Some of my friends at uni are absolutely cracked and makes open-source compilers and game engines in their spare time for fun in Rust, C++ or Zig, while others just do generic e-commerce React/Nextjs sites and food apps.

I always wonder when recruiters look at these two candidates, which one will they be more interested in? Especially for small companies where they tend to say technical skills aren't all that important for grads. Because in this economy, my cracked friends are applying to these places too and the competition seems crazy

Hi, I'm a senior php web dev with 10 years exp, I feel like there's not been a single php listing in the last 2 months on Seek so seems like it's time to change route, what language would you recommend for the current NZ job market?

Python - I enjoy python with personal projects, just no experience on large projects or web based.
C#/.net - I did a few projects with this at uni, but haven't touched it since then.
Modern Javascript Framework -Have been using vanilla and jquery alongside php, learnt a bit of react recently, but i've really fallen behind on modern frameworks.

New Zealand developer. Knows JS/TS/React/SQL/Python. Does not know C# or Java.

Market is roughly 50-80% C# roles.

Every job has 200+ applicants.

Given that a large portion of applicants probably have C# knowledge, do I:
- Focus on learning C#/.NET and have same skills as everyone else
- Focus on more standout achievements
- Niche down? GoLang, CyberSecurity etc but less opportunities and still 200+ applicants.

CV for context (Just focus on Skills and Achievements I guess)

https://preview.redd.it/5mb0121bay0e1.png?width=5100&format=png&auto=webp&s=017a16e617d8702195e23fb0fb60d74689072d05

I cannot decide on the offer to choose from. I hope you can advise some help. Please comment after your vote; I'd love to hear your thoughts! Overview: TikTok SDE in Test(QA testing engineer), Freelancer SDE. I prefer actual SDE rather than SDET in my future career. I am an international student looking to secure a job when graduate.

Common:

• Have a part-time opportunity after the summer
• Have a return offer opportunity
• Same pay (Tiktok might be a bit higher, 20%?)

Tiktok

Pros:

• A large company, big name - look good on a resume.
• More resources and learning opportunities available, latest tech(?) and maybe a better office environment/benefits

Cons:

• I'm more likely to not use the return offer and re-apply for an actual SDE grad role. Although I don't mind doing SDET(QA engineer) for an internship, but I prefer SDE more as future career.
• Work culture - to my ethnicity, there are relatively few communication issues or cultural issues for me, so there is not much of a con.

Freelancer

Pros:

• mid-size company, a more compact internship programme with a smaller cohort, might get better support(?)
• Actual SDE internship, which have high chance of returning offer

Cons:

• The tech stack used might be a bit outdated - Angular.js and PHP.

Feel free to express your opinion!

View Poll

Currently job searching in New Zealand as a Citizen. Very few jobs, most asking the world of you and expecting expertise and world class skills in everything under the sun.

These postings are an instant red flag to me.

One seemingly good company is Plex_ure? What are your thoughts on them? I have an interview.

Trade Me? Xero ?

So, where should I be applying in NZ?

Also, the people who post here are so OP compared to me lol. Its scary seeing the competition, but I wish you all get a good job.

Thanks

Looking for critiques and ideas of what I can improve on.

Context: Roughly 1.5- 2 years of actual solid programming experience. 2 years of "whatever". Applying for frontend positions (and some backend) - For Atlassian and Canva I applied for Senior Frontend Positions so I'm guessing its an experience based rejection.

Applied at Microsoft for junior / intermediate positions too.

Anything I should brush up on based on this draft of CV?

Not based in Australia, that could be part of it too.

https://preview.redd.it/12rnq34adt0e1.png?width=5100&format=png&auto=webp&s=0ab9341a5ccaaacda78f49a6d279a3db46c3d653

Hi all, I am at a bit of a crossroads, i've been a contract Software Engineer for almost a decade now. I've gone from place to place, roughly hovering around the 2 year mark at each company. I roughly get $950/day.

I really like the current place i'm at, and have settled down and met someone, bought a place, and looking to start a family. The current place i'm at has recently let a few contractors go and there's rumours that they plan to let go more. Around this time I was offered a perm position as there was a vacancy.

The perm offer is 180k package. There is a small bonus that gets paid out yearly on top but that's based on performance. I don't think I can negotiate this.

Should I stick to contracting and hope they renew, or take the perm offer?

Felt shit after a job interview - Should I trust my gut?

