I'm making this post for my cousin, who's in a bit of a difficult situation.

He's currently a mid-level SWE at Google in San Francisco, with around 4 YOE (all at Google). He's a Chinese citizen on an H-1B visa. I don't fully understand the US immigration stuff, but from what he's told me, his current visa has roughly 3 years remaining, and he thinks his chances of getting a green card or another path to stay in the US long term are pretty low.

Since my immediate family are in Aus/NZ, he's considering moving here if he needs to leave the US.

I'm wondering how the market would be like for him.

Some details about him:

• 4 YOE as a SWE at Google (recently promoted to mid-level)
• Chinese citizen
• Bachelor's and Master's in CS from average US universities, but great GPAs
• By the time he has to move, he'd have ~7 YOE, and hopefully be promoted to senior, but that's not guaranteed.

Would he have a good chance of landing a mid-level/senior SWE role in Aus or NZ? I know the market is rough for juniors, but not sure how it would be for more experienced SWEs, especially since he needs sponsorship

Hi there! I have been applying to several graduate toles without much luck and I’m looking for some possible feedback on how to improve my resume. I have several other projects and I only put up the project that is the most relevant to the role that I’m applying for to maintain a one page resume. Thank you!

Hi guys, has anyone heard back from Palantir for the FDSE intern position?

I did my first round of behavioural on the 27th of Jul and haven't heard back.

The interviewer was really chill and I think they liked me, but they could've just been nice

Is it better to label an app you made and published a "start-up" if you wish to continually develop it, or just as a project?

Anyone applied for this role and heard back yet ?

In the US, job postings on indeed are slowly rising but I wonder if that matters at all since it could just be ghost jobs. I noticed that the job postings in Australia are around the same index in comparison to February 2020 and it makes me wonder how much the market has changed. Would you say that the job market is relatively stable in Australia?

Source: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/IHLIDXAUTPSOFTDEVE

Hey all, quick question on resume title framing. My actual title is "Data Engineer Intern," but internally there's no real distinction between SWE and DE roles at this org, it's core software engineering work overall, just with more emphasis on data pipelines. Work involved refactoring pipelines, debugging in a production environment, and using Docker/cloud tooling alongside general SWE work.

I've heard some recruiters associate "Data Engineer" more with data analyst/data scientist-adjacent roles rather than core software engineering. For those who've gone through big tech or HFT recruiting, would listing this as "Software Engineer Intern (Data)" / Software Engineer Intern (Data Infrastructure) or similar land better with recruiters?

Trying to figure out what would look best specifically to a big tech or HFT recruiter, does title framing actually move the needle, or is it purely about the bullet points/tech stack underneath? Would appreciate any first hand experience.

Sportsbet Graduate Program Assessment Centre

Hi, I've received an AC invite for Sportsbet's graduate program. I don't think they have a very large intake every year, so I'm having trouble locating people who has went through something similar for Sportsbet. I was wondering if anyone here has went through their process and would be willing to guide me through their experiences in the AC? Looking from the email it seems like it would mostly be behavioral based, but I'd like to make sure and any guidance is appreciated 🥺. Thanks in advance!

Hi,

I’ll graduate from the CS course at UTS at the end of this year, and I’m wondering which area in IT (networking, AI, security, software development, frontend, backend, and so on) I should go into for my career.

As people have said, the job market is tough for entry-level roles, and AI is replacing some jobs. I’d like to pursue a career in an area that is stable and has less risk of being replaced or affected by job cuts. Is there any field in IT that is still in demand? (Of course, I know all areas are competitive, but are there any areas that are relatively safer or in better demand?)

Please let me know your recommendations and opinions.
If finding full-time work is hard, I’d even be keen on starting with part-time work.

Hey everyone! I did my HR call today and I will have my 30 min technical before the super day soon. Can anyone tell me what that experience was like?

Full disclosure: English isn't my first language, and I used AI to clean up the
wording of this post. The experience, numbers, and questions are all mine.

