I'm 40 years old and have been in IT for 20 years, the last 10 as a senior web developer. I'm completely burnt out and want to step away from work for a year, maybe two. We live in Canada, so healthcare is a non-issue here in a couple of ways: core medical care is publicly funded regardless of employment status, and on top of that, I'd be added to my wife's employer insurance for dental, vision, and prescriptions while I'm not working.

On the financial side, we have no mortgage, no kids, spend around $35,000/year, and have $1.1 million in investable assets also her income alone also covers our household expenses roughly twice over. Would you take on the risk of stepping away for a year or two in this situation? I know it might sound like an obvious yes, but I don't want this to unintentionally turn into permanent retirement.

My plan is to try freelancing and explore building something of my own with AI. I just don't have the energy to pursue that while working full-time — honestly, I can barely keep up with my actual job right now, let alone anything extra. The downside here of course is the opportunity cost on giving up a $130,000 salary.

Hi everyone,

I'm honestly feeling overwhelmed and could really use some guidance.

I'm a fresher who recently joined a startup as a Data Analyst intern. I expected to work on SQL, Python, dashboards, and analysis, but my very first task is to design and build a complete production data pipeline.

The requirement is to combine webhooks for real-time data capture with API-based data pulling for historical data.

The problem is that the company has 10 years of historical data, and the third-party API they use has strict rate limits. Because of that, a full data pull takes around 3–4 days. New data is also being generated every day, so the pipeline has to handle both historical backfills and ongoing real-time updates.

The biggest issue is that I've never built anything like this before.

I don't come from a data engineering background. I've spent the last few days reading blogs, watching videos, and using AI tools like Claude and ChatGPT to understand how these systems work and to draft an architecture. But I don't want to build something just because AI suggested it—I want to understand why it's designed that way.

Right now I feel like I'm trying to solve a senior-level problem with beginner-level knowledge.

I'm willing to put in the work. I just don't know what the right learning path is.

If you were in my position:

Where would you start?

What concepts should I learn first?

Are there any books, courses, YouTube playlists, or GitHub projects that helped you understand production data pipelines?

How would an experienced data engineer approach a problem like this?

What mistakes should I avoid?

I know this is a broad question, but even if you could point me toward the right resources or learning roadmap, it would mean a lot.

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

Please dont be rude im looking for guidance in the comments.

Im about to graduate form CS and i feel like i don’t know how to do anything to be honest.
I just know Java and C because of my college classes. The projects are always half made and sure i get it we learn to design and computer architecture, but if you ask me to build an API i have no clue how to.

If you tell me to build a website i have no clue how to start. Yes i can do everything with claude code like everyone else but that is not the point.

I really want to learn how to develop. How can i even start doing that? I read about junior job interviews where they are asked leet code (yes i can do this) and then to write an API and im like…am i supposed to learn that at college or they learned it by themselves?

so currently i'm learning web dev and decided to start building some projects with pure javascript before moving to the frameworks .

knowing that i already learned some react basics and build the simple projects that are listed in the freecodecamp tutorial video . i tried back then to pause before the solution to every problem and did fairly well on applying what i was learning but i never build something big like a e-commerce website with it or a blog or anything that requires databases even though i know mongodb , mysql , oracle databases and previously made a e-commerce website using php which i forgot btw .

i understand the important concepts in javascript lfor example asynchronous operations , objects ,Modules , destructing.

i really need advise like my goal right now is to be able to comfortably build a any web application that requires both front-end and backend .

i really don't enjoy front-end much as much as the code is functional i don't really take great detail in it . although i want to get into machine learning and automation after web dev as it is what i really like and enjoy.

i really need your advice programmers !

Guys, I am a Software Engineer student, I am very familiar with all the tech I use in my projects, I can explain them very fluently, but with the practice of ai, if anybody says to write react code, I can do it for sure, but I feel more nervous than before,

For interviews at a company nowadays, should I be practicing syntax and all,

It feels like, getting tested for something which I am expected to abstract to fast up for real work

I really need some experience advising me.

