A comprehensive, realistic guide for software engineers returning to tech after a 6-year career gap. Covers skill updates, portfolio building, networking, returnship programs, and mental strategies for a successful comeback.
Category: Software Engineering
When You Stop Caring: Understanding Compassion Fatigue
Another urgent message. The site is down. Your heart doesn’t race. No adrenaline. Just… nothing. You used to care about every bug. Now you’re just going through motions. Compassion fatigue took what you had left.
When Your Brain Goes Blank: Navigating Creative Block
You’re staring at the problem. You know what needs doing. But your mind is blank. Yesterday you solved complex problems effortlessly. Today you can’t start something simple. Your brain went on strike.
Ten Feet to Work: The Isolation of Remote Development
It’s Thursday. Or Tuesday? You haven’t had a real conversation in days. Just Slack and Zoom calls where everyone’s muted. Remote work promised freedom. It gave you isolation instead.
Everyone’s Winning But You: The Career Anxiety Spiral
It’s midnight and you’re scrolling LinkedIn. Everyone your age just made principal engineer. Got a FAANG job. Launched something viral. Meanwhile you’re wondering if you’re falling behind. If it’s too late.
The Ideas You Never Share: Overcoming Fear of Failure
You have a good idea but don’t speak up. What if it’s stupid? What if you look incompetent? So you stay quiet. Someone else proposes it later and everyone loves it. Fear just cost you.
The Perfectionist’s Prison: When Good Code Isn’t Good Enough
You’ve been refactoring the same function for two hours. It works. It’s tested. But it’s not perfect. So you keep polishing while the deadline slides past and perfection never quite arrives.
Why I Built CV Forge: The Story Behind My Obsession with Tailored CVs
It was 3 AM. My coffee was cold, my eyes were burning, and I was staring at yet another rejection email. “Your profile doesn’t quite
The Invisible Leash: Breaking Free from Always-On Culture
It’s 9 PM. You’re having dinner. Your phone buzzes. A Slack message. You ignore it. It buzzes again. Your partner gives you that look. The invisible leash just pulled.
Just This Once: How Crunch Culture Became Forever
They said just this once. Just until launch. That was three months ago. You’re working 60-hour weeks and can’t remember when you last saw sunlight. The emergency never ended.
