As A CS degree holder who's still looking for their first full-time position, I am tired of volunteering my time for others and trying to navigate the politics of open-source projects just to try to gain some experience that would give me a chance at gaining paid employment. I'm beginning to need income so badly that I'm expanding my job search to nearly anything that will give me a callback.
The struggle is real man I hope you can find something. I wish we would known how bad it would become. I could have spent all this time doing something else and making money. However at the end of the day, I'm at least for thankful that I learned, amd to be honest the process of learning code has given me skill to study anything else really.
My nephew was in the exact same position. After graduating with his CS degree, he spent a YEAR looking for work. He landed his first job today! A full-time position at that. So, keep looking, keep applying and try applying at as many places as you can.
Well here's an update if anyone cares, I was just asked if I had interest in working any open positions here (my internship ends tomorrow). I said yes of course, boss said ok I wasn't sure good to know. We are having a meeting tomorrow about restructuring things and potential openings, and now that I know your interested I have something to work with. So we will see. I guess the point is don't give up. Either way I have a 5 month intern on my resume and a good reference For context, I didn't think there was a flying chance in hell they would even consider offering me a job, because from what I can see, the only true value makers are the SDE2's etc. You can train a monkey to wire together pre-made components (aka junior work) but who knows maybe I'm wrong
Also it should be noted that I got the internship through networking, so my advice is , networking is stronger than anything else at the moment. The more people you talk to, the more opportunities arise. It's a law of nature
Work for free to gain experience? Call it pride if you like but this is the last thing I can think of as a developer. It makes those you working for take advantage of your desperate situation to extort you. If you can't secure a freelancing gig, just work on atleast 3 full stack projects that you can add to your resume; something that could keep your conversation with hiring managers/decision makers going. Tech content creators should discard this idea of advising unemployed software engineers to do free work. Are you aware that some of these developers are on their own, and have to fend everything for themselves, including the most basic of things like food? No software developer, regardless of their employment status should adopt this kind of self-defeating strategy.
Content creators are going to be out of touch and making light of the current crisis, they need to create a light at the end of the tunnel to build their channels.
As a person with 2 years software experience after 14 interviews with 6 different companies in the last 5 months I finally got a software engineer job with not even too good salary and I can confirm it was hard
@@hikemalliday6007 no, internships are a scam. I had 1 year as a junior and 1 year as a mid dev in a different company. That first junior role was offered to me after I had 1 year of IT software support + implementation experience, but a big factor was 2 years of self learning that I did consistently alongside that first job and I could prove that with some completed courses and my GitHub activity + small projects. I have no degree in anything
@@hikemalliday6007 no, I think internships are a scam. I had one year as a junior and one year as a mid in another company. And before that, I had one year as an IT support + implementation role, but a big factor was that I did 2 years of self-learning alongside that, I have no degree at all
Supply and demand. Also unchecked expectations. As a Data Scientist, can confirm 80% of interviews require elite coding stages, and I do analysis all day instead of software dev. Within 1 hour of job posting, 100+ responses. The VP where I work got over 100 qualified resumes for a single position. Employers can set super high expectations from a potential candidate. Was told in an interview for Lowes(!) that I would have to survive multiple rounds of high level coding challenges! Interviewers would not even go on camera!
Brian you are completely delusional. It's a simple demand supply problem. Just think about how many millions of people are in a CS degree program right now around the world, bootcamps, or self teaching online every single year.... There too many people learning to code and not enough jobs for it. Where are the millions of jobs you are spouting? Don't you realize those statistics are overreported, companies put multiple job ads on different places all the time. There's less jobs than you think or others are reporting.
The answer that people don’t want to hear is that US companies should only be allowed to hire US citizens for their positions. There would no longer be a supply, demand problem. 99% of this problem stems from Billion dollar companies only hiring H1B candidates who undercut the stapled salary to get a VISA and work here. They then proceed to refer their entire caste to the company until the entire software department is ran by foreigners creating a large disconnect between management & developers. This requires the company then to keep those developers onboard as there is no longer just a technical vs nontechnical disconnect, but both cultural and language disconnects as well. Not to mention the security problems this induces. China was years behind us in AI prior to ChatGPT, but somehow managed to catch-up in months. This definitely wasn’t the result of foreign developers relaying trade secrets back to their home country.
@@cristian-florea-coding What are you talking about? Leetcode or similar coding is mandatory in all the interviews. There are few jobs available and so many developers that’s the issue at the moment. Are you in the U.S. btw? I mean it seems you are in a foreign country and talking about the US job market
Can confirm. As a Data Scientist, 80% of interviews in my domain now require and demand elite coding talent to outcompete 100 others. By the time job is posted, 100+ responses in less than an hour. Too much demand, employers can now set super high demands for candidates...@@powerHungryMOSFET
It really is the worst time to be a software engineers for real, market is saturated and there is no actual demand for more programmers. The demand vs supply curve is highly unpropotionate in 2024. I would honestly advice everyone to refocus career into something different.
@@brianjenney I will tell what I think about the current state of the world. Capitalism has been an overall economic benefit to humanity as technological advancements in science was moving very rapid. There were many sectors in the traditional space where technology could help boost the humans in being more efficient. Most of those requirements have already been met. What is new in the market? If you really think about it the actual innovation is only happening in highly specialised roles in big firms. Most of the common man problems have been met, this is why most of the apps, websites, ideas people think are innovative are failing. I myself have been involved in many projects which really doesn't have any value and has no growth. Everything is already cemented. This is not the 2005s, where one could say ohh the internet could get faster. Nobody even expects the download speeds to be more than what they have, nobody cares and is not useful to have a mouse with 200,000 dpi. Literally no one cares. There are few organisations and apps that actually function and generate profit because it is built on top of traditional systems and ideas that makes it easy. If you take technology as a whole market validation has already been done. And is almost complete if you are from a developed to developing. country. Capitalism is productive and fast but is not sustainable and that's why major IT giants are falling. Moving forward every country is going to learn to be sustainable and this might be over exaggerated but it could lead to another war. Rich countries will be less rich. Poor countries will grow. take an IMF forcast, you will see what I'm talking about. Anyway abt the jobs, no job is safe but unless you work in a big corporate the mental insanity of being IT is not worth it. Any other job is more relaxing.
