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Finally fired after 6 years (self.cscareerquestions)

FiletOFish1066 が 投稿

Throwaway and also had quite a large amount of alcohol since I am sad as fuck right now. Will get to the point though.

I graduated from college with a CS degree around 7 years ago from one of the shittiest California State University campuses. It was seriously a piece of garbage back then and apparently it is way worse now. I spent most of my time playing soccer with some friends and drinking and didn't take school seriously. Graduated with a 2.3 GPA and moved back in with my parents.

After a few months of searching I got a job at a company in the Bay Area, CA that was completely unknown 7 years ago but is now incredibly well known. It is actually quite hard to get a job here now, from what I hear. I got a job as a software developer working mostly on testing software, so mostly QA work. However I actually had to write some code as well. After around 8 months I had basically automated my own job by writing some programs to do it all for me. After that I would mostly just browse forums and do absolutely jack shit at work. My boss never really checked in on me and as long as the needed tests were taken care of he didn't give a fuck.

From around 6 years ago up until now, I have done nothing at work. I am not joking. For 40 hours each week I go to work, play League of Legends in my office, browse reddit, and do whatever I feel like. In the past 6 years I have maybe done 50 hours of real work. So basically nothing. And nobody really cared. The tests were all running successfully. I shit you not, I had no friends or anything at work either, so nobody ever talked to me except my boss and occasionally the devs for the software I was testing.

Yesterday my boss fired me. I guess IT found out after 6 years or so what I was doing and reported it to my boss. I explained I had automated my own job, but was still updating the automation tool, which was a lie. Anyway, I was fired.

After 6 years I literally do not even know how to write good software anymore. I basically forgot everything. I just played League of Legends and did nothing else. I got fit though, which is a plus, since I went to the gym every day during work. But I know nothing about programming or anything else. I am 28, without a job (although they are giving me 3 months of pay), and no skills. I have around $200k in my bank account since I still live with my parents and live frugally, so I won't be starving or anything like that, and can definitely support myself.

So what in the fuck do I do?? I still have a drive and want to take on programming and learn the modern technologies again, and I do want to find a new job. Is there any hope for me?

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[–]FLRangerFan 116ポイント117ポイント  (5子コメント)

Bighead is that you!?

[–]FiletOFish1066[S] 16ポイント17ポイント  (3子コメント)

I'm filet o fish

[–]BeastftMiddleEastSophomore 26ポイント27ポイント  (0子コメント)

Hello Baghead. Would you like to come in for an interview today? Here at pied piper, we are looking for a new CEO to lead the company.

Sincerely,

The Laurietron 6000

[–]twistedgrandma 8ポイント9ポイント  (1子コメント)

wheres your big gulp

[–]FiletOFish1066[S] 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

We only had a mcdonalds close to the office so I'd usually just pick up a filet o fish and a large coke soda for lunch

[–]Janeys 3ポイント4ポイント  (0子コメント)

He was what I had in mind while reading this also

[–]iama_brick 42ポイント43ポイント  (0子コメント)

You have 6 years of experience. No one, I guess except us, knows you did fuck all during those 6 years. Just start learning again and you'll have fresh knowledge and 6 yrs of experience to back you when you look for a new job.

[–]__HEYGUYS__ 40ポイント41ポイント  (0子コメント)

May I suggest a startup which specializes in automated software testing?

[–]nuggins 21ポイント22ポイント  (2子コメント)

Nobody's asking the important question here: after 6 years of basically just playing League, what rank have you achieved?

[–]FiletOFish1066[S] 7ポイント8ポイント  (1子コメント)

Lol. I started playing League in 2011. I was silver the first season I played ranked, which was season 2 I believe. Last Season I was Diamond V and now I am Plat 1. For some reason I just can't get back into Diamond V. Been through around 15 promos now. Also in high plat everyone is incredibly toxic, especially in Diamond V. The Diamond V guys are the most toxic guys in the game, way more than the Silver/Gold players. Tons of people just leave the game.

[–]nuggins 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

Yeah, I've heard that before. I'll probably quit once I get promoted to plat 5. But if I were you I'd keep pushing to D5 just for the border :P

[–]XodeLoLSoftware Engineering Intern 54ポイント55ポイント  (19子コメント)

Dude if u got $200k in savings, you're fine.

