Basically my Product manager wants me to read his mind and find out the requirements myself, finalize them and build the product. Bonus points if I can point out some mistakes in the requirements and correct them myself.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/ces6054150001
I see a lot of narratives being pushed on this subreddit ("Tech is doomed!" "Tech is not doomed, AI companies are spreading doomerism for their IPO" "doomers are just trying to reduce competition!" "Claude is going to fuck us all in the ass", "Tech is now armageddon and noone should even try to get in anymore" etc.)
A lot of the data being quoted is also really bad. There's that infamous chart from FRED of Indeed SWE job postings, but who even uses Indeed, and who even thinks a job posting is necessarily real?
So I think an actual data source can finally solve this debate. I found this time series on FRED which is the most comprehensive and seems the best in terms of quality. According to its definition of "computer systems design and related services," (which seems relatively consistent over time), there are currently about 2.368 million people employed as software developers in the US (other definitions online give anywhere from 1-4.4 million, so treat this more as an indexed baseline).
From the data, several distinct periods can be identified:
Following the early 1990s recession and during the Clinton admin. economic and internet boom, tech employment increased exponentially at a 12% annual rate, peaking at 1.358 million in March 2001. It then collapsed in the dot-com bubble, up to an 18% downturn at its worst, and only recovered to the same level 6 years later, on March 2007. However, the market returned to growth in under 3 years.
The 2008 global financial crisis actually had only a limited impact on tech employment, since tech continued to boom during this time. From June 2009 to the pandemic in February 2020, tech employment increased in a remarkably stable and rapid linear growth pattern of around 80k per year.
The disruption caused by the pandemic was incredibly brief. It caused a net change of -70k, but by June 2020, hiring restarted at the fastest pace in history, around 130k per year. Having been a high schooler in this period, I definitely remember how insane the hype was around tech.
Hiring finally began to plateau beginning in May 2022. Total employment peaked at 2.483 million in March 2023. Ever since then, it has changed at a net rate of -42k a year.
The current slump is characterized by being less severe compared to the massive displacement of the dot-com bubble, which was much worse in percentage terms.
However, the current slump is also very protracted. This is the longest contiguous period of declining tech employment in the 36 years of data. That probably explains why this slump feels worse than anything in history. Even if it is not as intense as the dot-com bubble was, it is already longer, and it also followed the most rapid period of hiring in the history of tech.
It seems obvious that 2021-2022 overhiring has contributed to a disproportionately large glut of CS majors who had been expecting that 130k/yr employment growth rate when the market has actually suddenly shifted to -42k/yr, a gap in expectations of 172k.
This can be seen by the recent shifts in CS major enrollment. We can see enrollment as a rough 3-4 year lagging indicator for the sentiment of the *candidate* pool (since the data I have only tracks the employee pool, not how many people are applying for those positions). It started to drop rapidly this year.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2026/04/13/computer-science-major-ai/.
Tldr: current tech slump is real and is worse than 2008, but that's mostly because 2008 barely affected tech. Dot-com bubble was much worse but shorter. Overhiring increased competition in the last few years.
Hey all, thanks for clicking on this post and taking the time to read it. Please forgive if this is not the right subreddit to post about these concerns and if possible, please guide me to the right ones.
I am looking for a mid level developer job after spending about 3 years in my first job as a junior developer. I am currently told that I should be applying for 20-30 jobs each day, or maybe more. This is advised to me by a lot of people.
At the same time, blindly applying your resume doesn't work. We have to read the JDs properly and have to tailor our resume according to each JD. I have tried blindly applying the same resume for 50+ jobs, and got rejections from all of them.
Tailoring your resume takes time. Sometimes a lot of time. A JD might be saying, "The candidate should know React, they should have experience with Redux and they should know how to use hooks, functions and UI libraries" and this means now you have to mention all these words in your experience section now. Many times it's not that easy. Many times we have to rewrite a full bullet point in our resume, with the challenge of using a performance metrics, your core work and all the keywords needed to be stuffed because of the JD.
Or, a JD might mention that a candidate should know what is EC2, S3 etc and you have to now find a way to stuff that somewhere in your resume. You might now understand what I am trying to say.
My point is, each time I need to tailor a resume, it needs a lot of energy and precision and the result should make sense. It's not possible to apply for 20-30 JDs in such a case everyday.
How do we all achieve this goal of applying for so many jobs in a single day? Or is it just a myth? Is it a better idea to apply for fewer jobs but with a better fit?