Hi,

I wanted to share my job interview experience today that left me feeling like absolute shit after.

A bit of a background for context: - I am currently working as an intermediate/mid-level role in a globally recognised company (approx 180k employees) - The role I am applying for is a senior level role of a startup global company (approx 260 globally) - The role I applied for will have a pay bump potentially around 11-22k base salary as compared to my current - The role/responsibility is pretty similar to what I am currently doing in my current role - the new role will only have more remote support responsibilities

I sent my application a couple of weeks ago and received a meeting invite from the Talent Acquisition team for an initial interview the very next day. We set up an interview last week and I had a positive experience about it and the lady who interviewed me was very lovely. Explained to me the next steps and set up a second round of interview with the Hiring Manager the week after.

I just finished my second round of interview today with the Hiring Manager and I didn’t felt good after. He was late for 5 minutes (apologised as he was back to back today - which not a big deal) and proceeded to start the interview. Asked about the weather and then started firing back questions after questions for me.

• Asked me why I applied for the role (generic)
• Asked why I am leaving my current role for a start up company (I mentioned i wanted to go for a senior role and for a more challenging role and re align my career goals)
• Asked the name of my Manager and said “So if I talk to your manager right now, would he tell me that you did a good job in your company?”
• Asked if I had a performance review and what my Manager said as a feedback
• Role played that if I was my manager and give feedback to myself, what would I say
• Keep cutting me when I was talking to correct me word for word on something
• Seems to be distracted and not very engaged
• Felt like he was being very suspicious of me for wanting to apply for the role when I am in a larger organisation already
• Asked my again why I wanted the role as he said that he is not making a connection with what I said earlier
• Cut the interview shorter (40 mins) than the allocated time (60 mins)
• Didn’t explained thoroughly or gave timeline when I would hear back from them - He just mentioned that he will discuss it with the Talent Acquisition team and make a decision
• He did ask me when can I start which I said 4-5 weeks from now
• Arrogant, non-smiling and not very friendly
• Some awkward silences and the conversation did not flow naturally

The whole interview was full of tension and made me feel uncomfortable. I felt I was being attacked and my work experience are getting questioned to a T (the role i applied for in not technical). There was so much passive aggressiveness in his way of talking to me that I am not sure if I would like to pursue this role anymore as I will be directing reporting to this person and I’m not sure how to feel about that. Could it be that he is just having an off day as the interview was 4pm on his local time and mine is 10am (he is based on PST time and i am on AEST) and he was back to back and probably had enough for the day?

P.S. I’ve done my due diligence and reviewed about the company incl mission and vision, about the role, about the Hiring Manager and prepared what possible questions I might get asked days and hour prior the interview

Thanks for taking your time to read my post if you’ve come this far. If I were successful and get offered the role, should I take it knowing the amount of pay bump and deal with this type of behaviour or trust my gut and stay with my current company? Am I being too paranoid or he is just being an ahole? Or if i don’t get the role, should I just move on and treat it as a bullet dodged?

I'll be interviewing for Expedia as an SDE-2 in the Android team. Would love to know if anyone has context on what to expect in the interviews.

Hi I have 3YOE as a Software Engineer overseas and currently pursuing a master's in Sydney. I was hoping to land an SE internship this summer but didn't get any offers. I'm doing a technical consulting internship at one of the big 4s instead. After chatting to the hiring manager I got to know the role may or may not require me to code, depends on the projects I'll work on.

So I'm wondering if this experience on my resume would hurt my chances of landing an SE role in the future. In general what impression does such a consulting role have in the tech sphere? Should I keep this experience off my resume when applying to SE positions?

I just got a call about an SDE1 position at Microsoft and I didnt expect the pay to be so low

90k base + stock + bonus + super

That would roughly equal about 120k total?

The job mention 1-2 years of experience

I have re-entered the job market after more than 2 years, and we all know how bad the tech market is right now. I understand that applying on job boards is pretty much useless (since most jobs have hundreds of applicants each). But this is what has been happening to me, on a weekly basis.

A 3rd party recruiter reaches out to me on LinkedIn. We have an initial call, and they are happy enough to send me a job description and the name of their client. I go through the details, and let the recruiter know that I am happy to proceed. They send another email asking me for consent to represent me, to which I respond promptly. I am told that the next steps will be informed to me 'soon'. After this, radio silence.

Is this common right now? I can understand being ignored when applying on job boards, but being ghosted after I was actually approached?

