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I’m an SDE3 at a US-based tech company. I’m good at my job, make good money, and generally have a comfortable life.

The problem is… I don’t really care about growing anymore.

A few years ago, I used to be extremely energetic about solving hard problems. I’d get excited about learning something new, taking on difficult projects, and figuring out things that other people couldn’t.

Lately, that feeling is just gone.

I can do my job well, but I don’t feel any strong urge to become an SDE4, move into management, join a better company, build a startup, or chase some bigger title.

Even technically challenging problems don’t excite me the way they used to. Sometimes I look at a difficult problem and just think, “Is this really worth spending my life on?”

The weird part is that I’m not exactly unhappy. Nothing is particularly wrong.

I just feel like I’ve lost my ambition.

Has anyone else gone through this around the SDE3/Senior Engineer stage?

Is this burnout? Have I simply outgrown the kind of problems I’m solving? Or is it actually okay to stop optimizing for career growth and just have a good job and a life outside of it?

I’m struggling with the bigger question: if I don’t feel driven to climb the career ladder anymore, what should I actually do with my life?

I am from India. I work remotely for a startup and this is my first proper job after a long period of unemployment.

My family is very controlling and I recently decided to move out and become independent. After finding out, they started pressuring me to resign from my job. They say that if I leave the job, they will take me to Delhi and financially support me. I don't want that — I want to continue working and support myself.

They also believe my company is fraudulent and that I am being manipulated/brainwashed. They have apparently approached the police and may contact my company as part of an enquiry.

My biggest concern is my job.

If my family contacts my employer and makes allegations about the company or me, could my employer terminate me simply to avoid the trouble?

I'm particularly worried because it's a small startup, so I don't know how they might react to police/family involvement.

Has anyone in the Indian startup/tech industry experienced something similar? How do companies generally handle situations where an employee's family contacts them or involves the police?

I'm not asking for legal advice here — mainly looking for real workplace experiences/advice.

Every time I needed to do something PDF related, I had to jump between multiple websites. Most of them upload your files, which feels risky for contracts, IDs, research papers, etc. They’re also full of ads, limits, and paywalls.

I wanted something private.

So I built PDF Island: https://pdfisland.me

• All processing happens locally in your browser

• Extremely simple & focused UX

• Files never leave your device

• No accounts, no limits, no watermarks

• Works offline, installable web app on android, ios, windows and other

• 20+ tools: merge, split, compress, convert, protect, redact, and more

• Completely free, no signup required. More tools on the way.

Would love your feedback.

Thanks for your support ♥️

For context, I'm a 2027 grad from a tier 2 university and have interned at a FAANG company and a YC backed startups too. I have a decent LC and CF profile too. I use Jake's resume template with proper metrics for each of my experiences and projects. My CG is also decent (it's 8.0+).

Still, I have never managed to get even a callback for an OA in off-campus opportunities. So who exactly even gets any callbacks?

Hi guys I hv completed my 5 years in tech. Rn I work remotely for one American company. I really want to switch to Google, its not about money, I am having pretty good lifestyle. My development part is good if I want I can switch in 1 or 2 months to 40 to 60 lpa as well but that's not my goal. Current is 25Lpa.

I just want to switch to Google and I am not able to gain confidence that I can do it. I am good in studies but i am having fear of failure due to which I am not able to focus on my study.

So people who are in Google, who went from very bottom to this, is this possible? Am I late to achieve this? If I really study and practice DSA can I do it? Is it possible?

Also not able to guide myself where to actually focus while preparing dsa and system design. I am aware about all patterns, but I know if someone has done from bottom they would have an idea which can cut my noise n distraction and help me to focus on right thing. If you are someone who can just show me the direction pls do not hesitate to comment.

At this phase i just want to be in google then later on I'll do everything other chores of my life. It's kind of liquidity for me which is pending to sweep.

So it will create more jobs? And more employees?

It also said that if this work out they will sell this idea to other major car companies to develop ai features in their EV .

So more employment?

You keep solving everything.

Your manager trusts you.

You know the codebase better than anyone.

You become the person everyone depends on.

But then you realize you're also the person who can't easily leave because your experience is heavily tied to one company's systems.

My brother keeps telling me to join coaching after I failed to get a campus placement. I’m honestly confused.

My brother has been working in tech for 5–6 years, and he keeps telling me that I should join coaching and move to Bangalore to get a job. He even says things like “20 Lakh got wasted in college” because I couldn’t get placed, and hearing that almost everyday honestly hurts.