@@brianjenney I believe Digital Marketing is quite a lucrative career option, I believe it's not as saturated as SE in 2024. I graduated last year in SE and couldn't land a decent job ever since.
Its really fucking hard to get in this field right now, i would not recommend it. Im almost 2 years self taught and about to complete a 5 month internship, but the other intern, who if anything is smarter than me, was just told that under normal circumstances they would hire him, but cant right now. I have my meeting about it monday and expect to hear the same thing.
@@airysm Hey man. So yesterday was my last day, and they told me "hold on to your work computer for now, im not gonna tell you to send it back. There is a good chance we will give you an offer in early august, i just cant say 100% because we are doing a big restructure at the company at the moment, but you def passed, and the CTO likes you" (its a small company). So, there is a good chance, and at the very least I now have a resume + solid refernce. How about you, are you employed, or learning to code?
So true, tried 2 years and couldn't get a job. After I lied, I got a job right away, didn't even know the language they were using visual basics. But I faked it till I made it, and won employee of the year.
Didn’t watch the whole video, but this seems to ignore the fact that entry level jobs are hardly being opened in the US at large, high paying companies and the competition is highly educated and qualified in many cases. I agree that people shouldn’t give up, but they will likely have to start very small with very low pay and wait out the storm.
I'm not making an argument that it is easier or harder than some other point in time. It is objectively more difficult than 10 years ago. The goal is to give people what I think is a better approach to finding work
@@brianjenney My man... You have indians out here who get hired because they get paid literally peanuts. But the reason they get hired is because they are dirt cheap even though they are not qualified enough. There are many amazing developers who haven't had a job in a year or two and seniors nowadays have no clue wtf it is to be a junior in this job market. HR ladies out here spending 7 seconds reviewing your resume and rejecting you for not having every specific technology. Even the ones that are working almost identical or the ones that take literally a day at most to learn. These same goofy HR ladies asking you technical questions nodding like they understood anything just to end the interviews the moment they hear 2.5 YOE instead of 3. Here's a video idea for you. Create a junior resume, apply all your tips you've mentioned in your video, start applying to jobs and tell us how many interviews you've got. You'd be lucky to get a single interview after months. Good luck in the interview itself though. There's always someone more experienced who is more desperate than you...
i have a business which makes mobile app games. I hired my friend for a percentage of the revenue. Now he makes a good salary, same as me. My point is that why should we as developers "get hired", rather than do something of our own. Yes making a business is going to require blood, sweat and tears, but after it all ends the outcome is better than a regular job.
If you don’t mind me asking, how did you start going that entrepreneurial route being a software developer? Did you first start out with mobile games or you started with something else and kept tried something till something sticked?
@@rakansadat7572 I've been making mobile games since I was a kid. One game started making money so I decided to give myself into it. In the game industry you must be very creative and get in touch of what children like, because these are most of consumers. You will have way more responsibilities than a regular worker of course.
I agree. Wage slavery isnt the only way to get money. Find clients yourself, make a web agency. Run google ads. If you dont have the skill to make a good looking agency site, go full template script kid mode. Make static or WordPress sites. Thats literally the entire job for small businesses. Start out charging $25 an hour, x40 hours = $1000. Use that calculation in your head. Then keep doubling your rate until it gets unjustifiable, and move to value based pricing.
I started in the humanities. Worked in service for 5 years. Went through a boot camp. Searched like a mofo. Got into a small startup for comms and did a bit of dev. Did menial dev stuff for work, side projects in my spare time and learned the industry. Lost that job, searched like a mofo, took lower paying jobs in the interim, got something with a lil bit more tech duties. Rinse and repeat
Some interesting comments here. As someone who's interviewing a lot of candidates at the moment some of the things that I pay attention to are; 1. If it's on your resume be able to talk about it. Don't just put stuff on there and hope it doesn't come up. Trust instantly gone if it does. 2. If you don't know something just admit it. Being humble is important, nobody knows everything and being able to admit that is massive for me anyway. 3. Personality and attitude are huge factors. You'll need learn as you go, regardless of experience, so interviewers are picturing themselves being the one who's working along side you at the start. 4. Show that you're enthusiastic about tech/dev, keep abreast of it in your own time, etc. Someone who did a course just to get a job is a red flag.
@@kompila I meant the culture. I'm a developer no matter if I have a job or not. I'll add to opensource and build things for my self and others. That is what the greats did but NOW honestly everybody is running to it like a gold rush in hopes on making $100k a year. That is fine, BUT I think unless you really really love this think about what you really doing everyday. In front of a PC screen going through 100s of lines of code and fixing things. Some people are in for a huge shock when they realize that is what they will be doing.
@@Joshua.Developer 100% agree with your assertion, and I like the mindset of building for the collective good of everyone. Honestly, I am developer as well, but I don't see my self in this work culture for the next 15 years. I am 25 now. Working around the clock to setup both a digital and physical business that can keep me going in the next few years. Programming someone's will for a living just doesn't work well with my soul. It is a tough world. 🙂
CS grads have grown to such an extent that they outpace supply, especially now that we are no longer in a low interest environment. A decade ago there we had about 25k grads annually, now we are way over 100k. Supply and demand.