Quit all your bad habits (I suggest quitting league) and working on projects and relearning programming as best as you can. Once you feel decently confident with programming, start preparing for technical interviews. Then start looking for a job.

You've goofed off for 6 years so its time to man up and be responsible.

[–]EquationTAKEN 17ポイント18ポイント  (0子コメント)

I suggest quitting league

Seconded. DotA2 is much better.

[–]Farren246 7ポイント8ポイント  (11子コメント)

On top of that, OP if you find you lack motivation or focus, consider just getting a new degree. Let a university decide which skills you need to brush up on and give you deadlines to meet. At the end of it all you'll have 6 years of experience, 2 degrees and no debt.

[–]FiletOFish1066[S] 6ポイント7ポイント  (10子コメント)

I honestly do not have the grades. I had an extremely low GPA in college. My best grade in any CS course was a C, and that was the intro to programming course. The only reason I have above a 2.0 GPA is because I got mostly As in my film studies minor.

I thought about going back to school for a degree in Chemistry as I was always extremely good at it and I stay up to date with Chem by watching a lot of youtube videos and reading some books, but I'd have to blow half my savings and get a graduate degree to get a serious job with a Chem degree. I already looked into it a lot.

I'm thinking the only thing I can do is stay in software, which I honestly don't mind. I just need to relearn everything.

[–]Farren246 7ポイント8ポイント  (0子コメント)

Whether by school or on your own, you definitely need to relearn everything. The only question is the best way to go about it. I suggested school because you seem to lack a self-starting attitude, which would mean that others setting your deadlines would be beneficial. Still, if you find you can't focus in those settings then there's not much point to it.

[–]squirreltalk 1ポイント2ポイント  (7子コメント)

but I'd have to blow half my savings and get a graduate degree to get a serious job with a Chem degree

You mean if you got a masters? Most PhD's (the ones worth a damn, anyway) will pay you.

[–]FiletOFish1066[S] 1ポイント2ポイント  (6子コメント)

Ah I was referring to a second bachelors. I doubt I could get into a Chem MS program with a CS degree and that low of a GPA.

[–]SesleriSoftware Engineer 16ポイント17ポイント  (5子コメント)

No one cares about your GPA, you have 6 years of industry experience ... I really don't understand the difficulty to go get another job.

[–]Grounded-coffee 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

In the context of a graduate degree in a different field, it certainly does matter.

[–]webdev01 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

I think the problem is that OP lost a job he was good at - doing nothing. Now OP has to get an actual job. Probably, but not likely, though

[–]ambits 0ポイント1ポイント  (2子コメント)

He said he didn't do Jack shit during his 6 years....How is that "industry experience"?

[–]SesleriSoftware Engineer 9ポイント10ポイント  (1子コメント)

Because it only matters what you say on the resume and in the job interview. Have you ever applied for a job before?

He said he didn't do Jack shit

How is the next employer going to know that? Mind reading?

[–]jas25666 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

Well during a prospective interview they're probably going to be asking questions about the previous job. If OP keeps giving noncommittal responses and vague duties (since he apparently did nothing), as opposed to concrete examples it's probably going to raise red flags.

[–]viperex 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

Teach me your interviewing skills.

I don't have my shit together and have not been in a similar situation so I can't even begin to advise you. There must be a middle ground between software and chemical engineering

[–]Xeronate 0ポイント1ポイント  (5子コメント)

Would you say LoL is a bad habit in all cases or just in this guy's case.

[–]Glimmour 2ポイント3ポイント  (2子コメント)

I would say just in that guy's case. I love playing league and found that if you just limit yourself you'll do fine!

[–]Xeronate 1ポイント2ポイント  (1子コメント)

Thanks. I try to put in time to work on personal projects every day and develop my skills, but I am still self conscious about playing games.

For some reason I always feel like I am wasting my time/doing something wrong if I'm not working on being a better programmer or spending my time on entertainment people deem as culturally enriching (reading a book, seeing a play, etc.)

[–]ohmzarSoftware Engineer 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

Work life balance is very important. Remember that you are defined by being more than a programmer, doing stuff that you enjoy be it video games, or other hobbies makes you a more well rounded person.

Being an amazing software engineer will only get you so far, an ability to network with other people is what you need to get to the higher echelons, and in order to do that you need to be someone people want to network with.