I'm working at a company which uses AI to generate code and AI to review it. They're shipping stuff faster than ever and it produces so much there's no way for a human to review it in a sensible amount of time. I've heard lots of places are doing this, but I don't understand what people are going to do once OpenAI, Anthropic etc. start charging face value for tokens. For this reason, I've been using AI to teach me rather than do the work for me, with the assumption it will disappear one day (I do use it for repetitive boring tasks though, which I already understand).

People often respond with "it will remain in some capacity", but given the amount of tokens required for it to make 10x engineers, I just can't see how it will e.g. one argument is moving models in-house / making it on-prem, but wouldn't that still be too costly if people continue to use it as they do now?

I feel like I'm missing something, because once it disappears (or companies cut back token usage to the point where it's useless), we're going to be left with 10x as much code than we could have ever produced by ourselves, and there's going to be issues which we won't understand.

I recently attended a technical interview for flutter developer role. In my resume I had put this point as my work experience “built json to widget engine” this is a main functionality of a project btw.

In the interview they asked me to do this exactly (generate a dynamic form based on json give with validation with clean architecture ) and without AI without using anything. I mean i know how to do it but it would take at least a day since it’s an actual prototype of what I had done In my project.

Need insights on how recruiters of tech leads are hiring experienced candidates now in this AI era or this js a once in a blue moon thing which this hiring process which i have attended.

(I have successfully completed whats asked but used AI and there’s no way that they could finish what is asked with given time)

I'm a software engineer with 4 years of experience, and lately I've been feeling lost—not because I don't know what to do, but because I feel like I'm trying to do it alone.

Around me, most people seem content with their current jobs and salaries. Everyone says they want a better company or a higher package, but very few are willing to consistently put in the hours required to get there. I don't mean this as criticism—it's just what I've observed.

The problem is that I'm also affected by my environment.

I genuinely want to improve. I've been trying to study DSA to become a better problem solver and prepare for higher-paying opportunities. I also want to deepen my backend engineering skills and eventually build products of my own.

But I struggle with consistency.

My brain constantly wants everything to be concise, fast, and immediately understandable. The moment something requires sustained effort, I find myself distracted. Then I feel guilty for not making progress, and the cycle repeats.

What I think I'm really missing isn't another course or roadmap—it's an environment.

I want to surround myself with people who are obsessed with building things, learning, and pushing themselves. People working on startups, open-source projects, SaaS products, AI tools, developer tools—anything where there's real ownership and continuous learning.

I'm not looking for shortcuts or passive motivation. I'm looking for a mission.

If you're building something and need another backend engineer who's willing to learn, contribute, and put in the work, I'd genuinely love to be involved. I don't expect immediate rewards—I want experience, accountability, and the chance to grow alongside ambitious people.

If you've ever felt this way and managed to break out of it, I'd really appreciate hearing what changed for you.

I'm 26, based in India, with 4 YOE in backend development (primarily Java/Spring Boot), and I'm ready to invest serious effort into becoming much better than I am today.

Thanks for reading.

I'm a software engineer with 4 years of experience, and lately I've been feeling lost—not because I don't know what to do, but because I feel like I'm trying to do it alone.

Around me, most people seem content with their current jobs and salaries. Everyone says they want a better company or a higher package, but very few are willing to consistently put in the hours required to get there. I don't mean this as criticism—it's just what I've observed.

The problem is that I'm also affected by my environment.

I genuinely want to improve. I've been trying to study DSA to become a better problem solver and prepare for higher-paying opportunities. I also want to deepen my backend engineering skills and eventually build products of my own.

But I struggle with consistency.

My brain constantly wants everything to be concise, fast, and immediately understandable. The moment something requires sustained effort, I find myself distracted. Then I feel guilty for not making progress, and the cycle repeats.

What I think I'm really missing isn't another course or roadmap—it's an environment.

I want to surround myself with people who are obsessed with building things, learning, and pushing themselves. People working on startups, open-source projects, SaaS products, AI tools, developer tools—anything where there's real ownership and continuous learning.

I'm not looking for shortcuts or passive motivation. I'm looking for a mission.

If you're building something and need another backend engineer who's willing to learn, contribute, and put in the work, I'd genuinely love to be involved. I don't expect immediate rewards—I want experience, accountability, and the chance to grow alongside ambitious people.

