Navigating The Tech Winter: A Strategic Career Guide

Navigating The Tech Winter: A Strategic Career Guide
Photo by Mick Haupt / Unsplash

As we enter 2025, we see a continuing trend of the tech industries experiencing ongoing shock and disruption. Venture capital and deal flows have dried up, growth expectations have reset, and companies that hired aggressively just months ago are now conducting widespread layoffs. The shock waves are being felt across the ecosystem, from early-stage startups to established tech giants, fundamentally reshaping the opportunity landscape we've grown accustomed to in the past ten years or so before the winter comes.

For you who are among those affected by these changes—whether through layoffs, reduced opportunities, or facing uncertainties about your next career move—I want to acknowledge how challenging and disorienting this situation can be.

Losing a job or facing career uncertainty isn't just a professional setback. It's deeply personal and can feel overwhelming. I've been through similar transitions, and I understand the mix of emotions you might be experiencing. This guide aims to help you navigate this period with concrete strategies and actionable insights, not just platitudes. We can explore your options and develop a practical approach to positioning yourself for what comes next, or if you are limited in time, you can skip to the general strategies or click straight to the most impactful section about optimizing your CV.

As a side note, I'm writing this guide to help Indonesian talents map and seek their next opportunities, but many of the options can also be relevant to other regions. With that in mind, let's begin.

Why Is This Happening?

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Photo by Jessica Pamp / Unsplash

There are several confluences of factors that, when combined, contribute to the current situation during the tech winter:

  • Venture-backed startups operate on a power law distribution, where only 5-10% generate the outsized returns (10-25x) that justify their risk profile. When we translate this into expected returns, accounting for failure rates, most startup investments yield just 0.8%-4.0% annually over a 4-year period. This return is significantly below what investors expect for such high-risk investments.
  • While COVID-19 drove unprecedented digital adoption across sectors like e-commerce, fintech, and SaaS, this acceleration proved more temporary than transformative. Post-pandemic data from the IMF shows online retail returning to pre-pandemic trend lines, suggesting the industry overestimated the permanent behavioral shifts in digital adoption.
  • The Fed's aggressive rate hikes have fundamentally altered the investment landscape. When "safe" U.S. Treasury bonds offer 4.5-5.5% returns, the traditional venture capital model of betting on risky startups becomes much more challenging to justify to limited partners who now have attractive risk-free alternatives.
  • The tech winter represents a necessary correction after years of inflated valuations driven by zero-interest-rate policies. High-profile cases like WeWork's valuation collapse from $47B to under $10B signal a broader reset in how the market values growth versus profitability in tech companies.

Most of the factors above are macroeconomic factors outside of our control, but one sliver of hope is that they are not permanent and that many are cyclical in nature.

Will There Be an End in Sight?

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Photo by Gabriele Motter / Unsplash

While predicting exact market movements is impossible, historical patterns give us reason for careful optimism. Tech winters, like the 2000 dot-com crash and the 2008 financial crisis, are cyclical rather than permanent. Each previous winter eventually gave way to periods of remarkable growth and innovation.

What's particularly interesting about this winter is the continued strength of fundamental technology adoption and digital transformation across industries. Unlike previous downturns, this isn't about technology becoming less valuable—it's about a reset in how that value is measured and funded.

Current market indicators and Fed rate projections suggest we're likely moving through the latter stages of this winter, although the recovery may be more gradual than expected. One reasonable take is that now is an ideal time to evaluate our options as the recovery gradually improves.

What Are My Options?

Let's examine five strategic paths, each with its risk-reward profile. Remember, there's no universal "best" option—the right choice depends on your specific circumstances, risk tolerance, and long-term goals.

