I failed college (non-IT related) last 2019 due to bad grades (flunked out). Decided not to enroll to other universities and applied for online jobs instead. I started as VA and sobrang nahirapan ako! After dealing with a difficult client, nag-rage talaga quit ako 😂 (I only lasted 2 months on that job). So I researched other online jobs and stumbled upon Software Development. Decided to try it since I've attended class on Intro to Computer Science (2015) and I liked it.

Self-study journey (3-4 months)
Ito yung panahon na nagsisimula pa lang yung pandemic. I was a full-time learner (at palamunin ng pamilya) on this timeframe. Started researching about Web development roadmaps and bought some courses. Sobrang na-adik ako mag-aral! I would study 12-16 hrs/day and would only take breaks para kumain. Pagkagising ko umaga bukas agad laptop. I'd say I was desperate to change my life and achieve financial freedom kaya I was always in the "zone" when it comes to learning.

Around February 2020, I was confident enough to create websites kaya I bought my first domain name, created my portfolio, then made some projects. March 2020, I got my first Web development job in Upwork. Yay!

My job experience summarized (all are fully-remote jobs)

• First job (27k/month, Years of exp: 0) - Kapalan lang talaga ng mukha sa paga-apply at confidence sa mismong interview. Dapat okay rin portfolio mo. Umalis din ako after 3 months.

• Second job (50k/month, Years of exp: 0.25) - Work and company was pretty chill. Tinaasan nila 5k sweldo ko after 1 year. Pero nababaan ako sa increase kaya umalis din ako shortly when opportunity came.

• Third job and my first 6-figure per month salary (155k/month, Years of exp: 1.5) - may nagmessage sa akin sa LinkedIn na US-based company tapos yung sweldo 155k/month. NAPA-WTF TALAGA AKO HAHAHAHA. Posible pala yung ganung salary. Again, sobrang kapal ng mukha ko kaya nag-apply ako. At ayun natanggap naman! Para akong tumama sa lotto nun. Yung mom ko na disappointed sakin kasi I failed college, nati-treat ko na sa labas at napapag-grocery. Napaayos ko rin bahay. The job really changed my life talaga.

• Current job (240k/month, Years of exp: 2) - may nag-message ulit sa akin na another foreign company sa Linkedin if gusto ko mag-apply sa kanila. Di pa talaga ako nag-hahanap ng trabaho kasi natutuwa pa ako sa sweldo ko. Nagsabi ako ng salary expectation na 250k (nag-add lang ako ng ~100k from my current salary lol). They invited me for an interview. I underwent a live coding interview then eventually passed! They offered me a shy below it pero I'm not complaining! 240k na yun eh! I'm still working on the company and I love it here.

My PERSONAL advice (Emphasis sa PERSONAL kasi it may not work for everyone. I know I'm an outlier but these are what worked for me)

1. Confidence is key. Learn how to sell yourself. Develop your communication skills din. This will make or break a job offer.

2. Mag-job hop ka! Wag ka ma-inlove sa isang company at maghintay ng raise. Kapag nag-job hop ka, pwede ka mag demand ng 0.25x, 0.5x, 1x, or 2x salary. Lahat ng companies na inapplyan ko hindi ako kinwestyon sa tagal ko sa previous companies ko. I believe hindi na siya masyadong issue at di dapat maging issue sa employers! Nothing wrong on grabbing a better opportunity.

3. Stick to a certain tech stack pero dapat in-demand yung tech stack na yun. More and more companies are looking for specialists. Companies will invest more on a dev na expert on a particular tech than someone who is a generalist. Magkakaroon ka rin ng confidence sa interview and work will be fairly easier kasi familiar ka na.

4. Stick to a tech stack but don't forget to upskill and learn new things din!

5. Be lucky. Weird advice but I believe this is the secret sauce. Paano ka magiging lucky? Hardwork! Hardwork sa trabaho. Hardwork sa pag-aapply. Hardwork sa upskilling. Hardwork sa paghahanap ng opportunities! For sure tataas ang likelihood mo na ma-hire, or maka-hanap ng magandang company na may mataas sahod if masikap ka. Syempre dapat strategic ka rin.

This is a humblebrag but hopefully this post inspired you (kahit konti haha). I'm always eager to help friends and other people land a career in tech so feel free ask questions!

What are your thoughts? Me, personally, I think AI has reached a point where some form of strong regulation is necessary. It’s no longer a niche technology. It already affects economies, jobs, media, surveillance, and national security. Deep fake because of AI is actually concerning.

