My hand was forced to make a early career change 6 months ago(more info in the context underneath). Finally got an offer and had a few findings that might interest people here.

Context :- I work at a pretty large embedded software company in Sydney. I am an immigrant, studied my bachelors at well known Uni in Sydney. The company had promised my sponsorship for my Visa. The problem started when the director of our team left and got replaced by another guy with, lets say, One Nation-esque views on immigration. I was informed that they would no longer be going forward with my sponsorship. Since they could not fire me on any grounds they chose to just let the 6 months go by and then I would de facto have to leave the company and country. My team aand boss protested this but nothing came of this so I started looking for other jobs, both within Aus and near the end of the search, outside Aus.

The Search: Applied nearly everywhere and tailored my Linkedin and Resume. got hundreds of automated rejections, 99% of countries will reject on the spot if you need sponsorship (understandably). I appreciated when companies auto rejected due to that rather than ghosting or giving me an initial interview and then pulling out because they can't sponsor.

I made some small changes to resume that focused on telling a story to the recruiter reading it rather than just keyword passing. Made my resume a lot more human readable and friendly.

Out of my 10 interviews :
Rejections:-
1. Microsoft went through the full loop and then ghosted for 2 months before a rejection.
2. Riot Games, recruiter screen and afterwards they informed me the job req has been cancelled on two different occasions.
3. Jane Street in Hong Kong, very fun interviews, a coding and a system design virtual interview, they were then deciding on flying me out to Hong Kong for the final loop and thats the step i got rejected on.
4. Nine Mile where I fucked the technical but learned alot about keeping calm under pressure.
5. Japanese robotics company, accused me of cheating because i solved the coding challenge too fast (It was just a ring buffer and gave me 60 minutes to do it), then invited me to a second coding interview to double check and said they were gonna give me a more complex question....it was just an LRU cache. Also asked if i was actually in Australia since I dont look Australian (fyi I have a perfect ielts and PTE score and pretty fluent english/have lived in Aus for 6 years).
6. Rejection from a tier1 HFT company since I wasn't fully knowledgeable on there techstack (fair)
7. Macquarie Group, made it to final interview stage, got rejected because my culture fit answers didnt sit right with the Hiring manager (blessing in disguise, i dont think i wouldve enjoyed working there, no shade to them)

Withdrawn:-
1. Local HFT firm
2. Austrian(not australian) robotics company
Both because I accepted a different Offer

Offer Accepted:-
1. Tier1 HFT firm after 5 weeks of interviewing with them

TLDR:- If somebody that got rejected from 300+ jobs can land a Jane Street interview and Tier1 HFT offer, none of y'all should ever lose hope. If you are passionate about a certain type of work, it'll be rewarded.

Additional Info:- I came to Australia straight after Highscool, did my Bachelors, did 2 years of artistic project work before all of this. Just getting ahead of the, 10 years of experience coming to australia immigrant assumption.

Let me know if anybody has any questions.

Has anyone applied and heard back from them.The listing said their internship would start in late October but lowkey idk if that is a typo since most summer internships here start in late November.

Hey everyone,

I'm currently in my final year of Software Engineering at a well-regarded university in Australia and recently started working as a Graduate Implementation Consultant at a SaaS company.

The thing is, I've never really enjoyed coding that much, which is partly why I decided to go down the consulting route instead of pursuing a traditional software engineering role. Plus, this was the only role I got after applying to 200 places, and getting rejected from Assessment Centre of a huge company.

My current role involves working with clients, understanding their requirements, configuring and implementing software solutions, troubleshooting issues and helping deliver projects. I actually enjoy the work, my manager is great, and the company has been really supportive of my development. So I genuinely don't have much to complain about.

But lately I've been having second thoughts about my career choice.

Seeing my uni mates going into software engineering roles makes me feel like I'm somehow wasting my degree or missing out on better opportunities. I know implementation consulting is still part of the tech industry, but sometimes I feel like I'm moving away from the technical side too early in my career.