Option 1: Find Opportunities Overseas

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Photo by Marten Bjork / Unsplash
  • Pros:
    • Higher compensation potentials, the global demand for experienced tech talents remains strong.
    • Valuable exposure to global tech ecosystems, which can accelerate your career significantly if you play it right.
  • Cons:
    • The difficulty level for this opportunity is very high. You'll be competing with applicants from all over the world and need to stand out.
    • Moving far away from our extended families may not be an option for some.
  • Target Regions:
    • Japan, Singapore, USA, UK, The Netherlands, Germany.
  • How to maximize your opportunity?
    • Start by identifying companies with a strong track record of international hiring. Look specifically for organizations that hire globally and have established visa sponsorship and relocation programs. This strategy dramatically increases your chances compared to companies that might be open to international talent but lack the infrastructure to support it.
    • While LinkedIn Jobs can be very helpful for your search, don't forget to visit the career pages for companies that you have identified as a good target for your profile and expertise. Some countries also have job boards or expat headhunters that are specifically targeting international tech roles and may offer relocations. Headhunters can also help you in finding matches that align with your profile. Some excellent starting points include:
    • Another avenue you can explore for overseas opportunities, which may be a more expedient or feasible alternative for some since it does not involve relocating to a different country and being far away from our families, is to seek remote work opportunities from overseas companies. Global demand for tech is still robust, and the salaries for Indonesian tech workers are among the lowest in the world, so our tech talents have a strong opportunity to land rewarding remote work opportunities. As a starting point, you can explore:
    • For remote work opportunities, one good paid resource to prepare your search and increase your chances is this ebook in Bahasa Indonesia at BisaKerjaRemote (not an affiliate link), written by a long-time remote work practitioner in the industry. It is not free (it costs about $30), but it has a wealth of resources that can help point you in the right direction in your search, especially if you don't know where or how to start.
    • In either case, focus on showcasing your profile's strengths to maximize your chances of landing an offer. Technical excellence, experience, portfolio, and good communication skills to explain the above in nontechnical terms are the points that can bring you above and beyond their regular applicants. If you have experience building tech systems or products for more than 200K monthly active users, for example, know that this experience puts you in the top 2% of global applicants, and you should definitely emphasize it in your CV.
    • Once you land a first interview opportunity, I highly recommend you seek professional interview coaching to give you valuable preparation time and experience for the interview. I personally recommend Interview Practice with Gogo (not an affiliate link), which can be a bit pricey ($350 for a 1:1 session) but worth every cent since it significantly improves your chances of landing an offer.

Option 2: Advance Your Education

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Photo by MD Duran / Unsplash
  • Pros:
    • There's a strong link between recession cycles and enrollment in postgraduate degree courses, particularly from those who want to "wait out for better market conditions" while improving their competitiveness in the labor market by advancing their studies.
    • Studying overseas also helps you gain a foothold in the country you are targeting since, often, it will be easier for you to apply for jobs and secure a working visa if you have a degree from a reputable university in that country.
  • Cons:
    • You will be pausing your income stream for the next few years, which may not be feasible if you have a family to support. Even with a scholarship, student stipends are often not designed to support the living costs of a whole family. Things may be easier if your spouse can work and cover some of the family costs. Please check the visa regulations for students' dependents in the countries you want to target.
    • Similar to Option 1, moving far away from our extended families may not be feasible or acceptable for some.
  • Target Regions:
    • USA, Australia, Europe, Japan, Singapore.
  • How to maximize your opportunity?
    • Start by thoroughly researching programs that align with your career goals and current tech market trends. Focus on universities with strong industry connections, research output in emerging technologies, and a track record of graduate success in tech roles.
    • Those universities usually have their scholarship program, but alternatively, you can also seek third-party scholarships provided by entities external to the university. Please remember that the above scholarships have their application cycles and may not be immediately available. Here are some that you can try out:
    • Start your preparation early. Realistically, it can take up to 12 months before you can move abroad and start your studies. Begin standardized test preps (e.g., GRE/GMAT/IELTS/TOEFL) at least 6-12 months in advance so you have time to retake the tests in case the results are not adequate or satisfactory.
    • Network with alums of the universities that you want to target. Besides helping you understand the lay of the land, they can also help you map opportunities to support you and your families during your studies. They may point out part-time graduate teaching or research assistantship opportunities, for example, that could supplement your living cost situation. Sometimes, a letter of recommendation from an alumni may also improve your chances.

