Case in point, threads like this are popping up frequently nowadays

As LLM capabilities have been improving at breaking paces this whole year, the anti-AI rhetoric went from the somewhat reasonable “AI makes a ton of mistakes and human will always be better” to the new take of “AI is all fake, nobody uses AI in the industry and it’s all just people lying, and companies like Anthropic and OpenAI are faking users and revenue”.

Of course nobody who works in the actual industry would take people like that seriously, but for the people on this sub who are not in the industry yet (either unemployed or still in school), posts like that are just downright poisonous.

For the anxious juniors and students who lurk on this sub, just remember that no matter what you wish for, there is only one objective reality. Just because someone is saying something that makes you feel better doesn’t mean it’s true.

No, I don’t know where the industry is going for sure (and anyone who says otherwise is either lying or just stupid), but AI is everywhere and their capabilities and usages are only expanding everywhere.

Maybe AI will cause mass unemployment or maybe it will usher in a new era of high demand for software engineers, again, I don’t know for sure.

And yes, AI is in a bubble, but it’s not going away. Just like the Internet grew bigger than ever after the dotcom crash.

Edit: When I say some people here are “unhinged”, I do mean that: https://imgur.com/a/ElKWw2d

Using models with less inference keeps the model on a short leash. If you want to chisel away finely as you did in pre-LLM days, you can. Some problems are of sufficient complexity where this level of granularity is required. Some problems, the LLM will struggle to reason through no matter how you phrase it. Knowing your codebase, and its architecture, will still be an advantage. You don't have to cede full control to the LLM. For some problems, it's worth it. You'll still be necessary.

Senior engineer with 10 years of experience.

I grew up poor, never had money growing up dad was a janitor and mom worked odd jobs

I put myself through school, studied CS, and then became the first college grad in my family. I got a job as a software engineer out of college. Eventually job hopped a few times, met my wife, got a house now I have a boy and a girl, a 3 year old and a 1 year old

I never made FAANG level salary but I’ve been content with what I have because it puts a roof over my family’s head and I can also help out my parents financially (no they never ask for it, they actually refuse it but I hate seeing them struggle and try to do little things here and there).

Lately for the past year I’ve been super depressed knowing that the end is near for the industry. It will all come crashing down. Not a single day goes by where I wake up depressed and anxious and go to sleep depressed and anxious

I don’t have generational wealth to look forward to after AI displaces me and most of the middle class jobs

I don’t know how everyone here can stay positive.

First you lose your job, then you drain your savings. Once you drain your savings, you will liquidate your investments which will be close to worthless because everyone else will also be pulling out. Then you default on your mortgage and any other loans you have and lose your house.

Finally you get kicked to the curb and either starve or commit suicide.

I was honestly proud of how far I’ve come given the cards I was dealt

But it stings to know all that hard work was for nothing and the people who will be affected the most will be my children

I was dreaming of them going off to college, getting married , eventually having kids of their own, and me living happily ever after in retirement spending time with my wife, my kids, and my grandchildren.

It hurts to know that none of that is going to happen once AI displaces me

Since Fable 5.1 and GPT 6, I think the complete downward spiral has begun. Perhaps there's just been a collective realisation that the job has changed forever and many of us are about to lose ours.

Let's just be grateful for what we had. A toast to you all. Goodnight and good luck with whatever comes our way in the next 6 months.

Witnessing the end of something which had such a history is quite the feeling. Now the void calls for this profession, go and do what you've been planning but always put off! Write that book! Make that switch!

What does it mean to be an engineer? Wait. Before you go any further. That answer you were thinking of, is that what it means to be an engineer in the context of a corporate structure?

I feel like there should be more love for computers and computation and the philosophy and theory that surrounds it. Those are the bedrock, and everything you can and cannot build depends on those things. I think there is something kind of obscene about letting organizations define what it means to be an engineer according to their own needs, given that their needs are not our needs. We our suffocating our own intellects.

Okay. Please tell me why I'm wrong.

The below link suggests that while AI will change the market, there is a possibility that jobs will increase in certain areas, rather than shrink.

I know Reddit likes to sit in a negative bubble, but is there any possibility that actually rather than careers becoming extinct, production could increase instead?

