From last time around: The people who kept pushing and took any job, anywhere turned out okay. This translated to a lot of people taking jobs below what they expected to get or having to move when they didn’t want to, but it was ultimately temporary.
The people I knew who turned cynical, let negativity take the wheel, and checked out of the job market struggled much harder to get back in.
You’re early in your career. This current period of turmoil doesn’t mean that much, even though it feels like everything right now. Keep at it, work a little harder than your competition, and put a little more care into your applications and it will work out. Stay away from the doom spirals on Reddit or Blind. Uninstall those apps (and others) if they’re making you worse.
If you can accept that you just happen to be born at the wrong time, you will be in a better place mentally than where I was at for a long time. I won’t say it’s easy; it will suck. But it is possible to make it out ok. I luckily had some financial and emotional support from my family to keep me going. I don’t know your situation but hopefully you are able to find support too. I wish you the best of luck.
Yep, the people who graduated about 3-4 years ago are all making more than I do after more than a decade. It seems like that's just how it works.
How uncommon is it for someone with no highschool diploma (GED), or college diploma to get a job as a software engineer at a Fortune 500 company? Am I completely fucked if I ever lose this job? It's my second SE job...
Like OP may have been hinting at, I had a really fucked up family situation and this path was the only one that I could take- should I plan on going back to school just for future job market security?
I have watched that diminish over the last 20 years.
The unspoken secret in programming is that a CS degree basically signals absolutely nothing about programming skill. You can get a 1st in CS and be a rubbish programmer, you can get a chemistry degree and be an amazing one. A lot of CS is utterly irrelevant to programming, and the vast majority of programming skills are not covered by CS degree.
Once you're past 2-3 years experience it stops being relevant, before that it's a way to filter CVs by managers who want to pretend their CS degree wasn't a complete waste of time.
If they're asking for a CS degree for a senior role it's basically advertising they're a clueless company.
The main thing to do IMO is spend time building a network. A recommendation in the right place at the right time can open doors that would otherwise be closed to you.
School is an option, but the opportunity cost has been too high so far for me. Though doing a freelance PhD thesis probably wouldn't hurt.
I'm going to challenge this as you didn't give specific data to back it up. I read an article recently that did have data, and it made the argument that first jobs, and first salaries, tend to be remarkably "sticky". That is, if you are desperate for a job out of college so take one that causes you to be underemployed and underpaid, that doesn't just stick with you for your first job, but data showed that people were underemployed and underpaid for at least a decade after college.
The advice in this article was to hold out as long as possible for a desirable job, which meant a ton of networking, taking internships if possible, and also possibly additional schooling.
Apologies for not having the article on hand, but here's another one I found in 30 seconds of googling that makes the same argument, with research:
https://www.highereddive.com/news/half-of-graduates-end-up-u...
Edit: that said, I think the majority of what the parent wrote is good. Esp the part about negativity. That hits hard and is good to be aware of.
I doubt there’ll be a shortage of ML jobs in the next few years, unless somehow the AI industry completely collapses somehow.
That is, I think it's likely that a lot of people who start out unemployed are just comparatively less motivated, less aggressive, "go-with-the-flow"-type people. These folks do better when the market is good and worse when it's bad. But, as you put it, someone with a lot of drive and the skillset is not necessarily doomed to be held back for years if their first job sucks, as long as they set their sights on getting ahead quickly and don't let their stagnant environment rub off on them.
Emphasis on the next actions to take.
Being in a graduating cohort affords you certain opportunities -- internships, career fairs, faculty-connected networking.
Post-graduation, and especially post-college, people don't have these same opportunities.
Fwiw, I'd lean very heavily into interning. Take an internship at the best company you can, that's likely to have solid financials and be hiring when you finish the internship.
Intern -> hire is a ridiculous cheat code for your first "in industry" job.
The employer decreases the risk of making a mistake on an unproven new grad. You get a job offer if you do enough solid work. Win/win.
Worst case (no job offer), you should push really hard for a solid recommendation letter from your direct or second level manager.
But then again, we are definietly not in times of normalcy. If nothing changes quick we may all be losing our spending power.
Also consider taking something below (or even much below) expectations. It's much easier to work your way up with connections than it is to get in the door with no references.
The ones I've seen aren't good. I see some jobs in companies with shitty pay or shitty culture (my bar is not high). It dies look like the past 6 months have been better than the previous year or so. But overall, it looks pretty dim. I'm getting PIP'd soon. I am expecting that I will likely lose my job. If that happens, I'm expecting that I will end up as a Walmart greeter. As someone with a disability, I expect my application will go right in the trash if I answer yes or blank on the disability question. Or get fired if I mark no and then do need accommodations.
I'm desperately looking for a new job. I hate my current job, the constant stress is taking a real toll, and I'm more tired than I've been ever before.
I'm quite literally applying to all sorts of developer jobs that I'm well overqualified for, in any honest assessment, for a lot less than I make now. These roles are far from "premium" gigs. I've no diva expectations or hope at this point.
The only places I even get rejection emails from are places I've had a referral.
Things are bleak.
I'm in a similar place wrt job "security."
Current gig will end soon, one way or another, and the future doesn't look great.
That's an interesting hypothesis.
I've seen many people suggest just the opposite- pretending to have a mild disability when filling in the form so that they get the boost from companies which use recruiting software that prioritizes diversity and inclusiveness in candidate pool.
Federal contractors are explicitly required to "take affirmative action to recruit, hire, promote and retain" people with disabilities, with a target of at least 7% of their employees be from that group. https://www.dol.gov/agencies/odep/program-areas/employers/fe...
At the annual Fall job fair, 80% of students queue up to less than 10% of employers. Most companies never show up because it's simply not worth the cost and time to try to recruit spoiled brats of MIT
Why would they work with people that they perceive to be beneath them and have worked far less hard than them?
