Reading this, I wonder if the problem is AI or the remote market. From what I've heard, here in Sydney the market is pretty hot, at least for experienced folks. My experience matches that. That said I know that remote jobs are uncommon.

> I know I can work remotely effectively because I did it for the last 6 years.

6 years means that Ryan started right around COVID. Looking back I don't think COVID was the remote renaissance that it appeared at the time, I think it was a temporary blip. That sucks, I'd much rather it was permanent, and some things have changed for the long run, but unfortunately I think this is likely a much bigger factor. Remote jobs have always been few and far between, and super competitive.

I understand the stated feelings of indignation and resentment toward a process that was broken well before the current market conditions, but given the current conditions, isn't applying to 36 jobs and deciding to back out a bit hasty?

With programming becoming boring and AI looming, my almost finished electricians' education from high school does come to mind from time to time.

A friend of mine ended up actually becoming an electrician, and its clear there's a shortage of able-minded people in that industry. In Norway electrician is one of those "never amounted to anything so this is the last resort" jobs, even if it shouldn't be. Simply by being able to follow instructions you beat most of the competition. The pay isn't half bad (around average national pay) and there are plenty jobs that require you to use your brain and vary wildly in what you do from day to day. Sounds like a lot of fun.

It's not a bad plan B.

> The industry at the moment wants people who know how to use AI to further the business goals but here’s the thing nobody wants to admit: not one person knows how to use AI to actually do that. I use it to write a lot of my code and then I critically review that code before it reaches production.

Unfortunately I think the real sentiment here is "here's the thing I don't want to admit: I don't know how to use AI to actually do that." It's not at all clear to me that nobody knows how to utilize AI practically. It's more clear that you have to be working in an environment that values developing this capability enough to pay a lot for tokens and let employees be free to explore, within reason. Or, you have to be willing to spend a lot of free time and cash doing that yourself.

It is, unfortunately, a numbers game (unless you have connections)

In 2024 I applied to ~100 jobs and was rejected or ghosted by the vast majority. It's not a reflection of your ability. Finding a job is strangely difficult even if you are more than capable.

My writeup of finding a job ~2 years ago: https://sjer.red/blog/2024/job-hunt/

Getting a 24 out of 36 response rate on your applications is an S tier level response rate. I mean, the news is bad (rejection), but that is pretty incredible.

I can't make up my mind if that means he is so good that actual human beings look at his profile, or some sort of ATS filtering system just hard rejects him with prejudice.

It looks to me like a really unfortunate intersection between his personal brand - a deep expert on technical details - and the part of the job that at least, perception-wise, people think is completely solved by AI now. Nobody thinks they need a deep expert in Ruby, or JavaScript or any language now. If anything, people may believe over-expert people will be less accepting of AI developed code. It is slightly better for people at the product or architecture level because there's at least some presumption the models need direction on those fronts. It hurts because it isn't the slightest bit rational or fair, but everything is perception now.

Highly experienced people in tech centers like SF, NYC, Boston are struggling so I can't imagine anyone would be looking to hire in a small city in Australia.

Add to that time-zone issues and a very small local market.

I wish you the best but in the nicest way possible, insisting on fully remote work in a random city in Australia will likely narrow your options and make you less attractive to potential employers.

You will find something, I really hope so, but it will just take a lot longer.

I apply to a minimum of 3 jobs a day, and this time I’ve gotten to 1 final stage interview.

It didn’t work out, another job I decided to not proceed with because it’s DoD related.

Had a recruiter cancel the call because she had a personal emergency. Just ghosted me after that , no explanation.

Friday I had a promising call, but I’d have to move again.

I’m not sure what alternative the author proposes to working in tech.

I make music , but I can’t imagine sending a demo to Universal working out.

> The industry at the moment wants people who know how to use AI to further the business goals but here’s the thing nobody wants to admit: not one person knows how to use AI to actually do that.

Of course there are people that know how to do that. If you work an office job and don't know how to do that, you'd better learn to do it fast or start learning to weld or something.

You've applied to only 36 jobs? Where I'm from the norm is to apply to at least 150-200 jobs and you hear back from about 10% of them. Out of which you probably clear 50%. Spray and pray.

