didn't major in computer science and bootcamps were at the time already viewed with skepticism among most tech companies, but I did have a degree from a top 10 US university. I thought that meant I would be able land an engineering job, even if it was a bad one.
I was in for a horribly rude awakening. I spent 4 months applying for jobs non-stop through linkedin and company career pages and didn't receive a single response back. Finally, when I was nearly ready to give up and move back to my parents' house, I went on my university's alumni directory and searched for people in the Bay Area working in eng leadership at tech companies. I emailed the first person I found and explained that I was really struggling to get interviews and would be willing to take an internship or work for free if it meant I could get some experience on my resume. I got a response within the day. The guy told me that, while the roles listed on his company's website were filled, his wife was worked in engineering recruiting. He passed my resume along to her and within a day I had 3-4 companies asking for an interview. In the end, I got one final round interview and landed the job. Looking back, if it weren't for that email I likely would have given up and pursued another career path.
In short, my only advice is: completely stop applying to open job listings on linkedin or on a company's career page. Those jobs literally receive thousands of applications and, additionally, there is often a recruiter representing the company who is directly reaching out to the most desirable candidates for that position. There is nothing but disappointment that comes from applying to those jobs and, given we're in a very uncertain economic environment, doing so will only discourage you.
Instead, try to find anyone working in the industry you're targeting with whom you have some loose connection and send them an email. I know that sounds scary and stupid, but you would be surprised at how eager most people are to help others. At the end of the day, most people don't derive that much personal satisfaction from their work, but they do get a lot of satisfaction from helping other people.
Does MIT have an alumni directory where you can search for alumni contact info by industry and location? Are you in a fraternity or any social club that might have older MIT alumni that you could get in touch with? Try sending 2 or 3 people an email and see what happens.
EECS is programming? Look for remote jobs all around the world instead of just applying locally, that increases the chances a lot. A lot of companies are doing the same thing to get cheaper workers all the time.
Relevant experience is more valuable than a schools name. If your school didn't offer you the opportunity to acquire significant experience in your field, you were cheated. They should at least be able to guide their students into apprenticeship programs upon graduation.
I graduated from MIT Course 6 10+ years ago. Have you considered doing a PhD? It's really worth it if you find the right match for a professor. A PhD would make it easier for you to find a job in this competitive environment (an MS alone, not so much).
It was like this when I, and my friends graduated. This too will pass. Do not let it discourage you and take away everything you've worked so hard to achieve. You will triumph anyway. It's not easy to get into, let alone graduate from a school like MiT. God speed my friend.
You are one of the best in history prepared to do your job, with current knowledge etc. and best university in the world, get your colleagues and start a company. You don't need a jerk who barely passed a college to tell you what to do.
We have a small team that includes a few MIT grads. We're adding a few more new grads. Feel free to reach out at hey@{my site} with a resume, can interview today
0. It's not you, it's the job market and economic cycle. Many companies aren't hiring much at the moment because of economic uncertainty and unrealistic enthusiasm about AI-fueled automation. But the good (?) news is they are trying to cut costs by laying off senior people and hiring junior people like you. Keep applying.
1. You could lean into the EE side of things. Analog and digital design are still needed as we move into the era of RISC-V, robotics, AR/VR, self-driving cars, etc. You likely have a decent project portfolio already from your coursework. Also power engineering and efficiency are important at all scales.
2. An MEng from MIT (or another good school/program) would probably be interesting, challenging and fun, and you'd pick up some additional skills. It would also enable you to apply for internships, which can be easier to get than full-time/"permanent" positions, and can lead to the latter. Try to get teaching or research assistantships to avoid or reduce debt (even if it takes longer, it's worth it.) And you could potentially do a Ph.D. later on if it turns out that you like research.
3. Economic downturns can be good times to start companies because there are more people on the job market. Also you may be able to get good deals on office and lab space and equipment if you need it.
4. If you can't join a startup as a co-founder, you may be able to join as staff. Make sure they pay you a salary though.
5. Look into temporary or contract work, or any job you can get that pays money, ideally enough for food and rent in a starving student type shared residence. Then keep looking for something better.
Sorry to hear the distress. As an MIT alum, I can say the most important thing I learned was not the material for major, but how to think - how to approach problems, break them down, and develop creative solutions. These skills will serve you well for the rest of your life. When I changed jobs in my mid-40s (at the C-level) the number one thing board members brought up in my interviews was that I had graduated from MIT. I know this sounds elitist, but I am simply describing my experience.
Most of the comments highlight that you will likely be several years behind the curve of cohorts before you just because of when you were born and went to school. I agree with that. However, it can be overcome, you will simply have to work harder at it. You will likely have to change jobs more often, ideally within the same company. This means you will have less comfort and calm in your early days, but it can help catch you up to where you expected to be.
Good luck. You have to stay positive to succeeed at this.
No one has mentioned considering the military. An MIT grad could be an excellent candidate for an officer. Joining the military has been the way many young men and now women have got out on their own.
It’s less than ideal if you do want to be a technical IC later as it’s typically a multi-year technical career gap. I never saw another ex-(US-)officer SWE/SEM appear in the veterans@google ERG. And tbh I didn’t really count either because I had a post-service PhD.
But to be sure I served with two amazing MIT NROTC grads in my sea tour. You do what you have to do.
Makes sense, though I mention since I'm reading the OP not wanting to move back home to bad situation, others suggesting working at fast food, etc. Both of those seem really drastic compared to considering military (unless OP is holding out for a top-paying, high-status position, in which case they need to pick their priorities imho, especially in this market)
I'm not sure that's the best advice unless you're looking to build a career in marketing
If you're looking at your long term career trajectory you're probably better off taking a (maybe much) lower paying job in the area you want to end up in. Grow relevant skills and gain experience
Of course this is irrelevant if you just need money to survive today
Have you tried applying for an internship? This is sometimes an easy route to getting hired as you have a chance to prove you can do the work at a company.
you'd be surprised at who gets into MIT since the 2000's... MIT offers pass/fail classes and at least half a dozen version of each of its introductory classes - guess why that might be...
I'm sorry you're in this situation, but every part of this is basically just life, and many many people go through this as the norm not the exception. It was just that in previous years your expectation happened to meet a fortunate reality.
I didn't even bother finishing school because all it's there for in practical private industry terms is to "prepare" you for competing favorably for a junior position, or actually qualify you objectively in regulated industries. In academia I guess you'd be done like 2/5 steps if you were interested in pursuing that long-term, but idk much about that. It took me so long to find a job last time I was laid off that I absolutely considered going back and re-schooling from scratch to qualify for that junior position in something more tangibly valuable/stable, but then happened to land something. That was the third time I'd spent more than a year completely unemployed. It's a sickening grind and has never become easier.
However, just because you're not graduating with a job in hand (a fanciful dream in other industries) doesn't mean you won't find one any time between when you graduate and a year out. You might, it just takes continued persistence, and a hell of a lot of luck, and meeting people in the real world outside school.
It's extremely demoralizing though, you're right about that.
This is indeed a very rough time to be graduating. You're unfortunately getting screwed. It happened to me too in '08/'09, so I know very well how shitty it can feel. Try to be stoic about it though and just worry about the things you can actually change, not what you can't change.
Here's my advice and what I would do in that situation again, though you should definitely adjust/adapt to your strengths/goals:
1. Don't "spray and pray" your resume out there (at least, don't do that to jobs you actually want). When jobs get tight it feels natural to want to spread your (resume) seed as widely as possible hoping one will germinate, but realistically that doesn't work. Instead I would find job postings that you want, and make yourself spend 20 to 30 minutes tailoring the resume for the job. Don't lie or even exaggerate, but don't include irrelevant information and definitely don't omit anything relevant. If it's something you have and it's mentioned in the job post, it should be on your resume, unless you don't think you could speak intelligently on the subject. For example I put in a job posting I needed someone with bash scripting experience, then interviewed somebody who put bash on their resume, but when I asked about it they hadn't done much more than just run simple commands. They didn't even know how to set a variable in bash. They did not get an offer.
2. Be willing to take something in QA or another adjacent area even if you feel it is beneath you (especially being from MIT. You went to a phenomenal school and deserve to be proud, but don't let that turn into counterproductive pride). Even the best school only partially prepares you for the workforce, and you can learn a ton even slinging test code. (to be honest, my time working in QA was one of the most enjoyable because I didn't have to deal with Product :-D). Being humbled to dust a few times in life has (IMHO) ultimately given me much better perspective on myself.
3. Take a look for Professional Services and/or Support Engineer roles that involve some coding. These are often a little less pay, but they are also more plentiful and the competition is much lower because many people avoid these roles. However, this can be a great way to get your foot in the door and pivot to a full SWE role 6 to 12 months down the line. You can also get some incredibly useful experience in these because you'll work will real customers/users and will learn a ton about product, bug hunting, and building clever solutions to solve real problems. You'll also gain industry experience in whatever industry your employer is in, and that can be invaluable for getting your next role. I worked with someone who started as an L1 support with no schooling, learned to code, started automating small parts of his job, and also learned a ton about the finance industry. He later got a fantastic job in large part because he knew a lot about loan origination and underwriting from working with customers. If you do this, talk to and get to know the engineers you work with. Not just to use them to pivot, but to actually get to know them as people and also learn from them. Many of them will be able to give you excellent advice and mentorship to help you get to where you want.
4. (this one can be a bit controversial but it's my opinion): Don't just look at local options. Moving sucks, but there are lots of great jobs in areas with rapid growth that will even sometimes pay for your move. I would definitely look in areas like Texas, Utah, and Colorado. I've even seen some interesting roles coming out of Arkansas, Chicago, and Minnesota as well. Hell, Boise Idaho has some good roles pop up here and there too, especially if you are interested in embedded systems.
5. Unless you are well differentiated in it, I would avoid chasing "AI" or even "Big Data" roles as those are insanely competitive and saturated right now, so you'll be competing against people with a ton more experience than you. Also everyone is currently throwing cash at AI, but I think the vast majority of those companies aren't going to see anywhere near the ROI they expect and will start slashing. As a n00b you'll be among the first to get the axe, and even if you don't you may find the work drying up and getting assigned stuff that isn't what you want to do. Generally speaking I recommend trying to work on whatever core product the company makes, excepting maybe if you're a researcher and it's a big tech co
Welcome to the machine. What sort of jobs are you applying for? If you haven't worked in your field at all yet, keep your sights low and apply for entry level positions or internships. IME there can be a large gap between what formal education provides and actually producing work. Also, soft skills are very important and often overlooked.
I've interviewed some PhD students that we deep in their field, but they had zero work experience. That, combined with the fact that they were applying to a non-entry level position, meant that I'd be taking a large-ish risk in my position if I were to hire them.
I dropped out of school around the .com bubble bust, for ill-considered reasons that I won't go into, and instead spent quite a lot of time and energy continuing to develop technical chops on my own. That part is only relevant to frame the next:
In 2008, amid the downturn cited in this thread as a similar inflection point to the one we see today, I landed my first SE job, after a few months of active searching. They hired me without a degree and without any formal experience. I had a small portfolio of example work, the technical knowledge that I'd developed, and my personal philosophy. The portfolio did little to help me. The technical knowledge served to barely avoid outright disqualification. It was my outlook that earned me a chance to show mettle.
This was local startup that was a half-dozen years old. There I learned what technical collaboration was like in practice, what it meant to build as part of a team. I learned the stuff that school and individual hacking doesn't teach. In a couple of years I moved on to a Fortune 100 company on a merger mission, and from there on to greener pastures in the industry. Now I earn comfortably, somewhere north of 90th percentile by geography. Each of those steps, along with a healthy dose of reading, taught me something that I needed to learn/understand about the craft and it's challenges. I was oblivious to the need to know most of them until after I wrestled with them.
One of the most important lessons, and one very relevant today: character traits, not merely technical learning, lend power to carving a successful path.
You are not nearly as likely to differentiate yourself by degree alone as was the case in the past. Even less so if people sense entitlement. That's not a judgement, but a caution.
Hiring right now looks like an absolute swarm of posers, far noisier than I've ever seen before, fighting to convince managers to hire them into senior salaries. They are empowered by magical answer generators that whisper secret sauces into their ears just in time to be vomited back and the interviewer. Even though some of them vomit better than others, the kind of manager that you want to work for (imo) is going to see right through those people - and is getting very tired of it.
So tired in fact that I'm ready to hire low/no-experience, high-character people into my senior slots if they show that they have passion for the craft and ethics to match it. I won't pay them a fortune out the gate, but I will match salary growth to competency growth once they are in the saddle.
Time is the fabled commodity, and there's a lot of time-waste going on at the moment.
My advice, if you're having trouble on initial approach: be humble, be curious, and show an honest + direct character - be comfortable in the knowledge that the new skill is not what you already know, but how well your outlook positions you to "leaRn into" the next curve. And then, don't stop carving.