I will say, cleaning out the Github was a very good suggestion I haven't heard anyone else. I removed a bunch of garbage school class repos to ensure that only my best stuff is the most visible.
Civil, mechanical, chemist, petrol engineering is the way to go. No one asks you leetcode problems in these type of jobs, job security is rock solid, only the pay is a bit lower than SDE but that's okay i think because SDE salaries are getting lower tho. And there's no any bootcamps for other engineerings to flood the market. Choose any engineering other than CS. (if you don't fall in love w/ programming btw). SDE it's not the hottest thing anymore and never will again, that just was a balloon.
As A CS degree holder who's still looking for their first full-time position, I am tired of volunteering my time for others and trying to navigate the politics of open-source projects just to try to gain some experience that would give me a chance at gaining paid employment. I'm beginning to need income so badly that I'm expanding my job search to nearly anything that will give me a callback. There 1million other people applying
Protip: they either want to consider hiring you or not. You can be prepared and ready and all that, if ultimately the hiring principle doesn't see the need to make the hire right then, it just won't happen. Beware, the vast majority of who you interview is NOT the final decision maker, especially another techie/engineer. They may be delegated the authority prior. Then and only then, is it a pure technical challenge and your experiences, projects, and resumes come into play.
Your take on this is flippant... it's an absolute bloodbath in the job market. Your logic about 40+ devs going into management (thus freeing up developer vacancies) is sound logic, but in the market right now that is not how it is playing out. Even seniors are struggling although they are getting an odd interview compared to a junior. What I've seen is a merging of roles like DevOps and Dev and sometimes QA into a single role with above norm compensation. It is brutal out there even with everything you listed at 1:52
The software development field is very over saturated with some many kids coming out of college with CS degrees. Every new kid on the block wants to do the same thing and the demand jut isn't there. You a better off going into Cyber Security or some other IT speciality.
@ Brian Jenney This is my first time watching one of your videos. I’m a rising freshman Cybersecurity major. Honestly I’ve only watched 4.5 minutes so far and I really like the way you explain things. Tho a few of the comments find your advice discouraging there’s a lot more people myself included who genuinely appreciate you making this video. I decided to subscribe to your channel. Im definitely going to watch more of your videos and heed your advice. You’re doing a bang up job man! Keep it up!
Lol, because you're not in the real world yet. Once you get there and see how it's near impossible to get a job, despite people like this always telling you that you need a little more, and when that's not enough, well just do a little more to stand out. You know where all this advice leads? Not a job. No money. Student debt with compounding interest while you make yourself "hirable" by the standards of someone that has no idea of any actual economic numbers. You want to know why people don't like this guy? Because he is essentially telling horse shoe cleaners that they are losing bussiness because they don't clean well enough in the advent of the car... it's just thoughtless, regurgitated, nothing advice that won't get you anywhere when put up against reality.
Great video. I am, however, just sad that all of these things are necessary for a person to find an entry lvl Junior job, or an internship. Take me for example, I have a bachelors degree in Comp Sci, I am a masters student, I have finished courses for React, I am very well versed in javascript, very decent at CSS. I have about 3 projects, 2 front end, and 1 fullstack that i have done for myself. However, if I have not deployed my websites somewhere for someone to see or use or sold it to somoeone or did it for someone, or I dont even know, now suddenly I have very very difficult time finding a JUNIOR position job. How am I not qualified enough for a damn junior job?? Kinda sad man, that today you gotta do all these things to literaly even get started... P.S I also have finished a year of an internship, ONLY beacuse in my country we are guaranteed an internship at a random company which is payed by the state.
It is an absolutely terrible time to be a bootcamp grad with no experience at this point in time, far worse than it has been in the past. Obviously some people are exceptional or won't give up but the real question to ask is whether or not the industry still has returns proportional to the amount of effort put in when compared to other opportunities. At this point if you don't have a degree, and have no software development experience you should probably pursue a degree or pursue a different career tbh. Not saying that's how it should be just my conclusion after talking to people.
Supply and demand thing bro. Fact of the matter is that you could have all of these things down pack and your chances will still be relatively small/almost the same just because there aren’t any jobs. You’re trying to instill hope in people with no experience and no cs background when the people with cs degrees and internships aren’t getting a shot. You wanna make a video on how to get a software developer job, make a video on how to network!!
Demand is low right now, hard to find job. Big surprise. It’s called a cycle and things recover. Now with the internet and the inherent fact that devs are active online, we are hearing the never ending cynicism and crying of it.
@@noneplayercharacter729 Your acting like programming will go away. Sometimes a 1 or 2 year break is needed... Just get a crappy side job in any retail job, while continuing to prepare and apply to coding jobs.
wow! i have seen so many videos and im shocked, this one is way different. just love it. learnt many things. now i see things from different perspective. thanks again!
I have spent 8k on a bootcamp i am 4 months in ive failed my first 2 projects. im not doing it to get emplopyed but to improve my skillset. tbh i wish id just made a website and uploaded projects to it as i dont have the time to commit to the course fully which is why i am getting bad results. Any words of encouragement would be appreciated
I can second what you said about Danny Thompson. I followed his advice back in 2021, and I got a job in tech the next month after trying on my own for 2 years prior. I also got the opportunity to meet him in person 2 years ago and he was very very nice.
Okay so i know i can pass all of the techincal interviews. Im a very compitent coder and problem solver i just have difficulty getting motivation to finish projects. So instead od posting my github should i just statight up lie about everything and pretend i use a bhnch of stuff i dont? I could easily learn on the job
Hey I'm trying to get a job too. Maybe instead of lying about everything you could use those problem solving and coding skills to come up with a week-long project and advertise it on github? to at least show the recruiter that you have skills.
