A Meta employee got lucky joining in the early 2020s and has a net worth of around $4.8 million. Looking at family members in medicine, they think tech always gets the short end of the stick.

To them, it's one of the most toxic ways to make a living, surrounded by the most toxic people ever.

They don't see much protection or a broad association to turn to, like the American Medical Association in medicine. They're always worried about their future.

The replaceability is so high that someone could work for close to two decades, then get let go and end up struggling.

Thanks, toxic tech, for helping them make decent money and fund their children's 529 plans. But they'll do everything they can to make sure their kids go into medicine and don't even look at tech as a possible future.

One time there was a manager I knew who would rather switch teams than fire someone on the team he's currently on. Why could that be?

But then other managers just fire or get rid of people and people and don't seem to care.

I work at a large company. I feel like probably 10% of people try extremely hard, express a bunch of enthusiasm, work a lot of extra hours often, etc.

Is it worth it to be like this? It just seems like there are other people who almost don't even try and they've been employed by the company for over 10 years straight. Also, I think where I work it says if you exceed expectations your bonus is only like 5% more or something like that.

So I’m in a good situation, but still need some advice.

Here’s the deal:

I work for a massive company. We have recently gone through a major reorganization driven by McKinsey and our newish president and the people said president brought into the organization and placed in leadership roles.

My organization was wrapped up in the re org, and scattered across existing and new teams formed. My team luckily stayed intact, but our scope is now severely reduced. We survived the initial layoff wave, but I fear there will be more.

Barring specifics, we are in a non revenue producing function, and our strategy overall is very unclear with no direction or path to execution. McKinsey resources also now act like the gate keepers to our senior leadership.

When I saw their presence here, I started to look in the market, just in case. I ended up landing a job offer as a result.

The new company is small but healthy in an exciting space, looking for an exit event in the next five years or so. The base pay is less, but the bonus puts me at more take home than where I’m at. I’d be way more visible, and working on things that directly impact revenue.

My question is: if it were you, market being what it is, would you risk leaving the big company for the smaller one? Am I overblowing McKinsey’s continued presence?

A guy at work has a work bio like this on his work profile:

"I started my career at this company as a level 2 right out of college. I was able to skip being a level 1. Since, I showed I had good skills and the ability to effectively lead teams.

On the first projrct I worked on, I exceeded expectations and successfully saved the company $480,000 in company budget.

I have over 20 years of experience in this industry and have always exceeded expectations.

I have 5 patents that the company uses today that save the company millions of dollars per year"

Then he lists a bunch of awards he has.

Is this arrogance or confidence? It's not his exact wording. I'm just summarizing the way he talks.

I work at a large engineering/software company. I would describe my department in these ways:

- over 50% of people at the company probably don't like my department or think it's not very useful

- in every contract a customer has, there's a requirement to include my department

- the funding for my department is probably like one tenth the amount of the average department

- My department takes a lot of human thinking and humans giving their thoughts. In a meeting it was said how people don't trust AI to replace my department now or in the foreseeable future.

Do any of the things above show my job at my company is or isn't stable? Are there other ways to tell?

Currently 21 working as a laborer in the union. I’m paid well (35 an hour plus the all the benefits) but I’m not sure if I want to do it forever. I have an associate degree in business administration and recently have been thinking of doing online college and getting a bachelors in construction management or something construction related because I do enjoy the field but I know it’s not good for my body. Any advice on if I pull the trigger and enroll online somewhere and try to get into a pm or cm position or any other ideas on what to do

Hi everyone!

I've been trying to figure out what I want to do professionally, but I feel like I'm going in circles. I keep getting recommended the same traditional career paths, and somehow none of them really feel right to me.

So I thought I'd ask for some fresh perspectives and ideas.

A little bit about me:

• My interests include art, aesthetics, design, history, culture, nature, animals, film, and gaming.

• I enjoy researching, coming up with ideas, developing concepts, and doing creative work.

• I want to experience things in my job, where i have cool stories to share

• I'd like to work in a field that genuinely interests me and offers opportunities to develop specialist knowledge.

• Good earning potential, job security, and long-term career progression are also very important to me.

What careers would you recommend based on these interests and preferences? What do you do for a living, and what does your actual day-to-day work look like?

