1. I'm not really progressing far into interviews, especially in the technical portions.
2. Some simple tech questions are now throwing me through a loop.
3. With the negative feedback I've gotten my motivation has basically reduced to 0.
4. I've traditionally struggled with logic tasks and have had to take more time than my peers to solve them.
5. I've had a hard time connecting and relating to co-workers and team members.
My resume reads nicely: https://github.com/arrjayh/arrjayh-resume/blob/master/hickok_resume.pdf and I fortunately get lots of interviews but they pretty quickly fizzle out after 1 or 2 technical assessments.
I'm considering/looking into the trades. I'm hoping there might be a trade where I could leverage some existing skills, but I find that unlikely. Would love to get some feedback from any one out there that has pivoted or at least considered it.
Not yet. Been applying to a wealth of non-tech jobs, salary be (almost) damned.
No dice. I've even been herding sheep in my holidays, to learn whether I could do that for the next 15-20 years. Still unsure.
Why go this route? Because after 25 years of IT, I have a deep dislike for the whole mess that is the self-serving, disingenuous, marketing-riddled, self-referential cesspool of corporate IT.
Alas, while I'm good at legal stuff, communication, information researching etc. it appears I'm type cast to be a keyboard warrior. I get a gazillion of admin, consultancy and coding offers, but not anything else ever.
Albeit this experience is from Germany, a place that's still crazy for it's maddening love of requiring many funky pieces of government-sponsored paper to get into any vocation that isn't guarding doors.
Why do you think other industries are any better? "self-serving, disingenuous, marketing-riddled, self-referential cesspool" pretty much fits any large-scale human activity. The exceptions are rare and ephemeral.
From what I can tell there are many opportunities if you are "tech + X", where X is real experience in a (non-tech) industry. In my case it was finance, and once I had a few yrs experience with that, I had lots of choices because every firm wanted someone who both understood their business and how to use technology to supercharge it. Funny enough, 15 years later, I decided to do something different again... and went back to tech.
Ive never been more fit in my life. Which was also a goal of mine. Its like going to the gym all day, or an adult jungle gym. I dont know that i would want to do it for more than 5 years though. So i anticipate starting other businesses at some point in the near future.
I have no debt or dependents though. I cant recommend this path to someone who does have either of those.
Yeah, me too - I connect only on hobbies, but as I get older, I don't really externalize what I do.
Take a break, that's why you quit - enjoy life, see what you want to do. :)
How has this changed the team dynamics- do you get an overall sense of a disconnect from the rest of your team? I've never been one to share my hobbies, maybe I need to be more vocal about the things I do outside of work.
If you can get your peers to a place outside of work so they can be themselves, it works better, since it's more caring and in a group not in "work."
What have you done to prepare?
While I wasn't in your interviews, my experience is that this feeling disappears as you get better at these skills. I know that's also been the feeling over dozens of other engineers I've helped practice for these interviews.
My experience from the interviewer side of things is that candidates often aren't strong enough to see the small number of core concepts backing these questions whether it be certain data structures and algorithms or more general architectural know-how. This occurs because their knowledge of those concepts is usually very surface level.
The tech interview is also something I struggle with. I've avoided this some what by not going to hyper sexy companies where they feel justified to treat you like a cog. This can actually be a good sign that you don't want to work there, remember you are interviewing them too. Again tech interviews, much like work, are easier when you actually are interested in what they are doing.
I would advise to try and take a break, go on a holiday, possibly to the point you are bored. The most difficult thing can be to actually figure out what you are interested in and what you enjoy. It's not bad if you want to pivot to something or go back to school, it's just bad if you are doing it out a sense of panic, can't clearly see a future and just want to change.
I'm not a super great SWE-- I'm just a full stack javascript-oriented developer (With experience in a few other languages). Since I am already familiar with full stack apps, they're getting a little boring for me (since they're mostly CRUD, with some customized processing thrown in).
However my current company is letting me train in DevOps: stuff like kubernetes, helm, terraform. I am really appreciating the opportunity to learn new skills and grow my career. And, it will likely result in a promotion & higher pay.
The reason I ask if you enjoy SWE, is because you might be able to transition into DevOps, or Software Sales for example-- or some other SWE adjacent role, which uses your SWE skills.
If you don't enjoy SWE & the tech industry, then that's another story.
That said, learning trades is a great idea-- for one thing, you'd be interdisciplinary: a combination of tech/SWE experience & trades experience may be a highly valuable combination-- for example, you might come up with new product/service ideas. Or you can consult with trades businesses about their IT / Business processes, for example.
Looking at your resume-- I think it's awesome you have a CS degree. I kinda wish I did-- I don't have a technical degree but I am considering getting one just to improve my career a bit.
That said-- I failed a Amazon interview (for Solutions Architect-- i really wasn't ready for that sort of role without some training) and for a Google interview (for solutions engineer-- but now that I am training in DevOps I felt that the Google Solutions Engineer role isn't technical enough for me, and I don't think it even pays as much as my current role or a potential future role I could have as an Infrastructure-oriented/experienced SWE).
If you want to work in Tech, I'd say two things: 1. keep trying and 2. consider applying to and/or training for adjacent roles
Other than that... yeah, trades could work out too :shrug:
Plumbing. But you still gotta deal with shit all day. ;)
It's easy to think the grass is greener elsewhere, and I'm also guilty of it. E.g. I hear of traveling nurses making bank and sometimes wish I went that route.
However, don't let a toxic work environment ruin your taste of the industry. For me, there's great pleasure in building things with a tight feedback loop, and I skeptical that more manual jobs would offer that with comparable pay and benefits.
It'd give you time to consider if it's for you, and a more relaxed time to consider what other options are best-suited to you.
Your tech skills and systematic approach will correlate very closely with digital marketing.
8 years later everything is pretty great and i work in tech again
if you're in half decent shape one option is to become a military officer
if you're going away temporarily, you can usually leave the animal in the care of the post vet
but if you are going away for a long time maybe you'd have to find someone to take care of your pet
i didn't personally have a pet, but i watched other people's pets a couple times