What is the significance of being a senior at MIT studying Course 6? No offense but that means nothing to me as I'm not American. I guess it means something significant if that's how you start describing yourself. Do you have work experience? What job are you expecting to get? What kind of side projects have you built? What value can you provide?
Here is what my experience has taught me about software employment just in case you still want to do this.
To get employed:
1. Deck out your resume with a bunch of keyword nonsense. If it doesn't look like word salad when you are done its not competitive. Find a laundry list of tools, frameworks, run time engines, and other third party tools that you never wrote.
2. If you want to get hired and aren't already a senior principle don't be an expert. Experts are intimidating. Refer back to point 1.
3. Don't use AI during a job interview. People hate that. Instead just have a static script of key points as hints. The goal is to be at the center of a bell curve and know just enough to fit in.
4. Get really good at throw away leet code insanity. Go fast and memorize programming patterns by name. You will never use any of this at the job, but it looks impressive during interviews.
5. Answer all interview questions with confidence in 3 words or less. Be quick and ensure it does not look like you are reading or waiting for answers to materialize. Always remember the only thing most programmers fear more than writing original code is unoriginal job candidates.
Once you are hired:
1. Do all that is asked of you with as little as possible. Make it a game to see just how efficiently you can accomplish what is asked of you. The people that get promoted are the ones that shine at this and do as little work as possible. That screams to management that you don't produce regression, are not burdened with stressed, and have potential to do twice as much.
2. Automate the shit out of your job, but keep this a secret to yourself. Most of your peers cannot program. If they see that you are doing more than the copy/paste what is required they will be intimidated.
3. Save video calls with your peers for educational moments only. Video calls suck up a lot of time and your peers will want to do them only because they cannot write emails. When in doubt do as little work as possible, which includes being efficient and thorough with your communication. See point 1.
4. If you are in a toxic environment learn from the best and become a complete narcissistic asshole. Fair warning, though. This will randomly blow up in your face because you are likely surrounded by narcissists looking out for themselves. If you are in a healthy environment then be a complete team player and save all your disposable time for helping your teammates with testing and documentation. In a healthy environment take as little credit for accomplishments as possible and openly praise teammates who are worthy of praise.
1) Why did you decide to become an engineer? Did you have some hobby or other background that you had a passion for, or was it because you thought you could do this degree and make good dollars?
2) If you became an engineer for the right reasons, can you maybe leverage that interest and start an enterprise of some kind? And I don't mean a start-up, I mean a business offering services and/or products to a market that needs them.
I don't see a single reply here at this stage that does not seem to take for granted that upon graduating you must work for someone else.
The idea that "I went to MIT/Stanford/Berkley/whatever, I deserve a job, and a good one that pays fuckloads" seems to permeate the whole thread.
Well I will tell you that College/University for engineering is just a very elaborate hazing ritual, it doesn't get you shit in reality, apart from a possible entry ticket into somewhere where the real learning and work start.
There is potentially fuckloads to learn that you would have never been taught, big differences between academia and industry.
I am in another country, but not that different, and 30 years out the engineers that I studied with that really made bank all basically went straight into starting their own business upon graduating.
As one example, the guy started a business designing mineral processing plant electrical and control systems, started out delivering very small parts of projects, just kept grinding and building capabilities, and now he owns breweries and wineries for fun and is delivering projects all over the world worth hundreds of millions of dollars. There are other examples from my cohort.
If you can't find employment otherwise, what have you to lose? And tbh, if you don't do something like this now, next thing you will look up and you will want to buy a house, or will have a pregnant wife and you just can't risk your job with the man, because the baby, etc etc etc.
So your situation isn't the engineers equivalent of Pretty Lady, or whatever fantasy script society peddles, maybe that could turn out to be a good thing, you never know.
Footnote: I have a four year degree in Electrical and Control Systems Engineering from a University in another country, in the top 100 of the world for Electrical but virtually no one would have ever heard of it outside my state. I graduated in early 90's and only 2 engineers had good "company" jobs to go to, they were both trades who had left their trade to study engineering and were preferred.
I had been working part time my last year and then went full time, after graduating, with the small local electronics design and manufacture company for crap cash. But significant parts of what I learned there in the 2.5 years, I still use today. But, in retrospect I regret not taking my own advice I gave you above, and I am not prone to regrets.
Stop looking for a job and start looking for experience. I entered the workforce during the GFC (and while still being in education) and I worked for literal peanuts for years. Sometimes even for free. I lived between my childhood bedroom, friends places and my girlfriends place eating only peanut butter and egg sandwiches for almost 2 years because it was the cheapest way I could get enough protein and carbs.
You might think working for nothing is a bad deal and that it would be exploitative but you need to remember it's temporary and a little bit of experience will make it 10x easier when it comes to applying for jobs a year or two down the road. Almost any employer is going to pick someone with a bit of experience over someone with none.
I don't know how much you're paying for your education right now, but even assuming you can only find unpaid work this is literally infinitely better than the negative income you're receiving in return for improved career prospects right now. I find it quite crazy that people will so happily drop tens of thousands of dollars on an education for a chance at a good career, but are also completely unwilling to work for free for a few months to get the experience they need. Experience is extremely cheap to acquire relative to the cost of education.
The market sucks at the moment and I've argued for some time it's probably only going to worsen due to structural shifts in the global economy, and tech specifically. Keep this in mind and try not to blame yourself because it's easy to give up. I had a lot of friends who studied comp sci with me who ended up getting regular jobs because they struggled to find work after graduating.
If I were you I would look for a niche which isn't fully technical because that will give you more security from automation and outsourcing standpoint. If I were in your shoes I'd probably look for local startups and offer to work every day for free and do literally any job they asked of me. Startups are good place to start your career because they always have lots of random jobs that need doing without anyone to do them. Because of this they can be great places to find out what you enjoy and where you can add the most value. If you're concerned about where you'll live sleep literally anywhere someone is willing to offer you a bed or a sofa, but if you have to move back with your parents temporarily that isn't the end of the world.
I wish I could start my career again. I have a well paid job today, but I'd still love to be in your position. The problem when you get to my level is that life is good but expensive. It's very hard to learn new skills or shift your career when you have dependents and a mortgage to pay. Unless you want to up end your life for little to no return you just have to follow the money. But for you the whole world is at your feet. I guarantee there's hundreds of interesting companies in your area who would love to bring in new talent but they can't justify it because money is too tight. Find them and let them know how much you'd appreciate the opportunity to get some experience with them. Pick up skills, form connections, and see where it takes you. In my experience most opportunity in life comes from meeting the right people, being loyal to them and providing them value. That is what you should be focused on doing.
In my opinion there's not a simple path to a good life these days. "The system" will almost always fail you. I know it shouldn't be this way, but you have to accept the cards you a dealt and play your best hand.
Feeling burned out is completely normal after college. In my experience, it's hard to work at an endeavor for more than about 3 years without burning out. As you move out into the world, you'll find find that time and energy management can be more important than the work. Because work just sort of happens when we create the right conditions, so emphasizing it too much tends to lead to failure anyway.
I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but I feel that we are entering an era of great struggle. The social contract has been eroded to the point that it's crumbling. Not for any scientific reason, but because dark forces have coopted the goals of technology. Where once the internet was going to bring free access to information for humanity, now it's used to propagandize and subvert the population for the ego-based goals of a handful of wealthy and powerful men whose greed can never be satisfied. AI will mostly accelerate the decline.
What that means is, the promise of a better life which you sacrificed long years for is no longer guaranteed, if it ever was. Where once you could apply at a handful of agencies or institutions with a high likelihood of being hired, now you're up against potentially hundreds of similarly qualified candidates who get weeded out by algorithms. Nobody takes the broad view to see that most of them are overqualified, or to ask why we're doing it this way, or what gives certain people the right to decide and not others - why only they have the money.
I went through a similar situation when I graduated with my ECE degree in 1999 right into the Dot Bomb. I tasted a year of progress before the powers that be started taking it all away. The arrival of the iPhone and Facebook around 2007 replacing Waterfall with Agile, the funneling of R&D funds into outsourcing and the Housing Bubble popping in 2008, the racist backlash to Obama from 2009-2016 that led to the Citizens United case and billionaires buying elections, the COVID-19 pandemic, just on and on and on. I can't remember a good year in all of that, only melancholy, bittersweet. Maybe 2013 after the election when there was enough confidence for electric cars to get a foothold and music was getting good again like it was in the 90s hah.
Nobody told me that the average wage isn't an average. Rather than saying "the typical graduate earns $85,000 at this job", they should say "a dedicated worker can earn up to $85,000 with a little luck". Because nobody is fully employed, usually. A few good years get wiped out with a few months of unemployment. A stable job ends when the company goes out of business. The industry you're trained for gets disrupted with no replacement.
This will all hit the fan around 2030 when AI surpasses humans at all labor. We thought it was 2040 or 2050, but it's on our doorstep because unsupervised machine learning grows exponentially. Nobody has a clue what will happen next after the Singularity.
So I guess my best advice is that the cognitive dissonance you're feeling is very real, and I know it can be hard to endure. But it's also a warning from your subconscious. If you can't see any way through the challenge to the success, then it might be time to step back and take a bird's-eye view of the situation. I highly recommend meditation.
Another way of looking at it is from a holistic perspective. Your challenge isn't unique, meaning that others are facing it too. I can't say enough good things about finding like-minded peers. Together you can overcome adversity that can't be met alone. In fact, that may be the shift needed to take us into the New Age and UBI and an economy that actually works, meaning that the cost of living gets lower each year instead of higher. Maybe what you thought was the thing was the thing that gets us to the thing.
I'm finally finding meaning working at a startup like I thought I'd be in 2000 after a long odyssey. Or I should say, it found me when they saw my comments on a local tech Slack. What changed is my mindset, from ego to service. Where once I was looking for an angle, a hack that would let me get from point A to point B faster, now I seek peace. I stopped chasing money for survival and surrendered to heeding a calling, and letting creation handle the details that foster my existence. After enduring so much negative reinforcement, I've found that the answers can be easier than we ever expected, and that they're often right in front of us.
Sorry to hear about this, it stinks and you don't deserve it.
One thing that we don't talk about is how adversity changes us and pushes us forward. Not that it is easy or fun, but it does help us focus on the future.
Let me give my personal example --
I started back in the job market in 1994 after a stint in the US Marines and things were very, very, very bleak (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_1990s_recession ). I was planning on getting a college degree and was living at home with my parents and planning on working part time, likely for minimum wage (then $3.25/hour) in a two-bit town in Arizona.
In my job search at the local unemployment office I found a post for a job that paid a whopping $7.25 an hour, doing telephone technical support for a little startup by the name of America Online. I was discouraged from applying as I didn't have the skills and should focus on something like security or food service. To be honest, I had no degree but did have PC skills, although no telephony experience. So, I went out and bought one and started learning as much as I could in a short period of time. I got the interview and the job, and about a year later the company exploded and I got to ride the wave into a degree in math and career in tech.
Now, I am not a boomer saying that "you need to try harder." I am also not saying that you just need to find the next hot startup and everything will be fine. Neither of these are true and it sucks that you are in this crisis. I was insanely lucky multiple times.
However, what I will say is that when the current economic model isn't working you have the rare opportunity to take a risk and move towards the future. Desperation doesn't feel good, that is why it is such a good motivator. Take advantage of it.
All the advice around here about networking are spot on. What you need is a job or a degree program that will keep you pointed in the right direction. I don't know if you are an international student or not, but if you are then the only thing that matters is getting a work or study visa. If you are lucky enough to be authorized to work in the US then any job that will keep you fed and in a single room in someone else's apartment in Boston is great. Or, find ANY graduate program ANYWHERE in the country that is vaguely palatable to you. Don't go back to a place where you don't want to be.
Again, this sucks, and I am so sorry that you are caught up in this. Your feelings are justified and valid. But you are caught up in this need to accept where you are and move forward. You will have an Engineering Degree from MIT, and that means you are smart and motivated. This is the definition of "grit", and it will be the next step into your future. You don't have anything to lose.
Truly sorry you feel this way. For what it’s worth, this was common for people graduating into the 2008 financial crisis, too. It’s actually unusual that we went for so long without another period of contraction.
From last time around: The people who kept pushing and took any job, anywhere turned out okay. This translated to a lot of people taking jobs below what they expected to get or having to move when they didn’t want to, but it was ultimately temporary.
The people I knew who turned cynical, let negativity take the wheel, and checked out of the job market struggled much harder to get back in.
You’re early in your career. This current period of turmoil doesn’t mean that much, even though it feels like everything right now. Keep at it, work a little harder than your competition, and put a little more care into your applications and it will work out. Stay away from the doom spirals on Reddit or Blind. Uninstall those apps (and others) if they’re making you worse.
Anecdata to try and level expectations. As someone who *eventually* came out of that era fine, it wasn’t without hardship. Expect to graduate without a job. Expect to continue the grind for many many months. Expect to get rejected not for not meeting the bar, but for not exceeding everyone else who also passed that bar. Expect to very likely settle for a job that doesn’t meet the expectations that college (and the previous 10+ years of history) sold you on. Expect that financially, you will end up years behind the curve and that many life plans (ex: home ownership if that’s one of your goals) will be delayed. Expect that you will meet many people younger than you who will be at your financial level because they graduated post-recovery.
