I was a Java webapp enterprise dev for 7 years at the same company and left late last year to start a business in a separate field which I've decided to wind down. I started using AI more in 2025 so I know how to code "the old way" and somewhat "the new way".

But honestly, I haven't tried to seriously apply for a job since the 2010s. My memories are of recruiters banging down my door. Obviously that's no longer the case.

How hard will it be for me to get job that pays $120k or more? What does it take to get one? Or are large swaths of devs having no luck and taking unemployment these days? I'd love to get a sense of what I'm getting into. I'm in Austin, TX.

I was like 2-3 back then but I read that in the past during DotCom, any companies that have HTML websites

They are seen as top shit companies like they are today Google or Nvidia.

And devs back then coded in Notepads and sometimes write code/algorithim in a physical paper loL

And they used a CD disk to store code unlike today we use GIT.

Zuck was probably 20-21 and wrote Facebook in PHP and tried to compete against MySpace, MSN or something

Besides people who were 20-30 that time they probably got their first job as SWE easily with HTML, SQL, and can build simple CRUD app like ToDoList without doing 8 rounds of interviews.

--
Unlike today where I as Gen Z CS kid grew up and learn to code from IDE like Blue j, CodeBlock, VS code.

And at work I just use AI to code and review the AI generated code.I

It is kinda hard to get a job nowadays if you don't have a good network or if you are not the top 10% of the rest or something.

Besides it feels like IT/technology they move so fast nowadays.

I work significantly faster with AI. Not “we can lay off half the team” faster, but the difference is there. At the same time, even colleagues who long dismissed the possibility are now starting to worry about their jobs.

There are two things I don’t understand:

1. Why lay off developers instead of building more with the same team?

If a team gets more done with AI, why not develop more products, ship features faster, and take market share from competitors? Why produce the same output at a lower cost instead of aiming for more revenue with the existing team?

2. How much additional pressure can better models actually create?
For many of my tasks, AI already produces nearly perfect code and integrates it well. If that already works, the additional productivity gains from further improvements should eventually get smaller.

So why do we expect continued job losses as models improve? Am I underestimating how much can still be automated beyond code generation itself?

Something else that makes me skeptical: some companies also automate reviews and testing once those become the next bottleneck. I worry about technical debt, while we developers barely get a say in these decisions.

I see the productivity gains. What I’m missing is an explanation of why they should lead to less demand for developers. Where is the flaw in my thinking on these two questions?

I’m in Boston and I’m looking to, well, earn more money. Career advancement is important to me and I want to live somewhere where I can do that fast and more easily. The tech scene here is alright, but I wonder if West Coast cities like SF or Seattle would just be better for me. Seattle is appealing because of no state income tax. I also like the geography and the nature.

Has anybody done a move like this?

WHY ARE LEVEL I JOBS REQUIRE 3+ YEARS OF EXPERIENCE!!??

I am going to graduate this December, have two internships totaling little over a year. International Student, and CPT got denied because of a new rule so couldn’t continue with the internship.

Applying to jobs since September and started to get rejections. I don’t know what to do, referrals aren’t working, previous internship employer said they only hire senior level roles.

HOW COOKED AM I?

bro im so fucking tired of business people and their corporate bullshit man.

like genuinely as a technical person why the fuck am i expected to understand half of their business domain too?? im a software engineer. i got into engineering because i wanted to work with technology, build shit, solve problems, work with systems and infrastructure and all that. not become some fucking MBA guy who spends his entire day talking about business goals and market positioning and whatever the fuck.

i didnt sign up to be a software engineer + business analyst + product manager + marketing guy + project coordinator + professional powerpoint presenter all at the same time bro 😭

why does knowing how to code suddenly mean i have to do five other peoples jobs too??

and the worst part is you cant even just build the thing properly. no. first you have to understand what the business wants, then why they want it, then what the customers might want, then what the market wants, then what the stakeholders want, then what some other person thinks the stakeholders might want. BRO JUST TELL ME WHAT THE FUCK THE SOFTWARE NEEDS TO DO.

what about the actual engineering side of things?? architecture, maintainability, performance, security, reliability, making sure the thing doesnt fall apart in 2 weeks?? does any of that matter or not??

apparently it only matters if you can fit it into a business presentation.