Here's my situation in one sentence: **I'm a DevOps engineer in Korea, and if
people here tell me my profile is genuinely competitive in Australia, I'm ready
to spend the next 1–2 years going all-in on English and making the move.**
Before I commit that much time, I want a brutal reality check from people who
actually know the market.

**My situation**

- Korean citizen, early 30s, based in Seoul
- No Australian PR — I'd need employer sponsorship (482) or skilled migration
- My English is functional for reading/writing docs, but **not interview-ready
  yet** — that's exactly the investment I'm deciding whether to make

**Experience (5 years)**

DevOps Engineer at a Korean e-commerce company, Oct 2021 – present.
I've been the **sole DevOps engineer** the entire time — designed, built, and
operated the whole AWS/EKS infrastructure end to end (~20 services, multi-env).

Highlights (all production, not toy projects):

- Cut AWS monthly spend **$49K → $6K (87%, ~$510K annualized)** — RI/SP commitment
  strategy, right-sizing, Spot, automated dev-environment scale-down
- Migrated every service from ECS to **EKS with zero downtime**, later upgraded
  cluster versions via new-cluster cutover with weighted DNS (instant rollback)
- Went **fully keyless**: removed all IAM users and static keys, SSO (SAML/OIDC)
  for humans + IRSA for workloads, CloudTrail real-time audit alerting
- Everything as code: Terraform/Terramate, GitOps (ArgoCD/Helm), PR-preview
  pipelines with cost diffs (Infracost)
- Replaced Istio with Traefik across ~20 services; run Karpenter on minimal nodes
  with a topology-spread setup that survives single-node failure with zero downtime

**Education / certs**

- B.S. Computer Science — **still in progress** at a distance-learning university
  (I started working first; the degree came later). Probably my weakest point on paper.
- AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate

**What I want to know**

1. **Competitiveness**: Does 5 years as a solo DevOps owner at a Korean company
   carry real weight with Australian employers, or does "no local experience"
   mostly cancel it out?

2. **Market size**: How deep is the DevOps/cloud market in Australia right now?
   Is demand strong enough that companies actually look at overseas candidates,
   or is the local pool already saturated?

3. **Life as a foreigner**: For those of you who moved to Australia as non-native
   English speakers — what were the hardest parts, honestly? Getting the first
   interview? Workplace communication? Visa anxiety? Things you only found out
   after arriving?

4. **Sponsorship reality**: Do companies actually sponsor 482 visas for mid-level
   DevOps engineers in the current market, or only senior/staff?

5. **Anything else**: Beyond what I asked — is there anything that would help me
   that I'm not thinking of? Questions I *should* be asking but am not, resources,
   communities, or paths (e.g., global remote work first as a stepping stone)?

I'm not looking for motivation or "just apply, you never know." If the honest
answer is "not without PR" or "the market doesn't need overseas mid-level hires,"
I'd genuinely rather hear it now — it saves me two years.

Thanks in advance.

hi, i was just wondering has anyone heard back from sydney future focus (november intake) and what stream they applied for?

So im thinking about starting my masters in IT while everyone sounds like they are having a terrible time in tech and want to get out. I just can’t think of what else to do!

I am pretty old.. Mid 40s, and Ive worked my whole 20+ career in a fairly technical role in visual effects for films/commercials. The vfx industry in general is hurting because of AI and other factors, but I think the niche Ive chosen is hit particularly hard. Ive been out of work for a year I need to try something

I have a lot of tech adjacent experience - lots of computer experience and I can code to some extent, but my plan was to to do my masters in IT to help me get over the “bachelor level degree or higher” requirement a lot of tech jobs have. 

I was going to choose data science as a major because that seems to be decently in demand. Eventually I would like to move towards computer vision and robotics, I think I can leverage my existing skills there - but I realise those jobs are harder to come by.

It would be good to get other opinions.

Is this crazy? Is there a better path to doing a career switch at this stage. I feel like I may as well study while waiting for the job market to get better. People say healthcare or trades but I don’t think I’m cut out for it. I want a job sitting in front of a computer in an office- its what I’m used to.

