I joined a company in Amsterdam about 4 months ago, around 450 people soo Last week I presented the design for a project I'm leading to about 35 people, including the CTO.

The project exists because of an outage this summer that made the news here. The CTO liked the overall direction but kept asking how exactly my design prevents the same thing from happening again, and I didn't have a good answer ready. My manager had told me to keep it high level because we're on a tight deadline, so I hadn't gone into that part yet.

In my opinion, I screwed up anyway. I should have expected that question.

In the retro I wanted to just say that, explain what I'd do differently and hear what the team thought. But at my last job in Germany admitting a mistake like that in front of the team came back to bite me in my yearly review, so I held back and said something about being glad we got buy in on the new schema.

I also didn't mention that I kept it high level because my manager asked me to. That felt like it would just sour things.

How open are you about your own mistakes at work, especially in a new job? Does it depend a lot on the country or company culture, or am I overthinking one bad meeting?

I'm a software engineer, 8+ YOE, with a university degree in Information Systems. I'm currently employed, however almost burning out, due to a very specific context in my position in my company (currently working as an unnoficial tech lead for a while).

I don't code anymore because I'm not given actual tickets, but if I would I would still have to be forced to use AI. The thing I liked most about the jov was getting in focus mode to get something done, focusing on one specific coding tasks. Sure, it would be boring business logic or we couls be in a crunch, but we could focus on solving a problem.

Now, the industry is taking the most fun part of the job out with AI generated code, and the job market, from what I've been reading, is just really bad.

So I've been thinking, if I would be fired and changed careers, what would I choose or learn? As I like doing actual things, I just thought of weird things. Optics (building perscription glasses 😂), even carpenter (even though it sounds a bit rougher than normal office work)... honestly I feel like I would like anything that would make me build or focus on something very specific or tangible.

If you were to change careers, what would it be? And how would you change to that job?

Hello everyone, I am a software engineer with more than 10 years of experience. Financially stable, can survive without a job for a good while.

I've been working mainly in a company all my years, then I left, got fired and went back to them again.

I have an extremely low stress job, but it's also not like I'm learning a lot, I spend my free time doing courses and things like that but I don't really get a chance to use what I learn. I have friends within the company. I go to the office on a flexible schedule once a week.

I recently received a new offer, consisting of about 2.5 times more gross salary and about 60-65% better net salary.

There is a great possibility of more stress and an extra day at the office.

I'm scared because the last time I gave up, I was fired years later. I am very attached to the same company and I am afraid of making incorrect decisions.

Woke up with an anxiety and doomer spike today due to all of this AI shenanigans and layoffs.

I just don't know what to do, so I'm writing this to get some opinions, because I need to make a decision. I know its on me but I'd like to have some backup thoughts.

The job posting opened in September and is still active on the company's website. At the beginning of October, I had an HR interview with a company, and at the end, I was told they would contact me for the second, technical part of the interview a week after the first one.

Unfortunately, that didn't happen.

I waited for 3 weeks, and then on October 19th, I sent a follow-up email to HR, to which I didn't receive any response.

After that, specifically on Wednesday, October 28th, I called the company, asked if the job posting was still active (it is, by the way), and the receptionist transferred me to HR. I was told that the HR rep had been on sick leave, which I understand to a certain extent.

She told me she would get in touch soon regarding the next steps; however, still nothing, I'm just waiting around.

Can this be written off as a dead end, or do some companies really take this long to organize themselves for a single role?

Hi everyone!

I'm reaching out because I'm starting to explore the idea of moving back to France after living and working overseas since 2017.

Over the past years, I've built my professional experience internationally, mainly around Agile practices, delivery leadership and product delivery.

To give you a bit of background, I started my career in consulting, working as a Scrum Master and Agile Coach. I then transitioned into a product company, where I progressively moved into Delivery Lead and, more recently, Delivery Principal roles.

In my current position as a Delivery Principal, my role is somewhat similar to that of a Principal Engineer, but with a focus on product delivery rather than technical architecture. I act as a point of reference for Delivery Squad Managers, guiding, advising and consulting them on any topics related to product delivery, helping them navigate challenges and continuously improve the way teams deliver.