Because you aren't actually modeling their thinking correctly?
I seriously doubt that. This doesn't fit the class they come from. Maybe it would have in 1985 but not today.
Today, MIT is nothing but a shadow of its better known academic cartel up the Mass ave. Those who hire MIT students know that and plan accordingly. The only reason to hire MIT students is for branding propaganda, you get nothing more from them.
The signals around me in LA are pretty damn bad. several friends laid off, many others worried about layoffs, and a very weak pulse on the market in terms of roles. I still have part time work but who knows for how much longer at this rate?
At this point I'm fine taking up anything that pays and doesn't potentially sent my 8 YO car into retirement even faster.
Is that true? I seem to remember data showing that the 2008-2010 graduate cohorts never overall caught up to the ones that came immediately before or after them.
Like sure sure OP has an engineering degree from MIT they're more like the ones that did catch up. But I'll bet there are a lot more people reading this who are about to graduate with degrees from perfectly adequate state schools and I'm not sure this unalloyed optimism is exactly correct for them. I don't think it turned out to be for their 2008 predecessors.
Comparing to other cohorts isn’t useful because you can’t pick your cohort. You are born into one timeline and you play the hand you’re dealt.
There’s a lot of research that people who graduate into bad job markets are more cautious and less risk taking which can make them look like they’re behind peers who are more risk hungry when the market is up. I wouldn’t be surprised if it also makes them come out ahead in periods where the market is down.
Also, I graduated from a pretty mediocre state school. I'm by no means starving.
I believe he finally gave up studying & interviewing for junior dev jobs in 2016. At that point why take a "stale" graduate when you can just get an actual 22 year old from the same school, seems to have been everyone's reasoning.
I saw a similar thing a bunch when teaching at a code school ca 2018 too. It was a great move if you had savings or support for 6-18 months of job search. The ones that got in are still doing ok. But a lot didn't, they had to keep working at what they did before "temporarily" while interviewing and most of them are still doing exactly that.
So idk, I'm not sure how you would even get numbers on this. How many people would have excelled in this work if they had graduated at a different time, or with more support, but they didn't and they simply aren't here.
It's a more difficult path and people navigate it but I don't think everyone does if you see what I mean. I think some of who should be our colleagues are simply missing because they did what they had to to pay bills in 2010 and never made it in here.
Yeah, they weren't. You were in a STEM bubble, which back in 2008 probably was the only bubble that could still get jobs "the old way", without going through application hell.
Also, the job market was way worse in 09-10 than it was in 2008, especially first half of 2008.
Had I got a job before I graduated that company may well have gone bust or laid people off anyway.
Had some bad interviews including being beaten by a other candidate on a job writing access databases for a 1 person business, and a job where they said they interview girls to see what they look like (not a girl but was disgusted... I carried on the process anyway because need $)
This environment reminds me of the one I faced graduating into the 2001-2003 post-Dotcom Bust market.
Even the US basically didn't get back to where it was pre-2008 till 2019.
Tech was fine because mobile was happening, but it was incredibly grim everywhere else.
Hard disagree. Things went back to almost normal around 2013. Lots of money going around, new startups, and plenty of jobs.
Those types of connections are CRITICAL in the age of scorched-earth AI centric hiring. I spent 9 months recently jobless after getting laid off, and its damned near impossible to get a job through the usual resume farm (LinkedIn job board and the like).
Also, look for jobs local to wherever you are that don't look all that glamorous. RTO is a big thing now, and smaller organizations struggle to hire locally without the brand recognition of the big guys. That might be your in for your first job.
And the biggest thing, keep your head up. Keep pushing. You just got a degree from an extremely difficult program, and you can hang your hat on that. The factors affecting the job market are not within your control, and your skills will outlast them.
https://respectfulleadership.substack.com/p/april-28-the-inf...
The vast majority of the recent interviews that I have gotten have been through networking. Sometimes just asking the right people works, but obviously you have to know who to ask, when to ask it, and how to ask it to make it work. There are also more passive methods like the HN monthly job threads, but you should do active networking as your primary networking method in this job market.
Even if I apply via a job board to positions that I am supremely qualified for, there is a good chance I'll be auto-rejected within a day. It has happened multiple times to me and I shrug it off at this point.
I know networking is hard, especially when you are just starting out, but I just wanted to write a post saying that it does work if you stick to it.
(That said, I would also prepare to be unemployed for an extended period. Even if you are actively interviewing, it can take months to get a job offer. For my current position, it took 5 months to get an offer and I started 4 months later due to a housing storage where the job was located.)
Asking for referrals/connections will be more effective though if you have an interest and focus and can articulate that to the prof. Imagine they are the first link in the hiring chain and treat them accordingly. You need to sell yourself to them before they'll sell you to their network.
I would suggest for your first job, take whatever you can get, as long as it is in your field, and deal with it for the first two years to get your foot in the industry. My first job was notoriously horrible, but after two years, I got a really good job with a company you've heard of through a recommendation.
Also, I would suggest looking outside the typical mega tech companies. There are plenty of other industries that need good people.
You can also "start small" and network via FOSS communities, I met one of my best friends while contributing to niche projects and we ended up working together because of it.
Most profs these days, went to grad school right out of college and never stepped foot in the industry. If they've had any contact within industry it's through some R&D grant with other PhDs. A few are in start-ups which means they only hire interns for $20/hr, and fresh off the boat indians and asians grad students.
Small or local companies don't want and can't pay salary of MIT grads; they've plenty of salt-of-the-earth local engineering school grads to chose from.
> I’m facing the very real possibility of moving back home to an unstable and abusive environment while continuing to job hunt
You don't have to do this. You can do anything you want you're a free person with your own agency and plenty of skills. There are a million ways you can work around this.
