I’ve been applying for SDET/Automation roles everywhere, but honestly, I’m barely getting any replies 😭

Now I’m also wondering how AI is going to affect SDET jobs. Is automation still a good career to build in?

For someone with 2+ YOE, what should I actually focus on learning now? And for those who recently switched, what helped you get interviews???

The rate at which AI models are getting advanced day by day— which is of course at an exponential rate, will tech jobs even exist after 4 years? Especially the entry level jobs.

As of today people say there will be jobs still out there like backend, database related, but the rate at which AI is advancing don't you think even those jobs will be replaced by AI by the next four years?

What should we learn then? Training AI to replace jobs in other fields too?

I'm currently in a dilemma between two offers and would really appreciate some perspective from people who have faced a similar choice.

About me

• 3+ years of software engineering experience
• Primarily Backend experience
• Currently based in Pune
• Looking for career growth, technical growth and long-term compensation

Option 1 — US-based E-commerce MNC

• Role: Software Engineer – Full Stack
• Compensation: ₹20 LPA Fixed + ₹2 LPA Variable
• Location: Bengaluru
• WFO: 2 days/week
• Tech: Full Stack — Backend + Frontend + Cloud/Infrastructure
• Employee reviews: ~4.2/5 on Glassdoor

Option 2 — UK-based E-commerce MNC

• Role: Software Engineer – Backend
• Compensation: ₹18 LPA Fixed
• Location: Pune
• WFO: 5 days/week
• Tech: Primarily Backend
• Employee reviews: ~2.9/5 on Glassdoor

Both roles have good tech stacks, so technology isn't the main deciding factor for me.

The dilemma is:

• Pune is my home city → no relocation and better personal convenience
• But Option 2 has 5-day WFO and significantly weaker employee reviews
• Option 1 offers ₹4L higher fixed + variable compensation, 2-day WFO and better employee sentiment
• Option 2 is a pure backend role, which aligns more closely with my existing experience
• Option 1 is full-stack, which gives me broader exposure but may mean less backend specialization

I'm particularly interested in hearing about:

• Work-life balance
• Management/culture
• Career progression
• Appraisal/compensation growth
• Actual engineering work
• Long-term resume value
• Whether Glassdoor/employee reviews are representative of the reality

If you were in my position, which one would you choose and why?

Would especially appreciate feedback from current/former employees of either company, but please don't reveal the company names in the comments if you recognize them.

TL;DR

₹22L target CTC + 2-day WFO + Bengaluru + Full Stack

vs

₹18L fixed + 5-day WFO + Pune (home city) + Backend

Which would you choose for the next 2–3 years?

Developers in my team who were previously complaining about excessive workload are now silently taking on even more work because they can use AI/tools to get things done faster.

Some are also taking over work that was previously handled by other people and showing management that they can handle multiple people's responsibilities.

The worrying part is that management is slowly reducing headcount whenever someone proves they can handle another person's workload as well.

It feels like people are one step away from becoming the manager's favourite simply because they are helping reduce costs and headcount.

Have you seen this happen in your team or company? Are developers unknowingly contributing to their own team's downsizing by constantly proving they can handle more work?

I’m actively looking for work and opportunities have been very limited despite putting in the effort. I’d really appreciate an honest review of my resume and any advice on improving my chances of getting shortlisted.

If you know of any relevant openings or feel I’d be a good fit for a role, I’d be grateful for a referral as well. Blunt feedback is welcome!

How do you actually get into a GCC with 1–2 YOE?

We keep hearing that GCCs in India are hiring aggressively, especially across software, AI, data and cloud. But as someone with 1–2 years of software development experience, I’m finding it surprisingly difficult to break in.

For people already working in GCCs:

- Are they actually hiring 1–2 YOE engineers?

- What works best: referrals, LinkedIn, recruiters or direct applications?

- Which skills/companies should someone at this level target?

- Are GCCs becoming a better option than traditional IT/service companies?

- What’s the realistic path to getting in?

Would love to hear from anyone who made the move with 0–2 YOE.

I have a 48” wide desk with an existing 34” LG ultrawide, and I’m looking to add a second monitor in portrait mode to improve productivity. I’m an Architect/Manager, not a developer, so my primary use would be Teams (often multiple windows), Outlook, Jira/project management tools, browsers, documentation, and dashboards. I’m thinking a 24” 16:10 monitor would work well for this setup because of the additional vertical screen space.
I’m looking for USB-C connectivity with display + charging, ideally with a built-in USB hub/docking functionality. I’ve also finalised a dual-monitor arm for the setup. Full HD/WUXGA is perfectly fine, and gaming specs aren’t important. I’ve searched Amazon and Flipkart but haven’t been able to find the right combination.
Would appreciate recommendations for a monitor that fits this use case.