Hey thank you for this I was getting discouraged, I am a self taught developer I have the skills like i legit have reverse engineered all of windows kernel and I think after this i realized its not my skills as a developer, but my resume and the way I have been attacking the job hunting process was wrong, I will come back with results!
"i reverse engineered the windows kernel" this sounds like you don't really know what you're doing and most companies could not care less about whether you know anything about the linux kernel, etc. useless knowledge for software engineering jobs
@@w1l1 He's definitely bulltshitting. Essentially no one aside from core contributors know how these large codebases work. I know some guy who has a single commit to the linux kernel. Which is no where near "reverse engineering" it (whatever the hell that means in this context) and he had no problem getting a job at Google (he does security work on embedded devices). BUT knowing how any OS kernel works WILL help you get a job if that's the type of job you're looking to get into. Embedded engineers, chip development, database developers, etc. all require pretty solid operating systems knowledge and there's never enough people qualified for those jobs. I don't know how people can up cognitive dissonance of saying "knowing how things work beneath the hood is useless", "no one can find a job in this market", and "people that say this market isn't that bad are lying" in the same paragraph. Surely, this must explode the brain of your average web programmer? Don't get me wrong, knowing about kernel internals is TOO HIGH of a bar to set for your average person but the idea that's "useless" knowledge is pretty funny. Expertise comes from knowing LITTLE bit about a LOT of things and a LOT about SOME things.
I’m a manual qa currently employed. Is it even worth learning to code to transition into a developer job? Seems experienced developers are struggling massively to land a job.
I'll give you another view on this. People are not getting jobs because bootcamps put out too many noobs that dont actually know how to do anything useful. Companies took a chance and got screwed. People coming with CS degree: same deal. Now only the ACTUAL developers get jobs. I forced for the removal of 4 people from past teams just last year.
Where should someone start then? Not trying to be coy or play devil's advocate - just want to know where to start working to not waste time and/or money.
@jersefrenzer1265 google youtube reddit and discord is where you start, then eventually you just get good enough at programming to build things by yourself. Don't try to get into tech in a certain time frame. You need to slowly build up the skills
@@jersefrenzer1265 He's just saying not to be a poor performer. Bootcamp grads? A lot of them are just tutorial followers that can't perform when the lights are on them or when they are required to create something that isn't already created on a tutorial somewhere. CS grads? Some of them just went through the motions. They may understand some complex concepts, but they didn't take enough initiative in school to cement their knowledge and are struggling from similar things the bootcamp noob is struggling with. These 2 sets of people lied their way into companies during the gold rush, they burned the company's cash, and now companies are more vigilant on who gets in the club. Be passionate. READ THE DOCS. Keep pushing the needle forward. Thats all you have to do.
Another person making a video that only blames the desperate person just trying to get a job. And doesnt even mention the root of the problem. Not one breath. All his energy goes toward telling you why youre not good enough.... yet... because you didnt have HIS help. Smh...
Why don’t you just make your own software and sell it. If you are worthy enough for a job you can make good products. I never got this excuse of “oh I can’t get hired.” Adapt and overcome. There’s a solution to every problem and whining that you can’t find a job on the internet won’t do anything.
Maybe, but most of the software people use day to day took groups of skilled developers months or years to build and keep working. Just building and selling your own software is like building and selling your own car or plane, with a guarantee to maintain it for some time - possible, sure, but... not for all of us.
I can't imagine disliking a take so much that I would email a person because of it. That's wild
As A CS degree holder who's still looking for their first full-time position, I am tired of volunteering my time for others and trying to navigate the politics of open-source projects just to try to gain some experience that would give me a chance at gaining paid employment. I'm beginning to need income so badly that I'm expanding my job search to nearly anything that will give me a callback.
The struggle is real man I hope you can find something. I wish we would known how bad it would become. I could have spent all this time doing something else and making money. However at the end of the day, I'm at least for thankful that I learned, amd to be honest the process of learning code has given me skill to study anything else really.
My nephew was in the exact same position. After graduating with his CS degree, he spent a YEAR looking for work. He landed his first job today! A full-time position at that. So, keep looking, keep applying and try applying at as many places as you can.
Well here's an update if anyone cares, I was just asked if I had interest in working any open positions here (my internship ends tomorrow). I said yes of course, boss said ok I wasn't sure good to know. We are having a meeting tomorrow about restructuring things and potential openings, and now that I know your interested I have something to work with.
So we will see. I guess the point is don't give up. Either way I have a 5 month intern on my resume and a good reference
For context, I didn't think there was a flying chance in hell they would even consider offering me a job, because from what I can see, the only true value makers are the SDE2's etc. You can train a monkey to wire together pre-made components (aka junior work) but who knows maybe I'm wrong
Also it should be noted that I got the internship through networking, so my advice is , networking is stronger than anything else at the moment. The more people you talk to, the more opportunities arise. It's a law of nature
And I truly hope the best for all of you guys. Take care
Work for free to gain experience? Call it pride if you like but this is the last thing I can think of as a developer. It makes those you working for take advantage of your desperate situation to extort you. If you can't secure a freelancing gig, just work on atleast 3 full stack projects that you can add to your resume; something that could keep your conversation with hiring managers/decision makers going.
Tech content creators should discard this idea of advising unemployed software engineers to do free work. Are you aware that some of these developers are on their own, and have to fend everything for themselves, including the most basic of things like food? No software developer, regardless of their employment status should adopt this kind of self-defeating strategy.
Content creators are going to be out of touch and making light of the current crisis, they need to create a light at the end of the tunnel to build their channels.