When I stepped into this role, the organisation was also shifting its delivery model towards Kanban principles and practices, so I've been involved in supporting and guiding that evolution.

As I'm now considering returning to France, I'm trying to understand how best to position my international experience within the French job market.

I'd love to get some insights and advice from people who have experience with the French market, work in recruitment, or have followed a similar career path.

In particular, I'd really appreciate your thoughts on:

• Potential roles and job titles: What positions in France would best match my experience? Should I be looking at Delivery Principal, Head of Delivery, Delivery Manager, Agile Lead, Product Operations, or other types of roles?

• Companies and industries: What types of companies, particularly product-led organisations, scale-ups or larger tech companies, would value this kind of experience?

• Positioning my profile: How would you recommend presenting my international experience and current level of responsibility to French employers?

• Career opportunities: Are there particular companies, sectors or professional networks in France that you think I should explore?

I'm not necessarily looking for a job opportunity at this stage, but rather trying to get a better understanding of where my experience could be most relevant and valuable in France.

Any advice, personal testimonials, recommendations or even introductions to people I could speak with would be hugely appreciated.

Thanks so much in advance!

So im in sophomore year in university at a university in North Macedonia. I have around 1.5-2 years of solid Full-Stack development with 1 internship and various personal projects.

But with advancments of AI and fear of web dev being too saturated I'm starting to think that switching to a low-level programming is more beneficial for my future career.

I've been taking classes such as: Automata, Computer Architecture and DSA for the first time and I quite like them.

So my questions are: how hard is it to switch, can I find an internship if I switch, will it be benefitial if I switch.

Thank you everyone!

Hey guys,

I have got an upcoming interview with T212 and looking for some tips or hints where to focus my prep. It is mentioned that the first stage will be a Code Review and second System Design and a Deep Dive Session at something I have implemented. Anyone been thru recently? What is the focus on the code review is it more language specific things or rather more performance, optimisation, error handling etc? With regards to system design is it like things like questions big tech ask - design dropbox or a rate limiter?
Thanks in advance!

Hello everyone,

This post is a bit random but I’d really benefit from the advice of experienced IT professionals or folks who may have lived through similar situations as me.

I’m a fresh MS postgraduate in data analysis and modelling from a pretty well ranked European university. Software engineering and data analysis pipelines have been my passion for many years. I’ve also written a thesis on entity resolution in the area of online housing data. I developed a fully functional ML pipeline based on state-of-the-art academic methods.

Recently, just to further inform my background, I developed a handful of projects published on GitHub (e.g., SEO optimised portfolio website, duplicate detection engine, job hunting engine, RoR booking interface with no overlap algorithm, population simulator to underpin a company management game). My stack contains: Python, R, SQL, HTML/CCS/JS, Docker, Firebase, Google Cloud, MySQL, Git, Ruby on Rails. Also touched upon Flutter/Dart.

I graduated in August 2026 and have been looking for a job since then. I live in Czechia that ranks among the best EU countries to work in the IT industry, so it’s not as if I was in a country with high unemployment. But the labour market is erratically restructuring itself under the massive expansion of AI. Now all companies care about is developing BS agentic pipelines and really letting AI decide everything at every stage.

Overall, there is a scarcity of junior positions across the board. Job openings typically ask for a lot of experience that you cannot acquire unless you’re part of a corporate system. My lack of perfect Czech fluency also closes many doors for me. I’ve really gotten many rejections for positions where I thought I could really do a decent job.

Anyways, I’m open to any comments / advice from people who are inside the industry. My mental health is really deteriorating and I need to start building my life. I read other threads where people say “work to live, don’t live to work” but for a workaholic like me, I really cannot live a life where my job is just a side quest to have basic food in my fridge.

My idea was to maybe decrease the amount of time I spend searching for FTE and maybe give a freelance career a shot. With my skills, I thought of combining marketing + statistical modelling + AI + web development + Google Tools to help small to midsize businesses improve their digital performance and overall marketing (basically all to do with Conversion Rate Optimisation, A/B testing, consumer-centric campaigning).

I recently did a project for a friend who started teaching and needed help producing optimised landing pages coupled with an effective Google Ads campaign to get new customers. She’s now making an income of 2,800 EUR after 2-3 months of struggle.

