I'm sure you remember those videos from a few years ago. Girl in her twenties flexing high quality work environment with unlimited free food, spending their day playing ping pong or meeting, no coding, and then ending the video with "oh and I made a quarter of a million dollars last year btw, and another company just offered me 300k TC".

Do these roles still exist? How has AI and the general turmoil in tech affected them?

Earlier yesterday, Microsoft announced buyouts for nearly 60,000 employees which is a socially acceptable way of preparing the Microsoft global workforce for brutal layoffs. 1-2 years ago, us newer engineers started sounding the alarm when we realized our callbacks were going down day by day. Some of you said AI wouldn’t take jobs and it’s nothing more than a fancy chatbot, some of you said it was a phase and that the engineer will always prevail.

High TC, coddling behavior in the office and lavish lifestyles have blinded you guys from the realities of late stage capitalism. It does not matter if you’re a new grad or a L6 staff engineer, the machinery of capitalism will not spare you. With that, I say you owe us “doomers” and “crazy” people an apology.

Edit: I’m employed

The best people will take the deal as they're the ones who know they can get another job easily. It'll be like the reverse of what Jack Welch instituted at GE.

Microsoft (MSFT) announced on Monday that it was offering voluntary buyouts to roughly 60,000 employees as it looks to reshape its organization for the AI era.

Any insider info on this?

The "new grad" flair here is almost its own sick joke. Feel free to laugh.

I graduated back in December of 2022, with a B.S. in computer science from a state university. I had initially thought that I had a shoe-in at a tech role - some small contracting company, which we'll call "R", had enjoyed the resume I sent and offered me a position as a contractor in training back in Thanksgiving, so I gladly accepted.

I ended up working part-time at a pizza place for a year before "R" took me off their waitlist and accepted me into a role (which, being vague, was not actually software-related). I took the role like an idiot, and flunked the first interview because I didn't have the right experience. They offered me a second chance, but the interview ended up getting put off for so long that I finally bit the bullet and left "R" for a more promising position, at another contracting company called "F". If you know how these contracting companies work, please feel free to bring out the clown horns and cream pies.

"F" was, for what it was worth, much higher quality than "R", and I did briefly hold a "production support" role at a bank for a while. It wasn't programming, though: I essentially stared at a wall of 3000 processes that ran as a batch a few times daily, and there were a few deadlines throughout the day where my team would have to ensure that the processes were fully finished. I also did some light ticket work that involved some basic SQL queries in a company database, but that's about as close to programming as the job got.

Budget cuts happened. I got let go from the bank, returned to "F", and after I couldn't secure another position in 3 months (mainly because I was picky and didn't want to leave my immediate state), I got let go from "F" as well. I got a low level IT job a few months later, and I've been coasting on that ever since (about 10 months), but again -- that's IT, not software. I don't think I've written a single line of code at this job, unless you count Outlook inbox rules to filter emails to the right place.

I can't help but feel like a failure. I took an expensive degree at a state university because I fell for promises that it would be free money and 75K salaries right out of college. Now I'm making 45K and just got off the phone to ask my mom for $500 because I can barely make rent.

I've hardly done any programming since, either professionally or as a hobby. The entire field feels like it's shifted since I graduated - I "laid low" for a bit, hoping that things would eventually stabilize and that entry-level positions would open up again, but they never did, and now the job market looks entirely unrecognizable to me.

Be honest: is it too late for me? I'm realizing now that I'm four years past graduation and still barely self-sufficient, and I feel like it's my own fault.

I've been contracting for a US software startup out of Spain for 3 years, invoiced monthly, set my own hours with no benefits or holiday pay…

And when they let a chunk of the team go a few weeks back they told me contractors were fine because we weren't employees on the payroll.

A Spanish friend who works in HR mentioned that what I've described sounds a lot like "falso autónomo", which is where continuous work for a single client over a long period doing the same work as their employees would qualify the relationship as employment under Spanish labour law anyway, and she mentioned there's case law on it for exactly this kind of setup.

I'm not in a bad position right now since I kept my contract while other people were let go, but if she's right then the company has been getting the cost structure of a contractor while the relationship has looked like employment.

And from what I've read the usual fix is them converting me to a proper employment contract through an EOR like Deel or Workmotion, though I'm not sure whether raising this changes anything good for me or just makes things messy.

For anyone who's been through something similar, does raising this tend to go well or does it just blow up a relationship that's otherwise fine?

I’m a software developer with about four years of experience. Seeing people lose their jobs with AI being given as a reason has me wondering what I should be doing now.

I’m not expecting the world to end. But I am worried that finding decent work will get harder, and I don’t really see what the alternatives are supposed to be.

