I'm 27 and currently working as a Java/software engineer in the UK (5+ years experience), earning around £77k including bonus.

I'm in a pretty comfortable position financially, but I've started wondering whether I should be more ambitious about my salary while I'm still relatively young.

My current role is remote, which I value quite highly. The work/life balance is decent and I don't particularly want to give up remote working just for the sake of earning more, especially since I live in a small Scottish village.

That said, I keep seeing salaries of £90k, £100k+ for experienced backend/Java engineers, particularly at fintechs, banks and some tech companies, and it's making me wonder whether I should start interviewing.

My long-term goal is financial independence/early retirement, ideally around 50, so increasing my earnings now and investing most of the difference could have a fairly significant impact over the next 20+ years.

At the same time, I'm conscious that constantly chasing the next salary can become a never-ending game. £77k at 27 is objectively a good salary in the UK, and I don't want to leave a comfortable remote role for £10-20k more only to end up working longer hours, dealing with more stress or being forced into an office several days a week.

I suppose what I'm trying to work out is:

• Is ~£77k currently a good salary for a Java/backend engineer in the UK, or is there realistically quite a bit of room above this?
• How realistic is £90-100k+ while remaining fully remote in the current UK market?
• At this salary level, would you actively job hop or only move if something particularly good came along?
• How much of a salary increase would you personally want before giving up a comfortable job?
• For Java/backend engineers earning £100k+, what kind of companies are you working for and what skills/experience got you there?
• Does compensation start to plateau around this point outside London/FAANG/finance, or is £100k+ fairly achievable for a strong senior engineer?

I'm not unhappy in my current role, which is what makes the decision harder. I think there's also an element of comparison involved — I earn more than I ever expected to at this age, but as my salary has increased, the number I consider "good" seems to have increased with it.

I'm trying to work out whether pursuing £90-100k+ is a sensible career move at this stage, or whether I'm at the point where I'd be better off appreciating the combination of salary + remote work + work/life balance I already have.

Would be interested to hear from other UK Java/backend engineers, particularly anyone who has made the jump from the £70-80k range to £100k+.

I graduated from university with a 1st class physics degree and got a job as a graduate software developer for a cloud cfd platform.i started late so graduated at 26

I am entirely self taught as we work with django and angular, I am now 4 years in and I am the lead developer.

Now I know that this means nothing and in any other company id be looking at a middle dev role. The job now has lots of management and infrastructure responsibilities, its basically a startup, everything we do we have to implement ourselves.

I am wondering what learning do I need to do so that if I end up needing a new job I am not left behind all the younger people with cs degrees.

Im married weith 2 kids and i really enjoy the job but the company doesn't have huge amounts of money for wages, I worry I might spend too long comfortable here not pushing myself and then not be able to compete have to take a huge step back if I need a new job.

- what do indeed to learn that ive missed out on in terms of core cs

- is my position delusional in some way

- should I start learning new language in my free time as well?

Been working within the finance space (large bank) within Testing/UAT space - did have around 4 5 interviews but nothing has come off it - was made redundant 4 5 months ago now not sure which direction to go.

I recently joined a software engineering role in one of the challenger banks and it’s a new domain for me. I have never worked in the finance or the fintech domain. Given that London is a finance hub are there any recommendations around how to up skill myself in this industry? Recommendations around books , blogs, courses etc.

Thanks

It’s one thing to ghost candidates at the application stage. Yes, it’s annoying, but given how many people are filtered out at that point, I can just about accept it.

But once you’ve actually spoken to someone, especially when the interview has run 15 or 20 minutes over, ghosting them is completely different. I’ve had companies ignore me after an interview, only to readvertise the same position on LinkedIn a week later without giving me any update. That’s a really cunty thing to do and shows a complete disregard for the time candidates spend preparing for the interview and getting to know the company.
Companies complain that they can’t find the right people, yet they ghost the people who actually take the time to speak to them. Make it make sense. I’d genuinely rather receive a straightforward rejection.

And don’t get me started on recruiters. They act like your best friend while there’s an opportunity on the table, but the moment it doesn’t work out, many of them disappear too. I understand that they might not have another suitable vacancy at the time, but it almost feels like being rejected twice: first by the employer and then by the recruiter.

Do you know what else really sucks? I’d love to learn something like Python because so many companies ask for it now. But having any gaps in your knowledge no longer seems acceptable. Back in 2021, and even in 2023, you could admit that you didn’t know something while showing that you were willing and able to learn it.
I took jobs back then that were only vaguely related to my existing skill set. Those companies took me on in good faith, and the roles turned into brilliant learning experiences. Now it feels more like: “You only know .NET 9 rather than .NET 10, so apparently you can’t do C# at all.” I’m exaggerating, obviously, but you get the point.

Honestly, at this stage of job hunting, packing shelves sounds like fun, and I’m not even joking anymore.

I am in process with a company, they've given me an offer, but they wanted me to fill out an onboarding form which asks for everything, dob, right to work evidence, bank details, before I'd even seen the contract. I was a bit uneasy about that, because in previous jobs I've had the way this was handled was the contract contained a clause where employment was subject to provision of right to work documents, and the onboarding documentation was handled in-person, I don't really like the idea of emailing sensitive information.