> What helped you push through when it felt like the system failed you?
Realizing that I am owed nothing, and focusing on ways to get what I want. With your background and skills I am certain you can achieve anything you set your mind to as long as you don't put yourself in a subordinate, dependent, position.
I don't think the system _ever_ fails people with "merit" like MIT grads. It fails people like me that can't get into top schools that went to 50% accept rate public schools.
I graduated in 2018 too - I guarantee people like you consider me and my career accomplishments in the intervening years to be failure worthy. I genuinely think a typical MIT Course 6 grad from 2018 would be clinically depressed if they were in my shoes.
I started in state schools and leveraged that into one of the world's best (half the MIT professors had graduated from my alma mater when I was deciding where to go) for my MSc.
As [likely] one of the people you reference, I am a counter example to your guarantee. No one should fail who contributes in good faith. Live life well, be responsible, have fun, spread joy, and no matter what happens in your career you'll have succeeded.
https://www.levels.fyi/companies/amazon/salaries/systems-dev...
There is no help that will stop me from being an untermensch and failure? It's not going to get me a 1600 or get me into a top school or make me earn $800k a year.
I say this as someone who earns much less than you (never mind 800k), and who didn't go to a top school.
I'm no psychiatrist but your posts suggests that you see yourself as a failure, or possibly you've gotten that feedback from others directly. Perhaps at Amazon or elsewhere.
Projecting that feeling onto others suggests you would really benefit from talking to a professional about this.
I don't think you're a failure, I don't know you. But from what little you've revealed I'd say you're not a failure. But perhaps you had your own goals you failed to achieve?
I have no accomplishments, nothing to be proud of. Freshmen at MIT have more potential and prior accomplishments than I do.
You might need a refresher on the meaning of the word "under".
There is nothing wrong being under accomplished. Let me tell you a secret that helps with mental sanity. All humans are sinful creatures. We indulge in lot of these sins. If you go through this chain of thought you arrive at conclusion, everyone is inferior to one another. The material superiority you yearn for is a momentary fleet in the river of time.
Sometimes just reflect on yourself. One perspective of life is your world governs you. If you are happy in your own world, try to let go of it. Just enjoy the moments and don't hold on it.
You are the actor and creator of your reality. Your objective reality is making you feel inferior. Define your role, change your actions, and act accordingly.
The inability to act according to your role is the probably reason behind your feeling. You probably see yourself through some different lens where your actions and objective reward do not align. All you can do is control your thoughts and actions. So act.
Objectively, you. are. not. a. failure!
Ninety-five percent of US households earn less than that. Ninety-five!
The material fact here is you have this made up story in your head that's not supported by the limited facts you've given us. I'm not going to change your self image by yelling at a stranger over the Internet; if traditional talk therapy with a human didn't work, discuss it at length with ChatGPT, or go see a sex worker, they're surprisingly good for talking to. You're also welcome to email me, link in bio.
Us, we have go strive for living. That's the unfairness in life. It would have been so much easier if lucky ones would acknowledge their luck than attribute for hard work and what not.
Everyone discounts luck while it is the biggest factor. Only action you can do is increase the surface area of your luck.
Try to find meaning beyond career. There are multiple ways to get lucky. Find your own luck. After all we are in an era where people get wealth screaming on top of their lungs to the internet.
Why are you equating money with self-worth and dignity? That's a losing battle since there's always a bigger fish.
Know when to rest, not to quit. Take whatever job you can now while continuing to look for your next role.
> What helped you push through when it felt like the system failed you?
Grit and nihilism. No one is coming to save us.
What I'll say won't help you now, but: this will help you later.
Don't assume you'll always be able to find a job. Work towards financial independence early. Avoid debt. Don't get some fancy car as a "treat" to yourself, counting on your future income to make payments... that income might not come.
Sorry it sucks right now. Don't give up, don't let your skills dull. Keep grinding and take any programming job just to start getting that 2-3 experience that locks out so many of the labour market.
This. And by any job I mean any job. McDonalds, book store, what have you. A good friend of mine dropped out of Harvard sophomore year. She found work at the COOP, then CVS, etc. It was definitely better than going back to an unstable and abusive environment while continuing to job hunt.
Some of my school colleagues got good jobs at refineries and whatnot... but they were the fortunate ones. It took me 12 months to land my first "I made it" engineering job with a good salary. In the interim, I worked hourly jobs making between 13-18 USD an hour.
Don't let the current job market deflate you. You are young, intelligent, and you have a degree from MIT... you are going to be fine.
Hunter S. Thompson’s Letter on Finding Your Purpose and Living a Meaningful Life https://fs.blog/hunter-s-thompson-to-hume-logan/
I worked at Stinkies Fish Camp as a dishwasher fwiw after my 6 years as a Cyber Threat Operator in the AF (2012 government sequestration did wonders to clearance renewals). It sucked, but I lived. Well, survived.
Best of luck, always keep a candle of hope to a wildcard interview!
I wish I had better advice. I really only have some decent part time work from a blind linkedIn message. Luck really is opportunity + preparation. And these days, you REALLY gotta get lucky. Keep every channel up to advertise yourself, talk around to everyone in your community, and keep bolstering your portfolio. Grab any sort of job possible if you don't decide to move back. If you're willing t relocae for any role, all the better. Just be keenly aware of CoL, because it may slip under your fingers in these times.
I was sent out to an okay enough market that was still looking for people. You were sent out into a wasteland. Just remember that absolutely none of this was your fault. But unfortunately your goal right now is to survive and ride the storm out.
Best of luck.
I ultimately landed a job with an odd startup, eccentric founders, working out of an attic. In hindsight I couldn't have asked for a better start to my career. But, my expectations were rock bottom at the time.
