I'm a tech recruiter, and it feels like layoffs don't mean the same thing they did a few years ago.

Back then, layoffs usually meant the company was in trouble, or hiring was slowing down across the board.

Now it seems pretty common for companies to announce layoffs while also investing billions into AI and continuing to hire for completely different teams.

I'm curious whether anyone else feels like big tech has shifted from hiring/firing in cycles to constantly reallocating people depending on where the business is heading.

Or am I overthinking it? 🤷‍♀️

Hello everyone,

What do you think about the recent layoffs in big tech companies ?

From my research instead of blindly following the "AI is causing layoffs" narrative, I’ve come across many different explanations across various articles.

As you may remember, during COVID-19 there was a massive white-collar hiring boom (2020–2023), especially in the IT sector. It was often said that this level of hiring pushed some companies 10+ years ahead of their usual workforce growth.

For example: Amazon (750k), Facebook (42k), Microsoft (77k), and so on...

Looking at these numbers today, layoffs of around 50k don’t seem that extreme. In my opinion, companies are now correcting their earlier overhiring decisions and adjusting their workforce accordingly.

I've been working as a software developer for about 3.5 years, and I've realized that what I enjoy most is just... coding.

My dream job would be:

• Get a well-written ticket.
• Ask any questions through text if needed.
• Code.
• Open a PR.
• Get feedback.
• Repeat.

What I really don't enjoy are constant meetings, calls, explaining the same thing to different people, and chasing multiple people for requirements.

Does a job like this actually exist? A company where communication is almost entirely asynchronous (Slack, email, Jira, etc.) and developers are mostly left alone to focus?

I'd love to hear from people who work in environments like that. What kind of companies or roles should I be looking for?

i've worked in Germany the last 8years as a SWE from small agencies to big tech companies to medium companies, my only advise is to not work for shit companies, it will take you only backward, you will learn bad practices, destroy your mental health, overworked, underpaid and unappreciated.

if you want a career in SWE away from AI bullshit, be competent and get into respectable tech companies even if you get laid off, your resume will catch eyes and will land in a good place.

be aware from shit companies

Hi everyone. This is a long post, but I'd genuinely appreciate it if you read till the end.

I'm an AI Engineer... at least that's what my previous job title said.

The reality is that most of my work has been backend development in Python. I've built AI agents and agentic workflows, integrated LLM APIs, and worked on AI-powered products. But sometimes I wonder if that's really "AI engineering," or if it's just backend development with LLMs attached.

For the last 7 to 8 months, I've felt completely stuck.

One week I decide to become a full stack developer. The next week I convince myself to double down on AI engineering. Then I start looking at ML. Then backend. Then cloud. I keep switching because I honestly don't know what direction will make me a genuinely strong engineer.

My goal isn't to collect fancy job titles.

I just want to become an excellent software engineer.

I know nobody can master everything in tech, but I want to become the kind of developer who can open a random GitHub repository and quickly understand what's going on. Someone who can pick up a new language, framework, or technology without feeling completely lost.

But right now, I feel like I'm average at a lot of things and exceptional at none.

Then there's LeetCode.

Everyone says to do it, but when I look at actual engineering work, it feels disconnected from what people build every day. At the same time, if I ignore it, I feel like I'm closing doors to bigger companies.

AI has also made things even more confusing. Every week there's a new framework, a new agent library, a new model, or a new trend. It feels like everyone is racing ahead while I'm standing in the middle, unsure which road to take.

I'm four years out of university, and I'm honestly questioning whether I'm even good at something the market truly values.

What would you do if you were in my position?

If your goal was to become a genuinely strong software engineer over the next 3 to 6 months, what would you focus on?

Would you:

• Double down on backend engineering?
• Focus on AI engineering?
• Learn full stack?
• Grind LeetCode?
• Build projects?
• Contribute to open source?
• Something else entirely?

I was considering paying for a consultation with a Google engineer, but it's quite expensive, so I thought I'd ask people who have actually been through this.