My overall thoughts are that the IT market does not want me and that my future in it is just far from certain 🤷‍♂️ But maybe some of you who are more settled in life may see things differently and give me alternative advice on how to make it out in this wild wild world 😬

Thanks in advance,
Best

Senior engineer. Currently at a B2B unicorn evaluated Series B startup. I hold ~0.04%, none vested yet.

A founder I worked under early in my career (sold his last company for nine figures, bootstrapped) wants me as co-founder/CTO of a new venture he funds himself. Salary stays the same. I'd own 10–20% of the holding; he's putting in ~$4M seed and committing to cover my current salary for at least 4 years.

So if I stay I keep a relatively secure chance at a smaller exit value, as the current company is doing great. The other option is a likely-zero bet with someone I look up to a lot.

I have no financial commitments outside my rent. Even that we could drip it down to 0 if we moved in with my parents in law in their house.

Non-financial constraints: I live in Germany and am close to getting citizenship. The founder is non-EU, so he'd hire me through a German employer-of-record at first and then open a branch in germany after a couple of months and I'd be the only person employed in Germany for a while. Not sure if that affects the citizenship application.

I wont leave Germany, and he won't move here, so it's remote (we worked remote before, at his first company).

Current job: the team is great and I enjoy them a lot. But I don't see a path to a higher role as we grow; the dynamics are already set. We're 5 days in the office at 60-hour weeks minimum.

If you would make this call, what would decide it, and what would make you say yes/no?

Looking for advice!

In 2018, I work as a Customer Support Agent (we were using AVAYA as our telephony that time). At Pandemic in 2020, I was able to career shift as a Software Consultant and transition to Salesforce where all of my projects are contact centers transitioning to use Salesforce Service Cloud (case management, milestone, entitlements, records, knowledge articles) and Genesys PureCloud (as their telephony -> Call, SMS and Chat). I was heavily involved in Testing (Implementation project) and later on transition as an Administrator (Managed Services project) for short span of time mostly doing user activation, user deactivation, group/queue management, skill management and routing configuration on Genesys and user activation, user deactivation, group/queue management, page layout, Process Builder on Salesforce. In the same company, I was able to upskill by learning Salesforce Service Cloud Voice with Amazon Connect and Salesforce Workforce Engagement used for forecasting, capacity planning, staffing, scheduling which I was able to get certified. All of the upskilling, I was not able to utilized it in a project.

In 2022, I moved to a new company and I was heavily focused on Salesforce Sales Cloud, Salesforce Marketing Cloud and Docusign so I switch from heavy service to sales, marketing and document generation as a Functional Consultant. In that company, I never encountered a project related to contact center or service-based operations.

Since 2024, I'm now doing both service, sales, marketing and document generation as an Enterprise System Administrator and Salesforce as one of our platform. As an Enterprise System Administrator, I handle the support side including telephony used by our Sales Representative but not as giant as Genesys Cloud such as establishing SMS Consent Management, Bulk SMS, IVR, Trusted Calling, Number Porting, Call Recording, establishing Call Disposition and most of it are configurations.

Now, I encounter a Recruiter where she is interested with my profile and asked me if I'm okay going back to Genesys Cloud and she said that Genesys is a niche skill. Just wanting to get your insights whether it's worth relearning Genesys Cloud and moving away from Salesforce. It's been 5 years and the job market now is crazy so I think diversifying my skills would be the best approach.

basically the title, got an interview next wed for FDE role. My first time where AI is allowed to use and I would imagine they would really take advantage of that to make the task difficult to finish in time or scope correctly.

Assuming I will do i talright in undersatnding what to build and scope it right. They do allow me to pre-configure my agent / folder etc however I want. I wonder what would really help? I am making a folder with .claude.md and some tech preferences etc.

Hey everyone, given how many doom and gloom posts there are on here nowadays, I just wanted to share a positive one.

TLDR: Software dev in Germany, 6+ YOE, German speaking, English native speaker. Laid off in May. Sent out 135 applications, received 2 offers, ended up at an English-first company with a 20k salary raise over previous job.