Anyway, keep your mind open to all possibilities. You never know where an unlikely choice may take you. And, good luck!
Once you have some professional experience on your resume, it should get a little easier - it's still going to take some time and grit, but it should work out.
The feeling of inadequacy is an absolute self-esteem wrecker such that it distracts you from reality. You and your friends got into MIT, that's a big accomplishment. You're like a Tony Stark or whatever. Be proud of that attribute.
But I'll give you some reality: accept that you probably won't find a job in your field any time soon. It may take years. Once you accept that you don't have the cards, your mind starts thinking up more possibilities.
There is no shame in serving happy meals for awhile, but start aiming for a trade, perhaps some city/state work.
You might also look into trades, depending on your engineering specialty. A machinist with a MechEng degree from MIT or a millwright with something related to manufacturing will be extremely valuable, especially if you're willing to move where the work is.
So I suggest that you stay in school, take a Masters degree and try to enter the market at a better time!
Don't go any further than a Master's. Here's why:
Philip Greenspun has provided the following graph at the URL titled "Career Guide for Engineers and Computer Scientists" at https://philip.greenspun.com/careers/
THIS IS YOUR EDUCATION, THIS IS YOUR SALARY
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$50K!
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$40K! ** * Any Questions?
! ** *
! ***** *
$30K! **** *
! **** *
! ***** *
$20K! ***** *
! ***** *
! *** *
$10K! *** *
!** *
! *
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no high some Bachelor's Master's Doctor
high school college Degree Degree of
school diploma Philosophy
diplomaAfter I got back from Korea 2 years later I faced a similar situation. Be flexible, take odd jobs, don't be afraid to work in the trades and use your free time to build durable economic skills for a job that you really want. Conditions will change (and they do so unevenly throughout the economy).
Get by and get ready. They can't repossess your brain. If you're from a financially unstable background - live cheap and be creative until you've built the stability you want.
If you give up, you will certainly fail, so don't give up and realize that the hardships you may experience will make you stronger, more resilient, and better prepared to deal with hardships in the future.
And keep in talking to your friends. Who knows if between the lot of you, you've already thought of the next big thing.
It was a similar situation, but honestly nowhere as dire as yours. Even in that rough situation, the best of my state college were at least getting one offer. I cannot imagine how rough it must be for MIT grads to not be getting job offers.
I'm not proud of either, but I did what I needed to so that I never moved back home.
It is funny to hear that this person might have an unstable environment though - that isn't the profile of someone that gets into MIT.
If OP is actually serious I'm more than willing to give resume advice - including in person living in the area. But again, I seriously doubt this is real, or if people like OP are willing to take advice from failures like me.
Then they start their own companies. They don't work at Oracle or Amazon or Fidelity or IBM.
> MIT kids get part time jobs waiting tables or working retail while in school
Just the vast majority of them? A handful don't at best.
Not because it will make you rich, but because it shows you have the grit to actually do something. It will also keep your skills fresh and/or grow them.
These things do make a huge difference to hiring managers.
Hunting for work in a down economy is hard and depressing. Building something is a excellent way to stave off depression. Much better than self-pity, alcohol, drugs, videos games, or doom scrolling.
In addition to doing volunteer work this way, also look for various "bug bounty" situations for accumulating similar "professional micro-experiences" that you can also use to show that you have been crafting and delivering functional code into one or more projects.
(Mine would be https://jonline.io/jon, part of a larger project that does federated social media, but just a “hello world” portfolio server app that you open source would be quite effective, I think. This is all based on recruiters’, hiring managers’, and other devs’ responses when I link them to it.)
2. Look outside US for jobs. There are remote opportunities everywhere, and at your young age, its not super hard to move. Even China has some startups that can hire within US.
3. In general, even in recession, there are companies that end up making big as demand shifts to more fundamental things. Most companies need IT support. Generally, as a computer engineering grad, you should be able to do the full range of IT support (and if you can't ask yourself why not).
Don't expect or even look for a dream job straight away. Lower your standards. That's what I did, and I ended up where I'm supposed to be in my career after a few years. I took an early risk on a personally important project early in my career and found myself broke and headed home afterward. I just committed myself to taking entry level work and moving jobs several times in order to catch up with my peers who went straight into industry.
Learn the business as well as you can and then apply your technical knowledge to it.
The job market is skewed and gamed.
You should change the way you're applying to jobs, and on the side, try to find cofounders who are starting some startup.
You can also join new ones who recently got funded. Some of the MIT folks work at windsurf, you can find similar startups that are need of engineers.
1. new founded startups 2. start one yourself (although this is risky, only reliable if you can get funding) 3. networking and meeting folks from your college 4. get a job you're overqualified for to keep your visa, (given you talk about going back to home)
Me personally have given up on jobs so im starting something of my own, although i dont have the pressure of going back home cuz thats already done, i'm back to my "toxic environment".
Most hardtech startups dont have the same constraints as big tech in hiring. More than anything we need smart dedicated people to create the future.
The system failing is the default. Allies tip the scales. You can see the board more clearly now; play accordingly
I had one such offer that I thought was not worth my time because I presumed I'll get more offers, Sike, I didn't. Now I think about if had taken that up, I would atleast have some stability while I plan my next steps.
food on the table > rocket on mars
stability > ambition
Pickup anything you can get, dont stay stuck on the old ways of getting a job, they are not working anyways. Cold call business owners and ask them if you can bring some technical value and potentially convert that into a long term relationship. This doesn't have to be this way for years but alteast you'll be able to get into the workspace and use YOUR SKILLS to create impact in OTHERs company/industry.
Email people directly. DM them on Twitter/LinkedIn. Meet people in person.