Option 3: Apply to Local Tech Startups

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Photo by Daria Nepriakhina 🇺🇦 / Unsplash
  • Pros:
    • Tech startups have gained an unstable reputation due to their proclivity for laying off their team in recent years, as raising capital becomes an extra challenge for many. However, there are many signals that show hiring in this sector is starting to ramp up again.
    • For those who were laid off from a tech role in a startup, reentering the startup world may provide the best compatibility in terms of skill set and experience and can make your profile shine above and beyond that of other candidates.
    • In any case, tech startups still represent a powerful potential path for personal growth and learning since many challenges force us to grow and adapt, and building something from relative scratch provides interesting freedom for many.
  • Cons:
    • Startups are not for everyone since, by nature, the demand for growth and execution is extraordinarily high and can make or break them. Depending on the quality and experience of the founders and their executive teams, startups can also be very disorganized and chaotic, which unfortunately often translates into lengthy working hours or a lack of focus on their employee's work-life balance.
    • Compensations may vary greatly depending on the startup's maturity and the strategies it chooses to employ. Lower demand compared to a few years ago also means the range of salaries tends to be lower, although less pronounced for talents with strong experience since they will always be in high demand. For a concrete example, principal/lead level talents who used to earn in the 70-80 million IDR range need to adjust their expectations slightly lower to the 50-60 million IDR range in total compensations and should expect a mix of cash and equity to their package.
  • Target Regions:
    • Jakarta is still Indonesia's #1 market for local startups. Some startups may adopt a remote working culture that enables their workers to work from anywhere in Indonesia, but it's relatively rare, especially for earlier-stage ones.
  • How to maximize your opportunity?
    • There is a sweet spot regarding funding size and timeline that we can use as a yardstick to identify startups that still have a healthy appetite for hiring and scaling up their tech talent team. There's a natural tendency to focus on larger startups (e.g., Series C+ with >$100M in valuation) when seeking the next startup to apply, but please keep in mind that earlier-stage startups can also be viable candidates since many of them are hiring experienced talents to accelerate their growth.
    • For earlier-stage startups, look for those who had recently (within the past 6 months) secured funding since they usually have growth capital to deploy through scaling up their teams. Seed funding is fine, although Series-A or Series-B startups would be ideal since it usually means they have found a product-market fit, and their recent fundraising is intended to scale up their operations significantly.
    • Growth-stage startups (e.g., those in Series-C and above with more than $100M in valuation) are usually under intense pressure to secure their next-stage growth and funding. Unfortunately, this also means many face difficulties executing the necessary growth, translating into difficulties securing fresh capital to continue their operation. A disproportionate number of startup mass layoffs happen at this stage, typically driven by the failure to execute the growth targets or being forced to accept a down round.
    • We can deploy strategies similar to those we used for earlier-stage startups to mitigate the above risk. Seek those who had recently (within 6-12 months) secured new funding, but with an additional caveat that some of them may plan to execute layoffs within 3-6 months after securing said funding. This layoff risk is unfortunate because the aforementioned funding might have tranche clauses attached to it (e.g., it will only be partially or wholly released when the startup meets certain KPIs or targets). Sometimes, a desperate startup may do layoffs to stem its burn and meet some of its goals.
    • In any case, one of the strongest influencing factors for your opportunity to get hired is referrals from someone who already worked in the startup. From the startup's perspective, they receive thousands of applicants for each opening, so they welcome any signals from a trusted internal employee that a candidate may be a stronger fit. This internal referral means networking will be one of the most important strategies in your arsenal, so please don't hesitate to reach out to your former colleagues or friends who work in the above startups and ask them to refer you internally.

Option 4: Join an Established Corporation

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Photo by Hunters Race / Unsplash
  • Pros:
    • Compared to the failure risks in tech startups, where more than 90% failed within the first few years of their foundation, stable corporate work usually carries with it a healthy and profitable business and a mature operating culture. This stability can be significant pros, especially for those tired of the uncertainties or rapid paces of tech startups.
    • Corporations also typically have slower growth targets or less risk of going bankrupt, which can translate to a healthier work-life balance since the pressure is less than in a tech startup. Note that this is not always a given since some corporations may already have built a habit of operating under intensive pressure as part of their established culture.
  • Cons:
    • Established corporations may expect a more rigid work style with an 8-to-5 office presence, which is understandable since it has brought them success so far, but it may not be suitable for those who require more flexibility in self-organizing their work or productive hours.
    • Corporations, especially those already publicly traded, usually have an established hierarchy and decision-making protocols designed to reduce risk or maintain adherence to a strong compliance requirement. Those who are used to a fast and decisive pace in deciding strategies and directions may consider this hierarchy too stifling or needing some time to adjust.
    • Since the pace and targets are more relaxed than in tech startups, compensations may not be as high because there is less need to hire top stellar talents who can make or break the company's trajectory and future.
  • Target Regions:
    • Similar to Option 3, Jakarta still has most of the corporate headquarters where most of this opportunity resides, but this option also provides more widespread options since many cities outside of Jakarta also have established corporations. Some corporations also have regional headquarters where we may be placed, giving us more options than just in Jakarta.
  • How to maximize your opportunity?
    • For those wondering why I didn't mention unicorn startups in Option 3, I consider most of them already in the corporate phase instead of startups. Startups, by definition, need to prove they can generate sustainable business in an unproven market, and reaching a unicorn means they have validated a working business model and are on the trajectory to reach a break-even point. This reality means their hiring appetite does exist, but it is usually not intended to scale their team or technology but to make their operation more efficient and reach that break-even point according to their plans and projections. Understanding this is crucial to understand which corporations to target to maximize our opportunity.
    • Besides unicorns, many "traditional" corporations (i.e., those who already generate healthy profits with their business operations) seek to improve their bottom lines by executing a digital transformation in recent years. If you want to target them, seek corporations or state-owned enterprises with a dedicated digital transformation team or someone with a strong digital business drive and experience sitting on their board seat.
    • Another avenue is applying to consulting businesses, especially those with a strong digital presence, project, or arm. These businesses typically have large-scale corporate clients and handle digital projects worth tens or hundreds of millions of dollars per year. Note that the working pace may be quite high even compared to tech startups, but it should be quite rewarding since, in most cases, you can bill your overtime to the client companies. One example you can try out is at Accenture Indonesia, which has opening dedicated for tech roles, but some consulting companies are willing to hire tech talents under a generic consultant position. Reach out and see what they have in store.
    • Last but not least, especially for those in senior position, tech management, or team leadership, a lot of those corporations are leveraging headhunting companies as their hiring pipeline. Reach out to headhunters to submit your CV and let them work through their client to help you find a suitable placement. These headhunters are paid by commission from the employer, so they won't charge you anything and would be happy to receive highly qualified CVs for their potential clients. Several headhunters operating in Indonesia that you can try out:

Option 5: Found Your Own Startup

pile of assorted-title books
Photo by Daria Nepriakhina 🇺🇦 / Unsplash
  • Pros:
    • For those with a dream or vision for a tech product that they can't shake off for many years, the challenging hiring situation in the market right now can translate to higher pros in founding your startup since the opportunity cost is at an all-time low. In a different market, you may be forgoing a highly lucrative job if you found your startup, but at the present market the delta may not be that far off.
  • Cons:
    • This may sound obvious as well, but one of the largest contrarian arguments against founding a startup is that it has a 90% failure rate when viewed over multiple years after founding. The odds of a successful execution increase significantly when the founding team has prior experience building a successful tech product, but it's never guaranteed success.
    • Funding for tech startups can be challenging, and many founders are stressed out since they have to spend their own personal capital to bootstrap founding a startup. This funding constraint is one of the reasons why the difficulty level for this option is extreme compared to the others.
  • Target Regions:
    • You can technically found and operate a startup from anywhere, but you will likely need to establish the startup (or at least have a physical presence) in the area where your target market is. For Indonesian startups, this means having one of your cofounders or founding team reside in Jakarta, since that's where most of the economies are.
    • Depending on your ideas and ambitions, you may consider targeting a global market for the tech product you want to build with your startup. Going global means the level of execution needs to be higher as well since you'll be competing with startups from all over the world, but the business potential (and valuation upside potentials) can also be correspondingly higher.
  • How to maximize your opportunity?
    • Having the right founders can literally make or break the startup, especially in its early days as it seeks product-market fit. If you want to explore this option, I recommend reading this article on the process of finding a co-founder. Even if you already have someone in mind and you have worked together for years, I still recommend going through the article and having each of you fill in most of the 50 Questions to Explore with a Potential Co-Founder so that you all can align better with each other on the principles and challenging questions that comes with the territory of founding and running your startup.
    • Once you meet and click with your co-founder, you will need to brainstorm an idea to execute and build. This process can go wild all over the place, but I highly recommend finding ideas that the founders are passionate about while also validating the idea with external people to see whether it is too niche or has broad potential.
    • Next, you need to figure out the startup's financial plans and situations. Will the startup finances and expenses be something the founders can bootstrap to a certain extent? Do the founders project the bootstrap to be sufficient all the way to profitability, or will you need external funding at some point? At which point will the founders start to draw salaries from the company's funds?
    • After determining the startup's financial plans and each founder's commitment to executing them, the next important step is to determine the equity split between the founders. I recommend using this Startup Equity Calculator and filling out all the questionnaires so that you can use it as a starting point and modify the split until all founders are aligned.
    • If you require external funding, consider engaging with VCs as a pre-seed investor or incubator. VCs have a reputation for overbearingly controlling startups they invest in, especially in Indonesia where the funding options are relatively limited. However, they may also lessen the pressure on the founders' personal finances, enabling them to focus on iterating the product for a product-market fit or growth. VCs operate at different levels corresponding with their strategy or investment thesis, and at a very early stage (e.g., the pre-seed stage, where the idea hasn't even found any product-market fit), the available options are relatively limited. Some early-stage Indonesian or regional VCs that you may try include:
    • In practice, the above VCs may not want to invest in the startup if they do not buy in with the idea or the execution potential of the founding team. Consider that you may need to invest some effort or funding to build an MVP before meeting with them again and convincing them to invest.