> I’ve now applied for over 3 dozen jobs and I’ve heard back from 24 of them with a rejection.

I wouldn’t encourage anyone who wants to do something else to stay, this just read as strange to leave to me. If he wants to find a job in tech surely he could reach to many of the people he’s worked with in the past or connected with at various events before throwing in the towel.

I am pretty torn on remote work and I say that as someone that benefits pretty greatly from it. Between remoteness and the rise of AI, I feel like there is basically no social interaction anymore, and I would be curious to see what an in person environment with AI looks like. It may be awful, but I am just curious. I know it won’t be a popular opinion.

The reality is that there is a huge fracture at the middle of the market. On the one side companies want people to go to an office and struggle to find good people. On the other side good people want to work remote and struggle to find good companies.

My email and LinkedIn are as full as ever with recruiters trying to hire me for positions I’m not really excited about. At my workplace (FAANG) we get tons of applications but very few of them are any good. When I apply to remote roles I can’t get an offer because I am competing with hundreds of other applicants and companies can pick someone with the exact expertise they’re looking for.

Pure remote roles are very hard to get if you don’t already have an in with the team. Letting someone you know and trust work remotely is very different than just hiring someone cold remotely.

Yes there will be the “but we’re a fully remote company and it works great” posts but for the time being cold applying remote puts one at a significant disadvantage in the market and that’s just the reality. About the only thing worse you could put on a CV currently is that you need visa sponsorship.

I'm really sorry to hear that you're going through this. Any company would be lucky to have you on their team.

My strong suggestion to you: pivot to hardware. I still use Ruby but most of my development efforts are ESP32-P4 and RP2350-based these days.

Learning CAD and mastering various additive and subtractive fabrication techniques, getting PCBs made to make ideas real... it's been a roller coaster but LLMs are remarkably good as engineering mentors these days.

And yes, as several others have already said, this might be the time to learn woodworking and/or video production skills.

You'll find that you still need your programming brain, instincts and intuitions. You just deploy them in a different way in support of creating a device instead of an experience [or yet another CRUD form].

>> written books about programming

I was walking by a huge selection of programming books in the library and it stuck me.

What happens to the thousands of tech books written on the art of programming now? It is a sad situation for them as well

> I’m going to chat to some people to figure out what’s next.

One idea would be for the author to ask questions here that they think the answers of will be good input into their reasoning process.

> I’ve now applied for over 3 dozen jobs and I’ve heard back from 24 of them with a rejection

> I cannot continue to put myself through this process of rejection

Need to pump those numbers up, those are rookie numbers. Just kidding, but coming from India, that seems a really small number. We probably have a lot more competition, though, so maybe my views are skewed. I'm also surprised that they haven't even mentioned their network... someone with that amount of experience must be knowing people who can help out.

I applied for more jobs, have heard radio silence more than rejections (forget acceptances), and am still somehow in tech, whatever it means these days.

I keep seeing people pining for the old days. Those days are gone. And even if they came back, it's unlikely that life will be as good, because the entire world economy is in a different state than it was before. The only thing one can do is adapt.

I quit a full-time job a few years ago, took a long break which my accelerated savings helped me easily afford, and now I'm having a ball freelancing despite being a veritable cave-dweller, because everyone wants to AI, but doesn't have the setup to make the AI effective.

One needs to be flexible and stop reminiscing.

If my teaching gig falls through, I'm going to go back to coding with AI but for either the public sector or a non-profit doing work for good.

AI coding isn't remotely as fun or rewarding as hand coding for me, but I'm willing to forgo that for a good cause. But not otherwise.

I'd hope that if I weren't coding for work I'd have the energy to code after work on fun things.

I've met a guy who went from software into being a sherpa. Taking people up the mountain for hikes. Kinda fascinating.

But this post is not representative of the state of the market. The market for tech talent is still very hard/scarce. Finding good people is very difficult. You can validate that by seeing the trend of software salaries. It's not coming down.

