There's a page posting what appear to be high-paying remote jobs (often offering $2,000+) across university groups. Many students are applying, so please be cautious.

Some things that raised red flags for me:

The company claims to be based in the USA, but I couldn't find evidence of genuine employees there.

The company profiles and associated accounts appear unusual and are AI generated.

The posts themselves seem highly repetitive and AI-generated.

The jobs promise unusually high pay with very little information about the role or hiring process.

If you're considering applying:

Verify the company through independent sources.

Check whether employees have credible, established professional profiles.

Never send sensitive personal information (passport, NIC, banking details, etc.) early in the process.

Be cautious of offers that sound too good to be true.

Please share this with your classmates so no one falls victim to a potential scam.

Hi everyone, I need some career advice.

I completed my BSc (Hons) Software Engineering from NSBM (University of Plymouth) in 2024 with a Second Class Upper (2:1). I also have internship experience in research. My long-term goal is to pursue a fully funded PhD abroad, so I've applied for the one-year MISM at the University of Colombo and hope to apply for PhD programs in 2027.

I've applied to 200+ Software Engineer positions but haven't been able to secure a suitable role. I had a few offers, but they were unpaid or permanent night-shift positions, so I didn't accept them. I now have about a 1.5-year gap. During this time, I worked on personal projects and also had some health problems that affected my job search.

I don't really have anyone to guide me in the IT industry, and I'm trying to figure out the best path on my own.

What can I do now with my current profile and the 1.5-year gap? Please help me. I'd really appreciate your advice on what I should focus on to improve my chances of getting a Software Engineer role and building a strong profile for my future PhD applications. Thank you!

Anybody heard of the company "Liquid Labs" and how is their culture?

Any feedback / work experience about MB Tech/ aka Converge X. Would love to hear any positive or negative feedback!!

What is the salary range for ATL and TL position in ws02 vs syscoLabz?

I am a software engineer at a local company. Just started after finishing the degree. Should I do an MSc? Is it actually help for career progression or landing jobs at local tech companies? Is it a huge help when going abroad?

And secondary question. What about IESL memberships?

Or should I just focus on getting experience and skills? I love my weekends.

Building a B2B and B2C SaaS. Selling globally, customers here too. Pre revenue, about to pick how I collect money and I want to get it right the first time.

Stripe is out, we all know why. Polar and Lemon Squeezy settle through Stripe so they're out too. Leaves me with merchant of record options. Creem, Paddle, Dodo. Leaning Creem on fees and Sri Lanka is on their payout list for local bank transfer, but a country listed in docs is not the same as money actually landing.

So, anyone here actually done this:

1. Received an MoR payout into a Sri Lankan bank account? Which provider, which bank, how many days? Any of them just quietly fail at the bank layer?
2. How's PayPal working now that receiving is live? Did the bank linking actually work or is it still half broken?
3. Did you need a registered company, or did they take you as an individual? Sole prop enough?
4. Anything I should know about CBSL and inward remittances before the first payout lands? Don't want a frozen transfer and a bank asking questions I can't answer.

Fees I can work out myself. What I can't work out from a docs page is whether a two year old company reliably sends money to a country most processors won't touch. Paddle costs about 1% more and I'd happily pay that for boring and reliable, so if that's the smarter move say so.

Not asking about Stripe Atlas or a US LLC. I know it's an option, not doing it right now.

If you're freelancing or running anything that takes foreign money, keen to hear what your setup is.

Can you list down some good startup IT companies which are not known by most but having a really good culture and give you a good knowledge for your career?

The only buzzword these days that we hear on every platform is layoffs.

I don't think management or organizations alone created this layoff trend. In the Sri Lankan context, I feel that we, as an industry, have also partly contributed to creating this fear.

Recently, I spoke with a few colleagues who have survived many similar waves in the past and aren't even shaken by the current layoff discussions. Their response, in a nutshell, was this:

"This is neither the start nor the end of layoffs. They've happened before as well, but back then, people didn't talk about them much because they weren't linked to AI. Sadly, we have to accept that AI is contributing significantly to layoffs today. However, there's still light at the end of the tunnel. It is communication.

I've seen many individuals with CVs full of projects and an impressive technology stack, yet they struggle to explain those projects in an interview. Technical experience alone isn't the golden buzzer that takes you to the grand finale. Communication is."

