u/Lucky-Lettuce1314

I have a BS in EE and a BS in CS. I have some experience doing embedded engineering.

The NYC job market is tough, and I’m not finding work. I want to get into AV because it seems the market has more opportunities and it looks genuinely interesting. I’m trying to find quick low paying jobs but set the foundation for eventual career growth.

I’m ok working entry level jobs, but I feel like there’s a smart way to try and leverage my degrees and experience, but most mid-level AV jobs require AV specific experience.

Any advice? I’m looking into certs too. Thanks.

TLDR: $25/hr, 28 hrs/week with periods of no work. Already working another low wage low hour job, and I’ll be below my survivable limits, so I’m looking to quickly gain new skills/jobs/money. Beyond survival, I’m hoping to learn about longterm career options.

Hello. I am in NYC and used to be an embedded engineer (remote, special case) until I got laid off due to a RIF. Had an existential career crisis, but also can’t find any embedded jobs, so I’m looking for a bit of a career change into AV, which I am interested in due to the combination of tech, events, creative industries, hands-on work, collaboration with clients, relevance to embedded engineering (kinda…) and abundant(?) market in NYC.

I have an opportunity to work in a warehouse that rents out AV equipment. I would help with loading, unloading, and some quality control for the equipment. I would become forklift certified. There is a possibility to switch to an onsite tech role, but it would be after some time and I couldn’t do both. People who work there are knowledgeable about AV.

It’s part time and somewhat seasonal. The expectation during season is $25/hr and 28 hrs a week, but some dead weeks might have fewer or no hours. They said there’s opportunity for growth but didn’t give me any specific timeline or expectation.

Tbh, this is not enough money for me to really survive. I’m already working another job which pays even less and has less hours. However, I’ve been applying for a while (to a wide variety of roles) and this is the only other one that’s got back to me. I don’t have any free certs yet, but I’m gonna get those soon. I’ve applied to places like AVI SPL or encore and have been rejected.

My questions are:

Is this role a good starting point for the AV industry? What about given my experience already as an engineer? Should I be leveraging my degrees more?

Is this a good financial decision? Should I take what I can get? Or should I upskill and hold off for something better?

Should I take the role and keep working on AV to try and get a third job or freelance for the extra money? Or is that unrealistic / extending myself too much?

Should I make a different pivot? Project management or software engineering or teaching, etc? All these will require time and investment gaining new skills, because my applications are going nowhere thus far. A better survival job like security guard or bar-tending?

If you feel inclined to answer any of these questions or provide any constructive advice, I would appreciate it. Thank you.

Let’s say, HYPOTHETICALLY, you sold your car and moved to NYC, and then lost your remote job which was doing embedded engineering, and you’ve been unemployed for almost a year and engineering skills feel like something of the distant past, but you know you could relearn it if you wanted, you just feel silly spending time doing that when the embedded job options are largely unfulfilling to you and you’d probably prefer a different career.

Let’s also say you have a partner and a community and you’re not ready to move right now. You’ve applied to lots of jobs on LinkedIn, but despite your impressive resume and lots of experience, you’re not getting any interviews because the market is so competitive and embedded jobs are hard to come by in the city, and you don’t have any full stack or financial experience. And none of your connections work in tech, and you have no professional network in the city.

Let’s say that you are draining your savings and you are getting scared at how long you’ve been unemployed and how expensive the city is, and you are willing to try different things or work part time jobs, but you feel like leveraging your tech background should be useful, just in reality it doesn’t seem to matter at all.

How would you solve this hypothetical scenario?

Let’s say, HYPOTHETICALLY, you sold your car and moved to NYC, and then lost your remote job which was doing embedded engineering, and you’ve been unemployed for almost a year and engineering skills feel like something of the distant past, but you know you could relearn it if you wanted, you just feel silly spending time doing that when the embedded job options are largely unfulfilling to you and you’d probably prefer a different career.

Let’s also say you have a partner and a community and you’re not ready to move right now. You’ve applied to lots of jobs on LinkedIn, but despite your impressive resume and lots of experience, you’re not getting any interviews because the market is so competitive and embedded jobs are hard to come by in the city, and you don’t have any full stack or financial experience. And none of your connections work in tech, and you have no professional network in the city.

Let’s say that you are draining your savings and you are getting scared at how long you’ve been unemployed and how expensive the city is, and you are willing to try different things or work part time jobs, but you feel like leveraging your tech background should be useful, just in reality it doesn’t seem to matter at all.

How would you solve this hypothetical scenario?

Hi. I feel like I fucked up and I’m doing things wrong and I could use some tangible advice.

I used to have a job in the aerospace industry, making over six figures. First job out of college, tons of prior internships. Degrees in electrical engineering and computer science. I did good in my position, and my resume looks impressive, but the role was isolating and I wasn’t exposed to learning opportunities that I feel I should’ve been. My manager changed like 7 times in 2.5 years and then I was laid off due to a company wide RIF.

3 months before I got laid off I convinced my job to let me work remote and I moved to NYC. Now I’m burning through my savings with no connections here. I don’t have a car anymore, but I do have community and a partner that I don’t want to leave.

I didn’t like my job. The work bored me, despite sounding really cool on paper. And I did engineering because I wanted to make the world a better place. Over my 2.5 years I watched the company transform and suck the dick of capitalism by focusing on defense instead of space research. I honestly felt betrayed. I won’t go into all of it, but I feel very strongly about the ethics of engineering and my place in society and this felt like a huge middle finger to my green ass.