If you've ever felt this way and managed to break out of it, I'd really appreciate hearing what changed for you.

I'm 26, based in India, with 4 YOE in backend development (primarily Java/Spring Boot), and I'm ready to invest serious effort into becoming much better than I am today.

Thanks for reading.

​

Hi everyone,

I have 1 year of experience in an MNC. Most of my work has been on a support project. So, I am building personal projects to demonstrate my skills while preparing for a switch.

So far, I have built some projects that are basically CRUD applications using spring boot, postgresql, redis, kafka. But, I have not built any project that deeply integrates AWS services.

I am already proficient in Spring Boot, Microservices, Docker, Postgresql. So I am building a HLS video transcoder project. The idea is to upload a video, process it asynchronously, transcode it into HLS using FFmpeg, and serve it through CloudFront.

Tech stack:

Spring Boot, Next.js, PostgreSQL, Docker, AWS (S3, ECS, SQS, CloudFront), terraform.

By building this project I want to showcase AWS knowledge, Scalable system design, Microservices, Containerization and Infrastructure as Code.

But, Now a days many people are building AI agents, RAG applications, and LLM-based projects. Do you think this project is enough to help get my resume shortlisted for product-based companies, or should I switch to an AI-related project instead?

If you were a hiring manager, would this project stand out for someone with 1 or 2 year of experience?

Also, I'd appreciate any project ideas that better showcase backend and cloud engineering skills.

Thanks!

I am new to the field, recently graduated with an MS in comp sci and am in the process of switching careers. I am fortunate enough to be working with a startup founder and I am tasked with redesigning a mobile app for the App Store and the Google Play Store.

On my desktop I run Linux and I have Windows 11 on a laptop- no Mac devices.

Are there any legit workarounds or do I need to buy a Mac? Also for reference, the backend is built and I am only doing new UI in React-native.

basically the title, I’ve been working for about a year and half now and im very grateful to have this job in the current market but im struggling with coming back home and coding for fun. When I was in school, ever so often I’d make fun lil projects or learn things or do something after class which would help me grow as an engineer. These days either I come back home and keep working on “work” stuff or simply scroll until bed time. It’s very monotonous and I don’t feel like I’m making much growth as a developer. I’m not able to detach from work and neither engage in personal projects. And this is making me feel very empty and hollow. my question is to all the senior engineers here, has any of you been able to get back to coding for fun? If yes, how? Or is this my life now? Perhaps maybe I should peruse a masters? Idk looking for any kind of advice

I am a 3rd year CSE-AIML student looking to learn some skills that would help me get placed. Due to the recent lack of mentorship, I am unable to decide what to learn. I was going to learn the usuals like DBMS,oops,cn , maybe fullstzck and dsa. but recent videos and trends shattered my vision. Some say learn AI, try to become an AI Engineer and some say go for the usual. I am confused a lot and at the helpless position I seek genuine mentorship. I wanna learn what gets people placed in good/decent product based firms. I don't wanna waste my time thinking, I wanna build something of my life. This post is my last resort and my final beacon of hope.

I am a 6+ years experienced BE software engineer here.
In my org, people expect me to master claude skills , so that repetitve development task could be done by the skill.
But as I regularly use claude for development, i could see claude does a lot of dev right. I just give an implementation / a design doc to it and it does the entire work itself without big noteable bugs(along with test cases etc.. etc..).

There are some areas in devops which I m not so good at. But claude knows almost everything in the application and sets up everything right.

How do u escape from becoming obselete ?

I know there will be a need for engineers to solve problems. Problem solving involves design and execution . If our design is going to be one which we choose from a list of options given by claude , execution is going to entirely by claude, where do we make an impact ?

And how many of the problems are there(on a day to day basis) where engineers input is really needed other than claude's input( choosing from list of claude's options)?

I am not against AI , it is definetly the way forward.

But how do we evolve as a better engineer ?
Should we become jack of all trades , will that be the calibre measured going forward ?