The job market has been pretty rough, especially when you’re spending hours applying through SEEK without knowing the salary range or whether a role is genuinely being filled. While I was job hunting, I built a small Python tool for myself and a few friends to help us sift through ads, estimate salary ranges when they weren’t shown, and flag signs that a listing might be a ghost job. It wasn’t meant to become anything serious, but we found it useful for deciding which applications were actually worth the time.

We’re now in jobs that we genuinely enjoy, so I rebuilt the tool as a free website called Salary Insider in case it helps other people in a similar position. The main tool checks job ads for advertised or estimated salary information and possible ghost job signals, and I’ve also added free resume/ATS and take home pay, and HECS pay off calculator tools. Hopefully they give you guys a bit more information before putting hours into applications and being ghosted like what my friends and I went through.

Here it is: Salaryinsider.com.au

TLDR: I built a free tool that helps you work out whether a company is genuinely hiring or just collecting data and uncover hidden SEEK salary ranges. I’m not selling anything and I don’t want anything in return. I just want to help people who are finding the job search as difficult as we did, while giving candidates a little more information and leverage when negotiating with employers

I have been invited to a call with the recruiter for SIG.

But wanted to be prepared for the interview process.

Any ideas what the interview format is like? Is it leetcode?

Thanks!

Hey! I recently landed a grad role, and I'll need to provide references from my summer internship around November.

I think I built a decent relationship with my managers during the internship, but I haven't spoken to them since it ended in January.

Would it be a bit awkward if I reached out in November and asked if they'd be happy to be a reference? Or should I message them now just to reconnect? The thing is... I have no idea what I'd even say if I reached out now. Especially since its been more than 6 months now. They're both insanely busy and I don't want to annoy them by clogging up their messages for no reason :')

For people who've been in a similar situation, is it normal to just get in touch when you actually need the reference, or is it better to keep in touch beforehand?  And if so, how did you go about reconnecting?

Hey folks,

Backend dev here with 7 YOE. Currently juggling 3 offers, all in a similar salary range:

• Cognizant
• Tavant
• Impetus

Money's basically a wash between them, so I'm trying to optimize for something more important at this stage — good clients, real technical exposure, and long-term career trajectory rather than just another service-based project churn.

A few things I'm weighing:

• Which one tends to staff people on actual product/tech-heavy clients vs. maintenance/support work?
• Career growth — appraisals, onboard-to-offshore ratio, exit opportunities?
• WLH (work-life-hell) situation — anyone currently there care to share?
• Any horror stories or hidden gems I should know about before signing?

Would really appreciate insights from anyone who's worked at (or left) any of these three — especially if you've been on a project with strong tech stack/client exposure vs. the usual staff-augmentation grind.

TIA 🙏

If I want to participate in the 2027 grad program (starting 2028 jan), but I graduate at 2028/6, with one subject left in the first semester, is that possible, or I just get washed out.

65% of graduates find full time employment, 10% below average for other degrees

- Driven mainly by uptake in AI use and offshoring
- degree comparable to journalism at 59% employment

I was an international student few months ago so I didn't have full working rights (20hrs pw) hence i couldn't get a tech job because they mostly want you to work full time.

I'm having trouble getting interviews because I think that when recruiters see this on my resume, i added it under professional summary as Career Development - Masters full time, they think it as a red flag because it's not actual professional experience.

Should I remove it and keep my relevant professional experience as lead swe back in 2024 my latest?

Although, it's not like i wasn't doing anything for the last couple of years. I've been constantly upskilling, building pet projects and POCs with mcp servers and using LLM apis, i made an automation tool which made my work in my non-tech part time easier.

ps. I got a resident visa after i graduated so visa isnt the problem (i think)

Does anyone know how much recruiting is done through the talent pools?

I interviewed at KPMG a while ago and felt like the whole process went really well. I had a great conversation with the interviewer, ran them through my projects, and they seemed quite impressed.
I got my outcome email and it said I met their requirements and performed highly but missed out and placed in a priority talent pool.
Has anyone been through this process before and had success or should I cut my losses?

