What Should I Do? /u/JustJared_92 CSCQ protests reddit

Hey guys. I haven’t posted or read too in depth here before, so I hope I’m not misusing the New Grad tag, but nothing else felt appropriate since I graduated back in the winter of 2022, but I definitely wouldn’t consider myself experienced. Anyway, on to the question!

I’m at a crossroads in my career… again. I had originally graduated with a degree in Psychology with the intention of becoming a counselor. I took a year to get some experience in psychiatric wards before applying to a master’s program and realized just how unhappy I would be doing that so I made took some assessments, asked some friends, and decided I would be well suited to a career in IT. I worked for a few years in technical support roles and eventually got a programmer analyst role after a few years. Sadly, that happened just before COVID hit, and I got furloughed as a result.

Well, I decided to go back for a new degree in CS rather than compete with senior IT career people for junior positions. Two years later, I graduated with a 3.72 GPA from Auburn University. I didn’t do an internship because I got a job as a Database Engineer just before my final semester. Sadly, after being in that role for just over a year, I got laid off along with several other people in my department. I was unemployed for 8 months, during which time I applied to every single developer role that I was even remotely qualified for across the United States. In that time, I only got two interviews… TWO!

Well, one of those two interviews resulted in a job offer, and I took it out of necessity. I now work as part of a team that operates as the last line of support when our clients run into technical difficulties. In short, I look at support tickets, determine if my department covers it, and start asking my team if anyone has heard of the specific issue before; I do this because there is practically no documentation, and what our department supports is a large portion of a vast and poorly organized set of services. I currently have over 40 tickets in my personal backlog (apparently, not an abnormal number) and I am feeling overwhelmed, burned out, and increasingly desperate and depressed.

So… the question is… what do I do? Should I stick with this job that pays me decently well and get a few consistent years as a programmer down on my resume? Should I step back and find something in tech support (also, inevitably for lower pay) so that I can breathe and maybe even develop on my own time? Is there a different industry or role that I’m not considering that I could pivot to? I’m feeling completely out of options and paralyzed by indecision. The last thing that I want to do at this point is make the wrong choice and set my career back or make my life more financially difficult unnecessarily.

Any advice from someone with experience would be greatly appreciated.

Hey guys. I haven’t posted or read too in depth here before, so I hope I’m not misusing the New Grad tag, but nothing else felt appropriate since I graduated back in the winter of 2022, but I definitely wouldn’t consider myself experienced. Anyway, on to the question!

I’m at a crossroads in my career… again. I had originally graduated with a degree in Psychology with the intention of becoming a counselor. I took a year to get some experience in psychiatric wards before applying to a master’s program and realized just how unhappy I would be doing that so I made took some assessments, asked some friends, and decided I would be well suited to a career in IT. I worked for a few years in technical support roles and eventually got a programmer analyst role after a few years. Sadly, that happened just before COVID hit, and I got furloughed as a result.

Well, I decided to go back for a new degree in CS rather than compete with senior IT career people for junior positions. Two years later, I graduated with a 3.72 GPA from Auburn University. I didn’t do an internship because I got a job as a Database Engineer just before my final semester. Sadly, after being in that role for just over a year, I got laid off along with several other people in my department. I was unemployed for 8 months, during which time I applied to every single developer role that I was even remotely qualified for across the United States. In that time, I only got two interviews… TWO!

Well, one of those two interviews resulted in a job offer, and I took it out of necessity. I now work as part of a team that operates as the last line of support when our clients run into technical difficulties. In short, I look at support tickets, determine if my department covers it, and start asking my team if anyone has heard of the specific issue before; I do this because there is practically no documentation, and what our department supports is a large portion of a vast and poorly organized set of services. I currently have over 40 tickets in my personal backlog (apparently, not an abnormal number) and I am feeling overwhelmed, burned out, and increasingly desperate and depressed.

So… the question is… what do I do? Should I stick with this job that pays me decently well and get a few consistent years as a programmer down on my resume? Should I step back and find something in tech support (also, inevitably for lower pay) so that I can breathe and maybe even develop on my own time? Is there a different industry or role that I’m not considering that I could pivot to? I’m feeling completely out of options and paralyzed by indecision. The last thing that I want to do at this point is make the wrong choice and set my career back or make my life more financially difficult unnecessarily.

Any advice from someone with experience would be greatly appreciated.