Received this email: "I am reaching out as I would like to schedule some time to connect with you today regarding your offer of employment with Meta. There are some important business updates that I would like to discuss with you as soon as possible."
Have a meeting scheduled today. Any thoughts/tips are appreciated. Thank you
i have been at my current job two years and lately been more interested in fixing the small daily frictions than anything else. just the stuff that makes the actual hours better.
things like finally setting up proper meeting controls so i stop fumbling with the mouse mid standup, or cleaning up how i move between tools without losing my train of thought.
curious what small changes people here have made that actually stuck. nothing life changing, just the stuff that quietly made things better long term.
First and foremost, I knew termination was probably coming. My manager, FJ, had raised performance concerns, although I had already become unhappy in the role and was actively looking elsewhere.
Honestly, Affirm was one of the worst places I have worked. Between the compensation structure, the lack of a guaranteed 401(k) match, the internal processes, and the overall developer experience, it often felt like I spent more time chasing people down and navigating bureaucracy than actually building and shipping software.
For context, I joined Affirm in November 2025 as a Software Engineer II within the Engineering org. Prior to joining, former recruiter TP informed me on October 14, 2025 that I would be reporting to one of the director’s of engineering, SE. However, on my actual start date, I was unexpectedly reassigned to report to FJ instead. Later, HR gave one explanation for the reassignment, while management gave a different explanation entirely. That immediately raised concerns for me regarding transparency and consistency.
During January 2026, I filed a formal HR complaint regarding what I believed was inappropriate escalation and targeting surrounding a new hire event incident involving LK. According to my complaint, despite proactively communicating that I was ill and despite there being no indication the event was mandatory, the issue was escalated directly to my manager and engineering leadership instead of simply reaching out to me first. I also noted in my complaint that I was the only African American female in attendance and that I felt disproportionately scrutinized afterward.
Around March 27, 2026, my midyear performance review acknowledged that my results were “Strong,” while simultaneously rating behaviors as “Inconsistently Demonstrates.” Importantly, I was never placed on a formal PIP, never given structured performance timelines, and never placed under formal disciplinary action.
On April 1, 2026, I notified HR that I intended to pursue internal mobility opportunities within Affirm. On April 10, 2026, HR representative AP informed me that I was not eligible for internal transfer because I was allegedly “not in good standing.” However:
- I was not on a PIP.
- I was not under formal disciplinary action.
- HR acknowledged those facts.
I had been told I could apply before reaching six months of tenure.
I requested clarification regarding what policy was actually being applied because the written internal mobility documentation referenced formal PIPs or disciplinary action as disqualifiers, neither of which applied to me.
On April 10, 2026, I also sent a formal demand for settlement and request for mediation to KA, Affirm’s Chief Legal Officer. In that letter, I formally asserted claims relating to race discrimination, hostile work environment concerns, inconsistent policy enforcement, retaliation concerns, and lack of transparency in management decisions. I also demanded preservation of evidence including Slack messages, emails, performance documentation, HR investigations, and internal communications.
That letter additionally proposed either:
A constructive resolution involving internal mobility and mediation or a negotiated separation package. I requested a written response by April 17, 2026 and stated that absent a response, I would pursue arbitration and/or an EEOC complaint.
On April 17, 2026, I escalated the matter further in writing to KH and KA. In that letter, I specifically documented concerns that performance related communications suddenly became more detailed only after I began questioning the internal transfer denial. I also stated concerns that those communications appeared retaliatory in timing.
On April 20, 2026, I submitted another formal complaint documenting concerns involving inconsistent explanations from management and HR, denial of internal mobility, alleged disparate treatment, lack of transparency, and hostile work environment concerns.
Fast forward to this week.
I attended a meeting with BL, Employee Relations, and KH, Senior Manager People Business Partner. During the meeting, HR informed me that their investigation found no evidence of discrimination or wrongdoing. Shortly afterward, BL left the call and my manager, FJ, joined. FJ then read what appeared to be a scripted termination statement and terminated me on the spot.
Ironically, I was still actively on call while being terminated and was receiving production pages during the process. Almost immediately after the meeting concluded, my company access, accounts, and laptop were locked.
Oddly enough, I was more relieved than upset. I genuinely disliked the work environment and had already been attempting to leave the team through internal transfer opportunities, which had effectively been blocked because I was allegedly “not in good standing.” Again, no formal PIP was ever issued to me.
At the time of termination, I was also preparing to take FMLA leave and my manager was aware of that.
Following termination, Affirm presented me with severance paperwork. The offer included:
Roughly two weeks of continued pay and benefits through June 1, 2026.