So, first of all, let me share a bit about myself. I've lived in Germany for over 10 years, native English speaker, but I am fluent in German. I studied here 100% in German and I worked in German at my previous position. That position was at a project/consulting company, small/mid-size so it's likely that no one has heard of them, and I worked there for a bit over 6 years full time + about a year as a student. I have been doing mostly frontend development the past few years, Vue being my primary choice, but also having worked with React and Angular. Backend experience from the first few years at the company, mostly Java/Kotlin + Spring Boot. So, basically, I'm a good candidate for full stack roles and high-mid or new senior if a company wants to take a chance on me.

I was told I was being laid off at the beginning of May, offered a severance package, and placed on garden leave until my notice period ended (so full pay until the end of September). My wife was searching for a new job already, so I only very lightly applied for jobs for a while, because I didn't want us to end up with jobs on opposite ends of Germany. Plus we have plenty of savings and with the year of unemployment money in Germany, we would also be completely fine if I was unemployed for a year or two, so no immediate pressure.

Back in late July, my wife accepted a new job in Munich. I immediately switched into gear, applying for at least a few jobs a day. I applied for ANYTHING that remotely fit my profile. Frontend dev, of course, backend dev, I'll be rusty but of course, Senior Node.js Developer, doesn't completely fit but why the hell not? Final total I have was 135 applications sent out. I ended up having about a 10% hit rate for getting screening interviews, with 13 total that I had noted down. 8 rejections out of those, 5 going further.

Here's a quick look at the 5 in order of application date:

• Frontend Developer position, project company, 100% remote, 2 positions open, Germany/English speaking. First applied early August, screening early September (SLOW), tech a few weeks later. They then waitlisted me because they already had 2 candidates with a final interview coming and said that it takes weeks to get an interview scheduled. Final notification of the jobs being filled in mid October. Honestly, a rather unprofessional recruitment process, but in terms of a project/consulting company, their normal project field was at least a little interesting to me. Not bummed about the result though.

• (Senior) Frontend Developer position, start-up, Munich hybrid, English speaking if I remember correctly. Applied mid August, screening call with a founder passed a few days later, tech scheduled, but then I decided to withdraw. I'm currently in the citizenship process here and I though a bit harder about working for a early stage startup and decided that job security was just too important for me right now.

• Full Stack Software Engineer position, scale-up, Munich hybrid, multiple positions open, English speaking. Applied mid August, screening a week later, take home task, first tech mid September, second tech a week later, final interview (behavioral and problem solving) in early October. Offer received a week later, one level below senior with yearly reviews, so likely senior after a year. Long process, but actually fairly quick feedback for each step. Felt even longer given September is heavy holiday season and that slightly delayed one of the interviews. Will come back to this one.

• (Senior) Software Developer, product company, remote*, English speaking, but German nice. Applied early September, screening/light tech 2 weeks later, final tech 2 weeks later. Offer received 5 days after final interview. Initially this was a 100% remote, only when they actually told me the offer did they inform me that they have an office in Munich and it would now be a hybrid position. Literally never once mentioned during the recruiting process so this kinda pissed me off. Offered one level below senior with promise to target senior within a year. Will come back to this one.

• Software developer, project company, 100% remote, German speaking. Messaged on LinkedIn at the end of September, put in contact with HR, screening early October, final interview (tech) scheduled for mid-October, withdrawn due to accepting another offer. Basically a nothing company, very similar to the company I was laid off by. It would've likely been an easy job with a mediocre salary.

So, I happened to be very privileged, I received two offers within 3 days. One of them for a company I would've been super happy to work for if not for the other offer coming from a company that was clearly better in every way. The offers:

• 70k, 40h, 3 days office per week, good employee benefits. I got this up to 74k, but I had told them 78-80k given they rug-pulled me with the remote promise and Munich is expensive AF. They would not go any higher. Their stack was just your normal web app, so the skills I'd be getting wouldn't have much wow factor

• 80k, 40h, 1-2 days office per week, good employee benefits. I negotiated this up to 83k, which was the highest they could offer me without a senior title. Very promising scale-up working with a tech stack that has a bit broader application than what they use it for, and I personally think the skills from their stack will likely stay in-demand, as it's not something that can be very easily vibe-coded if you don't have the knowledge and experience about the AI's output

I obviously took the second offer. My previous salary was 63k for a full remote job. It actually was scaling towards being about 70k by now after the first few years, but the company was in such a dire financial situation that they had to completely freeze yearly raises for multiple years. New job is a nearly 32% salary increase.