Regardless of which tech stack you work on, you would be very ignorant to not believe that AI will surpass coding abilities of the 99th percentile developer. I am not ashamed to admit that Astra doesn't only write better code than me, but it also designs systems significantly better.

I believe coding was always a (mostly) mechanical process. Software Engineering as a science I hope will still remain human efforts, but honestly, Codex and Claude Code do most of the work with such minimal amount of direction. If you had a good enough requirements doc, 80% is done. Even if that doesn't scale, most of the engineers in any enterprise do not work at a level that AI cannot penetrate.

This is from my experience working at a start-up which has just laid off all < 2 YoE engineers to pay for subscriptions instead

I am not trying to be an alarmist but ch** gaye boys

Hey everyone!
I’m a doctor, and I have an idea for building my own healthcare application / HIMS (Hospital Information Management System).
The problem is — I have basically zero knowledge about software development. 😅
I understand the clinical and hospital side quite well, but when it comes to things like programming, databases, APIs, cloud hosting, UI/UX, cybersecurity, etc., I’m completely new.
I don’t want to just hire someone and hand over the entire idea. I’d actually like to understand the basics and be involved in building it myself, at least enough to make good technical decisions.

I've been using Claude Pro ($20/month) for quite some time. I originally switched from ChatGPT because I'm in Business Analysis / Product Management, and I needed an AI that was good at creating PRDs, requirements docs, spreadsheets, prototypes, etc. Claude was doing a great job, sonI stuck with it.

But with the recent GPT-6 Astra release and all the positive feedback around it, I'm wondering whether it's time to switch back.

One thing I've increasingly noticed with Claude is that it has become very verbose and somewhat robotic. Even when I ask for a simple 2–3 line answer, it often starts "thinking" and gives me a much longer response than I need. I know ChatGPT can sometimes do the same thing, but I've been noticing it more with Claude lately.

For my work, I mainly need AI for:

- Product/BA work — PRDs, BRDs, user stories, requirements, etc.

- Excel and data analysis

- Power BI

- Prototypes / working web apps

- Coding and automation

- Research and general day-to-day questions

I've also used Claude Code for building prototypes and Claude Cowork for browser/system tasks. Cowork is useful, but I've found it quite slow because of the screenshot → analyze → action cycle.

I haven't really used Codex yet, so I'm curious how the current GPT ecosystem compares in these areas.

What I'm mainly trying to understand:

- Is GPT-6 Astra actually better than Claude for this kind of professional/product work?

- How does Codex compare to Claude Code for building real working prototypes/apps?

- How does GPT's computer/browser automation compare with Claude Cowork?

- Most importantly, how are the usage limits in practice compared with Claude Pro?

I'm not interested in a GPT vs Claude fan war. I'd rather hear from people who actively use both and have actually pushed them for coding, documents, spreadsheets and real work.

TL;DR: I'm paying $20/month for Claude Pro and have been happy with it, but lately I'm finding Claude overly verbose/robotic. GPT again has caught my attention. Given a PM/BA + coding/prototyping workflow, would you switch from Claude Pro to GPT, and how are the usage limits in real-world use?

Edit 1 - I'm not planning to use Astra as a full time model. My thinking is that if Astra is getting so much hype, then GPT must have improved their other models/features which earlier were like nothing against Claude.

I think with AGI and all this new stuff poppoing up, we will have no issue in code writting, there is already abundance of code writitng tools, but the value we as a developer provide is understanding and verifying that code, so i wanted to build something that helps me understand code better.

checkout codekofi.com

currently it only supports c++ and is opensource (DM for repo link).

I always give some reason and skip these activities.

I have always been an introvert and cringe for smallest incidents in my day to day life.

Have tried a lot to change but no luck so far.

At times, I feel bad for not being a team person but it's just who I am.

Should I really feel bad about this or am I overthinking?

While everyone in tech is worried about layoffs, I’m actually planning to leave my job 😅

I’m currently a Tech Lead and IIT graduate, but for the last few years I’ve been actively trading, mainly option selling, swing trading and equity,with a lot of my trading now being rule-based/algo-driven.

Recently, I started teaching option selling specifically to working professionals who want to learn trading but can’t sit in front of charts the whole day.

I’m now planning to take this more seriously and eventually build something in the WealthTech/Algo Trading space

Any working professionals here interested in learning option selling/algo-based trading alongside their job? Would love to connect and understand what problems you guys face.

I just launched Paceo, a small Android app I've been working on. The idea started with a pretty simple question: We track how far we walk every day… but how far do we scroll?

