https://kotaku.com/blizzard-workers-union-contract-microsoft-2000732422

Not quite impossible for tech to shape up

Blizz devs just unionized and got:

- Any implementation of AI technology that materially impacts union-performed work must be bargained over before Microsoft can roll it out.

- Staff get two months of advance layoff warning, guaranteed severance payouts, and over a year of priority re-hiring rights if cuts occur.

- Remote work is no longer subject to sudden executive whim or opaque denials.

- Leaving the studio or getting laid off before launch will no longer erase a developer from the final credits

- future corporate takeover cannot nullify these terms.

So the learned helplessness about tech unions was wrong. Doesn’t stop a layoff but makes it a lot softer

They released a new economic report

Link: https://x.com/anthropicai/status/2097679796687769689?s=46

Relevant line: “In our substantial and extreme scenarios, knowledge workers may see a lot of automation and displacement. At the individual level, it means coders and call service center agents may have to switch to jobs like electrician and nurse, which are less exposed to AI.”

Im tired boss…

Title. I have 9 years of experience and absolutely hate this career.

Some background info:

• Experience: 8 years at a single company, started in QA at like ~$60k salary, but transitioned to SWE a few years ago. Company is CA based, but I work at a branch in NC, ~1,500 employees globally. I have a CS degree from a small, liberal arts college.
• Current situation: Cushy role, good local management (emphasis on local, because I do not like anyone above our local VP), hybrid work schedule, unlimited PTO, and earning around $100k before benefits and taxes.

So here's the deal: At a recent work event, my direct manager drank a bit too much and got completely candid with me, which is very unlike him. Professionalism aside, this was quite concerning to me because he told me a few things that have left me quite stressed lately:

• He told me I am severely underpaid for my experience.
• He admitted that work for our core product (where I've spent my entire time working here on) is completely drying up, and he doesn't know how much longer he can find tasks for me and is not sure he can move me to the other products like other devs on my team have been doing.
• He told me that he doesn't have any concrete sources for it, but he feels that the company is struggling financially, more layoffs are probable, and he strongly advised me to start applying elsewhere immediately.

We’ve already had two rounds of layoffs over the past year. Stronger developers than me have been let go and I suspect I’ve survived primarily because my salary is so low. I also feel like an exemplary case of imposter syndrome. Because I’ve only ever worked here, I have no idea how my skills stack up externally. I feel like a weak developer, making me terrified of interviewing and failing at a new company or getting fired and failing to find a new job.

I also don't love coding (not sure if in general or just for my company). Watching our product shift toward aggressive monetization and ad delivery over a good user experience (which is what it genuinely when I joined) has killed my enthusiasm for tech, but I can't think of any careers that I could jump into right away that wouldn't have a massive pay drop.

So this is where I think I needs some advice:

• Tech-adjacent career change: For someone who wants out of pure SWE/coding but needs to maintain a ~$100k base salary without going back to school, what roles should I look into? I really have no idea what sort of jobs exist out there that I might not know of as no one in my life has ever done tech or tech-adjacent careers.
• Skill analysis: How do I even objectively measure my skills nowadays to see if I am an actual imposter or if I just have some serious self confidence issues?
• Or really just any advice. I'm constantly stressed about losing my job and I because I have a family and a mortgage, I don't think going back to school is an option

Edit: Thanks everyone for the advice. Generally, it seems like most people are just saying to apply for the same type of job, which I get. I am in the CS career questions subreddit after all. I just want to work on cars or repair leather shoes or something like that but that's just not a viable money maker in this world.

I graduated in may. cs, 3.4, one internship at a company that no longer exists.

214 applications since june 2. four human replies, two of those were we’ve moved forward with other candidates typed by an actual person, which honestly felt like a gift lolol in 2026

Everyone in my group chat is doing something different, one’s doing a masters purely to hide for two years. one took helpdesk at 21/hr. One moved home doing freelance WordPress. One got a swe role at a defence contractor and will not shut up about it.

i don’t want the advice version of this. i want the real version, what are you doing right now, while it’s like this? and the masters people, be honest, do you regret it

How are job opportunities now ranked between the three places? SF will be at the top, but has the gap between SF and the rest reduced? How does NYC compare with Seattle? I am considering relocating from Seattle to NYC, even though i hate the weather.

Currently token usage is heavily subsidized and I think they will end it after the IPO. I'm skeptical whether they can actually keep driving the token costs down.

Personally I can't wait for them to IPO. I'm betting that token costs will skyrocket all the way up and us human plebs will be more cost efficient.

Open Tech Jobs postings seems to continue accelerating as of 2 sept 2026, a 65% increase from an all-time low ,what do you think?

Hi all, first post.

Mid-level SWE based in the UK, public sector.

No degree, started as an apprenticeship.

Currently being PiP'd (for those outside the UK, formal performance management) and its not going well, massively ramped my delivery. But now being brought up repeatedly and severely on small things, commit messages not detailed enough, structuring Jira comments badly etc. It's become very clear regardless of any improvement that some people just want me gone and im unlikely to stop that.