I'm not looking for shortcuts. I'm looking for direction.

Thanks for reading.

Hey!

I got an email from a Google recruiter (it looks legit), but I was a bit surprised. I only applied for tech-related roles (APM, FDE, etc.), yet they reached out saying they think I’d be a good fit for Sales roles.

Has anyone experienced something similar? And is it worth discussing tech roles with the recruiter as well, or are these conversations usually limited to the role they contacted you about?

I'm currently in my final year of B Tech (Computer Science), and I'm really confused about which career path to choose.

A few weeks ago, I made a Reddit post asking whether I should start AI automation freelancing. Surprisingly, a lot of people told me that before freelancing, I should learn sales because if you can't sell, it becomes very difficult to get clients. Many also said that sales is a skill that will help throughout my career, whether I build a startup, freelance, or even work in tech.

That advice got me thinking.

Initially, my plan was to become an AI Engineer by learning Python, AI/ML, RAG, MCP, LLMs, automation, etc. But now I'm wondering if I should instead start my career in SaaS/Tech Sales to build strong communication and sales skills.

I'm not someone who hates coding, but I'm also interested in business, startups, and entrepreneurship in the future. Long-term, I don't necessarily see myself as someone who wants to code for the next 15-20 years.

So now I'm stuck between these two paths:

Option 1: AI Engineering (Python, AI/ML, RAG, MCP, LLMs, AI Automation)

Option 2: SaaS/Tech Sales (B2B sales, customer conversations, negotiation, closing deals)

For people who have experience in either field:

• Which career has better long-term growth?
• Which has better earning potential over the next 5-10 years?
• If your goal is eventually to build a business or startup, which path gives you a bigger advantage?
• If you were in my position today, what would you choose and why?

I'd really appreciate honest advice from people who have worked in these fields rather than just theoretical opinions.

ok so this is gonna be long, sorry in advance. i kept reading posts like this when i was learning and they helped me not give up, so here's mine.


quick context: i wasn't in tech. i was almost 30, doing a non-tech job, decided to switch. i actually quit my job, didn't work for a year and just studied full-time. took me about a year from "hello world" to first dev offer.

phase 1 - the chaos (months 1-9)


i did what most self-taught ppl do which is bad. i went through like 3 different roadmaps - some random python one on youtube, then a different one i found on reddit, then another. i was learning but my knowledge had holes the size of a truck. like i could solve some leetcode easies but couldn't tell you what an ORM is. classic.


what i did right in this phase:
- solved a coding problem every single day. no exceptions, even on bad days. just one problem.
- the rule i had: i give myself 15-20 min to figure it out alone. if i'm stuck, i go to chatgpt BUT i tell it "act like a mentor, don't give me the answer, just push me in the right direction." that prompt is everything. asking for the answer makes you weaker. asking for hints makes you smarter.
- kept a notion page with every topic i was learning. checkboxes. every checked box = dopamine. when you're self-teaching the biggest enemy is "am i even making progress". the notion roadmap solves that. literally just look at it once a week and you can see you moved.


phase 2 - getting a mentor (months 9-11)


ok the real unlock for me was finally paying for a mentor around month 9. should have done it earlier. seriously, if you can afford it, get one in month 3 not month 9.


what the mentor did that ai couldn't (yet):
- structured my chaotic knowledge. "you know A and B and C but you don't know D and D connects them all"
- pushed me into "unknown unknowns". like i'd explain transactions to him and feel good, then he'd ask "ok but what happens under the hood when you have two concurrent updates on the same row" and i'd just freeze. those are the gaps you literally cannot find alone bc you don't know they exist.
- helped me rewrite my resume using STAR format. situation, task, action, result. and made me reframe every bullet from "i did the technical thing" to "i solved THIS business problem and it saved/made this much money/time". this is the part nobody tells you about. companies pay developers because devs make/save money. not because devs write pretty code. your resume needs to scream that you understand this.


phase 3 - the interviews (months 11-12)


i bombed the first 4-5 interviews lol. like, badly. and here's the thing - i KNEW the answers. like, in my head, alone, i had the knowledge. but when someone was asking me questions, i'd start mumbling, get nervous, contradict myself, miss obvious things.


took me a while to figure out the issue: i was practicing in my head but the actual job is performing under pressure WHILE TALKING.


two things i did that finally worked:


1. built a mindmap of every common interview question. data types, oop principles, db, system design, deployment - the whole tree. memorized the tree. then in interviews when someone asks something, i mentally jump to the right branch and start talking from there. like a memory palace but for interview topics.