So, I can provide my anecdote, at least. It took me the better part of a year after I graduated to find my first job. (That paid real poorly.) I lost that job after a year due to the role being eliminated and my contract not being renewed. I lost my next job at a startup after six months due to the company pivoting. I’ve been at my following job for 10+ years now.
Buyer beware.
The classmates who took non-tech jobs after graduating in 2002 never came back to the industry. They generally did alright, but taking a job outside the industry makes it really difficult to get back in. Employers expect to hire people with no experience straight out of school.
That MEng sounds like the best option to me. That was definitely the best option for my 2002 classmates.
People who network in person almost always have an advantage compared to people with similar qualifications who sit at home and send out resumes.
You are guaranteed to make more connections if you speak to people at the booths. If you take a genuine curiosity in what they do there's usually something interesting to talk about.
You and your friends should email me with your resume and anything you're proud to have built. I'll extend that to any MIT senior/recent grad who wants to discuss moving to SF and helping us apply LLMs to build product features that solve interesting customer problems.
I'm at james.peterson@fathom.video. Include "[responding to HN thread 43614795]" in the title. I'd love to chat.
Plan to move there and get any job.
Don't be ashamed to apply for any and all government assistance you might be able to find.
I used this as previous experience and found a job right out of college. I also learned a lot from this experience and used the same skills to find work during the 08 crash and never really had a loss of income during this time.
I was in for a horribly rude awakening. I spent 4 months applying for jobs non-stop through linkedin and company career pages and didn't receive a single response back. Finally, when I was nearly ready to give up and move back to my parents' house, I went on my university's alumni directory and searched for people in the Bay Area working in eng leadership at tech companies. I emailed the first person I found and explained that I was really struggling to get interviews and would be willing to take an internship or work for free if it meant I could get some experience on my resume. I got a response within the day. The guy told me that, while the roles listed on his company's website were filled, his wife was worked in engineering recruiting. He passed my resume along to her and within a day I had 3-4 companies asking for an interview. In the end, I got one final round interview and landed the job. Looking back, if it weren't for that email I likely would have given up and pursued another career path.
In short, my only advice is: completely stop applying to open job listings on linkedin or on a company's career page. Those jobs literally receive thousands of applications and, additionally, there is often a recruiter representing the company who is directly reaching out to the most desirable candidates for that position. There is nothing but disappointment that comes from applying to those jobs and, given we're in a very uncertain economic environment, doing so will only discourage you.
Instead, try to find anyone working in the industry you're targeting with whom you have some loose connection and send them an email. I know that sounds scary and stupid, but you would be surprised at how eager most people are to help others. At the end of the day, most people don't derive that much personal satisfaction from their work, but they do get a lot of satisfaction from helping other people.
Does MIT have an alumni directory where you can search for alumni contact info by industry and location? Are you in a fraternity or any social club that might have older MIT alumni that you could get in touch with? Try sending 2 or 3 people an email and see what happens.
https://msoe.s3.amazonaws.com/files/resources/2025-career-co...
0. It's not you, it's the job market and economic cycle. Many companies aren't hiring much at the moment because of economic uncertainty and unrealistic enthusiasm about AI-fueled automation. But the good (?) news is they are trying to cut costs by laying off senior people and hiring junior people like you. Keep applying.
1. You could lean into the EE side of things. Analog and digital design are still needed as we move into the era of RISC-V, robotics, AR/VR, self-driving cars, etc. You likely have a decent project portfolio already from your coursework. Also power engineering and efficiency are important at all scales.
2. An MEng from MIT (or another good school/program) would probably be interesting, challenging and fun, and you'd pick up some additional skills. It would also enable you to apply for internships, which can be easier to get than full-time/"permanent" positions, and can lead to the latter. Try to get teaching or research assistantships to avoid or reduce debt (even if it takes longer, it's worth it.) And you could potentially do a Ph.D. later on if it turns out that you like research.
3. Economic downturns can be good times to start companies because there are more people on the job market. Also you may be able to get good deals on office and lab space and equipment if you need it.
4. If you can't join a startup as a co-founder, you may be able to join as staff. Make sure they pay you a salary though.
5. Look into temporary or contract work, or any job you can get that pays money, ideally enough for food and rent in a starving student type shared residence. Then keep looking for something better.
You might also attempt a "research staff" role at MIT. They used to have those back in the days and might still have them.
That would let you sit out the current craze and learn some useful things meanwhile.
But to be sure I served with two amazing MIT NROTC grads in my sea tour. You do what you have to do.
Most of the comments highlight that you will likely be several years behind the curve of cohorts before you just because of when you were born and went to school. I agree with that. However, it can be overcome, you will simply have to work harder at it. You will likely have to change jobs more often, ideally within the same company. This means you will have less comfort and calm in your early days, but it can help catch you up to where you expected to be.
Good luck. You have to stay positive to succeeed at this.
That being said, the whole tariff situation is creating a dark cloud over all jobs
If you're looking at your long term career trajectory you're probably better off taking a (maybe much) lower paying job in the area you want to end up in. Grow relevant skills and gain experience
Of course this is irrelevant if you just need money to survive today
Aren’t they also basically the vast majority of the people you know?
You can even just anonymize your resume and make it public.
- Hit up alumni on LinkedIn, even though you've never met them before.
- Cold-call companies.
But at the very least be genuine, and look up what the companies and people do.
Wouldn’t starting a startup or business be actually easier in this environment?
I didn't even bother finishing school because all it's there for in practical private industry terms is to "prepare" you for competing favorably for a junior position, or actually qualify you objectively in regulated industries. In academia I guess you'd be done like 2/5 steps if you were interested in pursuing that long-term, but idk much about that. It took me so long to find a job last time I was laid off that I absolutely considered going back and re-schooling from scratch to qualify for that junior position in something more tangibly valuable/stable, but then happened to land something. That was the third time I'd spent more than a year completely unemployed. It's a sickening grind and has never become easier.
