I hate leetcode and that keeps me away from most of the job opportunities. I have some money left just enough to get by for the next 6 months. I dont want to work here since they dont value humans here. Realistically, moving abroad is tough but I want to! I applied to a lot of startups but not getting any positive response.
Like most of us (?) I like to code for fun but hate it as work. I am not an AI doomer but believe human force would be cut by a sizeable amount in the foreseeable future in SWE. But then what's left apart from doing coding? I dont have any business ideas and doing it here in this country is just cumbersome.
Content creation comes to my mind but it's also tough out there. I really don't know what I should be doing.
1.5 years have gone by. But I want to make the rest of upcoming 6 months of great use in finding my calling. I can chatgpt my problem but I yearn for human responses. Thank you.
I’ve been in the industry since the 1980s. I don’t see AI as any kind of threat. We expected a lot of the waves of technology would reduce the need for programmers but I now view it like Jevon’s paradox: AI will expand IT uses not reduce the number of programmers.
My colleagues all lived through various paradigm shifts (visual programming, no-code, low-code, objects, client server, etc) the work never really changes for the vast majority of programmers doing productivity work like CRUD systems.
Reach out to former co workers for opportunities.
If you understand leetcode related stuff then you are sort of more useful than an AI, if not, well then...
I have literally never done a leetcode “whiteboard code this random problem that has nothing to do with our actual work” interview, in 25+ years in the industry.
What is it that you like? Not a specific job or task, I mean what is it that you like doing? Solving problems for people, interacting with a team, solving puzzles, deep theoretical stuff?
The intersection of that and what's livable is what is going to work.
I get this as I’m the same way. I grew up writing whatever code I wanted, so it seemed like a great match. A few years into my career, I realized I had become just a cog in the wheel and that I’d always just be a cog.
For me, as interesting as my career is, it saddens me that there are so many artist-SWEs like me, because the golden handcuffs can kill your dreams.
What is a creative job?
It's an honest question: depending of your definition, either pretty much everything qualifies, or no realistic path exists.
Musicians? If you make it a job you'll be at least chasing trends, at worst you'll have a marketing team dictating everything from lyrics to your brand of underwear.
Writers? for the majority their books won't ever be read, let alone pay the bills. Even those who make it will be subject to signing books for hours in events, appearing in interviews, and editors meddling to the point of not getting to choose the title.
Academia? have fun with grants and politics.
On the other hand, pretty much every job has a craft behind that can be mastered. Even someone laying bricks can try to improve their movement to be more efficient/healthy.
Finding the bright side is easier for some jobs than it is for others, but in general mindset is king.
Sometimes dreams are just fantasies.
I love programming (and other puzzle-solving). I’d love it slightly more if I could just do it in whatever field or direction stuck my fancy, but I’ve made peace with the idea that we get paid that golden handcuff compensation in exchange for someone else choosing the puzzles we work on to be ones valuable and relevant to them.
Merry christmas
Odds are that until you can get past this mindset, you will hit a similar wall in every career, it will just be less obvious to you that you're hitting it.
Success at most careers means a lot of tedious grinding out basic skills. If you're lucky you like the grinding, but that's rare.
And here's the important part - getting better at this stuff makes the job more fun, humans really like the feeling of mastery. My first 4 years in SWE were miserable because I had no CS background. But I ground really hard on textbooks and leetcode, every minute of which was uncomfortable, and now my career is awesome!
Maybe SWE isn't for you, but whatever you do, commit to the work.
Leetcoding is basically testing how well you can cobble together solutions out of a decently large bag of tools. You run into other tools you have to cobble together as part of actual work, but you never have to memorize those particular tools.
So leetcoding becomes memorizing an arbitrary feeling set of tools that you never actually have to use in practice just in order to prove that you can cobble together solutions on the fly using the tools.
Certain personality types bristle at being told to memorize a large set of things for no practical reason. It feels subservient to do so.
Now if what you are really saying is that forcing yourself to feel subservient is required in a lot of careers in order to succeed, then yes totally :)
The statement I like to use as an analogy to this one is:
"I don't need to know how to add or multiply numbers, calculators can do it"
This is true in a certain sense, but if you are numerate you know that speed with numbers allows you to do all kinds of quick checks that less numerate peers cannot. It's my experience that colleagues who don't get good at leetcode style problems don't actually understand the skills they've left on the table.
Making the reader have to look up which country is the most populous on earth seems like the worst possible way of conveying that you are Indian.
But now you have taken the trouble to complain that you had to look up “most populous country on earth” and yet contributed nothing to the discussion.
If 4 years of work can provide for 2 years of retirement, you can retire at 50 or so.
Until you rebuild your cash base and have some cash flow, please hit the pause button on seeking your calling. One's calling can change over the years, and multiple times at that. Those who have found their calling are able to continue in it because they also make money to sustain living in a self-supported society (there are no benevolent sponsors like Kings and rich donors anymore who would support artists for the remainder of their lives)
Even with AI coming in, there is a lot of need for those who can make maintainable systems and systems that do not lose data. How good are you with your basics? Solving the SICP can help you pick up new programming languages. Solving the leetcode and clearing system design interviews can help you land a paying job. Being AI-savvy can help you get jobs at places that have budgets for AI tools (and therefore also have budgets for other things like salaries).
BTW, being an old timer, I also hated the leetcode thing when it became a widespread thing after Google adopted the practice in the wake of The Joel (Spolsky) Test. But you know, years later when I had to go through some interviews, I did spend a few months studying it and it turned out to be pretty fun. But passing technical screenings didn't help me land a job... only connecting via my network seemed to make any difference.
Now when i refer people the recruiters don't even bother to contact them. Even though they have great resumes. Not sure what's going on.
But since if you're so lazy/undisciplined to disregard skilling up (Leetcode, Coursera, Udemy, Pluralsight, etc) then I think your race to become one won't be any easier and I can't recommend anything else.
Good luck!
What's with the hostility in these comments? OP straight up said he just doesn't like the damn job. Grinding leetcode is not gonna change that. Is everyone just choosing to ignore this?
You'll get a few really good ideas about whether or not you want to move to a different part of tech or leave tech altogether.
> I come from the world's most populous country.
> Realistically, moving abroad is tough but I want to! I applied to a lot of startups but not getting any positive response.
I was in a similar situation. After being bored doing CRUD, I applied for a masters program and moved to Germany in 2019 (I was 26 at the time). One of the better decisions I’ve made. There is no tuition fee (!!) in Germany for international students, and it is not that hard to get admitted to _some_ university (though actually graduating is hard). Computer science masters programs are usually in English. It is a fairly risk-free way to try out your hand at some research, and if you don’t like it, you can always find some software engineering job.
It’s not going to be easy - university applications are a pain in the ass, you will still have to learn some German e.t.c. But it’s a good way to “reset” your life.
> I hate leetcode and that keeps me away from most of the job opportunities.
One way out of this is to interview deliberately at smaller companies.
They kept pushing extra work with zero upside, so I made a call: If I’m going to grind harder, it might as well be for myself, not someone else.
That’s how my indie hacking journey started — and honestly, you can start too.
Right now is the best time to build your own AI SaaS. If you’re into content creation but feel stuck, don’t overthink it — use AI to move faster. It’s not cheating, it’s leverage.
I’ve just started myself. https://youtu.be/BOqNr6a3N_0?si=ntsT22hJGGsbXIqQ
One real talk thing though: This path isn’t easy. Building is the fun part — but marketing + sales matter more than code. Focus there, or the product won’t matter.
If you’re serious, start now. Timing won’t get better.