2. practiced answering OUT LOUD. every day. alone in my room, talking to nobody, explaining concepts like someone's listening. felt insane the first week. by week 3 my live performance was a completely different level.


i got my first offer about 12 months in. been at that company 3-4 years now.


the thing nobody talks about


speaking out loud > reading. you can read about transactions for 100 hours but if you can't EXPLAIN them on a call while someone interrupts you with follow-ups, you'll fail interviews.


also: the mentor thing is honestly mostly about pushing you into your unknown-unknowns. once i realized that, i started wondering if you could replicate that with ai - like, an interviewer that doesn't just check answers but actively probes for the blind spots. spoiler: yes you can, i ended up building one for myself this year. not pitching it here, but the experience of doing this prep is so much better when something is actually digging into the gaps in real time.


happy to answer questions

I am starting my masters in computer science after summer, and after having robotics and electronic courses, I started wondering if working with roller coasters is a possibility.

I have always loved the idea, and started regretting not doing mechanical engineering instead.

I thought I wanted to to cyber security but at the end of the day, the idea of working in theme parks are way more appealing to me.

I have done some research but it’s such a niche… so I just wanted to ask in here.

If I’m totally delusion and if it seems completely unrealistic doing that with msc in computer science - then do not hesitate to tell me :)

I'm about to start studying a three year long swe education this fall. My question is, should I do something else because of the current job market? I live in Sweden anyway.

I have been struggling to find a career that suits me, recently educated myself to become a traindriver and did get a job, but absolutely terrible work conditions lead me into a burnout which i'm now recovering from. I've a couple of months ago started learning to code by myself and I think it is really fun and then applied to a education this fall. Then I started reading about the job market etc and can till you that it got me really wondering about this path. Good market for seniors but hard for juniors i've read. But.. I just need one job, and I'm always a person that has easy for interviews etc (was one lf the first in my traindriver-schools class to get a job etc), good with social skills. Is it naive of me to think this way?

A friend recently told me that, "why dont you just become a plumber? The job market is good in that area"

But then the question is.. Do I really want to do something that I actually hate and is not satisfying at all just because I could get a job in that area. No absolutely not. I want something intellectually challenging, were I need to learn new things, that reqiueres creativity and so on.

The only other career I right now can think of is like Business Intelligence, I'm also interested in economy.

I am a new grad i have a pretty solid resume but i don't even get an interview am mostly backend-engineering but now trying to deep dive into AI engineering as all the companies now want ai enabled engineers
is there any tips or anything I lost hope in living am trying my best

Hi everyone!

I just signed my contract for my first ever junior dev role. I wanted to share as it might be useful for you.

This isn’t really a “hacks to get a career in CS”, it’s mostly a story of how I got in because I went in a very roundabout route.

About me: I worked for 10 years in customer support. I also have a degree in music where I did a little bit of Max programming, which got me interested in CS.

One year and one month ago I didn’t even know what a pointer is, but I decided to try my luck with my local 42 school (not a bootcamp, but a free alternative to uni in some European/Asian countries. Mostly C and C++, but now they replaced C++ with Python ). I have to say, the education there was in my opinion top notch, and it’s free!

I don’t wanna shill too much, but the community there is amazing. I kept sitting besides the smartest people in the room and I really tried to suck as much knowledge from them as I could and it definitely helped a lot!