People rarely go to the pub and discuss optimizing graph algorithms, they do talk about sportsball, video games, music, food, travel, and other hobbies though.

[–]EquationTAKEN 2ポイント3ポイント  (1子コメント)

LoL is a game, and games are a category of entertainment, and entertainment isn't a bad thing. It's a necessity.

But all things in moderation. It should be a tertiary activity, after

  • primary (eat, sleep, work) for health

  • secondary (education, work, possibly volunteering) for income and credentials

[–]Acidom 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

I like your life activity pyramid. Now you just need to pitch it to a cereal company and get this on every box of Lucky Charms.

[–]FiletOFish1066[S] 21ポイント22ポイント  (3子コメント)

Update: Thanks for all of the replies guys! Lots of helpful replies in here.

I'm about to go to sleep and tomorrow I'll wake up and start fresh. Time to try and cut my League of Legends and beer addiction. I think what I will do first is move out. I'll probably move into my own place. I'll look into getting a 1 bedroom 1 bath apartment to myself somewhere in the Bay Area, but probably in the peninsula. Redwood City seems nice. I'm going to try and practice running through Cracking the Coding Interview as well as a data structures and algorithms book. I'll also be applying to some jobs. After thinking about it for a while I think once I study everything I forgot my motivation will come back. I always liked software dev, I just was a lazy ass.

Anyway have a good night/morning/whatever everyone and I'll probably check out this thread in the morning and make a few more replies before abandoning the account and going back to my main. I might make an update in a few months or so when I have my life together.

As my final goodbye for the night, I just wanted to say that those ribbed condoms (for the girl) do not work so do not waste your money.

[–]dexterandd 5ポイント6ポイント  (0子コメント)

For Data Structures and Algos, interviewbit.com was a decent preparation tool. leetcode is another one, where lot of interview problems come as is in interviews from the medium difficulty ones. Apart from that coursera had lectures from I think a Stanford course that really helped.

Also, if you are interested in webdev check out freecodecamp.com. Though I don't know if their projects would be helpful for you as a portfolio, as you already have 'six' years of experience, at least on paper. I am not that experienced, but based on my perception, their projects are more for fresh grad level.

[–]herropeepol 4ポイント5ポイント  (0子コメント)

Saying you will "try" means you aren't ready to give them up yet...

You need to turn this into a must/need in order to really propel yourself forward.

[–]SesleriSoftware Engineer 10ポイント11ポイント  (1子コメント)

This sounds amazing.

Is there any hope for me?

Apply to jobs, bullshit about your experience in interviews to a higher salary than you had before, go on with life?

I don't see the big problem here.

Jesus the comments ... everyong in this sub thinks you need to be super legit to get a job when you have a CS degree and 6 years of experience on paper? This guy can apply to 100 SE2 positions tonight and be drowning in interview requests.

[–]Merad 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

And then be that guy who can't write FizzBuzz in the interview?

Seriously though, if OP's story is accurate (essentially 6 years without coding) he's going to get destroyed in about 99% of legit technical interviews.

[–]EMChamp 9ポイント10ポイント  (1子コメント)

This sounds like the case of the forgotten employee. I'm impressed you managed 6 years like this. Well thats 6 good years of experience (to HR anyways) and if this company is well regarded then I'm sure you can spin this somehow. I'd first take a long look in the mirror though and see how things ended up this way an whether you want to continue in CS or not.

[–]leisure_goblin 3ポイント4ポイント  (0子コメント)

God bless HR and their reliable incompetency.

[–]Trlckery 6ポイント7ポイント  (0子コメント)

I read this in the voice of Peter from Office Space

[–]LalienXWeb Developer 5ポイント6ポイント  (3子コメント)

That was amazing.

You have some money saved up. Find a stack that seems interesting to you, crack open a book for it and get rolling.

[–]crnulus 1ポイント2ポイント  (2子コメント)

What does that mean?

[–]Kush131 1ポイント2ポイント  (1子コメント)

Technology stack, something like LAMP or MEAN in the web development world.

[–]thundrshock 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

That's Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP and MongoDB/Express/Angular (or React)/Node.js just in case.

[–]dats_coolJunior Software Programmer | Junior 6ポイント7ポイント  (0子コメント)

lmao CS is such an absurd industry, i love it. good luck to OP.

