• 12 Posts
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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 26th, 2023

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  • I had a business partner. He had an idea for a website that connected parents with childcaregivers. We agreed I would code it and he would do the design. It turned out I should have probed more about his design skills. He had none. All his ideas were terrible, too. He wanted lots of animations during transitions and stuff and I tried to explain that people don’t like that and the site needed to be snappy.

    I backed out when I realized he couldn’t deliver his end. I also can’t do design, but I at least knew his ideas were much worse. I’d been coding for several months at that point. Oh well.


  • I’m sorry you’re having such a rough time. I took a break to try to launch a startup which didn’t go anywhere. Then I spent time just honing new skills. Before I knew it, I’d depleted my savings while racking up a long period of unemployment that made me toxic to job submissions. I couldn’t get callbacks in tech as a result but I also couldn’t get labor positions because my resume had much-better-paying jobs that made it obvious that I’d leave at the first opportunity. It was a vicious cycle and that’s before the economy and tech sector went to shit.

    I would switch careers, given your limited time investing in your current profession. After people found out that tech could pay a lot of money, the market got flooded with people who don’t have a passion for the work. It used to be filled with nerds and it was awesome, but that gradually changed. I seriously considered switching professions and thought about what work I might find fulfilling. I would have become a professor of history were it not for the accredidation required (I have no college degree because you can be self-taught in tech).

    Do what you can to get by. I don’t know what to suggest regarding other possible employment, but I’d take whatever you can find perusing job ads in adjecent market and try to stabilize. I went from software development to IT because I needed to interact with the people I’m helping to feel rewarded. There’s less money in it, but I’m happier overall.

    If you can find a government job (preferably state, not federal, for reasons I shouldn’t need to point out), that’s awesome. I landed in a state position and love it. There’s a lot of beaurocracy and it takes forever to get hired (as a friend just confirmed when he got a state job), but it’s stable.

    Good luck!