1. Breathe. I lost a business in the pandemic, racked up lots of debt, have a family, saw myself living day by day, held back by misery and mental health struggles. I even forgot to breathe, like I'm just gurgling water, I had to practice that deep in your gut kind of breathing.
That's where you are now. Exercises helps your core and your core helps you breathe and breathing helps your stress and stress will kill you and your family.
2. Take care of yourself. Airplane rules in effect now: secure your own face mask before others. Get your health, money, time, and mind set right.
3. Update your resume. Your last job section needs more fluffing and your long term job needs editing. Think through all the things you had to do, think of all the outcomes you achieved, find an AI cover letter / resume writer, hire a LinkedIn optimizer, hire a job submitter (this helped me the most)
4. Look for jobs at the competitors. CloudTrucks has a remote program manager role open. Apply anyway.
5. Reskill yourself. Python is great, do more, and get into data science, secure a certificate. It's been 20 years since I dropped out of college and it's hard out there for those without college degrees, sorry.
Indeed, SWEs often glaze over Ops, Analyst, and PM roles, but those usually (broadly-speaking) have a lower qualifications bar than SWE, and pay much, much better than McDonalds. Plus it gets you in the door somewhere to start hacking on some pain points, transfer laterally to SWE, etc etc.
That's where you are now. Exercises helps your core and your core helps you breathe and breathing helps your stress and stress will kill you and your family.
2. Take care of yourself. Airplane rules in effect now: secure your own face mask before others. Get your health, money, time, and mind set right.
3. Update your resume. Your last job section needs more fluffing and your long term job needs editing. Think through all the things you had to do, think of all the outcomes you achieved, find an AI cover letter / resume writer, hire a LinkedIn optimizer, hire a job submitter (this helped me the most)
4. Look for jobs at the competitors. CloudTrucks has a remote program manager role open. Apply anyway.
5. Reskill yourself. Python is great, do more, and get into data science, secure a certificate. It's been 20 years since I dropped out of college and it's hard out there for those without college degrees, sorry.
Fight the odds.
Persist to break through.
Good luck.