[–]crispytx 15ポイント16ポイント  (2子コメント)

haha, you're my hero! @#$%'n YOLO!

Why don't you just start some side projects and work on your skills for while since you've got money in the bank. Then when you decide to get a job again, just tell them that you left your old job to launch a startup. Your startup failed, now you're looking for a new job.

[–]FiletOFish1066[S] 11ポイント12ポイント  (1子コメント)

thanks crispy texas

[–]CaptainDevops 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

I just want to share my experience, I also wanted to work on my programming skills,all I knew was automation through bash scripting. I found the best way to learn is to build your own project and write about it. Below is my project and some tutorials and guides that have helped me and blog where you i have written tutorials on how I built stuff. Sharing incase it may help you.

https://github.com/Leo-G/Flask-Scaffold

https://github.com/Leo-G/DevopsWiki

Techarena51.com

[–]JDiculous 22ポイント23ポイント  (13子コメント)

Write a book about your experience and sell it

[–]FiletOFish1066[S] 10ポイント11ポイント  (12子コメント)

If this is serious and would actually be an interesting read I may take some time and do it... Though my writing skills are shit. It was definitely a hell of a ride. I was very depressed after a few months of doing nothing and thought anyday would be my last. It turned out to be 6 fucking years of nothing but drinking alcohol, league of legends, some Counter Strike, and hitting the gym. Literally my only accomplishment was hitting the 1000 lbs club and actually putting on some muscle. I am 6'2" and was 145 lbs in college. Now I am 215 lbs and actually don't look too bad.

[–]sabas123Intern 7ポイント8ポイント  (0子コメント)

I would read that

[–]PleaseThrowMeOut 6ポイント7ポイント  (8子コメント)

First things first, let's hear your maxes on squat/bench/deadlift.

Second, I'd read that book.

[–]FiletOFish1066[S] 1ポイント2ポイント  (7子コメント)

275 Bench, 455 DL, 365 Squat. Been holding off on increasing weight anymore on my 1RM for the past year or so since I am trying to perfect my form for every lift. I think I have DL and Bench form nearly perfect, according to some of the dudes I lift with, but my Squat could be better. I have some mobility issues and anterior pelvic tilt, which sucks.

[–]PleaseThrowMeOut 0ポイント1ポイント  (3子コメント)

You've got some nice symmetrical strength man. That's really good progress. I don't know how much you've gotten into lifting yet, but the YouTube lifting community is great and I bet you'd love it. I'd recommend:

  • Alan Thrall

  • SuperTraining w/ Mark Bell & Silent Mike

  • Omar Isuf

  • Strength Theory w/ Greg Nuckols

  • Jonnie Candito

  • Elliott Hulse

There are ton more great channels too. Here's a good video Thrall has about squating/mobility.

I think lifting is the best way to counteract the negatives that come along with CS, so it's great that you've gotten into it.

[–]FiletOFish1066[S] 0ポイント1ポイント  (1子コメント)

I've gotten into lifting a good amount! I train at a well known, professional powerlifter's gym and he and his staff taught me a lot about good form and minimizing injuries.

A couple of guys I train with told me that if I stop drinking beer everyday, watch my protein intake, and stop eating junk I might actually turn out to be a half-decent powerlifter so if I ever want to stop being in industry I may give that route a shot.

[–]PleaseThrowMeOut 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

That's great, the best motivation is being around other motivated people. Cali has a lot of really good gyms out there. Barbell Brigade, Supertraining, etc., I even think Aita is in the bay area so if you could even go the weightlifting route if you wanted. You're in a great area for CS and lifting.

[–]EquationTAKEN 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

I wouldn't spend much time with Elliott Hulse. His broscience is the worst broscience, because he's so fucking charismatic and well-spoken, you actually end up believing him. I love the guy, but damn...

Nowadays he's all about spirituality and stuff though.

I'd recommend Athlean-X instead, run by Mike Cavalier. He's very well educated, and often demonstrates the why's and the how's in great detail using skeletons and stuff.

[–]Hardlydent 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

"There and Back Again", a story of how you did nothing for six years, learned programming on your own, and then went back at it. Also, Hobbit ref.

[–]NarcoPauloAutomation Engineer 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

Do you even lift bro?