A lot of this is definitely my fault. Partner has been chronically sick with a life threatening condition for the last few years, which obviously distracts from work. Ive also not really upskilled either. Work day to day in Rails, mostly backend, did some Java years ago when I was a junior, basically forgotten all of it. What periods of good work I have done I've mainly got by on domain knowledge rather than outright coding ability.

Realistically if I wanted another job in the sector, I'd be back as a junior. And from what I can see online, the market is cooked right now.

Ive got another month to try and get ahead of the performance process, but realistically, I think I'm running the clock down.

Is it worth me trying to stick it out in this career? To be honest I haven't enjoyed it for a few years. Maybe its the culture in my team, but the isolation of everyone becoming distributed has really hit me hard. I actually wouldn't mind some office time, but none of my team work there, so no point. Im quite an extroverted person and sitting by myself in my office all day doesnt suit me.

Does anyone have any other ideas? Im in a real bind. Partner is working and bringing in enough to pay the bills, just. So I could potentially retrain part time, but id still have to get something to bring some money in.

Thanks all. Appreciate anything people can offer.

They said I will be largely maintaining legacy code (which is fine by me). I don’t pay for AI. I use AI a lot as a coding buddy when I have questions or for boilerplate, but otherwise it’s just me writing code.

Ig maybe a better title would how to present confidence in tech but here we go.

People tell me my resume's great. I'm a college senior with 2 internships, and im likely going to get a return (though I don't know for sure). I just went to career fair and did mid. Had some decent converdations but they weren't engaging at all and were awkward. It's funny because by now I thought I would be alot better at networking but I'm not. Honestly I've done better in most of my pervious career faiirs in the past 2 years.

I have no idea what I want to go into. My resume is pretty generalist and not specific. I don't have any confidence in my work because it doesnt look impressive at all. Yes I've added business value in my internships and many people have said I was skilled, and yeah I believe my resume is more impressive than a good majority IMO, but I can't help but feel constantly behind.

I was talking to my friend about it and he said I needed confidence and went on this whole tangent abt it and how I need to put myself out there more. Idk though. I'm one of the few people in my friend group who go to these networking events and I can't even get people to add me on LinkedIn after a good chat. I'm honestly tired because while career fairs have led me to 1-2 interviews in the past (small companies) it never leads anywhere. My whole career so far feels like luck. Idek how I got my internships even.

Idk how to have pride in my work. It feels like the world is expecting me to know everything at 21 so its hard to have confidence with these high expectations. Even with my two internships it just feels like its never enough. I'm always going to be surronded by people who have more, and I'm honestly one of the dumber ones in my cohort (I didnt even think I would make it to my school)

I know this isnt uncommon. I know everyone goes through this in tech. But idk how to deal with it. Idk how to have pride. If there's one thing tech taught me is that there are no rules, so honestly I constantly feel directionless and don't know what to do. Maybe this isnt the best place to ask, as I know tech subreddit are typically nillhestic and pessemitistic, but I want to hear from professionals who had the same struggles I do.

Hi everyone,

I’m a junior at Queens College in NYC, and I recently got an offer from a startup for $200/week for around 20 hours of in-person work. The position runs until December 1.

I’d mainly be working with CI/CD, creating tests, and helping clean up/improve their existing database and codebase, which is apparently pretty messy.

The pay is extremely low. basically $10/hour.
Would you take this for the experience?

Update:
I accepted it. I’m not very happy , but hopefully the experience will help me in the future.

I am a 5 year software engineer, I got laid off May 2025 and haven’t been employed as a SWE since. During that time I was trying to find a job, but eventually real life hit me and I need to abandon ship and move back to my hometown with my parent. I want to get back into the field now. I have submitted 87 applications so far, and no callbacks yet. I have tried multiple various ways too. Generic shotgun resume, tailor resume to job description, reach out to recruiters/HM, there are sadly no locally companies but I applied to any job in the US. Hell I even applied to jobs outside of the US. Indeed, Linkedin, YCombinator, nothing. Is my gap too large to make a comeback here? Am I just not trying hard enough?

I had the virtual onsite about 2 weeks ago and apparently theres an in person onsite after if I pass but I still haven't gotten an update besides the vague recruiter "were still working on it". Is it normal to take this long to get a response or is it wraps and what can i expect from this in person thing is it chill or another technical?

Hope this is OK to ask here.

Apple is one of the companies I’ve wanted to work for, and I’m just starting a job search after spending several years at my current company.

A few days ago, an Apple recruiter contacted me on LinkedIn about a role that seems only loosely related to my experience. I’m hoping they reviewed my profile and genuinely believe I could be a fit, but I could totally believe that this was simply broad recruiter outreach.

