Current State of the Entry Level Software Engineering Market | End of 2023

I recently assisted some folks in their job search and we found success. Here is some of the things we learned. To sum things up, I think there are still some great chances to land a job in the non big tech industries as your first job. This can be a great place to start. However, overall this year could be one of the hardest years to find an entry level job. It's not impossible and I do think there are good signs for the future and I do think the overall conclusion is that the profession is in demand at the experienced levels.

Keep on grinding it out.

Some of my favorite books that keep me motivate:

about me:
My name is Jeff, I grew up in lower class as an Asian American and got bad grades my whole life. I found my path to real estate investing (2m+ in properties) and have a successful day job as a Lead Software Engineer all before 30. My goal is to share what I've learned in my 20s that helped me become who I am today. no sales, no tricks, no games. Just pure advice from someone thats seen both the bottom and the top in this modern world.

[ImLure]

5, 000 applications between two prospects with decent knowledge and credentials is quite literally insane for a lack of better term. There’s honestly no reason why any should have to apply for that many jobs to land a single job. I’m glad they made it out of application hell

[djcardwellai]

I have 10 years of experience, worked at Apple and Amazon, I've never seen a harder time during my career. You're not alone if you're struggling.

[JustinWellsDev]

I think I got a little lucky - I was in IT support and hated it. I was always bored, and decided I wanted to become a software engineer. September of 2022 I started a free online course for iOS development, finished it in December and started my own project for an iOS app. I also started applying for jobs at this point.

Two months (February 2023) and 180 failed applications later and I got an interview booked, then the second, and then a job offer for $55/hour as an iOS developer for a medical company. Coming from $24/hour with no degree, no bootcamp, and a single dad that was life changing

[CrownPab]

I graduated with a computer science degree in 2022 with actual experience in tech from internships I did during my undergraduate. Still having a hard time finding work because of the current state of the field and entry level jobs

[vectoralphaSec]

The whole entire point of entry level is that it is for people who do not have any professional experience. New grads or career changers. Every single company should have an entry level training program that hires these types of people at lower cost so that they can get jobs and thus experience. These jobs should be lower payed, but should have easy access to getting hired and the company gets to mold the developer as they would want them to be. I would 100% apply to a $50k a year job as an entry level developer to have an acutal job, learn on the job, get training and experience and as the dev grows then move on to higher roles.

[CKincaid]

So many media creators seem to be just ignoring this current job market, thank you for addressing the issue.

[CodeFatherX]

I think the industry is shooting itself in the foot by drastically cutting opportunities for entry level devs. Eventually, people are going to age out

[ShewWoW]

While it's anecdotal, here's my experience. Graduated from an intensive bootcamp in March. It's been 8 months of constantly applying for me and 15 other people in my cohort. So far only a handful of interviews, and 1 person landed a job (their brother founded a startup and hired him). One of us went through 4 rounds of interviews for an "entry" level job that ended up taking a 4 year experience person instead

it sucks

[GS-kjpc]

I am a senior dev with 9 years of experience. When I first started I had to take a dev job for 40k a year to get my feet wet. I know its ridiculous but landing that first job is the key. I would also like to say theres entry level people at the big companies currently making more than I do now. Nothing is fair in this industry.

[MyExRebirth]

My wife and I went back to college after we moved to the U.S 10 years ago. She studied Sonography associate's degree and got a job 3 months before graduation! I studied IST associate's, couldn't get a job, continued and got my BS Computer Science, still can't get a job!!! This is insane!!! I could've gone for becoming a dentist, nurse practitioner, or even a family doctor by now and earning triple amount of what a SDE earns now! Also another thing that people haven't talked about much is that wages for many other jobs have increased with inflation during years except for tech engineering jobs (non-managerial positions) !!! All these greedy tech companies are raking profits while firing employees, hiring from poor 4th world countries, and keeping wages for local employees to minimum!

[jaeger]

I graduated from university in 21 with a CS degree and couldn’t find any entry level software engineer positions so I went the public sector route and joined government as an “IT” professional. I used my skills as a developer to really get ahead in the field. I’m currently migrating into a project manager role with a slightly under 90k salary. I understand that I may not make as much as the ludicrous top companies but full benefits and job security in this field definitely helps me sleep at night. Furthermore, it allows the ability to gain more experience with a flexibility of different projects. Remember as developers and engineers we can apply our skills to any work environment. Even if you don’t get into the exact field you can always leverage those skills to apply them to your current position and eventually use them as experience.

[antieatingactivist]

I did a bootcamp in 2021 after already having several years of programming experience as a hobbyist. I tried for 2 years to get an entry level job with no luck. I got tired of debasing myself in front of pretentious tech bros and joined Upwork to find some work until the market improved. I found a decent contract a few months later, and it's been great. I'm done dealing with corporate nonsense.

[tonys]

Looking at the comments makes me feel very conflicted.
On the one hand, it's nice to be reminded that I'm not the only one struggling to find a job.
On the other, it's overwhelming to see how much competition I have.

[pzpalasti]

I'm currently working as a manual SW tester (no coding involve!). If I have a some free time during the day: I code. When I go home after work: I code. During the weekend: I code. I do coding because I love coding. Sure I would love to make my passion my work. But hey... it is what it is. The tech industry is rough... but until I will be able to get my foot in the door I practice: "When Fishermen can't go to the sea, they mend their nets"

[neonsilver]

This video made me want to drive into the woods and start digging my own grave. Either I'm broken or the system is, but it still feels worse than impossible. Getting a college degree meant nothing, and now I'm worthless. I can only imagine that many people feel the same way. I genuinely cannot fathom thousands of applications in 6 months, nor can I imagine any company offering a living wage, much less 6 figures! All I can think of is how do I escape this slow decent faster.

[karonbrown]

Computers jobs will keep growing don’t worry just keep learning your in the right field.

[Jump--the-moon]

I did a DevOps bootcamp, got 3x certified AWS and it’s probably one of my bigger regrets I’ve made as of recently. It did not pan out into any jobs, and it cost me a lot of money and most importantly, TIME. If I could do it over again, I would never have done the boot camp and instead focused on getting better and more efficient at my current job.

[phoenixsilverman]

Guys it’s all bank related most software jobs are startups and those require venture capital

High interest rates means nobody’s investing in tech startups
Even the big boys meta, google, Amazon have been doing layoffs

Until the fed starts cutting rates it’s going to be very hard to find a tech job
Use this time to rack up certifications and build outstanding portfolios

[vectoralphaSec]

Honestly i would LOVE to work as an entry level dev for $45k to $50k per year. I DONT have to make 6 figures. I just want a job dammit.

[stevenvillarreal]

Currently working at a gas station and graduated with a CS degree back in July of this year in 2023 from a large D2 college in Michigan. I have applied to roughly 150-160 jobs and have had 4 interviews since then and made it to the final round on all of them but received the same response, "Sorry, but we are looking for someone with more experience...". Mind you I have four internships under my belt as well as 2 years working in the software engineering industry. Makes absolutely no sense!