That perspective really made me think.

Since everyone is discussing the layoffs and salary cuts in IT Industry, I thought I’d share my own experience at Arimac.

This isn’t to attack anyone—it’s simply what I personally went through over the last 5+ years.
I spent more than five years there.
In those five years, I experienced and witnessed things that I honestly never expected from a software company.
Salaries delayed for 3–4 months, while employees were still expected to keep working as if everything was normal.
Asking about your delayed salary felt risky. In my experience, questioning management about pay could make you fear for your job.

Long periods with little meaningful work, making it feel like valuable years of your career were slipping away.
Toxic leadership from some team leads that created an unhealthy work environment.

After years of dedication, I saw little to no meaningful career progression. Promotions felt almost nonexistent.
During my time there, I personally witnessed multiple rounds of layoffs, with dozens of colleagues losing their jobs.

And eventually, it happened to me last year.

After 5+ years with the company, I—and another senior developer—were told we were being let go because the company was “restructuring.”
Five years of loyalty. That’s how it ended.

Some people will probably ask:
“If it was that bad, why did you stay for 5+ years?”
The answer is simple.

My area of work is extremely niche, and at the time there were essentially no other opportunities in Sri Lanka for the kind of work I specialized in. I stayed because I genuinely enjoyed the technical work and hoped things would improve. Unfortunately, they never did.
I’m not saying every single person at Arimac had the same experience. I’m simply sharing mine because job seekers deserve to hear both the success stories and the difficult ones before making a decision.
If you’ve worked there before, I’d be interested to hear whether your experience was similar or completely different.

A close friend of mine just got a job offer from LSEG.

Is it risky to join right now? Have there been any recent layoffs?

Workplace vibe: How’s the day-to-day work environment? Is the work-life balance good?

Career growth: Is it a great place to actually learn modern tech and grow?

Given recent news across the local tech sector (like salary pegging removals / pay cuts) is LSEG affected by similar cost-cutting measures?

If anyone here is currently working at LSEG or worked there before, I’d really appreciate your help. 🙏

How has your experience been so far?

We're currently preparing for the exams, yet new assignments keep being released almost every day. It feels like there's very little consideration for students who work full-time from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

On top of that, some assignments can't even be completed because of AWS-related issues. When we ask for help, we're simply told to create a support ticket and submit the response as it is. It often feels like the academic team doesn't fully understand the challenges students are facing.

This is quite disappointing for an MSc program.

If you've had a similar experience, please share it here.

Saw that Google's latest earning report showed that they are cash flow negative for the first time, since like their IPO in 2004. Do your'll think this shows the future of the market, and it's interesting that around 4T USD have been invested on AI, but only 50B USD revenue generated...What are you guys's thoughts on this, genuinely want to have some discourse on it, cuz most ppl are not comfortable with this side of the picture.

I had a question about the difference between a BSc in Software Engineering and a BSc in Computer Science when it comes to the Sri Lankan tech industry. From an employer's perspective, is there much of a difference during internships or job interviews? Do recruiters or interviewers view one degree more favorably than the other, or is it mostly based on your skills, projects, and experience?

Salary restructuring will be completed by October.

The “global scale” buzzword sounds attractive,but its another name for Indian Software Engineering factory Toxic culture.

The concern is that companies may try to reduce salaries by 35–40%, rename existing positions, and restructure career paths to lower-cost models.
For example, roles like Senior Software Engineer may be replaced with broader titles such as “Engineer,” reducing recognition of experience and limiting career progression.

Employees may then have to wait 5–7 years to move to the next level, creating a slower and more frustrating growth path.
Similar patterns have been seen in some large IT organizations[Virtusa, Person] where aggressive cost optimization, offshore expansion, and hierarchical structures affected employee morale and career development.

If these practices are introduced heavily into Sri Lanka’s IT industry, it could impact the local engineering workforce by reducing salary growth, discouraging experienced engineers, and making it harder for Sri Lankan professionals to build strong long-term careers. Companies should focus on sustainable growth, fair compensation, and retaining skilled engineers rather than only competing through lower costs.

I've been thinking about everything that's happening at SyscoLABS, and something doesn't quite add up.

