What you should have been doing, instead of telling her the comforting lie that the world operates on merit and this is all that matters while nudging her towards tying all her feelings of self-worth to this, is helping her build resilience so that she doesn't end up wallowing in despair after a minor career setback.
That you've cancelled Christmas to collectively endure some sort of misery spiral instead obviously isn't going to help either. What on earth are you thinking?
She's learned this harsh life lesson that the world is unfair later rather than sooner, but she has a long life and career ahead of her. Not being able to get the type of job she wants, for a little while at least, isn't the end of the world.
For what it's worth, my company, a medium-sized business that operates in the cybersecurity space, is stil actively hiring junior staff. Many other companies we work with and compete with are too. Perhaps she needs to cast her net wider than wherever she's currently looking.
Easy on the fellow. OP doesn't feel great at the moment because of feeding the "lies" about merit to his daughter, the same "lies" they fed all of us back in our day that doing everything by the book pays (Lies in quotes because there's obviously a ton of substance in those statements still). You don't need to push him down further. While the lack of any celebration is not the best idea (assuming OP is still reasonably well-off), a stern rebuke won't help either.
As I mentioned elsewhere, companies are hiring. We're in Europe with a US office and we're hiring, in spite of being in a country that's practically in recession mode. But the main issue is connecting the talent to the company. That's what's messing up hiring these days. Inbound is finished and outbound isn't scalable.
I think it is a mistake not to celebrate the holidays. You don’t have to pretend that everything is okay in order to celebrate each other.
I am similar to your daughter in some ways but much older. Lately, I have felt that I have reached a dead-end in my career (though I am still employed).
I have a few thoughts that might be useful. One is the concept of ikigai: finding the intersection of what you enjoy, what you are good at, and what the world needs. For a long time, it seemed like building software hit all three marks for me, but in the last couple of years, it no longer seems to hit the last one very well.
When I was younger, my reaction to difficult things was to simply try harder. I’d throw myself at the problem repeatedly until it yielded. That can be the right thing to do, but with age I have gained enough wisdom to realize that sometimes it’s better to go after the lower-hanging fruit.
I am not suggesting that your daughter give up, but if I were you, I would help her identify a back-up plan. Help her get excited about the possibilities in case plan A does not work out. If she feels that she has other options, she may regain her confidence regardless of what happens.
Oh, and make sure that she knows how much you love and respect her no matter her job situation.
Merry Christmas.
P.S. Cold applying is probably a waste of time. Too many people are applying using AI bots. Find ways to network with real people if possible. Maybe contact career services at MIT?
Timing imo. I think the tech labor market bottom is in the past, venture capital is flowing again, companies that over hired have corrected it, interest rates are on their way back down, and a bunch of huge IPOs are lining up for 2026 - Stripe, OpenAI, Anthropic, SpaceX, Databricks, Canva, Discord - which is going to inject a bunch of liquidity into tech capital markets. And the jury is still out on AI, very much at the top of a hype cycle, CEOs and boards have prematurely declared to their customers and the world that AI is working (because saying that makes their stock price go up) but the enterprise outcomes don't seem to be there.
My advice to your daughter: to try to make software into a fun hobby, watch a ton of coding youtube, AI and youtube are tearing down hurdles to learning, make a twitter, talk about your hobby, farm those likes. What were her favorite courses at MIT? it's true that software is increasingly competitive and yet the barriers to becoming competitive are ever lower (FOR those in a supportive environment who can make space to take advantage)
The market is bad but there is still demand for top performers. It's hard to give advice without further details. Market rules apply. But MIT and olympiad background is strong enough to get interviews.
From the recruiting side, it has become painfully difficult for us to get connected to top performers. AI submitted CVs are garbage, LinkedIn Recruiter is garbage, online platforms like Indeed and Glassdoor are filled with AI-submitted CVs - it's painful for us.
We've had to resort back to outbound using headhunters we've worked with. It's okay for us since we can afford it, but I doubt many startups pre-Series B can afford the services of headhunters or even inhouse recruiting.
She’s not wrong, in ~25 years in tech, I’ve seen merit as a component of success a minority of the time. It’s who you know, who likes you (direct manager and those around you who influence your comp and longevity), right place at the right time, etc. We win or we learn (in this case, “the meritocracy is an illusion” is the lesson). She should (imho) get back on the horse knowing how the game is played and play to win. I would encourage you to coach her that her value and self worth is not tied to a broken system, her job, and career; we simply trade time for freedom tokens. Sometimes this is easier than other times in the macro cycle. Our value is who we are, not what we do for a living. We can do everything right and still lose; that’s life.