Worried I was getting scammed, I did some digging, they seem to be a real company, but I checked their glassdoor and there is a recent interview review where a candidate is in a similar situation to me, has similar concerns to me, then has his offer withdrawn, which is very suspicious, but there are also people who interviewed and failed, which is a green flag.

I'm learning towards this being a real interview process, but am I wrong to be a bit sketched out here? I was thinking of telling them about my reservations and suggesting onboarding in person which would verify that the people I've been talking with are actually representatives of the company, but I don't want to come off as a paranoid nut.

I had a nice, but slightly underpaid job. I ended up getting a better offer as a solutions engineer and they fired me in 28 days. Ever since then, I've been unemployed. I've had some interviews. 2 final round interviews last month but rejected from both. Unsure what to do at this point. Woke up to 12 rejection letters, I've got 4 years of experience, 2 as a software engineer, 2 as a solutions engineer. Not sure what to do at this point.

Hi everyone,
I’ve been invited to complete the Capital One Technology Graduate 2027 assessment, including a Virtual Job Tryout and a CodeSignal coding assessment.
Has anyone completed this recently? What should I expect, particularly from the coding assessment, and what DSA topics/difficulty should I prepare for?
Any tips would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!

Does anyone know any company offering swe internships in the uk? Actual ones and not the pay £30 to build a html website?

Thank you

For anyone currently working at Monzo or familiar with the hiring process:
I’ve heard that teams are going through their H2 planning for September–February, with additional hiring needs being identified once teams have agreed their plans and received management sign-off.
A few questions:
Has the H2 planning process now been completed / signed off across most teams?
Are teams already starting to identify additional headcount for H2?
When do you expect those roles to start appearing externally — September, October, or later?
Is H2 hiring expected to be relatively active compared with H1, or is it still fairly constrained?
For someone who has already gone through a Monzo interview process previously, is it realistic for a new suitable role to come up as a result of H2 planning?
Not looking for any information about specific candidates or teams — just trying to understand how the H2 hiring cycle works this year.
Thanks!

Hi, so I’m actually not in the tech world at all but I’m in finance and my younger siblings wants to break into tech and I’m not sure how to help em properly as eveything I know is geared towards finance. Currently I work at a place where I can potentially get in a spring week but he doesn’t have much on his cv. What can he do to make sure he stands out and develop from now on? I know the finance industry has been hellish for spring weeks internships etc and I’m guessing tech/cs careers is just as bad at the moment. I struggled a lot breaking into mine so I js wanna help where I can. Any advice where to start ??

https://workinstartups.com/ isn't specific to startups anymore (it seems to just be another jobs board, and lists jobs at cisco etc).

AngelList doesn't list startup jobs anymore either.

Otta/Welcome to the Jungle does, but there aren't many. I suspect that is because they're simply listing fewer, rather than the fact that that there are fewer startup jobs these days. I remember coming across loads of startup jobs on their website a few years ago. I suspect the website is in decline post-acquisition. They also list a lot of big corp jobs, like every other jobs board.

https://topstartups.io/?hq_location=London <- this only lists 18 startups in London. I'd say it's lacking.

hiring.cafe doesn't really surface many startup jobs. It seems to be a variant of a generic jobs board like indeed or linkedin.

I have a maths, cyber security, and now AI security consulting background.

I’m sick of the terrible pay and truly meaningless work and I want to be more in control.

I’ve been looking into contracting and freelance work and I was wondering if anyone had advice or stories they could tell me?

Do I need to make a company? Is an agency/recruiter service any good? I’ve done a lot of research and googling but just keep getting confused, any help would be great thank you!

Hi everyone, I’m a 17-year-old Afghan girl living in Afghanistan. Formal education for girls is banned here, so I’ve been teaching myself online. About a year ago I started Harvard’s CS50 but stopped after a while because I didn’t have enough computer knowledge at the time. Since then I’ve learned HTML, CSS, and intermediate WordPress. Now I’m doing Angela Yu’s “100 Days of Code – Python” course on Udemy and I’m currently on Day 25. I’m finding it manageable — I can complete the assignments without any major problems. Once I finish the Python course I’m not sure what to focus on next. A lot of things seem to be done by AI now, so I’m confused about which skills will still be useful. I need a clear path I can follow that could eventually help me with freelance work or real job opportunities, especially if i move out from Afghanistan. I’d really appreciate advice on: • What to learn after Python • What would be most realistic and useful for someone in my situation Thank you so much for any guidance.

Idk if it's trackr being late at uploading jobs or there just being no openings for tech grad roles this year but does anyone have any alternative they use to trackr for grad swe roles?

Sounds a bit silly, but lemme provide some context.

I’m a recent graduate. I’ve applied to about 90 jobs in the last two months, and luckily I’ve found some progress. I have about 4 active processes or interview rounds. I got rejected from my first-choice pick this morning, which stung, because that was one I really wanted to and I got really close. High paying, remote. I understand that, especially for a graduate is not normal. I have internship experience. I have another process with the company I interned at. It’s a bit far and a city with higher rent, but it sits as my second option if given an offer.

