r/jobs

In many ways, the job is great. Good people and I like what I do. But I've been with the company for over two years and have never received a raise. For context, I earn one dollar above minimum wage. I have three certifications in my field of work. I have asked about a raise- the company does not have it in their budget. The workload continues to increase for the same amount of pay.

I can no longer sustain myself on this salary. It's not worth it anymore. I've been offered a job with starting pay already above my current wage. It also offers benefits such as health insurance, 401K, and PTO. It's not a glamorous job and I am not passionate about the work, but I need something that pays more while I continue to look for something better. It sucks because I saw myself staying at this company long term but can no longer justify being paid 15/hr with zero traditional benefits (insurance, 401k, PTO) after two years. Wish me luck!

So I just had the peak 2026 hiring experience. I applied for a senior dev role at a mid-sized fintech firm this morning. I hit submit on the portal and went to the kitchen to grab a coffee. Before the machine even finished brewing, my phone buzzed with the "thank you for your interest, but..." email. I checked the timestamp. It took exactly 42 seconds for their system to bin my application.

The automated feedback actually mentioned that I lacked specific "NexusFlow" experince which was a hard requirement for the role. Here is the absolute kicker. NexusFlow is a propietary framework developed by my previous company. I was literally on the core team that built the damn thing from scratch. My name is probably still in the documentation headers and half the git logs. I spent three years of my life making that tool work and some shitty AI filter decided I don't know how to use it because I didn't use the exact keyword phrase it wanted.

It is honestly hilarious at this point. These companies complain about a talent shortage while they let poorly calibrated algorithms auto-reject the people who actually created the tech they are using. I didn't even get a chance to talk to a human. Just a 45 second trip into the digital trash can. I guess I should have spent less time coding the tool and more time optimizing my resume for a robot .