206 Highly AI-Exposed Occupations. I Identify The 58 Projected To Shrink

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/206-highly-ai-exposed-occupations-i-identify-58-projected-wells-efb5e?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_android&utm_campaign=share_via

New Grad here and been at the job for about 3 months. Its a hybrid job with a couple days in office per month. Now almost everyday I finish my work earlier than 8 hours and don't know what to do with that. I have work but i try space things out a bit so I am not sitting workless for days. What do you guys do when you have down time daily? I am scared inactivity or something might cost me the job even when i am working on 2 projects + assessment reviews etc

Is this pure cope? AI is taking over the industry and people are sitting pretty? Like dafuq bro. They stole the dream from juniors and new grads and you people are still fine with it. We should be rioting and hoarding toilet paper. New grads can’t even sign up for DoorDash and Uber anymore since the waitlist is so backed up. Think of their student loans! They were promised 300k out of school and now can’t even get peanuts or duck shavings. Sad all around. 😔

I know that so many people dream of remote work, but on days that I’m remote, I feel like an absolute chud. I still work hard while working from home, but something in the back of my mind makes me feel like i’m “not really working” if that makes sense.

Has anyone else felt this, and how do I overcome it? I suppose part of it comes from my family not necessarily respecting the working from home aspect since most of them have worked in the trades, but idk.

Here it is:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Wwd17Bi265JoJE6UWwRg_U5h5oItaKetS1Coj8va5dg/edit?tab=t.0

Maybe it's the fact that I have contracts more recently rather than full-time. Is it something else? Any advice would be appreciated!

Meta:
2019 - 45,000
2022 - 86,000
2025 - 79,000

Google:
2019 - 118,000
2022 - 190,000
2025 - 191,000

Microsoft:
2019 - 144,000
2022 - 221,000
2025 - 228,000

Oracle:
2019 - 136,000
2022 - 143,000
2025 - 162,000

Salesforce:
2019 - 35,000
2022 - 73,000
2025 - 76,000

Many of these companies doubled over the course of 3 years. That is simply unprecedented and obviously unsustainable.

But according to you all, these headcount’s are absolutely fucked and the whole world is collapsing even though the layoffs over the last few years hardly register as a blip relative to the explosion in growth pre-2019.

And since you this sub absolutely shits on anyone with the slightest bit of optimism, what’s your prediction for the year all of these companies have a headcount that is equal to their 2019 headcount?

This should be documented for future reference.

Y’all can still work for tech companies like DoorDash, Uber, Instacart, and Amazon. What’s the problem? You can prompt an LLM for the optimal route, how to deal with irate customers, how to score a big tip, etc. 🫢

~11 YOE, prior FAANG + Team Lead experience, have I misunderstood when I should be targeting Staff?

I’m trying to recalibrate my career trajectory and would value perspectives from people who’ve gone through the Senior → Staff transition.

I have ~11 YOE, including ~2 years at Amazon, followed by ~7 years at a smaller FinTech in NYC where I progressed to Team Lead level. I led engineers, owned system/design decisions and delivery, and did significant cross-team work.

For the past ~2 years, I focused heavily on Staff SWE interviews. My thinking was:

Senior SWE at FAANG ≈ Staff SWE at a lower-tier company

Given my Amazon experience, YOE, leadership, and architecture background, I felt Staff was a reasonable target. Truthfully, Compensation was also a major motivation.

I eventually got comfortable with technical/system design interviews, but Staff behavioral rounds exposed a gap: I had plenty of architecture, leadership, delivery, and cross-functional experience, but less experience with truly organization-level, multi-year impact.

I eventually landed a Staff role, but was laid off after ~8 months during a significant company wide reduction. 5 of 9 members including me and manager were let go. As the newest engineer and only Staff on a relatively new team (~1 year old), I also don’t feel I had enough time to establish myself at that level. After ~2 years of interviewing, I’m also pretty burned out.

Now I’m questioning my original premise.

Maybe I should have targeted Senior at stronger companies, built more Staff-level scope, and then made the jump. But with ~11 YOE, prior FAANG experience, and my background, would targeting Senior now mean unnecessarily selling myself short?

Was targeting Staff reasonable given my background, or have I overestimated how close I am to being Staff-ready?

