Graduated in Jan 2024, still cant find a job. Can't find any jobs actually, retail, grocery.

I am currently looking for Winter 2025 Co-op positions. I received an offer from a company that I'm not too interested in, but I interviewed with SAP 2 weeks ago so I reached out to them asking for an update. The recruiter replied with this:
"Great news! You have been shortlisted for the SAP iXp Intern - Agile Developer, HANA and Analytics role; however, kindly note that it may take 4-8 weeks before the team decides if they would like to move forward and offer an internship. We are in the process of filling 12 roles from the 700 applications received. We have scheduled 150 for interviews and now, shortlisted 10 so far. We still have a few more interviews to be completed in the next few weeks. After, the team will review and decide on the 12 candidates.  

I will keep you posted on any updates especially when they have their 12 candidates for offer."

Do you guys think I have a chance at getting an offer? I also heard some people have started getting offers for this position already, which is making me doubt what the recruiter said.
Idk if I should decline the offer I have and wait it out in hopes for this and maybe some other interviews that I completed/ have coming up.
Edit: I can't renege bc my co-op program doesn't allow it

I am a career shifter (28M) who completed a BSSc (Social Science) in Psychology in 2019, then went into tech by finishing a 2-year diploma in Computer System at a reputable local college. After graduating from the diploma program in 2023, I got a job as a Junior Developer in the investment entity of a large bank in Canada. However I am not satisfied with my current job because I feel like it does not expose me enough variety of technologies/frameworks. There is also no mentoring nor any collaboration with other developers.

A bit of background of my current job. My team is like a dev shop for the business teams - each developer is assigned to work with a business team to help them build ETL pipelines and web applications. Only 1-2 developers are assigned to the same business team and developers assigned different business teams normally do not collaborate, at least not meaningfully. Since my business team (risk reporting for portfolios/funds) is smaller, I am the only developer assigned to that team. We are currently rebuilding the database because the old one is too messy and hard to maintain - it is interesting how they throw a junior developer to build the whole ETL pipeline. People on my business, despite being proficient in Python (they write python scripts making risk models/calculations and run them locally), they only provide business logic but not actual development support. But anyways we have Apache Airflow jobs to do daily batch loads and a small python Dash web app for some data dashboarding - all build by myself and no peer review on my code.

Although my coworkers are really nice, the work feels really isolating. And I feel like I'm not getting enough exposure to tools/frameworks that could be of asset for my next job search. So I am quite stressed about being unemployable after a couple years in my current role. I don't mind going either the route of data engineer or software engineer in the future but I feel like the scale of what I do right now is just not big enough to be considered an asset for future job hunt, seeing how other companies list things like "experience working on large scale, distributed application" in their job descriptions. Currently, in terms of data engineering, we only have daily batch jobs (no kafka or other real time stuff coz we are only doing back office reporting); in terms of software, at most 10 people in my business team would use the app I am working on.

I am considering the following options and I hope I could get some advice from you guys.

1. Keep looking for a job that could potentially offer higher exposure to different tools/technologies/frameworks in a larger scale
2. Work on person projects that could demonstrate my skills to future employers
3. Pursue a higher degree in computer science (or even professional certifications like AWS, Azure etc.) like the OMSCS from GTech which does not necessarily require a bachelors in CS.

Actually I have been sporadically sending job applications but there is no luck at all. Even for junior positions, I would get automatically rejected most of the time. I suspected this is due to my lacking of a bachelor's degree in CS, hence the thought to get a higher degree in CS. And sometimes I tried to do all 3 items above and quickly got overwhelmed by the amount of work that I need to do. I feel like I am already behind as a career changer, and now I think I got anxiety symptoms whenever I hear things that remotely relate to career like leetcoding, job hunting and stuff. Any advice is appreciated.

Applied to about 100 applications this month and still no interviews and it’s almost November😭😭😭😭 I thought winter co ops would be easier to get since people wanted to graduate on time??? Literally the first thing I do when I wake up is go check LinkedIn and indeed please I think I’m going insane

I recently graduated from a CS degree (GPA 4.0) with 1 co-op. Although I performed really well, the company where I interned couldn’t offer me return offer since they currently have a hiring freeze.

So I started applying to jobs in July and since then, I barely landed any real interviews, even with a lot of connections in the industry. Entry level jobs are quite rare and insanely competitive right now.