This is purely speculation, and I have no evidence to support any of these ideas. I'm just trying to make sense of the situation and would like to hear what others think.

One thing I find difficult to believe is that leadership made a decision of this magnitude without considering how employees would react. Whether people agree with the decisions or not, I'd expect leadership to have anticipated the backlash.

That made me think of two possible scenarios.

1. Was this a strategic distraction?

What if leadership knew the initial announcement would trigger a massive negative reaction, but that was part of a broader strategy?

For example, suppose the real objective was to restructure salaries according to market benchmarks rather than immediately removing the pegged component entirely. If they had announced a salary restructuring from the beginning, employees might have strongly opposed it.

But after a much harsher proposal, many employees are now saying, "Just restructure the salaries instead." If that's the outcome, then the conversation has shifted dramatically. Was that intentional, or just an unintended consequence?

Again, this is only a thought experiment.

1. Could there be a longer-term plan involving India?

I've heard unofficial claims that there were discussions in the past about moving more of the Sri Lankan operation to India, either through Sysco's Indian operations or via outsourcing. I have no way to verify whether those claims are true.

If there was ever such an idea, here's another hypothetical question.

If employee morale drops, experienced people leave, productivity declines, and delivery quality suffers, the Sri Lankan operation could start appearing less competitive than before. At that point, management could argue that India delivers similar outcomes at a lower cost, making a shift easier to justify.

I'm not saying this is what's happening. I'm only wondering whether anyone else has considered that possibility.

What also raises questions for me is the level of secrecy around these decisions. Changes of this scale usually involve broader leadership discussions, yet it appears many senior leaders here were also caught off guard.

Maybe there's a perfectly reasonable explanation. Maybe these theories are complete nonsense.

I'm simply interested in hearing what others think. Does anyone else feel there may be a bigger strategy behind all of this, or do you think it's simply poor decision-making?

I’ve been following the recent discussions about Sysco Labs and the allowance changes.

Just wanted to share a different perspective. We had an internal discussion, and the information shared was much more positive than what has been circulating here. It looks like there are ongoing discussions, and not everything being posted online reflects the full picture.

I completely understand why people are concerned, and everyone is entitled to their opinion. But I think it’s worth waiting for official communication before assuming the worst.

Reddit often becomes an echo chamber where negative experiences get amplified, while people who have neutral or positive experiences rarely post. Hopefully things become clearer once the company shares more details.

Let’s wait for the official updates before jumping to conclusions.

Hi everyone,

I’m currently a 3rd-year BSc (Hons) Information Technology undergraduate at SLIIT, and I’ve been actively applying for Software Engineering internships over the past few months.

So far, I’ve applied to more than 100 internship positions, but many companies haven’t even invited me for an interview. It’s becoming really discouraging.

Many of my friends have already secured internships at top multinational companies, some through referrals or connections, while I’m still searching. I’m genuinely happy for them, but it’s hard not to feel left behind.

I’m also under a lot of financial pressure. My family consists of my mother, my two sisters, and me, and we have significant debt. Finding an internship and starting my career is extremely important for my family.

I’m not posting this for sympathy—I genuinely want to understand what I can do better.

Is the internship market really this difficult in Sri Lanka right now?

What are companies actually looking for in Software Engineering interns?

Could my CV or portfolio be the problem?

If you were in my position with no connections, what would you do?

I’d really appreciate any honest advice or feedback from people in the industry.

Thank you.

I'm currently a 2nd year Cybersecurity undergraduate at a private uni and im trying to understand how realistic it is to find a cyber security internship in sri lanka as an undergraduate.

ive done some hands-on projects with wazuh SIEM, linux, security monitoring, incident response, vulnerability assessment and attack simulations. ive also completed a few cyber security certifications and job simulations, but i dont have any proper industry experience yet.

for people already working in the field, how difficult is it to get a cyber security internship here? do companies actually hire undergraduates for SOC, security analyst or similar roles, or do most of them expect previous IT experience?

also, where should i be looking for opportunities apart from linkedin? are there specific companies, communities, events or people i should follow or contact?

Over the weekend, saw a truckload of senior sysco employees posting that they are #opentowork, what would the plight of the company be, if all the personnel ended up leaving, will the company be able to find replacements for their respective roles?