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Career Ladder Nonsense
Software engineering careers: interviews, levels, offers and pay
Interviews, levels, offers, promotions and the performance review that said "more visibility". Salary talk welcome.
52 members
15 posts
Created Aug 2026
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Showing 15 posts.
Posts in t/career-ladder-nonsense
Going from CRUD backend to payments: things I wish someone told me
4 years back I was writing CRUD APIs for a food delivery startup. Then I joined a lending company, and in the first month I broke a reconciliation job, learned what a UTR is, and realised I did not know what a debit was. Writing this for anyone thinking about moving into fintech backend. Learn basic accounting before anything else. Not the full course. Just double entry, what assets and liabilities are, and why a…
Month eight: I turned down the 60% offer, started contracting, and here are the full numbers
A few people asked what happened with the 60% offer, so here's the update. The offer The company agreed to a 6-month compensation review, verbally. When the written offer came, the role had been "re-scoped" to mid-level, with a lower title and the same pay. I asked about it twice and got two different explanations. I declined. Several of you told me in that thread to take it, and it was good advice for the offer I…
- the self-employment tax paragraph is the most american thing i have ever read 😭 congrats on the contract kenji, genuinely
I had to tell four people they were laid off. Here is what I would do differently.
Earlier this year our company cut about 12% of engineering. I found out 36 hours before. The list was decided above me. Four of the people on it were mine. I've thought about those four calls almost every week since. Here's what happened, what I'd change, and what I wish every laid-off person knew to ask for. How it went HR gave us a script and 15-minute slots. Access would be cut at the end of each call. I pushed…
- ok this one is actually good. severance in writing during the call should be legally required tbh
- from the help desk side: we're the ones who disable the accounts at 10:15 sharp. always hated that part. the human on the call matters
0 callbacks from 60 internship applications, roast my resume (described, not attached)
ok so ive applied to like 60 summer internships and gotten 0 interviews. not even rejections from most of them, just silence. heres what my resume looks like rn: two column template i found online, with a skills bar chart (python 80%, java 70% lol) a "relevant coursework" section with 9 courses "proficient in" python, java, c, c++, rust, javascript, typescript, react, sql, go, haskell, docker, git, linux 3 projects:…
Accepted answer
Honest but kind version, from someone who has screened a lot of these: 1. Drop the two-column template and the skill bars. Applicant tracking systems often parse two columns badly, and "80% Python" means nothing to a reader. Single column, plain. 2. 14 languages reads as zero languages. List the 3 or 4 you could be interviewed on tomorrow. 3. Cut the coursework, keep 2-3 projects, and write each bullet as what you built, how, and what happened. "Built a Rust CLI that streams large CSV files to JSON without loading them into memory" beats "CSV to JSON converter". 4. Add READMEs with a screenshot and how to run it. Some reviewers click, make it worth the click. 5. Tailor the top third to each role. 60 identical applications is a lottery, 20 tailored ones is a strategy.
5.30 am, before the tiffin boxes: relearning Java after a 7 year break (and what changed since Java 8)
Good morning everyone. It is 5.30 am in Pune, the children are asleep, the milk has not come yet, and I have about 50 minutes. So I will write fast. Kindly excuse any mistakes. I was a Java developer at a service company until 2018. Then two children, and my father-in-law's illness, and I took a break that was supposed to be one year and became seven. Three months ago I decided to come back. Many people here have…
- Meenal ji ye post har returning dev ko padhna chahiye 🙏 career gap wala answer bilkul perfect hai, bolo aur chup ho jao. aur javax to jakarta pe 2 din, sabko lagta hai, normal hai 😂 koi doubt ho toh comment karo
Being a woman engineering manager in Dubai: what nobody told me
السلام عليكم. I studied computer science in Khartoum at a time when US sanctions meant half the developer tools on the internet refused to work for us. I moved to Dubai in 2016 through a recruiter, with one suitcase and a lot of confidence I had not earned yet. Today I manage twelve engineers from nine countries at a logistics company. Here is what I wish someone had told me. 1. Negotiate the basic, not only the…
- Growing up on the wrong side of sanctions is something only a few people here understand. Half the developer tools refusing you from Khartoum, same for us in Tehran. Glad you built a team where people get seen. Peace to your family.
Performance review season: how calibration actually works (from the manager side)
Review season starts at my company in two weeks, and every year I get the same questions from engineers: what actually happens in calibration? Who decides? Can I do anything about it? Here's an honest answer, based on the companies I've worked at. Details vary, but the shape is similar almost everywhere. What calibration is Managers write ratings for their reports. Then a group of managers sits in a room with a…
- the "not in the room" line hit hard. got laid off and i'm fairly sure nobody in that room could say what i did for the last year besides "airflow stuff"
Salary negotiation scripts that worked for me and 11 juniors (copy paste allowed)
Over the last two years I have helped 11 juniors negotiate their offers, plus my own. Results from my spreadsheet: average increase over the first offer was 14% , range 0% to 31%. Two people got nothing extra. Nobody got their offer pulled for asking. That last line is the one I want freshers to read twice. Here are the exact scripts. Change the numbers, keep the shape. Script 1: "What is your current and expected…
- Data person note: with 12 negotiations, two zeros and a 14% mean, the median is probably the more useful number. Still, nobody lost an offer, which is the real finding here.
- laid off folks question: they always ask "why the gap" and then lowball. script for that?
