> The problem with those roles are that they are easily commoditizable and were even before AI
There are pros and cons about being in a "commoditizable" role. I honestly am not worried at all about AI.
> It’s also harder to stand out from the crowd if (the royal) you has as your only vector of competition is an ability to do coding interviews.
Which is why I said that the best skill I ever acquired was "how to be interviewed".
> But if you look at the leveling guidelines of any major tech company, “codez real gud” only gets you to a mid level role.
I just wanted enough that I could afford a house and raising a family. Mid level role provides that, and it is what I optimized for.
First you have to get the interview. I don’t know how old you are. But the older you are (I’m 51) the harder it is to get mid level hands on keyboard roles.
It’s a shit show out here right now. It’s actually worse than the dot com bust. I had no trouble getting jobs then as an enterprise dev working in Atlanta with four years of experience.
Have you looked for a job post 2022? My experience in 2023 and 2024 when I was looking for a bog standard enterprise dev job (twice) that needed AWS experience. Mind you in 2023, I had 5 years of AWS experience leading projects with hands on keyboard work including 3 working directly for AWS leading projects at AWS ProServe.
A) submitting my resume for standard enterprise dev jobs blindly to ATS’s using LinkedIn Easy Apply, Indeed, etc: I submitted hundreds of resumes and heard crickets. LinkedIn shows you how many people applied, if your application has been viewed and how often your resume has been viewed. Maybe 3-5x my application was even looked at.
B) Targeted outreach to internal recruiters based on a niche of niche in AWS where I was an industry wide subject matter expert [1] - two interviews one offer.
C) reaching out to my network based again not on them wanted someone who could code - coders are a dine a dozen. They wanted someone who was hands on but also had a history of working through all of the complexities of dealing with organizations and “getting things done”. I had two full time offers and one short term side contract.
The three offers came within two weeks. It would have been a lot harder no matter how well I could do on a coding interview to stave out.
That was in 2023. A year later I was let go of the shitty company that I did accept the offer from through my outreach to recruiters. I got an offer from responding to an internal recruiter for the job I have now within three weeks. But I also did the randomly submitting my resume again while I was waiting with the same results.
> First you have to get the interview. I don’t know how old you are. But the older you are (I’m 51) the harder it is to get mid level hands on keyboard roles.
42 here. I still didn't hit that wall. I presume it does exist, yes. That said, I noticed over time that it is becoming more common to see older engineers than it used to be.
Migrating to managerial roles for me is a no-go however. I can't stand managing people.
> Have you looked for a job post 2022?
Yes, I switched jobs last time in 2023. I still get invitations for interviews, though not as often as it used to be, say, in between 2015-2021.
However, I live in Europe. I have the impression that things are not as dire here as they are in your side lf the pond in terms of employment in IT.
> They wanted someone who was hands on but also had a history of working through all of the complexities of dealing with organizations and “getting things done”.
I mean, that is very important in IC roles. Part of my interview prep is a very detailed account of multiple projects I participated in STAR format, highlighting it from inception to delivery, including outcomes.
All that said, I think things are going to be in a slump for a while longer, and might get worse next year. It's a bad time to be job-hopping. I do interviews here and there only to keep myself sharp.
> Migrating to managerial roles for me is a no-go however. I can't stand managing people.
We are in complete agreement here. I don’t manage people directly. But being responsible for projects that involve a other people does require you to know how to peer feedback, use soft skills etc.
> However, I live in Europe. I have the impression that things are not as dire here as they are in your side lf the pond in terms of employment in IT.
Probably not as bad and to be fair, if I were still looking for in office jobs in Atlanta where I spent my career from 1996-2020 working locally, it would have been easier. I assume in Europe you’re also not dealing with competing against the young tech bros.
> I mean, that is very important in IC roles. Part of my interview prep is a very detailed account of multiple projects I participated in STAR format, highlighting it from inception to delivery, including outcomes.
Thats definitely not mid level pulling tickets off a board behavior (that’s a compliment btw). I think we are in “violent agreement”.
Ahhh, my bad. I took your original take as a role where you would oversee other people, in opposition to an IC - who I presumed could only be "mid-level".
So yeah, I totally agree with you. Understanding the business is important in that sense. Especially when communicating the outcome of projects to non-technical stakeholders. I go out of my way on my current role to produce metrics that I can graph to show the positive outcomes of projects.
One of the things I learned is that non-technical people in particular love this sort of eye-candy. I don't say this in a derogatory way, it is a good way to communicate stuff.