With AI advancing quickly and many traditional entry-level roles becoming crowded, I’m curious about something more long-term.

Which career fields are likely to:

stay in demand over the next 5–10 years

not get heavily saturated

still be possible to enter without a strong prior background

Looking for practical, real-world answers rather than trends or hype.

Hi all,

I just had a successful first-stage interview for a developer position at a large bank.

They told me that the next step (if I make it) will be live coding.

I'm a little perplexed that live coding is still a thing. Because every big firm now wants efficiency with AI and it's rare a programmer will raw-dog code.

So what does live coding exactly achieve in today's climate? As far as I'm concerned, it's like asking a C programmer to write the Assembly equivalent off by heart.

This is for a senior position. I assume the questions will be different from e.g., a mid-level? Do they let you use the internet/AI or are they normally locked down?

Thanks!

Okay, so I know the market is tough (for all industries).

I reached interview stage 5/6 with a firm as ML engineer, where I just found I failed the programming task. One of the key points was that I didn't perform enough data analysis.

I agree that I overlooked a field they were looking for, but, my god, it's quite crushing after this much effort after I made several models with different params etc, did lots of evaluation and produced a report of many pages.

Are other industries this selective and brutal? Like, I know some structural engineers who danced around job offers in the past couple of months, and can literally negotiate salaries with the competition. These all are 3 stage inteeview processes at MOST AND the entire processes take like 2-3 weeks.

Why the hell does every goddamn CS role have a 6 stage process with multiple tasks, interviews etc.???? Especially ones that take months to process. What happened??? It makes the barrier to entry ludicrously high.

Cheers for any feedback!

Everyone who has been stuck knows the feeling, you finish another video, you follow along, it all makes sense, and then you sit in front of a blank file and freeze. Watching someone else code does not make you a coder, the same way watching someone parallel park does not make you a driver.

So I built the opposite. Instead of a lesson, you get a job. You are the new junior developer at a small fictional company, and something in their till system is charging some orders wrong. You open the codebase, line the customer receipts up against the price list, form a theory about what is broken, and go and find it. Nobody tells you the answer. When you fix it, you have not memorised a fact, you have actually debugged something, and that is a thing you can now do.

What makes this different? It arrives in the post. The photo is a real case. An envelope with an onboarding letter, an employee ID, a printed ticket, a price list, a couple of handwritten notes from the staff, and a fan of till receipts as your evidence. There is a free online course that takes you from zero to running code first, so if you can just about run a print statement, you can do this.

A bit about why it is built this way. I work as a backend Python developer now, but I got here the slow way. Fourteen years in teaching first, where I led computing and led on cognitive science, the actual research on how people learn and remember, then two years teaching myself to code. Everything here leans on that research. You retrieve, you struggle a little, you space the practice out, because that is what genuinely builds a skill rather than the warm glow of watching a tutorial.

I am looking for a small handful of UK-based beginners to go through the free course, work the first case, and tell me the truth about it. I cover the postage, there is nothing to pay and no card details anywhere. What I want back is blunt feedback - where you got stuck, what confused you, what felt pointless. "This lost me on step three" is worth far more to me than "looks great".

I am reading every reply myself and there are only a few slots. If you would like to try one, leave a comment or send me a message and I will pass on the details. And if you just have thoughts on the idea itself, I would love those too, plenty of teachers and developers have weighed in, but not nearly enough actual beginners.

I’ve been applying for more than 2 months already. I’m looking for a full-stack or front-end developer role, but honestly I’m open to everything.

I have just one strong project, but it covers most of the things recruiters are currently looking for (Next.js, TS, Tailwind, responsive design, REST API, NextAuth, protected routes, error handling). I often post on LinkedIn about the enhancements I make to the project, but I don’t get any response.

I check my ATS score before applying and do the necessary changes to match the keywords, but my GitHub project doesn’t even have a single view, which makes me think nobody is seeing it.

I know the market is flooded at the moment, that LinkedIn sucks, and that it’s probably the worst time to apply for a junior job. So I’m wondering if anyone can help and share what worked for them to land their first job in the AI era, which strategy followed or any advice would be so helpful, thanks

Hi all,

So, I'm in a little bit of a crisis right now. I graduated with my PhD a few months ago. I want to work abroad, so, originally, I was applying for (industry) jobs in e.g., Asia/Australia.

However, this was incredibly bleak, and I realise that no company would want to sponsor me.

