1. How honest should I be about the burnout / being fired in interviews?
2. Has a late neurodivergent diagnosis helped or hurt anyone's career perspective?
3. Is the German market still open for mid-level devs, or are we in a serious freeze?
Any honest perspectives welcome - good or bad.
The requirements for SDE have never been changed. The only changes are people’s expectations and more openings for AI services.
1. Own your space.
That's it. Don't let other people define you. What this means in practice:
* Don't take a job if you know its filled with stupid people. An an example I love writing JavaScript/TypeScript applications. I super love it, but I will never do it for work ever again. Most people who write that code for a living suck at what they do and are hostile/insecure about it. I would rather flip burgers than work at an adult day-care parenting the toddlers who are too incapable to use a ruler or write an email.
* Always achieve supervisor support. Know your boundaries and always support your boss because you expect them to support you. If your leadership sucks, or worse is toxic, you are in a bad situation. I would gladly take less pay to work with fantastic people. In my case I am in management and work with another manager. That other manager was toxic so I, as politely as possibly, told him to go fuck himself and immediately made my boss aware.
* Be ethical. If you are in management be a shining example for your people to follow. Never assign tasks to your people you are not willing to do yourself, even if its scrubbing shit out of blown up toilets. Never be a hypocrite. Always be aware of and care for the emotional needs of your people. The goal is to retain your people as best you can even through stressful projects.
* Do what makes sense. Most people, surprisingly, are incapable of this. Most people strive for what they perceive as externally validated solutions from peers they have never met. This is autistic bullshit that drives people to hate you. Instead, follow the evidence and save your team from other people's insanity.
Doing these, especially the first 2, are what pulled me out of my rut.
I'll share my opinions with you on the four points you mentioned in order to start a conversation.
1. This reads like satire to me. I'm not sure if your anecdotal evidence (n=1) even counts. Let me give you a counterexample. In my previous/first job after college, there were several colleagues who, based on your comment history, matched your criteria for competence (deep understanding, solving edge cases, broad knowledge).
2. That's a reasonable point. However, it is unclear to me how you were assisting your supervisor by "politely telling your other manager to screw themselves."
3. Thanks, noted. Although, I will not be in a managerial position in the near future (if at all).
4. You're absolutely right to "do what makes sense," but how is the inability to do so "autistic bullshit"? Care to elaborate?
After reading your comment again, I'm not sure if YOU read my post past the title because you didn't even answer my questions.
Anyway, thanks for the reply.
(2) I am skeptical about both Autism and ADHD and especially when they are claimed to occur together. See also borderline personality disorder and schizotypal personality disorder and other PD's.
I had a mental health crisis at 49 and was lucky, with help from my friends, that I wound up on my back foot rather than having a serious setback. The next year at the library a book practically jumped into my hands that explained just about everything that went weird in my life.
I spent most of the 2010s employed and unemployed trying to commercialize foundation models before the technology was ready and eventually wound up in a very ordinary fullstack job which is stable if not always exciting. Since I discovered what I am I gradually started to spread my wings and realize that people with my kind of nervous system in traditional societies have a talent for divination, magic and healing and I am finding my peeps in that domain.
(3) No idea, but it is not about other people, it is about you. Today's freeze will be tomorrow's hot market but it could take a while.
> I had a mental health crisis at 49 and was lucky, with help from my friends, that I wound up on my back foot rather than having a serious setback.
I’ve seen a lot of your posts on HN and you seem knowledgeable and give good advice, but c’mon, divination? magic? are you sure you’re all right now? I mean no disrespect, and I’m no shrink, but I’d guess you’re maybe not out of the woods yet. I’ve had a family member with issues, being somewhat detached from reality is never good.
What?
> have a talent for divination, magic and healing and I am finding my peeps in that domain.
Again, what?
I was one of only two dudes who showed up at a P.T.A. meeting, the other was the superintendent. He told me I could talk to the hand about my concerns about my son's situation in school whereas he told the mother of a "special" kid that she was a valued partner in his education because she could write a letter to Albany and the folks there would light a fire under his ass.
When I was a kid they tried a lot of things to accommodate me except what I really needed, but they tried. Today you have to have autism or ADHD or some diagnosis just to go to the bathroom during class. With an ADHD diagnosis you can get performance enhancing drugs and extra time on the test, no wonder it is a vanity diagnosis for rich kids. On Youtube you can see many self-diagnosed AuDHD women who look borderline PD to me.
(2) See
https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2020-23999-003 (and I am not autistic but ask your shaman if therianthropy is right for you!)
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30849096/
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/358882845_The_Shama...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voodoo_death (magic is real but it takes a village to pull off that feat and like other feats that are common in traditional societies you don't need psi or other violations of known laws of physics to explain them)
https://www.press.jhu.edu/books/title/12192/persuasion-and-h...
To say that it’s a vanity diagnosis for rich kids is hilarious to me.
If I could go back in time to have been born with a “normal” brain I would do so.
It is not and has not been a privilege living with ADHD. Diagnosis or not, life has been an uphill battle and society does not accommodate people with various brain-level divergence from the norm.
To say that it’s a vanity diagnosis, and then talk about voodoo in the same sentence is wild to me.
I think PP might even have been diagnosed with ADHD/autism at some point??
PP was trying to express that he doesn't want even want to live like a middle class no more (hence the traditional society)
As for my current interest in "traditional society" see the interview with my friend Valerie in this article
https://wildhunt.org/2026/02/pagan-community-notes-week-of-f...
I went out to her place for Litha (Summer Solstice) and the experience was otherworldly and transcendent. I've known her for a while, her kids came out to our farm to ride and she even married two people there. I've been invited to help start a coven and felt some imposter syndrome for the first time in my life (felt out-of-place in other ways!) so I've been spending the summer revisiting my old pagan friends and visiting some one
This Valerie quote blew my mind
because of course foxwork is "recovered".Thanks for all the links though. I'll have a look into it, seems very interesting tbh.
Today is my last day with said company. My mental health is worse even tho I have been seeing doctors and therapists for years at this point. Job market crushes you. They do not want you to be okay. They will take all they can and more abd leave you rotting and suffering. I'm fucking done with all this shit.
For now, focus on yourself.
2. To be frank, an Autistic dev in Germany makes no news. Adhd may distract you a bit, but also push you to think out of the box. Just don't try to fit in other people's boxes, be yourself! Otherwisr that will burn you out quick.
3. Market is a bit closed, especially for frontends, but in EU we are not only driven by venture capitalists' money. It's not AI per se, it's uncertainty, protectionism, low interest rates, and the fact that AI is eating all investments for breakfast. But there still are companies doing actual work.
Hope this helps a bit for clarity! Much love and hope from an Italian in Belgium.
for 1. don't mention anything - people get fired everyday B. or quit jobs.
2. if you're in Europe & hell even the U.S that shouldn't affect you that much.
3. Job market is bonkers good luck.