AND WHY THE FUCK DOES EVERYTHING NEED A MEETING.

you need to change one tiny feature? meeting.
need to discuss the feature? another meeting.
need to make sure everyone is aligned about the thing discussed in the first meeting? ANOTHER FUCKING MEETING.

then someone sends a meeting summary about what happened in the meeting, then you have a follow up meeting to discuss the action items from that summary. im not even joking what is this shit 😭

BRO JUST SEND ME THE REQUIREMENTS.

write down what you want. tell me what the problem is, what the system should do, and let me figure out how to build it. why are we spending an entire hour discussing something that couldve been explained in like 5 minutes??

and then after 3 hours of meetings people wonder why the actual work isnt done yet.

BRO WHEN THE FUCK WAS I SUPPOSED TO DO IT??? DURING MY LUNCH BREAK??

i swear some companies care more about looking busy than actually getting shit done. your calendar is full, you're on calls all day, writing updates, making reports, explaining what you're gonna do, discussing when you're gonna do it, then discussing the discussion about what you're gonna do.

WHEN DO I ACTUALLY GET TO DO THE FUCKING THING.

apparently doing the work isnt enough anymore. you also have to constantly prove that you're doing the work. like if im spending 4 hours debugging some weird issue and finally fix it, thats apparently less impressive than spending 4 hours making a powerpoint about how we're gonna fix it.

and then there's the fucking corporate language.

"lets circle back"
"lets take this offline"
"we need better alignment"
"lets leverage synergies"
"we need to drive impact"
"move the needle"
"cross functional collaboration"

BRO WHAT ARE YOU EVEN SAYING. CAN YOU JUST TALK LIKE A NORMAL PERSON FOR ONCE.

if something is broken just say its broken. if you want something fixed then tell me what needs fixing. if a decision needs to be made then MAKE THE FUCKING DECISION. why does every sentence sound like its being announced at a fortune 500 shareholder meeting??

AND WHY DOES EVERY LITTLE THING HAVE TO BE A HUGE DEAL.

its a favicon bro. A FUCKING FAVICON. its a tiny icon in a browser tab. why are we acting like we're launching a new fucking country over it.

its a small UI change and suddenly we need to discuss brand positioning, user perception, business objectives, visual identity, market strategy and whatever other shit people can come up with. BRO ITS AN ICON.

sometimes a button is just a button. a config file is a config file. a small technical change doesnt need a strategy document, stakeholder review, roadmap, presentation, committee and six people giving their opinions.

WHY DO WE KEEP TURNING SIMPLE SHIT INTO CORPORATE PROJECTS.

and everyone has an opinion even when they have absolutely no idea what the technical consequences are.

someone just randomly goes "why dont we add this feature?"

bro do you even know what adding that feature involves?? do you know how the existing architecture works? what dependencies it has? what it could break? have you thought about testing, security, edge cases or maintenance at all??

no. you had an idea in a meeting and now its somehow my job to make it happen by tomorrow.

and if i explain that the idea is technically bad then suddenly im being negative. im not being collaborative. im not being solution oriented. apparently im resisting change.

BRO IM TRYING TO STOP US FROM BUILDING A PIECE OF SHIT. HOW IS THAT A PERSONALITY PROBLEM.

sometimes a feature just isnt needed. sometimes the existing solution is fine. sometimes we should finish the thing we're ALREADY BUILDING before adding 10 more features to it. but apparently saying no is illegal because someone already promised it to a client without even asking engineering if its possible.

and OH MY GOD THE FUCKING DEADLINES.

business people promise things to clients or executives or investors before even talking to the engineers who have to build the damn thing.

then they come to us like "we need this by friday".

BRO YOU MADE THAT PROMISE. WHY THE FUCK AM I RESPONSIBLE FOR IT??

you cant just make up a deadline, ignore how complicated the thing is, skip the technical discussion and then act shocked when someone says its not realistic. software isnt magic. servers arent magic. putting a date on a powerpoint slide doesnt magically make a system reliable.

and rushing shit doesnt always make it faster either. sometimes it just means more bugs, more technical debt, more outages and more work later. guess who has to deal with all of that? THE SAME FUCKING ENGINEERS.

then when something breaks suddenly everybody cares about reliability. suddenly everyone wants a technical explanation. suddenly its "why didnt we test this properly?"

