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My experience graduating right into the dot-bomb was it absolutely sucked. I, a fresh-faced grad, was competing against experienced engineers who were laid off
by yardie 1y ago
My experience graduating right into the dot-bomb was it absolutely sucked. I, a fresh-faced grad, was competing against experienced engineers who were laid off after Y2K, Cosmo, Yahoo, and other dotcoms for entry-level jobs. I wasn't very bitter then, but now when I meet mid-20s developer with "senior" or "director" titles, it hurts knowing that 3-5 years of my career was wasted trying to string together credible work history portfolio.
The best thing I did was tap out, sell my car, turn in my apartment keys, bought a one way ticket, and stuff my life into large backpack. I saw lots of things, made lots of friends, and met a life partner. Simply because life decided to unplug the career treadmill and there was no point in me trying to run on it.
- eldaisfish 1y agoa mid 20s person with "director" in their title sounds good on paper but there is no credible replacement for experience.
- SketchySeaBeast 1y agoYeah, I'm assuming they signed onto a startup with a bad case of title inflation.
- chaosharmonic 1y agoCan confirm, I myself was a one person support desk (for a restaurant chain) and just never officially had a title. The internal moniker of "the IT guru" was fine for an email signature, but certainly not for a resume. (I've since made other retroactive edits to that, both for something more sensible and to better represent years of scope creep.)
- anon7000 1y agoStartups are weird though, new college grads can be (inexperienced) CTOs & CEOs if they start a company together
- jvanderbot 1y agoI have a former coworker in their early 20s who left a startup as Senior (they were 1 year out from graduating) to become a "Director" at another startup. Their first job was implementing the control law for the robot's wheels. In this case (and perhaps many others), "Director" just meant "Only person we have".
- Trixter 1y agoIt can also mean that on the way down. At a private unix software company in 1994, the rise of Linux destroying our business led to firing nearly everyone in support except the cheapest person (me). As I was the only person left in tech support, I became Director of Tech Support by default.
- AbstractH24 1y agoI actually told a startup o joined a few years back that was 5 people that I wanted a more junior title. Because cod it didn’t make it off the ground I didn’t want folks rejecting me as overqualified for roles I was well suited for and under-skilled for ones say my title Turned out the company didn’t make it and the title in my resume I one I made up anyway.
- sys_64738 1y agoTitles are bogus and everybody wants to be a "senior" something so they claim to not be clueless. Director is a ten-a-penny title like in the Wall Street banks. There, every other person is a VP. It's a total joke.
- pavlov 1y agoAlso “Head of X” which often means the titleholder is practically the only person doing X at the company, and/or has no actual power.
- leoqa 1y agoUsually this is the “leads the function but we’re not going let them into the c-suite”. The head of engineering gets usurped by the outside cto hire and put out to pasture.
- devinprater 1y agoOh, that explains the Microsoft Chief Accessibility Officer. No power.
- kulahan 1y agoIsn’t Microsoft pretty great with accessibility?
- cjbgkagh 1y agoIt seems like a weird choice, I would expect that person to have quite a bit of power.
- devinprater 1y agoThey've been slipping, especially on Windows.
- rcruzeiro 1y agoAs a former Head of Mobile, I agree.
- tuesdaynight 1y agoIf you don't mind sharing, what would be the things that a person should think about it before doing the same action that you did? I'm always torn between doing that or saving more and trying to make changes later in life.
- snozolli 1y agoI'm not the guy you asked, but given the way that things are going right now, if you're currently gainfully employed and not miserable, then you should continue banking money for as long as you can. For every romantic story you read about someone selling their stuff and striking out into the world, there are a bunch more stories of people who ruined a reasonable life trajectory chasing a vague dream or simply fleeing discontent. Talking to a therapist and practicing gratitude is a lot cheaper than burning through life savings. That said, if you're genuinely miserable in your life and career, definitely pursue changes. You should probably consult professionals (therapists, life coaches) in that case, too.
- pjc50 1y agoI feel that young people having a Big Adventure Before Settling Down is very traditional, the sort of thing that adds "life experience" even if (especially if) some of the experiences are difficult. But it does need to be cheap. And the 21st century crackdown on worker mobility has made it much harder to have a proper international adventure.
- daxfohl 1y agoAdmittedly there can be some survivorship bias in the stories one hears about, but anecdotally I know several people who have taken time off from their careers and zero have regretted it. On the converse side, I know lots of people who never took time off but wish they had. (I also know plenty of people who never took time off because "time off" isn't in their DNA, but they're not the ones who are considering the option). Yeah there's a danger that this tech recession is "permanent" somehow, but I took mine in the midst of the dotcom crash and by the time I came back (three years later), the economy had recovered. I think tech will always come back. And if it doesn't, then maybe getting out early and having time to reflect will allow you a head start on whatever your next pivot is.
- laborcontract 1y agoGraduating in a recession is really unfair to the graduate. Economists have looked at the effects on lifetime wages and it's estimated that recession kids lose in aggregate about 20% in lost lifetime wages, and to no fault of their own. Of course this is an aggregate figure, but it goes to show how uneven economic outcomes can be across cohorts.
- dasil003 1y agoLife’s not fair in general. Personally though I have no regrets starting my career in 2001. Sure it was harder to get a job and it paid less, but it made me more willing to join a startup which gave me experience and skills that opened more leadership doors later. By contrast I see a lot of folks with 10-15 years experience whose “normal” is an unprecedented bull market where stock is continuously up and to the right with very little correlation to their actual work. Yeah they made more money than I did, but I don’t believe their psychology is in a better place. Either way, you can’t control for these things in life, just have to play the hand you’re dealt.
- potato3732842 1y ago>I don’t believe their psychology is in a better place. People are as ignorant and stupid as their experience in life permits. This is why highly imperfect messages about privilege resonate despite being imperfect (which they must be to resonate, perversely).