However, just because you're not graduating with a job in hand (a fanciful dream in other industries) doesn't mean you won't find one any time between when you graduate and a year out. You might, it just takes continued persistence, and a hell of a lot of luck, and meeting people in the real world outside school.
It's extremely demoralizing though, you're right about that.
What kind of places are you applying? FANG? Startups? Something else?
Here's my advice and what I would do in that situation again, though you should definitely adjust/adapt to your strengths/goals:
1. Don't "spray and pray" your resume out there (at least, don't do that to jobs you actually want). When jobs get tight it feels natural to want to spread your (resume) seed as widely as possible hoping one will germinate, but realistically that doesn't work. Instead I would find job postings that you want, and make yourself spend 20 to 30 minutes tailoring the resume for the job. Don't lie or even exaggerate, but don't include irrelevant information and definitely don't omit anything relevant. If it's something you have and it's mentioned in the job post, it should be on your resume, unless you don't think you could speak intelligently on the subject. For example I put in a job posting I needed someone with bash scripting experience, then interviewed somebody who put bash on their resume, but when I asked about it they hadn't done much more than just run simple commands. They didn't even know how to set a variable in bash. They did not get an offer.
2. Be willing to take something in QA or another adjacent area even if you feel it is beneath you (especially being from MIT. You went to a phenomenal school and deserve to be proud, but don't let that turn into counterproductive pride). Even the best school only partially prepares you for the workforce, and you can learn a ton even slinging test code. (to be honest, my time working in QA was one of the most enjoyable because I didn't have to deal with Product :-D). Being humbled to dust a few times in life has (IMHO) ultimately given me much better perspective on myself.
3. Take a look for Professional Services and/or Support Engineer roles that involve some coding. These are often a little less pay, but they are also more plentiful and the competition is much lower because many people avoid these roles. However, this can be a great way to get your foot in the door and pivot to a full SWE role 6 to 12 months down the line. You can also get some incredibly useful experience in these because you'll work will real customers/users and will learn a ton about product, bug hunting, and building clever solutions to solve real problems. You'll also gain industry experience in whatever industry your employer is in, and that can be invaluable for getting your next role. I worked with someone who started as an L1 support with no schooling, learned to code, started automating small parts of his job, and also learned a ton about the finance industry. He later got a fantastic job in large part because he knew a lot about loan origination and underwriting from working with customers. If you do this, talk to and get to know the engineers you work with. Not just to use them to pivot, but to actually get to know them as people and also learn from them. Many of them will be able to give you excellent advice and mentorship to help you get to where you want.
4. (this one can be a bit controversial but it's my opinion): Don't just look at local options. Moving sucks, but there are lots of great jobs in areas with rapid growth that will even sometimes pay for your move. I would definitely look in areas like Texas, Utah, and Colorado. I've even seen some interesting roles coming out of Arkansas, Chicago, and Minnesota as well. Hell, Boise Idaho has some good roles pop up here and there too, especially if you are interested in embedded systems.
5. Unless you are well differentiated in it, I would avoid chasing "AI" or even "Big Data" roles as those are insanely competitive and saturated right now, so you'll be competing against people with a ton more experience than you. Also everyone is currently throwing cash at AI, but I think the vast majority of those companies aren't going to see anywhere near the ROI they expect and will start slashing. As a n00b you'll be among the first to get the axe, and even if you don't you may find the work drying up and getting assigned stuff that isn't what you want to do. Generally speaking I recommend trying to work on whatever core product the company makes, excepting maybe if you're a researcher and it's a big tech co
I've interviewed some PhD students that we deep in their field, but they had zero work experience. That, combined with the fact that they were applying to a non-entry level position, meant that I'd be taking a large-ish risk in my position if I were to hire them.
In 2008, amid the downturn cited in this thread as a similar inflection point to the one we see today, I landed my first SE job, after a few months of active searching. They hired me without a degree and without any formal experience. I had a small portfolio of example work, the technical knowledge that I'd developed, and my personal philosophy. The portfolio did little to help me. The technical knowledge served to barely avoid outright disqualification. It was my outlook that earned me a chance to show mettle.
This was local startup that was a half-dozen years old. There I learned what technical collaboration was like in practice, what it meant to build as part of a team. I learned the stuff that school and individual hacking doesn't teach. In a couple of years I moved on to a Fortune 100 company on a merger mission, and from there on to greener pastures in the industry. Now I earn comfortably, somewhere north of 90th percentile by geography. Each of those steps, along with a healthy dose of reading, taught me something that I needed to learn/understand about the craft and it's challenges. I was oblivious to the need to know most of them until after I wrestled with them.
One of the most important lessons, and one very relevant today: character traits, not merely technical learning, lend power to carving a successful path.
You are not nearly as likely to differentiate yourself by degree alone as was the case in the past. Even less so if people sense entitlement. That's not a judgement, but a caution.
Hiring right now looks like an absolute swarm of posers, far noisier than I've ever seen before, fighting to convince managers to hire them into senior salaries. They are empowered by magical answer generators that whisper secret sauces into their ears just in time to be vomited back and the interviewer. Even though some of them vomit better than others, the kind of manager that you want to work for (imo) is going to see right through those people - and is getting very tired of it.
So tired in fact that I'm ready to hire low/no-experience, high-character people into my senior slots if they show that they have passion for the craft and ethics to match it. I won't pay them a fortune out the gate, but I will match salary growth to competency growth once they are in the saddle.
Time is the fabled commodity, and there's a lot of time-waste going on at the moment.
