Dude I’m much older than you, not nearly as well educated, and feel the exact same way, with a job. But I was in your position last year and I fucking get it. This is my advice, lie, lie your ass off, I don’t give a fuck if you haven’t been doing anything exciting or not since you graduated, YES you fucking have, get on the selfhosted or sysadmin on here and find something someone else did and say you did it. And when asked to present it(this will not happen) you had a power surge and lost everything or something, your cat knocked a water bottle on your setup, it doesn’t matter. You are slowly rebuilding because it’s difficult to get back in that headspace due to the frustration.

This bit worked for me when I was interviewing but your mileage may vary, watch a bunch of pro wrestling clips and specifically watch how they talk about themselves. That is how you need to talk about you, and I know you don’t fucking care, this is all bullshit, but thinking about yourself as the baddest motherfucker that ever is gonna walk into whatever shitty company you’re applying to will help you get what you want.

Everything is fucking terrible in the IT world right now. But remember most people doing the hiring are dumber than a sack of hammers, manipulate them.

I hope this doesn’t seem like I’m talking down, I really feel for your situation, but playing dirty is necessary. You ain’t doing anything wrong

I am in no way qualified to address any of that. Really sorry you’re going through it all, it sounds like hell. I do want to ask/suggest you could do food delivery again, for now, to pay for your gas and antidepressants in between interviews. A food delivery job should be flexible I’d think? So maybe you can work around interview times. Maybe you do a few less interviews per time week (or whatever your preferred time interval of measurement) and pull the nose of the plane up on some what’s got you so stressed, while still not giving up on your goal and dream of being an engineer.

Just view the whole thing as a game. It’s a stupid game alright but you just have to play it. And the business ghouls you’re talking to are playing the game too, they don’t believe any of if that shit either.

Depending on whether your state or county sucks or not, you may be able to get meds from the department of health and human services. Google something like “[your location] sliding scale behavioral health” + if you’re still in school they might have a health department thing too. Good luck, stay on your meds as best you can and the rest will fall into place I promise.

Interviewer: What are you expecting to get out of this job?

Me: to be paid money so I can eat.

Let me give you some very good advice for getting a development job. This was given to me when I left the boot camp where I learned to code. I studied philosophy then bartended for a decade, so I had no experience. Yet I got a job within a week of leaving the bootcamp by following this advice.

Don’t keep applying. Apply to a few places, maybe 10. If that goes nowhere, then why would you expect anything different from the next 200?

Instead of just applying, work on projects. Deploy some cool impressive applications of your own. If you can’t do that, then you aren’t ready for a job and this is why your applications are going nowhere. If you can do that, do it. Keep doing it. Learn new technologies. If you don’t want to learn new stuff, then you aren’t up for a development job, because that’s half of it.

Basically, act like you’re already hired. Act like you have a job. Spend 35 hours a week learning, building, contributing to open source. Then spend 5 hours applying. That’s a far better use of your time. You’ll have stuff to talk about in your interviews. You’ll have stuff to show off. And you’ll be getting better and staying on top of new tech instead of stagnating while you apply. That’s what gets you a job. Not blindly applying. If you’re only applying to jobs, then your aren’t learning, aren’t doing, you’re dead in the water and that actually makes you unhireable.

When you become impressive enough, through the merit of the work you can show off, that 5 hours a week will be more than enough for someone to see your value and hire you.

So it’s not a perfect solution but if you’re looking for advise, try looking for a factory job. Electronics manufacturing is a good bet if there’s any in your area. Those places typically pay much better than most other entry level jobs (like food service) and they will still hire basically anyone that can pass a drug test. A lot of those places also like to hire their engineers internally because then they’re already familiar with the product and their process. Just getting a job on the production floor should get you a livable (if not comfortable) income and from there it should be easy for you to get into an engineering position when one opens up. I know it’s probably not what you’re looking for but from the sound of it right now you just need anything that pays and provides insurance.

Life sucks, dude. Some are fortunate, some are not. I assume you are the latter. I can only sympathize with you as a stranger on the internet. I’m sorry you have to face such situations.

Being unemployed after school was a dark time. There aren’t enough high quality jobs to go around. It’s competitive, especially at the start of your career.

That GPA is tough. Mine isn’t much better. One option I’m looking at is going back to increase my cGPA so I can get into a grad program. I wish I could go way back in time. But if I could only go back to where you are right now I’d do what I needed to do to get into grad school. Caveat: something employable.

My experience after finally getting the damn job is that I still feel trapped, years later. I took the first one that was offered to me, and it’s not the one I wanted. I’m part way through a career I don’t like and shifting gears in your 30s is another challenge I wish I could have side stepped.

The bullshit doesn’t stop. The business environment is a political environment. You can be the best engineer, but if you aren’t constantly pushing your own agenda or you don’t have an excellent manager then you won’t advance in your career, not compared to one who does those things.

One other thing: you might not need to lie. I’m a truthful person as well, and if you have autism you might default even more strongly to honesty. I think it’s possible to work around this if you start thinking about yourself as being a better person than you are, and then trying to become that person one small step at a time. If you can learn to recognize your potential instead of counting your failures then you might find it easier to talk and think about yourself in a more positive way. It will feel true because it is true, (even if you’re still working on it).

It’s a very hard time.

Suggestion from an engineering-adjacent person: look into a drafting job. Either making drawings or checking drawings. Stay with that a year or two, while applying for an engineering job.

Totally agree, there.

My dream is to build businesses and hire the hell out of America…when thinking about it I really don’t care if you champion my brand or not…at the end of the day I’d just want you to get the job done. And if you can’t then I’d expect you to reach out for help (I’m talking hypothetically).

So I guess I’m expecting the same from employers. I’ll still serve you to the best of my ability. I want your business to succeed because I want you to succeed. It doesn’t matter if you sell vacuum cleaners or financial advice.

The past 2-3 years have been rough for me, too. It’s only the past week or so that I’ve been getting additional request for work from existing and new clients. It always feels so odd to be chatting with a founder about my Python experience, then walk to the local food bank to stand in line to get food.

FWIW, keep it up, dude. You’re doing alright. I love your vulnerability. I’ve found it’s really hard to find people to help, but I push for it anyway. And I often have to ignore “is this ethical or not?” and allow myself to take full advantage of their help.

So, I know this is a rant. I completely understand your frustration. When I started my career in software I was either overqualified (weirdly), or just not interesting enough. Getting in is rough.

I had to face this again recently when I changed countries. Despite tech companies hiring everyone and their mother, no one accepted my application. This was most likely due to the sponsorship requirement. Then one day a head hunter called me up, asked about my qualifications, then sent me a packet of job postings. Within days I was jumping through interview after interview.

My takeaway from that experience: work with (not for) a talent agency. The people posting those jobs are like you and me. Sifting through hundreds of resumes, reading every detail, perfectly recalling those details during the interview… it’s exhausting. It’s far easier to trust the recommendations of a company that specializes in putting people in front of you.

Do that, and I’m certain you’ll find a job offer in no time. This is coming from someone who has ADHD, and suffered from a crippling case of imposter syndrome.

You can do it.