Help me understand:

• How much does company tier change the Staff bar?
• Senior at a stronger company vs. Staff at a FAANG adjacent?
• At ~11 YOE, how do I view title vs. actual scope/trajectory?
• If compensation is a major motivation, is continuing to target Staff rational?
• In my position, would you keep pushing Staff or reset to Senior?

My recent company does stack ranking, which I know for sure but I also was only Staff in my team. Am I taking this too personally, given that 5 out of 9 members of my team were let go? Note: This wasn’t the same layoff ratio across the company.

I’m also trying to separate career calibration from FOMO. I don’t want to chase a title because I feel I “should” have reached it, but I also don’t want to unnecessarily step backward.

Would especially appreciate candid perspectives from Staff+ engineers and hiring managers.

Is there any reason to grind leet anymore, why bother learning complicated tree problems if all your code in the future will likely be AI generated anyway?

I recently graduated with a BSc in Computer Science and AI. I fucking hate computer science. I was forced into this, as in my father took me to the university to “check it out” and then he handed me one of the admissions officers’ laptops and he signed me up for the course, he wanted me to write my personal statement right then and there. For a while I tolerated it. I enjoy video games and I’ve always wanted to be a part of the writing team for it (this was before all the shit happening in the video game industry) I thought maybe I could develop some small indie titles while in Uni. And then my second year happened: my father got a heart attack during the winter vacation and he died. Two days later the second semester began I just didn’t have the stomach and, more importantly, the time for anything else, juggling between coursework and group projects plus all the legal affairs that come with a dead parent. I went from tolerating CS to absolutely fucking despising it. My third year was the worst. I had a moment in the shower where I couldn’t breathe and I ran downstairs still wet, trying to make sure that if I pass out, I’d pass out near someone. I live in the UAE so my exams happened at the height of the Iran War. There is nothing about CS in any corner of this fucking path that I feel I can tolerate for any length of time, let alone in a professional setting. I don’t have friends; my brother is in a completely different field, I’m the only one in my family who is in CS, and I have no external guidance besides what I see in the headlines.

Is there anyone here who has gone through something similar? Any advice you can give is appreciated.

It's a true irony. AI is definitely useful. I use it a lot. But somehow, bugs aren't getting fixed in actual products we use. Instagram is riddled with bugs. FireFox browser video playing is buggy as hell and frustrates me. and so on. I can't understand why. AI is both useful and used all the time and we rely on it more and more but somehow important bugs are not being solved. If any, it seems like there's more bugs than ever.

And I am not sure if new, truly profitable features or products are being developed with AI. It might be just me but AI made development faster but didn't really solve core bugs or made actually profitable products. Except some reports about security fixes end users can't really feel.

Edit : I think I worded it poorly about profitable products developed with AI. What I wanted to say was that pc/internet/smartphones etc not only automated some jobs but created massive opportunities and new markets. Seems like current focus of AI is replacing existing job mostly like software dev, voice actors, actors, artists, musicians etc instead of opening a new market previously unimaginable. Well, some might argue automation will usher in new market but unless AI gets much more reliable than what we have now, I am doubtful.

A lot of universities are now launching Artificial Intelligence degrees similar with what happen during the cybersecurity boom with schools launching cyber degrees. I'm currently exploring getting a masters degree in computer science and saw that my local university just launched an Artificial Intelligence degree. When I looked at the courses they were all computer science labeled courses but some of the courses were 'Team projects with Codex" and "Agentic bot development 1".

Are these schools launching AI degrees with legitimate purpose to train student for AI jobs are just to get money? Are you by any chance in one of these AI degrees and how are you liking it so far?

So i have about 12 yoe, have worked in several different areas of tech and ive reached that point where the career trajectory starts to plateau.

In my spare time, I write and assess course material for a local trade-school/night school. This school is offering free tuition for its associate staff members, so I intend to enroll in one of its night-school programs.

So far ive picked out 3 courses: engineering, data-sci or cybersecurity

I'd like second opinions on which of the three is best. The diploma itself is fairly well-regarded. It's typical that most people do them and go straight into a job in the field. So my aim is that, id be able to get a more domain-specific software engineering job that requires both an understanding of SE and domain knowledge in a specific area.