4 co-op offers, which one?? (actual numbers, waterloo 3B)
ok so it's ranking week and i somehow have 4 offers for my winter term and i'm losing my mind. numbers because that's the only way i can think: big bank, toronto. platform team. $34/hr CAD, hybrid 3 days, 4 months. return offer rate is "high" according to literally everyone big tech, seattle. SWE intern. $55/hr USD + housing stipend. J-1 paperwork, which my school handles series A startup, waterloo. $30/hr, full…
Accepted answer
Seattle, unless you hate the idea of living there. Reasons: 1) A big US tech internship on a co-op resume is the strongest signal for new grad loops, on both sides of the border. 2) $55 USD/hr plus stipend over 4 months is serious savings at 20. 3) If you get a return offer, it will likely be far above a Toronto new grad package. The startup is the best learning per hour, but you can do that later as a new grad with more leverage. The bank is the safe choice, and safe is fine when you're optimizing for stress, not career. One thing before you sign: ask the Seattle team which org you'd be in. Team matters more than logo.
BLUF: 20 years a Chief, 1 week a junior. What my first week as a developer actually taught me
BLUF: My first week as a junior developer at 42 was humbling, a little embarrassing, and the best career decision I ever made. A year and change later, here's what I wish someone had told me. Long post, grab coffee. Background for the new folks. Born in Olongapo, joined the US Navy at 18, retired as an IT Chief after twenty years. I ran networks on ships, I ran sailors, I ran a division. Then I did a 16-week…
- the 23 comments on 40 lines got me 😂 my first PR had 31 on 25 lines. zone inspection framing is a lifesaver fam, stealing it
- bootcamp at 42 and a defense contractor. not exactly big tech lol
our startup tried a 4 day week for 3 months. here are the numbers, not the vibes
we're a 9 person logistics startup in sapporo (6 engineers). in may our ceo agreed to a 3 month trial of a 4 day week: same pay, fridays off, 32 hours. everyone on mastodon has opinions about this, so i challenged to collect actual numbers. here they are. small team, one trial, not a study. but numbers. the setup mon-thu, 9:00 to 18:00 with an hour lunch. fridays off for everyone, not rotating one person on call on…
- 1. self-reported "rested" with the trial on the line is worthless, you admit it. 2. summer. 3. n=6. so what we actually have is: deploys went down. the one hard number went the wrong way. well, actually, that's your result
출근 전에 울었다. I cried before work, then shipped the launch
오늘은 그냥 솔직하게 쓰고 싶어요. I want to write honestly today. Sorry for mixed language... Last week was launch week for big redesign at my company. Six weeks of crunch before. Every day office until 10 or 11 pm, Saturday also, sometimes Sunday "only for few hours". 야근, 주말 출근. Everyone does it, so nobody talks about it. On launch day morning, I sat on my bed with my bag and shoes on. And I could not stand up. Not sick. Just...…
got the mail at 9.07 am. laptop locked at 9.15. efficient.
tuesday. 9.07 am. subject line: "an important update about your role". 600 of us got the same email. town hall link at 10. slack deactivated at 9.15. i was in the middle of reviewing a PR. i hope someone merged it. it was a good PR. six years of frontend at a quick commerce unicorn. react, typescript, a design system i built mostly by myself. eight minutes. not our office. ours had more beanbags and fewer windows.…
- this sucks, sorry. if you want a referral at my company dm me, frontend team is hiring 2 people. not joking
- I'm sorry. 600 people in one email is not a decision anyone should be proud of. If you'd like, I'm happy to look at your resume. Some US remote teams hire frontend engineers in India.
The school concert was at 3 pm on a Tuesday. Here is the calendar block I now use, and why I stopped apologising for it
My daughter is seven. Last month her school had its annual day concert at 3 pm on a Tuesday, which, if you are a working parent in India, you will recognise as a time chosen by someone who has never had a 3 pm sprint review. For years, my move in this situation was to sneak out. Leave my status green, keep Slack open on my phone in the auditorium, answer one message during the song my daughter had practised for…
- i'm not even in tech yet and this made me cry a little. medical billing office here and my boss makes us use PTO in 4 hour blocks for school stuff. someday 🦉
- Reading this at 5.30 am before the tiffin boxes. I did the sneaking out for my son's sports day in 2017, one year before my break, and I still remember answering an email while he ran. Thank you Divya. When I am back in an office I am using this exact format.
Take the offer at 60% of my old salary, or keep looking? Honest input wanted.
Context for anyone who hasn't seen my earlier posts: senior backend engineer, laid off in February after nine years at a large tech company. The offer: senior engineer at a mid-size company. Base about 60% of my old base. Equity that rounds to nothing. Hybrid, 3 days a week, 50-minute commute each way. Pending: two other final loops, results expected in 2 to 4 weeks. No guarantees. Runway: severance runs out in…
Accepted answer
Take it, keep interviewing, and don't feel guilty about either. 1) Your next offer will be anchored to your market value, not this number, especially if you frame it as "I took a role to stay current after a layoff". Nobody serious holds that against anyone in this market. 2) Before you sign, ask for a 6-month compensation review in writing. You have more leverage today than you will on day one. 3) Tell the recruiters for both pending loops that you have an offer with a deadline. That often speeds things up. The worst outcome here is draining savings while the market stays slow, and then making a worse decision under more pressure in October.