My advice, if you're having trouble on initial approach: be humble, be curious, and show an honest + direct character - be comfortable in the knowledge that the new skill is not what you already know, but how well your outlook positions you to "leaRn into" the next curve. And then, don't stop carving.
To get employed:
1. Deck out your resume with a bunch of keyword nonsense. If it doesn't look like word salad when you are done its not competitive. Find a laundry list of tools, frameworks, run time engines, and other third party tools that you never wrote.
2. If you want to get hired and aren't already a senior principle don't be an expert. Experts are intimidating. Refer back to point 1.
3. Don't use AI during a job interview. People hate that. Instead just have a static script of key points as hints. The goal is to be at the center of a bell curve and know just enough to fit in.
4. Get really good at throw away leet code insanity. Go fast and memorize programming patterns by name. You will never use any of this at the job, but it looks impressive during interviews.
5. Answer all interview questions with confidence in 3 words or less. Be quick and ensure it does not look like you are reading or waiting for answers to materialize. Always remember the only thing most programmers fear more than writing original code is unoriginal job candidates.
Once you are hired:
1. Do all that is asked of you with as little as possible. Make it a game to see just how efficiently you can accomplish what is asked of you. The people that get promoted are the ones that shine at this and do as little work as possible. That screams to management that you don't produce regression, are not burdened with stressed, and have potential to do twice as much.
2. Automate the shit out of your job, but keep this a secret to yourself. Most of your peers cannot program. If they see that you are doing more than the copy/paste what is required they will be intimidated.
3. Save video calls with your peers for educational moments only. Video calls suck up a lot of time and your peers will want to do them only because they cannot write emails. When in doubt do as little work as possible, which includes being efficient and thorough with your communication. See point 1.
4. If you are in a toxic environment learn from the best and become a complete narcissistic asshole. Fair warning, though. This will randomly blow up in your face because you are likely surrounded by narcissists looking out for themselves. If you are in a healthy environment then be a complete team player and save all your disposable time for helping your teammates with testing and documentation. In a healthy environment take as little credit for accomplishments as possible and openly praise teammates who are worthy of praise.
1) Why did you decide to become an engineer? Did you have some hobby or other background that you had a passion for, or was it because you thought you could do this degree and make good dollars?
2) If you became an engineer for the right reasons, can you maybe leverage that interest and start an enterprise of some kind? And I don't mean a start-up, I mean a business offering services and/or products to a market that needs them.
I don't see a single reply here at this stage that does not seem to take for granted that upon graduating you must work for someone else.
The idea that "I went to MIT/Stanford/Berkley/whatever, I deserve a job, and a good one that pays fuckloads" seems to permeate the whole thread.
Well I will tell you that College/University for engineering is just a very elaborate hazing ritual, it doesn't get you shit in reality, apart from a possible entry ticket into somewhere where the real learning and work start.
There is potentially fuckloads to learn that you would have never been taught, big differences between academia and industry.
I am in another country, but not that different, and 30 years out the engineers that I studied with that really made bank all basically went straight into starting their own business upon graduating.
As one example, the guy started a business designing mineral processing plant electrical and control systems, started out delivering very small parts of projects, just kept grinding and building capabilities, and now he owns breweries and wineries for fun and is delivering projects all over the world worth hundreds of millions of dollars. There are other examples from my cohort.
If you can't find employment otherwise, what have you to lose? And tbh, if you don't do something like this now, next thing you will look up and you will want to buy a house, or will have a pregnant wife and you just can't risk your job with the man, because the baby, etc etc etc.
So your situation isn't the engineers equivalent of Pretty Lady, or whatever fantasy script society peddles, maybe that could turn out to be a good thing, you never know.
Footnote: I have a four year degree in Electrical and Control Systems Engineering from a University in another country, in the top 100 of the world for Electrical but virtually no one would have ever heard of it outside my state. I graduated in early 90's and only 2 engineers had good "company" jobs to go to, they were both trades who had left their trade to study engineering and were preferred.
I had been working part time my last year and then went full time, after graduating, with the small local electronics design and manufacture company for crap cash. But significant parts of what I learned there in the 2.5 years, I still use today. But, in retrospect I regret not taking my own advice I gave you above, and I am not prone to regrets.
You might think working for nothing is a bad deal and that it would be exploitative but you need to remember it's temporary and a little bit of experience will make it 10x easier when it comes to applying for jobs a year or two down the road. Almost any employer is going to pick someone with a bit of experience over someone with none.
I don't know how much you're paying for your education right now, but even assuming you can only find unpaid work this is literally infinitely better than the negative income you're receiving in return for improved career prospects right now. I find it quite crazy that people will so happily drop tens of thousands of dollars on an education for a chance at a good career, but are also completely unwilling to work for free for a few months to get the experience they need. Experience is extremely cheap to acquire relative to the cost of education.
The market sucks at the moment and I've argued for some time it's probably only going to worsen due to structural shifts in the global economy, and tech specifically. Keep this in mind and try not to blame yourself because it's easy to give up. I had a lot of friends who studied comp sci with me who ended up getting regular jobs because they struggled to find work after graduating.
If I were you I would look for a niche which isn't fully technical because that will give you more security from automation and outsourcing standpoint. If I were in your shoes I'd probably look for local startups and offer to work every day for free and do literally any job they asked of me. Startups are good place to start your career because they always have lots of random jobs that need doing without anyone to do them. Because of this they can be great places to find out what you enjoy and where you can add the most value. If you're concerned about where you'll live sleep literally anywhere someone is willing to offer you a bed or a sofa, but if you have to move back with your parents temporarily that isn't the end of the world.