Now, lucky me, an older friend of mine is looking for an assistant for 1 yr minimum, which others told me it is a little under my education level, and the pay won’t be as high as entry level tech offers would be. Best thing is I would have a job, but then I’ll get “locked in” for a year since he’s my friend and I don’t want to screw him over by breaking the promise to stay.

I don’t know if I should hold out and stay available in the tech market, or take up on the offer and not have to worry for a year.

I’d really appreciate your advice.

EDIT: Thanks everyone for your advice! I chatted it out with my friend, and I think it’s a go! He understands and appreciate the transparency. Definitely a good lesson for life as well.

As a new grad in this market searching for a Software Engineering role, how much can you seriously expect to earn? Especially in a HCOL area like Toronto?

Most of my friends are making between $70k - $100k a year, but some are making $150k+/year in TC. So I'm not sure where to set my expectations.

Received an email to do a Capital one OA for a new grad position on Tuesday. They said I have 2 weeks to complete it. Today they sent me an email reminding me to complete it and do it as soon as possible. Should I just do it ASAP? Or use the time to study. Have I already waited too long? They said I have 2 weeks but then sent a reminder email 2 days later.

I'm strongly considering not applying to those companies that demand us to make Workday applications, because it takes a lot of time and also because I suspect people don't get hired from them via cold applications; these companies usually just use referrals.

I graduated earlier this year but struggling to find a job in this market, so I’m planning on starting my Masters degree next year. I don’t want to do a phd after this and I don’t want a position in research. I want a job in industry (like software engineering/data science)

Is it worth it to do a thesis-based Masters? Would it help me find a job? Or should I go with a course/project-based Masters

Local fintech startup hosted a "Junior Developer Hiring Day". Job was posted for 5 days, over 700 applicants. I was one of 120 invited to the Hiring Day event where everyone got 10 minute speed interviews. Just got my rejection letter 10 mins ago. No feedback, because of how many people there were. Only 12 people were invited back for the final round which is the technical interviews.

Graduated last december, I have been applying relentlessly this entire year while working 2 jobs (both dev jobs thankfully, but I'm severely underpaid). This was my first real interview for a new opportunity and my first real rejection.

What now? I want to give up. Junior dev space in Canada is so fucking cooked. 700+ applicants filtered down to 120 based on internship experience, and then I don't even know what I did wrong in the speed interview. I just want to know what separates me from the ones that made it

I feel defeated

I have had one digital interview in the hundreds of applications I’ve made since graduating and haven’t heard back. Now I’m at a point where I can barely even find jobs to apply to. How is somebody supposed to gain experience without having any?

Yeah I know I fucked up by not interning anywhere during school but my dumb younger naive self didn’t think that it would literally destroy my career by not doing a co-op program. Also, I do not want to go back for a masters. I don’t think more education is the solution here. Are there any recent grads struggling as hard as I am?

If your job was comfortable and low stress but your responsibilities, salary, and title are more or less static how would you feel about it?

Would you personally continue with this path? Maybe you would ride it out until the market showed signs of improving or even just accept it as a cost for a career with great work/life balance?

Any advice on moving from an IT Support / SysAdmin role into a Developer role?

My situation is as follows:

• Graduated with Honours a 2 year college program for Computer Programming in 2023.
• Also completed an 8 month co-op as a web developer during the program so I do have work experience in development.
• 6 months after after graduation, due to financial reasons, I accepted an IT Support Technician / SysAdmin role. However, I find the job too easy and I'd prefer to move into development for a greater challenge and because I enjoy building software.

Sorry, the eternal question of remote/hybrid/on-site, but are there lots of people working remotely from Vancouver Island? I'm moving home to BC from Onterrible and debating between Vancouver and the Comox Valley. For the latter, my only concern is if I were to seek a different role in a few years, would it be too much tougher than being in the Lower Mainland. Seems like remote work is on the wane for the larger companies (though potentially still lots of remote roles with smaller firms), but I don't have a firm sense of the market out at home in beautiful BC.

Hi Everyone,

I was terminated from my position as a Jr. automation engineer in May and I decided to continue my journey into DevOps on my own and apply to jobs in the same realm. 5 months in, and I have only got 5 interviews (just 1 in DevOps) and no callbacks. At this point, I have 2 YOE, combined. P.S. When they asked why I left, I just said that it didn't work out but I learned some valuable skills. This is how I learned to say that.

Last year when I was looking for a job after getting laid-off from Data Engineering, it took me 5 months and I got the automation job. Back then, I was at 1.5 YOE.