BECAUSE YOU SPENT THREE WEEKS CHANGING THE REQUIREMENTS AND GAVE US TWO DAYS TO BUILD THE ACTUAL THING YOU ABSOLUTE GENIUS.

and even when we do exactly what they asked for we still somehow get blamed.

they tell us to implement something in a certain way. we explain why its a bad idea. they insist anyway because theyre the decision makers. so we do it.

then when the result is bad its "why did the engineering team build it like this?"

BRO THAT WAS YOUR FUCKING DECISION. WE LITERALLY TOLD YOU THIS WOULD HAPPEN.

YOU ASKED FOR IT. WE EXPLAINED THE PROBLEM. YOU SAID DO IT ANYWAY. AND NOW YOURE BLAMING US??

HOW IS THAT FAIR.

and the double standards are what really piss me off. engineers are expected to understand business requirements, customer expectations, marketing, budgets, deadlines, product goals, stakeholder priorities and whatever else.

but do business people put the same effort into understanding engineering??

do they know why database migrations need testing? why deployments fail sometimes? why architecture matters? why a feature that sounds simple can need changes in like 4 different systems? why you cant just keep adding shit forever without thinking about performance, security and maintainability??

sometimes they dont even wanna understand. they just want the result.

they want everything to work perfectly, instantly, cheaply, with no bugs, no downtime, no delays and unlimited changes. apparently we are supposed to provide infinite flexibility for free.

and when reality doesnt match their expectations they look at engineering like we personally betrayed the company.

BRO WE BUILD TECHNOLOGY. WE DONT GRANT WISHES.

AND NOW WE NEED DATA ANALYTICS BEFORE THE PRODUCT IS EVEN FINISHED????

IM BUILDING A WEBSITE BRO. LET ME FINISH BUILDING THE FUCKING WEBSITE FIRST.

how am i supposed to give you meaningful analytics when the product isnt even done yet?? how am i supposed to tell you how users are interacting with something that isnt even properly available to users??

let me finish the implementation. let me test it, fix the bugs and make sure the system actually works. THEN we can launch it, get actual users, collect data and see what happens.

thats literally how this works. theres a difference between planning ahead and demanding results before the conditions for those results even exist.

but no everything needs to happen at the same time because someone wants to show progress in the next business review. we need analytics, we need a dashboard, we need a report, we need metrics, we need a presentation. THE PRODUCT ISNT EVEN FUCKING DONE YET.

and thats what makes this whole thing so exhausting.

everything is a performance. you cant just do the work. you have to talk about the work, document the work, present the work, justify the work, defend the work, explain the work, then explain why the work took so long to people who dont even understand what the work involves.

you can spend an entire day solving some horrible technical issue and nobody really sees how much work went into it because the end result is just that the system works. which is literally the point.

but someone spends an hour presenting 6 slides with all the right buzzwords and suddenly they look like the most productive person in the room.

WHY DOES THE PERSON TALKING ABOUT THE WORK GET MORE CREDIT THAN THE PERSON WHO ACTUALLY DID IT??

why does everything need to be explained in terms of business impact before people can respect the technical work?? why cant good engineering just be valued for what it is??

why cant i just be good at my fucking job without learning corporate politics as a second career.

i dont wanna spend my life learning how to sound impressive in meetings. i dont wanna spend 20 minutes carefully wording one sentence because somebody might get offended. i dont wanna negotiate over every little decision that shouldve been a straightforward technical discussion.

i dont wanna pretend every tiny task is some strategic milestone either.

its a feature, not an initiative. its a meeting, not a sync. its a problem, not a "business blocker". its a normal engineering task, not a value driven transformation or whatever the fuck you call it.