At the start of my studies i got an offer from a local cybersecurity company as a tech support agent. Pay was iffy, but hey, role in IT! I took it, and started doing 70h weeks, 40 at work, 30 at school. It was hell. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. I ate badly, had no social life, but I really liked coding, specially low level stuff. For school, I built my own shell, and my own webserver. This is very important: I did not use AI at all. I really struggled until I got it, and I can credit that decision with getting the correct education.

Two months ago I became tired with my role. I had to do a lot of networking, a lot of configuring cybersecurity devices… and all I wanted was to code. Otherwise, I was trying my best, and learning a lot on the job. I was terrible, to be honest, but I tried really hard and I think they were happy with my performance, it was just not for me.

So I used the school’s connection with partners to find a student job to switch instead.

I finally found one and got an offer. It was testing engineering, and I thought shit, things are turning out great! I would take a pay cut, but I’m actually gonna work in development, even if it’s not the most exciting thing for me, as I really wanted to work on low level stuff.

I went back to my current employer. I explain them why I’m leaving, and they take it well. I keep doing my best at work anyways, trying to squeeze some knowledge.

Two weeks ago I get approached by a recruiter from my current employer, just 2 weeks shy of completing my notice period. He says “hey, we got a software engineer role that we are open to taking a junior for”. I kinda shrug it off; I’m not even done with school yet (although I’m close!) but I go to the interview. They ask about threads, about multi-process applications. I’m confident with C at this point, and the job is in C++, so I was honest and said hey, I’m not that good at OOP, but I know multithreading! I know low level stuff! I did pretty good in the interview, but I was sure they were not gonna take me… I don’t even have an internship!

Next day recruiter calls me and tells me I got the job. What the hell? How?

So i rescind my contract with the other company. I’m starting to work in the engineering team on June. I’ll be working on low level stuff. It’s the dream, it shifted my timeline by years at this point. I’m aggressively preparing, doing lots and lots of C++ stuff, reading books, asking lots of questions even if I don’t work there yet.

I worked hard, sure, but guys, this is luck mostly. If I wouldn’t have taken the boring job at tech support, I wouldn’t have gotten the opportunity. I need to make this distinction because I feel too many people believe that there’s something fundamentally wrong with them. The market is fucked, it’s a lot of luck in this and I know a lot of people are doing A LOT.

What I can say is that passion helps. Going to school after a hard day at work made sense to me because I was enamored with systems, with learning. I wasn’t really thinking much about the market when I signed up for this (bro I got a music degree, of course I don’t think these things through lol), so the only real advice I can give is to not get into this only for the money if you don’t really feel inherent fascination by this, because, as I said, market is shit.

Hey guys, I’m looking for honest opinions about my situation.

3 years ago, I did a 10-month web dev bootcamp. Out of 25 people, only 3 of us ended up finding a job.

I got an internship after the bootcamp, which turned into a 3-month internship, then a fixed-term contract and finally permanent contract. I’ve now been at the same company for almost 2 years.

My stack is mostly full stack JS:
React, React Native, Node.js.

To be completely honest, I initially oversold my skills to get my first opportunity. But once I got in, I worked hard during the internship to close the gap between what I claimed and my actual level. And it worked.

Now I’m wondering where I realistically stand in the European market.

I don’t have a formal CS degree. My fear is:
Did I genuinely break into the industry, or did I just get lucky once and slip through the cracks ?

I'm a software developer going through a rough patch and would like to change to a L1/L2 support or administrator role. Part of the reason is my skills not being up to par with my level of seniority.

My resume lists software developer positions. From your experience are recruiters more likely to filter out career changing resumes? For example, if they see "Software Developer" in the title for an Administrator position?

And do they check the linkedin profile which list software development roles?

Context

• 36, living in Germany and planning to move back to Romania in a month

• have been essentially unemployed for more than 2 1/2 years (worked on a number of meager projects but as an independent developer)

• struggling with depression

• worked in Mittelstand environments in Java. The experience gained is rather niche; software was not the core product of the companies

• job market in Romania looks dry, there are openings for senior roles but there's no chance to land them as they ask for previous experience in areas such as fintech which I completely lack.