With skills, hardwork and luck, I landed a Junior Software Engineer role! Company is based in US. Currently an undegraduate in a diploma mill college. Took me 40+ days from job hunt start to signing the offer.

Background: I work for a BPO company in the Philippines. We hire software engineers in different stacks, but mostly for web development (frontend, backend). Myself, I have more than 30 years of experience in the field. I am not Filipino.

During the past 10 years, I have interviewed and tested hundreds of Filipino candidates. I though it would be nice to post my opinion and some tips and tricks for juniors but also for more senior programmers.

This obviously does not apply only to Filipinos but as I work in the Philippines I prefer to post here and help the people I have been working with for many years.

Disclaimer: Below are only tech advices. I am not talking about cultural differences here as it would be too long. But keep that in mind. Working for a Japanese company, a European company, or an American company will be a completely different experience. Learning about cultural differences and how to handle them is important. Filipinos have a huge expat community abroad, ask them about cultural differences.

Advice #1: Go back to the basics

A lot of developers I have interviewed learned their skills by using frameworks and don't know the basics. I'd estimate that 80-90% of the candidates who got rejected were rejected because of a lack of basic understanding of programming. Probably 95% of the web developers I interviewed can't properly explain what's the Javascript event loop.

For example, they jumped into web development learning jQuery, or React but they don't know Javascript. This is a mistake. Learning the basics might sound boring, but they are the foundations on which you build everything else.

So that's my first advice, go back to the basics, spend some time learning the Node.js API, how Javascript and TypeScript work, how C# and Python work, whatever is your favourite language. Learn common design patterns. Learn how the internet works as well if you are a web developer. It's crazy to see how many candidates apply to a web job but have no idea what are web vitals, what is latency, and what is a DNS.

And SQL, if you are a backend developer and handle a database, please learn SQL, and learn how to properly model a database, and what are the first normalization rules (go on Wikipedia and read). You will keep this on your tool belt for the next 20 years. I learned all that 25 years ago and still use everything today, nothing has changed.

Go on Roadmap.sh and learn everything there. At no point during your career you'll know everything.

Advice #2: Don't expect your current employer to teach you everything

It's perfectly OK to jump boat for career growth and I'd advise you do so if you are working with completely outdated technologies or processes because in the end experience and practice make perfect.

But first, learn by yourself! I have yet to meet a skilled software engineer who hasn't dedicated their evenings or weekends to honing their coding skills. You can't expect your employer to pay for 6 months of training, and lament because they don't and you are not growing.

Life gets in the way, for sure, but be honest, how many hours do you spend on social media? Just replace that with some coding sessions, sit down for 30 minutes and learn something, or simply solve 1 Leetcode every day.

Nobody else will learn for you, and nobody else is responsible for your growth as a software engineer.

PS: Watching a YT or TikTok video doesn't count as learning, it's entertainement. You must apply your skills to learn. If you are not typing code, compiling, deploying, you are not learning.

Advice #3: Be able to explain what you have learned

This is particularly important today with the emergence of AI. Some developers I met are able to give an answer to a question (because they know how to prompt an AI), but when you ask them to explain their answer, they are stuttering and can't provide a proper justification.

Not being able to explain the WHY you made a decision, chose a particular technology, or structured your code in a specific way, will backfire. It's not enough to know how to do it, you need to know why it's better this way over the other way.

There is a difference between being a coder and an engineer. If you want to grow, don't be just a coder. During an interview, we'll always try to discover if you can justify your decisions because it's a proof you know what you are talking about.

Advice #4: Learn how to properly read and write in English

Yeah I know, this is boring too. But you'd be surprised how many people can't write a sentence in English without a spelling mistake. Why is this important? Because when you are working with foreign (English speaking) clients or employers, you'll write all the time, in e-mails, in Slack, in your code comments, naming your variables and classes. Everything will be in English.

In the Philippines, you are very lucky to learn English early in life, but I think you are learning the language mostly by watching TV shows, Netflix, and Youtube. This won't help you with reading and writing. I'd strongly advise you spend more time reading than watching. This is one of those compounding skills that will help you with everything else in life.

Writing in proper English will also show your employers that you are careful and have attention to details. And luckily today this is getting simpler with tools like Copilot or ChatGPT, but don't fool yourself thinking that you are good at something if AI is doing it for you, because companies also know how to simply use an AI instead of you.

