Laid Off | Stuck Now | Too Anxious | Please guide
Hi folks, I recently got laid off from a startup where 50% of the engineering team was let go. I was working as an SDE and during a restructuring, my role was changed to SDE-2 without any increase in pay or responsibilities. I have a total of 2.5 years of experience. In my first company (where I worked for a year), there weren't many projects, so I didn't have the opportunity to learn or code much. However, in my second company, I primarily worked on the backend using Go, Django, Kafka, MongoDB, & PostgreSQL. I realize that although I gained exposure in my second job, I didn't delve deeply into the technologies. I mainly focused on completing business tasks quickly, learning new things just to finish the task at hand, without solidifying my understanding afterward. My experience seems suitable for an SDE-2 role, but I'm unsure if I can perform the role with complete honesty and may struggle. Some friends in similar situations reassure me that this struggle is common in SDE-2 roles. However, I feel I might be better off starting again as an SDE-1, focusing on my weak areas, and aiming for a promotion later. There are very few SDE-1 job openings currently. I am actively interviewing for SDE-2, and not able to clear system design interviews. Tbh, I feel very humiliated as when I am not able to answer their questions it feels like I am wasting their time or they would be thinking: Oh this guy has been working for so long and doesn't even know anything.
Now I get it why people think Indian Software engineers are not that good in comparison to other countries' devs: the reason is people like me. This realization burdens me with guilt, occupying my thoughts constantly. However, I am confident that I can crack SDE-1 easily. I have good DSA & good enough LLD, &HLD skills for SDE1. I am looking for companies who can match my prev Salary: 22 L, 2 Bonus. Can u help how to navigate this career situation effectively without increasing my guilt or feeling constantly humiliated?
First work on the feeling of humiliation and self worthlessness. Don't ignore this, I've done it and it's one of my biggest regret. Working on this will feel a waste of time initially given job search is highest priority, I assure you your future self would thank you.
Now you are clearly very self aware, most incompetent people don't even know their shortcomings. And you know what, many comparatively incompetent people are making much more money, having much less self doubt and just living more - it's like being more self aware is a curse.
How do you get out of this curse? It's a slow process. Write down the things that make you feel that way, come up with an an action plan on what you could do to reduce that - clear goals and actions always relive anxiety. Writing things down is extremely important, keep coming back to it whenever you feel the same way, eventually you would reason your way out of this. Most of the time you are in a loop, living in guilt and self doubt for the same reasons over and over. Documentation of these feelings over time will make it look so silly, how could the same problem give you so much mental pain again and again.
You will do just fine career wise. With a few more years of experience, I can guarantee you will evolve over time, the problems giving you so much mental pain would seem very trivial then - that if you are able to resolve these feelings - otherwise it's a hell I wouldn't want for my worst enemies.
Some questions to ponder over -
- Can you do the job search while being just a little gentle on yourself?
- Does failure mean you have no worth? Can you fail more gracefully?
- Does 2.5 years of mistakes(even if it see that way) mean you can't do amazing things in coming years?
- Above all, does feelings of humiliation and worthlessness help you in any way? If nothing else changes, wouldn't it be better to just be a little gentler on yourself?
Take care, you don't have a career problem, a mental health one instead
You have explained it in very detailed manner. I was also thinking about writing down these things as when u write you need to be very concise and on point. I need to relax a little bit and work. As the loop I am in is I am not learning anything much due to interviews and it is just wasting my time. I did wishful thinking a lot and became a lazy ambitious person.
Yes, whatever you do, please document. Aside from writing being therapy in itself, when you inevitably face a similar situation in the future, this documentation will remind you that you have done it in the past. Our memory is very unreliable, and anxious folks tend to quickly forget their past victories. If you don't document, you will always doubt whether it was the luck that got you through, or the work you put in. Imagine the satisfaction you will feel 10 Years from now reading how you got through this difficult phase.
Same here, I also got layed off in December. And after failing few interviews all these thoughts clouded my mind. But I kept learning where I thought I was weak and finally after 25days of grind, got an opportunity at 25% hike. Good thing is that I will keep learning the way I have done last 1month and will always keep my skills up-to-date
Don't be anxious. In a startup you are a generalist concentrating on only getting things to work "somehow". Unfortunately, you might not have had a option to learn from a legacy codebase as well
Pick one of the technologies you mentioned, deep dive and interview only on that. System design has multiple resources only, SDE 2 is required to know it only at a high level. So just learn to bluff.
If I do that and get into a company. And tomorrow there is work as per my experience, won't manager and team think I am a liability? What is the scenario in your team?
Learning is a continuous process, you should easily have 12 months in a big company before you are even evaluated. Only in startups you are expected to be a Superman