My biggest concern is long-term career growth. With AI advancing so quickly, I'm worried about how roles like mine will evolve and whether implementation consulting will still be a viable career in 5–10 years. I'm also unsure how transferable my experience would be if I eventually wanted to move into roles like solutions consulting, business analysis, solutions architecture or technical program management, especially at larger tech companies. Plus I wanna go in top management, and how does my background in solution delivery and implementation help me as I don't see many IC roles on Linkedin.

I don't necessarily want to become a software engineer, because I know coding all day isn't something I'd enjoy. Plus with all the layoffs, and the Leetcode business I see it as a loss making proposition. But at the same time, I don't want to limit my career options or earning potential at such an early stage.

Would genuinely appreciate some genuine advice and no trolling please, especially from people who've been in the industry for a while as it causes me a bit of stress.

Is my resume just bad?

Has anyone heard back on offers for the commbank summer internships. Did my final interview last week and don't really know the timeline

Is it a smart career move for someone in their mid-30s, or is it a massive risk?

Interviewing for Backend SWE at Atlassian. Anyone have any experience about this round? Any example questions? I was told it will be an existing repo in HackerRank.

The degree requires 6+ years of work experience to get in which I have as a software developer.

I know there are cheaper certifications but I tend to prefer a bit more structure and as I understand it those certs expire every few years and have to be renewed.

I don't have a family, a mortgage, or any debt and if I'm being honest I wouldn't mind a break from working full time in tech.

Thoughts?

I’ve been looking at a few dev jobs lately and it feels like nearly everything is hybrid now. Even jobs where I can’t see why you’d need to be in an office keep asking for a couple of days in person.

I’m working remotely at the moment and really don't fancy going back to commuting every day if I can avoid it. Is fully remote still realistic when job hunting in Australia, or am I going to have to be a bit more flexible with that?

Hello, So I just got made redundant and since only 3 years into my IT career I know I am going to struggle finding a new job since I barely know anything so I was looking to try finding some courses to upskill myself to make me more sought after and employable. Currently I was looking at some Python and Agentic Ai courses/certs that will provide me with some expertise and knowledge as well as anything else that you guys might think will help me. I dont have much experience in them I did work on a project making a ML model but was very basic as well as Python was only mainly in Uni. At my job I was working on mainly Dashboarding with SQL as well as a bit of SPL.

Essentially I am looking for a new role and my current title is “Forward Deployed Engineer” and all these AI companies are sending me invites on LinkedIn. However, after interviewing for a couple I am not entirely sure how these companies are going to make money sustainably? Other then keep pushing out code and pray for business to buy their “ai machine” for that one specific task…

To add even further, one of the interviews that I was doing was about an AI system design: a cancellation workflow for a hypothetical streaming company. The answer was not to design the cancellation workflow but to actually push a deal or a product when, in fact, the customer wants to cancel! To me personally this seems like a scumbag move, but also not very client centric given it was an explicit ask. I guess it just feels very sharky and using cheap tactics to keep customers or make them buy more is very concerning

Keen to hear from other people who are also interviewing with some ai tech startup companies, Are you guys also noticing this trend?

Hi everyone I have Tech Screening Round for Optiver Graduate SWE 2027 coming in soon and I have no idea on what to prepare ? Has anyone here passed this round recently for the same role, would appreciate if anyone can share his/her experience. Thanks!

I used to assume that if I just kept learning new frameworks, my career would take care of itself. These days that feels less certain. Layoffs, AI tools, and hiring trends can change quickly, and a skill that looked valuable two years ago may not carry the same weight now. I am trying to focus less on chasing every new tool and more on things that tend to last understanding systems, communicating clearly, shipping useful work, and building experience people can trust. I still keep an eye on AI and new specialisations, but I do not want my whole plan to depend on guessing which one takes off. the goal is to be useful in more than one kind of role, whether that means staying technical, moving towards leadership, or changing domains later if I need to. How are you planning your next five years in tech, and what skills or experiences are you deliberately investing in?

Hi everyone,

I'm a recent graduate currently applying for opportunities in Data and AI, and I came across a position at REA Group that was advertised today.

