In comparison to previous years the industry for engineers at any level is currently dog shit. Not the nicely form pile easily scooped. The industry is the type of dog shit you don’t know if a hazmat team should be called to clean due to possible biohazard. Should I throw away this dog? You might be thinking for a moment when the stench is causing your nose to flair but remember you love the damn thing most of the time, so you clean up the mess.

The point of the graphic poop analogy is to determine how much you love the craft and how to redirect efforts to beat frustration. In case it wasn’t clear if you became a programmer because the bureau of statistics said it was a growing field with an average salary in the x amount range, I hate to break it to you, probably time to change careers or become a master of prompt engineering! The last one is a joke. My opinion of prompting AI is that anyone with common sense, an eye for detecting patterns, and willingness to try different things to coax the AI can do it.

Still with me? Perfect, this next section is for all of you who love the craft as much as I do without validation from the current market. Here are a few things I do when things seem slow, hopeless, and every week feels like being stuck in Groundhog Day (endless loop of the same day).

Don’t stop talking. Talk to your family about your feelings and to determine how long you can ride this crap wave without needing to pick any other type of job. Talk to the community and network to see if anyone is looking. Communication is one of those things that keep your head above water during frustrating times.

Take advantage of the time to solidify foundations and learn new skills. Didn’t you ever tell yourself you wanted to learn x language or how LLM algorithms work – now you have plenty of time. Treat learning like a job – learning is your temp job.

Work on a new project or better yet on that project you started many moons ago and never seems to make any progress. Don’t listen to the voice that says it won’t make money – take payment in skills! I would add to not build something for a portfolio. Create something you want, need, or is useful.

Get used to doing hard things and hard times and next times you won’t be surprised. You are already used to this – remember last time you spent days, weeks, months trying to solve a problem and then one day it just came to you after you wrote and erased thousands of lines of code.

Remember while the dog will crap again it won’t always hazmat material.