24 hours. That's how long a contract lasted before someone pulled it because I was running Windows, not Mac. Not my work. My OS.
It almost broke me. Not in the dramatic way. In the quiet way — the kind where you keep shipping code during the day and don't tell your family anything at night.
Then came FR8. A fully-funded, three-month residency in Helsinki for young builders. I found it in Hemapriya's Dev Opportunity Radar #2, applied the same day, got a confirmation email. A few days later: "didn't quite align with what we're currently looking for — deep technical, high-conviction bets." I took it well in the replies. Not so well internally.
The Windows contract was the lowest. Finland was close behind it.
I kept showing up for the DEV Challenges anyway. Almost every one that's run since I got back. Won OpenClaw. Lost more than I won — a lot more. Those losses did something the wins didn't: they prepared me. I'm in the Global AI Hackathon this month. And the Africa Deep Tech Challenge. I want to win one. Maybe both.
There was a third one too, closer to home than the other two: the Community Program Manager role at DEV itself. MLH had just acquired DEV and needed someone to run it. Not a writing role. Not a building role. My profile fit because of the platform depth, not despite it.
Rejected on location. Small team, no infrastructure to hire in Nigeria right now. Not my resume. Not my answers. A payroll line I couldn't fix from my side of the application.
This isn't even my original account. I had one back in 2019. Lost it. Found my way back here in November 2025 — eight months, not a year, but it's felt longer.
My family doesn't know any of this. Not the Windows call, not Finland, not the account I lost in 2019. They know I code. They don't know what coding cost this year.
DEV.to is where the people who do know are. Not because I told the whole story to anyone here. Because writing honestly and showing up did what explaining never could.
Somewhere in the middle of all of it, one of those pieces — "Someone Else Pays for Your AI Access" — got picked up in AI Engineer World's Fair Daily Context, swyx's curated daily covering the World's Fair conference in San Francisco. I wrote that piece from my phone in Port Harcourt. My mom doesn't know what Daily Context is or who swyx is, or what any of this means. I still want to find a way to show her.
If you've had a stretch like this — a low point, another one right behind it, and a community that held you without needing the backstory — I see you. I feel you like we're in the same room.
Jess, Ben, the whole DEV team — thank you. You're touching lives in ways I don't think you fully know.
Here's to the next stretch being kinder. And if it isn't, here's to showing up anyway.
Top comments (13)
"You're touching lives in ways I don't think you fully know" - absolutely! Dev.to as a community is a treasure, pure gold - Ben is one of my "developer heroes" for sure ...
P.S. yeah getting rejected is one thing - but getting rejected on grounds that shouldn't matter, that surely hurts more, and rightly so - it's got to do with "justice" ...
leob, the justice thing is the whole shape of it . a no on skill stings less than a no on geography, because one you can work on and the other you can't move.
Ben's earned "developer hero" status more than once in my book too.
Is the geography thing something you've run into yourself, hiring or applying, or more something you've watched happen to others??
It's more something I know exists, and is of course unfair, and that's something I cannot stand - personally, for myself, I feel I've been pretty lucky during my whole career, I really can't complain - of course you always need to put in the effort, but I don't have the feeling I was ever treated in an unjust way! You just gotta be a bit lucky sometimes, that's for sure ...
luck and injustice aren't really the same axis tho . you can go your whole career without being treated badly and still never have your luck tested against a starting line like "no infrastructure to hire in your country."
That's the part that gets missed: the DEV role wasn't bad luck, it was the odds getting set before the interview even started.
Yeah you're right, they're completely different things or dimensions, not the same axis ...
The line about continuing to ship during the day while telling your family nothing at night really stayed with me. Losing opportunities because of your OS or location, rather than the quality of your work, must be incredibly frustrating.
The fact that you kept building, writing and showing up anyway says a lot. I genuinely hope the next stretch is much kinder to you.
Zenovay, frustrating undersells it but "kept building anyway" is the only part of it I'd want someone to actually take from this.
Absolutely. That persistence is what stayed with me most. Thanks for sharing the part people usually leave out.
I agree with that wholeheartedly! 💛💯 I'm still in shock at how many community members left comments under my post about burnout, either sympathising or wishing me luck. This helped a lot and gave me the feeling that I am not alone and that it's possible to get out of it.
Wishing you find your dream job soon 🍀
Klaudia, "generated at the lowest possible cost, barely reviewed" is the exact fear I had writing mine from my laptop .glad the comments did for you what I hope this does for someone else.
Your persistence and clear vision for your life are so clear from this post. Eerything you've talked about shows you are in alignment with your goals and your current path, even if you have to take some detours. You are so much closer to your personal mountaintop than people who keep their code and their words siloed away from others. Keep going!
Life — you must believe in yourself. And life — you must, again and again, a thousand times, ten thousand times, at any cost — save yourself.
xulingfeng, that's the same thing I was doing without the words for it — thank you.