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Software engineers are facing an 'identity crisis bordering on depression,' Menlo Ventures partner says
(www.businessinsider.com)
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this post was submitted on 24 Jun 2026
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Huh. Maybe I will have a shot at getting a job... Oh, wait, I have 35 years experience, am over 50 and have been unemployed for 16 months. Never mind.
I gave up the humiliating shit show called a job search 3 months ago, and frankly my last job killed any interest in software development anyway.
It's all idiots telling professionals they're wrong and incompetent while blaming them for the ongoing production failures we solved and explained every month for a year but still can't get the code past review because "it does too much". 30 fucking lines of code "does too much". Pompous morons.
We're a threat of competence, and they're excising us relentlessly. I will laugh bitterly as I watch the soon to be torrent of fiascos and lamentations these idiots spout while still finding a way to blame software engineers.
I'm with you, MasterBlaster!
It sucks for lots of us, more every day, so at least we're not miserable, alone.
I'm sorry that happened to you. I've also seen it happen to a lot of very good engineers I've known over the years. It's truly insane. I know some people who've had to dip into their 401k accounts early just to keep their heads above water, and it's going to be an economy-wide disaster soon.
Yeah, I didn't want to retire yet, but like my father before me, the choice was not mine. I saved enough that I should be able to actually retire and survive on part-time low income jobs. Unless the market crashes for a year straight cuz after that I got to start selling stocks.
Hey are you me?!
Yeah I wonder how low I will go for a job, it's not bright exactly...
If, like me, you took it on faith (at the age of 23) that social security will be gone by the time I retire, you have been saving and investingcas much as possible. Then you can get by on low-end work.
Remember, jobs don't really give you prestige. A job is a job. The issue is whether it can help you pay your bills or not.
Note that Social Security is slated to not have enough money for full payments 3 years before I'm due to enroll (for full payments). You'd think I'd have earned Millions with my precognitive skills.
¯_(ツ)_/¯
A bit different over here in the EU I guess, but similar too; got my apartment almost paid off, social security is guaranteed, retirement will be like 1k€/m in like 9 years...
Hopefully RAM prices will have fallen by then 😁, or maybe we old C/C++ devs will be the new COBOL guys...
Hope springs eternal. There seems to be a strong movement to make Rust replace both C++ and C#. I should have taken python more seriously when I first saw it in Linux about 20 years ago, given the fever dream that grips the world now.
If I can rekindle the joy I used to have in software, I am going to just do game mods and Android FOSS app development.
Right now the thought of doing development practically gives me hives. Talk about PTSD. The thing I loved since writing assembly on a commodore 64 now brings dread.
I suppose the fact (ha!) that I no longer have to know a programming language (but I have to have several memorized to get through the first interview) should make it easy.
I have to admit my brief forays into local LLM assisted programming impressed me. I just can't motivate right now to "get serious".
Remember when Java was going to replace C/C++?
Also, machincode before getting an assembler on the C64! JMP=32 JSR=96
IIRC...
PEEK and POKE mostly, and typing hex codes into a special editor. Remember the games and utilities in the magazines? Also, a page of basic 2.0 code to draw a line And the amazing never before available Sprite Development.
Bresenhams line algorithm 😁, you could invert it to speed it up (Bresenhams slice algorithm)! Also: fill area algorithms!
Fun times
Yes, written by hand. A few years later I was taking courses in high school on an IBM PC in basic and to draw a line with literally a command called line with two points as parameters.
Yeah, no fun at all!
Loads of implementations were buggy too, IIRC.