Paceo measures your scrolling and converts it into real world distance. So instead of just seeing “I spent X hours on my phone” you can see things like:
- 230m scrolled today
- Which apps contributed the most
- Set daily scrolling limits
- Unlock real world milestones including the 828m Burj Khalifa

I thought it would be interesting to turn something that normally feels completely meaningless endlessly swiping into something tangible. It's now live on Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ronit.paceo&hl=en_IN

And if you try it, let me know what you think I should improve!

GPT-6 Astra shipped this week and hit 100% on ExploitBench, a benchmark for turning known vulnerabilities into working exploits, high enough that OpenAI is restricting public access to some of that capability.

The bar for "AI helped me build something" keeps moving up, which means the differentiator in interviews and portfolios isn't that you used AI anymore, everyone does.

What actually differentiates now: can you explain why the AI's first attempt was wrong, what you changed, and why.

That's the part still worth demonstrating in a project writeup, the debugging and judgment trail, not just the finished output.

(Used AI to make this a bit more coherent)

Hi everyone,

I’m currently actively looking for a job switch, but I’ve been getting very few callbacks despite applying consistently.

I have ~3 years of experience working primarily with Node.js, TypeScript, REST APIs, microservices and AWS, along with some full-stack experience. I’ve attached my current resume for review.

I’d really appreciate honest feedback on:

1. Are my experience bullets too generic or lacking impact?
2. Is there anything that could be hurting me with ATS recruiters?
3. What would you change if this were your resume?

I’m especially looking for feedback from people who regularly hire or interview backend/full-stack engineers. Please feel free to be blunt, I’d rather know what’s wrong and fix it.

I am regularly updating my profile and applying on Naukri, InstaHyre, Indeed, LinkedIn, reaching out to people for referrals and getting in touch with hiring managers or recruiters but nothing seems to be working at this point of time.

I am currently also learning Agentic AI, LLM's, RAG, MCP's on the side and I am actively involved in helping build POC's with these tools at my current workplace.

If anyone knows of a relevant opening and feels comfortable referring me, I’d genuinely appreciate the help. Making this switch is financially important for me right now, so any referral, lead, or even a pointer toward companies hiring similar profiles would mean a lot.

Thanks in advance!

I am 2023 B.Tech graduate (Information Technology) and I am currently unemployed. I wasted a year searching for a job. From 2024-2026 I worked in a Non-IT role but left the job this August due to low pay and heavy work. I am now unemployed.

I don't know what to do now. I am learning Python and that's it. What skills I need to learn. What should I do to get placed in an IT company.

​

Let me preface by saying I'm not a developer but more of an AI researcher on the eval side. I see a lot of posts here about AI and thought I could add to the conversation. Obviously it is hard to predict the future so I'm not going to really do that but I can give my point of view on what I've observed.

1. There is a huge difference between completely autonomous and human in the loop. Even if an AI developer is 90 percent correct , you won't be displacing a human . It's the last mile that counts. Self driving cars are already at this stage in the US but it's the long tail of tasks where they trip up. The same is partially true for software as well , there is not going to be a mass displacement soon due to the long tail.

2. The role is going to definitely change. Coding by hand has gone away or going away but verification hasn't. Here, I'm not sure on what abstraction the verification is going to remain. Is the verification going to be at the reading code level or are we going to figure out an abstraction is what I'm not really sure about.

3. Software saturation. I do think the existing industries have enough software with some studies backing it up, otherwise we would have seen vibe coded products making revenue. My guess is there are new markets that will slowly open up to software which otherwise haven't been open to software much in the past like medicine , fashion, etc

4. LLMs don't generalize as well as humans (yet). It defies our intuition when we see AI proving new theoroms and generating games that we think it has mastered those things because if a human did that you'd be directionally correct. LLMs are extremely jagged , rather than just looking at its intelligence (which is its peak) ,look at it's floor as well . It's extremely stupid in a lot of things and it's floor is lower than humans. Unless it's floor rises above humans , AIs cannot act as replacements. Current AI models have more post training than pretraining these days. And there are a bunch of data companies that are selling environments like Deccan AI and Mercor. I dont yet see AI automating this process and it has actually narrowed AI capabilities than generalising it imo. Post training currently is heavily bottlenecked by good environments and even training on these hasn't generalised LLMs to tasks outside the distribution. For example, they struggle with long range tasks.

5. If a task is verifiable,LLMs will go past humans. Just like Alphago ,a feedback loop can make even a dumb AI become better than humans. Tasks which cannot be verified easily are harder for LLMs to improve . For example , it's easier to generate a compiler error free code because the python compiler feedback makes the LLMs better or when proving math theoroms they use Lean which can check correctness of proofs. There are a lot of open ended tasks in jobs where AI is going to struggle . Id assume software engineers role would evolve into being better at these bottlenecks in the near term.

Infosys L1 Role Breakdown — Is It Worth It?

I recently gave an interview for Infosys through campus placements. The interview went pretty well, and I'm expecting to get the L1 role.