If you can accept that you just happen to be born at the wrong time, you will be in a better place mentally than where I was at for a long time. I won’t say it’s easy; it will suck. But it is possible to make it out ok. I luckily had some financial and emotional support from my family to keep me going. I don’t know your situation but hopefully you are able to find support too. I wish you the best of luck.
"Expect that you will meet many people younger than you who will be at your financial level because they graduated post-recovery."
Yep, the people who graduated about 3-4 years ago are all making more than I do after more than a decade. It seems like that's just how it works.
Huh. This is making me realize that perhaps my situation is more bizarre and unstable than I realize...
How uncommon is it for someone with no highschool diploma (GED), or college diploma to get a job as a software engineer at a Fortune 500 company? Am I completely fucked if I ever lose this job? It's my second SE job...
Like OP may have been hinting at, I had a really fucked up family situation and this path was the only one that I could take- should I plan on going back to school just for future job market security?
I wouldn't worry too much, 20 years ago when I entered the industry (with a philosophy degree), the adverts which emphasised degree pedigree over experience were common.
I have watched that diminish over the last 20 years.
The unspoken secret in programming is that a CS degree basically signals absolutely nothing about programming skill. You can get a 1st in CS and be a rubbish programmer, you can get a chemistry degree and be an amazing one. A lot of CS is utterly irrelevant to programming, and the vast majority of programming skills are not covered by CS degree.
Once you're past 2-3 years experience it stops being relevant, before that it's a way to filter CVs by managers who want to pretend their CS degree wasn't a complete waste of time.
If they're asking for a CS degree for a senior role it's basically advertising they're a clueless company.
I'm in a similar boat. I dropped out of uni for reasons (a bit of a story, I can tell it if you buy me a beer) and ended up making a career out of software engineering.
The main thing to do IMO is spend time building a network. A recommendation in the right place at the right time can open doors that would otherwise be closed to you.
School is an option, but the opportunity cost has been too high so far for me. Though doing a freelance PhD thesis probably wouldn't hurt.
Yeah it sucks, but for many even in a good economy, you will struggle like that coming from a small college that isn’t well known or just not looking the right way. Life isn’t fair, just do what you have to, to get by
> From last time around: The people who kept pushing and took any job, anywhere turned out okay. This translated to a lot of people taking jobs below what they expected to get or having to move when they didn’t want to, but it was ultimately temporary.
I'm going to challenge this as you didn't give specific data to back it up. I read an article recently that did have data, and it made the argument that first jobs, and first salaries, tend to be remarkably "sticky". That is, if you are desperate for a job out of college so take one that causes you to be underemployed and underpaid, that doesn't just stick with you for your first job, but data showed that people were underemployed and underpaid for at least a decade after college.
The advice in this article was to hold out as long as possible for a desirable job, which meant a ton of networking, taking internships if possible, and also possibly additional schooling.
Apologies for not having the article on hand, but here's another one I found in 30 seconds of googling that makes the same argument, with research:
https://www.highereddive.com/news/half-of-graduates-end-up-u...
This sounds correct? I think I’m living evidence of it. The sad reality is that sometimes you can’t hold out long enough and you just gotta take what puts a roof over your head and food on the table. Everyone graduating now just got unlucky with when they were born.
Edit: that said, I think the majority of what the parent wrote is good. Esp the part about negativity. That hits hard and is good to be aware of.
The stats bear this out, but you can usually pivot to something better, especially if you have the skillset and drive to continuously up your skillset and find parts of industry that are in demand. It’s the companies where you learn nothing where you stagnate.
I doubt there’ll be a shortage of ML jobs in the next few years, unless somehow the AI industry completely collapses somehow.
This makes a lot of sense to me. The stats basically say that "if you start out underemployed, you stay underemployed for a long time", but my guess is the causation isn't necessarily as it's implied (or, indeed, as I implied it in my first comment).
That is, I think it's likely that a lot of people who start out unemployed are just comparatively less motivated, less aggressive, "go-with-the-flow"-type people. These folks do better when the market is good and worse when it's bad. But, as you put it, someone with a lot of drive and the skillset is not necessarily doomed to be held back for years if their first job sucks, as long as they set their sights on getting ahead quickly and don't let their stagnant environment rub off on them.
> The advice in this article was to hold out as long as possible for a desirable job, which meant a ton of networking, taking internships if possible, and also possibly additional schooling.
Emphasis on the next actions to take.
Being in a graduating cohort affords you certain opportunities -- internships, career fairs, faculty-connected networking.
Post-graduation, and especially post-college, people don't have these same opportunities.
Fwiw, I'd lean very heavily into interning. Take an internship at the best company you can, that's likely to have solid financials and be hiring when you finish the internship.
Intern -> hire is a ridiculous cheat code for your first "in industry" job.
The employer decreases the risk of making a mistake on an unproven new grad. You get a job offer if you do enough solid work. Win/win.
Worst case (no job offer), you should push really hard for a solid recommendation letter from your direct or second level manager.
Completely agree on internships. I really think universities that have an integrated co-op program, like Northeastern or Drexel, are much better for the significant majority of students than just a "standard" liberal arts or even an engineering degree.
well anecdotes are anecdotes. But tech tends to be much less sticky in this regard. And west coast much less sticky than east coast. My first job was 28/hr and the next roll almost tripled to 120k base 3 years later. It does partially mean hustling in some regards (be it on portfolio or leetcode), but when tech needs workers, they care a lot less about your piece of paper.
But then again, we are definietly not in times of normalcy. If nothing changes quick we may all be losing our spending power.
Joke's on them - I didn't have much to spend in the first place.
I agree. I'm still feeling the effects of lowballing myself to get any job.
+1 to this. If I go look at social media the job market is ending. But if I look at the signals around me there's plenty of opportunities.
Also consider taking something below (or even much below) expectations. It's much easier to work your way up with connections than it is to get in the door with no references.
What signals are you seeing?
The ones I've seen aren't good. I see some jobs in companies with shitty pay or shitty culture (my bar is not high). It dies look like the past 6 months have been better than the previous year or so. But overall, it looks pretty dim. I'm getting PIP'd soon. I am expecting that I will likely lose my job. If that happens, I'm expecting that I will end up as a Walmart greeter. As someone with a disability, I expect my application will go right in the trash if I answer yes or blank on the disability question. Or get fired if I mark no and then do need accommodations.
Exactly this.
I'm desperately looking for a new job. I hate my current job, the constant stress is taking a real toll, and I'm more tired than I've been ever before.
I'm quite literally applying to all sorts of developer jobs that I'm well overqualified for, in any honest assessment, for a lot less than I make now. These roles are far from "premium" gigs. I've no diva expectations or hope at this point.
The only places I even get rejection emails from are places I've had a referral.
Things are bleak.
I'm in a similar place wrt job "security."
Current gig will end soon, one way or another, and the future doesn't look great.
> As someone with a disability, I expect my application will go right in the trash if I answer yes or blank on the disability question
That's an interesting hypothesis.
I've seen many people suggest just the opposite- pretending to have a mild disability when filling in the form so that they get the boost from companies which use recruiting software that prioritizes diversity and inclusiveness in candidate pool.
Federal contractors are explicitly required to "take affirmative action to recruit, hire, promote and retain" people with disabilities, with a target of at least 7% of their employees be from that group. https://www.dol.gov/agencies/odep/program-areas/employers/fe...
MIT students expect (not unfairly) to work at Jane Street/HRT/Jump/Citadel Securities/OpenAI/Anthropic and then "settle" for Google or Facebook. They're not going to work for Fidelity or Raytheon.
That's a bit of a charcacture of Course 6 at MIT. Course 10 is chemical engineering and plenty of them go into industry at all the major oil companies. Lots of MIT students go into aerospace and defense (Lincoln Labs is directly federally funded) and MIT holds a yearly Soldier Design Competition that also helps students go for SBIRs. Raytheon is a big hirer of course 2 (MechE) MIT grads.
That's only true of the ones on ROTC or similar military related programs, everyone else goes straight to Wall Street, big tech, or MBB or med school.
At the annual Fall job fair, 80% of students queue up to less than 10% of employers. Most companies never show up because it's simply not worth the cost and time to try to recruit spoiled brats of MIT
Most MIT Mech E grads work at Boeing. Most Chem Es work at Exxon, Merck and Intel. Most Aero Astros are at Boeing. Etc. Etc. You just aren't accurate.
I find this specious - why would they do that when this is basically the composition of the MechE, AeroE, and ChemE (except no Intel for ChemE, we send our EEs to intel) at my public school undergrad?
Why would they work with people that they perceive to be beneath them and have worked far less hard than them?
>Why would they work with people that they perceive to be beneath them and have worked far less hard than them?
Because you aren't actually modeling their thinking correctly?
Perhaps I don't. I don't know why someone would expend 100x the effort and be labeled at minimum 10x the person by MIT admissions to end up at the same place that people with 1350 SATs from Auburn or 1450's from NC State or 1420 from Binghamton would go to after graduating MechE.
As someone who's worked at Lincoln Labs, I do wonder if the poster here has considered this. Although, it is worth noting that LL requires citizenship for many/most of its divisions.
MIT kids get part time jobs waiting tables or working retail while in school, just like other college kids. My first job out of college was non-elite aircraft manufacturer... guy on my left was MIT, on my right was CalTech.
> MIT kids get part time jobs waiting tables or working retail while in school
I seriously doubt that. This doesn't fit the class they come from. Maybe it would have in 1985 but not today.
I absolutely second that - MIT students of 70's, 80's and even early 90's were from different social class, demographics and personality types, than todays students.
Today, MIT is nothing but a shadow of its better known academic cartel up the Mass ave. Those who hire MIT students know that and plan accordingly. The only reason to hire MIT students is for branding propaganda, you get nothing more from them.
I get why they might have a certain expectation. It kinda depends on the job market. The guy in the cube next to me at Fidelity had a degree from MIT.
As an MIT reject (technically waitlisted), my very first post-graduation job was at Raytheon and much later in life, I ended up at Facebook, where I managed a team that had several engineers that joined directly from MIT. While I can't speak to the entire MIT grad cohort, fFacebook was the first-choice for everyone in this particular group.
Facebook is still much higher status than Amazon or IBM or any other company the people from my undergrad join after college
> But if I look at the signals around me there's plenty of opportunities.
The signals around me in LA are pretty damn bad. several friends laid off, many others worried about layoffs, and a very weak pulse on the market in terms of roles. I still have part time work but who knows for how much longer at this rate?
At this point I'm fine taking up anything that pays and doesn't potentially sent my 8 YO car into retirement even faster.
Indeed. I found myself unemployed and having a very hard time finding work after the '08 crash. My newly minted degree turned out to be worthless in that environment. It worked out for the best as I took a low paying job as a technician that at least let me make enough money to pay the rent and buy food while I continued building up skills. It's a raw deal and it's not fair, but the only thing you can control is yourself. Try to keep a positive attitude and understand that it won't be this way forever.
> You’re early in your career. This current period of turmoil doesn’t mean that much
Is that true? I seem to remember data showing that the 2008-2010 graduate cohorts never overall caught up to the ones that came immediately before or after them.
Like sure sure OP has an engineering degree from MIT they're more like the ones that did catch up. But I'll bet there are a lot more people reading this who are about to graduate with degrees from perfectly adequate state schools and I'm not sure this unalloyed optimism is exactly correct for them. I don't think it turned out to be for their 2008 predecessors.
It doesn’t mean much in the course of an entire career.
Comparing to other cohorts isn’t useful because you can’t pick your cohort. You are born into one timeline and you play the hand you’re dealt.
There’s a lot of research that people who graduate into bad job markets are more cautious and less risk taking which can make them look like they’re behind peers who are more risk hungry when the market is up. I wouldn’t be surprised if it also makes them come out ahead in periods where the market is down.
I graduated in this time period and that makes sense. I definitely didn't start doing what I wanted until some time later. I guess in a sense that makes my career overall a few years behind resume wise but at this point, being in the industry 15 years instead of 17 probably isn't going to move the needle too much in terms of salary but who knows. Either way, at this point in time, I don't feel like I've missed out really.
Also, I graduated from a pretty mediocre state school. I'm by no means starving.
Yeah fwiw I think the ones that managed to get and stay in the industry are doing ok now. I had in mind someone I knew who graduated in 2008 with a CS degree from a state school and needed work immediately, took a helpdesk job, then took the promotions into mid-management, now is a starbucks district manager making like 95k. Never did get to realize that dream of coding professionally.
I believe he finally gave up studying & interviewing for junior dev jobs in 2016. At that point why take a "stale" graduate when you can just get an actual 22 year old from the same school, seems to have been everyone's reasoning.