I wish I could start my career again. I have a well paid job today, but I'd still love to be in your position. The problem when you get to my level is that life is good but expensive. It's very hard to learn new skills or shift your career when you have dependents and a mortgage to pay. Unless you want to up end your life for little to no return you just have to follow the money. But for you the whole world is at your feet. I guarantee there's hundreds of interesting companies in your area who would love to bring in new talent but they can't justify it because money is too tight. Find them and let them know how much you'd appreciate the opportunity to get some experience with them. Pick up skills, form connections, and see where it takes you. In my experience most opportunity in life comes from meeting the right people, being loyal to them and providing them value. That is what you should be focused on doing.
In my opinion there's not a simple path to a good life these days. "The system" will almost always fail you. I know it shouldn't be this way, but you have to accept the cards you a dealt and play your best hand.
Hope this helps.
I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but I feel that we are entering an era of great struggle. The social contract has been eroded to the point that it's crumbling. Not for any scientific reason, but because dark forces have coopted the goals of technology. Where once the internet was going to bring free access to information for humanity, now it's used to propagandize and subvert the population for the ego-based goals of a handful of wealthy and powerful men whose greed can never be satisfied. AI will mostly accelerate the decline.
What that means is, the promise of a better life which you sacrificed long years for is no longer guaranteed, if it ever was. Where once you could apply at a handful of agencies or institutions with a high likelihood of being hired, now you're up against potentially hundreds of similarly qualified candidates who get weeded out by algorithms. Nobody takes the broad view to see that most of them are overqualified, or to ask why we're doing it this way, or what gives certain people the right to decide and not others - why only they have the money.
I went through a similar situation when I graduated with my ECE degree in 1999 right into the Dot Bomb. I tasted a year of progress before the powers that be started taking it all away. The arrival of the iPhone and Facebook around 2007 replacing Waterfall with Agile, the funneling of R&D funds into outsourcing and the Housing Bubble popping in 2008, the racist backlash to Obama from 2009-2016 that led to the Citizens United case and billionaires buying elections, the COVID-19 pandemic, just on and on and on. I can't remember a good year in all of that, only melancholy, bittersweet. Maybe 2013 after the election when there was enough confidence for electric cars to get a foothold and music was getting good again like it was in the 90s hah.
Nobody told me that the average wage isn't an average. Rather than saying "the typical graduate earns $85,000 at this job", they should say "a dedicated worker can earn up to $85,000 with a little luck". Because nobody is fully employed, usually. A few good years get wiped out with a few months of unemployment. A stable job ends when the company goes out of business. The industry you're trained for gets disrupted with no replacement.
This will all hit the fan around 2030 when AI surpasses humans at all labor. We thought it was 2040 or 2050, but it's on our doorstep because unsupervised machine learning grows exponentially. Nobody has a clue what will happen next after the Singularity.
So I guess my best advice is that the cognitive dissonance you're feeling is very real, and I know it can be hard to endure. But it's also a warning from your subconscious. If you can't see any way through the challenge to the success, then it might be time to step back and take a bird's-eye view of the situation. I highly recommend meditation.
Another way of looking at it is from a holistic perspective. Your challenge isn't unique, meaning that others are facing it too. I can't say enough good things about finding like-minded peers. Together you can overcome adversity that can't be met alone. In fact, that may be the shift needed to take us into the New Age and UBI and an economy that actually works, meaning that the cost of living gets lower each year instead of higher. Maybe what you thought was the thing was the thing that gets us to the thing.
I'm finally finding meaning working at a startup like I thought I'd be in 2000 after a long odyssey. Or I should say, it found me when they saw my comments on a local tech Slack. What changed is my mindset, from ego to service. Where once I was looking for an angle, a hack that would let me get from point A to point B faster, now I seek peace. I stopped chasing money for survival and surrendered to heeding a calling, and letting creation handle the details that foster my existence. After enduring so much negative reinforcement, I've found that the answers can be easier than we ever expected, and that they're often right in front of us.
One thing that we don't talk about is how adversity changes us and pushes us forward. Not that it is easy or fun, but it does help us focus on the future.
Let me give my personal example --
I started back in the job market in 1994 after a stint in the US Marines and things were very, very, very bleak (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_1990s_recession ). I was planning on getting a college degree and was living at home with my parents and planning on working part time, likely for minimum wage (then $3.25/hour) in a two-bit town in Arizona.
In my job search at the local unemployment office I found a post for a job that paid a whopping $7.25 an hour, doing telephone technical support for a little startup by the name of America Online. I was discouraged from applying as I didn't have the skills and should focus on something like security or food service. To be honest, I had no degree but did have PC skills, although no telephony experience. So, I went out and bought one and started learning as much as I could in a short period of time. I got the interview and the job, and about a year later the company exploded and I got to ride the wave into a degree in math and career in tech.
Now, I am not a boomer saying that "you need to try harder." I am also not saying that you just need to find the next hot startup and everything will be fine. Neither of these are true and it sucks that you are in this crisis. I was insanely lucky multiple times.
However, what I will say is that when the current economic model isn't working you have the rare opportunity to take a risk and move towards the future. Desperation doesn't feel good, that is why it is such a good motivator. Take advantage of it.
All the advice around here about networking are spot on. What you need is a job or a degree program that will keep you pointed in the right direction. I don't know if you are an international student or not, but if you are then the only thing that matters is getting a work or study visa. If you are lucky enough to be authorized to work in the US then any job that will keep you fed and in a single room in someone else's apartment in Boston is great. Or, find ANY graduate program ANYWHERE in the country that is vaguely palatable to you. Don't go back to a place where you don't want to be.
Again, this sucks, and I am so sorry that you are caught up in this. Your feelings are justified and valid. But you are caught up in this need to accept where you are and move forward. You will have an Engineering Degree from MIT, and that means you are smart and motivated. This is the definition of "grit", and it will be the next step into your future. You don't have anything to lose.