I've reached out to a few hiring managers and recruiters and let them know I gave up on applying for their job because their software failed to parse my resume containing 20+ years of experience.
I truly hope whoever thought it was a good idea to stop accepting PDFs resumes, loses their job and spends the rest of their life trying to apply for jobs using these awful platforms.
At 45 I got laid off from a startup in June 2023 after trying to push through burnout for over 2 year. After 4 purely cosmetic redesigns of the product before we were even public, I just stopped caring. Our none existent customer base isn't going to suddenly buy the product if primary buttons are purple vs blue.
The next six months of trying to find a job were completely demoralizing thanks to all the other layoffs in the industry. I gave up looking and downsized my life so I could take 2 or 3 years off.
I'm slowly letting it go, but I'm still dreading having to go back to writing software. Unfortunately I haven't been able to come up with many similarly paying options to switch to. Maybe management or technical sales I guess? Maybe just getting away from frontend dev will help as well.
I decided to downsize my life by selling a relatively expensive car and my condo and see how long I can go without working.
I have no desire to go back to frontend development even though I can make way more doing that than anything else.
I'm hoping in a year or so I'll be ready to get back into tech, but right now I have no desire to. So much of the industry just seems toxic to my mental health.
I haven't pirated content in a decade but I'd estimate I'm a year or two away from going back for the reasons you stated. So sick of the rate hikes and fragmentation. Once ads become common place I'm out.
The way tech companies have been doing layoffs is appalling. This would be my 26th year in the industry if I had a job or could get another one. I have little desire to go back. I hope there's another big developer shortage someday but with developments in AI it seems unlikely.
Maybe it's just me, but the survey style job application is not as fun and whimsical as you probably think it is. I've probably applied for 100+ jobs in the last few months, and nobody has time for that. Especially when you're probably getting 100's of applicants.
> you're getting paid a lot less at Microsoft than you would be elsewhere
The one year (2016) I worked at Microsoft after an acquisition was more than any startup has paid me, even if you factor in "(stock options exit / years worked at start) + startup salary"
I was blown away and felt stupid for all the years I've been chasing startup lottery tickets.
Any of the big tech companies, including Microsoft, pay WAY more than your average programming gig. OH and they don't have career ceilings for individual contributors.
I'd happily work there again someday, and really wish someone would have told me how high the pay is at these big tech companies 20 years ago. Would have skipped the startup route.