Title kind of says it all, started a month or so ago, any tips on what I should start doing? I was thinking of starting solo game dev with unity first for small scale games, is that good enough to put on a resume in 3 years?

Hi all,

I'm a .NET dev with 5 YOE and I'm looking to move to the Netherlands. I'm an EU citizen but I've never lived in NL. Most of my experience is in desktop and some Blazor the last couple of years.

I'm not aiming for big tech like Booking or Adyen, just mid-sized(ish) companies. The smaller the better but I'm also looking for companies that will pay decently and be willing to do the 30/27% ruling paperwork.

I've never done a live coding interview or properly studied LeetCode, so I'm trying to figure out where to put my prep time.

For those who've interviewed at companies like that recently:

1. How common are LeetCode-style questions? When they do come up, are we talking easy or medium?

2. If not LeetCode, what do the technical rounds usually look like? Take-homes, pair programming, design discussions?

ANY advice is highly appreciated!

TL;DR: 7 YOE Senior DevOps Engineer in Germany facing a 1-year job search gap. Choosing between a government-funded AWS Solutions Architect Pro or PMP to maximize salary ROI and AI resilience. Which one gets me hired faster right now?

7 YOE DevOps/Cloud Infra Engineer in Germany with a German Master's Degree, B2 Language certification and Scrum PSD-I, CKAD, Azure fundamentals az-900 certification.

Looking for some career advice given current AI shifts. I have been looking for a job for last 1 year!

My background is heavily technical, covering Kubernetes, GitOps, Terraform, CI/CD, Git, Platform Management and multi-cloud (Azure/AWS) across IT consulting (5 years) and HealthTech startups.

I can get a certification fully funded via Agentur für Arbeit (Bildungsgutschein) and am torn between two paths:

1. AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional (SAP-C02): Moving from infrastructure implementation to high-level architecture. It feels safer from AI automation since it focuses on complex system design, governance, and strategy.
2. Project Management Professional (PMP): Leveraging my team coordination and training background to pivot into management. However, I’m worried about AI automating middle-management tasks and whether PMP holds enough weight in the EU tech space. I have managed small teams and projects before in teaching career before moving into tech.

Goal: Maximize ROI and AI job security over the next 3–5 years in the European tech market. Also keep my self relevant for the upcoming AI wave and global opportunities.

Should I double down on technical architecture (AWS Pro) to climb the engineering ladder, or step away from the keyboard entirely into management (PMP)? Which path makes more sense for a profile like mine to end a 1-year job search fast?

Hey all,

I'm interviewing with Proton for backend engineering position.

It's been a very long process, and from previous experiences I know my weak area has always been system design.

Has anyone recently interviewed with proton and share some tips on specific systems to practice and focus on?

Thanks!

Hmm, here is a post from a guy who is getting into programming, he is asking something totally unrelated to my AI-doomer mindset. I have the perfect comment for this post!!

"Hey dude, programming is not the same after AI, heck, it has 3 years max with these newest claude gpt models, I wouldn't bother getting into it".

Heh, I saved that guy. He will now go into a door-handle fixing career and will probably thank me later. I can't believe this guy hasn't heard of AI, what a guy!

Welp, onto the next post!

Hello everyone,

In order to settle in Poland I am looking for a job of a web developper, preferably PHP because i got more than ten years of experience in that but that's not my question

When it comes to remuneration, on some offers i see two different types of contract : work contract or B2B contract. I have done a bit of research and it seems like it comes down to taxes difference but is that the only difference there is ? I have read that b2b contract have less "benefits" but nothing precise enough to get a clear view.

Thanks for the answers if you have any.

Hey, I have 5 yoe and unfortunately I am not at the level where I want to be.

My jobs didn't really offer me any growth opportunities despite asking for them and after 5 years I feel like I lack practical experience in the industry. Things such as code navigation in a foreign codebase, debugging and writing quality code (things which are not tested during interviews). My current job doesn't offer a lot of room for growth...

I am trying to learn in my free time. But I don't know if that's enough.