20 years is a long career. If you no longer want to adapt then time to call it quits. Hope you saved and invested.

seasoned software engineers are experimenting with using AI to ship actually maintainable software with varying degrees of success (i am doing it, my peers are doing it. it actually can work. it requires immense budget and organizational support for experimentation)

patterns and best practices will emerge. old stuff will be rediscovered. some hard earned wisdom and knowledge will become obsolete while other hard earned wisdom and knowledge will be more valuable than ever.

some good "traditional" software engineers make terrible "AI-engineers" (or whatever the term will be) and will either grow and learn, try to fake it as long as they can, or leave.

lots of us will leave the industry because we're tired. we don't want this new thing. our work was fulfilling because reading and writing helped us learn and grow and become better. asking an LLM to "figure it out" followed by "ok, do it" (or, if you're company is actually funding you, creating loops that do that) robs you of the joy you used to feel.

we will realize that our passion and pride in our work was not really valued by employers. the value was us shipping shit that generates revenue for them.

the interview treadmill is fucking soul crushing.

we will leave and take 75% pay cuts. but our mindspace will belong to us again. we will struggle, but we will be happier.

Remote with that timezone difference seems tricky to find something. Maybe consider starting something on your own? Pro: You can be remote, and dont need to apply, also uncapped upside. Con: It's hard.

I don't mean to be inconsiderate but isn't it normal to have a strong network to lean on after spending two decades in the same sector?

Are there other industries with comparable or even living wages that support full time remote and are easy to transition into?

I’m all ears, so please let me know

It's time for you to buy a leather tool belt.

Warrnambool is nice. Tower Hill is beautiful. I wouldn't want to leave there, either.

Is WFH allowance still dwindling among employers? I'm not in the market so unsure

I have well over 1,000 applications I tracked over the years I've worked in the industry. (Started keeping track in 2014) I've interviewed at hundreds of places. I don't think I've ever interviewed at less than 50 places before getting a reasonable job offer. I have to study leetcode and system design religiously (I've solved over a thousand over the years) before I even apply for one job.

You're telling me you applied for 40 jobs and gave up? Maybe this industry isn't for you then. Have fun in retirement.

While I agree the job market is tough right now, for context OP is living in Australia in what looks like a regional town, so set expectations accordingly.

What we're getting now is small potatoes compared to the job market apocalypse of 2007-2009, and before that, of 2000-2003. What's different is that back then, I think you could blame the downturn on external factors outside our control and still have plenty of faith in the future of software engineering.

Now, we only have ourselves to blame: we built this technology, we enthusiastically embraced it and one-upped each other by showing how much we can vibecode. And now, we're queasy about what comes next.

In my view, probably nothing pretty. I suspect we might wake up in a society that looks much like how it used to: cancer still not cured, poverty and hunger not solved, but now with tech jobs that pay less and suck more because you're just thoughtlessly babysitting agents and are a lot more replaceable in that role.

I’m sorry, I don’t get it… I view the LLMs as just another JS framework or similar. Learn to use it effectively. It’s very simple. I don’t understand why folks are so hesitant to understand. It’s a force multiplier and can be fun.

"Applied to 36 and been rejected by 24" as in interviewed with 24 (which would be incredibly good) or been passed on by 24 which is frankly totally normal?

Every single one of these cases is someone who is too old applying to be an IC. That’s the elephant in the room no one is ever going to acknowledge but everyone knows.

Many people are using AI auto apply tools these days. In comparison, applying to 36 jobs is nothing. I'd encourage him to apply to many more roles. Even though it's not ideal, that's the state of job applications today. We're working on improving the hiring process at levels.fyi. If you're a recruiter / hiring manager get in touch (email in profile)

Ryan needs Nik Suresh. Nik's in Melbourne, runs Hermit Technology, his team works mostly remotely, and he shares Ryan's talent for spotting bullshit. He's also moving into recruiting! Nik wrote this: https://ludic.mataroa.blog/blog/ai-mania-is-eviscerating-glo...