A severance payment of approximately $15,384, which they stated represented approximately five weeks of salary.
A COBRA and benefits stipend of approximately $2,302.
All contingent upon signing broad release of claims provisions, confidentiality language, cooperation requirements, and arbitration related agreements.
The documents also included provisions requiring confidentiality regarding the severance terms, ongoing cooperation obligations, waiver of essentially all employment related claims, and mandatory arbitration requirements.
Importantly, no severance agreement, supplemental release, confidentiality agreement, or release of claims was ever signed by me.
After I anonymously discussed my experience online and discussed the severance numbers generally, Affirm later revoked the severance offer entirely, claiming I violated confidentiality provisions, despite the fact that no executed agreement existed.
I have since retained an employment attorney and all future communications are being directed through counsel.
For clarity:
- This post is intended to discuss my own personal experience and understanding of events.
- This is not intended to harass, threaten, or bully anyone.
- I do not condone harassment or bullying toward any individuals mentioned.
- This is protected speech and my understanding of my First Amendment and labor related rights, especially given that no confidentiality agreement or release of claims had been executed.
Yap you heard it AI doomers.
We are cooked. AI is already becoming profitable at the current pricing.
>Anthropic’s revenue is set to more than double to $10.9 billion in the second quarter, an explosive rate of growth that will help it turn an operating profit for the first time.
> The company is set to turn an operating profit of $559 million in Q2 2026.
***Per New York Time - “On Wednesday, the ax fell. The layoffs began in Singapore, where at 4 a.m. local time emails went out to workers who were being laid off. Employees in Britain, the United States and elsewhere were notified early Wednesday morning in their respective time zones”
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/19/technology/meta-layoffs-ai.html
Good morning
I am a dev 2.5 years experience at a non tech manufacturing company, they didn't have much in the way of good practices and it was very much, get it working, deal with it later mentality
I have started a new role in quite a tech forward financial services company where they have much better practices and code is properly reviewed etc
Here's my dilemma, I didn't do CS at uni, I did an unrelated engineering degree (sort of), paired with the fact I was just expected to figure it out at the previous company with code making it to production withput anyone ever seeing it. so I find I lack the fundamentals to building good clean and maintainable software. now this isn't all the circumstances to blame, I have definitely not been as proactive in instilling good habits.
Now however I need to sort my shit out and learn what I need to learn to progress, I am quite excited to get stuck in
If you were starting from quite green beginning again, what resources would you use to learn these habits (architecture, design patterns etc)?
The stack is mainly Microsoft (C#, azure) with stuff like aks for containerisation and SQL server for database
I know these roles have been around for a while under various other names. But increasingly seeing posts for companies hiring for these roles.
How would you go about learning the following skills if you are not currently doing this work in your current role?
(Taken from a Google FDE listing):
Have a bunch of internships and 10 months of full time experience. Got promoted to SWE 2 a few months after joining. I am not that fast at developing, and I often need to build familiarity with different frameworks or tools before being able to work on something.
So I feel like my traditional development speed is like 10x slower than using LLMs. Add on the fact that I'm at a fast paced startup, and I feel like I can't ever justify doing trad dev.
When I see experienced devs on youtube talking about LLMs they're coming from a position where their hand development is like half the speed but twice the quality of LLMs. But being a new dev, for me trad coding is like 1/10th the speed and 1.25x the quality of LLMs which is just never justifiable in a business sense.
But if I never do trad dev then my skill level never increases, so I'm increasingly forced to use LLMs.
Not sure how to break this negative cycle other than dedicating even more of my life outside of work to coding. And even then, small personal projects don't quite build the same skills as working on production software at large scales.
In an email from the CEO this morning
>Hi team,
>We are in extraordinary times and at a pivotal inflection point to shape the future for our customers. Intuit is an iconic company in a category of one with strong market leadership and multiple diversified growth engines serving consumers, businesses, and accountants. We are well positioned to power the prosperity of our customers and create a bright future, but to do so, we must evolve as a company.
>We have significant momentum across our 3 Big Bets and to fully capitalize on this extraordinary opportunity, we need to move with far greater velocity, urgency, and discipline. We must:
>Scale our AI-native platform to deliver easy, done-for-you experiences. We have already built the foundation; now, we must accelerate delivering undisputed customer benefits with an unmatched combination of data, AI, and human expertise.
Be the center of money for consumers and businesses. We will ensure our platform is their primary financial engine, creating a unified ecosystem so our customers can access, manage, and grow their money with confidence.