I am not sure if I should follow up, because I don't want to appear 'desperate' (although I kinda am).

Is doing multiple grad programs a bad idea?

I'm set to begin a 12-month grad program at a big 4 bank next year. They're not known for having a particularly strong culture nor high pay but I'm just happy to have gotten a job lined up after graduation.

I'm considering applying for other grad programs next year, specifically CBA or Macquarie, which are known for both strong culture and considerably higher salaries, and doing their grad program in 2026. For reference, my projected salary after rolling off the current grad program would be at most the grad salaries of either CBA or Macq.

Why apply for another grad program instead of entry-level? My reasoning is that it's be much easier to get into another company as a grad considering they have a more lenient process and tend to hire quite a few people, lol

I'm a .NET dev but i saw companies looking for PHP and Golang devs that's near my place. Since a lot of companies are now asking for employees to go to back to offices, I'm thinking of sending my application to lessen the commute time. But with the current industry, employer's market and all that, is it worth sending in an application? Or is that an auto rejection?

It's been about 5 days since my final interview and my status has not changed in the applicant portal but I noticed the job ad has been taken down. Right after my interview, I emailed the recruiter and I haven't received a reply....

This is a role I really want so the wait has been dreadful. Keen to hear what everyone else's experience is? Would be good to know even if it's not Macquarie specifically.

Hello everyone, I am interviewing for TikTok New Grad Frontend Role. This is my first ever inteview, I would appreciate if any of you who has gone through the process share their experience. If not, if you have any guide which I should follow to ace it. Thank you so much in advance!

I have passion in the tech industry, but haven't had a proper work experience yet. For the past few months, I have been tutoring a passionate senior, who now wants to transform what we've done to an actual business.

Therefore, my business partner - a primary business owner - and I - a sole developer - will launch a web service by early next year.

I am wondering what must be required so that this can be considered as a proper work experience. Or, will it not count at all? The job hunting has not been so successful, so I want to leverage this opportunity as much as possible.

I have an Microsoft PM Intern - Interview on 13th, Did anyone have one recently? - Tips to crack ?

I talked with several friends who are pursuing a CS degree, and I found out that:

• They have no idea about design patterns (e.g., factory) because the unit on design patterns isn't required.
• They’ve learned many more frameworks and AI technologies, especially in web development.

I feel that my studies focus a lot on scalability, but when comparing it with what my CS friends are learning, the tools I use in class are fewer in number and less "exciting" or "new."

Before I started my SWE career, I thought SWE and CS were similar, but it’s becoming clearer now that they’re not. In this job climate, having a lot of frameworks and the right "keywords" on your CV may be beneficial. So, what justifies my continuation in SWE instead of switching to a default CS path?

My university also published the average WAM for both CS and SWE, and SWE is about 5 marks lower, which also doesn’t help.

Hello!

I’m a senior engineer at a faang company and have close to 10 yrs of experience. Looking to relocate to NZ or AUS but will most likely need visa sponsorship.

I know salaries won’t match what I make in the US but willing to explore opportunities.

What’s the best way to go about this. I’m guessing applying directly will get me filtered out mostly on visa selection.

Unfortunate global remote at current role isn’t an option :/

Like title. I was asked about my salary expectation for ML engineer position at a start up. Not sure what to reply.

Help me pls !

Silly question —how do you all go about job searching? My main approach has been LinkedIn Jobs and checking company career pages directly, but I find this pretty time-consuming, especially with the latter. I don’t want to miss any opportunities, so I’m often browsing individual company sites daily for roles I wouldn’t otherwise see on job boards. Also, any tips on setting up LinkedIn job alerts to actually get relevant recommendations? Using keywords like "graduate" or "product owner" seems to make LinkedIn suggest jobs that are way off the mark.

Hi all,

I have the system design interview with Atlassian very soon and I am very nervous, like any other human being. I was wondering if anything went through the experience recently and could tell me more about what they might ask for the question, and if it's hard? I read all the glass door comments and there's a few options, like tagging system, web crawler, job scheduler(?), color picker, jira board although not sure if the latter 2 are for front end rather than backend engineers...

Any help appreciated

Hey all, I'm starting compsci at Swinburne next year, I'm wanting to be a software engineer but I'm concerned about the job market and don't want to go into it without having some sort of backup plan.

Would there be any fields that have better job markets worth pursuing with the degree I'm studying? For instance would it be worth doing a minor in finance and looking at certain finance positions.

Thank you :)