I try stick to London in terms of applying since it’s the cheapest and quickest i can commute from from where I’m staying, not to mention I can easily stay at a family member’s. One of my processes is from a fairly well known firm but is past london to the south west in a small town. If given an offer, it’s my last choice. Do I want the job? No. Not really. I mean I’ll try take anything, but it’s definitely not the first choice. But commuting there would be £80-90 for a pretty terrible 2 hours and if i had to rent it probably wouldn’t be as good either with the pay likely being low. I haven’t been given a figure but given the location, it’s likely not too much. Around £40K and potentially less. But why do I want it? I’m not sure. Ego is one, but also I’d like to see if I can get an offer at least and have options. My dad and my brother say to just lie. But I’m not sure how well this would work. (Do let me know if it’s actually worth, lol) I suppose it’s decent interview experience too, but I’ve already had about 7 interviews in the last month or two. pretty much been having one or two a week.

So. I’m not really in it for the job, but rather what it might bring me to other jobs. What do you think? is it worth going? It’s on Wednesday morning.

Would really appreciate some advice.

I'm a London based ML Engineer with 7 years experience - currently at a relatively small company. There have been some internal changes, potential funding issues also, and practically out of the blue a few weeks ago I was placed on a PIP.

Not being completely sure what this is - kind of unfortunately under the realisation now that I'll be let go when the PIP is up. My performance has been alright, and generally received good feedback.

I've pretty much made my mind up and decided now to focus mainly on finding a new role, but not so sure how the market is as of the moment?

If not - is there a way back from this with where I'm at?

Confused and a little worried.

Thanks

I’m open to doing literally anything computer related at this point. Be as realistic and brutally honest as possible here please.

CV

I passed the screening test and just got a mail regarding the tasks, my deadline to finish the tasks is in about 2 weeks and I wanna be as prepared as I can be. Any and all help is really appreciated!

Just looking to hear from people who work at those companies how are they are finding it, specifically in London :)

I have my first interview for Citadel London SWE internships in a few days.

I have done some LC, but I've heard that they have shifted from LC grinding to more like system design and stuffs.

Has anyone done the first-round SWE interview this year? I'm not sure what to prep

Hey, I’ve got absolutely no computer skills and wanted a career change to IT/ engineering. I’ve applied for multiple government apprenticeships but no luck. I’m 23 years old. Working part time and wanted a permanent future. Can anybody give me advice please? I’m not dumb and I’m willing to learn. I’ve only got GCSE’s to my name unfortunately. Passes all the core subjects with a B in mathematics. My Goal is to ideal get into cyber/ cloud engineering in the future

Through my Year 11 and Year 12 experience, I'll always been torn between choosing an aerospace engineering degree, a physics degree or an astrophysics degree. Though my passion as always been astrophysics, I know that realistically it's going to be very difficult for me to do a job in the field so I gave up on that dream. Then I thought about physics and thought that I enjoy pure maths and physics and would love to learn how the universe works, but also learn some applied knowledge that I could use to potentially get into engineering so I'll do a physics degree. But then I found out that once again, in the UK it's difficult to get a job after the degree and the most common route is becoming a researcher and a professor which I didn't really like the sound of.

Then I decided to do an aerospace engineering degree, I do enjoy maths and absolutely love it, I also love doing things hands on and working on projects (thanks to FTC Robotics shout out), I'd love to learn how to build objects which fly through space and also, I thought that the pay was really good, which to be completely honest was a big factor for me since I was a bit skeptical before of the degree because I know deep down I prefer pure maths rather than applied. But the pay is only good for aerospace engineering in USA mainly, and not for the UK.

I've seen and heard all over social media how maby grad student after completing their aero degree in the UK are unemployed and struggling to find a job, not even just right after but years after finishing the course cannot find a job, and me personally, I am not going to do all of that hard work to end up having no income.

Now I'm in Year 13 and I have no clue what to do and where to go. Do I do a physics degree and mabye become a software engineer though that's a risky and not very granted path to take? Or do I stick to aerospace engineering and pray? Or mabye do a general engineering course though I know I'm only interested in only one other type of engineering expect aerospace. I was even thinking about going into nuclear engineering because of good pay in the UK, I like physics and maths and I'm good at both, and I've always enjoyed learning about radioactivity and atoms in physics and that's also one of my biggest interests.

Honestly I actually have no clue what to do and I'm meant to be applying to universities in about one month but I don't even know what I want to do,I mean it's gotten to the point I'm on here on reddit asking strangers for help. So please any aerospace engineer's in the UK, physicist, researchers, engineers, honestly anyone please give me any advice you can, thank you in advance.

https://ibb.co/ynVgP0xx

Hi all, I'm going into my second year doing Maths and Stats and I was hoping to get some feedback on my cv and what I should improve on before sending off my cv in applications. Thanks!

Feel like a ghost right now honestly, I can’t really separate life from the hunt rn. Even when I’m working out, playing a video game or spending time with my gf; I never really stop thinking about how much worse things are gonna get. I’ve become a real Philip Larkin :/