Would love your inputs here...
#career

Copilot using Claude vs using Claude Code. My organization’s leadership is considering switching over to claude code as opposed to copilot. They are asking us what we think

After some research, i think the harness (e.g multi agent orchestration) for CC is more powerful than copilot.

What do ya’ll think?

I am starting with a flagship project of my resume, majorly backend. A project that would get me noticed. Can someone tell me what kind of projects recruiters are looking for in today's market.

Is it scalability? Like made a chat application, but it handles 10000 users and has Redis and all.

Or is it technical complexity? Like make an IDE on which users can edit code simultaneously. No git pull push.

Hi, I started doing The Odin project recently, I'm about half way through. I wanted to learn how to code in regards to things like web design and game devving. After I finish TOD, I wanted to move over to learning how to code in Godot through reading its doc along with other resources.

All this to say, when I have learned these things and have a good bit of practice and knowledge under my belt, how would I go about finding work? If possible, I was hoping to stay freelance, and work with people in independent web devving and game devving. However, I know that's not the most practical path to take. So in that regard, what should I keep my eyes out for?

Also, I keep hearing from nay sayers, things like "AI is going to take out all the code jobs." I doubt this, but also have to ask, is that REALLY a threat I may have to contend with?

Anyway, thanks for reading, I'll take whatever suggestions or advice I can get.

Hi Guys, I'm a AI developer with 1 YOE. Prev inhand salary was 74K INR fully remote work and I'm switching my job to delhi based company where I'll be working remotely with switzerland based client.

Now tell me what should be my expected Fixed salary monthly and yearly CTC. Founder offered 80K a month fully remote in hand, But I'm not going to accept it as this has only the increment of 5k.

My expected is 12 LPA fixed remotely considering the AI market and switzerland client. He's ready for 13 LPA for WFO

Tell me what should be the right ask? Am I wrong here by asking too less considering the Gen AI and Agentic AI skills market.

Is BCA worth it to get a Software Engineer job because when a company sees resume it first check qualification and most companies hired only btech students.

The 3 years that I have been a dev I almost never did this, I am not an extrovert person and I had resigned my self that I was gonna be a dev forever, because talk to people is not my speciality. Im a very tech person, when I was a dev I didnt care about the user stories, I usually used to take the tech debt or tech stories, and Im not gonna lie, I was lazy. But keep updated with the latest technologies, patterns, frameworks updates was my passion, I always wanted to make changes on my teams project and someties I proposed cross-cutting solutions but nobody really give a damn.

This year the company posted a job for national tech lead (new position on the company with presence on the whole country with devs arround the states). I said "okay, I would like to see my level", you can imagine my surprise when I got selected. Honestly this is like a dream, and this promotion really got me. I could not believe what I was living, I could finally use the 100% from my capacity making PoCs, discovering new technolgies and implementing cross-project solutions, at least that was how I imagined the role.

Have been almost half year on the role and Im now exausted, not because of the hard work, because this is not what I thought, but dont get me wrong, I really like it, Im out of my confort zone, learning new things, new ways to work, manage people, etc. but that is the problem, Its like a people management role. I as a tech lead CANT write code, this is a rule that applies also to the architects.

I really miss writing code, I talked to my superior, they told me they could make and exception if I venture into a team to coach them, the first week I refactorized the whole project, thaught them the lineaments and made follow to their changes, It was very satisfing writing code after a long time, but after that i could never do it again, because I didnt have to impact on their sprint results.

Recently i have started a meeting with all the devs that Im gonna have once a month, I talked about all we are gonna do together, share experiences, I was gonna help them to make PoCs, implement cross-projects solutions and standarize solutions that they could propose, but nobody really seems interested (at least 4 or 5 from 70+). Me as a tech lead cant write code, but i can "delegate" tasks to "volunteers", because I cant interfiere on their sprints capacity, and thats the cherry on the cake, my role doesnt have autority above anybody, if I want to make an PoC I depend on my devs capacity, I have to ask one per one if they wanted to make it and sell them the product to see if somebody want to do it. My role is to influence people without autority.

