First is to stop the bleeding. Any work that puts food on the table is “honest” work. In the meantime, keep coding, think of something your local or regional society needs and build it.
One lesson I had to learn the hard way, no one is coming to save you. Build your own future. Make your own path. Finding something that people would pay for is easy. Finding something that a lot of people will pay for is hard. Just find a way to earn a living and then find a way to make a living with what you love doing. You don’t need to work for a FANNG to be successful.
He’s just saying you gotta do what you gotta do. I couldn’t find work after getting laid off from meta platform engineering so I started clandestinely mass producing pharmaceutical grade methamphetamine for distribution across dozens of citizens across the American southwest. In my spare time, while looking for help desk positions.
One lesson I had to learn the hard way, no one is coming to save you. Build your own future. Make your own path. Finding something that people would pay for is easy. Finding something that a lot of people will pay for is hard. Just find a way to earn a living and then find a way to make a living with what you love doing. You don’t need to work for a FANNG to be successful.