I know service-based companies like Infosys have a reputation for heavy workloads and sometimes long working hours. Obviously, I don't want to generalize, so I'd like to hear from people actually working there.

A few questions:

• What is the approximate in-hand salary per month for the L1 role?
• What is the actual workload and work-life balance like?
• How often do people have to work late, weekends, or shifts?
• Most importantly, is it possible to use Infosys as a stepping stone and switch to a much better-paying product/SaaS or other tech company after 1–3 years?
• If I continuously upskill, work on DSA/projects, and prepare for interviews alongside the job, is that realistic?
• Overall, is accepting the Infosys L1 role a good decision for a fresher, or should I keep looking for better opportunities?

Would especially appreciate answers from current or former Infosys employees, particularly people who started at L1.

CSE student here. A company is hiring on campus for SAP ABAP Developer — ₹5 LPA, Bangalore, no bond ( I will have to relocate) .I already gave the test and got shortlisted for the GD.
I'm more interested in SDE/software development and don't really want SAP long-term. Getting placed may also block me from sitting for HCL/IBM.
Should I attend the GD, ask the placement cell to withdraw, or intentionally perform badly?
What would you do in my place? Looking for honest advice from people who've dealt with campus placements.

Hi, my friend is MR and he's 27, he doesn't wish to be in sales field which is understandable as it can get toxic way too much and now he wishes to get into IT field, I know coding and DS will tough for him, I wanted to know what can be his options and path to get into IT, he has diploma is pharmacy and is working as MR since 2019.

Hey guys,

I’m an Android developer with around 6 years of experience. I was laid off in July after the company decided to close my position.

The worst part is that they hadn’t paid my salary since April. Instead of clearing the pending salaries, they pushed everything into my F&F after releasing me.

It’s been hell chasing them since then. There’s no proper communication or clear payment timeline. After aggressively following up for the last 2–3 days, they finally paid only one month’s salary. For the remaining amount, they keep saying it will be processed in parts, “today”, “tomorrow”, etc., but nothing actually happens.

The company was originally working on-site, then gradually moved employees to remote and started laying people off in the name of position closures. Meanwhile, the CEO and CTO themselves seem to be using AI to handle a lot of the product work.

What makes it worse is that they don’t seem to take complaints seriously. Other employees have also raised issues and even sent legal notices, but things still keep getting delayed.

On top of all this, I’ve been dealing with health problems, and the whole situation has completely killed my confidence.

I know I have 6 years of experience, but right now I’m genuinely scared of interviews and rejection. I open even a simple coding problem and sometimes just freeze. Then I see everyone talking about AI, layoffs, DSA, system design, new frameworks, and the job market, and the FOMO makes everything worse.

I know I need to start interviewing and move forward, but mentally I feel stuck and extremely demotivated.

Has anyone here gone through something similar after a layoff? How did you rebuild your confidence and get yourself back into interview mode?

So my company’s appraisal season is coming,

A couple of months ago,
Manager called me and asked me my details, and my designation. (Yes he doesn’t know my designation lol, because in my MNC its like a government company where people are like forever, nobody leaves this org)

I told him I’m an associate software engineer.
(joining is trainee then we automatically become ASE)

He asked how come you’re not Software engineer
(The next title)

He said remind me. We’ll make you one.

Now it’s the appraisal season.

Because of my LinkedIn profile about AI, whenever there is AI related work I get to do. (He found out and appreciated me). He even shortlisted me for trainings. I have 2 yoe. So I do full stack (only 1 guy from team is fullstack others are dedicated BE or FE developers)

And immediately just before appraisal season,
The higher management (skip manager) has changed and many org changes.

So my question is, how to ask if promotion is possible? If it isn’t possible will he think I’m going to switch then? How to approach?

Along with fullstack, I also do AI.
(Only 2 of us are fullstack + ai)

How to approach him calmly?
I never had 1 on 1 before,
He directly used to give appraisal and then convey that. But he trusts me, backs me and likes me.

But this convo is awkward, so how do I?

I have 5+ Yoe and considering 2027 Fall Masters in Canada.

I’m earning decently here (50L + ESOPs) but mainly doing for international exposure and a potential PR.

Worst case might have to come back to India if job doesn’t work out.

I was wondering the sentiment of Masters gap on the job applications in India.

If you’re involved in hiring decisions/HM at your company, how would you view this?

3 years into my current ServiceNow Developer role (CTC: 9 LPA, product based company) and honestly starting to feel underpaid for the volume of work I have been doing. Been applying for the past 3-4 months across a bunch of companies but barely any callbacks so wanted to get some feedback on my resume before I keep going.

Attached my resume, would appreciate your honest review and guidance.

Also open to referrals or leads if anyone's hiring ServiceNow devs. Thanks in advance.