> be me, sick, in dire need of money for surgery and recurring eczema-like infection (non-sexual wart maybe? I’ve never touched anyone), also jobless '22 CS grad, didn’t learn shit in 4 years
> staying with parents not frowned, but being jobless, to an extreme level in my culture
> Wannabe elitist me - “Windows is for normies, time to embrace GPL baby”
> REEEEE, muh privacy! - I am become geek, embracer of mediocrity. Delete as many normie apps as possible.
> wasted time on learning C, because I wanted to be a pro like my idol Linus, couldn’t understand shit about pointers and malloc, gave up
> was working on Svelte project recently (stupid decision, no one near me hiring for that), got tired of CSS shenanigans with Tailwind and building my own web components (another stupid decision), git push changes and abandoned another project
> no project to show, haven’t touched DSA since April, garbage resume apart from a few open source contributions here and there
> See ping from Whatsapp, classmate bought a bike from the money he earned, they have gone on a group trip to Shimla/Goa/Ladakh/insert-cool-places.
$ sudo ./depression.sh
Are you having negative thoughts? [yes/no/maybe]: m
Get rekt lol, exiting....
> deletes every last social media I had, phone number, screw social life, screw networking, screw negativity, try to embrace Zen
> only three numbers in my phonebook - my mom, my dad, my younger sibling, yet I haven’t talked to them properly in the four years living in their house.
> bored after testing bugs for “superior Linux”, tries looking for a language superior like C, modern and not cringe like Rust
> comes across a new programming language, functional, beautiful code
> weeee, I wanna learn OCaml now
A year has passed, didn’t learn shit apart from mashing keyboard for shell commands, learning garbage computer stuff like Docker, React and some niche OLAP database like DuckDB, also building OSS apps on my device to try them out and contribute to bugs. Didn’t get out of my room during my b’day thinking about my failures, spent sleepless nights; my younger cousin will marry soon, apply for master’s degree in the US, also has a rich fiance because birds of a feather; while I’m stuck in my parent’s house penniless, no ancestral land, no savings, born to a broke family, struggled since birth. I’m an ascetic, yet to achieve enlightenment. Stuck in the cycle of learning useless crap. Even mid-teens are smarter than me, writing their own Arduino, compiler and stuff, like wtf.
Anons, what the hell is wrong with me?
Sounds like untreated ADHD mate. Frequently starting projects and then giving up is a common symptom.
Do you have tonnes of 5% to 15% done projects?
If so, it’s because the dopamine hit of (current project) has worn out, and the dopamine hit of (shiny new project) is more enticing.
Do you often burn yourself out early on in the project, your first few days you stay up til 4 in the morning grinding, you progress wicked fast, “this is easy!”
Then suddenly you crash, burnt out, exhausted?
You have to set pace limits on the first days, purposefully stop and take a break.
That rapid fire burn out on week 1 is a big productivity killer, instead literally set the kb+mouse down, get out of the chair and go for a walk. Yes, even though you could keep going, save it for tomorrow.
Try buying an egg timer and force yourself to stop and get up and stretch every hour, and go for a walk after 4 “sets”
Do you often burn yourself out early on in the project, your first few days you stay up til 4 in the morning grinding, you progress wicked fast, “this is easy!”
Then suddenly you crash, burnt out, exhausted?
Yes. I have several projects I’ve abandoned. Like for example:
- TUI-based text-editor app: because serial programming went over my head, C is already a difficult language to begin with, and I had no clue about what Data Structures to use.
- a link-shortener with analytics: I started with Svelte/Bun and Golang. . Bun was not yet ready, so I moved back to NodeJS. I never learnt about Golang before, and I assumed that my C experience will help me - yes it did, but it was nowhere the same experience. Restructuring the project and connecting to ORM was very painful, nothing like ExpressJS.
- SQLite Clone: again, a C project. Advanced pointer and malloc concepts made me abandon the project. Again, no clue about what data structure to use. Project also had a parser for database operations, so I had no clue on how to implement it.
- Ruby’s C binding for Ruby-based ML library, DuckDB and libcsv: lost interest because I thought that it would be easy, but it wasn’t
- Statistical-based grammar checker: I lost my interest after bad project structure and failing code
- my personal web portfolio: I wasted an entire year on this. At first, over learning some basics of ThreeJS, then trying to implement a mesh gradient, then completely refactoring the page to a full-page style website, and then again refactoring it to use my own self-made Flowbite-inspired web component. My inability to choose over which text font for particular responsive breakpoint made me quit over this. And I also didn’t know Typescript that well.
You have to set pace limits on the first days, purposefully stop and take a break.
I’ve wasted a lot of time, '24 grads are working in office, while I’m still doing nothing. Right now, I’ve been looking at this OCaml project called Dream, which is a micro web framework. I have been itching to learning this functional language, which is an entirely different paradigm, but no one is looking for this in my local job market.
