u/Empty_Break_8792

Seeing layoffs everywhere lately, especially in tech and software jobs.
Do you guys think this is mainly because of AI replacing developers, or is it more about the economy and companies over hiring before?

I’m honestly starting to feel concerned about my future in software programming. Sometimes I wonder if I should even continue in this field or start thinking about something else.

I’m honestly getting anxious seeing so many layoffs happening in tech and hearing stories of people with 10–18 years of experience struggling to find jobs.

I’m a full stack developer with around 1.5 years of experience and thankfully I’m still employed right now, but it feels like the industry has become super unstable overnight. Every day I see posts about hiring freezes, layoffs, senior engineers unemployed for months, and companies expecting one person to do everything.

It’s making me question what we should even focus on anymore Is AI going to reduce opportunities for junior/mid-level devs?

I genuinely want to hear from experienced developers and also people going through the same thing right now.

What are you guys doing to stay relevant and secure in this market?

I’ve been thinking about getting Claude Code, but I’m still unsure if the $20 plan is really worth it even after they doubled the rate limits.

For people already using it daily:

• How far do the limits actually go now?
• Do you still hit usage caps during real coding sessions?
• Is it good enough to replace ChatGPT/GitHub Copilot for serious work?
• Any regrets after subscribing?

I mainly do software engineering work, debugging, refactoring, and sometimes larger codebase analysis. Just trying to figure out if the experience is finally smooth enough to justify paying monthly.