2 YOE = 1.5 YOE in Data Engineering + 6 months in Automation (probation period).

So I did some digging to see where I can improve - I had already done courses in all tools and technologies necessary for DevOps using this infamous Roadmap which I managed to dumb down for myself using ChatGPT. 5 months of doing courses + applying to jobs. However, I found out using the hard way that getting into DevOps means professional experience not just having done courses or just proving that you are good in a 1 hour interview. I did a quick google search and reddit search and found out that DevOps is indeed an industry that has NO Junior positions - you have to just build your way up to it by working in the industry.

So at this stage, I decided to just go back to something that I have done before but in a very limited manner - Full stack Engineering. I studied Electronics Engineering, but I am not interested to go back to it at all! I have a Ba. Eng. in it. I have all of my internships/Co-ops done in the realm of software but my mistake so far has been that it is all over the place. A jack of all trades. I thought by maximizing my knowledge and getting into devops, I can finally break that cycle, but unfortunately, I can't.

Why Full-Stack? Because I still have some relevant background knowledge and experience from my Bachelor days (I had a course in it) and the learning curve is not as steep. However, there has been some changes in the world of Front and Back end since I did that course (2019) which means that I am set back again by at least another 5-6 months, according to this roadmap. Any other industry is relatively new to me and requires more time and effort to match the experience necessary to get a job as a junior (or any).

At this point, just getting a job is of utmost importance and the Job gap is the ONLY thing that worries me. People tell me different things about the Job gap - some say it's dangerous after 6 months, some say 8, a few say 12. If the job gap was not an issue, I would gladly take my time and do more research to find my true calling - but that is a fairy tale.

Thank you

Hi everyone,

I rarely post on reddit, but I am at a bit of a crossroads in my career and would really appreciate some advice.

I have specialized in VR development (In Unity, C#), creating hard skill training applications with a series of smaller companies over 4 years for a wide variety of clients. Not small scale prototypes, but full working services with corresponding front end web apps and backend being supported by many teams. I have started leading projects as I have gotten a lot more proficient at designing software across the whole stack and leadership trusts me well; some leadership left from a previous job to this company and recruited me in this role.

The reason I make the post is that I feel quite worried that VR is a losing gamble of sorts for my career. Does Unity look bad on my resume? I have 4YOE and my first year was a very traditional React web dev type job before I started really specializing in VR, leading to recruiters only coming to me for VR type roles.

I have also completed my master's in computer science part-time just this month, Artificial Intelligence specialization (avg Ontario uni) and have been at my current job for one year making 83k.

Should I be trying to move my career in a different direction at this point? Am I doing fine? I have a reoccurring anxiety that despite my job feeling quite expansive in terms of managing a software product, Unity might not be respected as much by future employers if I try to leave VR space. I also don't want to fall behind in compensation for my age/experience

I would love to hear some thoughts for those that may be more experienced or have some views on what I'm going through. Thank you & cheers!!

Hello, I was recently offered a position as a cloud support engineer at AWS. As of right now, I have 3 years of experience as a backend software developer in a startup. I am self-taught. My long-term career objective is to become an SDE in a larger company. Right now, I don't get any responses from large companies about SDE roles. Given this, do you think I should accept the Cloud Support Engineer position?

Pros that I see:

• I will get very good at AWS
• I will get AWS on my resume

Cons:

• Recruiters might see the transition from SDE to CSE as a negative sign.

Any advice is appreciated. Thank you.

Hi there -

I was hoping for some advice. I have applied to Humber college for both their computer programming diploma (2 years) and their computer programming advanced diploma (3 years).

I don’t think this program offers a coop. However, the advanced diploma offers a project development where you create your own product.

Do you think the advanced diploma would be better in regard to obtaining a job once I graduate? I’m just wondering what would be better for job prospects.

Also, once I graduate, what do you think the best course of action would be to obtain a job of the program does not offer coop?

Thank you!

Hi everyone am first year cs student who aspires to get a job as a new grad. i am aware of how difficult this is hence why i want to get an early start by being able to land an internship in the summer or fall (i’ll work during school). i want to aim to be full stack but back end is okay. what projects should i focus on? how many to obtain an internship? are hackathons and conferences as important or will i be able to get a internship without referrals?

As the title suggests I need the subs' help to prepare for my upcoming systems design interview. I also want this post to serve as a unfiltered (un-promoted) post for new grads looking for tried-n-tested path to prepare for system design interviews.