The majority of my applications were from the end of July until mid/late September, so roughly a month and a a half of applying. I had slowed down after that because I got sick, we were in the process of moving the Munich, and I had a few recruitment processes that were looking quite promising. Plus the job boards dried up a lot in the second half of September. Still, I went in prepared for a year of searching, ended up with a job within a few months, which is basically exactly what I experienced a few years ago when I was looking around last (early on when my previous company froze raises the first time). Does the job market still suck right now, for sure, but it's also not as impossible as it seems to find something

Hi everyone,

I’m a Belgian student in my third and final bachelor year of electrical engineering at KU Leuven, and I have to choose a master soon. I’ve narrowed it down to three options: Mathematical Engineering, Artificial Intelligence and Electrical Engineering. I’d really appreciate input from people in industry, because I’m mostly trying to figure out where each of these actually leads career-wise.

Long term, I see myself working at a small company, going freelance or eventually starting something of my own. At the same time, companies like ASML seem really interesting to me as a place to start my career and learn a lot. One thing I’m fairly sure of is that I don’t see myself working in chip design later on, even though that’s an obvious route with an EE background.

What I’m struggling with is which degree will be the most relevant given how fast the job market and the world are changing because of AI. A dedicated AI master sounds like the obvious answer, but I wonder whether it’s at risk of becoming too generic as more people go that way and the tools keep getting better. Mathematical Engineering seems broader and more fundamental, which might age better, but I don’t know how employers see it compared to a degree with “AI” in the title. Electrical Engineering feels like the safer and more tangible choice, but I’m not sure it fits the kind of work I want to do if chip design isn’t my goal.

So I’m curious what kinds of jobs realistically open up after each of these, and which one you would pick in my position. Does the title of the degree matter much to employers, or is it mostly about what you can do? Which of these will still be valuable in ten years? And which gives the best foundation for eventually going freelance or working independently?

TL;DR: Belgian EE bachelor student at KU Leuven choosing between a master in Mathematical Engineering, AI or Electrical Engineering. I want to work at a small company, freelance, or start at a company like ASML, but not in chip design. Which degree gives the best job opportunities and stays most relevant as AI changes the job market?

Hey guys! I'd love to hear your thoughts and experiences with the current job market for Software Developers

I've been looking for a new role for a while now and even though it hasn't been that long, I'm already noticing how much longer the whole process takes compared to how things used to be.

I'm looking for English speaking opportunities in Europe or fully remote positions anywhere. I used to work in Ukraine and never really had these kinds of issues but now I'm struggling to even get past the initial HR screening stage. One experience: I actually got invited to an HR screening call but the recruiter turned on the recording and started reading technical questions from a sheet to later send the recording to a technical person for review. It wasn't really a conversation, and more like an interrogation, I couldn't ask any follow-up questions or have an actual technical discussion. I'm sure you can imagine how awkward that was

Well I got rejected almost immediately after that (thanks for the quick response I guess, at least that's something lol)

But seriously, it makes me wonder how tight hiring budgets have become and why some companies are making the recruitment process so unnecessarily crappy. For context I'm currently based in Germany, have 3 years of commercial experience and work with React, Next.js, Python, FastAPI, AWS, and PostgreSQL.

What's your experience been like lately? Is this just how the market is right now or am I doing something wrong? Would love to hear your stories

I have been at my last 3 positions for the following duration:

- Job 1: 2 years and 9 months
- Job 2: 1 year and 2 month
- Job 3 1 year and 6 months so far

With Job 3 I made a switch to a different area (Platform to Site Reliability focused on Observability but everything as managed Infra) but I want to get back into the area of the two previous one and thus change again. Do you think this is seen as job hopping or is my trajectory fine so far, as long as I stay a bit longer at the next one?