[–]KhazixMain 4ポイント5ポイント  (0子コメント)

It doesn't sound like you're in that bad of a situaiton... really. You have 200k saved up and 6 years of experience to put down on a resume. Just start brushing up on some DS&Algo and cracking the coding interview and spamming your resume to recruiters to start getting interviews. Good luck.

[–]pcglueEmbedded Software Engineer 4ポイント5ポイント  (5子コメント)

IT found out after 6 years or so what I was doing and reported it to my boss

Do you know how exactly they caught on? Did they find your automation scripts or did their logs finally revealed the massive amount of web surfing/gaming you were doing? If you had taken pains to hide your activity, do you think you would still have a job?

[–]FiletOFish1066[S] 2ポイント3ポイント  (4子コメント)

I'm pretty sure IT told my boss. No idea why they didn't do anything for years, but they eventually did. To be fair though, some of the guys in IT have no idea what they are doing and I am sure most of them cared as much about their jobs as I did.

The interesting thing is that they do not have the source code to my automation programs. Some of them were quite intricate and I made them all myself. They just have the executables.

[–]Ferinex 4ポイント5ポイント  (0子コメント)

They likely own that software, because you made it while working for them. They can probably sue you for the source code, if they ever decided they want it.

[–]pcglueEmbedded Software Engineer 5ポイント6ポイント  (0子コメント)

The interesting thing is that they do not have the source code to my automation programs. Some of them were quite intricate and I made them all myself. They just have the executables.

Oh, that might give you an interesting opportunity down the road...

[–]Magic_in_the_Air 1ポイント2ポイント  (1子コメント)

Try selling those programs back to the company. I'm sure they'd pay a fine price for a job they no longer need to hire out.

[–]leisure_goblin 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

If he made them at work, the company own them.

[–]BeastftMiddleEastSophomore 4ポイント5ポイント  (0子コメント)

I have also been playing league of legends for the past 4 years, but I haven't gotten a salary this entire time. Instead I got a few F's on my transcript and possibly delayed my graduation by up to 2 years.

Props to u dude

[–]jldugger 4ポイント5ポイント  (0子コメント)

Wow. Well, in some sense, you were screwed over by your manager who failed to notice you had automated your old job, failed to assign you more tasks, or even talk to you as an employee of theirs. That's a pretty big abrogation of responsibility, and there's no way they can realistically fire you without having a conversation with upper management about how the hell this happened for six years.

Oh well, you've learned an important lesson: today's management has zero f'ing idea how to manage their direct's career, and possibly not even their own.

So obviously you need to spin it as automating yourself out of a job, and make up for some of the time on LoL that you should have invested in learning new tech. It's not impossible -- there's plenty of people without a CS degree at all in tech. More worrisome would be if you tried as hard as you could and only got a 2.3.

IMO, you're biggest challenge is motivation. You need to actually start giving fucks at your next job, because you're already at two strikes with a 2.3 GPA and this recent job loss. I don't know what you need to do to get that motivation, or where you'll find it, but the future is grim without it.

[–]MagicPistol 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

Get a job as a QA automation engineer. It's really easy to get up to speed if you just know the basics of programming. That's what I do for a living and I have an art degree...

[–]trololotro 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

Patrick, is that you?

[–]NixoniteData Analyst 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBfTrjPSShs

[–]UtahJazz777 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

DUDE! You made my day!

[–]greggawattWeb Developer 4ポイント5ポイント  (1子コメント)

I would do a bootcamp. You're already in SF which has your pick of them. I would suggest appacademy as you can pay them after you find a job: http://www.appacademy.io/referral_redirect?hash=633e5b1080c00309

Or do a career shift. Take that 200k, move somewhere cheap and build furniture. You saved well for pissing away your last 6 years. You could literally do anything, outside of the bay area at least.

[–]courir123 4ポイント5ポイント  (0子コメント)

I don't see why you were down voted. a bootcamp would be an excellent investment for him. he most certainly has the money for it, and with his CS background would leave nearly job ready. If he's going to spend 10K of that 200K on something, it may as well be on something that can help him get another job.

[–]trapped_in_qa 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

The advice on getting ready for a new job makes sense.

In general, any time you don't have much to do at a job, you are in a very high risk situation, as you found out.

[–]minusSevensoftware developer 0ポイント1ポイント  (2子コメント)

fml I lived like that for 4 months at my last job as it was absolutely horrible. Sure I loved it at first but it gets boring soon enough. I would find it very hard to be motivated if I were you.