Y’all have each other, and that’s more than many. If celebration is not possible, try to find some joy being together for the holidays. This too shall pass. Wishing the best. Don’t give up.
(When she finds an org and manager where merit is what drives her success, perform to expectations and hold on tight; these opportunities and roles are somewhat rare, imho)
> I’ve seen merit as a component of success a minority of the time
Small but an absolutely necessary correction. “Merit” or being at the top of the academic ladder absolutely does open doors for you that are closed to others. But that’s all it does and everything you’ve said is applicable from that point on.
Put in other words, merit can help you get a job at Google, McKinsey, Jane Street, CERN or what have you - but your success after that significantly dependends on your innate survival skills and some luck. The latter is indiscernible and very hard to quantify but it’s what we say is being in the right place at the right time (or the opposite of it).
All that to say that in OPs case that his daughter hasn’t done anything wrong. He hasn’t done anything wrong. Times are changing and during the transition phase with the adoption of AI (and current geopolitical climate), companies are weary of making any significant investments and realigning their cost structures towards resilience. Except for certain pockets, there’s less spending on R&D, non-cash cow BUs being folded down, etc.
IMO, OP should suggest and encourage therapy or some kind of a professional with a “coaching” angle (life coach, career coach, emotional coach, …) to support her and keep her motivated through this - like any professional athlete after a major setback.
Bottom line is this - she’s do great - just needs to get through this, survive now to thrive eventually.
Why are all the comments asking for contact info dead?
Ping me on my profile dummy id if you wish. We currently don't have openings in the US, but if there's anything I know in my network, I can push them to take a look.
Merit is one of those things that helps in the long run but can't be guaranteed to help at any one specific time. So you need to trust it even when it seems unhelpful.
But on the other hand, software dev seems to be racing in the direction of replacing developers with fungible AI operators. It's too soon to tell how it will end, but whatever labor can replaced or reduced will be. A long-standing equilibrium of labor is gone.
The worst problem for all of us humans is that we go "all in" on the company that hires us. If the company suffers a big loss in another division, we can lose salary, raises or our jobs, all through no fault of our own. Yes, it sometimes works in the other direction. A big profit in one division can be reinvested in ours. But much of our fate depends upon the larger company.
So you can't say this is about merit when so much of the equation depends upon others who many have nothing to do with your daughter.
the ladder is being withdrawn for everyone, everywhere. Some will be cut off by AI, some by thugs in ski masks. The modern aristocracy believe they have built an economic perpetual motion machine that can function without the ‘surplus population,’ who will be encouraged to politely starve to death.
I agree this is what's happening, for everyone to see.
I didn't understand their end game. When everyone is starving, public infra is all on fire, and the 0.1% are snug in their island bunkers, then what? What if their child gets cancer, or they run out of caviar, or their yacht needs a replacement part?
I wonder how true this is, at least for pure CS grads. The industry was aware that smart people existed outside academia ever since Carmack worked at ID. There's not much ladder to pull up, guessing at the number of college grads working a cozy job at FAANG.
"My daughter followed the playbook everyone here recommends. MIT. Programming olympiads. Strong internships. No shortcuts."
I never had any of this and I managed to find work in tech in 2000, 2008, and even now (during the worst down markets in my lifetime), when everyone says that 'nobody is hiring', I had 5 interviews (I only applied to 10 or so jobs) and an offer in less than a month.
Education has never guaranteed you a job. The key is to be able to stay positive, even with rejections. I've never had the luxury of having an internship or network at a well-known university.
Getting a job is all about getting yourself in reduced in a smaller pool of candidates that the company will choose from. Education, experience, being personable can all do this.
The economy is rough right now. You also have do things that can set yourself apart from the rest. I got my latest offer by calling the person that posted the job directly and had a second interview by the end of the week.
"She spends most days in her room applying, "
Mass applying will almost never get you the job. She should be focused on customizing her resume and trying to get in touch with the person posting the job and getting face time.
"It’s Christmas and we aren’t celebrating. No decorations. No pretending things are okay. I’m completely shattered as a parent, mostly because I don’t have answers. I told her for years that merit would protect her. It didn’t."
This is an odd response from a parent. Why are you wallowing in her sorrow? You should be showing her that life can still be good and she will eventually find work again.