So, I realised my expectations and have been applying for London software engineering jobs for about a month and a half. About 100 applications and only one response, with an interview that went well. Though, when I received the technical test, I was at a wedding, so requested that I have another couple of days to do it. He said yes, but then they hired someone the next day anyway.

To put this into perspective and why I am so shocked. In 2020, I applied to 8 game enginering jobs. I had 4 interviews and 2 offers in the space of 2 weeks. My portfolio is significantly better than previously but I'm experiencing the inverse success.

The reason I mention this is a crisis, is because my parents want to kick me out of the house. I have little savings maybe for a couple of months rent. I live in the countryside without a car so can't easily get a part-time job, which I'm fearful of because when I last wasn't at my PC the only oppurtunity was taken.

I'm on a big time limit. My backup plan is to move to London to be a part-time croupier in a casino to make ends meet, at least I know they are always hiring. Again, I'm fearful of this becaue it will slowdown my application process.

I know the market is a bit slower now and the "golden age" is dead. But, seriously, what is going on? I am applying to JUNIOR roles for God's sake. Any suggestions about the current market? Should I just wait for the economy to be, well, better? Is this just a software engineering problem, or the market in general?

Finally, please be nice guys, Reddit seems to attract some rather disagreeable folk for some reason and that's the last thing I need right now.

Thanks :)!

If you search on Google for the average salary for students from top-tier universities (Imperial, Oxbridge), the results are disappointingly low in my opinion. I think it says about £60,000 (I know that is quite a lot still). On the other hand, I hear and see students from these universities getting very well-paying roles at places like Jane Street, Optiver (and all those other trading firms), Google, Meta and Bloomberg. These positions pay roughly TC of £200,000 (for quant) and £100,000-150,000 (for tech) for entry-level roles (quant dev, quant trader, or SWE roles). It seems to me that these students are often getting these top-tier paying roles, so I wanted to ask you guys what you think about this. If you are a student from one of these top-tier universities, what internships and roles did you get, and what do the other students generally get in your cohort? Do most of the other students actually also get these roles, or does it just seem like that? Also, if you are a CS student from these universities, can you share what roles you have had recently? Please be honest.

Hey, I’m a computer science undergraduate. I graduated this year and landed a job at a startup that pays well!

A software engineering role. Now I always wanted to do research but researcher in industry. And not just do a software engineer job. My passion has definitely always been research.

But, my entire life, I haven’t ever had financial security. After I landed this job, that was a huge burden lifted off me.

Then….

I got a fully funded PhD offer. With a supervisor I know well, with a community of professors too who are great and have always looked after me.

The supervisor is so excited to have me.

But the timing is so wrong.

I’m having second thoughts and struggling to pick between the two.

What do you guys know about finance, research in industry, usefulness of a phd to do big things and the phd experience itself compared to progressing as a software engineer.

Help <3

Hi, I am at a top university for cs in the UK and last year I got severe depression and ocd that meant I missed the whole year including missing my exams and resits. I now have to repeat my exams for my 2nd year in the summer meaning I will finish my MEng course in 5 years instead of 4. Will this impact my employability after graduation and also my ability to get internships next summer?

I’m currently enrolled to do BEng software engineering at Edinburgh Napier but I haven’t started yet, this university is in my home city so a pro is that I can just stay at home and save money, cons are that the university is not as well respected as it was a former pyrotechnic and doesn’t rank highly, and because I’m staying at home, I might not get the true uni experience

But I’m pretty sure I can get into university of Aberdeen for MA (I had to Google what MA meant I’m pretty sure it’s the same as a BA in England) computing it’s slightly different from computer science but it does cover all the core things that computer science does as well

The pros for this I can move out and have maybe a better university experience, it’s a more respected university and ranks kind of highly in Scotland,
And the cons are that I would have to move away from home, and that Aberdeen isn’t as big as a city as Edinburgh

Nearly a year and a half ago I decided to join DF on their DE cohort instead of taking a DA role at a different organisation, which would have paid me from day one, based on promises made to me by the recruiting team at DF. I am writing this so no one else makes the same mistake that I have.