@@first001 exactly
As a person with 2 years software experience after 14 interviews with 6 different companies in the last 5 months I finally got a software engineer job with not even too good salary and I can confirm it was hard
2 years exp as in internships?
@@hikemalliday6007 no, internships are a scam. I had 1 year as a junior and 1 year as a mid dev in a different company.
That first junior role was offered to me after I had 1 year of IT software support + implementation experience, but a big factor was 2 years of self learning that I did consistently alongside that first job and I could prove that with some completed courses and my GitHub activity + small projects. I have no degree in anything
@@hikemalliday6007 no, I think internships are a scam. I had one year as a junior and one year as a mid in another company.
And before that, I had one year as an IT support + implementation role, but a big factor was that I did 2 years of self-learning alongside that, I have no degree at all
Supply and demand. Also unchecked expectations. As a Data Scientist, can confirm 80% of interviews require elite coding stages, and I do analysis all day instead of software dev. Within 1 hour of job posting, 100+ responses. The VP where I work got over 100 qualified resumes for a single position. Employers can set super high expectations from a potential candidate. Was told in an interview for Lowes(!) that I would have to survive multiple rounds of high level coding challenges! Interviewers would not even go on camera!
The people interviewing wouldnt go on camera or those being interviewed?
Brian you are completely delusional. It's a simple demand supply problem. Just think about how many millions of people are in a CS degree program right now around the world, bootcamps, or self teaching online every single year.... There too many people learning to code and not enough jobs for it. Where are the millions of jobs you are spouting? Don't you realize those statistics are overreported, companies put multiple job ads on different places all the time. There's less jobs than you think or others are reporting.
demand is there, the supply is filled with trashy new developers that can't even write a for loop or know the difference between var, let and const.
The answer that people don’t want to hear is that US companies should only be allowed to hire US citizens for their positions. There would no longer be a supply, demand problem. 99% of this problem stems from Billion dollar companies only hiring H1B candidates who undercut the stapled salary to get a VISA and work here. They then proceed to refer their entire caste to the company until the entire software department is ran by foreigners creating a large disconnect between management & developers. This requires the company then to keep those developers onboard as there is no longer just a technical vs nontechnical disconnect, but both cultural and language disconnects as well. Not to mention the security problems this induces. China was years behind us in AI prior to ChatGPT, but somehow managed to catch-up in months. This definitely wasn’t the result of foreign developers relaying trade secrets back to their home country.
@@cristian-florea-coding What are you talking about? Leetcode or similar coding is mandatory in all the interviews. There are few jobs available and so many developers that’s the issue at the moment. Are you in the U.S. btw? I mean it seems you are in a foreign country and talking about the US job market
@@powerHungryMOSFET in my program we use codewars, I find it to be enough to reach level 5. For most jobs
Can confirm. As a Data Scientist, 80% of interviews in my domain now require and demand elite coding talent to outcompete 100 others. By the time job is posted, 100+ responses in less than an hour. Too much demand, employers can now set super high demands for candidates...@@powerHungryMOSFET
It really is the worst time to be a software engineers for real, market is saturated and there is no actual demand for more programmers. The demand vs supply curve is highly unpropotionate in 2024. I would honestly advice everyone to refocus career into something different.
I'm curious - what other career would you have career changers focus on? What career is "safe"
@@brianjenney I will tell what I think about the current state of the world. Capitalism has been an overall economic benefit to humanity as technological advancements in science was moving very rapid. There were many sectors in the traditional space where technology could help boost the humans in being more efficient. Most of those requirements have already been met. What is new in the market? If you really think about it the actual innovation is only happening in highly specialised roles in big firms. Most of the common man problems have been met, this is why most of the apps, websites, ideas people think are innovative are failing. I myself have been involved in many projects which really doesn't have any value and has no growth. Everything is already cemented. This is not the 2005s, where one could say ohh the internet could get faster. Nobody even expects the download speeds to be more than what they have, nobody cares and is not useful to have a mouse with 200,000 dpi. Literally no one cares. There are few organisations and apps that actually function and generate profit because it is built on top of traditional systems and ideas that makes it easy. If you take technology as a whole market validation has already been done. And is almost complete if you are from a developed to developing. country.
Capitalism is productive and fast but is not sustainable and that's why major IT giants are falling. Moving forward every country is going to learn to be sustainable and this might be over exaggerated but it could lead to another war. Rich countries will be less rich. Poor countries will grow. take an IMF forcast, you will see what I'm talking about. Anyway abt the jobs, no job is safe but unless you work in a big corporate the mental insanity of being IT is not worth it. Any other job is more relaxing.
@@brianjenney lmao you removed my comment
@@ooogabooga5111what careers to be exact
@@brianjenney I believe Digital Marketing is quite a lucrative career option, I believe it's not as saturated as SE in 2024. I graduated last year in SE and couldn't land a decent job ever since.
Its really fucking hard to get in this field right now, i would not recommend it. Im almost 2 years self taught and about to complete a 5 month internship, but the other intern, who if anything is smarter than me, was just told that under normal circumstances they would hire him, but cant right now. I have my meeting about it monday and expect to hear the same thing.
Did you get it?
@@airysm Hey man. So yesterday was my last day, and they told me "hold on to your work computer for now, im not gonna tell you to send it back. There is a good chance we will give you an offer in early august, i just cant say 100% because we are doing a big restructure at the company at the moment, but you def passed, and the CTO likes you" (its a small company). So, there is a good chance, and at the very least I now have a resume + solid refernce. How about you, are you employed, or learning to code?
please update us, did you get hired? (I hope) @@hikemalliday6007
@@hikemalliday6007hope you find success a lot
@@hikemalliday6007 so you just doom posted for no reason
Protip: just lie on your resume. Everyone else is.