Advice #5: On using AI during coding exams

This will depend on the company, usually we don't mind people using AI during an exams, but a coding exam is about showing you know how to solve problems. If you copy/paste everything from AI you are just showing you can prompt an AI, and as soon as the AI won't give you the correct answer you'll be lost.

AI is like an auto-completer, don't use it to replace your skills, because if you do so then there is a great chance some more senior developers can also use it to replace you.

Recently, I have seen a growing number of people failing an exam BECAUSE they were using an AI and got lost trying to understand ChatGPT's answer and were completely unable to fix it.

And yes, it's super easy to tell when someone use an AI during an interview or coding test. In the future, I suspect most coding exams will be replaced by some other form of interviews like pair programming sessions, or live whiteboarding.

Also, consider this, once hired, if you cheated your way with AI, there is a great chance you won't pass the first performance evaluation. The make-up will wear off very quickly once you are onboarded in a project.

Conclusion

I know all this sounds quite boring, there are no special tricks to get you your dream job. If you want to be above the crowd you need to do things that most people don't do and in my experience, most candidates I have interviewed are not doing all this.

Go back to the basics! And I wish you all the best in your careers.

Bear with me please, I'm feeling lost atm. I was handling a full stack project been about 4 months in development project is already in pre production for testing.

My manager sat me down 1 on 1 to discuss my performance, apparently he discovered claude code and was able to vibe code the project in days and so he decided that it was not worth continue my employment.

I was beyond speechless, was asked why it took me so long. I explained as the requirements became more complex AI would hallucinate answers which was from my own experience but he was not convinced. He believed the LLM that he recently discovered.

Idk what is next, nakaka self doubt haha that maybe I really did took too long when developing.

**edit
Thank you everyone for the various advices! It is honestly a relief seeing that this industry is not as dumpster fire as I thought in regards to vibe coding. Nothing to it but to go back to grinding!
(also kumuha na ako ng subscription to claude hahaha)

Taas nyo maningil di nyo man lang maayos yung mobile app nyo. Ebarg naman kayo haha. Yun lang. Filler words para sa community guidelines peace yow

Software developer ako.

Starting salary ko is 20k sa fulltime work

Sobra sinipagan ko in 2.5 years naging 65k ang 20k ko. Pero kahit 65k, 15k lang naiipon ko due expenses, tax and syempre pinoy culture need mag share sa family lalo na panganay ako.

Then lumipat ako BGC company para mas makaipon 100k offer, pero ayun lumaki offer pero lumaki gastos dahil need ko mag rent near office, and nag ka cancer mama ko. Lumaki naman naiipon ko from 15k, 20k na. Hehe

Then nag pandemic na, nauso na WFH, dito feel ko napakalawak na ng oras ko since yung 4hrs travel nawala na and dahil master ko na work ko yung 8hrs na trabaho tapos ko na in 2hrs. May nag offer sakin sideline nung time na to, kakilala ko from previous work ko, kasi lagi ko ginaglingan sa work ko, nagustuhan ako kawork ko. 30k lang pero malaki na to kasi d time tracked and project based.

Tas di tumatagal na master ko na oras sa part time ko, may nag offer uli sakin isa pa 80k naman from FB lang nakita nila mga personal projects ko sobra sipag ko kasi mag aral then popost ko gawa ko sa FB. Sa 3 works ko na to total pumapasok sakin per month is nsa 180k bawas na tax, pero 6hrs lang araw araw tulog ko kasi medyo nangangapa pa. Pero dahil dito nakpag pakasal kami ng wife ko. Yung inakala kong 2 years na ipon for wedding kinaya ko in 6 months. Nag ka kotse din ako na sakto lang after a year.

So fast forward now, i have 3 jobs parin:

1 regular 200k, syempre kahit may freelance todo bigay ako kaya promoted lagi

2 side jobs na tig 100k. as Senior Dev, pero alam nila may regular work ako 😁

In a month may almost 400k ako.

Ngaun we are living on a very high end house kami ni wife and baby, guilty frustration ko ang maganda house kasi growing up isang bedroom lang house namin magkakatabi pa kami sa kama ng kapatid ko.

May sports car. SUV. Kain sa lahat ng high end restaurant na dati gang tingin lang and I can buy all the things na kinakaingittan ko sa mga rich kids kong kaklase.

Tip ko always spend time to expand your skillset kasi everything becomes easy na once you master your career, d ako nagsisi na I spend my time wisely starting up my career.

