Brand Value ≠ Cringe Content

These days, there's this idea floating around that every engineer needs to have a personal brand.

Basically, it means being super active on social media eg: X, LinkedIn, Reddit, etc.

But somewhere along the way, people started getting it wrong. Many engineers take the easy route: repost someone else's content, throw in a photo like you're doing a photo shoot, post cringe takes on X, and keep replying to get more attention. All this to get "visibility" and has no relation with their skills.

The playbook of cringe content:

1 . Sell the FAANG/MAANG dream

2 . Share the “I came from a 3-tier college and made it” struggle story

3 . Talk non-stop about interview questions

4 . Tag people with big followings or famous companies randomly

5 . Rejections to success by using same random-expensive-course

Basically, post anything that grabs attention and don’t forget to add that “cool pose” picture.

Let’s be honest—spending hours designing your perfect LinkedIn cover photo or picking the right profile picture won’t help your actual engineering career. That effort would be way more useful if you put it into building something, learning something new, or solving real problems.

None of this flashy content shows what you can really do as an engineer.

It doesn't reflect your skills, creativity, or ability to solve problems. Unless your goal is just to collect likes and leads, it's honestly just cringe.

Creating crigne content ≠ being an engineer.

Your content should show what you know, what you’ve built, and how you think. That’s what future teams and hiring managers care about—how you can help build real solutions, not how good your linkdin cover picture, profile pic looks, or same reptitive content.

So stop wasting your time (and the internet’s). Build more. Show your work. That’s your real brand.

So, what should one do?

1 . Have a active linkedin but not posting irrelevant content.

2 . Post content which reflects your skills, and knowledges.

3 . Stop wasting your time in selecting the best cover picture. Have a profressional picture.

4 . Build projects to reflect your skills.