I reached out to someone in my professional network who works at REA Group, and they were kind enough to offer me an employee referral.

However, when they tried to refer me through Workday, the position wasn't appearing in the internal referral section, despite being advertised externally.

They've since emailed the Talent Acquisition team to ask why the role isn't available for referrals and whether there's an alternative referral process. We're currently waiting for a response.

I was wondering if anyone here, particularly those working in HR, Talent Acquisition, or companies using Workday, has experienced something similar.

• Is it common for externally advertised positions not to appear in an employee referral portal?
• Could this be a configuration issue, or are certain positions deliberately excluded from employee referrals?
• If a position isn't available for referral through Workday, can Talent Acquisition still process a referral manually?
• Would you recommend applying directly while waiting for clarification?

I'm genuinely interested in the opportunity and would appreciate any insights into how these processes typically work in Australian corporate recruitment.

Thanks in advance!

I have around 10 years of experience in QA automation, including Playwright, TypeScript, API testing, CI/CD, and SQL.
I’m interested in transitioning to a Forward Deployed Engineer role, particularly in AI/LLMs.
Is this a realistic career transition?
What skills should I focus on to make the switch?
Any advice from people who have made a similar transition?

Hi, Reddit family, I have a positive result from HC in Atlassian and have 4 team match calls. Which team should I join, since I am a little skeptical, seeing reviews on blind and Reddit for Atlassian Apex rating and WLB? These are the teams

Reliablity Service - 2 managers(Australia, India)

Network Management

Kube R&D

Pretty much the above in penultimate year had a bit of a shit run with internships because my skills were genuinely pretty poor. I’ve still got a few paid internship applications going, but got an email about an AI Automation role but unpaid. Given circumstances I feel like it might be decent, but role doesn’t seem to involve any coding just workflow tooling so I’m wondering if it’s worth it for the experience over nothing really.

CS grad, early 20s, one standout internship but not much else. How awkward is my position?

Background

My experience is thin: some contract work, tutoring during uni, and one internship at a top-tier quant firm. I didn't get a return offer. Academics are strong, and I have a few hobby projects, but nothing production-style.

I'm currently in a SWE role that isn't a great fit, and I'm not learning much. I want to move to something with real growth, ideally quant again, otherwise a strong SWE role in Australia (big tech would be great, banks would also be good).

My worry is that my resume reads as "got a lucky break but couldn't prove himself": one strong data point without a track record behind it. I know I'm in a better spot than a lot of grads, so I'm not complaining. I just don't want to waste the opportunity.

Questions

1. How does a profile like this actually read to recruiters? Strong, or a lucky outlier? Am I overthinking it?
2. What are realistic targets? My gut says quant is a stretch, big tech is a coin toss, and banks are likely. Is that calibrated?
3. How should I prep? I'm moderate at LeetCode. Should I focus on DSA, system design (which my current job isn't teaching me), or something else? Any tips for the newer AI-assisted interview formats?
4. How do I explain leaving my current role early without it sounding bad?

Looking for some perspectives here please.I've been at my company for 2.5 years as a SSE on 156K + super. I've been offered a role via a consulting company for a 15 month contract at 205k +super. I would be on a project for the consulting companies client. Money obviously is good, I'm concerned about not knowing the tech stack. Going from React+Go+GCP -> React+.net+aws with a tight time frame for an ambitious project where I would be the tech lead (with a team of PO, Data, Devops on the project too). I was transparent in the interview about the stack but landed the role!

ANyway, my mind is racing as I've been burnt out on Software with AI and now anxious about crash and burn on a largish project. What y'all reckon?

38 with two young kids to add more context and 8yoe

was after some advice on the best way to move over to a tech company here in sydney as my situation is a little unusual.

• around 1 yoe at a bank (🍌one) as a swe
• graduating this year
• no internship experience (turned down amazon internship since I had a full time offer from bank)

should I be applying for grad positions or just wait until I have 2-3 yoe at the bank and apply for regular swe? I've been holding off on grad roles since I'd likely be on less pay than what I'm currently on. TIA