In every work you go, always do your best kasi thats where your colleague will refer you sa sidelines lalo na pag masarap ka work.

Learn to leave the work na freelance if d talaga kaya and mag susuffer regular work mo, pero syempre explain the situation and may proper turnover.

Sa linkedin pala, marami ka din makikita freelance, just say na you are not looking for a fulltime job, rather a part time or "Consultant/Contractor" style work.

Good luck sa starting palang sa freelance, and dream high libre mangarap wag mo tipirin.

Since I've been seeing a lot of posts recently ng mga tao na interested in cybersecurity or wanted to shift to cybersecurity I decided to make this little guide on how you MIGHT be able to get into CyberSec.

before everything else tho I would just like to clarify some things with regards to the field and others that does not which are the following: (READ THESE BEFORE EVERYTHING ELSE)

• I'm not a 100% expert on this field THESE ARE MY OPINIONS and if other cybersecurity professionals saw this PLEASE DO ADD ADDITIONAL INFORMATION for the people interested in our field. Now for my experience, let us just say that I've been in the cybersecurity long enough that I'm eligible to take the CISSP Certification (5years+), It's kinda worth mentioning as well that I got quite a ton of certifications.

• If you only wanted to get in because of the money then I'm not entirely sure if it's gonna be a successful journey for you

• Cyber Security isn't an entry level job specially PENETRATION TESTING, altho it is certainly POSSIBLE to be able to land a job specifically SOC roles since it's entry for CyberSec

• this field requires you to CONSTANTLY STUDY. I've already been in this field for quite awhile and I'm still studying everyday, so If you're just in it because of the money then this is gonna the problem cause it's gonna be difficult to study things that you are not really interested in.

• normally this isn't just gonna be your normal 8-5 shift or something most of the time it's gonna be on-call and specially in soc jobs there are like 10 hour long shifts or even more.

• be prepared to sell you soul specially if you are just entering or shifting to cybersecurity since there are A LOT OF THINGS TO STUDY, like literally A LOT, and it's gonna be brutal, majority of the things that you are studying is gonna make you feel SO STUPID so make sure to get in with the proper emotional strength. (specially when preparing for things like OSCP or something similar)

• I did tell that there are a lot to study but study slowly, no one is expecting you to know everything tom, pace yourself properly and focus, this isn't an impossible field to get into.

• the most difficult part is the "GETTING INTO" cyber sec, like studying all these foreign and complicated terms that you have NEVER ENCOUNTERED, the way to overcome this is just don't give up, reread things multiple times and emulate things.

If you still wanted to get into Cyber Security After reading all of those then lets get into business.

How to get started:regardless of whether you are new to I.T or got some experience here are the topics that I would say are the most crucial ones to have to be able to land a job in cybersecurity and pass the interview.

• Networking

  • whether you like to go to red, blue or purple team, knowledge in networking is gonna help you a lot and it is something that I would say is required. Now to be able to get knowledge in networking I suggest reading books like CCNA, Comptia Network+, or JNCIA (But stay away from huawei thingies don't take this certification just read it if you want) read those, and understand those and EMULATE everything that you have read in Packet tracer (which is free) or something similar. Thru trial and error is where you will develop your skills, (you wont be able to do trial and error in prod so better do it in emulations like packet tracer or buy something like eve-ng cisco images) (youtube channels such as Keith Barker & Kevin Wallace are your friend)

• Operating Systems

  • this is something very very important specially for penetration testing, you probably might say na "sanay naman na ako sa windows araw araw ko ginagamit I don't need to study this" but no, studying operating systems in a sense na how the processes are happening, how the OS process specific requests how to exploit stored procedures, which are things na hindi mo matututunan unless mag deepdive ka sa mga OS, now to be able to study this just visit the windows website i guess? for Linux there is this free PDF which is LPIC1 & 2 which is gonna give you enough knowledge to get thru.

• Programming

  • this is gonna be controversial because of what I'm gonna say, I would say that for early cybersecurity roles programming is helpful but not necessary, I've been thru different companies and there are people in the SOC or TVM or that does not have programming capabilities, but regardless you should definitely study programming cause as you go deeper in the field it is something that is gonna be super useful (to be able to study this just google this stuff its everywhere, I suggest Python if you are asking as to what language to study)

• Common Services

  • Common services like FTP,HTTP, SMB, DNS, SMTP, POP3, IMAP, MSSQL, MySQL, NFS, Virtual Machines, AD these things are also things that you need to know, how it works, common misconfiguration and stuff (dont try and kill yourself trying to study all these deeply, just get the basic information, you aint pentesters that needs to know that there are stored procedures like sp_configure available for mssql that can be exploited)

• Extra Stuff: (CERTIFICATIONS these are from my experiences)these are not required I'm just giving out options on what to take.