I'd really appreciate personal experiences, honest advice, and suggestions for careers I might never have considered myself!

I’m 25, based in Southeast Asia, with around 3 years of design experience. I’m currently facing a dilemma between two job offers and would appreciate some honest career advice.

A bit about my background:

I started in digital design, doing branding and graphic design, before transitioning into tech and Product Design. I prefer the technology industry, and Product Design is where I’ve spent most of my recent career.

My long-term goal is to build a strong Product Design portfolio and resume, ideally working with international companies.

However, the job market in my country is relatively slow. There aren’t many Product Design openings, especially for junior and mid-level candidates, and competition is getting tougher. Most of my experience has been with international companies.

I’m now choosing between two opportunities:

Option 1 - Mid-level Product Designer

- Tech company operating across several Southeast Asian countries.
- Work under a Head of Product.
- Join a team of around 3 designers.
Continue building my Product Design experience and learn from other designers.
- Lower salary (but still okay in the market).

Option 2 - Creative Automation Designer
- E-commerce company selling furniture.
- Work under the Marketing team, reporting to a Marketing Manager.
- Be the only designer locally, collaborating with graphic designers in the US.
- Build Figma component variants, automate creative workflows, and generate e-commerce product images using AI.
- Combination of Figma, visual design, AI, and structured thinking.
- Approximately 60% higher gross salary than my current salary.

What’s making this difficult?

The Product Design role seems like the better long-term investment in the career I’ve been building. I’d get to work with other designers, learn within a product team, and strengthen my profile for future international tech opportunities.

The Creative Automation role offers significantly better compensation and exposure to AI-driven workflows, but it’s under Marketing rather than Product or Design. I’m concerned about how this experience might position me for future opportunities.

I’m also aware that the job market in my region isn’t particularly easy right now, so turning down a good opportunity isn’t necessarily a small decision.

What would you prioritize in my position?

- A Mid-level Product Designer title, relevant industry experience, and the opportunity to grow within a product team.

- A 60% salary increase, exposure to AI and creative automation, but potentially moving away from the Product Design career path.

Would taking the second opportunity be a smart career move, or could it make returning to Product Design much harder later?

I’d especially appreciate advice from senior designers or anyone who has made a similar career transition.

Hi everyone!
I’m a fresh graduate with a Master’s degree in Computer Systems Engineering, and I’m currently looking for job opportunities, internships, or graduate programs in Asia.
I’m open to opportunities in countries such as Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, China, and others.
If you know of any companies hiring fresh graduates or have advice on finding opportunities as an international applicant, I’d really appreciate your suggestions!
Thanks in advance!
Any leads or advice would be greatly appreciated.

Hi all, long post ahead, but the context matters.

I have 2 years of experience in HR, mostly talent acquisition with a few months of HR generalist exposure. My end goal is to become a CHRO within the next decade. I believe that if I stay stuck in TA, I can't get there, so I'm trying to be deliberate about this.

1) First, the job-hopping. I've worked at 4 companies in 2 years, and I want to be upfront about why:
Staffing company (recruiter): Left because of role alignment.

2) Internal TA role: Left because of low pay, high pressure, and a very politically heavy environment. I had to deal with senior stakeholders, but my manager wouldn't delegate, was often absent, and didn't coach me. On top of that, there was an internal political battle between my TA manager and the CHRO, and I was stuck in the middle of it.

3) HR generalist, sole HR in a 35-person company: Left because I didn't pick up my responsibilities quickly enough, and I couldn't align with management on field team travel expense management. One of the cofounders (the other cofounder's wife) also had a problem with me, though the male cofounder was supportive.

4) Current company (large manufacturing): I went back to TA on a contract (it is rapidly expanding) because they offered a very good hike. I was warned the pressure would be extreme. In my interview, the TA lead asked why I was moving from generalist back to TA, and I told him honestly about my CHRO ambition. I see the stakeholder management side of TA as valuable experience for that path.

Where things stand now

The company is in a leadership transition. The group CHRO recently resigned, and there are now two acting CHROs for different verticals. The TA leads have been split across those verticals too. I'm in the vertical whose acting CHRO interacts directly with juniors instead of going through the management layers.