I saw a similar thing a bunch when teaching at a code school ca 2018 too. It was a great move if you had savings or support for 6-18 months of job search. The ones that got in are still doing ok. But a lot didn't, they had to keep working at what they did before "temporarily" while interviewing and most of them are still doing exactly that.
So idk, I'm not sure how you would even get numbers on this. How many people would have excelled in this work if they had graduated at a different time, or with more support, but they didn't and they simply aren't here.
I suspect what really happens is you're set back a few years compared to someone with more fortunate timing. In a away, this is never catching up, but framing it as a setback gives a better picture of what happens.
My path into this career was completely different so I have no first hand experience either way. But my observation has been that you don't really get to just hang around for a couple years then pick up where you left off. When the job market picks back up the new grad jobs go to new grads, which you aren't, quite, anymore.
It's a more difficult path and people navigate it but I don't think everyone does if you see what I mean. I think some of who should be our colleagues are simply missing because they did what they had to to pay bills in 2010 and never made it in here.
This was true even a few years after 08/09. I applied to about 250 positions and lowballed my salary. I did get a job after 5 or so months of looking. I will say, that lowball salary is still impacting me today. If you do lowball yourself, you have to do a bit of job hopping when the market gets good to boost it.
It was the same for me in the 2001 dotcom crash. It was incredibly hard to find work.
Same boat here, was before all the headhunter sites
I don't think it was that bad. I graduated 12/2008 in aerospace engineering from a big state school. Not MIT. We all had at least 1 offer from big companies, even the middling students. I had 2 offers, and probably could have swung a third. It felt like the recession mostly affected the housing market and older career folks, but for us new grads things were mostly normal. This feels like a permanent shift due to AI in part, and interest rates going back up since pandemic.
2008 wasn't that bad for tech, but 2001 was and might be better comparison.
Yeah, I agree with you here. Most of the people I know in tech got laid off in 2001 due to startups failing. I think the only person I knew that made it through worked for Yahoo.
> It felt like the recession mostly affected the housing market and older career folks, but for us new grads things were mostly normal.
Yeah, they weren't. You were in a STEM bubble, which back in 2008 probably was the only bubble that could still get jobs "the old way", without going through application hell.
Also, the job market was way worse in 09-10 than it was in 2008, especially first half of 2008.
Same in 2001. Took 8 months to get my first job. I started the hunt after graduation to avoid job interviews interfering with study (an 1 hr interview would be a 1 day affair with commuting).
Had I got a job before I graduated that company may well have gone bust or laid people off anyway.
Had some bad interviews including being beaten by a other candidate on a job writing access databases for a 1 person business, and a job where they said they interview girls to see what they look like (not a girl but was disgusted... I carried on the process anyway because need $)
its different this time. the work isnt coming back because the market is now saturated by an oligopoly. IP law and anti competitive practices have effectively stopped upstarts. thats why old tech corps like IBM, Oracle gave trump money and align with their politics.
There are as many startups now as ever before. It's probably pointless to compete directly against an established company in a mature market like relational databases but there is unlimited opportunity for new stuff.
devs dont understand IP law or business. it doesnt matter if youre “innovative”. the concept of your techn was already R&D by someone else. you are beholden to them and they may license it but you will never own it. innovation is over.
Bullshit. That's not how IP law or business works at all. You're just making things up. I see more technology innovation all around then ever before.
Also keep talking to people, since you never know when and where opportunities will come from.
This environment reminds me of the one I faced graduating into the 2001-2003 post-Dotcom Bust market.
I kept hearing about 2008 crisis. It is overrated. Just a market up and down ?
It was probably the worst economic crisis of the last fifty years. It went on forever, particularly in Europe and the UK (mostly because of a bunch of bone-headed moves by politicians).
Even the US basically didn't get back to where it was pre-2008 till 2019.
Tech was fine because mobile was happening, but it was incredibly grim everywhere else.
"Even the US basically didn't get back to where it was pre-2008 till 2019."
Hard disagree. Things went back to almost normal around 2013. Lots of money going around, new startups, and plenty of jobs.
Yeah fair enough. The numbers suggest otherwise but I only visited back then.
I can't speak for other places but graduating into the Icelandic market at the time was brutal. The state was effectively bankrupt at the time.
Are we calling current times overrated too? If so I'd love to know how you are fairing with work and overall finances.
It's hard to face this when fresh out of school, but one piece of advice I can offer is to network as much as you can. Talk to folks you know that graduated before you and have a job. Talk to professors who might have industry ties in their history. Talk to folks in the career center. Try to be as visible as you can. Yes, I know that seems trivial considering you don't have job experience, but even building relationships at school can pay off.
Those types of connections are CRITICAL in the age of scorched-earth AI centric hiring. I spent 9 months recently jobless after getting laid off, and its damned near impossible to get a job through the usual resume farm (LinkedIn job board and the like).
Also, look for jobs local to wherever you are that don't look all that glamorous. RTO is a big thing now, and smaller organizations struggle to hire locally without the brand recognition of the big guys. That might be your in for your first job.
And the biggest thing, keep your head up. Keep pushing. You just got a degree from an extremely difficult program, and you can hang your hat on that. The factors affecting the job market are not within your control, and your skills will outlast them.
I agree with the emphasis on networking. At the risk of sounding like I am doing an advertisement, last month I gave away 5 free tickets to graduates of Fullstack Academy to come to my event, and one of those people found a part-time connection to a startup via the event. I'll do the same again, if you're in New York City, I offer 5 free tickets. Reach me at lawrence@krubner.com. Mention this Hacker News post. We will have entrepreneurs at this month's event who are hiring. Come join us. Details:
https://respectfulleadership.substack.com/p/april-28-the-inf...
I second networking as the thing to do in this job market.
The vast majority of the recent interviews that I have gotten have been through networking. Sometimes just asking the right people works, but obviously you have to know who to ask, when to ask it, and how to ask it to make it work. There are also more passive methods like the HN monthly job threads, but you should do active networking as your primary networking method in this job market.
Even if I apply via a job board to positions that I am supremely qualified for, there is a good chance I'll be auto-rejected within a day. It has happened multiple times to me and I shrug it off at this point.
I know networking is hard, especially when you are just starting out, but I just wanted to write a post saying that it does work if you stick to it.
(That said, I would also prepare to be unemployed for an extended period. Even if you are actively interviewing, it can take months to get a job offer. For my current position, it took 5 months to get an offer and I started 4 months later due to a housing storage where the job was located.)
Agree with everything here, with one minor addition: talk not just to professors who might have industry ties, but everyone in your orbit with whom you have reason to think might help -- even those professors (or research scientists or postdocs or grad students or what have you) who entered MIT as a freshman and never left will have had many contacts (e.g., former students or classmates) who are in industry, and in many cases people do keep in touch.
Indeed, this is a big benefit of being from MIT. Most professors at most schools don't have good connections in my experience, but that is not the case for MIT.
Asking for referrals/connections will be more effective though if you have an interest and focus and can articulate that to the prof. Imagine they are the first link in the hiring chain and treat them accordingly. You need to sell yourself to them before they'll sell you to their network.
This. My comment was definitely not meant to limit, just giving examples. Introduce yourself to a brick wall if you think it will give you a boost
Absolutely agree! I only added the comment lest yours be read too literally.
Agreed with this — don't give up, start asking around. It's fairly well studied at this point so if you'd rather believe a sociologist, read Granovetter https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2023/07/strength-weak-ties
I second this. I haven't had to do the typical recruiter channel since 1998. I have plenty of people I've worked with in previous jobs whose companies were looking for good people. This only works if you work hard enough to make a good impression.
I would suggest for your first job, take whatever you can get, as long as it is in your field, and deal with it for the first two years to get your foot in the industry. My first job was notoriously horrible, but after two years, I got a really good job with a company you've heard of through a recommendation.
Also, I would suggest looking outside the typical mega tech companies. There are plenty of other industries that need good people.
Networking is the most OP "soft skill" one can learn in the long run, takes time to properly have enough people who trust you (and that you trust as well), but its definitely worth it specially in bad times (like the ones we're having right now).
You can also "start small" and network via FOSS communities, I met one of my best friends while contributing to niche projects and we ended up working together because of it.
This is just old school fatherly advice, which doesn't represent today's reality at anywhere, let alone at MIT.
Most profs these days, went to grad school right out of college and never stepped foot in the industry. If they've had any contact within industry it's through some R&D grant with other PhDs. A few are in start-ups which means they only hire interns for $20/hr, and fresh off the boat indians and asians grad students.
Small or local companies don't want and can't pay salary of MIT grads; they've plenty of salt-of-the-earth local engineering school grads to chose from.
Send me an email — I'm an '18 and if you're telling the truth about side projects, interview skills, graduating, etc. then I should be able to help you find a job very quickly, either in my own org or with someone I know who is hiring.
> I’m facing the very real possibility of moving back home to an unstable and abusive environment while continuing to job hunt
You don't have to do this. You can do anything you want you're a free person with your own agency and plenty of skills. There are a million ways you can work around this.
> What helped you push through when it felt like the system failed you?
Realizing that I am owed nothing, and focusing on ways to get what I want. With your background and skills I am certain you can achieve anything you set your mind to as long as you don't put yourself in a subordinate, dependent, position.
> Realizing that I am owed nothing, and focusing on ways to get what I want.
I don't think the system _ever_ fails people with "merit" like MIT grads. It fails people like me that can't get into top schools that went to 50% accept rate public schools.
I graduated in 2018 too - I guarantee people like you consider me and my career accomplishments in the intervening years to be failure worthy. I genuinely think a typical MIT Course 6 grad from 2018 would be clinically depressed if they were in my shoes.
Even your gilded claim is breaking down these days it seems.
I started in state schools and leveraged that into one of the world's best (half the MIT professors had graduated from my alma mater when I was deciding where to go) for my MSc.
As [likely] one of the people you reference, I am a counter example to your guarantee. No one should fail who contributes in good faith. Live life well, be responsible, have fun, spread joy, and no matter what happens in your career you'll have succeeded.
How dare you guarantee that I'd consider you a failure? You don't know me, don't put that on me. In fact I am pretty sure I wouldn't consider you a failure. You're saying a lot of negative things about yourself and I don't know you or your situation but I hope you don't give up.
To be fair, you asked someone with a zero experience to contact you solely due to MIT pedigree. You also didn't ask `parent` to contact you.
I recognize your username and I've followed your career since ~2017 or something. I never got an interview at Stripe, not that I would have ever passed it. I'm not a L6/L7/L8. I worked at Amazon, and people think my class of people are subhuman.
I see that your username is “laidoffamazon.” It seems that you are allowing the low points in your life to define who you are and what you think you can accomplish. Have you considered therapy?
Therapy, in this economy? I'm trying to cut pretty much all subsciptions just to pay rent.
Levels.fyi has L5 at Amazon making $150k base, $220k TC. You might not be Jeff Dean or Andrej Karpathy but there's only two of them. None of us are. That's not remotely subhuman failure.
https://www.levels.fyi/companies/amazon/salaries/systems-dev...
I make more than $220k now but OP 100% makes closer to $800K+ He definitely doesn't think people like me are human.
I sincerely hope that you seek and receive help.
What help?
There is no help that will stop me from being an untermensch and failure? It's not going to get me a 1600 or get me into a top school or make me earn $800k a year.
Like Peter, I do recommend talking to someone about this. You don't sound content, and life is too short to miss out on the journey.
I say this as someone who earns much less than you (never mind 800k), and who didn't go to a top school.
I'm no psychiatrist but your posts suggests that you see yourself as a failure, or possibly you've gotten that feedback from others directly. Perhaps at Amazon or elsewhere.
Projecting that feeling onto others suggests you would really benefit from talking to a professional about this.
I don't think you're a failure, I don't know you. But from what little you've revealed I'd say you're not a failure. But perhaps you had your own goals you failed to achieve?
I’ve had therapy, it doesn’t help. It doesn’t change the material facts that everyone thinks I’m a failure because that’s the objective truth.
Did they actually tell you that? I highly doubt it. You've created a preconception that I guarantee is not accurate at all. You have multiple people here saying it's bullshit, and we're not lying or trolling or anything like that. I replied somewhere else but I want to reiterate - why would you even want approval from people who dehumanize others on the basis of TC? It's like being upset Martin Shkreli doesn't want to be your friend. I really hope you'll believe me
It’s not just TC though. TC is an imperfect proxy for ability and class. If I’m just permanently in the underclass - unable to be compared to you people - it’s obvious that y’all wouldn’t even see me as human.
I have no accomplishments, nothing to be proud of. Freshmen at MIT have more potential and prior accomplishments than I do.
As Percy Shelley said about Ozymandias, "Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!" We're all sand on a long enough time scale, and getting a TC 800k+ will not save you from that fate, in the same way that conquering an empire will not save you either. Other people have pointed out that you likely make a decent wage, but understandably that does not address your concern. If you feel that your only value is your accomplishments, then no matter how much you achieve it will never be enough. You get to decide your own goals, and whether you're reaching them. Don't let these proxies for ability and class decide what you want or how fast you should get it.