I think what you should have done instead is use that time to learn more to work on side projects etc. But nonetheless you do know how to automate your job so thats a start.

I would say take your time to study something you WANT to work on and go from there.

[–]FiletOFish1066[S] 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

It honestly wasn't too bad. If you are addicted to League of Legends time passes very quickly.

But yeah, maybe I will take some time to think about what it really is I want to do. I really do want to move out though, so maybe I will start with that.

[–]NovazillaSoftware Engineer 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

Yup I lived like that. Easy to do in government contracting world on some support contract.

[–]BubbleTeeSophomore 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

You have six years at a well known company, a CS degree, and while you may have forgotten a whole lot, it will be easier for you to refresh your memory than for somebody to learn programming for the first time. Hit the books and take a few courses - there are more than enough resources available - and you'll be just fine. Take your next job more seriously (maybe work on side projects in your free time in addition to league?).

[–]2QuestionsDaily 0ポイント1ポイント  (4子コメント)

"It is actually quite hard to get a job here now, from what I hear. "

Does this apply to QA testing or software development in general?

[–]FiletOFish1066[S] 2ポイント3ポイント  (2子コメント)

From what I have heard, software dev in general. This company is known for paying employees well and benefits are great, but they will fly you out for a week and interview you and you will not get the position most of the time. Just searching for the company on reddit shows a bunch of people on this subreddit talking about how they interviewed with them for months and thought things were going very well when they aced every question, just to not get the job. That said, almost all of the new grads here are CS or EE majors from UC Berkeley or Stanford. We would occasionally get someone from UC Davis as well.

[–]My1AccIdontTrollWith 1ポイント2ポイント  (1子コメント)

Palantir?

[–]VerilyAMonkey 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

When people are speaking vaguely for a legitimate reason, it's better to resist the urge to guess.

[–]courir123 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

i think he's talking about the specific company that he was working for, not QA testing or software dev in general

[–]zedisfied_integrated degree program 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

I mean, you have plenty of time and money to start some personal projects you can show off in future job interviews.

[–]TopherMiami 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

Where was that drive for the last 6 years? I think what you really need to hear from everyone here is that you're hopeless and everyone is glad that your boss fired you so that you have motivation to prove us wrong, but everyone here seems to think you should keep on bullshittin' by living off your unearned wages, getting a book deal, or continue to automate.

My only advice is to continue your education and get some self-discipline. Who am I kidding, though? You're going to sit back, play video games at Mommy's, feel sorry for yourself, and look for every other opportunity to not work.

[–]advicevice 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

No knowledge of any current programming skills? Why not get a job in management?

[–]morethanother 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

Spend some of that money on code camp, and spend some time contributing to open source. When you look for a new job just say that you had responsibly saved enough money at your last job that you could take some time off to contribute to the open source community - it'll sound great, at least. You'll probably want to demonstrate that though ;)

[–]shekib82 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

take some online courses during the next three months. Try Udacity they have a lot of computer science courses. Apply yourself. Finish a nano-degree and then get a job.

Maybe take an iOS course.

[–]Spinozist89 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

This sounds like something I would do. If you have 200k saved up why not try to make a film? You have a minor in film studies, no? I don't know your reasoning for staying at a job doing nothing for 6 six years other than making good money, but it sounds like you could've spent that time being more creative.

[–]patrickjhg 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

You can try out codecademy or freecodecamp to give you a refresher if you completely forgot everything. Maybe you can go for a boot camp if you're feeling wild. There are plenty of sources available for you.

[–]Avizc 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

That was an adventure from beginning to end.

Goodness gracious I can only ask how did you get to this point.

My golly well I hope you like hot apple cider since that is all I can really give to you. If you don't need a job right away (as evident from your bank account) why don't you start working on small projects, work on them, and build larger projects?

Start off with getting your skills back to the point of when you wrote that automation tool. Then keep going. Surely you'd relearn things in a way that would interest you since it's something you're interested in (automation that is). Once you're comfortable start looking for jobs when you're ready?

Best of wishes.

[–]cable729 -1ポイント0ポイント  (1子コメント)

If what you say is true (your 200k is actually in a bank account) then your first priority should be to invest that. Like, 6 years ago. The sooner you do it, the better, because of you know, the power of compounding interest. See/ /r/personalfinance for help on this. You will be losing out on millions if you don't properly invest your money.