Its very frustating because my role is very lonely, Im not on a dev level but neither on the architect level, I feel like I dont belong with anybody, some architects understimate me and the devs overstimate me, Most of the time I feel like Im the only one from the devs that have time to propose new solutions, and I have to beg people to take a tech story, a PoC, etc. Often the architects or COE add me on meetings architecture related and I really enjoy being there, oftenly I cant say anything (because Im not at that level), when is something related to implementation or project management I really interact there.

Honestly dont know what to do. It feels like everything I've learned so far is useless now. I have spent nights looking at an empty note with nothing on my mind or crying because I really dont know how to handle this job. I feel like they made a mistake when promoted me, but this is an unique oportunity to show an grow like never, I dont wanna waste this oportunnity, what should I do??

Hi everyone,

I've been working as a frontend engineer for the past 4+years, primarily with react,nextjs, typescript and javascript, building enterprice-scale web applications and solving complex frontend challenges.

Lately, I've been feeling ready for something more challenging bigger technical problems, opportunities to improve system architecture, collaboration with experienced engineers, and continue growing beyond day-to-day feature development l.

I'm curious to hear from others who have made a similar transition. What kinds of companies or team gave you the biggest technical growth?

What should I be looking for next?

Background: from mid 2019 to mid 2021 I was a freelance software engineer after leaving a full-time position at a company I'd spent five years with. I was contacted by a consulting firm about an offer and I accepted not realizing the hijinks they were going to put me through. Training Repayment Agreements, a nearly 60% cut off the top of any salary the client offered, and being directed to lie to and mislead clients under threat of the TRA being enforced. I was placed with a client in early 2022 and later that year they reached out to me behind the agency's back and said, "go full-time for us". It was a way out of a bad agency so I took the offer and after some messy, er, we'll call them "shenanigans", I cut myself loose from the contract and went full-time with my client. It was a painful experience but I had to stick to my morals. Unfortunately in late 2023 I realized my job was going to come to an end (the company eventually shut down) so I quit and started looking for work. It's now 2026, I still don't have a software job and I've been supporting my family previously with gig driving and recently with a warehouse job.

The deal with the devil: I was scrolling through some job postings and came across an agency that I'm aware is similar to the agency I worked for. They're notorious for some pretty strict TRAs, keep you under contract for years, try to pressure you into their desired behaviors, and usually take a cut from your salary. BUT I'm aware that they'd be an almost guaranteed yes for me which would get me back into software where I'm not wrecking my body (I'm close to being disabled and one injury could be the deciding factor) and offer enough pay for me to start thinking about my future again instead of surviving the next 24 hours. This is clearly a deal with the devil but honestly at this point it's looking like a good deal to me because at least I'd be able to walk into it knowing the terms this time. I'm at the point where I'm willing to compromise some of my morals to make sure my family is provided for because choosing not to take an opportunity to provide for them and make them continue to suffer is definitely the wrong choice, right?

I'd appreciate your thoughts. I'm on the fence and considering shaking the devil's hand. Is there any reason I should be pulled back now? Or should I take the risk and rent out my soul for a little while?

​

Hello,

I am scared. Very scared. It's scary to even wake up in the morning. I had been a good student in my academic life no backlogs no bad grades as such. Covid happened during my college days didn't learn anything got a campus placement. AI happened in work. I more or less worked as DevOps no any backend development at all. Not even in college days. I dont understand any code base at the moment when I take a look. Currently even after 4 years of experience I am in this hell hole. My existing work has been great and I have done well in DevOps/cloud end. But there were no real complex items most existing things that I copied pasted or refered from.

Now my manager has put me into vulnerability fixes detected by AI mythos. And I am very scared looking at the cards. I didn't understand a word of the jira description and not even sure what needs to be fixed. I dont know how to test it where to test it even if I somehow use AI to get the fix. The manager states that the jira card is max 1 days worth of efforts. For me it looks like 2 years. I am very scared and just about to breakdown and cry and I haven't even started working on them. Why is IT so scary ?? Why do I get afraid every time there is something new. I have the meeting scheduled for this in another hour and I am very scared to attend it. Things have happened in the past similar and I panicked just like this took some days off to just cool down and I even cried in front of my parents on my mom's lap when I was 24.

How does one don't get afraid and intimidated of new work.why does it feel like I am suffering tooo much?