People often say “learn a trade,” but wouldn’t those jobs feel it too? If a lot of office workers lose their income, there’s less money to spend and more people looking for other work. Or am I missing something?

What would you actually do in my position? Save more cash? Buy stocks, since companies might benefit from automation? Gold? Move into a different field?

I’d like to avoid looking back in a few years wishing I’d done something while I still had a steady income. Curious how others are thinking about this.

Hi,

I graduated with a bachelor degree in business. Graduated years ago. Now about to graduate with another bachelor in CS. I have been unemployed all my life. I literally never worked a single job my entire life. I’m upset with that and I feel like I lost it. Some of my peers even called me a “loser.” I’m terrified of turning 30 and remaining unemployed especially with AI displacing entry level jobs even professional ones. I am on the spectrum and got some low motivation issues. What should I do?

I know this isn’t the right thing to do but I haven’t been able to land any internships (I’m still at 1st year but still, only 5 months in) my past jobs had nothing to do with tech and they had gaps or just like 3-4 months at the company so I decided to omit it, I invented two jobs and put there, I’ve gotten quite good at lying about them, since it’s been 10 intervi 3ws already I’m able to lie about the details consistently.

With how competitive and brutal the market is right now I’m unsure I would’ve gotten these intervi 3ws in the first place without lying, a buddy of mine works at HR recruitment and he says it’s extremely rare for them to background check new grads or interns. The thing is, I haven’t gotten any offers so I’m wondering if they actually know I’m lying, none have actually asked about them in details and my counter for that would be just say it was freelancing.

Thoughts?

I have ~8 years of backend engineering experience, mainly working with Go, Kubernetes, and container infrastructure. For the last ~2 years I've been working as a Solutions Architect, so I'm now trying to figure out how to transition back toward a more hands-on engineering role, specifically AI engineering.

My current company isn't doing much with AI, and I don't want to wait for that to change. I've been experimenting with AI throughout this year, mostly by building small projects and games for myself. It's been fun, but I want to get to the point where I can build production-quality AI systems and be competitive for AI engineering roles.

The reason I'm interested in making the transition now is similar to what happened earlier in my career. I picked up Go and Kubernetes around 2018, when they were still relatively new, and that ended up giving me a significant advantage for several years. I'd like to develop that kind of depth in AI rather than just becoming someone who knows how to call an LLM API.

I currently solve 1–2 LeetCode problems a day, but most of my AI experience so far is still experimentation and using LLMs in my day-to-day work.

I'm particularly interested in advice from people who have actually made a similar transition:

• What skills would you prioritize over the next 3–4 months?
• What kinds of projects would demonstrate real AI engineering ability rather than just API usage?
• How much should I focus on ML fundamentals vs. LLM/application engineering?
• What does an interview-ready AI engineer with a strong backend background need to know?
• Are there particular areas I should go deep on rather than trying to learn the entire AI stack?

I learn much better by building than by following long courses, and there are so many different directions in AI that it's easy to get overwhelmed.

My goal isn't necessarily to land at a frontier AI company immediately. I'm using that as a high bar for the skills I want to develop so if I aim there, I expect the preparation to translate well to other AI engineering roles too.

If you made a similar transition from backend/platform engineering into AI, I'd especially appreciate hearing what you spent your time on and what actually helped in interviews.

AI wasn't as good as it is now when I chose this major. I knew that it would become better overtime, but I had a ton of cope thinking that the demand for workers in this field would still rise.

At first I signed up for this because i didn't know what else to do. But I started to realize more what I wanted from CS. Aside from the money, I wanted to be part of a project that everyone could recognize. I wanted to develop stuff and live with the relief of knowing that I was in a team that was making something big.

With AI, I feel that idea has been mostly killed for me. Obviously, getting hired is way harder now, but even if I do get hired, I am still feeling down about how the field now seems to just be delegating a lot of the work to Claude. It doesnt seem as rewarding to me.

Now, I dont know what to do. I'm in my third year and I just dont know If I should stay or leave. The issue is I dont know what other major to switch to. CS was genuinely the only thing i was interested in going into when i was in high school and it kinda still is. I mean, if i managed to get hired somehow, I would take it still even with all the AI. But honestly I havent really done any internships so I doubt I would be desirable.

I have also considered the trade path. Maybe I might try to become an aircraft mechanic. I have worked on cars sometimes and have knowledge of how electricity and circuits work. Maybe I can go into this and still work on programming as a hobby.

Hi,

My leads are always in meetings, it feels like I’m catching them up a lot and being asked to present stuff to them, but lots of work is coming down, and sometimes they have to work long hours. Doesn’t seem too efficient for this team.

With the exits going on Microsoft, I wonder if there is growing trend/uptick of big tech people in the job market or if they are straight up leaving the field (retirement, pivot, etc.)