I JUST WANNA DO ENGINEERING.

i wanna open a terminal, connect to a server, configure linux, build infrastructure, write automation, debug systems, optimize performance, figure out how machines work and solve actual technical problems.

i wanna build something, make it work, test it, deploy it and know i did a good job. thats it. thats the whole fucking point for me.

i wanna be judged on my technical skills, my engineering decisions, the quality of what i build and whether the systems actually work. not on how good i am at presentations or how well i can make a status update sound impressive.

i dont want my entire career to revolve around keeping people happy with slides, meetings, reports and random business demands.

and honestly i wouldnt even mind moving away from software development if thats what it takes to get away from this shit. power plants, industrial automation, embedded systems, networking, operating systems, infrastructure, robotics, hardware, whatever man. ANYTHING.

i just want a technical environment where the engineering is actually the main thing. where people care about how stuff works and building it properly.

and yeah obviously i know every engineering job has budgets, requirements, safety rules and people you need to work with. im not expecting to sit in a cave and never speak to another human being. i understand business requirements exist. im not saying engineers should completely ignore users or the people paying for the product.

BUT BUSINESS SHOULDNT BECOME THE ENTIRE FUCKING JOB.

not every technical decision needs to turn into a political negotiation. not every small change needs to become a major initiative. not every question needs a meeting with 8 people. and please for the love of god stop making promises on behalf of engineers and then acting like its our fault when your made up deadline isnt realistic.

give me a reasonable problem. tell me what needs to happen. let me use my technical judgement. give me enough time to do it properly and let me take responsibility for the result.

IS THAT REALLY TOO MUCH TO ASK??

i chose computer science because i liked computers. i wanted to understand technology and build shit. i didnt choose this so i could spend my entire life participating in corporate theatre.

LET BUSINESS PEOPLE HANDLE BUSINESS.
LET MARKETING PEOPLE HANDLE MARKETING.
LET PRODUCT PEOPLE HANDLE PRODUCT STRATEGY.

AND LET THE FUCKING ENGINEERS ENGINEER.

give me a technical problem, give me the tools, give me the time to solve it properly.

then please just leave me the fuck alone and let me do my job.

no more corporate bullshit. no more meetings that couldve been an email. no more buzzwords. no more turning every tiny thing into a massive fucking deal.

JUST LET ME BUILD SHIT IN PEACE.

I know a friend from Asia that moved to EU and worked for a bank in Europe(Sweden) since there were no local people who were good enough at AWS, devops stuff like him.

He was working as Solution Architect or something like that

He worked there for 10 years but later on he got fired because

1. His salary is expensive
2. He trained other devs for months or years and now they can do his tasks + because of automation system.
3. Econmy is bad.

So he spent 4-7 months and still couldn't find a job in Sweden so he decided to move back to Asia

And he used his network, asking people/companies that he worked with in the past.

And somehow he got 2 job offers within 2 months for other European bank but it got an office in Asia.

Ngl I feel happy for him.

And it is kinda insane to think that someone working for a bank over 10 years and one day a company fired him and he had to move his family and his daughter who just study in grade 4 back to Asia ;(

The intentions behind programs to adopt AI tooling are two: - Prepare a layoff for about 80% software engineers to increase margins - Improve the efficiency so we can deliver more and better products

Asking those who have gone through either path, what were the signs that made you realize the real intentions behind your company AI programs?

In my current company, I see a sudden and strong push from a non-technical CEO on all VPs to do something. Our CTO is talking about human judgement still being important, but he wouldn’t be a C-level if he couldn’t keep a secret.

I am pretty sure I am in the top 20% engineers when it comes to usefulness and my ability to use AI is good, but I am also in the top 20% when it comes to TC. I have an option to jump ship, so I’d like to understand the risk of staying.

I wouldn't mind learning frontend if i have to, but i kind of only want to do backend to cut down learning time.

https://www.therecord.com/news/waterloo-region/changes-coming-to-canada-s-express-entry-immigration-system/article_eebb06d8-697b-5300-9fe0-a877bf33d7b0.html

Companies will hire the cheaper worker most of the time, Canadian government has decided that high-salary (57k+ CAD) jobs do not need labour market opinion check (ie. no check if a local can do the job) for prioritizing for permanent visa. In other words, Canadian tech market will eventually be flooded with immigrant devs willing do the work for 57k.

Or am I wrong and this will usher in a new golden age for Canadian tech?