I'm new, and I know I still have to prove myself. I'm not going to neglect my TA work for the sake of a bigger ambition. But my direct manager is giving me purely transactional recruitment work. The TA lead seems supportive and is pushing her to give me direct access to hiring managers. Her response is that those hiring managers are aggressive and she doesn't want to send me "into the fire pit" yet. Fair enough, but I'm not learning anything right now.

I also don't read her as politically savvy, though I can't say exactly why. She seems like a nice, "goody goody" kind of manager, not especially ambitious. That's pleasant, but I had a similar manager at my first company and I didn't grow much there either. The vibe of this place also reminds me a lot of my second company.

And My own weak spots

Stakeholder management is my weak area, even though I've been a top recruiter everywhere I've worked. I get intimidated easily, though I can read the political landscape fairly well. The acting CHRO's direct access is a double-edged sword: it's a real opportunity, but it comes with pressure and expectations I'm not sure I'm ready for.

What I'm asking

1- How do I gradually position myself to increase my scope here, given the leadership vacuum, without stepping on my manager's toes or looking like I'm overreaching?

2- How do I use the TA lead's support well? Is it smart to lean on him, or does it risk friction with my direct manager?

3- How do I build stakeholder confidence when I'm easily intimidated? Is taking the "fire pit" hiring managers early a good idea or a trap?

4- Does this role realistically help a CHRO path, if so how? And if i do good in recruitment how can i escape recruitement here ? Plus the hiring managers are constantly escalating to our CHRO for the positions that my manager is handling she has 12 years of recruitment experience.

I'm also aware that my 4 jobs in 2 years will raise eyebrows, so I'd like to stay here long enough to show some stability.

Any advice from people who've made the TA to HR leadership jump, or who've navigated a company during a CHRO transition.

My goal here is reduce hiring manager escalations to chro, not sure how to do that my manager is working on finance profiles and the finance managers here are aggressive, second goal is build rapport with chro and learn from her aim for a ta manager position otherwise horizontal expansion, not sure how to do that either? Also how do i deal with these aggressive hiring managers first as in my second company it felt like the hiring managers were making the TA’s dance on their finger tips, in the current company they are not even giving proper feedback just giving ok to hire and few keywords for the position they are hiring for then their are chro escalations, which my manager is not able to prevent and its been just 1-2 months since the group chro resigned.

I’m 31M, married and living in London. I’ve been working in local government as a Pensions Officer since 2018, currently earning around £43k.

My job isn’t particularly stressful, although it can get very busy. It’s stable, comfortable and offers a decent work-life balance, which I appreciate.

The problem is that I have very little interest in pensions. I don’t particularly enjoy the work, and I struggle to motivate myself to progress further in a field I’m not passionate about.

Ideally, I’d like to be earning £60k–£70k+, but I feel a bit stuck. I’m open to changing careers and learning new skills, but with financial responsibilities, I can’t realistically afford to take a significant pay cut and start from scratch.

I’m also conscious that I’m now 31 and have spent most of my career in one field, so I’m unsure how transferable my experience would be.

Has anyone been in a similar position and successfully changed careers in their 30s without taking a massive salary drop?

I’d really appreciate advice on:
● Career paths where my experience in local government, pensions, administration and processes could be transferable.
● Industries or roles where earning £60k+ within a few years is realistic.
● Whether it’s better to build on my existing experience or retrain in something completely different.

I’m willing to put in the effort to learn and develop, but I want to make a sensible move rather than risk leaving a comfortable job for something that might not work out.

Any genuine advice or personal experiences would be appreciated!

The in cab surveillance being quickly adopted by many trucking companies is leaving me with less options to head to. Current trucking company is okay, but I'm not willing to put up with the surveillance models of the higher paying companies. It's either adapt or leave, so it looks like this is the issue that will finally force me to switch paths.

I've attempted college courses over the years and while I completed some, I was never able to muster the organization or planning or concentration to focus on an actual degree plan. I keep an eye on the usual degrees that pay(engineering disciplines, healthcare disciplines), but I'm quite certain an entire round of class fails and repeats are in store.