Merit isn’t a matter of executing a playbook and ticking off boxes. That approach is fallible.
I know this is rough advice, but: her approach isn’t working. She should try something different. Stuff is different right now, you/she can’t expect the 2016 playbook to work unchanged in 2026.
I’m not a junior so i’m not sure what to advice specifically, but something other than “the playbook” is needed.
If you're a parent of a recent college grad who is on Hacker News, haven't you been in tech for some time? I would expect your perspective to include experience seeing at least a couple cycles of economic ups and downs.
> It’s Christmas and we aren’t celebrating. No decorations. No pretending things are okay. I’m completely shattered as a parent, mostly because I don’t have answers. I told her for years that merit would protect her. It didn’t.
This is pretty bonkers on multiple levels. IDK what your family's overall situation is, but based on what we can infer, your family is not in economic jeopardy. If I'm mistaken, then I apologize, but it seems you are just one of the many, many families with an unemployed recent college grad, and if you're positing on HN, I assume you and your wife are doing at least adequately.
I don't understand how you, as a grown man, could be under the illusion that "merit would protect her" or that somehow graduating from a good school guarantees someone anything, or how you could lack the perspective that this is temporary and less important than health, family, etc.
Nobody is above broader, universal developments and forces, whether economic vicissitudes or worse (war, societal collapse, etc.) Your arrogance in thinking that "merit" could protect an individual from these things is justly punished.
I also went to a top school, and there is also something to be said about your daughter's lack of resilience and naiveté here, but she's a ~22 year old girl, so that's acceptable. From you, this is not, IMO.
Your entire view of the world was mistaken and brittle, and reveals a stunning lack of value placed on things other than career and such, but the good news is that it's much better than you seem to be stuck thinking right now. Economies get good again, and your daughter is in a better position than many because she at least had one job and has a good CV.
What you should have been doing, instead of telling her the comforting lie that the world operates on merit and this is all that matters while nudging her towards tying all her feelings of self-worth to this, is helping her build resilience so that she doesn't end up wallowing in despair after a minor career setback.
That you've cancelled Christmas to collectively endure some sort of misery spiral instead obviously isn't going to help either. What on earth are you thinking?
She's learned this harsh life lesson that the world is unfair later rather than sooner, but she has a long life and career ahead of her. Not being able to get the type of job she wants, for a little while at least, isn't the end of the world.
For what it's worth, my company, a medium-sized business that operates in the cybersecurity space, is stil actively hiring junior staff. Many other companies we work with and compete with are too. Perhaps she needs to cast her net wider than wherever she's currently looking.
Easy on the fellow. OP doesn't feel great at the moment because of feeding the "lies" about merit to his daughter, the same "lies" they fed all of us back in our day that doing everything by the book pays (Lies in quotes because there's obviously a ton of substance in those statements still). You don't need to push him down further. While the lack of any celebration is not the best idea (assuming OP is still reasonably well-off), a stern rebuke won't help either.
As I mentioned elsewhere, companies are hiring. We're in Europe with a US office and we're hiring, in spite of being in a country that's practically in recession mode. But the main issue is connecting the talent to the company. That's what's messing up hiring these days. Inbound is finished and outbound isn't scalable.
I think it is a mistake not to celebrate the holidays. You don’t have to pretend that everything is okay in order to celebrate each other.
I am similar to your daughter in some ways but much older. Lately, I have felt that I have reached a dead-end in my career (though I am still employed).
I have a few thoughts that might be useful. One is the concept of ikigai: finding the intersection of what you enjoy, what you are good at, and what the world needs. For a long time, it seemed like building software hit all three marks for me, but in the last couple of years, it no longer seems to hit the last one very well.
When I was younger, my reaction to difficult things was to simply try harder. I’d throw myself at the problem repeatedly until it yielded. That can be the right thing to do, but with age I have gained enough wisdom to realize that sometimes it’s better to go after the lower-hanging fruit.
I am not suggesting that your daughter give up, but if I were you, I would help her identify a back-up plan. Help her get excited about the possibilities in case plan A does not work out. If she feels that she has other options, she may regain her confidence regardless of what happens.
Oh, and make sure that she knows how much you love and respect her no matter her job situation.
Merry Christmas.
P.S. Cold applying is probably a waste of time. Too many people are applying using AI bots. Find ways to network with real people if possible. Maybe contact career services at MIT?