  • CCNA (Intermediate Difficulty, MULTIPLE CHOICE)

    • just read, not required but you may take it, this is where I started btw

  • Security + (Easy Difficulty, MULTIPLE CHOICE)

    • this is something that I would really suggest you take, take the exam and pass and it's gonna help you to land a job or at least will get the attention of the recruiter

  • BTL1/CCD - ( no idea never took this, just got this information from my coworkers before)

    • really useful and gives you plenty of knowledge specially if you wanted to be in the blue team

  • eJPT - (Difficulty = Depends on how much you know, could be very easy, could be not, HANDS ON)

    • this is something I would suggest you take if you want to take the red team path, for me it was a relatively easy cert after.

  • CEH /CEH Master - (Easy Difficulty, Multiple choice and hands on)

    • HR's love this thing but oh well let me not comment about it too much, lets just say I did not like it that much in terms of its price and its usefulness

  • Pentest +/ Cysa +, OSCP

    • this is gonna come later in your career, focus on your fundamentals and do this at a later time.

  • My Certifications when I Landed a job in cybersecurity were CCNP, CCNA, Sec+, RHCSA and eJPT (as a fresh grad)

Other Study Materials:

• TryHackMe

  • This has almost everything red team and blue team, which is super great if you are just starting out, do take note that its gonna cost your around 800 a month I think?

• Hack The Box

  • this thing is a gold mine, its gonna cost you around 1100 a month for the HTB academy silver tier but the content is amazing, altho not really recommended for people with no experience.

• PortSwiger

  • if you are into web thingies/ Bug bounties then this is the one for you since its extremely useful.

• GOOGLE! if you can't use simple google then this field aint for you.

Do you need to be smart to be able to get into cybersecurity? for me the answer is NO, what you need is dedication and passion. GOODLUCK

I might have missed a lot of stuff since Im too lazy to reread everything.

Edit: Additional comment, PLEASE PEOPLE DON'T SKIP THE BASICS.

"Amazon is laying off 16,000 employees, the company’s SECOND ROUND of large-scale job reductions in three months as it fights to improve its standing in the battle for AI supremacy"

Like it or not, the programming path isn’t as viable as it used to be. Juniors and people who aspire to be in tech need to think twice before wasting time on nothing. Pivot before it's too late.

Also, PLEASE STOP USING AI AS MUCH AS YOU CAN. The bubble needs to burst so the market can correct itself and proper protections and legislation, which are severely lagging, can be put in place.

Here is the article: https://edition.cnn.com/2026/01/28/tech/amazon-layoffs-ai

This is my first ever ESP32 and embedded project. I bought the parts and learned how to solder for the first time. For three months, I've been building a handheld NES with an ESP32 from scratch.

While having already made my own NES emulator for Windows, I had to do a whole rewrite of the program to port and optimize it for the ESP32. This is written in C++ and is designed to bring classic NES games to the ESP32. This project focuses on performance, being able to run the emulator at near-native speeds and with full audio emulation implemented. Check out the project!

Here's the GitHub repository if you would like to build it yourself or just take a look!

Github Repository: https://github.com/Shim06/Anemoia-ESP32

I’ve been interviewing for software engineering roles, and it’s alarming lot of candidates are using fake identities, posing as Filipinos, but they are clearly pure Chinese. This seems like a big operation going on. Their name and experiences are definitely fake! All their answers are either scripted and AI generated lol

Since last week, I’ve interviewed five of them. This kind of deception is stealing opportunities from Filipinos in this tough job market!

I was in my 2nd year of college studying BSIT when Gen AI tools like ChatGPT blew up. And like a total idiot, I got lazy. I spent my the rest of my college half-assing everything and vibe-coding my way through.

I kid you not, I graduated without even knowing how to traverse through an array. It's really depressing to think about how I wasted my parent's money and four years of my life. Nasa huli talaga ang pag-sisisi.

Now, I'm reaping the consequences (unemployed hahaha). But I'm slowly getting back on my feet, relearning everything from ground up with integrity and discipline. And so far I'm proud of my progress.

My advice:

1. Read the documentation. I know it's tedious and tough at first because you have to puzzle through it, and it make you feel out of your depth. But you have to push through the painfulness of feeling stupid because that's the state where all the real growth and development happens.