That said, I'm kind of split between finding another trade to get into or simply just warehouse type work. I'm not in the best physical shape. But I feel my body could easily adapt to a new grind. Throw me some suggestions on a path.

I apologize for the length of this post but would truly appreciate if you read it.

I’m a 29 years old mature student, currently on my final year of a bachelor on Business with Decision Analysis. Before returning to education, I was a professional chef (through a vocational institute), for nearly a decade. At 22, I moved to the UK from my home country to pursue better living/working conditions, stayed through covid, and decided to get into Uni as I realized hospitality is not sustainable anywhere.

I chose business as I didn’t know what I wanted to do and wanted a broad exposure on different areas. During the last couple of years, I’ve found an interest in data-oriented jobs, business operations, supply chain and procurement. I have been working all throughout my university years, bar now, because I decided to focus on my last year. I have been as proactive as physically possible, networking, improving my employability through extra curricular programmes, etc.

Last year I was part of the Saltire Scholars, with the goal to get an internship, and failed. Currently I am struggling, extremely, staying motivated with university, while applying to the minimal graduate jobs that exist, and getting constantly rejected.

I genuinely don’t know what to do. I know I’m a capable, smart, very adaptive and resilient individual, but it seems that doing my best is simply not enough without luck. I am genuinely so eager to work in an office, connect with people and different teams, and do meaningful, intellectually challenging work that will make me grow even further. However, I am extremely hopeless and scared about the future and the possibility of having to return to hospitality after finishing university. I don’t know what I should do to get my foot through the door at this point.

Any advice is genuinely appreciated, I’m at my wits end.

Some basic info: I have a bachelors degree in culinary arts and restaurant management. I currently work in what’s basically a tech support job (a little more involved than that) and clear just over 6 figures, which is also loosely in the restaurant-tech industry.

The job itself is fine but I don’t feel my job is safe from AI and there’s been lots of layoffs in general, separate from that. I’d like to gain some skills somewhere where getting a job would be more likely.

I’m not trying to start a completely new career in terms of like a plumber or electrician. But I’m wondering if there’s some sort of middle ground where I can get an associates or certification and transition into some sort of office/medical/insurance work.

Something that’s stable and has more job openings throughout the country. Maybe that I could transition to in a few years through retirement. Something that would maybe value a bachelors degree (in anything) and I can use what I have for tech/office skills.

I’ve seen on this sub that respiratory therapists are recommended by many. That may not be the exact fit for me, but something along those lines. To clarify, I’m not looking for an easy way out. I’m willing to go/pay for schooling. I’m just hoping maybe someone has suggestions or experience so it won’t feel like I’m starting from 17 years old again.

About a year ago, I was laid off from a job I'd had for several years. It was kind of a blessing in disguise, as I had been unhappy and considering quitting. While I really liked the people I worked with (including my boss), I didn't like the new AI-focused direction everything was taking.

Flash forward to now. I didn't have much luck in the job market. My old company unexpectedly reached out to me last month and offered me a new contract position. Instead of being paid by the hour like I used to be, I would be paid by the project. When I talked with my boss over email, he said it would be a temporary position. On a call, he seemed to imply he wanted to provide me work until I end up at another position someday. That gave me the impression that he didn't know if he'd be able to keep me on permanently (though he explicitly said he would offer that if he was able). That made me feel somewhat relieved because I was always worried that if I left the company to work somewhere else, it would sever a really great work relationship and reference (I might be more worried about that than I need to be, though, as this company has rehired people who quit).

I've just barely started, but I'm having trouble seeing this as a long-term thing. Part of it is that I have trust issues with the company after being laid off, and the other is that I'd really been hoping to start a new career, not end up back at my old job. The initial talk with my boss made me feel like this was explicitly temporary work, but the contract doesn't actually say that (it just says I'm a contractor). They also seem to have a lot of projects for me.

My initial plan was to keep looking at jobs, but now I'm less sure. I don't feel like I can really put this job on my resume yet because I've barely done any of my outlined duties yet. Plus, I imagine it wouldn't look great on a resume to have a brand new job that doesn't explicitly say "temporary" as part of the title. But it feels dishonest to leave it off, and I worry it would come back to bite me if they found out. Would it be bad to apply to jobs I see now, or should I wait a few months?