Timing imo. I think the tech labor market bottom is in the past, venture capital is flowing again, companies that over hired have corrected it, interest rates are on their way back down, and a bunch of huge IPOs are lining up for 2026 - Stripe, OpenAI, Anthropic, SpaceX, Databricks, Canva, Discord - which is going to inject a bunch of liquidity into tech capital markets. And the jury is still out on AI, very much at the top of a hype cycle, CEOs and boards have prematurely declared to their customers and the world that AI is working (because saying that makes their stock price go up) but the enterprise outcomes don't seem to be there.
My advice to your daughter: to try to make software into a fun hobby, watch a ton of coding youtube, AI and youtube are tearing down hurdles to learning, make a twitter, talk about your hobby, farm those likes. What were her favorite courses at MIT? it's true that software is increasingly competitive and yet the barriers to becoming competitive are ever lower (FOR those in a supportive environment who can make space to take advantage)
The market is bad but there is still demand for top performers. It's hard to give advice without further details. Market rules apply. But MIT and olympiad background is strong enough to get interviews.
From the recruiting side, it has become painfully difficult for us to get connected to top performers. AI submitted CVs are garbage, LinkedIn Recruiter is garbage, online platforms like Indeed and Glassdoor are filled with AI-submitted CVs - it's painful for us.
We've had to resort back to outbound using headhunters we've worked with. It's okay for us since we can afford it, but I doubt many startups pre-Series B can afford the services of headhunters or even inhouse recruiting.
Open to solutions and new ideas tbh.
It happens to everyone
people get laid off, let go etc
the trick is to bounce back
maybe go for Masters? Phd at MIT?
maybe she can apply to an adjacent job, in qa, product management etc
maybe apply to a job she is over-qualified,
maybe take 1/2 a loaf
when I graduated it was a bad recession, all my friends were not getting jobs,
I stayed in school as long as I could,
then I got first job of testing some phone games with high school dropouts at min wage....I was the one with a grad degree in engineering
I kept applying and I got a job that I was happy
and I didnt have my family, parents, friends etc to cheer me on or I sure was not an MIT smart
She’s not wrong, in ~25 years in tech, I’ve seen merit as a component of success a minority of the time. It’s who you know, who likes you (direct manager and those around you who influence your comp and longevity), right place at the right time, etc. We win or we learn (in this case, “the meritocracy is an illusion” is the lesson). She should (imho) get back on the horse knowing how the game is played and play to win. I would encourage you to coach her that her value and self worth is not tied to a broken system, her job, and career; we simply trade time for freedom tokens. Sometimes this is easier than other times in the macro cycle. Our value is who we are, not what we do for a living. We can do everything right and still lose; that’s life.
Y’all have each other, and that’s more than many. If celebration is not possible, try to find some joy being together for the holidays. This too shall pass. Wishing the best. Don’t give up.
(When she finds an org and manager where merit is what drives her success, perform to expectations and hold on tight; these opportunities and roles are somewhat rare, imho)
> I’ve seen merit as a component of success a minority of the time
Small but an absolutely necessary correction. “Merit” or being at the top of the academic ladder absolutely does open doors for you that are closed to others. But that’s all it does and everything you’ve said is applicable from that point on.
Put in other words, merit can help you get a job at Google, McKinsey, Jane Street, CERN or what have you - but your success after that significantly dependends on your innate survival skills and some luck. The latter is indiscernible and very hard to quantify but it’s what we say is being in the right place at the right time (or the opposite of it).
All that to say that in OPs case that his daughter hasn’t done anything wrong. He hasn’t done anything wrong. Times are changing and during the transition phase with the adoption of AI (and current geopolitical climate), companies are weary of making any significant investments and realigning their cost structures towards resilience. Except for certain pockets, there’s less spending on R&D, non-cash cow BUs being folded down, etc.
IMO, OP should suggest and encourage therapy or some kind of a professional with a “coaching” angle (life coach, career coach, emotional coach, …) to support her and keep her motivated through this - like any professional athlete after a major setback.
Bottom line is this - she’s do great - just needs to get through this, survive now to thrive eventually.
Great comment, appreciate the correction.
Why are all the comments asking for contact info dead?
Ping me on my profile dummy id if you wish. We currently don't have openings in the US, but if there's anything I know in my network, I can push them to take a look.
Merit is one of those things that helps in the long run but can't be guaranteed to help at any one specific time. So you need to trust it even when it seems unhelpful.
