A 20-year IT veteran switched to "scrap collection." After more than 200 interviews with no results, he said bluntly, "The jobs for programmers are basically gone."

In Silicon Valley, programmers used to be the group least worried about making a living. But for Roman, that era is over.

Roman's YouTube ID is "Programmer in San Francisco". For more than a decade, he has lived and worked in San Francisco. He is a standard senior programmer in the true sense: he has written in multiple programming languages, worked in major Silicon Valley companies, has several thousand-star repositories on GitHub, has technical accumulations, and a decent resume.

He originally thought that even if the industry slowed down, at least "living decently" shouldn't be a problem. But reality gave him the exact opposite answer.

Over 200 interviews in half a year, yet jobs "disappeared"

For Roman, the job-hunting experience in the past more than half a year has been an endless nightmare. He said bluntly:

"To be honest, the situation is quite obvious: in San Francisco, in the Bay Area, and even across the United States, programming jobs have basically 'vanished'."

Since the second half of 2025, in order to find a reliable job, Roman has rushed from one company to another without a break. He has participated in 200 - 300 interviews in total, covering Python, Java, system design, and algorithm problems. In the most extreme week, he had 13 interviews in a row.

However, even if he could pass all the rounds in an interview and reach the final stage, he always got all sorts of rejection reasons: "Sorry, we're not hiring for now", "You've passed the technical assessment, but we're not recruiting at present".

In his perception, the job market in San Francisco is not "highly competitive", but rather the jobs themselves are disappearing. Interviews still exist, but hiring no longer happens. Many processes seem more like "reserving positions", "building candidate pools", or even just means for recruiters to meet their KPIs.

Finally, he only found a job with a salary cut by half. His income dropped by more than 40% compared to his previous job, which wasn't even enough to cover his basic living expenses in San Francisco. Due to family and practical reasons, he can't leave San Francisco in the short term. To make ends meet, he has to take out $100 from his savings every day to pay for rent, transportation, and the most basic living costs.

What makes him even more desperate is that his situation is not an isolated case:

● A PhD he knows was unemployed again after only working for 5 months in a year;

● Another programmer friend of his couldn't find any job throughout the whole year;

● The news of layoffs in Silicon Valley has never stopped. The numbers of layoffs in major tech companies, such as 20,000, 50,000, and 100,000, keep breaking records.

Some people in the comment section questioned him: "Since you can have so many interviews in a week, it means there are still jobs."

In response, Roman was very straightforward: in the United States, this is called "Nothing Burger" - it looks like something, but actually it's nothing. "Interviews can't pay the rent, can't buy food, and can't explain to your landlord that 'I had 13 interviews this week'."

In this environment, "continuing to wait indefinitely for an IT job" has become, in Roman's view, an act of wasting one's life.

Is a "golden resume" useless? From "waiting for recruitment" to changing careers to "find a way out"

Maybe some people will ask, is it that Roman doesn't have enough ability? On the contrary, this 20 - year IT veteran has a golden resume that most programmers would envy.

As early as 2005, he obtained the Microsoft Certified Application Developer certificate. He is proficient in multiple programming languages such as C#, Python, and Java. Even for the currently popular Go language, he has a high - starred GitHub project. His GitHub account has several thousand - star repositories, his Stack Overflow score is outstanding, he has published printed technical books, holds exclusive patents, and has been on the sharing stage of many technical conferences.

During his more than a decade of in - depth experience in Silicon Valley, he has worked for well - known companies such as Cisco, Atlanta, and SAP. He even got an offer from Facebook, but he chose to decline it because he didn't want to sacrifice the balance between work and life and he saw through the frequent layoff situation in big companies.

However, with such a resume, in today's Silicon Valley, he still can't even get a job that allows him to break even. Roman admitted that at this point, it's no longer a problem of personal ability, but a complete collapse of the entire job market.

After months of struggle, Roman made a decision: he would no longer bet his entire fate on the job market. He chose a path that Silicon Valley programmers rarely consider - instead of continuing with software development, which he was good at, he dived into the waste recycling industry. In simple terms, he helps individuals and companies haul garbage and collect waste, and earns service fees by taking them to the landfill.

In Roman's view, this is not a helpless choice, but the most practical way to survive in Silicon Valley at present.

