Hey everyone,
I haven’t had that great of luck landing a new-grad/entry-level role since I graduated 9 months ago (May 2023). I’m thinking of changing my career focus and possibly pivoting out of tech.
For context, I have almost 6 months of mediocre internship experience as an Embedded Software Engineer. I also have experience being a coding team lead for a project as part of a club activity at my uni for two semesters, to which I actually I enjoyed. As for roles, I’ve been applying to Embedded SWE, general SWE, hardware SWE, and systems engineering roles.
While this experience looks okay on my resume as a new-grad, it’s been a struggle for me in searching for a job, and getting through the technical interviews. There’s this element of dread in looking for jobs, preparation for job interviews, doing leetcode and even while working on personal projects.
Recently I’ve been thinking of looking into becoming an accountant or something similar since I like crunching numbers and since credit card churning, and FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) plans interest me a lot. So I’d have to go back to school and prepare for the CPA Exam.
If I were to stay in tech though, I would consider going into IT by getting the CCNA certification, maybe.
I could use some advice from those with experience, and I could also use advice from people who have pivoted in or out of tech and how you handled executing a career change.
I’m a hiring manager at a FAANG, and might have some advice.
First, as you are painfully aware, you ended up landing at an entry level during a contraction phase in the market. Two or three years ago you’d have landed a job straight out of school. Of course, there’d be a chance you’d have been laid off by now, but the market was different then.
It will be different again soon. I’m old enough to have been through this in 2000-2003 or so, and again in the 2008-9 downturn. Capitalism is a stupid system incapable of moderating wild swings. We thought we could do it, but the money took charge again and removed those circuit breakers, and we ended up with administrations like Trump’s driving us into deeper debt to prevent a slowdown, which was like running up your credit card balance while you’re still pulling in more and more money to increase yet further your spending. Yes, it lets you inflate your lifestyle but it leaves you with little or no headroom when you need it.
In any case, it’s going to come back. In the meantime, there’s a couple of options if you don’t want to pivot. The most obvious one is grad school. If you don’t have a family (and especially if you can get a grant or other funding), that’s both a great way to wait things out for a couple of years (or more if you want a PhD) and a way to make more money and have a more targeted career in the industry once you’re out. It might even be worth getting a student loan, but if you do DO NOT DROP OUT NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS. You will make things infinitely worse if you end up owing a tuition loan with no degree to show for it.
The second is to check your location. Things are tough all over, but some locations and industries are different than others. NYC, Bay Area, Research Triangle, SoCal, and Boston are all different markets, and that’s leaving out the Midwest etc.
Third, assuming you’re in the US and a citizen, is to consider government work. They pay solid salaries (if not as high as industry at its height) and do fewer layoffs. That can extend to contractors as well. In fact, you’d probably start through a contractor regardless, but it’s a solid possibility as long as you can get/maintain a security clearance. I did military and intelligence work for a long time before deciding I wanted to do something less morally ambiguous, but by that time I was afforded that flexibility. Basically you need no criminal record, no recent drug use, and US citizenship.
The last one, and I hesitate mentioning it because it is not universally applicable, is to use your social network. A friend of a friend slipping your resume to someone at a company is going to leapfrog you over the other applicants. Especially as the industry starts to come back, do not hesitate to talk to friends and family or people you’ve worked on OSS projects with. I can tell you from the inside it’s a huge advantage.
Good luck, and I hope at least some of this might apply.
Thank you for your insightful response. I was initially considering grad school in something that is lateral to my degree in Computer engineering and CS minor, like data science or similar. I actually haven’t even considered applying to grants so that is a great suggestion. I’ll do some research on what kind of programs I can apply to and see if there are any grants that are applicable to me.
As for location, I am around NYC. While I have been applying mostly in this area, I’m also applying all over the country as well, but still strongly prefer to work in or around a city. While I do get that certain cities have their own share of different industries and hubs, I didn’t realize that the market for jobs is also dependent on area but it all makes sense when you put it together…
I failed to mention that I did actually land one offer at a tiny defense company in a rural part of the east coast though I declined it as I wasn’t comfortable working in that industry and I wasn’t willing to move out of a city area.
While I ultimately do not regret declining the offer, I reflected on the idea that I probably don’t have a choice on which industry I work in as a first job; the main goal is to gain experience.
I haven’t aspired to work in a government position too much because of my condition mentioned above, but I guess I need to sacrifice my idea of an ideal job and rough it out for maybe a year in that type of industry.
Per your last point, reaching out has been very effective in me finding opportunities, so that’s a great suggestion. I’ve been using Linkedin to connect with alumni to seek mentorship and advice, and I’ve even gotten referrals to some target companies through them and their network. I’ve also been reaching out to friends who are working and while these all translate into some interviews, there still hasn’t been any cigar.
I’ve been feeling a lack of drive after having bombed some technical interviews and still not generating any experience nor cash and so that’s why I was thinking about pivoting in the first place. Even with taking account of the current market situation, it’s still crushing to see others land something and all my friends around me working while I’m still at home. /rant
Regardless, I’m grateful for your insight. I’ll look further into grad school while applying, and open up my breadth in terms of industries I should be applying to.
As long as you’re thinking about grad school, let me give you one more tip.
It’s often easier to get grad school paid for if you go into one of the hard sciences (eg physics, chemistry, biology). Where I taught, we gave every bio grad student a tuition waiver, room and board, and a (small) stipend.
You may be required to take a position as a teaching assistant (these suck, avoid if there are other options) or research assistant (this is what you want although they can suck in their own way). You’ll also have to come up with a song and dance about how your undergrad work puts you in a particularly good spot for research in [area] even though that wasn’t your major, and you will end up having to be able to pass the basic undergrad coursework in that area at some point.
CS grad programs (and many engineering programs in general) have a long list of applicants with checks in hand, and don’t need to grant stipends and such. You may still be competitive for them and should apply, but I’ll tell you that a candidate with an undergrad degree in CS with a PhD in astrophysics applying for a job as a data scientist is going to the front of the line.