General Strategies on Maximizing Your Chances

Regardless of the options you choose above, there are general strategies that apply to almost all of them that you can use to maximize your chances of navigating the current situation.

Optimize Your Professional Profile and CV

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Photo by Swello / Unsplash

Working on your LinkedIn profile and CVs that you are sending to companies or potential investors can be the largest differentiating factor in increasing your chances for success. Almost all hiring now goes through LinkedIn in one way or another. Even companies that track their candidates through their own internal system will review your profile on LinkedIn at some point. Please spend a couple of days improving and polishing it as much as possible.

Unfortunately, most recruiters receive so many applications for each role that they can only spend 6-10 seconds skimming a CV before deciding to invest more time in reading your CV or throwing it into the junk pile. Therefore, we need to optimize the CV to maximize its impact within a single glance.

The following heat map from undergradsuccess.com illustrates a recruiter's focus when reading a CV and how long they spent reading specific CV sections.

As you can see, recruiters will not scrutinize every section. From the above data, combined with my personal experience reviewing and interviewing thousands of candidates throughout my career, I've made a CV template that you can copy and edit in this link, screenshotted below:

If you want to copy the template above (choose File -> Make a Copy, and start edit in your data), please carefully read the comments that outline my guidance on each section. Don't forget to delete the header before printing or exporting it as a PDF. Your CV should never be more than a single page, and you should always tailor it for every individual company that you are applying for.

Plan Your Finances

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Photo by Sarah Elizabeth / Unsplash

Losing or ending a job can be incredibly stressful. In my experience, mapping our finances and plotting which points in our calendar we need to take offers can help reorient us in these confusing times.

On one side, you can calculate your savings, severances, bonuses, compensations, and incomes from spouses. Conversely, you can evaluate your expenses and reduce them as much as possible.

In effect, you're trying to operate as a startup and "extend your runway" as long as possible. Once you know how long you have to explore various opportunities and decide to take an offer, you can allocate some time at the front of the runway to relax and unwind from all the stresses you have accumulated during your career. The key takeaway from this is don't forget to give yourself a short break before applying elsewhere again.

Build Your Network

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Photo by Duy Pham / Unsplash

Building a strong professional network is about creating genuine relationships that may open doors to unexpected opportunities. Every meaningful interaction with former colleagues, industry peers, or community members may lead to opportunities that rarely appear through traditional job boards or applications.

During career transitions, informal connections often surface as the most promising opportunities. Remember that behind every job posting and company is a group of people who've faced technical challenges like you did. Reaching out authentically and staying engaged with your network creates possibilities for everyone involved.

Practically, this means regularly sharing your journey, supporting others where you can, and staying connected with colleagues who've impacted your growth. We never know where our next opportunity comes from, so reaching out to your network can increase the surface of luck and opportunities you expose yourself to.

Sharpen Your Skills

pencil and sharpener on notebook page
Photo by Angelina Litvin / Unsplash

As you go through the motions of applying to various companies, invest some time to sharpen your skills. Identify areas that sound interesting for you to explore. Use AI-assisted tools such as Cursor or GitHub Copilot to build a side project in areas you have always wanted to explore but have never had the chance to do before. They can also be a strong addition to your portfolio when applying for or exploring certain roles in your search.

The rise of AI-assistance tools also means the breadth of your skills can reach a much broader scope and impact than ever before. Solid technical skill and knowledge in one area (e.g., backend engineering) can now translate much easier to a different area (e.g., server-side web rendering) since AIs can assist us and frequently answer our clarifying questions as we trod along unfamiliar grounds.

There has never been a more feasible time for experienced talents to learn something new, and we should factor this potential into our next steps in exploration.

Final Thoughts

Remember that tech winters, while challenging, often create opportunities for those who approach them strategically. The key is to remain adaptable while building fundamental skills that will remain valuable regardless of market conditions.

Don't feel pressured to make perfect decisions—focus instead on making progress. Start with small steps, whether updating your CV, learning a new skill, or contacting your network. Each action builds momentum toward your next opportunity.

Most importantly, remember that this temporary market condition doesn't define your worth. Technology remains one of the most dynamic and opportunity-rich fields, and the fundamental need for skilled technologists continues to grow. This winter, like all winters, will pass. The question is: how will you position yourself for spring?

Keep building, keep learning, and stay focused on your long-term growth. The tech industry's greatest strength has always been its ability to reinvent itself—and so can you.