u/Majestic-Taro-6903

How are you guys staying relevant with junior engineers who come prepared with all these latest technologies around AI engineering, LLMs, RAGs, etc

I know these are buzzwords but these buzzwords are attracting investments, creating new opportunities and opening up new roles.

I am mostly exposed to backend and data engineering and use basic AI tools. Now, I see new roles coming up around AI engineering, AI strategy, AI governance and AI infrastructure.

How do you guys prepare for all this while managing your regular day job?

Are you taking courses, reading articles, building your own AI-related projects or learning on the job? How do you decide what is actually worth learning and what you can ignore?

At this point, how much of career growth in tech comes down to luck?

Good CTC, good company, good projects, and good overseas opportunities often seem to depend as much on timing and luck as on skills.

I feel 70–80% of people are reasonably talented now. Most people can learn, adapt, and work with different tech stacks when given the opportunity.

Is the game becoming more about being in the right place at the right time?

I feel like the gap between salaries and overall wealth is getting bigger.

With AI and the amount of money flowing into AI startups and companies, it feels like a relatively small group of developers, founders and investors are making a huge amount of money, while salaries for everyone else aren't increasing at the same pace.

If this trend continues, are we heading towards a situation where more and more wealth gets concentrated in the hands of a small percentage of people?

And if AI also starts reducing the number of jobs available, what happens to the majority of people who don't benefit financially from this growth?

Could increasing income inequality, unemployment and wealth concentration eventually lead to strikes, social unrest and instability?

Developers in my team who were previously complaining about excessive workload are now silently taking on even more work because they can use AI/tools to get things done faster.

Some are also taking over work that was previously handled by other people and showing management that they can handle multiple people's responsibilities.

The worrying part is that management is slowly reducing headcount whenever someone proves they can handle another person's workload as well.

It feels like people are one step away from becoming the manager's favourite simply because they are helping reduce costs and headcount.

Have you seen this happen in your team or company? Are developers unknowingly contributing to their own team's downsizing by constantly proving they can handle more work?

I have seen a few Distinguished Engineers in my organisation. I have worked with a few Principal Engineers and Senior Principal Engineers, but not Distinguished Engineers.

How is this role different from the Principal Engineer role? I know they are paid more and are higher in the hierarchy, but in terms of roles and responsibilities, how are they different?

I’ve come across people being offered developer jobs where they work on someone else’s behalf, with the salary going to a family member’s account. I’ve also heard of US-based developers sharing their screen and having someone in India do the actual work for them, while paying them in rupees.

How common is this among developers in India? How do people justify doing this when so many genuine developers are struggling to find jobs?

If people are abusing the system and taking jobs through these arrangements, how will so many jobless developers ever get a fair chance to find work?

Is this becoming more widespread, or am I just seeing a few isolated cases?

I’m seeing reports that Oracle is planning another round of layoffs while investing heavily in AI infrastructure and data centers. The news mentions rising debt levels and payroll cost reduction.

Does anyone know what exactly is happening inside Oracle?

- Are they planning further layoffs beyond this reported round?

- Which teams are expected to be affected?

- Is Oracle India also seeing impact, or is this mainly a US-focused restructuring?

I work in tech and sometimes wonder how some software engineers end up earning more than people in roles like airline pilots, air traffic controllers, aerospace engineers (Boeing/Airbus), nuclear engineers, surgeons, naval officers, or engineers working on major infrastructure projects.

Many of these jobs require years of training, licensing, and carry much higher responsibility.

Is it mainly because software can scale globally and generate revenue at a much larger scale, or is there something else I’m missing?

I work in tech and sometimes wonder how some software engineers end up earning more than people in roles like airline pilots, air traffic controllers, aerospace engineers (Boeing/Airbus), nuclear engineers, surgeons, naval officers, or engineers working on major infrastructure projects.

Many of these jobs require years of training, licensing, and carry much higher responsibility.

Is it mainly because software can scale globally and generate revenue at a much larger scale, or is there something else I’m missing?

I work in tech and sometimes wonder how some software engineers end up earning more than people in roles like airline pilots, air traffic controllers, aerospace engineers (Boeing/Airbus), nuclear engineers, surgeons, naval officers, or engineers working on major infrastructure projects.

Many of these jobs require years of training, licensing, and carry much higher responsibility.

Is it mainly because software can scale globally and generate revenue at a much larger scale, or is there something else I’m missing?

I recently went through a production deployment for a greenfield project. Even after careful Dev and UAT testing, a few minor Prod-specific issues still showed up. The interesting part was coordinating approvals, support teams, infra teams, and business users during go-live.

Overall it was a good learning experience.

Curious to hear from others .What has been your most memorable production deployment experience ?

I’m seeing this pattern in my organization. I come from a software engineering background and moved into data engineering a few years ago.