Any advice would be appreciated, thanks. I really wanna stay in this field.

Gemini claimed that German tech jobs deviate from the normal CV order and that I should actually put a section for my tech stack first, then my projects, then my work experience, education, etc. Is this correct?

Hello!

I have been in the workforce for almost 1.5 decades now. Lately, I have been considering what to do next with my career that would earn me more money.

Here is my profile:

• Started as a software engineering analyst (those guys who support production applications and debug code and scripts, but very rarely writes code)
• Became a sysadmin, 3x (UNIX and Linux flavours)
• DevOps engineer (tooling monkey)
• Wrote tens of Ansible roles and playbooks
• DevOps engineer (piece together the application repo and the tools made by the tooling monkeys)

As you can see, I don't have a solid coding and low-level experience. No architectural experience either. It's somewhere in between. I have no masters and my CS bachelors was not that solid.

Some of the options I considered in the past:

• Specialize in a cloud platform - I never had the chance to land a cloud role mainly because of the disconnect between my YoE and the starting pay for people with 0 cloud experience. Nowadays, it feels like the job market is already saturated with 'cloud engineers' with tens of certifications.
• Move to a management role - I never liked navigating company politics and dealing with people's attitudes. I'm confident I can, I just don't like these.

What do you think should be my next career progression based on this? Of course, I am open to putting in the work.

Thanks in advance.

EDIT: one path I am considering is still Linux-based but specializing in low-level systems instead of being a sysadmin. For example, working with high-performance networking, memory management, profiling, etc. I recently landed interviews with similar roles (job titles were all Linux Engineer) and I felt like the interviewers were put off because my skills were not 'low-level enough'.

As you all know, with AI, my job as a software engineer has changed a lot.

I got let go from my previous job and was super lucky to get a new one quickly.

However this new one is in an industry that is not very stable (mobile game dev), though my particular company is still growing, the work I do everyday is also not improving my skills that I can bring to the outside; I do bug fixes and make features for the game. And with AI, I am using it to help me out and thus I learn even less now.

I keep on being very critical now on the tasks I am doing now, whether it will save me in my next unemployment season. But it really takes away the joy. I become very depressed, why did I take this job out of desperation, perhaps I could've waited for a better one. Perhaps I should've taken the other offer.

I don't know how to enjoy my work now. It's in such a niche, bla bla bla. People say to collect the paycheck and go home, but in my case, in the saying "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime", I feel like I am only fed for a day.

I sleep 10 hrs a day now just so I don't feel this anxiety. When I'm awake, I am plagued by these thoughts of I won't be employable in a year from now because of redundancy, AI, etc. and I am not prepared for it.

What should I do? I think even if I go to another job now, in a safer sector e.g. banking or in tech or whatever, without a change in mindset, I will just end up in the same depression and thanklessness. Can someone give me a perspective? Should I do a certification? Should I go to network events? What should I do

In every company I've been in there's this one senior guy that seems to be everywhere. Things go through them, they're obviously quite skilled and well-informed, and they take on a lot of work

How do you become this person? Is it sociability, or raw technical ability, or just saying yes to everything that comes your way?

Any information, blogs, or advice about this is greatly appreciated. I'm sure there's lots of content about it but I can't quite put a name to this phenomenon

Hello
I graduated with a technical degree one year ago, and afterwards did a 1year internship in project management.
Now i have 2 offers:
1- Sales engineer (not quota carrying), I think the company is very interesting and the job too, but the pay isn’t very high, and the role is 100% on site
2- Project manager, this is in a consulting company, the pay is a little bit higher, and the role is remote

I am confused because I’m not sure which direction to choose. I feel like maybe long term SE can have more benefits financially and also open more doors, but due to the current pay I’m honestly not so sure.

I would really appreciate different perspectives on this.
Thanks for reading

The announcement some months ago of an RTO policy with 3 mandatory office days starting in 2027 is already history… management just changed it to 5 days. Just do layoffs if you want to get rid of people—I know this is cheaper, but give the survivors some quality of life. Not happy!

