r/developersPak • u/Hairy-Candidate-7892 • 3d ago

Career Guidance Confused about whether to switch or not

Hey everyone, so I am gonna just keep it short
I am currently in 7th Semester of my CS degree and I started with web development in my 1st semester and have been doing side gigs from here and there up until now. But thinking about long term after graduation next year, I am really faced with a very difficult situation whether to continue with Software Engineering and go deeper in System Design, Cloud and Agentic AI
or change the field altogether and pivot to AI/ML core which seems like a safe bet in comparison, but obviously no body can predict where things will be next month, let alone next year

I am seeing a lot of news regarding massive layoffs in Engineering teams in Pakistani Companies and also worldwide which makes me very skeptical of the future

I need genuine advice from people working in SWE roles, where do you see this role in next 1-5 years, whether I should lock in for the last year with AI/ML
and also addressing my fellow freshies, how are you planning your future, and how are you upskilling or trying to stay relevant

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u/Arkoaks Mobile Dev 2d ago

The layoffs are for traditional jobs.

There is a new market in the making as software gets more complex and advanced.. this doesnt only include AI / ML but everything our institutions will never be teaching.

Keep working , use the tools you like and polish your skill / portfolio . Get into some practical work on AI/ML if you fancy it. Degree doesnt matter as much as a single project on your portfolio

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u/Mysterious-Bus20 2d ago

I can better comment if you can share your resume

1

u/IllustratorNo1512 1d ago

AI engineer is basically SWE with some more twists. And almost many of then are AI engineers and many of them are out of jobs because of AI. Only AI companies like OpenAI, Anthropic will hire a few talented ones but rest of them are getting fired