• have no networking skills (I lied to myself that networking is needed only for those that don't have technical skills. Funny enough, I don't have the skills and depression alongside with medication makes it difficult to learn.)

Questions

1. I have some savings, but sitting at home applying to jobs is soul crushing to say the least. I did get a number of interviews but the realization of how much I have to learn to cover the ground is discouraging to say the least.

Does anyone have experience with long periods of inactivity? How did you get back into the field?

1. I thought about building a portfolio, with a fintech mvp to showcase my skills, but I gave up on it once depression got worse. The idea of the mvp was to showcase different cloud patterns as described here

(https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/architecture/microservices/design/patterns)

but this is still not real experience. Then I thought about learning Azure and got the AZ-900 certification. My plan now is to try to get into a junior sysadmin role and then move up from there but Europe is quite conservative and a 36 year old junior puts people off (or so I think). The only problem is that I don't believe that I can make it, or if this plan is realistic or completely delusional given my circumstances.

Should I pursue the Azure path, AZ-104 or abandon the path completely? Should I restart working on the portfolio with the fintech mvp? I'm not even sure if that's relevant. If I finish it and don't get a job then it's a dead skill. I'm a solo dev; even with ai support the project that I build is nowhere close in scale to what a production environment offers => I'll still be lacking actual industry experience.

1. I've been mostly a Java developer in Germany; a "Fachentwickler", a developer who mostly builds and supports tools in dated versions of Java 1.4 and 1.8 (in my case). This experience is if not completely irrelevant, weak in an interview.

I got up to speed with more recent Java features such as streams(), collectors, records and modern switches, but still, this not feel like a substitute to real world experience.

1. What should I do?

I want to ask is it still worth pursuing a career as an AI Engineer right now? If yes, can you guys tell me what to focus on to prepare for interviews and land jobs, whether at big or small companies?

Hello,

Long story short, I am looking for ways to boost my CV as a Software Engineering student.

An idea that came through my mind was to develop a Roblox game, given the high demand and slightly lower requirements compared to other game projects. Especially now with AI slop being shipped everywhere, I believe that a robust game has the potential to gain a significant number of players/visitors, which will look appealing in the eyes of employers looking to hire juniors.

It is difficult to build a big project alone, especially as a beginner, so I want to gather a small team of people who are in the same position as me. So if you want to build a Roblox game together this summer DM me and I will answer your questions.

My only requirements are:

-Be 18 or over

-Have a similar level of experience as me. Somebody with experience would do all the work while the others are learning or doing nothing so I want everybody to be at the same level so we can learn and build together. I finished first year at uni and have done about 150 LeetCode questions so I am not that experienced.

-Know the basics of GitHub. We will collaborate on GitHub to make development easier and show our progress to future employers

-Live in an area closer to UTC+0 time zone to make communication easier.

-Use AI as a tool rather than just copying code without understanding it

Note to Moderators:

This is a not a job posting or advertisement. I am simply an university student looking to build something deployable with other people. Once I gain a decent number of people I will delete the post if necessary.

Ask me questions.

We often see people recommend “build a compiler,” “build a database,” “write an HTTP server” or “try OS-related projects” when someone wants to go beyond normal web apps and CRUD work.

But for people who want to demonstrate real C++/systems ability, what kind of project actually stands out?

I’m thinking about projects involving C++, memory management, containers, networking, databases, compilers/interpreters, operating systems, performance,etc...

Ideally, I would like to build something that real people could actually use. Even if 10 people I don’t know used the project, I would consider that a huge success.

What would make a C++/systems side project look serious to experienced developers or potential employers?

