5 months laid off, 524 applications, 2 offers, 1 accepted.

In February, I was told I'd be laid off in two weeks from my network engineering job. I'd been a network engineer for almost 4 years at a pretty large company, and although I genuinely loved the work, I didn't enjoy the physical side of it, carrying heavy equipment while suited up in safety gear across hot mills for issues and upgrades on the plant floor, driving to multiple sites throughout the month, or even being in office just to SSH into switches anyway. I'd been studying for my AWS Solutions Architect Associate on and off so I decided to go all in - finished the cert, built three cloud projects, and started applying heavily to cloud roles. Month one felt promising. Month two, no callbacks other than some networking roles that didn't turnover. Month three, a few more network engineering interviews that didn't pan out and one cloud final round that fell apart because the company changed the scope to want a more senior hire. Just. My. Luck. By months three and four, I'd opened up my options significantly, sysadmin roles, cybersecurity roles, technical PM roles, lower pay, five-day onsite, none of it mattered. I just needed stability, since I didn't want to hit month six, run out of unemployment, and start eating into my savings. I even started seriously considering a full career switch to patent law. With AI reshaping the IT market, and honestly the overall state of IT feeling like it was in the dumps, I was genuinely excited about combining my technical background with law school and building a career that gets more valuable with age, not less. It was also…

Posted by /u/sightheleftover on r/jobhunting
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