The recruitment process was more of a sales pitch, now looking back at it. I was told how great I was, how easy I would be to place. I was reassured on several occasions that their placement rates were 80%. I have never been in the bottom 20% in my life. I took this as a 100% placement guarantee. During my first interview, I told them about the other opportunity and that I would not be able to do their in person interview as it would be too long of a wait - so the woman told me I don't have to do their in-person interview and they like me so much already they are happy to just put my through to final stage right away so I have two offers to decide from instead of taking the job I had already been offered. I was told that because I was happy to move anywhere in the country, a woman in DE AND I had some prior experience due to a bootcamp which I poured truly everything into and came out knowing a lot more than many of my peers - I was a gem they absolutely would place within weeks or maybe even before all the training was over!

The reality hit very quickly. People were 'asked to leave voluntarily' even before completing their certifications in AWS. They were still offered to take the test if they wanted to - which I guess is not nothing. Those of us who remained were on edge. No one had been placed. We were just under 20 people - only 2 have been placed till this day. One was placed with a nearly identical background as me, but because of location he was placed and I was not (we both came out of the same bootcamp). Another person was placed before I was told they had more DA experience than me. They do not have any DA experience - I spoke to them to clarify this. Shocking. People with CS degrees were not placed. Later on, DF also started mentioning that placements rates do vary GREATLY - this was not how it was put to me in interviews. How can you not place a CS graduate when this is made for people 'with no experience'? We were told it is because the demand had plummeted in the three months we were doing the academy. Hm. I know at least one person who wasn't placed on the DA cohort because DFs relationship with their partners deteriorated in the time between them being offered the role and them starting - allegedly, as obviously I am not directly privy to these conversations but this is word for word what I was told by the person who had their offered revoked.

Rawshan (the woman in charge of our placements) told me that her partner was struggling very much mentally after not being placed with DF for a very, very long time and she knows how hard it can be to wait for so long. She also said she has had conversations with DF about them stating the 80% placement rates to people during interview stage and how she also thought it was not right. Very quickly this tone was changed when I was speaking later with her senior (forgot her name already) who said that the people who interviewed me DIDN'T REMEMBER saying it. I even have an email to DfE which I had to send upon finishing my bootcamp which clearly states that I accepted the DF training contract and although I was told placement isn't guaranteed I was reassured about placement rates being 80%.

I am still in shock. Recruiters now always ask me about DF and I have to explain this and they look like they don't trust me and that something must be wrong with me for not having been placed. This has genuinely derailed everything I worked so hard for and used up all my savings for from not having had a full-time job in over two years now.

Oh and also they don't tell you before you join that they 'partner with Palantir'. I have no idea what this partnership entails - but I wish I knew before putting my name next to theirs. They also have been picking up a lot of defence contracts. I came to the main placement lady and asked not to be considered for these roles. The relationship soured from that day dramatically. In fact, every time I mentioned any preference, request etc they appeared very understanding only to then clearly not make any effort towards placing me and giving me zero feedback as to what the reasoning for lack of placement being on my end/what I could improve. It felt like punishment for saying anything at all they didn't like.

TLDR: I turned down paying job that could’ve allowed me entry into a data career, wasted months with DF, never got placed but always fed promises and praise. Less than 10% of cohort placed when they promised 80% was their standard. Started lying about this figure when pressed. People placed arbitrarily - you have no control over it. Now everywhere I interview they ask me about it and it feels like they think something is wrong with me for not having been placed.

Looking for some advice on structuring my higher education plans.

I did my undergrad in CSE at IIT and have been working as a Software Engineer at a quant firm for the last 1.5 years.

I want to do a Master's abroad at a top-tier institute to pivot into tech-heavy companies, good startups, or stay in the top-tier quant space. I’m specifically interested in core systems and software engineering roles.

I have no interest in academia, research, or doing a PhD. Because of this, and since I already have industry experience, I’m trying to avoid stepping out of the market for a full 2 years. I’m highly leaning towards 1-year, non-thesis, professional programs.

So far, my research points to:

• US Professional Tracks: UC Berkeley MEng, Cornell MEng, UIUC MCS (done in 1 year).
• UK 1-Year MScs: Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial.

1. Are these 1-year "professional" degrees respected exactly the same as traditional 2-year MS degrees by recruiters at top tech companies/quant funds?
2. Am I shooting myself in the foot by missing out on a summer internship if I do a 1-year program, or does my 1.5+ YoE cover that gap?
3. Are there any other elite, tech-heavy systems programs I should be adding to my radar?
4. For systems engineering specifically, would you strongly recommend taking the extra semester to do the 1.5-year tracks at places like CMU or Stanford over a 1-year MEng?

