The job hunt lately has been more of a struggle than ever before. After submitting application after application, it’s easy to feel drained by either getting ghosted or receiving a form denial email. Honestly, I’d still prefer the denial over radio silence—at least it provides closure so I’m not left sitting around guessing whether an interview is coming.
While being between roles has been rough, it has given me dedicated time to apply my development knowledge toward building this website and expanding my technical skillset through Udemy. The site is far from finished, but progress is being made. I’m happy with its current state and thrilled that it’s officially live for everyone to see rather than just running on my local machine.
That said, I’ve had to put a few site enhancements on hold for a specific reason.
A significant number of the software engineering listings I’ve come across lately share one common requirement that I don't have yet: hands-on experience with .NET and C#. Throughout my time as a Full-Stack engineer, I’ve primarily relied on PHP and the Symfony framework to handle back-end logic and APIs. While Symfony excels at web applications and content-heavy platforms, .NET is heavily favored for high-throughput, real-time data systems and enterprise infrastructure. With so many teams looking for C# skills, I decided it was time to adapt and learn it.
For the past few days, I’ve been setting time aside for an intensive .NET and C# course on Udemy. My goal is to combine this new working knowledge with my years of experience architecting back-end systems so I can hit the ground running in a .NET environment.
Searching for that next role can feel like navigating dark times, but staying proactive keeps the light at the end of the tunnel visible. Ultimately, I want to land somewhere where my work truly matters and provides real value to the end user. I judge my success on user satisfaction—if people aren't happy with the tool, I want to take the necessary steps to fix it and make it right.
It’s never too late to pick up a new skill. If you've been on the fence about learning something new, take a look at what's out there and dive in during your downtime (and no, this isn't a sponsored plug!).