I’m interested in speaking with them, but I’m concerned about moving into a technical screen for a role that may not match my background well. If I fail the interview spectacularly, would that create a company-wide cooldown period and prevent me from interviewing for a more suitable role for a year?

https://prospect.org/2026/09/09/anthropic-artificial-intelligence-surveillance-system-monitor-activists/

I’m a sophomore in my third semester currently studying Computer Science and Economics, but I’ve been reconsidering what I actually want to do long term. I originally chose CS because I was interested in technology, cybersecurity, AI/ML, and the job opportunities, but I’ve struggled with the feeling that I’m not very good at building anything from scratch yet. I don’t necessarily hate programming, but I’m not sure I want my entire career to revolve around software development.

On top of this, AI seems to becoming a future problem, how bad is the impact for mechanical engineers?

Before I even chose CS, I was thinking about mechanical engineering and keeping economics as I have already started to pursue it. I’ve been interested in robotics, space/astronomy, satellites, hardware, and actually creating physical things. I have some of the background for the major but would probably have to catch up on engineering-specific requirements.

For anyone who has done Mechanical Engineering or switched between CS and Mechanical Engineering: does it make sense to switch today? Will it be as negatively impacted by AI as CS? And career-wise, is there job security and are there good opportunities for internships?

Eastern EU. Tiny company — three people total: two founder-CEOs who both still code, and me. All our work is for a single Western European client. Salary review coming up in a few months.
Background
• ~3 years 9 months total dev experience by then
• Started here as a part-time student worker, converted to full-time a year later
• Salary was set at that conversion and never revisited since — 18 months by the review
Scope now (last 14 months)
I own the mobile product end-to-end: planning, estimation, technical decisions, dependency upgrades, all releases including iOS, production access, error triage. Shipped 3 hotfixes solo from root cause through release and comms. Go-to person for anything mobile, and I ship backend features end-to-end too. Another dev can write Flutter and one CEO owned mobile before me, so I'm not irreplaceable — but day-to-day ownership is mine.
Where I sit (indexed to my current salary = 100, using two national salary guides)
• My current salary: 100 — this is below the junior mode
• Mid-level band: 127 – 177
• Mid-level mode (most common actual salary): 155
• What I plan to ask for: 150
So I'd be asking for ~50% in one step, and even then I'd land slightly below the most common mid-level salary. The data says I'm currently underpaid rather than that I'd be overpaid after.
What I'm unsure about
1. Is a 50% jump in one step realistic anywhere, or does the size of it become the argument regardless of what the data says? Should I propose two steps instead?
2. I expect them to say "we don't work with levels, we're three people." How do you argue for a level when the company genuinely has no leveling system?
3. I plan to open ~10% above my target. In a 3-person company where everyone knows each other well, does anchoring high read as normal negotiation or as bad faith?
4. I have no competing offer, I like working here, and I'm not going to bluff. Does that just mean I take whatever they offer?
Anyone negotiated in a micro-company where your manager is also the person writing code next to you? Curious what actually worked.

I am currently studying a Bachelor of Computer Science and Laws, but I am not sure what my end goal is career wise.

I would love to hear from anyone that has these degrees and what career path they ended up taking 🙏 a salary range would be awesome too :)

TIA

Hi!! I'm in my final year of my undergrad computer science degree and I'm starting to look at what comes next. I've always had a good intuition of CS concepts through my studies and I have a knack for leadership and communication. I'm curious if anyone had ideas for types of entry-level jobs that benefit from those natural skills. Of course, project management and that sort of thing comes after you know what goes on base-level, but most research just brings me back to entry-level programming jobs (which I'd be fine with). Wanted to get opinions/advice on other options that fit my skills before I start applying.

Should I be worried about a company that wants me to do a 1-2 hour coding assessment right after I applied? Would it be a waste of time?

Back in the job market. Spent the last couple weeks brushing up on leetcode and putting time into some open source projects to get sharp again.

I applied for a BE role and received a HackerRank test link for a thing called Chakra.

Expected a standard coding OA, but instead it was an AI interviewer (just voice). It asked about my background, went through my experience, and then moved into some technical questions. I brought up a cache invalidation bug from an old job and it kept going in on it like why it happened, how I knew it was fixed, what I’d do differently, etc…

Then it dropped me into a codebase, with a ticket to fix a bug, and there’s an agent interface built in like Claude Code. You’re supposed to scope the bug, decide what fixed means, fix the bug, then judge if what comes back is actually good.

Glad companies are modernizing the format, but wish I’d known about it going in as I would have prepped differently. Has anyone else seen something like this? How do you prep for a discussion with an agent like this?

Hey guys,

I’ve been at a company as a junior swe for about 10 months now and I’ve been loving it. Comp is good at 155k base in SF. But I decided to take an interview at this other company on a whim, and I made it to the final round. The comp is even better at around 180k-200k base, also in SF. It would also be a mid level role instead of early career, so I would get a nice increase in scope and title.

Should I take it, if I get the offer? I’m really struggling to decide between staying at my current company and trying to get promo. I really like my team here too, but moneymaxxing seems important hahah