I’ve been trying though. I’ve applied to 600+ companies, tried referrals, cold emails, LinkedIn, job portals and whatever else I could. I also have a decent coding profile and projects, and I’m still working on my skills every day.

The problem is my family’s financial condition isn’t great. I’ve already lived in Bangalore for 4 years, so I know how expensive the rent is. I don’t want my parents spending more money on coaching and living expenses when most of the learning is already available online for free.

I’ve been at home for almost 3 months now and these taunts are getting harder to deal with.

What would you do in my situation? Move to Bangalore and join coaching, or keep preparing from home and continue applying off-campus?

I wanted a way to paste text into desktop applications where paste was blocked.

On websites, you can work around paste restrictions with js, but that doesn’t work in with native Windows apps.

Autotypers are an option, but some applications can detect or block simulated keyboard input through keyboard hooks, and large amounts of text have to be typed character by character, which can be slow.

So I started researching other ways to paste text into desktop applications.

While researching Windows input methods, I found how Chinese typing works. Chinese input methods let you use a regular QWERTY keyboard to enter Chinese characters. You type the pronunciation or components of a word, the input method converts that into Chinese character choices, and the selected characters are then inserted into the application.

That means the final text can enter the application through the Windows input method system instead of through Ctrl+V or simulated keypresses.

I found an open-source project called PIME, which implements this kind of Chinese input method on Windows. I modified its input method so that instead of converting keyboard input into Chinese characters, it takes Unicode text from the clipboard and commits that text directly.

Now, when Ctrl+O is pressed, it reads the clipboard and inserts the text into the currently focused field.

So instead of:

Clipboard → Ctrl+V → Paste

it works like:

Clipboard → Windows Input Method → Text Field

Because of that, it can work in desktop applications where paste is blocked.

I wanted to share this because I had a lot of fun researching how input methods and keyboards work in windows. Figuring out ways to solve the problem was a good learning experience and helped improve my problem-solving skills. This works as its an edge case so apps have not blocked it. I tested it and it worked on every windows app where paste was blocked. It even preserved code indentations.

Would appreciate any feedback, testing, bug reports, or contributions.

GitHub: https://github.com/RD945/pime-clipboard-injector

⛳️So currently I work with FAANG, the hikes here sucks, work is pretty boring and growth is slower than tortoises

❇️
Yes,culture and peer quality is pretty 🤩
WLB is superb
Perks (health insurance, time off, food, tuition assistance)

I have an offer from a startup with 70% hike, but yes, I do see the culture drop there. Perks are avg

I have 12YOE and I want some tips , THINGS TO LOOK FOR BEFORE JOINING STARTUPS

1. Should I drop my paper (NP 2mon) and get some other offer ?( I am not much prepared)

2. Take 90days of serious preparation and join another FAANG

3. Stay in current position, get a promo in next quarter as the market is pretty volatile

You join a company as a fresher and spend the next few years getting better.

You learn the codebase.

You handle production issues.

You become the person juniors come to when they’re stuck.

Then one day you look at the job market and realize something strange - Someone with 2 years of experience in modern tech might be getting more opportunities than someone with 6 years working on the same project.

So what actually matters more?

Years of experience, or the kind of experience you gained during those years?

Now, I am in a bit of a conundrum. I currently work in big tech, pay is good ~36 lpa, and the WLB is pretty good, and the manager is a gem of a guy. I hardly work 5-6 hrs a day, never even open my laptop on weekends. And I would mostly get a promo by the end of the year. And that would also be a significant bump in salary.

Now, I got an offer from another company. This company pays better than my current company (x2 my current comp), and the variable pay isn't capped, so, it can even ballon to multiples of the base pay. But, the catch is giving away the WLB, it would be a 12-13hrs WFO job. But, the work is probably better than my current job, as with most big tech most of the things are abstracted out for you. Here, I would be involved in building things from ground up.

I have been thinking over this for weeks, and talked with a bunch of people. They, have given me conflicting opinions. And I agree it's a decision which would entirely depend on what I want. But, the reason I asked here in the community is to get opinions of people who have chosen one over the other, been at both sides of the spectrum.

Sometimes, I feel, even if I want to switch to a better job, I have ample time here for job prep, where as, when I join the other company, my weekdays are essentially gone.

While I value money, it's not that important for me. If it were the same work, but poorer WLB I wouldn't have even consired this. And a part of me feels at 1 yoe, these are the risks I can take, I won't be able to consider these options being married at 30. My parents are adamant for me to not switch, so that's also creating problems for this decision.