I wanted out of engineering. I wanted to do something that I actually cared about. After much reflection, I feel like that is the arts. Writing, music, film, etc. All “don’t quit your day job” type activities.

Ok, so how can I apply tech to those things? Long story short, I’ve applied to ~80 roles varying from help desk to technician to IT to broadcast engineer to embedded engineer. Majority through linkedin.

I’ve gotten ZERO interviews. 95% ghost me completely. Recruiters stopped reaching out. I’m giving up the idea that I can have a career I’ll ever find fulfilling. I’ll do my art shit on the side and hopefully that’s enough to wanna keep living. But I need some kind of income and idk what to do.

In my ten months of unemployment and my lackluster previous job I’ve lost my skills I learned in college. I feel like a poser of an engineer. I know I need to do something besides apply on LinkedIn but what? In person networking? For which industry? For what career?

I’ll either have to study hard to relearn engineering, or figure out what to do next and get some certifications or something. But what do I do? Even if I try to leverage my tech experience, the prime industry is defense or working for big tech and ethically I just can’t do it.

Plus, in NYC there are so few jobs for my experience. The ones that exist are data centers or defense or Orwellian surveillance and all are like 5+ years of experience.

I don’t mean to sound whiny but I feel like I’m losing my place in society. I want to do something meaningful like art or healthcare or sustainability but those jobs either don’t exist or I don’t have the skill set to compete for them.

This all started because I wanted my life to feel worthwhile. Now I’m scared that I’ve somehow thrown away my chances and wasted all my time.

What can I do to get a job? Any job? How do I market myself?

Hello. I’ll try to keep this short, but I’m having an existential crisis about my career and my life. I hold deep philosophical ideas about my work, and I wayyy overthink things.

I’m considering ditching engineering and trying part time jobs / gig work for a more fulfilling life.

I have been unemployed for many months after getting laid off. I used to work at an aerospace company as an embedded electronics engineer coding in C and interpreting electrical schematics involving microcontrollers. This was my first job out of college, and I’m still young.

I don’t like engineering. I like the concept of it, and I like science and building things, but I hated doing schoolwork and I hated my job. I felt isolated from my team, bored sitting at my desk coding and fiddling with electronics, and felt that my company’s work was becoming unethical.

I like talking to people, I like being helpful, I like the energy of live events and creativity/art/music, and I have some interest in technology/cameras/audio engineering.

I value work-life balance and meaningful work. I want to spend my time benefitting my community and/or engaging with art (music, film, theater, etc).

Having fun and fulfilling meaning in my day-to-day is more important to me than making money, but I say this as someone who hasn’t experienced living with minimal income (except for now, draining my savings and feeling dread).

I see three options for myself:

1. Find an embedded engineering position in healthcare or climate technology. Pray I enjoy the work enough and hope the mission keeps me feeling fulfilled. Creative hobbies on the side.

2. Work part-time jobs in something chill and in AV. Learn AV skills. My assumption is that part-time jobs will give me the flexibility to pursue additional creative passion projects (that could potentially make money down the line, low chance) and side gigs (random opportunities for fun, networking, maybe better for my brain?). I try this for a bit, and either the lifestyle sticks, a passion project / gig takes off, or I go full time into AV.

3. I go full time into AV as it’s my next lead based purely on speculative interest and I don’t know what else to do. Or I go full time into some other job I haven’t considered but maybe comes up through searching or one of you recommend it.

I would greatly appreciate if you reading could offer your perspective. Especially those who have done AV and understand the industry. What am I missing? Am I being ridiculous? Am I overthinking? Is there a different kind of work I’d be more suited towards?

I’m in NYC if it matters. Thank you.

Hello. I’ll try to keep this short, but I’m having an existential crisis about my career and my life. I hold deep philosophical ideas about my work, and I wayyy overthink things.

I have been unemployed for many months after getting laid off. I used to work at an aerospace company as an embedded electronics engineer coding in C and interpreting electrical schematics involving microcontrollers. This was my first job out of college, and I’m still young.

I didn’t like engineering. I like the concept of it, and I like science and building things, but I hated doing schoolwork and I hated my job. I felt isolated from my team, bored sitting at my desk coding and fiddling with electronics, and felt that my company’s work was becoming unethical.

I like talking to people, I like being helpful, I like the energy of live events and creativity/art/music, and I have some interest in technology/cameras/audio engineering.

I value work-life balance and meaningful work. I want to spend my time benefitting my community and/or engaging with art (music, film, theater, etc).

Having fun and fulfilling meaning in my day-to-day is more important to me than making money, but I say this as someone who hasn’t experienced living with minimal income (except for now, draining my savings and feeling dread).

I see three options for myself:

1. Find an embedded engineering position in healthcare or climate technology. Pray I enjoy the work enough and hope the mission keeps me feeling fulfilled. Creative hobbies on the side.
2. Work part-time jobs in something chill and in AV. Learn AV skills. My assumption is that part-time jobs will give me the flexibility to pursue additional creative passion projects (that could potentially make money down the line, low chance) and side gigs (random opportunities for fun, networking, maybe better for my brain?). I try this for a bit, and either the lifestyle sticks, a passion project / gig takes off, or I go full time into AV.
3. I go full time into AV as it’s my next lead based purely on speculative interest and I don’t know what else to do. Or I go full time into some other job I haven’t considered but maybe comes up through searching or one of you recommend it.

I would greatly appreciate if you reading could offer your perspective. Especially those who have done AV and understand the industry. What am I missing? Am I being ridiculous? Am I overthinking? Is there a different kind of work I’d be more suited towards?

I’m in NYC if it matters. Thank you.