A "dramatic" start to entrepreneurship: scraping together money to buy a small truck, and the old truck catches fire on the way

His entrepreneurial journey started with a used Chevrolet small truck, and the entire starting process was full of "dramatic" surprises. He originally planned to spend $5,000 to buy a vehicle for his business, but due to his tight savings, he could only sell some items to scrape together $500 as a deposit. The rest of the money had to wait until the payment was received.

On the day he went to see the truck, to make matters worse, his Volkswagen minibus that had accompanied him for many years suddenly caught fire. Although the fire wasn't big, the vehicle had to be taken out of service, and the repair cost him an unexpected expense. Moreover, he had already listed this vehicle for sale. "It's as if it knew I was going to sell it," Roman described in the video.

After a series of chaos, Roman set his sights on a 1997 - 1998 Chevrolet pickup. It had run more than 130,000 miles, was in good condition, and the engine sounded stable. The most important thing was that the cargo box was big enough, which fully met Roman's entrepreneurial needs.

He went to the bank and withdrew $5,000 in cash himself to complete the transaction. From that moment on, he officially owned a truck of his own. His new career journey, from a Silicon Valley programmer to a waste recycler, started with this entrepreneurial "war chariot".

The waste recycling business is officially launched, asking netizens for advice and soliciting names

Now, Roman has officially positioned himself as the "King of Waste Recycling in South San Francisco". His core business covers the cleaning and transportation of all kinds of garbage and waste: whether it's the idle sundries piled up in people's homes, the old and useless materials of companies, or the discarded Christmas trees on the roadside, as long as it's something that needs to be cleaned up, it's his business target.

According to him, this is an industry that has existed in San Francisco for a long time, with stable demand and clear cash flow. It doesn't require interviews, HR, or waiting for approvals. As long as you're willing to work hard, the money won't "disappear".

To do this "new business" well, Roman has also made full preparations. He admitted that the conventional advertising and promotion methods don't work at all now. So he plans to launch a wave of viral marketing and has publicly solicited ideas from netizens - whether it's creative decorations on the truck or the name of the company, everyone is welcome to leave comments in the comment section. He will also share his marketing ideas in subsequent videos.

Moreover, Roman couldn't wait to announce his entrepreneurial business phone number: 650 6501337. At the same time, he also sent out a "call for help" to netizens in San Francisco: he urgently needs his first batch of waste - recycling customers. As long as they take photos of the waste that needs to be cleaned up and send them to him, this senior programmer with 20 years of IT experience will drive the truck to their place to load the goods himself.

He also doesn't shy away from the little tricks in the industry. He said bluntly that if anyone knows where there are discarded copper wires in San Francisco, they can tell him in the comment section. This frankness makes his entrepreneurial journey more real and endearing.

Hauling garbage while still having interviews

It's worth noting that Roman hasn't immediately "completely left the IT industry".

While picking up the truck and preparing for his entrepreneurship, there are still interviews scheduled in his calendar. He described the feeling very vividly: it's like a carrot hanging in front of a donkey - you know you can't reach it, but it's always there, and he has been chasing this carrot for a year.

Currently, he is also running multiple software projects simultaneously: the self - developed software is undergoing cold - start email marketing. He also plans to spend $3,000 to rent a booth at the industry exhibition in 2026 and take the programs he developed to test the waters, to see if he can strike up a cooperation and sell the software.

However, Roman also clearly realizes that the software field is highly competitive now, and it's still uncertain whether he can make money. In contrast, waste recycling is his most core entrepreneurial direction at present. That used small truck carries all his hopes of surviving in Silicon Valley.

After sharing his experience, Roman also raised three thought - provoking questions. These are not only a self - examination of his current situation but also touch on the pain points of the entire Silicon Valley and even the US tech industry:

● Why can't a programmer who has had 200 interviews find a job where he can "spend all his income but not lose money"?

● Where will San Francisco programmers go after they exhaust their savings?

● If the official data says "the economy is healthy and the unemployment rate is normal", then what do the real - life unemployed people count as?

Roman said that his withdrawal from the IT industry will be a gradual process. He will continue his current low - paying job while gradually shifting his focus to the waste recycling business. As for whether this business will succeed, how much money it can make, and whether it's just a transition, he can't give an answer for now.

But the only thing he is certain of is that blindly waiting for the job market to recover is more dangerous than hauling garbage.

This article is from the WeChat public account "CSDN". Arranged by Zheng Liyuan. Republished by 36Kr with permission.