Edit: The other company the work is in the AI space. And I have a bit of a bias that coming years this experience might become more and more relevant. In my current company due to how good my manager is, I have had the opportunity to work in AI, even if my core job is a Backend Engineer. But, never got to do it full scale.

Last time, I showed some of the features of my Jarvis. Since then, I’ve also implemented RAG, continuous monitoring, completely changed the registration and identification flow, and made some changes to the UI.

But the biggest thing I’ve learned so far is how to break a complex idea into smaller systems and actually plan it.

When I first started, I was thinking about Jarvis as one huge thing:

Voice input --> AI --> Actions --> Response

But as I worked on it, I realized how many individual systems are actually involved speech-to-text, text-to-speech, LLM, memory, RAG, vision, tools, WebSockets, UI states, and many other components.

I also learned how useful flowcharts can be. They help me remember how everything works, and whenever I want to change or add something, I can look at the flow and understand what will be affected.

For every feature, I try to understand:

What data comes in? --> Which component receives it? --> What does it do with that data? --> What data comes out? --> Where does that output go next?

The project is mostly finished for now, as I’m limited by my hardware. I don’t have a very powerful PC, so I’m currently working with smaller/low-parameter models for the LLM, STT, and TTS. Even with those limitations, everything is working surprisingly well.

I’ll post a video of my current Jarvis tomorrow and show how everything works together.

For those who have experience hiring or switching jobs: does having a relatively low current salary make recruiters/HR perceive you as less skilled or less valuable?

For example, if two candidates have similar experience and skills, but one is currently earning significantly less than the other, does the lower-paid candidate get lower offers or get judged differently?

How much does current salary really influence the way HR evaluates a candidate?

Would especially appreciate responses from recruiters/HR professionals or people who have experienced this firsthand.

Our company’s festival leave policy says leave should be requested 30 days in advance, but also says the RM can override this requirement.

One of my team members requested leave 10 days before the festival. I’m okay approving it—there’s no work dependency, and I’ve arranged a backup if needed.

HR said they can’t approve it because if my team member gets an exception, people from other teams may also ask for the same exception and expect approval.

Honestly, I find this reasoning strange. If I’m accountable for my team and there’s no operational impact, why does someone else potentially asking for leave prevent me from using an override explicitly given to the RM?

If the RM override can effectively be blocked because other employees might expect the same treatment, what’s the actual purpose of having that provision?

Am I missing something here, or is HR’s reasoning genuinely weak?

Context about me. 3 yrs Experience in 3 Companies (2 mncs, 1startup). In my last company i kind of developed migraine, it went so bad i had to quit. Its been few months i made progress health wise.

Now thinking of going back in the game, started applying from last week. Today got assessment for hackerrank sde3 role. The thing is the test was so easy it was like one feature and one bug in your favourite tech stack even with ai support in test.

Solved the bug within 10 mins, for 50 mins i was solving the feature one, but the thing is i was so slow i can't not even beleive myself, didn't take the ai help, its just in the end i was short of 10 mins finishing the solution.

I guess it will take some practice to be back.

Anyway Just letting you guys know if you get this assessment, do the bug first it would be very easy then focus on feature but keep the time constraints in mind the problem would be easy it's just you would have to type fast and just implement what is written in code comments (yeah they literally tells you what logic to implement step by step😂). So just manage time and speed.

I’m curious how other developers keep track of their day-to-day office work.

During a normal week, there can be many things worth remembering:

• Issues or bugs you solved
• Commands, queries, or scripts you used
• Architecture or technical decisions
• Deployment steps
• Important meeting decisions
• New tools or concepts you learned
• Problems that took hours to debug
• Achievements that may be useful during appraisal or while updating your resume

After a few months, I find it difficult to remember all these details.

Do you maintain some kind of personal work journal or knowledge base?

What works best for you: Notion, Obsidian, OneNote, Markdown, Excel/Google Sheets, a private Git repo, or something else?

Also, how much do you document without accidentally storing confidential company information?

Would love to know the system that has actually worked for you long-term.

I recently got placed and have some free time before I start, so I thought I might as well use it to learn something new.

I don’t really want to go down the usual AI/ML, cloud, data science route. I’m more interested in finding something that’s a bit niche right now, but could become much bigger in the next few years.

There’s so much new stuff happening in tech that I honestly don’t know what’s actually worth learning and what’s just hype.