That's legit good tip. Believe this guy
So true, tried 2 years and couldn't get a job. After I lied, I got a job right away, didn't even know the language they were using visual basics. But I faked it till I made it, and won employee of the year.
I can confirm. Said I was black and got a position for POC. Because I'm mexican they couldn't do anything about it.
@awakenedone7577 What things do you cheat about? Could you please give us some tips and insights?
lol - I've seen this work for sure
Didn’t watch the whole video, but this seems to ignore the fact that entry level jobs are hardly being opened in the US at large, high paying companies and the competition is highly educated and qualified in many cases. I agree that people shouldn’t give up, but they will likely have to start very small with very low pay and wait out the storm.
I'm not making an argument that it is easier or harder than some other point in time. It is objectively more difficult than 10 years ago. The goal is to give people what I think is a better approach to finding work
@@brianjenney My man...
You have indians out here who get hired because they get paid literally peanuts. But the reason they get hired is because they are dirt cheap even though they are not qualified enough.
There are many amazing developers who haven't had a job in a year or two and seniors nowadays have no clue wtf it is to be a junior in this job market.
HR ladies out here spending 7 seconds reviewing your resume and rejecting you for not having every specific technology. Even the ones that are working almost identical or the ones that take literally a day at most to learn.
These same goofy HR ladies asking you technical questions nodding like they understood anything just to end the interviews the moment they hear 2.5 YOE instead of 3.
Here's a video idea for you.
Create a junior resume, apply all your tips you've mentioned in your video, start applying to jobs and tell us how many interviews you've got.
You'd be lucky to get a single interview after months.
Good luck in the interview itself though. There's always someone more experienced who is more desperate than you...
i have a business which makes mobile app games. I hired my friend for a percentage of the revenue. Now he makes a good salary, same as me. My point is that why should we as developers "get hired", rather than do something of our own. Yes making a business is going to require blood, sweat and tears, but after it all ends the outcome is better than a regular job.
If you don’t mind me asking, how did you start going that entrepreneurial route being a software developer? Did you first start out with mobile games or you started with something else and kept tried something till something sticked?
@@rakansadat7572 I've been making mobile games since I was a kid. One game started making money so I decided to give myself into it.
In the game industry you must be very creative and get in touch of what children like, because these are most of consumers. You will have way more responsibilities than a regular worker of course.
I agree. Wage slavery isnt the only way to get money. Find clients yourself, make a web agency. Run google ads. If you dont have the skill to make a good looking agency site, go full template script kid mode. Make static or WordPress sites. Thats literally the entire job for small businesses. Start out charging $25 an hour, x40 hours = $1000. Use that calculation in your head. Then keep doubling your rate until it gets unjustifiable, and move to value based pricing.
This is the way wish you continued success
I started in the humanities. Worked in service for 5 years. Went through a boot camp. Searched like a mofo. Got into a small startup for comms and did a bit of dev. Did menial dev stuff for work, side projects in my spare time and learned the industry. Lost that job, searched like a mofo, took lower paying jobs in the interim, got something with a lil bit more tech duties. Rinse and repeat
Some interesting comments here. As someone who's interviewing a lot of candidates at the moment some of the things that I pay attention to are;
1. If it's on your resume be able to talk about it. Don't just put stuff on there and hope it doesn't come up. Trust instantly gone if it does.
2. If you don't know something just admit it. Being humble is important, nobody knows everything and being able to admit that is massive for me anyway.
3. Personality and attitude are huge factors. You'll need learn as you go, regardless of experience, so interviewers are picturing themselves being the one who's working along side you at the start.
4. Show that you're enthusiastic about tech/dev, keep abreast of it in your own time, etc. Someone who did a course just to get a job is a red flag.
I resonant with the honesty part, because cmon man we are all adults here, and bullshit is a huge turnoff
All this seems like a pain in the ass. I really don't think I would like working in the tech world.
It's not for everyone Josh.
@@kompila I meant the culture. I'm a developer no matter if I have a job or not. I'll add to opensource and build things for my self and others. That is what the greats did but NOW honestly everybody is running to it like a gold rush in hopes on making $100k a year. That is fine, BUT I think unless you really really love this think about what you really doing everyday. In front of a PC screen going through 100s of lines of code and fixing things. Some people are in for a huge shock when they realize that is what they will be doing.
@@Joshua.Developer 100% agree with your assertion, and I like the mindset of building for the collective good of everyone. Honestly, I am developer as well, but I don't see my self in this work culture for the next 15 years. I am 25 now. Working around the clock to setup both a digital and physical business that can keep me going in the next few years. Programming someone's will for a living just doesn't work well with my soul. It is a tough world. 🙂
@@kompila $100k isn't what it used to be in coastal American cities . Fkn hate what this industry has become 😭
CS grads have grown to such an extent that they outpace supply, especially now that we are no longer in a low interest environment. A decade ago there we had about 25k grads annually, now we are way over 100k. Supply and demand.
I will say, cleaning out the Github was a very good suggestion I haven't heard anyone else. I removed a bunch of garbage school class repos to ensure that only my best stuff is the most visible.
Civil, mechanical, chemist, petrol engineering is the way to go. No one asks you leetcode problems in these type of jobs, job security is rock solid, only the pay is a bit lower than SDE but that's okay i think because SDE salaries are getting lower tho. And there's no any bootcamps for other engineerings to flood the market. Choose any engineering other than CS. (if you don't fall in love w/ programming btw).
SDE it's not the hottest thing anymore and never will again, that just was a balloon.