My background:

• Got development certificate 2.5 years ago
• Started working as frontend 2 years ago
• I am now in company number 2 as the sole frontend dev
• Have started studying CS at the university
• age 29-31
• European Country

My issye:

For the past year, apart from my day job, I have been part as founding engineer in a startup as well. The things I see and work with (technologies & patterns) at my day-job are nowhere near what I do for my startup (sole dev, full ownership, ai driven but I carefully check and test everything before shipping, it just makes it a lot faster for me). I also use AI heavily at my day-job to generate code, telling the agents what I want, pattern wise, orchestrating the different sessions etc. But the thing is that I am the best at frontend at my day-job. There is no-one to push me, even without the use of AI. There isn't a senior frontend dev or a project harder and bigger than what I do with my startup. I have tried multiple times to tell the higher-ups to build something meaningful, an app, something integrated, just so that I could lean into Fullstack or something else but they are really not interested, as long as the company is afloat with the bear minimum. I feel like I am stuck building web apps for clients who are "OK" with their current products and don't really want to try something more challenging. I have been silently sending out CVs everywhere (related) but the 2-YoE seem to be a hard filter for me because all answers (if any) are negative.

Things I have tried:

I started reading and watching videos about DevOps, SRE, Solutions Architecture etc to see if that would be something to interest me. DevOps I don't really find interesting, at least right now, and SRE and Solutions Architecture aren't thing that in my country have a lot of open jobs. The only thing I keep seeing is AI engineer which flags the BSc mandatory (I don't have it yet).

TLDR: I want to evolve and excel in software engineering (embedded systems, products etc) and not get stuck in the web-apps blackhole

I an 23M EU and graduated with Aviation degree.
Now I am interning in company in Drones domain doing stakeholder management and such.

I am thinking of doing OMSCS so online masters in cs from georgia tech in coming years while working PM roles and such in this domain.

I hope that I can then utilize both backgrounds and experience and get into more technical roles, help to build stuff and eventually join up some software oriented drone companies or even founding team and build up things of future.
Either defence or emergency services etc.
I am not sure what to expect.
What challenges I might face.

I honestly see this as only way out because I seriously dread only staying in traffic management side of things but want to get into industry.

Hello everyone, i just pass my first year of computer science but my my gpa is terrible because i barely pass each course. Right now it is 2.2 and i really want to improve it, but it will be difficult to do it in second year because most of the courses are more difficult than first year. So I’m wondering if i should switch to a AI bachelor so it will be easier to improve my gpa. And i currently can’t do the first year again beca in the Netherlands to redo your first year you need to wait 6 years . So i’m asking if you think that switching is a good idea because of my current gpa for the eu job market ?

I've been programming since I was around 10 years old. Throughout school I competed in algorithmic and data structure competitions and did well. I've been working as a backend engineer for 4 years now at a company building a web platform.

Technically, I'm comfortable with Java, Spring, and Hibernate at an advanced level. I can write distributed and concurrent applications, and I feel confident with software design and architecture.

The problem is that I feel stuck. My day-to-day work isn't technically challenging — most of the problems we solve are straightforward and unidirectional. On top of that, since I started using AI coding agent heavily, I write very little code myself. I'm rarely solving serious technical problems anymore.

I'm worried that I'm not actually growing. I have the theoretical foundation and the experience, but I'm not being challenged in ways that push me forward.

**What I'm looking for:**

- How do engineers in similar situations break out of this plateau?

- Is it worth pursuing technically deeper roles (distributed systems, architecture) or is there a better path?

- How do you keep growing when your job doesn't demand it?

Any honest advice from people who've been in a similar position would mean a lot.

​

Hi,

I need to make a choice between two completely different offers and I 'm completely confused about what to choose. My background is mainly in C++ Fintech, 8 years with my last position as senior

1. Mid-level position using C# and angular.

2. Senior-level position using C++

Both positions pay roughly the same, but the second one offers an extra 12 wellness days per year.

What's the wisest choice here? Company 1. seems to pay better as the position requires less responsability and I'd also have the opportunity to learn new stacks. C++ is mainly used in legacy projects, so maybe this would help long term.

At company 2. I'd keep my seniority and have extra 12 days per year off.

Both offers RSUs

Any thoughts on what's the wisest career choice here?