It’s typically a good idea to first focus on a stack in demand, then once you have some $$$ you can enjoy the hobby of learning esoteric stuff :)
My recommendation is always the same:
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Contact a couple local tech recruiter agencies in your city.
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Ask them for what are the top 2-3 tech stacks most in demand the past 2 years, as well as any relevant certificates companies were looking for, and expected entry level wage for each stack.
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Analyze those 3 stacks, pick the one that seems best for you.
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Go learn it, make an easy application for it full stack with an open source DB like Postgres or Mongo
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Bonus points: setup a basic dockerfile for it and docker compose
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MOST IMPORTANT: Make detailed “how to install manually, how to compile, how to docker deploy” guides on the github README. Include pictures of your app in the README, make it look good to a cursory glance.
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Aight now that you have a simple working app on your guthub, pin it on your profile so it’s first thing people see. Link your github to your LinkedIn, add this project to your LinkedIn profile.
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Now go look up those certs you found about in step 2. Look up the price to get em solo proctored from home. Usually they are a couple hundred bucks.
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Do it, study, get a cert or two and add to your resume.
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Okay now go back to that recruitment agency, ask them for help with optimizing your resume. This is a free service they offer, you don’t have to pay as the dev, the companies pay the costs to recruit you, the process is free for you.
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They will now find jobs for you, negotiate wage for you, and find interviews for you. Keep applying on your own and improve your app you made, study the deeper nuances of your stack, etc
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When you do get an interview, spend the days prior studying their stack and try to get to the point you can hold a convo about . “Oh yeah, you guys use Fwibble.js? I’ve been really excited to learn Fwibble.js, I have heard cool things about how it is good for wumbling tuples!”, etc etc
Excellent guide.
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>be me
>be philistine
>find an OC greentext
>OP really baring their soul
>downvote that dumb bitch
>chortle to myself and pull from the cavern of chips beside me
>screech for help when the bag constricts around my slender 60 inch wrist
I appreciated your post, friend. I actually might have some advice on the infection. Swapping to gentler soaps to reduce irritation can ease skin cracking and let skin heal. Frequently changing towels and sheets, avoiding unnecessarily wetting affected areas, and making certain that any razors or washcloths (which should also be changed or washed frequently) are kept outside of the shower to avoid bacterial buildup. Skin issues are a nightmare to fix.
Nothing is wrong with your CS skills, you have tried many things, most devs start with less experience than you and still get good jobs. You’re confusing marketing fueled life stories on linkedin with real people. Don’t worry about starting and abandoning personal projects, we all do that. Believe me, it will be easier to build nice things once you will be paid for it.
Also you should start some hobby that makes you meet people, for example a martial art (there’s something for everyone, don’t trust stereotypes), it will help you grow your social skills in a controled environment which should make it easier for your social anxiety.
We’ve been there, it will get better for you too.From what you described I’d say you know more than majority of junior programmers. Where do you live that you can’t find job at least on junior level?
Also
Even mid-teens are smarter than me, writing their own Arduino, compiler and stuff, like wtf
Maybe like 1 teenager out of 10 000 can do that, I think you see it too pessimistic. I mean writing their own compiler? I work as a programmer but I don’t think I know any person who did this, let alone teenager
Sorry for the late response. I’m from India. There’s too many of us, too much competition, no labor laws, and work is shit. Most of my classmates graduated into non-CS jobs like HR, Analyst or Tester, because SDE is super hard to get into. Let me share with you a few JDs:
These salaries are ridiculous. They don’t even cover the rent or the necessity costs (food, electricity, transportation, etc).
I’m teenager and confirm this.
'22 CS Grad like you who took the masters route. Let me tell you this tendency only gets amplified. I work with cool interdiscplinary projects showing off my experience and educating normies, not doing any DSA although I am gonna graduate in May, no job and have nightmares but still not doing anything to improve.
Take small steps towards the job seeking OP. You or I will not ever land a job magically out of nowhere, keep working on it and fail a few interviews too. You are better than many people and will make it big time.
Maybe is some cultural difference, but I consider quite common to live with parents in early 20s.
I lived with mine until 26. I had nor money nor experience to live alone until that.
In CS coding is not the only usefull stuff. Maybe your thing is testing, sysadmin, devops, etc.
In fact, a bit of coding, shell and docker is a good starting point for a devops role.
You’re good, OP. Don’t let exaggerated success stories let you down.
Living with parents is also considered normal in my culture, but unemployment is not. The problem is that yes, there are jobs for me that I can get into easily. But I don’t like testing, maintaining the infrastructure and all that miscellaneous stuff, I want to land as a SDE in a startup company. As long as the wage is decent, I don’t care about WLB.
Right now, I’m working on a full-stack project for a basic URL shortener alongside learning some basic functional language, as I’m trying to look for a niche role. Kinda disappointed that I’m forced to stick with a scripting language, and I wish I could get to work for roles that prioritize highly optimized, low-latency systems.