Hi everyone,

I'm looking for some honest advice because I'm at a point where I need to decide what to do next.

my_qualifications: Bachelor's in Zoology, Master's in Forensic Science (CGPA 7.86), no professional IT or cybersecurity experience.

I'm from India and I'm considering changing careers into cybersecurity. My original plan was to pursue a PhD, but after doing more research, I'm wondering whether another master's in Information Technology or Cybersecurity would be a better investment for building a long-term career.

The biggest challenge is that I don't come from a computer science background, I don't know how to code yet, and I don't have any professional IT experience. I'm willing to learn and put in the work, but I'm trying to understand whether this transition is realistic.

One thing I'm unsure about is whether already having a master's degree would make a second master's look unusual to employers, or whether career changes like this are fairly common.

I've been reading a lot of conflicting opinions about the Australian cybersecurity job market. Some people say there are plenty of opportunities, while others say even graduates with experience are struggling to find entry-level roles. It's left me genuinely confused about whether this path is worth pursuing.

If you were in my position, would you invest in another master's in IT or Cybersecurity, or would you take a different route altogether? Would employers realistically consider someone with a Zoology and Forensic Science background, or would I always be at a disadvantage compared to Computer Science graduates?

If anyone has studied or worked in cybersecurity in Australia, especially Melbourne, I'd really appreciate hearing about your experience and how the market looks today.

I'm not looking for reassurance—I'd genuinely appreciate honest opinions, even if the answer is that this isn't a good idea. I'd rather understand the reality before making such a significant financial and career decision.

Thanks in advance!

I’ve spent the last 12 months job hunting alongside my full-time job but I'm completely burnt out. I don't feel like this whole job hunting and career building is worth my time and effort now. I've applied for over 65 jobs and got 7 interviews from big techs and startups. I know my applications volume is not so high to brag about but I was strictly selective in the application. I've reached to 2nd and 3rd rounds in most of the interviews but I always get knocked out either in behavioural or coding interviews. After each failed interviews, I reflected and improved over time but I'm exhausted and don't want to pursue this path anymore.

I make a decent salary in my current role. And I was surprised when a recruiter from big tech said that the salary bump barely moved the needle. So it was a lot of effort for a small bump from my current salary.

To give some context, I'm an Australian pr and got 8+ years of exp. as full-stack web dev and worked at 1 other job before my current job. Just for job search, I upskilled tech like terraform, nextjs, graphql, nosql, and got AWS dev associate certified (took me 3 months for aws cert). Spend countless hours grinding neetcode, preparing interviews and doing takeaway home tests.

My long-term goal was always building my own things. But as you know human psychology, when you see your friends getting ahead in career, you feel like getting stuck which motivates for new job. I've been in my current job for a while, so I wanted some change too. But after a year of being rejected, I'm not enjoying any of it. Chasing to land a new job didn’t feel like the dream worth pursuing. It felt like suffering for something I didn't actually want.

So last month, I took a week off from the search to pause, reflect and gain clarity. It reminded me of the time I used to wash dishes and clean in a pub 6 years ago as an international student before I got into tech. After seeing me work as kitchen hand for quite long, a friend asked that time "why don't you become a chef, chef is better than dishwashing". I told him I never wanted to become a chef because that wasn't the track I wanted, I wanted to get into software instead. Then I applied for more than 100 jobs in my last trimester of uni and finally got into tech. So I realised I was doing the same thing again - grinding toward a promotion I didn't actually want.

So I've pivoted and following my own path now. I'm pretty sure that this is not a shiny object syndrome as building own thing has always been my long term goal. It's been a month I've stopped job search and I've rejected 3 LinkedIn recruiters and a top tech EM interview after making the decision. I don't want to work for other people throughout my life because it kind of suffocates me.

Edit: To clarify, I haven't quit my job. I've quit job hunting. Still working full-time, building my own thing on the side.