2. If you have to resort to Stack Overflow or AI for a fix, be intentional. Figure out why it works. Try to break everything down and refer to the documentation until you figure out how and why it works.

3. Find a mentor or peers who are above your level. I'm lucky enough to have found a seasoned engineer who gives me invaluable advice and goes out their way to dedicate time for pair programming.

Even with all that, it's still the bare-minimum. What's going to make you really standout are pet projects and actual experience (several internships, freelance works, or open source contributions)

So if you're truly passionate about this and want to succeed, buckle down, stop relying on AI and do actual work. If you think otherwise, you should re-evaluate your life decisions. This is not a field you can waltz into just because you have a diploma and AI can make it seem like you can churn out stuff.

For months, I tried to follow up on my enrollment, but I never got a response. Then I received a rejection notice. I took it as their final decision and lost hope of releasing my apps on Apple’s platforms.

Until last week, I created a new account and applied again. This time, I carefully checked that my address, billing address, and ID all matched my permanent address. And I got approved! 🎉

Now I can finally turn my ideas into real apps. 👨‍💻

Hi, I made this PDF editor web app https://sorapdfeditor.com/ totally for free, in-browser, no watermark and no login required, launched it a few days ago. You can edit text, images, vectors, annotations, table of contents, attachments and more. Would like to hear some feedback. Thanks!

Long post, tl:dr sa dulo.

About more than a year ago, I landed my first six-digit role.

I was hired there as a mid-level, then was promoted just short of a year after (mid-march) to senior level. These were among the traits/qualities that my superior noted that contributed to my promotion:

• Initiative to improve and streamline current processes

  • We had a testing and validation process that was being done manually through different integrated SaaS. It took a lot of time doing it manually. During some spare time, I developed scripts that would automate all the validations. Presented this to the team and it's now sitting on its own repository being used across the team.

• Initiative to tackle responsibility (esp on production issues)

  • Our app was part of an ETL job and there were several occasions where production issues would occur (PODs went down, Java memory issues, etc). And it was a matter of reviewing these production issues and making sure we have mitigations in place to ensure it doesn't happen again (as we all know, expensive magkaron ng ganyan).

  • Nung junior pako, takot ako sa term na "production issue" as if it's something na very pressuring and too much to handle. Getting more experience and exposure to it made me realize na kaya lang ako takot dati because I know so little about certain topics and I won't really know how to deal with it until I actually be in the situation where I have to.

• Initiative to take part in solution and design discussions

  • Initially, as a mid-level dev, it wasn't really part of my responsibility to take part in these discussions. I told my superior (he was the solutions architect) if he could just pull me in during these discussions and I would just sit and listen (saling pusa haha).

  • Eventually, he asked me if I could try drafting a design for one of our new features. So I did, we jumped on calls to discuss about the thought process, why and how I made those decisions, basically a defense haha

  • I ended up doing three full features like this, taking ownership of the development to deployment. I grew comfortable presenting my work and design to solutions architects and nakikipagsabayan nako sa mga back-and-forth sagutan on contraints, pros and cons, budget allocations, etc.

Key word was initiative. I could only grow so much as I wanted to. Had I waited for these responsibilities to be given to me, it would've took considerably more time.

The initiative was fueled by my drive to learn. A big influence were tech youtubers who would discuss tech, mindset, and architectural ideas. These two guys were my top two:

• https://www.youtube.com/@ALifeEngineered

• https://www.youtube.com/@hnasr

The videos they have would give more value than whatever I could put in this post. I would highly suggest following their content as well.

Now, I landed a PHP250k~$4500 /month full remote Senior developer contractor role from a company in Ukraine. Recruiter contacted me through LinkedIn (luck and keeping LinkedIn profile updated). They were looking for someone with 5+ years of experience. They gave me a shot, and they said according to their assesments (live coding, panel technical interview, project manager interview) I was calibrated as someone who has about 6+ years worth of expi based on my experience of different domains and technologies (I'm also a job hopper).

I don't consider myself a hardcore programmer. I just try to make small efforts from time to time to improve and keep my skills up to date. I'm also not one (tho I was before) to keep studying outside work hours. The youtubers I've shared would cover these in more detail. But basically make better use of your time at work. I do about 2 hours of actual dev work daily and the rest are meetings. I spend my time outside work with my wife, mostly doing leisure activities and winding down. I firmly believe work is just a way to earn money and live comfortably. Doing the most out of the 8-hour work day is a must to do that.

tl;dr: Pabibo ako sa work and I'm a serial job hopper. The experience I gained from job hopping and getting exposure in multiple business domains and walking with different globally distributed teams granted me a role that required 5+ years of experience from a remote company.

