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Less than 3 years as a developer and already been laid off twice. Does it ever get better? (lemmy.world)

submitted 6 days ago by [email protected] to c/cs_career_questions

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I'm a 25 yo British guy. I landed my first job as a dev in 2022 for a consultancy with a 1 year international placement, it was good but a few months after returning, the whole cohort was laid off due to corporate politics between the offices in the two countries. After 7 months of searching, I got my second job working for a small pensions fintech startup, it was fine but I didn't find it all that fulfilling. After 9 months of working there, the CEO pulled me into a meeting and said they'd made a mistake hiring me and they needed a more senior developer who could help steer the company from a business perspective too, so I was once again laid off.

That was in January, since then I've had 2 interviews, both of which have gone nowhere. The vibe of every position that's matched my CV has basically been the same sort of work- pretty mundane web dev roles and I can see myself being pulled into a cycle of mundane work then being laid off. I've wanted to be a developer for as long as I can remember, I started writing code when I was 12, studied CS throughout school so I could go to uni and do it for my degree - but now, I feel so disillusioned with the whole industry, where do I go from here? Does it get better? How do I find a job that actually feels fulfilling?

Sorry for the ramble, it's 4am and I just happened to stumble across this community while scrolling. Thought it might be worth an ask.

TLDR; been laid off twice in about 2 and a half years, feeling pretty disillusioned with everything, where do I go from here?

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 days ago

I've got nearly thirty years of experience. My advice is to never get too comfortable at any one place. For lots of reasons.

That being said, the last three years have been particularly brutal, at least in the US. I haven't clocked over 12 months in any positions since Covid. Of course, I've almost always been a contractor so that's the nature of the gig. My first job lasted nearly ten years. I had another last 5 and I left on my own terms. Covid saw me laid off on my two year anniversary of the only straight job I've ever had.

That said, it's been a great job for me. I have a passion for solving puzzles and mentoring. With two long exceptions, I've always had a new job lined up within a couple of weeks of getting laid off.