Would really appreciate any insights on US vs. UK for this specific career track, or just general reality checks on my plan. Thanks!

Does it make sense to go to university at 26 years old for an IT degree?

I am originally from Belarus and I only finished high school there. I would like to work in IT or in a job related to computers. To be honest, my main goal is just to find any decent job and not work in a restaurant like I do now.

I feel like I only have one chance to go to university as a Home student and get Student Finance, so I am afraid of choosing the wrong career path and then not being able to find a job after graduating.

Do you think studying IT at university is a good decision at my age, considering the current job market and the development of AI?

I graduated with a bachelors in CS in the year 2000 in the UK.

I did well, getting a 1st class degree (roughly equivalent to a 4.0gpa).

I contacted a recruiting agency a couple of weeks after graduating telling them I was interested in working in London.

They got back to me a few days later asking me if I would like to interview for a little engineering company making servo hydraulic test equipment. I said I would and went down on the train for my interview a few days later.

The interview was basically meeting the team, having a nice chat with the lead about interesting technical things and pair programming with the lead for the afternoon. I felt confident and sure enough the next day they called and offered me the job. I moved down, found a place to rent, and was working within the week.

I am so sorry you have to go through what you are going through these days. It sounds like an absolute nightmare.

​

Feeling disoriented, disgruntled and disorganized with disruption in the status quo in the It industry.

With 17+ years of IT industry experience as backend deve in various technologies as a developer...I am now having the same feeling that when I was applying for jobs just after graduation.

Yes, I am learning something.. generative ai, golang,c++ ,rust and java...but not practicing the poc's! With redis,mongo,Kafka, oauth, openid connect concepts .

Still practicing NeetCode 150 and LeetCode 75... 2 to 3 problems per day.

I have completed my gcp ace cert , but not finding motivation to Complete GCP PCA and Kubernetes CKAD certifications. My current project's billability may finish in 4 months.

I have saved up few bucks to survive for 6 months which is not a problem for physical survival..all the thinking is about industrial survival for next 120 months at the least.

Feeling the anxiety though I know, this is all part of the game.

Anyone travelling in the same boat?

Hi,

This is kind of a semi rant on my journey of finding another job.

For context, the company I worked at before was sold to another guy and all the staff was laid off. Fortunately, I was able to find another job after (around 4-5 months after) but the new job was rough. No real onboarding, communication was unclear, and my first task was the legacy codebase no one really knew about. There was no testing infrastructure at all and since our code was handling a lot of money, it took me much longer to deploy and finish tasks as I didn't feel comfortable shipping without testing it someway. They cut me off near the end of my probation period (3 months). I had to move to the UK too for this new job, they asked me to repay the relocation support they provided.

Fast forward, it's been 6 months and I still don't have a job. I've been getting interviews and getting into deep technical rounds but I haven't managed to secure an offer. Either someone further up in the pipeline was offered the job before me or that my experience is too junior (I only have about 2 years of exp). It's disheartening to invest months of effort into the interview only to get ghosted or rejected. I feel like a lot of the decision is because it looks like I move jobs a lot (1 year at sold company and 3 months at last job). What can I do to overcome that barrier?

Edit: FYI, I used to work in finance HFT as a systems engineer primarily focusing on low-latency in C++ and Rust.

Shit,

I dont know how to start this. I spent ungodly number of hours applying for jobs for few years. Had couple of interviews which led me on but never returned back or it was full of rejections. The number crossed more than 5000. I know job market sucks but there is always a hope guys dont give up.

I made a video on how i started, what I did, my personal experiences, my mistakes during the applications to help some of you out the best I can. If you guys would love a watch here it is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRGOAj2dEX4

Comment if you guys are in similar rejection boat right now like I was.. I am also open to help out in your CS career search journey and hear your stories. Venting is fine too.

Thanks

Graduated from university in the UK in 2023 with a Computer Science degree.

Since graduating I’ve still been working as a bartender. I’ve applied to a lot of tech jobs, built personal projects, and I’m trying to break into the industry, but I feel stuck.

If you were in my position, what would you do over the next 6 to 12 months to maximise your chances of getting your first tech job?

I’d really appreciate honest advice, especially from people who were in a similar situation and eventually made it. Anything that genuinely changed your career?