Accelerate our authority and right to win in the mid-market. We must scale our impact with far greater velocity, becoming the definitive partner for mid-market businesses and accounting firms, and delivering the industry-specific platform they need to manage complexity and scale at the speed of their ambition.
>Shaping the company for the future
Over the past several months, we have spent significant time evaluating how we focus the company with greater velocity and discipline to achieve what I outlined above. We believe we can serve more customers and deliver breakthrough products that fuel our customers’ success by reducing complexity and simplifying our structure to become a faster, leaner, and more focused company.
>This required us to make a set of difficult decisions that impact our people. Today, we are reducing our full-time workforce by approximately 17%. These are valued colleagues and friends who have been vital to shaping the company we are today. Saying goodbye is never easy, and I want to acknowledge the weight this news carries for all of us.
>Here are the changes we’re making today and why we’re making them:
>Reducing layers of management. We have identified areas where too many organizational layers have slowed the flow of information and hampered our ability to move with speed. By streamlining our leadership structure, we are empowering our teams who are closer to the customer to make decisions, ensuring we operate as a more agile and accountable organization.
Focusing roles on high impact work. As we simplify our structure, we are reducing the need for coordination heavy roles that were previously required to manage the complexity. This allows us to focus our collective energy on mission-critical work that directly impacts our customers' prosperity.
Bringing our teams closer together to accelerate impact. To accelerate the pace of innovation, we are co-locating our teams within strategic hubs to drive deeper collaboration and impact. This includes winding down our Reno and Woodland Hills offices and reducing our presence in other locations.
Reducing overlap across TurboTax and Credit Karma. With the integration of TurboTax and Credit Karma now largely complete, we are eliminating overlapping and redundant roles to operate as a single, unified team and platform.
Reallocating resources to our primary growth engines. We are optimizing our business and reducing investments in certain areas, including Mailchimp, and streamlining parts of our engineering and product organizations to better align resources with our 3 Big Bets.
>These changes are a necessary evolution to reduce complexity and architect an organization that operates with the velocity required to fuel our growth engines. We are fundamentally re-engineering our operating model to increase accountability, accelerate decision making, and ensure our execution is as bold as our strategy.
>Taking care of our people
I understand this news is difficult and that you will want to know what this means for you. People who are being impacted will receive a calendar invite by 9:00 AM PT today titled "Discussion about leaving Intuit" to hear from a leader in their organization about their transition.
>I also want to be clear: these decisions are a reflection of our changing structure, not the individuals in these roles. We are parting with talented, dedicated colleagues who have made significant contributions to Intuit and the customers we serve.
>Our commitment to treating every individual with dignity and respect is a fundamental part of who we are, and it has never been more important than it is right now. To help everyone leaving, we are providing generous support, including:
>Financial*: Employees will receive generous financial support as they navigate this change and identify their next chapter. In the US, employees will receive 16 weeks of base pay, plus 2 additional weeks for every year at Intuit. They will also have a paid transition period, including July RSU vesting and bonus eligibility, before they leave the company with a last day of July 31, 2026. Employees outside the US will receive a country-specific package, based on local requirements.*
Health care*: We will provide at least 6 months of health insurance support to employees who are leaving and enrolled in Intuit medical plans. They will also have access to free mental health support during the transition period and for up to 60 days after leaving Intuit.*
Career*: Each impacted employee will have access to career transition and job placement services. These include resume development, interviewing techniques, and recruiting and job search help.**
Immigration*: For those who need immigration support, the extended transition period will allow individuals on visas extra time to find their next role. Intuit will also provide access to external immigration experts for advice and support at no cost.*
>To those leaving Intuit, thank you. I want to express my deep gratitude for everything you have done for us. Your contributions have shaped who we are today, and the impact you’ve made on our products, our teams, and our customers will endure. You’ve been part of building something meaningful here, and that will never change.
>Looking ahead
To those of you staying: I know this is a difficult day. Please support one another, and please don’t hesitate to reach out to your manager or the People team if you need anything.
>As we look ahead, this is an incredible inflection point for our customers and Intuit. We have navigated many moments of strategic reinvention over our 40-year history, and once again, we are making the deliberate, hard choices required to ignite higher-velocity progress across our Big Bets and play to win in our core business. Our customers have ambitious goals, as do we. We have a once in a lifetime opportunity and a lot of important work ahead of us to power economic growth for those we serve
>What will carry us forward in this moment is what always has: supporting one another, staying deeply connected to our customers, and moving forward with purpose and determination.
