Reddit Experience · Apr 2026

Voluntarily choosing unemployment (mental health)

14 upvotes 32 replies

Interview Experience

I interned at a MAANG company known for running ads last summer. I go to a t4 cs school and although my rating was not necessarily in the top percentile, I had good relationship with my mentor who gav

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I interned at a MAANG company known for running ads last summer. I go to a t4 cs school and although my rating was not necessarily in the top percentile, I had good relationship with my mentor who gave me good feedback despite working on a low stakes project that wasn't interesting at all. Since I left I was told that a lot of engineers in the team left/fired including my mentor and with minor reorgs I'm now supposedly joining a manager at a sister team who I viewed as quite cut throat. Recent news of upcoming \~20% layoffs (recruiter who got me my internship also got impacted too) isn't helping and things I overlooked as an intern (stack ranking, pip, etc) really started to creep up on me and I haven't been able to sleep, eat well, focus on my last semester of school with waking up to anxiety every day I don't have any other offers right now but I'm also not sure how things will end up if I start work in a few weeks in my current mental state. Even if I survive this year, what's to say that I'll still survive the next year? Company seems to be obsessed with investing in AI with probably more cuts to come in the coming years, but I guess this is true in other competitor companies too. Stability is an important factor for reasons I won’t disclose but I guess I was a clueless junior in the summer chasing prestige and I regret where that has gotten me Recruiting seems to be getting harder and with AI getting better taking a mental gap year doesn't seem to be a better option either. I also think if I end up taking a break, I'll probably oversleep and spend most of the time sleeping away and ignoring my problems while being unemployment and having nothing (school, job, etc) holding me accountable Tbh I should have taken a chiller internship in hindsight and I'm genuinely considering reneging on my full time offer with no backup plans. Advice is appreciated but I think this post was more of a rant/vent

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