I’ve been working in IT for over 10 years as a Software Developer.

Here are 10 lessons I’ve realized during my career - in choosing programming jobs and building valuable skills.

1. Get into programming because you enjoy it

Most people are attracted by the high pay, but this pay comes at a cost.

Technology changes so fast that what we code today can be obsolete in 5 years. Constantly updating your skills is required, and only the passionate thrive.

2. Don’t chase money, search for job satisfaction

Job satisfaction is the closest thing to loving your work without owning the company.

I’ve found the formula is: level of expertise x passion for the business.

3. There’s a difference between software and non-software companies

Almost every business needs an IT Department. But not every IT department is income-generating.

You are either part of a profit center or a cost center. The treatment, from my experience, is quite different.

4. Don’t fixate on your absolute salary, focus on your responsibilities

Instead, check what your salary is per responsibility.

A backend developer, who primarily has 1 responsibility, should not make the same compared to a full-stack developer

5. Job opportunities are subjective

This is similar to risk being subjective. What’s high-risk for one can be low-risk to another.

For example, a promising startup job offers equity but with low base pay.

One values salary more. Another sees low-risk with long-term gain.

6. Chasing in-demand skills is good, but at some point, you need to build domain knowledge

When demand catches up, all you’ll have is a lot of shallow, formerly in-demand, skills.

Gaining deep domain knowledge allows you to grow the pie, instead of asking for a piece of it.

7. Your compensation is tied to how profitable you make the company

If you want to increase your compensation, focus on 3 things:

• Building a product (to sell)

• Introducing efficiency (reduce cost)

• Increasing total productivity (skill baseline)

But remember your compensation is never a "right". You must negotiate for it.

8. But companies reward intangible skills too

If you want to be seen as an asset, focus on 3 things:

• Improving your performance

• Helping others

• Achieving company goals

Productivity and loyalty is a powerful combination that will get you paid.

9. Working code is not enough

Most of our work revolves around:

• Storing data

• Retrieving data

• Processing data

• Displaying data

You can write almost any application with those 4.

The next level is having the ability to write readable and maintainable code.

10. Compound your experience, don’t repeat

Work experience is subjective. You can have 10 years of experience who just repeated their Year 1 experience ten times.

As Naval Ravikant once said, the greatest returns in life come from compound interest.

Never stop evolving as a developer.

What other lessons have you realized from your programming journey?

I’d be happy to hear your thoughts!

hey programmers!!! it’s euphydev btw, im new here on reddit but i wanna share my app.

i’ve been “building in public” quietly for a while now. but every time, may nagtatanong, “ano ba talaga ginagawa mo?” and i’d send them… a GitHub link.

which, tbh, tells you what i coded, but not really the story behind it.

so this weekend, gamit ang AI tools, sinubukan ko lang lahat — from coding, setting things up, pushing it to production, hanggang sa pag-edit ng demo videos and mockups…

𝗜 𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝘁 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗰𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗳𝗼𝗹𝗶𝗼: https://stackinfolio.com

It’s a space where you can show not just what you built, but the journey behind it.

🧑‍💻 𝑺𝒉𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒘𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒚𝒐𝒖’𝒓𝒆 𝒃𝒖𝒊𝒍𝒅𝒊𝒏𝒈 — show the project, not just the final result.

📖 𝑻𝒆𝒍𝒍 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒔𝒕𝒐𝒓𝒚 𝒃𝒆𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒅 𝒊𝒕 — the struggles, lessons, progress, and wins.

🌱 𝑻𝒓𝒂𝒄𝒌 𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒈𝒓𝒐𝒘𝒕𝒉 — keep a record of the things you’ve built and how you’ve improved.

🌎 𝑫𝒊𝒔𝒄𝒐𝒗𝒆𝒓 𝒑𝒆𝒐𝒑𝒍𝒆 𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒆𝒄𝒉 — find other devs, see what they’re building, and grow your network beyond your current circle.

🔗 𝑯𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒐𝒏𝒆 𝒑𝒓𝒐𝒇𝒊𝒍𝒆 𝒕𝒐 𝒔𝒉𝒂𝒓𝒆 — your projects, journey, and what you’re currently working on.