Edit: here's the current government outlook for software developers: https://www.services.labour.gov.on.ca/labourmarket-ui/jobProfile?nocCode=21232&lang=en

Edit: please be civil, we don't want to give anyone the excuse they're looking for to lock the thread.

I’m currently an SDE at Amazon with 1.5 YOE and am on a PIP. I’ve been interviewing and recently received two offers. I’m trying to decide which would be the better move for my career.

Offer 1: Chewy — Software Engineer I (Backend)
$120K base
$48K initial RSU grant vesting over 4 years
Eligible for annual discretionary RSU grants targeted at 40% of base salary
Eligible for a merit increase in the next review cycle
Hybrid (3 days onsite)

Offer 2: Seed-Funded Startup — Software Engineer (Platform)
$115K base
20K options vesting over 4 years (uncertain value)
Previously raised seed funding and is now beginning its Series A fundraising process

My biggest priorities are WLB, career growth, and job stability. After my experience at Amazon, I want to find a healthier engineering culture where I can grow without constantly worrying about performance management or burning out.

I’m leaning toward Chewy because it’s a more established company with publicly traded equity. However, I’m unsure about its engineering culture, WLB, and whether it would be significantly different from Amazon.

The startup could offer more technical ownership and faster career growth, but I’m concerned about its funding runway, job stability, and whether the WLB could be worse.

EDIT: my manager at chewy will be a former Amazon manager so that’s one thing I’m nervous about

I studied artificial intelligence at master's level, and I'm wondering what that means for my long-term job security as AI tools improve.

My concern is whether AI/ML roles themselves could eventually be automated, even for people with a strong technical background. Does understanding how these systems work offer a lasting advantage, or could the same tools also reduce demand for the people building and applying them?

For people working in AI/ML, which parts of your work still require the most human judgment? What skills would you focus on now to stay employable: deeper ML knowledge, software engineering, data engineering, deployment, or domain expertise?

I'd appreciate practical experiences, especially from people who have seen their roles change.

Hi all,

Posting to see if others in this community might’ve had a similar background as me as I’m pondering future career navigation. The cliffs notes of my experience is: freelancer in the arts -> bootcamp in 2023 -> get a job at a non-tech company at beginning of 2024 (extremely lucky) working on niche but fun/interesting work (some of which I had a lot of ownership over which helped in my interviews) -> about to start a new job, also at a non-tech F500 company. I’m in the Midwest in my early 30s.

Overall, I’m very happy with where I’m at compared to when I was living gig to gig, but wondering how to most maximize my time at my new job if I might want to someday set my sights on big tech. The current move is more or less lateral title-wise, but I was not seeing the growth opportunities I wanted at my last job so I was looking to make a change.

Maybe I’ll get to my new job and be totally happy and want to stick around and I’m looking forward to it, but what might be the best way to prep for FAANG or FAANG-adjacent work someday? Would appreciate any advice from those who might’ve had a similar background/experience.

Thanks!

I’m not sure if it’s the circles I find myself in, but I do frequent some discord channels for certain Linux applications I use and world of Warcraft Addons.

I’ve met some absolutely brilliant people. But I noticed a similar pattern: many of them are also flat broke. Like broke broke.

I don’t understand how someone can be so tech brilliant but be living almost destitute.

Is it just that most of them are autistic and can’t work in a corporate environment?

I’ve seen the pattern too many times to ignore it as coincidence. Like these people are more brilliant coders than people I’ve met working for big tech companies, but are living on government subsidies and rent assistance.

Been job hunting for a few months and just got rejected after several rounds for a security role at an AI research org. The work lined up really well with my background, and the pay would’ve been life-changing.
What’s eating at me is that I prepared a lot but didn’t feel like I gave my best interview. Some answers came out poorly, even on things I’ve dealt with for years. Now I’m stuck replaying what I should’ve said.
I know perfect answers wouldn’t have guaranteed an offer. Still, this one hurts more than the other rejections because opportunities with that combination of work and compensation aren’t common.
For anyone who’s been through something similar, what actually helped you stop kicking yourself and move forward?