The "under" class that makes more than ninety-five percent of US households?
You might need a refresher on the meaning of the word "under".
Mah bro, such is life. In fact the entirety of humanity is like that. Unfairness is everywhere.
There is nothing wrong being under accomplished. Let me tell you a secret that helps with mental sanity. All humans are sinful creatures. We indulge in lot of these sins. If you go through this chain of thought you arrive at conclusion, everyone is inferior to one another. The material superiority you yearn for is a momentary fleet in the river of time.
Sometimes just reflect on yourself. One perspective of life is your world governs you. If you are happy in your own world, try to let go of it. Just enjoy the moments and don't hold on it.
You are the actor and creator of your reality. Your objective reality is making you feel inferior. Define your role, change your actions, and act accordingly.
The inability to act according to your role is the probably reason behind your feeling. You probably see yourself through some different lens where your actions and objective reward do not align. All you can do is control your thoughts and actions. So act.
You make more than $220k. Holy fucking shit that's a giant ass pile of money!
Objectively, you. are. not. a. failure!
Ninety-five percent of US households earn less than that. Ninety-five!
The material fact here is you have this made up story in your head that's not supported by the limited facts you've given us. I'm not going to change your self image by yelling at a stranger over the Internet; if traditional talk therapy with a human didn't work, discuss it at length with ChatGPT, or go see a sex worker, they're surprisingly good for talking to. You're also welcome to email me, link in bio.
Don't worry. There are people with privilege who would never understand the mean. They fly high due to their circumstances and are just lucky.
Us, we have go strive for living. That's the unfairness in life. It would have been so much easier if lucky ones would acknowledge their luck than attribute for hard work and what not.
Everyone discounts luck while it is the biggest factor. Only action you can do is increase the surface area of your luck.
Try to find meaning beyond career. There are multiple ways to get lucky. Find your own luck. After all we are in an era where people get wealth screaming on top of their lungs to the internet.
Yeah that's okay. You're suffering from a common thing. You just need therapy and then you'll learn you're good enough without accomplishments. Right now you think you need to accomplish things to have value. That's a really basic textbook mental illness caused by parental neglect. Usually something like intermittent random love / neglect. Study attachment theory and you'll learn all about it.
Huh?? I know people doing gig work struggling to live paycheck to paycheck. People making less than $50k a year who do not think they are "subhuman".
Why are you equating money with self-worth and dignity? That's a losing battle since there's always a bigger fish.
For most technical people in most of the world making $220k in a year is a distant dream.
https://www.reddit.com/r/hiringcafe | https://hiring.cafe/ (not mine, but I've chatted with folks its worked for)
Know when to rest, not to quit. Take whatever job you can now while continuing to look for your next role.
> What helped you push through when it felt like the system failed you?
Grit and nihilism. No one is coming to save us.
> Grit and nihilism. No one is coming to save us.
What I'll say won't help you now, but: this will help you later.
Don't assume you'll always be able to find a job. Work towards financial independence early. Avoid debt. Don't get some fancy car as a "treat" to yourself, counting on your future income to make payments... that income might not come.
Sorry it sucks right now. Don't give up, don't let your skills dull. Keep grinding and take any programming job just to start getting that 2-3 experience that locks out so many of the labour market.
Good advice. Save for future you, possessions are temporary.
> Take whatever job you can now while continuing to look for your next role.
This. And by any job I mean any job. McDonalds, book store, what have you. A good friend of mine dropped out of Harvard sophomore year. She found work at the COOP, then CVS, etc. It was definitely better than going back to an unstable and abusive environment while continuing to job hunt.
I graduated in ChemE in southern California in 1999 when there was a major downturn in the job market. One or two big chemical engineering design firms closed their SoCal offices flooding the market with qualified chemE's, aerospace companies were consolidating, etc.
Some of my school colleagues got good jobs at refineries and whatnot... but they were the fortunate ones. It took me 12 months to land my first "I made it" engineering job with a good salary. In the interim, I worked hourly jobs making between 13-18 USD an hour.
Don't let the current job market deflate you. You are young, intelligent, and you have a degree from MIT... you are going to be fine.
I graduated 3 years ago in a similar situation and this helped me
Hunter S. Thompson’s Letter on Finding Your Purpose and Living a Meaningful Life https://fs.blog/hunter-s-thompson-to-hume-logan/
Totally off topic, but this is the second time today I’ve seen HST referenced on HN, and it makes me happy
For what it’s worth, I’ll soon be looking for new PhD students to join our lab in Belgium (Europe). It’s a great, dynamic environment, and we work on exciting problems in 3D and computer vision. Feel free to reach out if you think it could be a good fit!
Service industry (waiting tables is my go to) doesn't pay well but it does pay...
I worked at Stinkies Fish Camp as a dishwasher fwiw after my 6 years as a Cyber Threat Operator in the AF (2012 government sequestration did wonders to clearance renewals). It sucked, but I lived. Well, survived.
Best of luck, always keep a candle of hope to a wildcard interview!
lol, you sound like honest & decent fellow, assuming everyone else is like you - but you've no clue who you're advising.
Oh, the irony...
Ditto
I graduated in June 2009 from a UC just after the crash. It took me until September 2010 to find a job in the field I wanted and get my career going. I got super lucky and found that job off a Craigslist ad. Just remember the system isn't set up to support you, so you are going to have to be proactive, creative, try and network and be uncomfortable asking for what you want until you get it. These are core life skills. Grit 'n' Grind.
Yeah I'm sorry for your troubles. I have 8 or so years in the industry and some decent names on my resume, and nothing is really sticking for me either. It was bad in 2023, horrible in 2024, and maybe outright catastropic in 2025. You may indeed be way way smarter than I am, but if are this stiff with their senior market, the entry level market must be absolutely dead.
I wish I had better advice. I really only have some decent part time work from a blind linkedIn message. Luck really is opportunity + preparation. And these days, you REALLY gotta get lucky. Keep every channel up to advertise yourself, talk around to everyone in your community, and keep bolstering your portfolio. Grab any sort of job possible if you don't decide to move back. If you're willing t relocae for any role, all the better. Just be keenly aware of CoL, because it may slip under your fingers in these times.
I was sent out to an okay enough market that was still looking for people. You were sent out into a wasteland. Just remember that absolutely none of this was your fault. But unfortunately your goal right now is to survive and ride the storm out.
Best of luck.
I was in a similar or worse state in 2017. I was on my OPT (International student). I was hugely successful in my job, then my company was taken private and I was laid off. Without job for a year and no visa either. Mounting debt too. Took a low level job that promised my h1b and slowly worked my was up through multiple legal (visa) issues, layoffs, abusive environments, and financial ruin. Now a senior director at a mid level company and going steady. Took me 6 years. Sometimes all you can do is just hold on to any strand of hay that you can get to stay afloat to survive, then you can crawl, sprint and thrive. At this time you only need one -'Yes'. It could be your next attempt or your 100th. Just keep going and you will be alright. I know it. What you feel is normal, I used to feel like that. Sometimes I wake up in the feeling that way, even if there are no threats. It happens.But you will be alright - just keep trying, and keep moving
I entered the workforce in 08/09. At that time things seemed really dire. It felt to me like the whole house of cards was coming down, and I told myself that I would take any job that I could get.
I ultimately landed a job with an odd startup, eccentric founders, working out of an attic. In hindsight I couldn't have asked for a better start to my career. But, my expectations were rock bottom at the time.
Anyway, keep your mind open to all possibilities. You never know where an unlikely choice may take you. And, good luck!
To me, it sounds like you need professional experience on your resume so that should be your goal. However, professional experience != a full time software engineer role. Can you find something really small that pays from a freelance site? Maybe it's just a python script that takes 4 hours and pays $10 - but with that you are a professional software engineer. Do you anyone who owns a website for a business? Ask them if you can do some really basic work for $1 - because if you do that, you're a professional software engineer.
Once you have some professional experience on your resume, it should get a little easier - it's still going to take some time and grit, but it should work out.
Yeah, the world is a illusion, it tells you "study here or there and you'll have an amazing job and will win a lot of money!" but a lot of times, that never happen. You ended up felting like "was all for nothing?". I see my dad now working with his 60+ years old and I can't say to him "You can rest now, I'll pay your bills", at least was something that I was dreaming for a long time and now I know that will never be possible. I can't give you advice since you and I are on the same boat (I'm not an MIT senior but you get it, right?) but try not to lose hope and don't be harsh with yourself
> What helped you push through when it felt like the system failed you?
The feeling of inadequacy is an absolute self-esteem wrecker such that it distracts you from reality. You and your friends got into MIT, that's a big accomplishment. You're like a Tony Stark or whatever. Be proud of that attribute.
But I'll give you some reality: accept that you probably won't find a job in your field any time soon. It may take years. Once you accept that you don't have the cards, your mind starts thinking up more possibilities.
There is no shame in serving happy meals for awhile, but start aiming for a trade, perhaps some city/state work.
Many student loans can be put on basically indefinite hold via income based repayment (if you make little enough, your minimum payment is zero, but the interest keeps accruing). This gives you some flexibility to take any job you can find, even something that doesn't require a degree.
You might also look into trades, depending on your engineering specialty. A machinist with a MechEng degree from MIT or a millwright with something related to manufacturing will be extremely valuable, especially if you're willing to move where the work is.
MIT students almost definitely don't have student loans. The degree is free to cheap.
There's some evidence that your career success depends heavily on the timing of your entry into the job market. That is, if you start working during an economic slump your career will suffer but if you wait and enter during a peak economic period you will always "ride the wave". I've seen this happen to individuals.
So I suggest that you stay in school, take a Masters degree and try to enter the market at a better time!
Don't go any further than a Master's. Here's why:
Philip Greenspun has provided the following graph at the URL titled "Career Guide for Engineers and Computer Scientists" at https://philip.greenspun.com/careers/
THIS IS YOUR EDUCATION, THIS IS YOUR SALARY
I think the context of it being titled: "Not So Very Serious Stuff" is missing
I graduated in 2009 in the middle of the Great Recession. I lived in a basement after graduation and did odd jobs for 9 months while learning how to build web apps. Then I took a job teaching English in South Korea.
After I got back from Korea 2 years later I faced a similar situation. Be flexible, take odd jobs, don't be afraid to work in the trades and use your free time to build durable economic skills for a job that you really want. Conditions will change (and they do so unevenly throughout the economy).
Get by and get ready. They can't repossess your brain. If you're from a financially unstable background - live cheap and be creative until you've built the stability you want.
You keep trying. You may have to take a lesser job to pay the bills, but you keep trying until you succeed. You also need to understand that the CS market has something of a glut right now and with companies downsizing for various reasons, jobs in CS are tight. When I went through the same thing, I took jobs at small companies, startups, etc., to pay the bills and I kept applying to other companies until I landed a job with one of them. You might also consider talking to consulting firms for contract work, something I've done before.
If you give up, you will certainly fail, so don't give up and realize that the hardships you may experience will make you stronger, more resilient, and better prepared to deal with hardships in the future.
Is there no pipeline--or a job fair? A way to get a moment with prospective employers? It seems tragically stupid if MIT offers no such thing. Applying into the void seems like a fool's errand.
You can always teach English abroad or join the air force both of which solve the environment problem. Going back home isn't a great option unless you have a high paying job lined up and can save a lot of money. The main issue with staying home is your days become monotonous and years can pass just treading water. It is also a huge hit to self confidence and mental health at least for a traditional US household. While you're away, it will be vital to keep learning new skills and trying to find better opportunities or you will get stuck.
I came from a background that sounds a lot like yours. I didn’t get to go to MIT; I just taught myself, also during hard economic times. My way of getting jobs was learning skills that were difficult for most programmers so that having a degree wouldn’t be as important. I also applied only to places that interested me and where I thought I could contribute. Therefore, I applied to very few places. I have always thought that it is my job to be irresistible to a hiring manager. No one owes us a job.
The most important skills you've gained from your education so far is the ability to learn and process. Take any tech related job you can right now, don't be picky. Strive to excel in whatever that job is and not just from the tech standpoint; the business and the processes are equally important. Keep your eye on the horizon for what role it is you really want but be aware that that goal might change over time.
And keep in talking to your friends. Who knows if between the lot of you, you've already thought of the next big thing.
When I graduated in 2011, the Great Recession was just beginning to unthaw. I nearly joined the Air Force as an officer. I even went to MEPS and did the physical but decided against it at the last second and joined a military contractor instead.
It was a similar situation, but honestly nowhere as dire as yours. Even in that rough situation, the best of my state college were at least getting one offer. I cannot imagine how rough it must be for MIT grads to not be getting job offers.
I'm not proud of either, but I did what I needed to so that I never moved back home.
If you can self-host or publish a demo of your work that is open-sourced, I find that that really opens the door for a lot of web dev positions, regardless of what particular languages you know and/or what’s in vogue.
