The Market Isn't Bad. You Just Stopped Evolving.

I was talking to my batchmates recently. Same year, same college, completely different mindset.

Every single conversation went the same way:

"Market is bad." "There are no internships." "Companies aren't hiring."

And I sat there thinking: are we even talking about the same market?

I'm a third-year student from a non-CSE branch. I've been working in the industry for the past 1.5 years with clients across the USA, UK, and Bangladesh.

Not in one comfortable niche. Across the entire stack.

I've built the frontend of a Kotlin-based application. I've designed scalable backend systems and deployed them, basically living in the DevOps world. I've designed company databases from scratch and scaled them as the business grew.

Nobody handed me a roadmap. I just kept building.

In 2020, COVID hit and the world went remote overnight. Video streaming exploded. Technologies like WebRTC, HLS, and real-time communication tools became some of the hottest skills in the market. If you could build anything related to live video, you were in a strong position.

Fast forward to 2026 and the landscape looks completely different. AI is everywhere. Every other startup is building a SaaS product powered by AI, or integrating LLMs into existing workflows. Look at Y Combinator's latest batches: a huge share of startups are building on top of AI in some form.

The lesson is simple: what was relevant in 2020 will not give you the same results in 2026.

Technology shifts. Niches evolve. The market doesn't owe you anything for skills you learned three years ago and never updated.

You either adapt, or you get left behind calling the market "bad."

If I put you in an interview right now, could you actually perform?

Could you code in front of them? Could you clear every technical round? Could you architect a system on a whiteboard and defend your decisions?

Most people will say yes, because ego does that. But deep down, most people know the reality.

The market isn't the problem. The gap between where you are and where the industry moved, that's the problem.

I've been in that exact spot. Four months with no internship, barely any money in my bank account, wondering if any of this effort was even worth it.

But I didn't stop.

I built things. I broke them. I rebuilt them. I studied what companies were actually shipping. I kept my head down and kept working.

And in the past few months, I landed two offers:

This happened in the same timeline where people around me were saying the market is dead.

If someone from a non-CSE branch, with no connections and no safety net, can get two solid offers in this so-called bad market, I genuinely believe you can do even better.

You're probably smarter than me. You probably have better resources. You just need to put your head down and actually use them.

The work you're putting in today will pay off. Maybe not on your timeline, but it will.

Stop blaming the market. Start building yourself.

The opportunities are there. The question is: are you ready for them?