At the expected salary range of this position , $300k+, the applicant pool is greater and probably people that are way more qualified than me but the part that stings is that I had a real shot at this and it didn't go the way I had hoped. I picked a complex project over a simple one and that may have led to me to not being polished during the interview. That's the problem with using LLM's to build you something and then not knowing the in's and out's when it comes to explaining the project.

I am tired of babysitting everyone in my team. There is a woman works remotely in my team not always show up in standup. Her PRs don't follow the instructions. Adding nonsense stuff outside the scope of her tickets. No test cases and no description about what she did.

Another new grad in office with a master degree in CS, she has trouble with basic RDBMS concepts. Using AI to generate code without review. She did something like fetching the entire table and filter the results instead of just query the matched results from DB directly. (The table is huge can easily hit few million rows in production). I have to work on everything like Java, TypeScript, Python development, System design, DB migration, different kinds of testing, understand hardware and work with the embedding systems, CI/CD pipeline, building Docker images and compose files etc...

Since our main business is selling hardware solution with software as additional service, the CEO and founder is a sales background doesn't know much about software development.

I don't understand why we can't hire proper candidates. And recently my colleague interviewed a guy with master degree for networking related position. From what I heard that guy doesn't even know how to use SSH and basic bash commands.

Got placed at a product-based company as an Associate Full stack Developer from a crap college at the start of this year. Did my internship until August. Had a probation period which was supposed to end in November. Out of nowhere I get a MS Teams meeting invitation "regarding my employment".

Joined the meeting and they let 17 of us know that our roles are redundant because of AI and we are no longer needed. I literally was working on my probation report which I was supposed to submit on the 23rd and now they let me know they no longer needed me.

I'm upset, demotivated and frustrated that stuff like this happens out of the blue. Not a single hint that I was going to get sacked but here I am now. Thankfully I saved up most of my money so it will keep me afloat for a while.

Looking for another job in this economy is looking like hell. I guess I'll take some time off and brush up DSA again and attempt at another job. It's a shame because the workplace was really close by and the pay was decent too.

28YO with 7 years of experience as a data eng.

just got out of a recruiter screening for a wealth management fund, the recruiter had a genuine crash out and asked point blank : "Just to make sure and avoid any further embarassment, you know SQL right ? because there's an epidemic of data engineers that DO NOT know SQL which sounds crazy to me."

I was flabbergasted and while i definitely feel the market is tougher now i cant help but think that there's just a flood of people like these and the issue is less the amount of job openings but rather standing out and making HR feel like you're not gonna embarass them further down the process. Im guessing Tech Recruiters get rated and evaluated on the amount of successful hires/people that go to the end of the process so they are all the more incentivized to be cautious and prioritize resumes that will reassure them.

Hello!

I have been in the workforce for almost 1.5 decades now. Lately, I have been considering what to do next with my career that would earn me more money.

Here is my profile:

• Started as a software engineering analyst (those guys who support production applications and debug code and scripts, but very rarely writes code)
• Became a sysadmin, 3x (UNIX and Linux flavours)
• DevOps engineer (tooling monkey)
• Wrote tens of Ansible roles and playbooks
• DevOps engineer (piece together the application repo and the tools made by the tooling monkeys)

As you can see, I don't have a solid coding and low-level experience. No architectural experience either. It's somewhere in between. I have no masters and my CS bachelors was not that solid.

Some of the options I considered in the past:

• Specialize in a cloud platform - I never had the chance to land a cloud role mainly because of the disconnect between my YoE and the starting pay for people with 0 cloud experience. Nowadays, it feels like the job market is already saturated with 'cloud engineers' with tens of certifications.
• Move to a management role - I never liked navigating company politics and dealing with people's attitudes. I'm confident I can, I just don't like these.

What do you think should be my next career progression based on this? Of course, I am open to putting in the work.

Thanks in advance.

EDIT: one path I am considering is still Linux-based but specializing in low-level systems instead of being a sysadmin. For example, working with high-performance networking, memory management, profiling, etc. I recently landed interviews with similar roles (job titles were all Linux Engineer) and I felt like the interviewers were put off because my skills were not 'low-level enough'.