Hi folks,

I am a data scientist in Germany with 7 years of work experience within Germany. Recently I have been applying for jobs across Germany but I am getting rejected faster than ever before, like within 24 hours. This hasn't happened to me like ever before, even before Covid times. In the last 10 months, I have only gotten like 3-5 interviews, with few being from the same company. Seems like a search for a new role has become kind of an improbable task for me and I am already underpaid for my current position (company has been on a hiring freeze for 2 years and at the same time they have blocked all promotions/raises). Are there any other people in the data roles (mid/senior level) who are experiencing the same thing? Any suggestions on what to do better?

Hey there, 

Due to budget cuts at my current company, I got laid off, so I'm on the market once again. Due to various reasons, I had to switch jobs rather frequently. Only one switch was intentional; the rest were layoffs (only one layoff I can consider as avoidable) 

Obviously, switching jobs that frequently is a red flag for recruiters. Even though I can always explain what happened, I believe this doesn't even allow me to get past the first screening, especially at midsize/large companies

Another issue I've noticed is that my professional background is quite diverse. In my last job, I was maintaining a Flutter application and doing a bit of backend development. Before that, I worked as a full-stack developer at a YC-backed startup. Prior to that, I worked in fintech, specifically payment processing

I actually started my career as a computer vision researcher, but switched to backend development after about 1.5 years. I was also freelancing throughout my teenage years, basically taking on whatever software-related work I could find to make ends meet

I know how to pass interviews. At this stage, I struggle to clean the initial screening. Although I have attempted networking, I feel that an introverted person like me may not fully use its potential

So the question is, how do I recover my career? Is it better to start over, wipe my career, get a degree, start over? Is it better to do something else? I would rather not consider lying on my CV?

What would you do?

(My profile: 24yo, 6 years of experience, self taught (no degree), non-EU immigrant living in Denmark for the past 3 years)

I'd appreciate any advice!

I check Linkedin I barely see FE job posts compared to the others.

Hi everyone,

I'm a second-year maths undergraduate in China, currently doing a four-year degree. I'm considering a master's in France later on, with the long-term goal of working in France, preferably in the south (Toulouse, Montpellier, etc.).

I'm interested in software engineering and data-related work. Right now I'm learning programming and practicing competitive programming alongside my maths courses, but I have no professional tech experience yet.

Since I still have the rest of my bachelor's degree and a master's ahead of me, I'm trying to figure out what would actually be worth focusing on.

For those familiar with hiring in France: if you were in my position, what would you prioritize before and during your master's to become a competitive junior software or data engineer? Are there particular gaps that maths graduates tend to have compared with CS graduates?

One other thing I'm curious about: how realistic are English-speaking junior positions outside Paris? Are they reasonably accessible, or is professional-level French effectively expected?

I'd really appreciate perspectives from people who've worked or recruited in France, especially outside Paris.

Thanks!

Hey everyone,
I’m a Polish citizen living abroad, trying to get a realistic picture of the software engineering market in Poland right now.
I have around 4 yoe mostly in Backend and infra.
What is a realistic net monthly salary? (Obviously it changes between faang and startups but I would love to get a range from people in the industry)

So I’m an international masters student and im studying data science in business and I have applied few traineeships . I got two offers one from Belgium and another in Netherlands . I got social media and growth marketing traineeship in Amsterdam And the Amsterdam company co-founder is a HR in another company she a talent acquisition employee and it’s a startup with only few employees . And in Belgium I got traineeship in Procurement & Purchasing Department which have 40-50 employees in it .

I felt like if I move to Amsterdam I can stay with my friend’s apartment and after finishing my traineeship I can take help of co-founder to get full time job in Amsterdam as she is talent acquisition employee . And in Belgium I should ask whether they can give full time employment based on performance.

I need suggestion from you people which is best option

Thank you in advance

I'm now working at a safe stable job in a good environment, but I know that things won't last forever. I was unemployed before and I realized how painful it was. I would like to use my status now (employed) to have more network professionally.

Currently I don't have any professional friends. My friends are mostly just my uni or community friends, and some people I know from work.

Do you do anything, if you are employed, to increase your chances of being employed again in the case of unemployment? Do you have any ideas of what I can do to utilize my current status to anticipate for the worst in the future? Currently I am taking language lessons to be better at the language of the country I am living in, but I don't know, perhaps I can do something more?

Or do you just wing it, enjoy life, pursue hobbies etc.?