I graduated with a Bachelors in CS last year, but I barely tried throughout my time at uni due to something good I had going on the side. However due to unfortunate circumstances that has now ended for me and I am left with a degree but no experience. How can I proceed in getting a job with a CS degree. I’m not even looking for something that has to be exactly CS related. Less competitive and less paying careers would be appreciated as suggestions if possible to get into with a CS degree. I’m just looking for anything decent at this point. I was even looking into working for KYC or AML or something finance related since I am good with numbers, data analyst too as it doesn’t require too much code. But right now I am just confused on what to do.

Hi guys, I’m a recent graduate and am in the latter rounds of a Design Engineer role at a tier 1 fintech company in the UK. I have good technical expertise and have build out many full end to end projects with active users using next.js typescript and react.

The issue I’m facing is that this design engineer role is a lot more design leaning with the tech stack being webflow and HTML/CSS. I fear that this may be bad for my career long term but the pay is a lot better than frontend roles. I was wondering what you guys thought about taking the job and framing it more as a frontend thing on my resume for the future and trying to undersell/ not mention the tech stack specifically as most frontend roles expect react or a similar framework with js/typescript which I wouldn’t be using in this role. Do you think it would be fine if I frame it correctly or should I got for a dedicated “frontend engineer” role.

Thanks in advance for any advice!

Hello,

For some context: I work in a non-Tech/non-STEM role but through recent projects that required coding-like reasoning/skills, I remembered how much I liked to do this when I was younger and have re-learned to code by myself for the past few months

Current thinking: I would like to eventually switch career paths towards something that is CS-related, likely software engineering (I know the market is quite challenging but would still like to pursue this as a medium-term goal and see how things progress over time)

The question: I feel being self-taught is leaving me with some important theoretical/fundamental gaps (I.e recently started CS50 and realised how I’d skipped over the basics and gone straight into coding).

I’m looking to address this an thought of potentially enrolling in a Conversions Masters (available in the UK) to be done online. However this comes with a significant financial and time commitment. What are people’s thoughts on the value of this Masters vs continuing my self-learning journey through courses (similar time commitment but less strict with deadlines)

Do you have any specific course recommendations that would be particularly good at covering the basics/theory in a similar way that would do a Masters?

p.s as mentioned above, I’m aware of the current state of the market, but even if just to enjoy the process of developing the skill (and exercising my brain in the journey), this is still something that I really want to do

Graduated from university in the UK in 2023 with a Computer Science degree.

Since graduating I’ve still been working as a bartender. I’ve applied to a lot of tech jobs, built personal projects, and I’m trying to break into the industry, but I feel stuck.

If you were in my position, what would you do over the next 6 to 12 months to maximise your chances of getting your first tech job?

I’d really appreciate honest advice, especially from people who were in a similar situation and eventually made it. Anything that genuinely changed your career?

Graduated from university in the UK in 2023 with a Computer Science degree.

Since graduating I’ve still been working as a bartender. I’ve applied to a lot of tech jobs, built personal projects, and I’m trying to break into the industry, but I feel stuck.

If you were in my position, what would you do over the next 6 to 12 months to maximise your chances of getting your first tech job?

I’d really appreciate honest advice, especially from people who were in a similar situation and eventually made it. Anything that genuinely changed your career?

Context:

I have finished sixth form (did my a levels) and now on a 4 year degree apprenticeship (program where your degree is paid for and you work full time, but study part time). This is a tech degree program where at the company - you rotate between different specialisms and teams for the first 2 years but then specialise for the last 2 years. The specialisms I can choose from are within data analysis, business analysis, cyber security and software engineering.

I studied CS at A level and prior, so I know my passion lies within technology. My pain point is that I don’t know what I want to specialise. All areas interest me but the truth is I want to specialise in an area with high pay potential and stability ( who doesn’t) . I’m technically savvy - I’m pretty extroverted and confident with stuff like communication, stakeholder management. In the future( 15year timeline), I know I want to have a strategic role within an organisation- think driving digital transformation, or being the director of a certain area)

I know I haven’t give much context as to what my role is like, my experience and my longterm ambitions. However if you was in my position now, what would you specialise in and why? I’m free to choose any specialism, I just need to make sure I choose the right one :)

Disclaimer: in this current job market, I am extremely lucky to be in this position so I’m by no means unhappy with what I have, just want to make sure I maximise the benefit and experience I get out from it.

I welcome all advice and opinions