I achieved my degree in computer science in May. I spent a long time searching linked in for jobs that I can apply to. I haven't found anything and work part time in a super market right now. But what type of jobs should I be looking for. I didn't do an internship in college so that limits options. however entry level positions keep asking for experience in a job field.

Point being I don't really have anyone to ask but how do I go about the job search.

sorry if this is over asked.

I’m a bit of a crossroads right now with working at my company. it’s a small business where im the only engineer and I work with non technical boss. I built their entire software product and now he wants me train a non technical colleague with no cs background to vibe code a new product under my guidance. What that means is I need to train them and help while taking on my usual responsibilities. I truly hate working at this place because it’s becoming more toxic and I’m being burdened with so many responsibilities and being underpaid. I really don’t want to help non technical colleague and just let them vibe code the product and let it turn to shit. Am I just overthinking because I feel like I’m being replaced or should I help out ?

I recently wrote this post, asking why companies aren’t using AI to build more instead of cutting developers.

Honestly, the replies were pretty sobering. I wasn’t expecting so many people here to have such a bleak outlook on our future.

What stuck with me most: AI doesn’t have to replace every developer for things to get ugly. Smaller teams doing the same work, fewer openings, and more applicants competing for those positions would be enough.

We’re becoming more productive while worrying that this very productivity will make us less needed.
If that’s the future you expect, what are you personally doing about it?

Do you already have a Plan B? Are you specializing, moving into another area of tech, or looking outside the industry? Or are you staying because you love the work and don’t currently see a better alternative?

I’m equally interested in hearing from people who think this outlook is too pessimistic. What experiences from your actual work make you doubt that better AI will significantly reduce the number of developers companies need? What parts of the job still leave enough work to make you feel needed, even as code generation gets faster?

Right now, I’m less concerned about whether developers will still exist at some point in the future, and more concerned about whether this will remain a career worth building the next few decades of your life around.
How are you answering that question for yourself?

I haven't been on this sub for quite a while, but I remember most people being very worried for their future in technology due to the saturation of the job field and rise of AI.

I also was very worried for my future. I had invested many years of my life and debt to get a CS degree well into my 30s just for the market to become ultra competitive. Of course I got my degree while working full time so I never had internships or projects to speak of.

I finally finished my degree after like six years and got a promotion to help desk technician at the manufacturing company I was working at. I have been working that position for the last year and half and was just informed that they have promoted me to 'Full Stack Engineer'.

The company was implementing a warehouse management system to integrate with our ERP system and I saw the holes in the project and rushed in to fill them. I wrote two major pieces of software for the company that are being used on a daily basis including our automated order release system and a shipping app for our non-stocked items that ERP doesn't touch. I was informed if it were not for my efforts that the project would've not launched.

My recommendation to anyone with zero IT experience is to take the first best offer that you can get and demonstrate your capabilities within that role. At the time, I was just happy that I could get any tech related job at all, even if it was help desk. My resume is worst resume on this sub, so it was a blessing to just get that help desk job. I nearly got kicked out of school multiple times.

The leap from help desk to full stack engineer required a lot of effort as you may suspect. I worked many weekends, provided after hours support, led meetings, and made critical decisions. We just went live with our project and my software has already released thousands of orders and shipped hundreds of packages.

Prior to this position, I was a lead for a different department and I worked other stressful jobs over the years. That's the thing, I am coming into this at the age of 34 and many of you are in your early 20s and lack the soft skills that employers are looking for. The most important experience you can bring to a job are critical thinking and soft skills. A lot of this comes down to experience and age - and that is okay. Go work a help desk job, get some certs, become a sys admin, and get experience that life throws at you.

I am going from an overpaid help desk to an underpaid full stack engineer. 64k -> 71k (with 8% yearly bonus). HCOL area where median for full stack engineer is 125k. But you know what this doesn't bother me in the slightest and I am more than happy to gain the experience and build my salary over the years. As long as I work as hard as I have over the years, things will work in my favor.

Anyway, I hope this provides some inspiration to anyone feeling down about their job prospects. Let me know if you have any questions.

I’m trying to figure out whether I can take a software/tech job advertised as "United States (Remote)" while physically living in East Asia.

Would like to do this but would want to know the risks.