But on the other hand, software dev seems to be racing in the direction of replacing developers with fungible AI operators. It's too soon to tell how it will end, but whatever labor can replaced or reduced will be. A long-standing equilibrium of labor is gone.
The worst problem for all of us humans is that we go "all in" on the company that hires us. If the company suffers a big loss in another division, we can lose salary, raises or our jobs, all through no fault of our own. Yes, it sometimes works in the other direction. A big profit in one division can be reinvested in ours. But much of our fate depends upon the larger company.
So you can't say this is about merit when so much of the equation depends upon others who many have nothing to do with your daughter.
the ladder is being withdrawn for everyone, everywhere. Some will be cut off by AI, some by thugs in ski masks. The modern aristocracy believe they have built an economic perpetual motion machine that can function without the ‘surplus population,’ who will be encouraged to politely starve to death.
I agree this is what's happening, for everyone to see.
I didn't understand their end game. When everyone is starving, public infra is all on fire, and the 0.1% are snug in their island bunkers, then what? What if their child gets cancer, or they run out of caviar, or their yacht needs a replacement part?
I wonder how true this is, at least for pure CS grads. The industry was aware that smart people existed outside academia ever since Carmack worked at ID. There's not much ladder to pull up, guessing at the number of college grads working a cozy job at FAANG.
"My daughter followed the playbook everyone here recommends. MIT. Programming olympiads. Strong internships. No shortcuts."
I never had any of this and I managed to find work in tech in 2000, 2008, and even now (during the worst down markets in my lifetime), when everyone says that 'nobody is hiring', I had 5 interviews (I only applied to 10 or so jobs) and an offer in less than a month.
Education has never guaranteed you a job. The key is to be able to stay positive, even with rejections. I've never had the luxury of having an internship or network at a well-known university.
Getting a job is all about getting yourself in reduced in a smaller pool of candidates that the company will choose from. Education, experience, being personable can all do this.
The economy is rough right now. You also have do things that can set yourself apart from the rest. I got my latest offer by calling the person that posted the job directly and had a second interview by the end of the week.
"She spends most days in her room applying, "
Mass applying will almost never get you the job. She should be focused on customizing her resume and trying to get in touch with the person posting the job and getting face time.
"It’s Christmas and we aren’t celebrating. No decorations. No pretending things are okay. I’m completely shattered as a parent, mostly because I don’t have answers. I told her for years that merit would protect her. It didn’t."
This is an odd response from a parent. Why are you wallowing in her sorrow? You should be showing her that life can still be good and she will eventually find work again.
Merit isn’t a matter of executing a playbook and ticking off boxes. That approach is fallible.
I know this is rough advice, but: her approach isn’t working. She should try something different. Stuff is different right now, you/she can’t expect the 2016 playbook to work unchanged in 2026.
I’m not a junior so i’m not sure what to advice specifically, but something other than “the playbook” is needed.
> I’d appreciate honest answers, not platitudes.
Well, if you say so.
If you're a parent of a recent college grad who is on Hacker News, haven't you been in tech for some time? I would expect your perspective to include experience seeing at least a couple cycles of economic ups and downs.
> It’s Christmas and we aren’t celebrating. No decorations. No pretending things are okay. I’m completely shattered as a parent, mostly because I don’t have answers. I told her for years that merit would protect her. It didn’t.
This is pretty bonkers on multiple levels. IDK what your family's overall situation is, but based on what we can infer, your family is not in economic jeopardy. If I'm mistaken, then I apologize, but it seems you are just one of the many, many families with an unemployed recent college grad, and if you're positing on HN, I assume you and your wife are doing at least adequately.
I don't understand how you, as a grown man, could be under the illusion that "merit would protect her" or that somehow graduating from a good school guarantees someone anything, or how you could lack the perspective that this is temporary and less important than health, family, etc.
Nobody is above broader, universal developments and forces, whether economic vicissitudes or worse (war, societal collapse, etc.) Your arrogance in thinking that "merit" could protect an individual from these things is justly punished.
I also went to a top school, and there is also something to be said about your daughter's lack of resilience and naiveté here, but she's a ~22 year old girl, so that's acceptable. From you, this is not, IMO.
Your entire view of the world was mistaken and brittle, and reveals a stunning lack of value placed on things other than career and such, but the good news is that it's much better than you seem to be stuck thinking right now. Economies get good again, and your daughter is in a better position than many because she at least had one job and has a good CV.