I’m a junior dev moving back to Huntington here soon after living and working abroad for several years. I’m just asking a general question about the market for juniors. I’m not asking for you to tell me about my specific situation which is why I’m not giving details about me. I’m just asking how long is the market IN GENERAL for junior devs.
Thank you in advance. Long story short, a company refused to help me with my 이력서 and 자소서 because I’m a foreigner. Their reasoning was that they seldom get foreigner applicants wanting help with their applications, so they can’t do it. I can speak Korean. Not native level, but I have TOPIK level 5.
Personal rant.
I have been busting my ass trying to become a dev here in Korea. I have TOPIK 5, F2-7 visa, KIIP (completed), cs degree from a U.S. university (2023), open-source contribution, full stack deployed workout logging project with HttpOnly cookie JWT auth and CSRF protection, currently working at a hagwon as a teacher but was officially asked to build an adaptive testing platform. I recently registered as a job seeker with the 고용센터 and also submitted my information to other headhunting/recruiting companies. I apply to a job posting nearly daily. I attend meetups to network 1-3 times a week.
I called with my fiancée‘s cousin who works as a dev and said, “32 is old for a junior.” with the implied meaning that it’s futile trying to switch careers at my age. This is what gutted me. I started down this journey to get a stable job to provide for the family I want to start. I just feel awful. What if he’s right? What if I have wasted not only my time but my fiancee’s time?? I am seldom this down, but, Jesus, am I lost right now.
Is there any hope? Do I just give up? Where do I go from here??
I don’t want to play arcane, and I’m tired of fire.