(Mine would be https://jonline.io/jon, part of a larger project that does federated social media, but just a “hello world” portfolio server app that you open source would be quite effective, I think. This is all based on recruiters’, hiring managers’, and other devs’ responses when I link them to it.)
MIT class of '75 in course 18 (math - 3 years) and class of '76 course 6.3 (CS - fourth year). I stayed for that 4th year because the job market and grad school pool were awful. Was unemployed when graduated in June '76. Took advantage of that to take a cross-county motorcycle tour. Finally got a job in mid-September. That company went belly-up 6 weeks later. Remained unemployed until January '77. With the dream job that really launched my career. I wish I had more encouraging words for you, but what worked for me was - stick to what you love - eventually it'll work out. But don't be afraid to do what it takes to survive. I made ends meet by working as a bartender - moonlighting during that first job, and then as main income for a few more weeks until I got that wholly unexpected call from a headhunter that changed everything.
Since there are currently no posts mentioning this, if you have down time, build something.
Not because it will make you rich, but because it shows you have the grit to actually do something. It will also keep your skills fresh and/or grow them.
These things do make a huge difference to hiring managers.
Hunting for work in a down economy is hard and depressing. Building something is a excellent way to stave off depression. Much better than self-pity, alcohol, drugs, videos games, or doom scrolling.
This is more or less the advice that I was going to give. I would add on to it by recommending that, if you don't know what to build, go find an open source project with open pull requests and start fixing broken things. Keep track of your submissions and use them to start creating a portfolio of the professional work that you've done this way a gratis.
In addition to doing volunteer work this way, also look for various "bug bounty" situations for accumulating similar "professional micro-experiences" that you can also use to show that you have been crafting and delivering functional code into one or more projects.
I would suggest taking a break and going for the MEng program. Talk to your faculty members about this decision.
1. Go for masters in a field where you can get TA or other stipend. Masters is generally worth it because it will give you more experience. There are lots of places outside of US that are starting to invest into AI infra, and having advanced knowledge gives you an edge. Don't limit yourself to MIT - other universities (even overseas) have funding. A lot of times, especially in US, the graduate projects are basically company funded tasks that they can get done while paying way less than the market price, so plenty of those are floating around.
2. Look outside US for jobs. There are remote opportunities everywhere, and at your young age, its not super hard to move. Even China has some startups that can hire within US.
3. In general, even in recession, there are companies that end up making big as demand shifts to more fundamental things. Most companies need IT support. Generally, as a computer engineering grad, you should be able to do the full range of IT support (and if you can't ask yourself why not).
Talk to peers, friends, even people you do not know that well and ask about their plans. Don't be afraid to ask for help. Crash on a couch for a few months. Keep refining and sending out resumes. Take a job that you might be overqualified for. Early in your career you should accept and work for entry level positions and anticipate that you will be doing this same thing every 2-4 years in order to get to a salary range you are hoping for anyway.
Don't expect or even look for a dream job straight away. Lower your standards. That's what I did, and I ended up where I'm supposed to be in my career after a few years. I took an early risk on a personally important project early in my career and found myself broke and headed home afterward. I just committed myself to taking entry level work and moving jobs several times in order to catch up with my peers who went straight into industry.
Broaden your search. Apply to startups, for less money / more equity - there are plenty of them in the Boston area. Basically just do a sober assessment of how much you need to live on (perhaps with a roommate), add 30% to that and that's your minimal acceptable cash-side compensation. Do that for some time (a year or more), learn, move on. While you work, set aside some money for the rainy day. This is not optional, you have to do it even if you don't set aside a ton. Fundamentally, you have to stand out and you have to start building a track record. How much money you make in your first job is not very important. I'd say what you _do_ in your first job is more important. That's what people see in the resume. Good luck, and remember - you've got the very best education available. Do not sell yourself short in job 2 and so on.
having worked in professional setting for more than 7 years, I've given up on getting a job. I'm starting my own venture (although ive been trying to get that up since I was in school) with full commitment and almost no alternative of getting into the job market.
The job market is skewed and gamed.
You should change the way you're applying to jobs, and on the side, try to find cofounders who are starting some startup.
You can also join new ones who recently got funded. Some of the MIT folks work at windsurf, you can find similar startups that are need of engineers.
1. new founded startups 2. start one yourself (although this is risky, only reliable if you can get funding) 3. networking and meeting folks from your college 4. get a job you're overqualified for to keep your visa, (given you talk about going back to home)
Me personally have given up on jobs so im starting something of my own, although i dont have the pressure of going back home cuz thats already done, i'm back to my "toxic environment".
The advice I give to students is to leverage connections, especially family connections, as much as possible. Take any job you that have a family connection to, even if it isn't in tech.
Learn the business as well as you can and then apply your technical knowledge to it.
To OP, sorry you're experiencing this. If you want 1:1 help debugging your job search, feel welcome to email me directly (contact in HN bio). I probably won't be able to get to it until this weekend, but I will try to help if I can.
If you can get support, staying for a graduate degree is a time honored way of riding things out when you graduate into a recession. And if the stock charts are an indication, industry is bracing for the mother of all recessions.
for now, if you get a job you're overqualified for OR even its not upto your "standards", I would suggest to take it.
I had one such offer that I thought was not worth my time because I presumed I'll get more offers, Sike, I didn't. Now I think about if had taken that up, I would atleast have some stability while I plan my next steps.
food on the table > rocket on mars
stability > ambition
Pickup anything you can get, dont stay stuck on the old ways of getting a job, they are not working anyways. Cold call business owners and ask them if you can bring some technical value and potentially convert that into a long term relationship. This doesn't have to be this way for years but alteast you'll be able to get into the workspace and use YOUR SKILLS to create impact in OTHERs company/industry.
I’ll echo a couple of other people who have said to network. This was many years ago, but when I was in college and applying for jobs I was getting no interest at all. No interviews… not even an email response acknowledging receiving a resume. Then a person that I knew who had graduated the previous year was at a campus event, I started talking to her, and she told me the company she worked at was hiring. I emailed the hiring manager the next day, attached a resume, mentioned the woman I was talking to. Got a call 2 days later, an interview the following week, then an offer after later.
If you're interesting in automated manufacturing, contact me at paul@neofactory.ai
Most hardtech startups dont have the same constraints as big tech in hiring. More than anything we need smart dedicated people to create the future.
Your future isn’t slipping away, but you’re updating your intuition. The path forward has always been there.
The system failing is the default. Allies tip the scales. You can see the board more clearly now; play accordingly
I find this seriously unlikely. Most MIT grads are getting into Jane Street or at minimum Google - they literally think working at Amazon is beneath them. Course 6 grads are not going unemployed.
It is funny to hear that this person might have an unstable environment though - that isn't the profile of someone that gets into MIT.
If OP is actually serious I'm more than willing to give resume advice - including in person living in the area. But again, I seriously doubt this is real, or if people like OP are willing to take advice from failures like me.
I was an undergrad and this is just wrong. Most are not going into HFT, and a bunch don't go into FAANG either. And not everyone who gets in was raised in a perfect upper middle class life. Do you really want to care about judgement from people who think not working at a trading firm is a failure? Those people are insufferable anyway
> and a bunch don't go into FAANG either
Then they start their own companies. They don't work at Oracle or Amazon or Fidelity or IBM.
> MIT kids get part time jobs waiting tables or working retail while in school
Just the vast majority of them? A handful don't at best.
MIT EECS undergrad? I can believe not everyone is HFT out of the college, but there is a broader point being made.
Yes. I mean if the point is that MIT grads have unfair advantages sure, but he's built a quite unrealistic image of MIT/its students. There is a whole spectrum from IOI gold medalists to students who fail intro classes.
Yes, he exaggregated intentionally. That's why I referred to a "broader point".
These days, applying through job portals is a losing strategy. People are overwhelmed with perfect-on-paper AI-generated applications.
Email people directly. DM them on Twitter/LinkedIn. Meet people in person.
Get a McDonald’s job. Why would you move home to an abusive environment
Most current MIT students (except ROTC) don't get out of bed until 10, have never worked a day in their precious little lives and prefer hot-pot to McDonalds.
That sounds bleak. If I were in your shoes I'd probably join the military. I'm thinking Air Force. They can use people with advanced technical skills. Plus, you get a bed, food, and a job. Regarding family (Spouse, Kids) there are financial benefits, cheaper housing, the ability to live and shop on base, etc. If it were me, I'd choose that over going back to to the environment you described.
The United States government is not a safe place to be right now, and especially not for Veterans.
Much saber rattling concerning Iran as of late, and Republicans love reviving failing economies with war.
Buyer beware.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop-loss_policy
> If you've been through something similar—late job search success, unexpected turns that worked out, or just any advice—I’d really appreciate it.
So, I can provide my anecdote, at least. It took me the better part of a year after I graduated to find my first job. (That paid real poorly.) I lost that job after a year due to the role being eliminated and my contract not being renewed. I lost my next job at a startup after six months due to the company pivoting. I’ve been at my following job for 10+ years now.
2002 felt similar, although it was never so bad that even MIT grads had trouble finding jobs, just those of us from low tier schools.
The classmates who took non-tech jobs after graduating in 2002 never came back to the industry. They generally did alright, but taking a job outside the industry makes it really difficult to get back in. Employers expect to hire people with no experience straight out of school.
That MEng sounds like the best option to me. That was definitely the best option for my 2002 classmates.
Start going to tradeshows for every possible industry you can think of, and bring resumes.
People who network in person almost always have an advantage compared to people with similar qualifications who sit at home and send out resumes.
You are guaranteed to make more connections if you speak to people at the booths. If you take a genuine curiosity in what they do there's usually something interesting to talk about.
I am seeing this in my community as well, it has become nearly impossible for early career folks to find opportunities and it is due to a number of factors. In addition to economy, the fast ramp up of hiring in covid and of course AI, we now have geo-political headwinds in the mix. If you are in this situation, or if you would like to help make a difference, please reach out to me, email is in profile. @Dang, if this is not appropriate, please let me know.
I received a campus offer in 2008, but then the recession hit. Since it was with a large company, I graduated in 2009 and was supposed to join afterward. However, just a few weeks before my start date, they postponed it indefinitely. I found myself back at square one and it took more than six months to land a job at a mid-sized company with a lower salary. Eventually, things worked out. So, don’t lose hope—just keep trying. Best of luck!
MIT has resources, at least a huge alumni network (that is one of the reasons you paid so much), you are going to have to shake some palms, get a list of recent graduates, they should supply and start asking, most companies offer a referral to the employee
I've been in this position and for me the motivation to keep pressing on came from still staying out there and at least hanging out and talking with like-minded friends in the tech space. Without that my tendency would be to wallow and do nothing. With that being said... lots of people are hiring -- share a resume!
Sorry to hear the challenge.
You and your friends should email me with your resume and anything you're proud to have built. I'll extend that to any MIT senior/recent grad who wants to discuss moving to SF and helping us apply LLMs to build product features that solve interesting customer problems.
I'm at james.peterson@fathom.video. Include "[responding to HN thread 43614795]" in the title. I'd love to chat.
If you need help, feel free contact me at pohuan@microsoft.com. I could help refer some if you see Microsoft position. Hope it helps.
Decide where you WANT to be (like, literally, location).
Plan to move there and get any job.
Don't be ashamed to apply for any and all government assistance you might be able to find.
I never had any internships and I didn't gradute from a well-known university. During my senior year of college, I took on low-paying software development contracts I found on craigslist.
I used this as previous experience and found a job right out of college. I also learned a lot from this experience and used the same skills to find work during the 08 crash and never really had a loss of income during this time.
I’m a MIT grad from ‘12. PM me (email is on my profile)
Become a founder. It's the easiest way to make something people want and get paid a moderately decent salary while you're doing it!
I was in a somewhat relatable situation around 10 years ago after I'd finished a coding bootcamp right after graduating college. I didn't major in computer science and bootcamps were at the time already viewed with skepticism among most tech companies, but I did have a degree from a top 10 US university. I thought that meant I would be able land an engineering job, even if it was a bad one.
I was in for a horribly rude awakening. I spent 4 months applying for jobs non-stop through linkedin and company career pages and didn't receive a single response back. Finally, when I was nearly ready to give up and move back to my parents' house, I went on my university's alumni directory and searched for people in the Bay Area working in eng leadership at tech companies. I emailed the first person I found and explained that I was really struggling to get interviews and would be willing to take an internship or work for free if it meant I could get some experience on my resume. I got a response within the day. The guy told me that, while the roles listed on his company's website were filled, his wife was worked in engineering recruiting. He passed my resume along to her and within a day I had 3-4 companies asking for an interview. In the end, I got one final round interview and landed the job. Looking back, if it weren't for that email I likely would have given up and pursued another career path.
In short, my only advice is: completely stop applying to open job listings on linkedin or on a company's career page. Those jobs literally receive thousands of applications and, additionally, there is often a recruiter representing the company who is directly reaching out to the most desirable candidates for that position. There is nothing but disappointment that comes from applying to those jobs and, given we're in a very uncertain economic environment, doing so will only discourage you.