Software development is indeed “cooked”, other tech industries are soon to follow, unfortunately, developers or engineers shot themselves in their foot and failed to guard their profession the same way how healthcare and legal ones did (other white collars jobs). They were too obsessed with automating (and then later AI) their jobs that the decision makers had an aha moment and realized that they don’t even need them anymore. Honestly, I am not so sure why, is it short sighted vision and just focus on the process? Is it too passionate about their work? Or just sheer stupidity? No idea, but years ago I was in a family gathering and a 19yo relative just started her receptionist job, she was excited about it and after knowing what she actually does, I suggested that most of her job can be done through a google form where customers fill it before they call, to make it easier on her, and I remember her saying: yes, but then they will fire me!!

Last time I look I applied to over 50 - and that was in a better market.

36 applications is nothing. Come on

Warrnambool is a long way from Melbourne.

It is a buyers market for developers.

This alone is likely the biggest factor - they have people local who can do the job and that’s their preference.

You might not like it but that’s the way it is.

In this case it’s not likely about AI it’s about location.

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I think this is a bit fatalist.

All 24 of those jobs the author was rejected from likely went to 24 other people who just got hired. I doubt they'd be saying the tech market is cooked. It's more competitive than ever, but that's not the same as cooked.

Looking over the author's achievements, they are great but it's not clear for instance how those kind of things would help at our company, and I'm sure other companies would think the same. We don't care about Ruby or even Javascript... AI has made experience with programming languages more as a footnote rather than a core feature of a resume.

I hope the author will rebrand themselves for the AI era rather than just leave the tech industry entirely. Times are changing, we need good people.

I don't know this person, so maybe there's a greater embarrassment to him getting rejected based on his previous experience, but this is kind of a puzzling read.

He applied for 36 jobs and he cannot take the rejection? Isn't that an extremely modest amount of applications to already be claiming mental anguish? This seems like a lot of doomerism for not that much effort wasted.

I'm sure the author is going through a very hard time, and I want to say up front that it sucks and I hope he lands on his feet.

Looking at his linkedin I see one programming job he had for more than a few months, and a lot that are about 8 months give or take. At one job he started as a programmer after a year and was moved to be a trainer, which he did for 2 more years. That's such a bad sign.

The most likely explanation, to me, of this resume is that there's something more to this story. He gets hired, they give him a few months and then pull the plug. This pattern is there 5 or 6 times, and then one programming job longer than 2 years, which is remote.

I don't know him and I can't say for sure, but this pattern of employment does not fill me with confidence.

Then there are macro issues. He has spent almost his entire career doing Ruby on Rails, which is nearly dead. Jobs for Rails are at 2007 levels as a % of overall tech jobs, and going down year over year for a decade. The tech job market is also saturated with applicants in general.

Finally, and overwhelmingly most importantly, he is only looking for fully remote jobs in Australia.

Overall I would say if he is only willing to consider remote work in Australia, applying to 36 jobs and not getting any is not that surprising. Things are rough out there and he is excluding 99.99% of the job market.

If I were giving him advice, it would be to go get whatever job he can and keep applying to programming jobs if that is where he wants to continue his career. He hasn't been looking very long and his experience in the market he is limiting himself to does not really reflect on him or his abilities. I would give him further advice to clean up his resume, remove several of the short-time jobs that nobody cares about because they are so long ago (but do care about because of the pattern of short term jobs), and combine that job that is split into programmer/trainer stints into one long job with both responsibilities summarized (I programmed and trained people). Finally spend your free time learning a technology that is growing and has relevance, like Rust or Go, and keep applying.

Is this satire? Ragebait to draw attention to your looking for work page (https://ryanbigg.com/work)? It's really well written!

It's the worst possible time to leave a job right now.. anyone else agree?

Bro thought that being a good employee would give him high social position. Rookie mistake. This is the exact reason why IDGAF about my job, do the bare minimum, and spend rest of the time just doing whatever, while trying to speedrun financial independence.

> I’ve now applied for over 3 dozen jobs and I’ve heard back from 24 of them with a rejection

Sorry is this a troll? Go check out the SWE subreddits, people are sending out 1000s of applications before they get something.

A computer used to be a person, not a machine. And their job was to perform long and tedious calculations by hand. Until they were replaced by machines.

Programmers face the same fate. Coding as a job is dead. Nobody is gonna pay you a super high salary so you can sit at home comfortably, with your headphones on, and just code in your favorite typed language.