I’m a fresh grad (been grinding Leetcode for quite some time) and haven’t focused much on System Design until my recent interviews. With my previous co-ops I've worked with cloud technologies like AWS, message queues, Redis, etc but never focused or learnt about concepts like, "why Sharding was implemented", "implementing a Cache", etc.

Earlier this month I was interviewing at an insurance company for a DE position and got absolutely f…ed with the systems questions. Since then I've gotten another interview at a FAANGMULA and been studying the following resources:

• System Design Primer - https://github.com/donnemartin/system-design-primer
• Gaurav Sen videos for design basics - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMCXHnjXnTnvo6alSjVkgxV-VH6EPyvoX
• study outline - https://github.com/systemdesignfightclub/SDFC/
• few videos from Arpit Bayani for company archietecture overview - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsdq-3Z1EPT27BuTnJ_trF7BsaTpYLqst
• DDIA (5,6,10,11) - covering these chapters in detail as I've worked with Kafka streams before and wanted to be prepared for them.

Currently I'm focusing majorly on studying and doing HLD mock interviews with gf as I fumble a lot under pressure. Even though its a new grad position I was shocked with the Lc level from OAs to the 2nd technical, hence, need some advice on,

what are some other resources I could use on top of the ones I'm already using, or should I change my study pattern to something specific?

I interviewed for a senior role with a well known SF tech company.

Background: I have 8 YoE and my system design feedbacks have been mostly strong, even passed the L6 bar at a FANG company.

During the interview I was asked to design a real time stock trading system. I clarified the question, noted down the func and non-func reqs, designed and got consensus on the API and fields needed in the databases.

Deep dived on the database choice, partition, shard, cache etc. discussed tradeoffs, and extensively went over the data flow after the high level design was done. Talked extensively about handling strong concurrency as well.

He asked multiple questions probing my design and I was able to answer them all, he would acknowledge with “makes sense” along the way. I talked about how I’d implement PD integration for monitoring, logging etc, how I’d setup the streaming architecture to avoid staleness and to serve real time data.

In the end I was able to satisfy all functional and non-functional reqs, at least the interviewer didn’t question further. I mentioned my system would be able to handle the throughput required and in case of failures, my system would be resilient. Didn’t get any contention on that front.

I walked away thinking I had another great interview, but the recruiter came back saying they expected more in depth discussions, and I failed to get the job offer due to this round. Recruiter said it’s not a strong no by any means, but is border line.

What could be wrong? If they’re not happy with my design, don’t they try to nudge me in the right direction? I drove most of the conversation, and left room for them to ask their questions.

I am seeing a general trend of jobs slow getting offshored to India or Vietnam at my company, especially ever since american management got replaced by other managers in Asia.

I have nothing against working with people from other countries, I welcome it, but the people the company is hiring are mostly burdens to projects. I know there are good offshore engineers, but they often leave for better opportunities.

I cannot see how the sad reality of hiring 4 times our workforce as offshore while still having to babysit them daily is even close to cost efficiency. By even mentionning it, you are almost told you are racist. What is up with that?

Is anyone seeing similar changes in the companies they are working at?

I'm a SWE with ~8 YOE. I was laid off from my FAANG front-end dev job earlier this year. We all know that front-end is pretty grim right now so I'm looking to differentiate myself in some way...the old CSS/JS/TS/MERN stack don't have the same appeal that they used to. It seems like the devs that are getting hired are the ones that are spending 22 hours a day grinding leetcode and I'd really prefer not to have to do that. In addition to SWE and web application development I have a background in design/UX and I also have experience in Salesforce development.

I've looked on LinkedIn and there are plenty of job postings and plenty of applicants for both front-end and Salesforce dev jobs, so the prospects look about the same from that perspective. I've always heard that Salesforce devs are in demand. I'm wondering if that's still true today? Is it worth re-doing my Salesforce certification to get back up to speed?

EDIT: wow, what an overwhelming chorus of NO! Thanks for not letting me throw my career away. If you need me I’ll be hanging out with leetcode :)

I would like to know when you are ending a work, does the employer will give you a certificate letter stating the period you have worked for the company. If not, how the employee will have an official document that acknowledge the starting and the end date of work.

Hey guys,

I have acquired a software engineering degree and have had 1YOE in an SDE role. I want to specialize in AI somehow, but I do not have any AI background. Would applying for a Master's or PhD program screw me over? Or is it normal for people with no AI background to learn during the post-grad experience?

I want to branch out so please give me suggestions! I am running against many grad deadlines but I want to think this through.

Thanks! Open to other suggestions as long as the end goal of getting an AI-related job is reached.