问HN：初创企业，零稳定性——是时候离开科技行业了吗？
当我还是青少年的时候，我对编程产生了兴趣。我花了无数个小时跟随教程，构建小项目。于是，我决定主修计算机科学，希望这能让我将来找到一份好工作。
但我没有意识到这将是多么困难——主要是因为我生活在伊拉克，这里对软件开发人员的需求非常有限。而且当有工作机会出现时，竞争也非常激烈。
2020年毕业后，我大约有六个月找不到工作。最终，我为了支付账单，接受了一份培训师的工作，而不是开发者。在此期间，我不断申请我能找到的每一个本地和远程的机会。
作为培训师工作了两年后，凭借运气，我获得了一份全栈开发的带薪实习。这几乎是剥削劳动，但我需要这段经验。考虑到这里的生活成本，薪水还算不错。这个角色是完全远程的，合同制，属于一家美国初创公司。
实习结束时，他们给我提供了一个初级全栈开发的职位——同样是合同制，持续六个月。但随后这家初创公司未能获得资金，我被解雇了。
我再次失业了六个月，直到我以前的同事联系我。他们正在创办一家新公司，并给我提供了一个前端工程师的职位。我在那儿作为唯一的前端工程师工作了八个月。这也是一份合同工作，因为他们无法合法雇佣来自伊拉克的人。工作量很大，但我交付了成果。
然后，这家初创公司再次未能获得资金，我又被解雇了。
现在我在一份与编码无关的政府工作中兼职。我似乎再也找不到任何本地开发职位或远程合同了。我开始怀疑自己是否真的适合软件开发的职业生涯。
我应该继续找工作吗？攻读硕士学位？完全转行？如果你处在我的境地，你会怎么做？你的职业道路是怎样的？
查看原文
When I was a teenager, I developed an interest in programming. I spent countless hours following tutorials and building small projects. Naturally, I decided to major in Computer Science, hoping it would lead to a great job someday.<p>But I didn’t realize how difficult that would be—mainly because I live in Iraq, where there’s very little demand for software developers. And when a job does open up, the competition is fierce.<p>After graduating in 2020, I couldn’t find a job for about six months. Eventually, I took a job as a trainer instead of a developer just to pay the bills. During that time, I kept applying to every local and remote opportunity I could find.<p>After two years as a trainer, and out of sheer luck, I landed a paid internship as a full-stack developer. It was borderline slave labor, but I needed the experience. The pay wasn’t bad considering the living costs here. The role was fully remote and contract-based for a U.S. startup.<p>When the internship ended, they offered me a junior full-stack role—again contract-based for six months. But then the startup failed to secure funding, and I was let go.<p>I was unemployed again for six months until someone I used to work with reached out. They were starting a new company and offered me a frontend position. I worked as the only frontend engineer for eight months. It was another contract gig since they couldn’t legally hire someone from Iraq. The workload was heavy, but I delivered.<p>Then, once again, the startup failed to get funding and I was let go.<p>Now I’m working part-time in a government job that has nothing to do with coding. I can’t seem to find any local developer roles or remote contracts anymore. I’ve started to question whether I’m even cut out for a career in software development.<p>Should I keep looking for a job? Pursue a master’s degree? Switch to a different field entirely? What would you do if you were in my shoes? What does your career path look like?