8 Hard truths I learned when I got laid off from my SWE job

Re:8 Hard truths I learned when I got laid off from my SWE job by anon7725 on Wednesday December 28, 2022 @01:28PM (#34164045)

Just for context, people in scarface’s type of role can “out-TC” many platform/product engineers of the equivalent level, depending on how rewards are structured.

The downside that I’ve noticed is that field roles tend to be cut first in response to market weather/customer focus. But a skilled engineer doing field work is a valued commodity in general.

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Re:8 Hard truths I learned when I got laid off from my SWE job by scarface74 on Wednesday December 28, 2022 @01:38PM (#34164156)

Yes and No.

If I worked for an outside consulting company that would be true - with the inherent risks you stated.

Working at AWS in ProServe, our compensation structure is the same as SDEs - 4 year initial offer, large prorated signing bonus, 5/15/40/40 RSU vesting schedule. It’s different for sales.

The bright side is that there is always work. Worse case, I can be “hired” by another internal team that needs someone to implement a solution to show off a new service.

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Re:8 Hard truths I learned when I got laid off from my SWE job by itake on Wednesday December 28, 2022 @04:21PM (#34166147)

I think you’re misrepresenting your story in your original comment. If you want to be an SDE at a Tier 1, you have to leetcode. There is no persuading the interviewer to pass you without testing your leetcode.

If you are comfortable taking a non-SDE role, then there are opportunities at tech companies that don’t require programming skills or leetcode.

I’m happy you have found an alternative career path, but you’re comparing apples and oranges.

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Re:8 Hard truths I learned when I got laid off from my SWE job by scarface74 on Wednesday December 28, 2022 @04:36PM (#34166306)

There are 2.7 million developers in the US. Most don’t work at a tier 1 tech company.

My original story said nothing about where I work. I was originally referring to my process to get a software development job from 1996-2018.

I only brought up where I work now when someone brought up the r/cscareerquestions type reply of “TC”.

I am very sincere about my lack of desire to ever be a software engineer for a large company. I would give up my current compensation and jump back over to the enterprise dev/architect side of compensation before I ever did that.

Again, I already had the big house in the burbs, retirement savings, etc before AWS ever reached out to me.

I know for a fact that I could call up a few former managers who now work at different companies and they would give me a job faster than I could say “I am looking for…”

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