What I’ve noticed is that many people have entered data engineering from operations, QA, support roles, or bootcamps, and they do reasonably well in data engineering work. But when backend or full-stack software engineering opportunities come up, those same people are usually not considered for those roles.

Has anyone else observed this? Is it because backend/full-stack roles require a stronger foundation in software engineering concepts such as system design, APIs, architecture, testing, and coding practices, or is this just a company-specific hiring pattern?

I’m seeing this pattern in my organization. I come from a software engineering background and moved into data engineering a few years ago.

What I’ve noticed is that many people have entered data engineering from operations, QA, support roles, or bootcamps, and they do reasonably well in data engineering work. But when backend or full-stack software engineering opportunities come up, those same people are usually not considered for those roles.

Has anyone else observed this? Is it because backend/full-stack roles require a stronger foundation in software engineering concepts such as system design, APIs, architecture, testing, and coding practices, or is this just a company-specific hiring pattern?

I’ve noticed an interesting trend in my organization.

Teams such as support, cloud operations, platform operations, configuration, and other non-development functions often feel that AI tools will affect developers the most because developers write more code.

At the same time, many of these teams are paid as much as or even more than some development teams, despite doing relatively little coding.

My question is: why is AI impact discussed mainly for developers? AI is already helping with troubleshooting, monitoring, ticket analysis, runbooks, incident response, cloud configuration, scripting, and operational tasks as well.

I’ve noticed an interesting trend in my organization.

Teams such as support, cloud operations, platform operations, configuration, and other non-development functions often feel that AI tools will affect developers the most because developers write more code.

At the same time, many of these teams are paid as much as or even more than some development teams, despite doing relatively little coding.

My question is: why is AI impact discussed mainly for developers? AI is already helping with troubleshooting, monitoring, ticket analysis, runbooks, incident response, cloud configuration, scripting, and operational tasks as well.

Personally speaking, I feel that beyond 10 years of experience, referrals and professional contacts work 9 out of 10 times compared to relying on job portals and random applications.

I've seen a few of my former leads and managers who have built such strong relationships that if they decide to switch jobs, people are ready to hire or refer them almost immediately, sometimes without even going through the usual interview process.

How do you maintain those relationships after changing jobs? Do you regularly stay in touch with ex-colleagues, attend meetups, help people, or is there something else you do to keep your network active without it feeling forced?

I'm quite bad at networking. Even after 13 years of experience, I still mostly depend on job portals whenever I look for opportunities.

For those who have built a strong network, how did you do it? What habits or approach helped you reach that point?

Personally speaking, I feel that beyond 10 years of experience, referrals and professional contacts work 9 out of 10 times compared to relying on job portals and random applications.

I've seen a few of my former leads and managers who have built such strong relationships that if they decide to switch jobs, people are ready to hire or refer them almost immediately, sometimes without even going through the usual interview process.

How do you maintain those relationships after changing jobs? Do you regularly stay in touch with ex-colleagues, attend meetups, help people, or is there something else you do to keep your network active without it feeling forced?

I'm quite bad at networking. Even after 13 years of experience, I still mostly depend on job portals whenever I look for opportunities.

For those who have built a strong network, how did you do it? What habits or approach helped you reach that point?

I came across this layoff discussion:

The original post mentions jobs being moved to India, but what caught my attention was the discussion in the comment.

People mentioned that companies are also moving work to countries like the Philippines, Argentina, Colombia, Costa Rica, Egypt, Morocco, Portugal, Italy, and others depending on cost, timezone, language, and talent availability.

Some even said that certain jobs previously outsourced to India are now being shifted again to South America or Southern Europe.

Do you think we're entering a phase where countries themselves are competing for outsourced tech and IT jobs, rather than India being the default destination?

What factors do you think will matter most over the next 5–10 years—cost, AI, time zones, talent quality, geopolitical stability, or something else?

I came across this layoff discussion:

The original post mentions jobs being moved to India, but what caught my attention was the discussion in the comments.

People mentioned that companies are also moving work to countries like the Philippines, Argentina, Colombia, Costa Rica, Egypt, Morocco, Portugal, Italy, and others depending on cost, timezone, language, and talent availability.

Some even said that certain jobs previously outsourced to India are now being shifted again to South America or Southern Europe.

Do you think we're entering a phase where countries themselves are competing for outsourced tech and IT jobs, rather than India being the default destination?

What factors do you think will matter most over the next 5–10 years—cost, AI, time zones, talent quality, geopolitical stability, or something else?

I've been seeing tiramisu cups trending everywhere, and many vendors are selling small portions for ₹200–₹300.

I can understand those prices if they're from a reputed bakery or a well-known cake shop that uses quality ingredients. But even street-side vendors or people selling from a bike or car are charging at least ₹200, and there are often long queues of people buying them.

Do you think these prices are actually justified, or is it mostly social media hype and people paying because it's trending?

Have you tried one? Was it worth the price?