As A CS degree holder who's still looking for their first full-time position, I am tired of volunteering my time for others and trying to navigate the politics of open-source projects just to try to gain some experience that would give me a chance at gaining paid employment. I'm beginning to need income so badly that I'm expanding my job search to nearly anything that will give me a callback. There 1million other people applying
Protip: they either want to consider hiring you or not. You can be prepared and ready and all that, if ultimately the hiring principle doesn't see the need to make the hire right then, it just won't happen. Beware, the vast majority of who you interview is NOT the final decision maker, especially another techie/engineer. They may be delegated the authority prior. Then and only then, is it a pure technical challenge and your experiences, projects, and resumes come into play.
Your take on this is flippant... it's an absolute bloodbath in the job market. Your logic about 40+ devs going into management (thus freeing up developer vacancies) is sound logic, but in the market right now that is not how it is playing out.
Even seniors are struggling although they are getting an odd interview compared to a junior. What I've seen is a merging of roles like DevOps and Dev and sometimes QA into a single role with above norm compensation. It is brutal out there even with everything you listed at 1:52
This is great advice of jobs (especially STEM) in general! This helps me as a BME student!
The software development field is very over saturated with some many kids coming out of college with CS degrees. Every new kid on the block wants to do the same thing and the demand jut isn't there. You a better off going into Cyber Security or some other IT speciality.
@ Brian Jenney This is my first time watching one of your videos. I’m a rising freshman Cybersecurity major. Honestly I’ve only watched 4.5 minutes so far and I really like the way you explain things. Tho a few of the comments find your advice discouraging there’s a lot more people myself included who genuinely appreciate you making this video. I decided to subscribe to your channel. Im definitely going to watch more of your videos and heed your advice. You’re doing a bang up job man! Keep it up!
Lol, because you're not in the real world yet. Once you get there and see how it's near impossible to get a job, despite people like this always telling you that you need a little more, and when that's not enough, well just do a little more to stand out. You know where all this advice leads? Not a job. No money. Student debt with compounding interest while you make yourself "hirable" by the standards of someone that has no idea of any actual economic numbers. You want to know why people don't like this guy? Because he is essentially telling horse shoe cleaners that they are losing bussiness because they don't clean well enough in the advent of the car... it's just thoughtless, regurgitated, nothing advice that won't get you anywhere when put up against reality.
Love all your advice. So much of it makes sense and aligns with my own experiences trying to enter development world.
I refuse to use LinkedIn.
Way too easy to discriminate.
how do you make connections when almost 100% of the employers ask for it?
Me either. I don't have social media period. I'm not going to start for a corperation and let LinkedIn make money off my information.
top tier quality video, just shared it & spread it out!
Did this man just say “buy a url”? You can’t be serious. It’s called a domain name…
Since the demand for SE is going down, they come here to shill a brighter picture of the market. Easiest and most lucrative thing to sell is hope.
With Gen AI, companies are not willing to pay you more than 120 or 150k Cheap labour anyways ready to do it for 65 to 70k.
Great advice! Thank you.
Great video.
I am, however, just sad that all of these things are necessary for a person to find an entry lvl Junior job, or an internship. Take me for example, I have a bachelors degree in Comp Sci, I am a masters student, I have finished courses for React, I am very well versed in javascript, very decent at CSS. I have about 3 projects, 2 front end, and 1 fullstack that i have done for myself.
However, if I have not deployed my websites somewhere for someone to see or use or sold it to somoeone or did it for someone, or I dont even know, now suddenly I have very very difficult time finding a JUNIOR position job. How am I not qualified enough for a damn junior job?? Kinda sad man, that today you gotta do all these things to literaly even get started...
P.S I also have finished a year of an internship, ONLY beacuse in my country we are guaranteed an internship at a random company which is payed by the state.
It is an absolutely terrible time to be a bootcamp grad with no experience at this point in time, far worse than it has been in the past. Obviously some people are exceptional or won't give up but the real question to ask is whether or not the industry still has returns proportional to the amount of effort put in when compared to other opportunities. At this point if you don't have a degree, and have no software development experience you should probably pursue a degree or pursue a different career tbh. Not saying that's how it should be just my conclusion after talking to people.
Supply and demand thing bro. Fact of the matter is that you could have all of these things down pack and your chances will still be relatively small/almost the same just because there aren’t any jobs. You’re trying to instill hope in people with no experience and no cs background when the people with cs degrees and internships aren’t getting a shot. You wanna make a video on how to get a software developer job, make a video on how to network!!
Demand is low right now, hard to find job. Big surprise. It’s called a cycle and things recover. Now with the internet and the inherent fact that devs are active online, we are hearing the never ending cynicism and crying of it.
"things will recover" is unhelpful when rent is due at the end of the month
Landlord doesn't give a AF, he wanted his rent payment yesterday 😂
@@noneplayercharacter729 Your acting like programming will go away. Sometimes a 1 or 2 year break is needed... Just get a crappy side job in any retail job, while continuing to prepare and apply to coding jobs.
@@centripetal6157 minimum wage retail jobs don't pay enough to rent an apartment in USA
I skip every video who is havig the same title or similar one. don;t listen to any of them just keep doing your thing and improve.
I m Kachin ethnic from Myanmar. I was 30 in 2023, 2033 would be 40 like you, So really give me advice for my Future CV,Thank you Sir
It’s over for you the moment you did not stand up for abusing Rohingya
so many self taught developers making competition hard ? I mean anybody can become software "engineer" 😄
wow! i have seen so many videos and im shocked, this one is way different. just love it. learnt many things. now i see things from different perspective. thanks again!