Instead, try to find anyone working in the industry you're targeting with whom you have some loose connection and send them an email. I know that sounds scary and stupid, but you would be surprised at how eager most people are to help others. At the end of the day, most people don't derive that much personal satisfaction from their work, but they do get a lot of satisfaction from helping other people.
Does MIT have an alumni directory where you can search for alumni contact info by industry and location? Are you in a fraternity or any social club that might have older MIT alumni that you could get in touch with? Try sending 2 or 3 people an email and see what happens.
Is it location based? All the engineering students at the local university by me aren't seeming to have problems.
https://msoe.s3.amazonaws.com/files/resources/2025-career-co...
EECS is programming? Look for remote jobs all around the world instead of just applying locally, that increases the chances a lot. A lot of companies are doing the same thing to get cheaper workers all the time.
Relevant experience is more valuable than a schools name. If your school didn't offer you the opportunity to acquire significant experience in your field, you were cheated. They should at least be able to guide their students into apprenticeship programs upon graduation.
I graduated from MIT Course 6 10+ years ago. Have you considered doing a PhD? It's really worth it if you find the right match for a professor. A PhD would make it easier for you to find a job in this competitive environment (an MS alone, not so much).
It was like this when I, and my friends graduated. This too will pass. Do not let it discourage you and take away everything you've worked so hard to achieve. You will triumph anyway. It's not easy to get into, let alone graduate from a school like MiT. God speed my friend.
Thought about a career at one of the national labs? I work at one currently and I quite like my job.
Don't just complain. Put your side projects on github and show them off.
You are one of the best in history prepared to do your job, with current knowledge etc. and best university in the world, get your colleagues and start a company. You don't need a jerk who barely passed a college to tell you what to do.
We have a small team that includes a few MIT grads. We're adding a few more new grads. Feel free to reach out at hey@{my site} with a resume, can interview today
A few thoughts:
0. It's not you, it's the job market and economic cycle. Many companies aren't hiring much at the moment because of economic uncertainty and unrealistic enthusiasm about AI-fueled automation. But the good (?) news is they are trying to cut costs by laying off senior people and hiring junior people like you. Keep applying.
1. You could lean into the EE side of things. Analog and digital design are still needed as we move into the era of RISC-V, robotics, AR/VR, self-driving cars, etc. You likely have a decent project portfolio already from your coursework. Also power engineering and efficiency are important at all scales.
2. An MEng from MIT (or another good school/program) would probably be interesting, challenging and fun, and you'd pick up some additional skills. It would also enable you to apply for internships, which can be easier to get than full-time/"permanent" positions, and can lead to the latter. Try to get teaching or research assistantships to avoid or reduce debt (even if it takes longer, it's worth it.) And you could potentially do a Ph.D. later on if it turns out that you like research.
3. Economic downturns can be good times to start companies because there are more people on the job market. Also you may be able to get good deals on office and lab space and equipment if you need it.
4. If you can't join a startup as a co-founder, you may be able to join as staff. Make sure they pay you a salary though.
5. Look into temporary or contract work, or any job you can get that pays money, ideally enough for food and rent in a starving student type shared residence. Then keep looking for something better.
+1
You might also attempt a "research staff" role at MIT. They used to have those back in the days and might still have them.
That would let you sit out the current craze and learn some useful things meanwhile.
Sorry to hear the distress. As an MIT alum, I can say the most important thing I learned was not the material for major, but how to think - how to approach problems, break them down, and develop creative solutions. These skills will serve you well for the rest of your life. When I changed jobs in my mid-40s (at the C-level) the number one thing board members brought up in my interviews was that I had graduated from MIT. I know this sounds elitist, but I am simply describing my experience.
Most of the comments highlight that you will likely be several years behind the curve of cohorts before you just because of when you were born and went to school. I agree with that. However, it can be overcome, you will simply have to work harder at it. You will likely have to change jobs more often, ideally within the same company. This means you will have less comfort and calm in your early days, but it can help catch you up to where you expected to be.
Good luck. You have to stay positive to succeeed at this.
No one has mentioned considering the military. An MIT grad could be an excellent candidate for an officer. Joining the military has been the way many young men and now women have got out on their own.
It’s less than ideal if you do want to be a technical IC later as it’s typically a multi-year technical career gap. I never saw another ex-(US-)officer SWE/SEM appear in the veterans@google ERG. And tbh I didn’t really count either because I had a post-service PhD.
But to be sure I served with two amazing MIT NROTC grads in my sea tour. You do what you have to do.
Makes sense, though I mention since I'm reading the OP not wanting to move back home to bad situation, others suggesting working at fast food, etc. Both of those seem really drastic compared to considering military (unless OP is holding out for a top-paying, high-status position, in which case they need to pick their priorities imho, especially in this market)
You need to be networking, not applying. Why go to MIT if not for access to smart people to work with?
Look for marketing jobs, technical marketing, marketing on social media. People are hooked to youtube, tiktok, instagram.
That being said, the whole tariff situation is creating a dark cloud over all jobs
I'm not sure that's the best advice unless you're looking to build a career in marketing
If you're looking at your long term career trajectory you're probably better off taking a (maybe much) lower paying job in the area you want to end up in. Grow relevant skills and gain experience
Of course this is irrelevant if you just need money to survive today
With a few trusted classmates, do a market analysis on a need and build an mvp for it. Post it on here and say you’re looking for investors.
Well if you and your MIT friends want some paid contract work in Python we are definitely looking for talent. Please leave a way to contact
> A lot of my classmates, some of the smartest and hardest-working people I know
Aren’t they also basically the vast majority of the people you know?
Have you tried applying for an internship? This is sometimes an easy route to getting hired as you have a chance to prove you can do the work at a company.
If MIT graduates don’t get jobs, who else is getting them?
you'd be surprised at who gets into MIT since the 2000's... MIT offers pass/fail classes and at least half a dozen version of each of its introductory classes - guess why that might be...
Share you resume with the MIT alumnus who replied here and I am sure you will land a job pretty quickly.
You can even just anonymize your resume and make it public.
Don't be afraid to:
- Hit up alumni on LinkedIn, even though you've never met them before.
- Cold-call companies.
But at the very least be genuine, and look up what the companies and people do.
You haven’t even graduated. Don’t panic. Assuming you graduate your job prospects are better than 95% of people your age.
look at sales engineering or make your owen AI startup. lots of seed money especially for MIT grad
It feels like getting a job gets harder and harder over time.
Wouldn’t starting a startup or business be actually easier in this environment?
I'm sorry you're in this situation, but every part of this is basically just life, and many many people go through this as the norm not the exception. It was just that in previous years your expectation happened to meet a fortunate reality.
I didn't even bother finishing school because all it's there for in practical private industry terms is to "prepare" you for competing favorably for a junior position, or actually qualify you objectively in regulated industries. In academia I guess you'd be done like 2/5 steps if you were interested in pursuing that long-term, but idk much about that. It took me so long to find a job last time I was laid off that I absolutely considered going back and re-schooling from scratch to qualify for that junior position in something more tangibly valuable/stable, but then happened to land something. That was the third time I'd spent more than a year completely unemployed. It's a sickening grind and has never become easier.
However, just because you're not graduating with a job in hand (a fanciful dream in other industries) doesn't mean you won't find one any time between when you graduate and a year out. You might, it just takes continued persistence, and a hell of a lot of luck, and meeting people in the real world outside school.
It's extremely demoralizing though, you're right about that.
Consider tapping into the alumni network - I can help with more guidance on this front. Drop me an email.
> I've applied to tons of places
What kind of places are you applying? FANG? Startups? Something else?
This is also your school's problem, you should talk to them.
This is indeed a very rough time to be graduating. You're unfortunately getting screwed. It happened to me too in '08/'09, so I know very well how shitty it can feel. Try to be stoic about it though and just worry about the things you can actually change, not what you can't change.
Here's my advice and what I would do in that situation again, though you should definitely adjust/adapt to your strengths/goals:
1. Don't "spray and pray" your resume out there (at least, don't do that to jobs you actually want). When jobs get tight it feels natural to want to spread your (resume) seed as widely as possible hoping one will germinate, but realistically that doesn't work. Instead I would find job postings that you want, and make yourself spend 20 to 30 minutes tailoring the resume for the job. Don't lie or even exaggerate, but don't include irrelevant information and definitely don't omit anything relevant. If it's something you have and it's mentioned in the job post, it should be on your resume, unless you don't think you could speak intelligently on the subject. For example I put in a job posting I needed someone with bash scripting experience, then interviewed somebody who put bash on their resume, but when I asked about it they hadn't done much more than just run simple commands. They didn't even know how to set a variable in bash. They did not get an offer.
2. Be willing to take something in QA or another adjacent area even if you feel it is beneath you (especially being from MIT. You went to a phenomenal school and deserve to be proud, but don't let that turn into counterproductive pride). Even the best school only partially prepares you for the workforce, and you can learn a ton even slinging test code. (to be honest, my time working in QA was one of the most enjoyable because I didn't have to deal with Product :-D). Being humbled to dust a few times in life has (IMHO) ultimately given me much better perspective on myself.
3. Take a look for Professional Services and/or Support Engineer roles that involve some coding. These are often a little less pay, but they are also more plentiful and the competition is much lower because many people avoid these roles. However, this can be a great way to get your foot in the door and pivot to a full SWE role 6 to 12 months down the line. You can also get some incredibly useful experience in these because you'll work will real customers/users and will learn a ton about product, bug hunting, and building clever solutions to solve real problems. You'll also gain industry experience in whatever industry your employer is in, and that can be invaluable for getting your next role. I worked with someone who started as an L1 support with no schooling, learned to code, started automating small parts of his job, and also learned a ton about the finance industry. He later got a fantastic job in large part because he knew a lot about loan origination and underwriting from working with customers. If you do this, talk to and get to know the engineers you work with. Not just to use them to pivot, but to actually get to know them as people and also learn from them. Many of them will be able to give you excellent advice and mentorship to help you get to where you want.
4. (this one can be a bit controversial but it's my opinion): Don't just look at local options. Moving sucks, but there are lots of great jobs in areas with rapid growth that will even sometimes pay for your move. I would definitely look in areas like Texas, Utah, and Colorado. I've even seen some interesting roles coming out of Arkansas, Chicago, and Minnesota as well. Hell, Boise Idaho has some good roles pop up here and there too, especially if you are interested in embedded systems.
5. Unless you are well differentiated in it, I would avoid chasing "AI" or even "Big Data" roles as those are insanely competitive and saturated right now, so you'll be competing against people with a ton more experience than you. Also everyone is currently throwing cash at AI, but I think the vast majority of those companies aren't going to see anywhere near the ROI they expect and will start slashing. As a n00b you'll be among the first to get the axe, and even if you don't you may find the work drying up and getting assigned stuff that isn't what you want to do. Generally speaking I recommend trying to work on whatever core product the company makes, excepting maybe if you're a researcher and it's a big tech co
Can you go to grad school while figuring things out?
He mentioned that in his post. He's a bit too burned out and doesn't have a good idea for a thesis at this time.
Welcome to the machine. What sort of jobs are you applying for? If you haven't worked in your field at all yet, keep your sights low and apply for entry level positions or internships. IME there can be a large gap between what formal education provides and actually producing work. Also, soft skills are very important and often overlooked.
I've interviewed some PhD students that we deep in their field, but they had zero work experience. That, combined with the fact that they were applying to a non-entry level position, meant that I'd be taking a large-ish risk in my position if I were to hire them.
I dropped out of school around the .com bubble bust, for ill-considered reasons that I won't go into, and instead spent quite a lot of time and energy continuing to develop technical chops on my own. That part is only relevant to frame the next:
In 2008, amid the downturn cited in this thread as a similar inflection point to the one we see today, I landed my first SE job, after a few months of active searching. They hired me without a degree and without any formal experience. I had a small portfolio of example work, the technical knowledge that I'd developed, and my personal philosophy. The portfolio did little to help me. The technical knowledge served to barely avoid outright disqualification. It was my outlook that earned me a chance to show mettle.
This was local startup that was a half-dozen years old. There I learned what technical collaboration was like in practice, what it meant to build as part of a team. I learned the stuff that school and individual hacking doesn't teach. In a couple of years I moved on to a Fortune 100 company on a merger mission, and from there on to greener pastures in the industry. Now I earn comfortably, somewhere north of 90th percentile by geography. Each of those steps, along with a healthy dose of reading, taught me something that I needed to learn/understand about the craft and it's challenges. I was oblivious to the need to know most of them until after I wrestled with them.
One of the most important lessons, and one very relevant today: character traits, not merely technical learning, lend power to carving a successful path.
You are not nearly as likely to differentiate yourself by degree alone as was the case in the past. Even less so if people sense entitlement. That's not a judgement, but a caution.