[–]openzeus 4ポイント5ポイント  (0子コメント)

Considering he's unemployed and will need anywhere between some and all of that money depending on what he decides to do, putting it into a high-risk vehicle where it could take a sharp nosedive in the short-term sounds like bad advice.

[–]vgambitSoftware Engineer -1ポイント0ポイント  (5子コメント)

I have around $200k in my bank account since I still live with my parents and live frugally, so I won't be starving or anything like that, and can definitely support myself.

So what in the fuck do I do??

Um... whatever you want?

are you kidding me?

[–]FiletOFish1066[S] 1ポイント2ポイント  (4子コメント)

If I did whatever I wanted I'd be broke. I'd blow through $200k traveling for a few years jumping from hostel to hostel and drinking trappist westvleteren 12 in Belgium.

I'm probably going to move out, put a down payment on a house (I hear they have some nice townhomes in the Milpitas, CA area), invest whatever I have left, and try and learn the skills I need to find a job. I could see myself going back into software dev, but I just need to relearn everything.

[–]ryhamz 3ポイント4ポイント  (0子コメント)

put a down payment on a house

This is a possibly OK idea.

Milpitas, CA area

Wut. I think you really need to rethink this part. I'm not saying I know what is best, but my gut is telling me that someone needs to tell you to look into your options.

Consideration #1 is: How are you going to afford the rest of the house after you make a down payment? I think you would need to figure this out and attain general stability before getting an expensive house. At the moment, you have no job, no prospects, and a potential alcohol problem.

If I were you, I would get out of the expensive part of california (well, I'd actually leave Cali period). You could pay for a house in cash in a midwestern suburb. I saw a guy that did this, lived in one room, rented the rest of the rooms out, and had other people pay the mortgage. You could do this, but pocket the money, because you would have no mortgage.

The joy of this is:

  • You won't be desperate to take another job quickly.

  • You won't need to get back into development. As others have said, you could just take your savings, do some other job part time, and possibly coast from there.

  • Your cushion will just last longer.

  • You won't be paying interest.

Of course, you have to take into consideration that suburban dating is different than urban dating, and I'm giving advice as someone who has no plans to have kids (so having a ton of extra money isn't necessary for me).

[–]jldugger 0ポイント1ポイント  (1子コメント)

I'm probably going to move out, put a down payment on a house

Nobody is going to give a kid with no job a loan on a house, down payment or not.

[–]McnstSr. Systems Software Engineer (UK, US, Canada) -1ポイント0ポイント  (0子コメント)

Nobody is going to give a kid with no job a loan on a house, down payment or not.

lol, you're new to america? :)

[–]vgambitSoftware Engineer -1ポイント0ポイント  (0子コメント)

If I did whatever I wanted I'd be broke. I'd blow through $200k traveling for a few years jumping from hostel to hostel and drinking trappist westvleteren 12 in Belgium.

This is your "if I did whatever I wanted" option?!

I'm probably going to move out, put a down payment on a house (I hear they have some nice townhomes in the Milpitas, CA area), invest whatever I have left, and try and learn the skills I need to find a job.

And this is your "realistic" option? And you're "sad as fuck?"

people, man...

[–]Woahpikapika -1ポイント0ポイント  (2子コメント)

Csu east bay?

[–]FiletOFish1066[S] 1ポイント2ポイント  (1子コメント)

Way worse than that. East Bay looks like a top notch school compared to where I went.

[–]n4ru -1ポイント0ポイント  (0子コメント)

Holy shit this made my day. Not only did you do nothing, but you lived my dream of automating your job and you managed to save over a years salary of a good programmer. Bravo.

[–]FlameDra -3ポイント-2ポイント  (2子コメント)

You can literally just find a different field to work in since you have $200k saved up. Get into like plumbing or something, whatever keeps you busy and pays okay.

[–]NSDelToro 5ポイント6ポイント  (1子コメント)

You don't work in tech, earning tech salaries and go somewhere else earning okay salaries. He has 6 years of experience, nobody knows he did this. He should refresh his skills and find a job. he'll be fine.

[–]FlameDra 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

I feel like he doesn't want to do this. That's the tone I got from him anyways. With $200k in savings its prime situation to make a switch.