Overall, what are other people's opinions?

near Toronto. finished a 2 year computer programming diploma recently. worked a helpdesk internship with local govt, left with great references, tried to get my hands dirty wherever i could. been applying for jobs the whole time hoping i could have something lined up for when the internship ended, but no luck. i've had 3 interviews total, and done well, had good feedback, but ultimately they just go with someone else. no hard feelings, but it sucks.

seems like almost every new grad i know is in the same position. not much they can do, there just aren't enough internships for all of us. even seniors with 20 years of experience seem to be fighting for jobs.

should i just get my bachelors and wait for the job market to be less shit? i don't even hear back from entry level jobs, customer service, MSPs, nothing. 3 interviews in 5 months is just not sustainable. i'm currently couch surfing but i'm gonna need to find somewhere to live very soon.

i spend a lot of time studying, aiming to get my security+ in the near future and CCNA sometime next year, but it seems like there isn't much else i can do to put myself ahead. everyone is competing for the same entry level experience.

I'm not sure what the flair for this be. I'm pretty sure this question has been asked before, but I want to ask it again given the current situation in the United States. I graduate in 6 months (quarter-system) with a Data Science B.S. During my second year, I had given up and straight up didn't apply to internships till February, and managed to get a small startup internship on my resume focusing on signal processing. I definitely feel I want to go into working with unstructured data like biomedical signals, audio, and image processing, and I will be gaining more experience this fall.

However, since I only have one internship at a very new startup that most people will not know about, how do I go about maximizing my chances of getting a job? I've started applying already. I have a few different versions of my resume for relevant keywords. But it's tough to find jobs that fit my niche and give me an advantage; all of them are AI/ML. Since I don't have a big-name internship, I cannot rely on return offers either, which is how most people I know as international students got a job.

TL:DR; Other than applying online, what are other ways I can maximize my chances of getting a job that might sponsor my visa or at least let me work for the three years of work authorization I get as a non-citizen in the U.S.?

Given that new grads are absolutely cooked. How can they make sure that they apply their CS knowledge well into plumbing and make sure no leaks ever happen and ensure efficient water flow? Can Djikstra be used to lay the optimal piping?

same the question lmao

I got my BS in CS in 2021 and have been working at the same company ever since. I’ve worked with WPF, MAUI, Outlook, and a little bit of C++/P/Invoke. Over the last four years, I’ve also done a lot of Upwork work in parallel, mostly focusing on ASP.NET, .NET MAUI, Avalonia, and WPF; in other words, pretty much everything in the C#/.NET ecosystem. I have around 5,000 hours of experience on Upwork.

My freelance work seems stable for now, but my main job makes me a little nervous because the company keeps talking about possible layoffs. There’s a good chance they may let me go by the end of this year.

Over the years, I’ve become very skilled in the stack and frameworks I’ve worked with, but I’ve never had enough free time to learn more advanced or fundamental topics. Basically, I feel like I’ve been stuck in a swamp. So I was thinking that if I do get laid off, I could enroll in a two-year master’s program and use those two years to learn as much as possible and increase my marketability.

Do you think this makes sense, or would it be a waste of time? Would a master’s degree combined with a lot of new fundamental knowledge help me stay relevant in the field?

I’ll continue working through Upwork, so financially, I can afford two years of studying. Or would it make more sense to simply keep applying to as many jobs as possible until someone hires me?

MS in Industrial Engineering (data analytics engineering track), graduated March 2026 from a solid state school in upstate NY, not a target. Coursework was ML, DL, algorithms, HPC, statistical modeling. Thesis was agentic AI systems built on knowledge graphs. Before that, BS in mechanical, then two years at a large IT services firm doing supply chain and BI work that I self-studied my way into during the COVID market.

Searched about five months after graduating and just started an operations engineering role in the Boston area. It sits closer to IE than to data: SQL and Power BI at most, nothing dev or AI, and a lot of documentation and process engineering grunt work. It's a contract role with an end date. I'm on OPT.

Every DS/MLE/agentic AI posting I see wants a PhD or 7+ YOE. IE and supply chain analytics roles are the ones that actually respond to me.

So: keep pushing toward data engineering / analytics engineering, or lean into the IE and supply chain analytics lane and go deep? If you've made either call from a similar spot, how did it play out?

bruh not doompost but every morning I wake up thinking about how hopeless my situation is (even just beyond finding a job)

I only have a few more months before I am no longer eligible for new grad jobs and then it is really over