I really appreciate that. I want my kids to learn to code - I'm just not sold that the future is so grim as people online are convinced.
hiring rates are currently below even the pandemic crash levels
I have spent 8k on a bootcamp i am 4 months in ive failed my first 2 projects. im not doing it to get emplopyed but to improve my skillset. tbh i wish id just made a website and uploaded projects to it as i dont have the time to commit to the course fully which is why i am getting bad results. Any words of encouragement would be appreciated
everyone goes on how they feel
I can second what you said about Danny Thompson. I followed his advice back in 2021, and I got a job in tech the next month after trying on my own for 2 years prior. I also got the opportunity to meet him in person 2 years ago and he was very very nice.
Okay so i know i can pass all of the techincal interviews. Im a very compitent coder and problem solver i just have difficulty getting motivation to finish projects.
So instead od posting my github should i just statight up lie about everything and pretend i use a bhnch of stuff i dont? I could easily learn on the job
Hey I'm trying to get a job too. Maybe instead of lying about everything you could use those problem solving and coding skills to come up with a week-long project and advertise it on github? to at least show the recruiter that you have skills.
No lol. Theyll ask you about that stuff on the interview
Hey thank you for this I was getting discouraged, I am a self taught developer I have the skills like i legit have reverse engineered all of windows kernel and I think after this i realized its not my skills as a developer, but my resume and the way I have been attacking the job hunting process was wrong, I will come back with results!
"i reverse engineered the windows kernel" this sounds like you don't really know what you're doing and most companies could not care less about whether you know anything about the linux kernel, etc. useless knowledge for software engineering jobs
@user-gf7ss5je9h it means he's ready
@@w1l1but he reverse engineered the windows kernel 😢
@@Rust_Rust_Rust i love how none of us know what he meant
@@w1l1 He's definitely bulltshitting. Essentially no one aside from core contributors know how these large codebases work. I know some guy who has a single commit to the linux kernel. Which is no where near "reverse engineering" it (whatever the hell that means in this context) and he had no problem getting a job at Google (he does security work on embedded devices).
BUT knowing how any OS kernel works WILL help you get a job if that's the type of job you're looking to get into. Embedded engineers, chip development, database developers, etc. all require pretty solid operating systems knowledge and there's never enough people qualified for those jobs.
I don't know how people can up cognitive dissonance of saying "knowing how things work beneath the hood is useless", "no one can find a job in this market", and "people that say this market isn't that bad are lying" in the same paragraph. Surely, this must explode the brain of your average web programmer?
Don't get me wrong, knowing about kernel internals is TOO HIGH of a bar to set for your average person but the idea that's "useless" knowledge is pretty funny.
Expertise comes from knowing LITTLE bit about a LOT of things and a LOT about SOME things.
Thank you for the video Brian, could you please share us your resume format?
So glad I clicked on this video. I thought it was another bullshit guide but this was really helpful.
I’m a manual qa currently employed. Is it even worth learning to code to transition into a developer job? Seems experienced developers are struggling massively to land a job.
Thank you for your video and contribution
If you want a job you need a major project you built
Grat advice, would you reccomend making android apps as practice to apply for a job or is that career path dead? Thanks!
I'll give you another view on this.
People are not getting jobs because bootcamps put out too many noobs that dont actually know how to do anything useful.
Companies took a chance and got screwed. People coming with CS degree: same deal.
Now only the ACTUAL developers get jobs.
I forced for the removal of 4 people from past teams just last year.
Where should someone start then? Not trying to be coy or play devil's advocate - just want to know where to start working to not waste time and/or money.
@jersefrenzer1265 google youtube reddit and discord is where you start, then eventually you just get good enough at programming to build things by yourself. Don't try to get into tech in a certain time frame. You need to slowly build up the skills
@@jersefrenzer1265 He's just saying not to be a poor performer. Bootcamp grads? A lot of them are just tutorial followers that can't perform when the lights are on them or when they are required to create something that isn't already created on a tutorial somewhere. CS grads? Some of them just went through the motions. They may understand some complex concepts, but they didn't take enough initiative in school to cement their knowledge and are struggling from similar things the bootcamp noob is struggling with. These 2 sets of people lied their way into companies during the gold rush, they burned the company's cash, and now companies are more vigilant on who gets in the club.
Be passionate. READ THE DOCS. Keep pushing the needle forward. Thats all you have to do.
Good point i agree
Only thing that matters is who you know.
What has happened to software once it was so white and freee
Boohoo
fake it until you make it. For me it worked.
Great video! How do you feel about cover letters? Worth the time writing or no?
Never written one in a 4 year tech career
You just gotta lie - if you’re telling the truth don’t count on a call
I went from computer science to nursing. I miss coding so much 😢
Was it the right choice?
Are you still in school? I'm an unemployed SWE, and have been considering going back to school for nursing
@@noneplayercharacter729 yes 2nd year
Another person making a video that only blames the desperate person just trying to get a job. And doesnt even mention the root of the problem. Not one breath. All his energy goes toward telling you why youre not good enough.... yet... because you didnt have HIS help. Smh...
yeah i dont wanna be a cornball influencer lol
Why don’t you just make your own software and sell it. If you are worthy enough for a job you can make good products. I never got this excuse of “oh I can’t get hired.” Adapt and overcome. There’s a solution to every problem and whining that you can’t find a job on the internet won’t do anything.
Not everyone is an entrepreneur
It is not that easy. Ive tried believe me. Right now im trying to learn game development because that seems to the only thing making money nowadays
How are you going to pay the bills in the meantime ?
Maybe, but most of the software people use day to day took groups of skilled developers months or years to build and keep working. Just building and selling your own software is like building and selling your own car or plane, with a guarantee to maintain it for some time - possible, sure, but... not for all of us.