The tech job market is toasted in Germany for a long time now and I have been looking for a job for over a year and I am tired of those stingy and greedy companies. I am a senior SW with 10+ years of experience worked with large and medium companies tech stack mostly in the Typescript realm. Trying to get a salary in the range of 80k€ though not sure if this is a big ask now given this is lower than my previous salary (100k€). I have PR.

I am wondering if anyone succeeded in finding a dignified tech job from neighboring countries (UK, Netherlands, Switzerland, Poland, ...etc) while still living here? What platforms did you use? Is it as hard as here or a bit relatively easier?

Hi everyone!

I was fortunate enough to receive a TM for an L3 position at Google Munich, and I'm currently discussing compensation with the recruiter.

Based on my research so far, the package seems to be roughly:

• Base salary: €84k–€87k
• Target bonus: 15%
• Stock grant: Around 0.6 yearly base salary over four years ~ 50k

From these information, I'm estimating first-year TC at around €110k , excluding any sign-on bonus.

For anyone currently at Google Munich or familiar with recent L3 offers in Germany, does this estimate sound realistic? I'd especially appreciate insights into the typical TC range and how much flexibility there might be during negotiations.

Thanks!

For context, I’m a frontend developer in Eastern Europe with about 2.5 years of experience. I work with TypeScript, Vue and React, and I’ve also built and shipped features for a React Native mobile app. I currently make around €1,100/month net, no other benefits.

Is my salary normal for this experience and region, or am I underpaid? And how much should I expect at my level of experience?

LE: the country is Romania

Do companies tell devs like bro go build Jira with Claude so we dont have to pay for them?

And IT team will get some bonus

Hey, need some outside opinions on this.

Quick context: take-home pay is basically the same in both cases. The difference is mostly on paper.

I'm early 20s, have an MSc and about 2 years of research experience, based in Portugal.

Current job: startup in Portugal, but I'm technically employed by a consultancy on a fixed-term contract. 2 days remote. Around 50k gross, plus a good chunk paid as expense reimbursements, a setup I'm not really comfortable with. The upside is the role: I'm pretty central to the project, touching a lot of different stuff and basically building something from scratch, which would be a great story later. Right now it's mostly regular software dev, and the research part I actually want is "coming later", but they've promised interesting work. They've also hinted at hiring me directly in a year or so, but nothing in writing. I really like the field and the team.

Offer: foreign startup, fully remote, permanent contract through an EOR. Research from day one. 80k gross, all proper salary, plus good health insurance and stock options. The field is less exciting to me, but closer to what I'm good at. I'd be joining an existing product, so probably less ownership at first.

So it's basically:

- exciting field, lots of ownership, zero-to-one story, but low official salary, an iffy contract setup and research only "later"

- vs research now, clean contract, 80k on paper, fully remote, but less exciting and less ownership

Questions:

- which would you pick at this stage of a career?

- does having 80k as your last salary actually help much when negotiating later, especially for jobs abroad?

- anyone worked through an EOR for a while? Was it stable?

Thanks

If you think about it devs who have been to a startup from 0 at seed level to 100m USD valuation or Unicorn or until the startup IPO is kinda impressive lmfao

those devs they also do other roles, not just coding 24/7 as well lol

I heard somewhere those devs in Sillicon Valley, they can get job easily since they got a huge connection

I'm a senior hands-on IC considering two opportunities:

Option A: Different industry, lower salary (-15%), but mature engineering practices, modern tooling, strong technical peers and good work culture. Will basically allow me to work directly with AI tooling, deployment and pave the way for that.

Option B: Familiar industry, salary on par with my current, outdated tech stack and development practices. However, leadership seems genuinely interested in giving me the freedom to modernize tooling, automation and workflows, especially with "AI" - AI seeming non-existent in the organization.

Leaving current role due to epic org dysfunction and empire builders and low morale and people leaving. The works. No stock options but the salary is a "golden handcuff".

Both seem to offer good work-life balance, B maybe more set in stone for 2 WFH days whereas the first is "up to 2 days at home".

