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Finding and retaining work is counter intuitive. The jobs that are most easily filled are the ones that are most easily released. This means that if you want to

Finding and retaining work is counter intuitive. The jobs that are most easily filled are the ones that are most easily released. This means that if you want to survive layoffs in a recession you have to stop chasing trends and be extremely choosy on where you find employment. You have to add actual business value that is not easily replicated by the marketplace. I started at one of the most well known e-commerce dot coms a year before the Great Recession. A few months into that employment I was involuntarily reassigned from a designer to a developer and told to figure it out. That year I ended up with a negative performance review. That’s the kind of thing that pushes people to the front of the line for layoffs. A month later the layoffs started and a bunch of people started leaving. All kinds of talent was axed including directors from all segments of the business. This company couldn’t hire competent front end developers at all. As a result my job was super safe irrespective of my poor annual performance. You can’t run a website business without website people. They would eventually attempt to make everything jQuery related but that resulted in horrid quality products by replaceable people who were easy to fire. My learning from all this is: * Don’t chase trends * Become competent in your craft (as opposed to becoming a framework/tool monkey) * Add business value * Be persistent * Have a backup plan, like a secondary career that you can easily jump into * Have a hobby that reinforces your career. Software is an immature industry and in many cases is filled with crybabies that shouldn’t be there in the first place. Know that and make tough decisions on where you spend your time both on the job and outside the office. * Make friends. A personnel connection at a prospective employer is huge.

MisterSandman 4y ago
What would be a secondary career to software developer? I feel like SWE is wide enough that it isn't worthwhile to be a trained, idk, accountant just in case the software world collapses.
rjh29 4y ago
> Software is an immature industry ... know that and make tough decisions on where you spend your time both on the job and outside the office. Yeah no. It's unrealistic and unhealthy to expect programmers to be extremely passionate about their craft and have no interest in anything else outside of work. I know people like that, they do well and earn good salaries, but the rest of us 90% can happily work a 40 hour job and then do non-computer things in our free time.
- throwaway0asd 4y ago
  If an opinion reduces down to some form of I shouldn't have to... its either due to a regulatory constraint, ethics concern, or whining (entitlement). My thinking is if people wanted to work by watching a clock they would be hourly employees doing hourly work.
  - rjh29 4y ago
    I have reread your comment and I understand you're talking about a recession-type situation where people are being fired. In that context I agree that you need to make yourself competitive. I still draw the line at spending personal time doing work related tasks (or excessive overtime in general) - I'm not interested in it - but if one feels they need that edge to get (or keep) a job then I understand the argument. Another option is just accepting lower compensation. There are companies like Netflix and Tesla for very intelligent or hard working people, and other companies for less intelligent or less hard working people. Competition is the same at both levels because the former has fewer jobs and pays more. Yet another option is developing niche talent that nobody else has. Then you're not competing on the same playing field as everyone else.

MisterSandman 4y ago

What would be a secondary career to software developer? I feel like SWE is wide enough that it isn't worthwhile to be a trained, idk, accountant just in case the software world collapses.

rjh29 4y ago

> Software is an immature industry ... know that and make tough decisions on where you spend your time both on the job and outside the office. Yeah no. It's unrealistic and unhealthy to expect programmers to be extremely passionate about their craft and have no interest in anything else outside of work. I know people like that, they do well and earn good salaries, but the rest of us 90% can happily work a 40 hour job and then do non-computer things in our free time.

throwaway0asd 4y ago
If an opinion reduces down to some form of I shouldn't have to... its either due to a regulatory constraint, ethics concern, or whining (entitlement). My thinking is if people wanted to work by watching a clock they would be hourly employees doing hourly work.
- rjh29 4y ago
  I have reread your comment and I understand you're talking about a recession-type situation where people are being fired. In that context I agree that you need to make yourself competitive. I still draw the line at spending personal time doing work related tasks (or excessive overtime in general) - I'm not interested in it - but if one feels they need that edge to get (or keep) a job then I understand the argument. Another option is just accepting lower compensation. There are companies like Netflix and Tesla for very intelligent or hard working people, and other companies for less intelligent or less hard working people. Competition is the same at both levels because the former has fewer jobs and pays more. Yet another option is developing niche talent that nobody else has. Then you're not competing on the same playing field as everyone else.