Hiring right now looks like an absolute swarm of posers, far noisier than I've ever seen before, fighting to convince managers to hire them into senior salaries. They are empowered by magical answer generators that whisper secret sauces into their ears just in time to be vomited back and the interviewer. Even though some of them vomit better than others, the kind of manager that you want to work for (imo) is going to see right through those people - and is getting very tired of it.
So tired in fact that I'm ready to hire low/no-experience, high-character people into my senior slots if they show that they have passion for the craft and ethics to match it. I won't pay them a fortune out the gate, but I will match salary growth to competency growth once they are in the saddle.
Time is the fabled commodity, and there's a lot of time-waste going on at the moment.
My advice, if you're having trouble on initial approach: be humble, be curious, and show an honest + direct character - be comfortable in the knowledge that the new skill is not what you already know, but how well your outlook positions you to "leaRn into" the next curve. And then, don't stop carving.
What is the significance of being a senior at MIT studying Course 6? No offense but that means nothing to me as I'm not American. I guess it means something significant if that's how you start describing yourself. Do you have work experience? What job are you expecting to get? What kind of side projects have you built? What value can you provide?
Here is what my experience has taught me about software employment just in case you still want to do this.
To get employed:
1. Deck out your resume with a bunch of keyword nonsense. If it doesn't look like word salad when you are done its not competitive. Find a laundry list of tools, frameworks, run time engines, and other third party tools that you never wrote.
2. If you want to get hired and aren't already a senior principle don't be an expert. Experts are intimidating. Refer back to point 1.
3. Don't use AI during a job interview. People hate that. Instead just have a static script of key points as hints. The goal is to be at the center of a bell curve and know just enough to fit in.
4. Get really good at throw away leet code insanity. Go fast and memorize programming patterns by name. You will never use any of this at the job, but it looks impressive during interviews.
5. Answer all interview questions with confidence in 3 words or less. Be quick and ensure it does not look like you are reading or waiting for answers to materialize. Always remember the only thing most programmers fear more than writing original code is unoriginal job candidates.
Once you are hired:
1. Do all that is asked of you with as little as possible. Make it a game to see just how efficiently you can accomplish what is asked of you. The people that get promoted are the ones that shine at this and do as little work as possible. That screams to management that you don't produce regression, are not burdened with stressed, and have potential to do twice as much.
2. Automate the shit out of your job, but keep this a secret to yourself. Most of your peers cannot program. If they see that you are doing more than the copy/paste what is required they will be intimidated.
3. Save video calls with your peers for educational moments only. Video calls suck up a lot of time and your peers will want to do them only because they cannot write emails. When in doubt do as little work as possible, which includes being efficient and thorough with your communication. See point 1.
4. If you are in a toxic environment learn from the best and become a complete narcissistic asshole. Fair warning, though. This will randomly blow up in your face because you are likely surrounded by narcissists looking out for themselves. If you are in a healthy environment then be a complete team player and save all your disposable time for helping your teammates with testing and documentation. In a healthy environment take as little credit for accomplishments as possible and openly praise teammates who are worthy of praise.
> built side projects
Link please?
I have two leading questions.
1) Why did you decide to become an engineer? Did you have some hobby or other background that you had a passion for, or was it because you thought you could do this degree and make good dollars?
2) If you became an engineer for the right reasons, can you maybe leverage that interest and start an enterprise of some kind? And I don't mean a start-up, I mean a business offering services and/or products to a market that needs them.
I don't see a single reply here at this stage that does not seem to take for granted that upon graduating you must work for someone else.
The idea that "I went to MIT/Stanford/Berkley/whatever, I deserve a job, and a good one that pays fuckloads" seems to permeate the whole thread.
Well I will tell you that College/University for engineering is just a very elaborate hazing ritual, it doesn't get you shit in reality, apart from a possible entry ticket into somewhere where the real learning and work start.
There is potentially fuckloads to learn that you would have never been taught, big differences between academia and industry.
I am in another country, but not that different, and 30 years out the engineers that I studied with that really made bank all basically went straight into starting their own business upon graduating.
As one example, the guy started a business designing mineral processing plant electrical and control systems, started out delivering very small parts of projects, just kept grinding and building capabilities, and now he owns breweries and wineries for fun and is delivering projects all over the world worth hundreds of millions of dollars. There are other examples from my cohort.
If you can't find employment otherwise, what have you to lose? And tbh, if you don't do something like this now, next thing you will look up and you will want to buy a house, or will have a pregnant wife and you just can't risk your job with the man, because the baby, etc etc etc.
So your situation isn't the engineers equivalent of Pretty Lady, or whatever fantasy script society peddles, maybe that could turn out to be a good thing, you never know.
Footnote: I have a four year degree in Electrical and Control Systems Engineering from a University in another country, in the top 100 of the world for Electrical but virtually no one would have ever heard of it outside my state. I graduated in early 90's and only 2 engineers had good "company" jobs to go to, they were both trades who had left their trade to study engineering and were preferred.
I had been working part time my last year and then went full time, after graduating, with the small local electronics design and manufacture company for crap cash. But significant parts of what I learned there in the 2.5 years, I still use today. But, in retrospect I regret not taking my own advice I gave you above, and I am not prone to regrets.
Stop looking for a job and start looking for experience. I entered the workforce during the GFC (and while still being in education) and I worked for literal peanuts for years. Sometimes even for free. I lived between my childhood bedroom, friends places and my girlfriends place eating only peanut butter and egg sandwiches for almost 2 years because it was the cheapest way I could get enough protein and carbs.
You might think working for nothing is a bad deal and that it would be exploitative but you need to remember it's temporary and a little bit of experience will make it 10x easier when it comes to applying for jobs a year or two down the road. Almost any employer is going to pick someone with a bit of experience over someone with none.
I don't know how much you're paying for your education right now, but even assuming you can only find unpaid work this is literally infinitely better than the negative income you're receiving in return for improved career prospects right now. I find it quite crazy that people will so happily drop tens of thousands of dollars on an education for a chance at a good career, but are also completely unwilling to work for free for a few months to get the experience they need. Experience is extremely cheap to acquire relative to the cost of education.
The market sucks at the moment and I've argued for some time it's probably only going to worsen due to structural shifts in the global economy, and tech specifically. Keep this in mind and try not to blame yourself because it's easy to give up. I had a lot of friends who studied comp sci with me who ended up getting regular jobs because they struggled to find work after graduating.
If I were you I would look for a niche which isn't fully technical because that will give you more security from automation and outsourcing standpoint. If I were in your shoes I'd probably look for local startups and offer to work every day for free and do literally any job they asked of me. Startups are good place to start your career because they always have lots of random jobs that need doing without anyone to do them. Because of this they can be great places to find out what you enjoy and where you can add the most value. If you're concerned about where you'll live sleep literally anywhere someone is willing to offer you a bed or a sofa, but if you have to move back with your parents temporarily that isn't the end of the world.
I wish I could start my career again. I have a well paid job today, but I'd still love to be in your position. The problem when you get to my level is that life is good but expensive. It's very hard to learn new skills or shift your career when you have dependents and a mortgage to pay. Unless you want to up end your life for little to no return you just have to follow the money. But for you the whole world is at your feet. I guarantee there's hundreds of interesting companies in your area who would love to bring in new talent but they can't justify it because money is too tight. Find them and let them know how much you'd appreciate the opportunity to get some experience with them. Pick up skills, form connections, and see where it takes you. In my experience most opportunity in life comes from meeting the right people, being loyal to them and providing them value. That is what you should be focused on doing.
In my opinion there's not a simple path to a good life these days. "The system" will almost always fail you. I know it shouldn't be this way, but you have to accept the cards you a dealt and play your best hand.
Hope this helps.
Why anon?
Feeling burned out is completely normal after college. In my experience, it's hard to work at an endeavor for more than about 3 years without burning out. As you move out into the world, you'll find find that time and energy management can be more important than the work. Because work just sort of happens when we create the right conditions, so emphasizing it too much tends to lead to failure anyway.
I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but I feel that we are entering an era of great struggle. The social contract has been eroded to the point that it's crumbling. Not for any scientific reason, but because dark forces have coopted the goals of technology. Where once the internet was going to bring free access to information for humanity, now it's used to propagandize and subvert the population for the ego-based goals of a handful of wealthy and powerful men whose greed can never be satisfied. AI will mostly accelerate the decline.
What that means is, the promise of a better life which you sacrificed long years for is no longer guaranteed, if it ever was. Where once you could apply at a handful of agencies or institutions with a high likelihood of being hired, now you're up against potentially hundreds of similarly qualified candidates who get weeded out by algorithms. Nobody takes the broad view to see that most of them are overqualified, or to ask why we're doing it this way, or what gives certain people the right to decide and not others - why only they have the money.
I went through a similar situation when I graduated with my ECE degree in 1999 right into the Dot Bomb. I tasted a year of progress before the powers that be started taking it all away. The arrival of the iPhone and Facebook around 2007 replacing Waterfall with Agile, the funneling of R&D funds into outsourcing and the Housing Bubble popping in 2008, the racist backlash to Obama from 2009-2016 that led to the Citizens United case and billionaires buying elections, the COVID-19 pandemic, just on and on and on. I can't remember a good year in all of that, only melancholy, bittersweet. Maybe 2013 after the election when there was enough confidence for electric cars to get a foothold and music was getting good again like it was in the 90s hah.
Nobody told me that the average wage isn't an average. Rather than saying "the typical graduate earns $85,000 at this job", they should say "a dedicated worker can earn up to $85,000 with a little luck". Because nobody is fully employed, usually. A few good years get wiped out with a few months of unemployment. A stable job ends when the company goes out of business. The industry you're trained for gets disrupted with no replacement.
This will all hit the fan around 2030 when AI surpasses humans at all labor. We thought it was 2040 or 2050, but it's on our doorstep because unsupervised machine learning grows exponentially. Nobody has a clue what will happen next after the Singularity.
So I guess my best advice is that the cognitive dissonance you're feeling is very real, and I know it can be hard to endure. But it's also a warning from your subconscious. If you can't see any way through the challenge to the success, then it might be time to step back and take a bird's-eye view of the situation. I highly recommend meditation.
Another way of looking at it is from a holistic perspective. Your challenge isn't unique, meaning that others are facing it too. I can't say enough good things about finding like-minded peers. Together you can overcome adversity that can't be met alone. In fact, that may be the shift needed to take us into the New Age and UBI and an economy that actually works, meaning that the cost of living gets lower each year instead of higher. Maybe what you thought was the thing was the thing that gets us to the thing.
I'm finally finding meaning working at a startup like I thought I'd be in 2000 after a long odyssey. Or I should say, it found me when they saw my comments on a local tech Slack. What changed is my mindset, from ego to service. Where once I was looking for an angle, a hack that would let me get from point A to point B faster, now I seek peace. I stopped chasing money for survival and surrendered to heeding a calling, and letting creation handle the details that foster my existence. After enduring so much negative reinforcement, I've found that the answers can be easier than we ever expected, and that they're often right in front of us.
Sorry to hear about this, it stinks and you don't deserve it.
One thing that we don't talk about is how adversity changes us and pushes us forward. Not that it is easy or fun, but it does help us focus on the future.
Let me give my personal example --
I started back in the job market in 1994 after a stint in the US Marines and things were very, very, very bleak (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_1990s_recession ). I was planning on getting a college degree and was living at home with my parents and planning on working part time, likely for minimum wage (then $3.25/hour) in a two-bit town in Arizona.
In my job search at the local unemployment office I found a post for a job that paid a whopping $7.25 an hour, doing telephone technical support for a little startup by the name of America Online. I was discouraged from applying as I didn't have the skills and should focus on something like security or food service. To be honest, I had no degree but did have PC skills, although no telephony experience. So, I went out and bought one and started learning as much as I could in a short period of time. I got the interview and the job, and about a year later the company exploded and I got to ride the wave into a degree in math and career in tech.
Now, I am not a boomer saying that "you need to try harder." I am also not saying that you just need to find the next hot startup and everything will be fine. Neither of these are true and it sucks that you are in this crisis. I was insanely lucky multiple times.
However, what I will say is that when the current economic model isn't working you have the rare opportunity to take a risk and move towards the future. Desperation doesn't feel good, that is why it is such a good motivator. Take advantage of it.
All the advice around here about networking are spot on. What you need is a job or a degree program that will keep you pointed in the right direction. I don't know if you are an international student or not, but if you are then the only thing that matters is getting a work or study visa. If you are lucky enough to be authorized to work in the US then any job that will keep you fed and in a single room in someone else's apartment in Boston is great. Or, find ANY graduate program ANYWHERE in the country that is vaguely palatable to you. Don't go back to a place where you don't want to be.
Again, this sucks, and I am so sorry that you are caught up in this. Your feelings are justified and valid. But you are caught up in this need to accept where you are and move forward. You will have an Engineering Degree from MIT, and that means you are smart and motivated. This is the definition of "grit", and it will be the next step into your future. You don't have anything to lose.