Let’s say I’m a tech worker who got mega laid-off. Depending on how long I have been in tech I may or may not have some small savings to fall back on, but it won’t last long and it doesn’t seem like there are likely to be any tech jobs in the near future that aren’t criminally negligent to outright actively evil. I want to write open source code and I want to help make the internet and the world a better place, but I also really need money for food and medicine and shelter and stuff. What could I do?
Take whatever job you can find that pays enough to live on while you work on your next career move.
I was laid off from a high paying IT engineer position in Feb 25, and I got a job doing manual labor at a school until I was able to transition that into a IT position there.
I’m making less than 50% of what I was before, which sucks, but that’s public sector for ya.
take a low paying coding job. there are tons of them.
the issue is that most programmers don’t want to work for 50K a year. they want to work for 100K. they were sold on that high income potential rather than middle class income potential.
my company is small, our top programmer with 30 years of experience only makes about 150K. he could probably make double or triple that if he worked for a tech corp.
our start salary from an entry level programmer is about 65K, way below the market expectation of 80-100K
the kicker is, our programmers tend to be lifers. because the job is stable and the benefits are amazing, even if the pay is ‘criminally’ low such that most people won’t entertain it.
Let’s say I’m a tech worker who got mega laid-off. Depending on how long I have been in tech I may or may not have some small savings to fall back on, but it won’t last long and it doesn’t seem like there are likely to be any tech jobs in the near future that aren’t criminally negligent to outright actively evil. I want to write open source code and I want to help make the internet and the world a better place, but I also really need money for food and medicine and shelter and stuff. What could I do?
seriously what do I do
Ask AI to chart you a path. /s
Take whatever job you can find that pays enough to live on while you work on your next career move.
I was laid off from a high paying IT engineer position in Feb 25, and I got a job doing manual labor at a school until I was able to transition that into a IT position there.
I’m making less than 50% of what I was before, which sucks, but that’s public sector for ya.
take a low paying coding job. there are tons of them.
the issue is that most programmers don’t want to work for 50K a year. they want to work for 100K. they were sold on that high income potential rather than middle class income potential.
my company is small, our top programmer with 30 years of experience only makes about 150K. he could probably make double or triple that if he worked for a tech corp.
our start salary from an entry level programmer is about 65K, way below the market expectation of 80-100K
the kicker is, our programmers tend to be lifers. because the job is stable and the benefits are amazing, even if the pay is ‘criminally’ low such that most people won’t entertain it.
most employees only care about the salary.
I’m only working to pay to be alive