u/Teltrix

>tl;dr: Mediocre engineer of 6 years, laid off last December. Applying and networking, but struggling with direction and drive. Not sure exactly what I'm here to ask, but thought it couldn't hurt to put my story out there and ask for some advice.

I think I might benefit from some realistic positivity and grounded takes on what direction might make sense for me.

In 2017 I quit my acting "career" in LA. After muddling around a bit I rediscovered my love of computers via Crash Course: Computer Science. It was Dec 2019 when I received my CS degree (accelerated program due to already having a Bachelor's of Business Administration). As we know now, Covid coincided with a hiring boom that swept me up into a SaaS startup.

I enjoyed the first few years of the job. Web development hadn't been my first choice but it was good pay and I was learning and growing with a mentor I liked. Over time, things happened and the stress ratcheted up while the support went down. My personal circumstances were causing a lot of stress as well. I did my very best, but at one point I was told "maybe this isn't the career for you". That haunts me.

Despite my best efforts, I seem to be pretty bad at managing stress and it causes analysis paralysis that can look like apathy to others.

I actually had a really big resurgence at one point but I had already been assigned to a section of the codebase that was earmarked for a total rewrite, so the impressiveness of my contributions were muted.

In December 2025 I was laid off, right before Christmas. I was told it wasn't due to performance. Maybe that's true. Whatever the reason, I started applying for jobs right away and held it for two months before totally collapsing in February for a bit. The overwhelm of the current job market, my mediocre skill, my less-in-demand tech stack, the need to study and get certifications and network and apply for jobs, it was all just too much.

On top of that was the need to get a survival job and the idea that maybe I need to just switch career fields to something like security or something else. Now, I've been applying again but I don't feel confident about anything that I'm doing. I feel like I should be "doing projects" but I just can't muster the focus and time to get moving on such a thing. I can't tell if that makes me "not a programmer" or if I'm just still burnt out.

I like coding. I play Factorio and Turing Complete. I like to read The Pragmatic Programmer and mess around with Uiua. But maybe I like coding like an armchair quarterback likes football. Or like an academic likes the subject of computers. I hope that's not true, because, to be transparent, I have a lot of self-image and lifestyle desires (remote work, autonomy, income) tied up in this career path in addition to my affinity to the topic.

That's my story, as best I can tell it now. It turned into something resembling a college application essay, but such is life. Thank you for reading, and for your kind comment should you choose to leave one.