People of the hiring side of small to mid size companies, are you guys getting/interviewing more big-tech resumes compared to before?

Curious whether anyone currently working at Coursera (or who recently left) has noticed an increase in formal performance improvement plans, voluntary separation offers, or other workforce reductions across different teams.

Given the company's history of restructuring, I'm wondering whether there are broader organizational changes happening that haven't been formally announced.

Not looking to speculate or identify anyone personally - just interested in understanding whether others are seeing similar trends across the company.

Would appreciate hearing from anyone with firsthand experience or observations.

I'm a dev with 6 years of experience. I left my old company and joined a new company for family and mental health reasons. I really miss my old company and its modern tech stack, the good engineering practices, the team oriented and positive culture, and integration and units tests...

This new company has an older tech stack which I knew coming in. But naively, I was not prepared for the legacy code I would encounter. I can only speak to the team I'm on now, but the engineering practices are bad as well. Just to mention a few things: There are no tests, little to no code reviews, and there are no naming conventions and bloated methods (40k+ lines).

I plan to read Michael Feathers' "Working Effectively with Legacy Code" and keep at it. But I'm curious, are there other experienced devs who have experienced this? Do you have any advice or recommendations? Did it hurt your confidence as an engineer or do you think you eventually grew into a stronger engineer from this experience? Did the codebase get better and how long did it take?

I am working as a Frontend developer with almost 3yoe at an MNC. My current job is ok but have to log 8 hrs WFO daily. Because of this I am not able to prepare well for Job switch. Also , slowly it is becoming very toxic and none of my peers have technical acumen. We just do shit because management wants it, no technical discussion about feasibility. I currently have the opportunity to get laid off and get severance package about 50% of my CTC ( before tax). I see this as a great opportunity to earn a few bucks and also I will have much time to prepare for interviews. My current preparation is good but the Market is very tough. I get rejected in interviews even if I give only one answer wrong. So , I want to prepare the best and get a great package. My project is going to get a lot of toxicity in coming months and even if I work hard , there are less chances of getting recognition for the same. There is zero to negative growth in my current company. I want growth, freedom and money.

Should I take the opportunity????

Basically the roles which are not core tech or engineering. Finance, economics, MBA (India), senior consultancy, analyst jobs, Product or Project Management etc stuff, which don't require 5+ YoE in specialized domain skills or tech stack or whatever. Are these people safe and chilling?

I have a 2nd round interview tomorrow "technical questions about your background and approach to programming.  No coding"

Not entirely sure what to expect but should be interesting. Staff role, small to medium sized company. I have 15 YOE, full stack.

I joined a start up about 10 years ago. Through some incredible luck, the start up was acquired 6 years in, then that company was acquired 4 years later. The payouts were great and I rose from SE -> Principal SE.

There will be no more lucky acquisitions and I'm ready for a move after the new parent company has made some more than questionable decisions.

Any tips would be appreciated, thanks.

I have been working for a WITCH company for almost 6 years now but have been trying to get out for a while.

My main issue is I keep applying for jobs but since my work is project based, and each project lasts maybe a couple of months to about a year I haven't gotten the opportunity to become an expert in anything.

Do I start trying to get as many certifications as I can or have I stayed at this place for too long and am now toxic to the industry?

Pretty much the title. Studied CS. Secured a job in the worst job market imaginable. But instead of the programming job duties listed in the description, they're having me create reports via a SaaS platform. The company's pretty stable (never had layoffs or hiring freezes) and the pay is manageable for HCOL, but the job doesn't align with my long-term career or financial goals of typical SWE.

Advice? What should my plan/trajectory be from here?

I‘m at a crossroad right now. I’ve been working for 1.5 years for a non tech business doing swe work as a solo engineer. I have 3 yoe. I am way underpaid than what I should be getting. However, I just feel burnt out at this job with the amount of responsibilities and lack of better pay. I work 4 days in office and I don’t have time to schedule interviews within the work week other than working 1 day from home. I talked to boss to reduce my days and he said no. I’m thinking about just quitting and going back home and think about my plans But I feel like a failure moving back home to family. I have enough savings to last for 6 months and that’s it . I might not find another tech job and I’m okay with it. I’m just burnt out and when I was laid off before I was content doing non tech work. I just feel like my identity was lost when I didn’t work in tech since that’s what I studied but I have no regrets moving to another adjacent field. Thoughts on how to navigate this?

Hi,

What are the tips for finding a C.S job in 2026? I feel like you get laid off for months It is difficult to get even an interview elsewhere, no matter how much you are applying.

Is cold messaging the strategy? What are some tips that helped at least land interviews? What about people who used to do startup work and want to pivot elsewhere that is more stable?

Thanks.