Tools
Tech Career Pivot Archetype Quiz
What Is a Tech Career Pivot Archetype?
When a tech worker faces a career transition — whether from a layoff, burnout, or a deliberate pivot — the path forward isn’t the same for everyone. A software engineer with 10 years of backend experience who was laid off has a fundamentally different situation than a QA analyst who’s worried about AI automation, or a federal IT worker who just got caught in DOGE cuts.
Severance Runway Calculator: How Long Can You Afford to Wait?
How to Calculate Your Severance Runway
Getting laid off from a tech role gives you one of the most valuable things in a job search: time. But that time is finite, and it’s declining every week. Knowing exactly how long you have — your severance runway — is the first step in making good decisions about your next move.
The Severance Runway Formula
Total runway weeks = (Severance pay + Liquid savings) ÷ Weekly expenses
Career Coaching ROI Calculator: Is Coaching Worth It?
The Real Question: What Does Career Coaching Actually Cost You If You Don’t Do It?
Most people frame the career coaching decision as: “Can I afford to pay $2,000–$3,000 for coaching?” But that’s the wrong question.
The right question is: What does a slow, directionless job search actually cost you in foregone income?
At a $120,000 salary, every additional week of unemployment costs $2,308 in foregone income. A job search that runs 5 months instead of 3 months costs $19,230 in foregone income. A pivot that lands you $15,000 below your target salary costs $75,000 over 5 years.
Tech Skills Gap Analyzer: What Do You Need to Make the Switch?
Why Most Skills Gap Analyses Are Wrong
Standard skills gap analyses compare job description requirements to your resume. This approach has a fundamental flaw: job descriptions are written by HR teams who pile in every possible nice-to-have, creating a list that no existing candidate fully meets.
The real skill gaps — the ones that actually matter in interviews and hiring decisions — are typically 3–5 specific capabilities that hiring managers screen for directly, not the laundry list in the JD.
Tech Job Market Pulse 2026: Demand by Specialty
The 2026 Tech Job Market: A Tale of Two Markets
The 2026 tech employment landscape has split into two distinct realities that are diverging rapidly:
Market A (contracting): Undifferentiated software engineering, generalist IT roles, manual QA, junior development. These roles have contracted 15–25% from 2022 peaks and are continuing to contract as AI tooling reduces the headcount required for equivalent output.
Market B (expanding): AI/ML engineering, cybersecurity, AI infrastructure, cloud architecture, AI operations, and specialist roles in data center operations. These markets are growing at 40–90% year-over-year posting velocity.