I'm torn between learning from an established engineering environment and having the opportunity to build and modernize one myself.

Has anyone faced a similar choice?

I really don't get it. I read everywhere about "forced RTO", "employer forced me to do X", etc.
How can some employee(in most cases the CEO is an employee too) force another employee to do something against their will ? How ? Do they beat you ? Do they send a squad of 20 well built men to take you from your home and bring you in the office where they chain you to the desk ?

Really people. Wake up !

RTO works only if you allow it. Only if you are too afraid to loose you income(and maybe your comfy life). If you fight back, if enough people fight back it would never happen as a company can't fire every software developer they have.

Don't be afraid of loosing your income, your house, etc. Don't bend the knee in front of the rich.

They will try to threat you with disciplinary actions or other bullshit, don't be afraid, they won't send a hitman after you. The worse they can do is fire you.

If you work on a computer there is no sane reason to go in an office just to stay in front of a shitty PC, at a shitty desk with a basic office chair that ruins your back for 9 to 12 hours daily while also loosing 1 to 4 hours on commute daily. No reason. Absolutely no reason.

There should be laws that enforce that if your work is done on a PC it must be done remotely or even better the beneficiary(employer/client) doesn't have the right to enforce a location.

Wake up and fight back. If you obey it will get worse not better. But if we are united and fight back the companies will have no other choose than accept that we can work from everywhere else than their shitty office spaces that most are like pig dens.

I worked in an office 2 years, from 2016 to 2018. I quit in a rage, I did not even submitted a resignation email. Just tell the "team leader" to f*** off, I left and never returned. I don't even know what happened next as I blocked all communication with that business(a big bank from Europe). All I heard from someone I knew there is I was put on a kind of black list for all banks in Europe, something like "never work with this person, they are problematic, might even be a spy". I don't know if it is real or a scare tactic but I don't care.
Since then I never been an employee nor I will ever by. Independent contractor for life. I will never return to an office/on site/collective ever again. I got a really bad PTSD from being "in collectives" (school, university, work) to the point I still wake up at night with nightmares from having to go to office.

I know software dev market is super down to the point that if I loose my current contract(kinda bad contract, I only get around 3000 CAD a month) I might not get another client.
But I'd rather work min wage(~900 euro) than work for 10.000 euro a month and have to go even 1 day a month in office. (not only that will require me to move to a very expensive city). I am sure I will find some client for these money as they are almost nothing for a business from US, Canada, UK or Western Europe.

64k before tax, 37k after deductions. Is this salary reasonable for senior with 6 yoe, Lithuania

Senior SWE, 5.5 YOE.

A couple of months ago started working in a big tech, i got unlucky with my team and we re basically just doing system upkeep while all the staff and principal engineers work on the new platform that we will migrate to.

I am bored out of my mind and learning nothing, to the point where i get anxiety about my skills starting to rust to the point of not being able to interview for a new decent job.

Because of that I've started looking for new positions already and came across and contract opportunity where i need to build an internal tool for 8 months, and this tool is brand new (no legacy code). Thing is, this position will pay so much that I will be saving 3x what i currently do during those 8 months.

This would basically mean a year without any good projects to show for in the CV and my skills potentially rusting even further. I am scared to take it. I have what I consider a really good CV full of payment integrations, migrations, cloud work, customer facing, internal tooling, dev tooling etc. i am scared to ruin my CV

When should I start capitalizing on my CV for money in return of not developing my career?

Will one year of bad projects basically take me out of interesting and good positions? How would that look in the CV?

Im thinking I just manipulate my CV to say I stayed at the big tech for 6 months and then did a few months of contracting before looking for a new role. Would that be a good idea?

I'm in the US but unable to live here long due to immigration issues. I know the EU is not one country and experience varies. But are Engineers suffering like the US? There's extreme push on AI usage and 3-5x speed. Teams are now toxic and zero trust. Layoff anxiety at all time high. I want to move out of the field at some point, but for time being, is the EU a place where one can find a job to put in a few hours of solid work daily and go home, without these stupid pressures and tactics around?