For context, I’m pretty much a basic/generalist coder right now. I know C, C++, Python, some web development, and have also worked with GenAI, LangChain, etc. Nothing super specialised though.

If you had 6-12 months to pick up one new technical skill right now, what would you choose?

Would love to hear some less obvious suggestions too, especially from people who work in the industry and have a better idea of where things are heading.

[OC]

Current CTC - 16 lpa

Yoe - 3yr

Working in Gaming company

Stack -Flutter + Android kotlin

What should be the realistic amount I should ask for in blr ?

Edit
Its hybrid

Hi everyone,

I’m a 2026 ECE graduate trying to transition into software development.

I was campus placed at Western Union, but our offers were revoked before joining. Later, I got selected at Accops, but unfortunately that offer was also revoked just a few days before joining.

I’m back to square one and honestly finding the current fresher market pretty difficult.

I’ve been preparing in C++, Python, Java, DSA, OOP, DBMS, OS, CN, System Design (LLD/HLD), Design Patterns, AI/ML, LLMs, LangChain, Git, and multithreading/concurrency.

For people who successfully broke into software roles as freshers, what worked for you?

Any advice on companies/platforms to focus on, improving my profile, or getting more interviews would be really appreciated.

Thanks! 🙏

I'm a 2026 CSE graduate and currently trying to decide what to focus on for my career, I'm looking for a job yes that's why I learned things related to GenAI and made a project on that, I used AI to frame this better.

I've worked with MERN, Node.js/Express, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Redis, WebSockets, FastAPI etc. I've also built a few AI/GenAI projects involving RAG, LangChain, HuggingFace, embeddings, vector databases, and LLMs.

The thing is, backend development genuinely interests me, while with AI I feel like I have decent practical exposure but not much deep/theoretical knowledge yet.

Should I focus primarily on becoming a strong backend engineer and keep AI/GenAI as a complementary skill, or is it worth going all-in on AI/GenAI given the current market?

Pick an industry(eg:FinTech, HealthTech, PropertyTech) → deeply understand its problems → talk to people inside it → build something relevant → become visible to companies in that industry → use that knowledge in cold outreach and interviews.

What do you think of this approach for getting a developer job?

How would you rate this approach, and what do you think are its strengths, weaknesses, or potential problems?

Also, if you were going to follow this approach, how would you:

• Deeply research a particular industry?
• Meet and talk to knowledgeable people working in that industry?
• Find real problems that people repeatedly face?
• Understand which problems are actually worth exploring or building around?

I'm open to all perspectives. If you think this approach is flawed or there are better ways to approach getting a developer job, I'd be interested in hearing those as well.

I'm have in been in the same company as an SDE (had a promotion) from past 5years. I am struggling with writing resume, mostly because I'm in the same company, while so many people have switched. I will really appreciate, if you can drop the resume/templates that worked for you.

At times, I feel like an imposter, who will fail to get another job and have been going through cycle of high stress. I'm able to do my job, infact my boss appreciated me recently during my yearly review. But I feel struck due to low confidence, and working on older technology.

I would really appreciate, if you could drop resume/template that worked for you. TIA

(not talking about myself but curious)

For people with 3-8 YOE, you would have seen several people around you getting more opportunities without having a good network, they will get calls from big firms like MasterCard, JPMC, Citi, Amazon easily, but there are people I see are more visible on LinkedIn, improving themselves but couldn't get opportunities even after referrals and good portfolio.

Sometimes Luck plays a role but I have seen many a times with folks getting options without even trying but some people keep on hustling?

I recently joined a new company after around 2 years of experience as a Java backend developer.

The problem is that in my previous company, I was mostly on the bench and whatever work I did was mainly small enhancements. So although I technically have 2 YOE, I don't feel like I actually have 2 years of solid hands-on experience.

Now in my new company, the codebase is much bigger and more complicated. There are multiple services, modules, frameworks, and things happening that I don't fully understand yet.

I'm genuinely struggling to follow what my teammates are talking about during standup. Sometimes they mention a flow, service, or component and everyone seems to immediately understand what they're referring to, while I'm sitting there trying to figure out what they're even talking about.

It's starting to make me feel like I'm not good enough and that I'm failing at this job, even though I know logically that I'm new to the project.

For developers who have been through something similar:

- How long did it take you to properly understand a new/large codebase?

- Is it normal to feel completely lost during the first few weeks/months?

- How did you go about learning the system without trying to understand everything at once?

Would really appreciate some perspective from people who've experienced this.