Remaining Ambitious
&gt; Recently, faced with the necessity of making money, I began applying to full-time jobs again. I had thought that with my skills and network, it wouldn’t be too hard to find an enjoyable job that paid well enough. But of course, the first few that I applied to rejected me right away. I could feel my ambition collapsing: half a year ago, I thought I could revolutionize some of the institutions of science, and now I am merely wondering if I’m good enough to land a regular coding job. Maybe I should go work in a restaurant or something. Am I even good enough for that?<p>I&#x27;ve had this. University built me up (high grades, cum laude, honors, published paper, side projects, TA jobs, 1 year of iOS development experience, 1 year of being a web development instructor experience). FAANG (and its friends, like Elastic, Databricks, all the known names, banks, etc.) broke me down by not ever responding to my job applications for a graduate software engineer. Fast-forward 18 months later, still no job. I also got more downvotes on HN due to having a more gloomy mood and my desperation was perhaps a bit too strong. In general, people can&#x27;t deal with it. HN has a lot of edge-cases where they can (some ask HNs are an example of this), but in my case they couldn&#x27;t deal with it. HN showed me that I had to force myself to be more positive, lest I&#x27;d get more downvotes (and also because I reasoned that the general public would judge me way harsher than HN). For context, this comment is already quite on the &quot;negative&quot; side. I know that by writing like this I have a one in five chance to be downvoted. Often enough these category of posts also get upvoted a lot, so I do get some insight into the nuances of this problem area simply by seeing my downvotes and upvotes on what I experience to be similar comments, so in both cases the upvotes&#x2F;downvotes are really helpful.<p>In any case, I took a job that paid low out of necessity (2500 euro&#x27;s for a junior position, my own coding students were making more). I quit 6 months later, because I wasn&#x27;t passionate about their product. I searched and 5 months later found another company. I felt so grateful to already find a company after 5 months that I felt excited by! They thought I was too slow (after 6 months), I agreed. Sometimes it simply doesn&#x27;t work out. In this particular case, my contract didn&#x27;t even formally end yet and I already found my 3rd company. Holy hell! What a different world. The 6 month mark is coming up, I hope I&#x27;ll make it this time. I think I will, but not because my skills improved a lot. In my case it&#x27;s mostly luck&#x2F;bad luck depending on the company I was at. Culture has a lot to do with it. It&#x27;s not my dream company, but I&#x27;m simply trying to get by. Moreover, the work conditions are amazing, I have nothing to complain about. However, if I&#x27;d be ambitious then I&#x27;d have all kinds of ambitious &quot;complaints&quot; like that it isn&#x27;t my dream company.<p>Because of this whole process, I don&#x27;t really know what my purpose in life is anymore. I decided to drop it for now and simply enjoy life. It feels too hedonistic for my taste, but alright, life is teaching me I can&#x27;t control it I guess. Let&#x27;s flow with it then!<p>So, I have 16 months of ragged recent experience (not including my experience that I got as a student). Here are some things I&#x27;ve noticed that are notable:<p>What I find <i>weird</i> is that some FAANG companies are even approaching me now. Like, really? Having a ragged resume with 16 months worth of experience is really that much better? <i>Really</i>?! It still makes me a bit angry, because I feel it diminishes how tough and valuable my actual academic education was. I&#x27;ve definitely learned a thing or two at the 3 companies I&#x27;ve worked at, don&#x27;t get me wrong. However, the hardest stuff I&#x27;ve learned was still at university (e.g. rowhammer via JavaScript + WebGL, using IDA Pro to analyze binaries, hacking in general really).<p>Another thing I find as weird is that my salary is at 4500 euro&#x27;s gross now. It&#x27;s amazing that I feel compensated well now (for Dutch standards), but given my ragged resume, I also find it weird. Somehow failing at companies and searching for a new job (after six months of staying at one place!) allows me to negotiate for a much higher salary. Wait what? Why?<p>Company 1: 2500 euro&#x27;s<p>Company 2: 4100 euro&#x27;s (&quot;This is what a software engineer costs right?&quot; Me: &quot;Yes&quot;)<p>Company 3: 4500 euro&#x27;s (&quot;How much did you make at your previous company?&quot; Me: &quot;4100 euro&#x27;s gross&quot; Them: &quot;Hmm, we need proof&quot; Me: <i>sends proof</i> Them: &quot;Okay, we&#x27;ll make you an offer based on that, it&#x27;s a bit high on the pay-scale though for your level&quot;)<p>I can&#x27;t see the forest through the threes here, it just feels like I&#x27;m being tossed into a downstream river and whatever randomness happens, I just have to take it.<p>University isn&#x27;t like that, at university you can actually shape your path. In real life, I can&#x27;t shape my path, I feel little agency. I&#x27;ve tried. Right now I&#x27;m enjoying a 4 day work week at 80% of my salary, remotely in another European country. I suddenly catapulted myself in a very enviable position. And it&#x27;s mostly luck and I&#x27;ve happened to have bad luck before. My sense of agency feels crushed, and I feel sad that I belief it. I wonder if it&#x27;s learned helplessness or whether there&#x27;s a huge kernel of truth there. With that said, I&#x27;m very grateful for what I have.<p>I don&#x27;t know what to make of it anymore. I simply try to get by and have a lot of empathy and sympathy for people who&#x27;ve lost their way. I don&#x27;t understand how some people can say &quot;I chose to do xyz.&quot; How do they have so much agency?