💼 𝑩𝒖𝒊𝒍𝒅 𝒔𝒐𝒄𝒊𝒂𝒍 𝒑𝒓𝒐𝒐𝒇 — when you need it, share your Stackinfolio with recruiters, clients, collaborators, or anyone who wants to see what you’ve been building.

🚀 𝑰𝒕’𝒔 𝒏𝒐𝒕 𝒋𝒖𝒔𝒕 𝒂𝒃𝒐𝒖𝒕 𝒈𝒆𝒕𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒉𝒊𝒓𝒆𝒅. It’s about building your presence and documenting your journey in tech.

you can check mine here:
https://stackinfolio.dev/euphydev

it’s completely free. and honestly, i’d really appreciate it if you guys tried it.

my feedback board din ako specifically for this.
https://stackinfolio.dev/feedback

this is still v1, and i’m planning to build 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗰𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗳𝗼𝗹𝗶𝗼 in public with you guys.

if you’re a dev, career shifter, student, or just someone who likes building things…

try it and let me know what you think. 🫶

#euphydev #buildinpublic #softwareengineer

 I know ironic to post here (lol) but hear me out.

I’m mentoring 2 junior devs right now. Both rely on AI tools for everything — from simple loops to debugging. The problem? When I asked them to explain their code, tahimik sila.

AI is great if you already understand the fundamentals. Pero kung di mo pa naiintindihan yung logic, ChatGPT/Copilot will spoon-feed you too much.

Try this exercise:

1. Code without AI for 3 days.

2. Write down every error you encounter.

3. Debug manually using logs and docs.

After 3 days, balikan mo AI — this time you’ll understand why it’s powerful.

Hindi ko sinasabi wag gumamit. Just don’t skip the hard parts.
The struggle is what makes you good.

I’m currently dealing with 2 recent hires, both of them are dependent with copilot. They don’t know how to use Stack Overflow/Google/Documentations to their advantage. If it’s not something that the copilot can’t solve, they deem the problem unsolvable.

Now I think A.I. will create a generation of programmers that have “learned helplessness” and have a significant lack of problem-solving skills.

You will never experience that “eureka” feeling (that feeling that once you arrived to the solution, it all makes sense and you see the big picture) when you’re using A.I. Using A.I. is robbing you of that experience.

The process of coming up with how you should solve a problem, is problem solving in itself is a very difficult skill to have. The ability to see Point A to Point C in a short period of time and then not only see what you need to do but take that in and morph it into something that is an actual solution and then turn it from your head into something that the computer can understand is such a huge, huge requirement for any software engineer to get great.

So please, turn off your copilot. Use Google, Stack Overflow, and read the documentation. It's okay if your code doesn't work the first time or even the thousandth time—just try to solve it on your own.

Anong meron sa mga highly successful na tao yung tipong may full time work tapos may side-hustle pa, tapos nakakapag-exercise, tapos may community chena-chena pa, like what the heck? paano yun?! tapos samantalang kami madaling mapagod hahahaha

Paano niyo nagagawang mapag-sabay? hahahah'

Just wanted to share my story and ask for some tips/advice na rin now that I'm about to start my career in tech!

I'm a fresh chemical engineering graduate, and the attached diagram illustrates/summarizes my job hunt journey which lasted for about 2.5 months. Mostly data engineer, data analyst and software developer roles lang inapplyan ko.

I received an offer for a jr. software/data engineer role from a small US-based company. Remote work siya with 40k gross monthly salary plus some benefits. Parang magiging contractor ako. Anyone with this same setup? How did you file your taxes/contribution and mga magkano po kaya yung take-home?

My current tech stack includes Python, SQL and some dev/data tools (Docker, Airflow, dbt, etc). Kalat-kalat pero puro may kinalaman naman sa data haha. Yung tech stack nila ay React, Node.js, GraphQL, Go, Python, Docker, etc. Mostly may kinalaman sa web development. Pero meron din silang data science projects.

Next week pa naman yung start and may training din kami (may curriculum and dun ko nalaman yung tech stack nila), pero ngayon pa lang nagsimula na kong aralin yung webdev. Sinimulan ko itong Full Stack Open. Covered na dito halos lahat except sa Go, so aaralin ko pa yun using another resource. Am I on the right path?

Medyo kinakabahan ako pero sobrang excited since ito talaga yung dream job and dream setup ko. Gusto kong gawin yung best ko. I'd appreciate any advice for a first-time dev like me. THANK YOU