>Sasan
Dumb question, I know I could ramble about this so I'm just going to make this a concise list:
remote worker 22m, 85k, from a small town
DISCLAIMER: I'm not changing jobs, I have a job, just want to be in a better local market for the future
want to boost my career/have more stability/ have option to switch paths with the turbulent market
Looking at Denver
Does the amount of opportunity from non SF/NYC environments really change between hubs ?(i.e Denver vs Austin vs Minneapolis) Should you just prioritize savings/ COL instead?
Want to make friends/ have more fun with life, but enjoy peace and quiet
--------------
Is it stupid to force a move to a HCOL city to just be around more opportunity when the market is so turbulent? Will I be killing my opportunity later by not going to a tech hub right now (Assuming I network)? Is the cost worth it?
No clear answer of course, everyone has different opinions on this I'd imagine
Appreciate any help, cheers.
I genuinely feel like everything I learned with regard to actual programming skills could be acquired by some moderately passionate dude in less than a month. I know, the most advanced CS course I've taken up to this point is DSA, but it still feels very minimal
Out of the 24 courses I had to take so far, only four had actual programming in them. Incredibly basic "projects" that could be done incredibly quickly
Is this normal? I know ASU isn't some prestigious university or anything, but after two years, I still feel like a literal beginner practically. The vast majority of my effort has been spent on irrelevant gen ed courses
I have been working as a junior SOC Analyst for the past 4 months. Since my firm is completely security focused, there isn’t really a strict hierarchy here. Even though my role is junior , I am already handling a lot of L1 responsibilities and sometimes even L2 Level tasks.
I still feel like I am lacking in some areas, but at the same time I have learned a lot whether it’s IR, threat hunting, creating monitors, working with EDR solutions, or log parsing. The good thing is that getting exposure to such a wide range of work is helping me grow and understand security more deeply. The only concern is that despite handling responsibilities similar to higher levels, my salary is still very quite low.
That’s why I now want to push myself further and become skilled enough to eventually work at companies like microsoft, google, palo alto or CrowdStrike. I know the competition is huge, which is why I want to understand how I can make myself stand out and become a stronger candidate for companies like these.
If anyone here is already working in such environments or has experience in this field, I would genuinely appreciate any advice or guidance ;)
I have interviews coming up for midlevel java backend software engineer roles. Any tips for me on how to prepare? was told to also brush up on claude concepts so need advice!
Just venting here. Feel free to remove if this kind of post isn't allowed.
I've been working as an engineer for years after pivoting out of a very toxic and harmful industry. I fell in love with building software when I made the switch and for the first time in my life I thoroughly enjoyed my job. Using creativity and intellect to solve new and unique problems every day. Afforded time and independence to validate and implement an approach. Feeling immense satisfaction when people used features I built in production. It felt like a craft. That's all gone now.
To be clear I'm definitely not anti-AI. I think it's an incredible tool and for a long time in the beginning I was very much an advocate of utilizing it as much as possible to help unlock new knowledge that would have otherwise taken real time to learn, automate repetitive boilerplate, ideate with towards finding new solutions for complex problems, etc. But now it feels like we've finally crossed the threshold from tool to replacement.
I just left a startup where leadership - slowly over time - became wracked with AI psychosis. Mandates across all departments in the company, CEO vibe coding slop into production, all the stories I'm sure you've heard before. The company I joined is more stable, and I very much went into the job with an understanding from the interviews that they are very "AI forward". My hope was that maybe coming into a role where the AI expectation was clear from the start and the company had put real time and effort into fine tuning their AI workflows would somehow change the experience for me, but it hasn't. Here we receive a product brief document and feed it to an agent, which uses the Atlassian MCP to create stories in Jira. Then we spin up agents to implement the tickets. Once we validate the work, an agent drafts a PR and pushes it to Github, which is then reviewed by CoPilot. Engineers shovel the comments back into Cursor, feedback gets addressed, PR gets merged in. It's more transactional than ever.
I'm not really sure what my goal is posting this. I know I sound like a dinosaur but it just feels like what I loved about this work is completely gone. I don't know if this is for me anymore. Anyway, that's it I guess.
im 17 and have a lil exp in frontend. ill go to uni for comp sci and need to make money and i was wondering if it is viable to make like 700 euros in a space of 3 months with webdev freelance. i want your honest opinion pls.
help a young guy 🤞
So I joined a remote startup last June. Yearly reviews happened back in February. Got “meets expectations” as my review, which made sense as I probably had a 6 month ramp up, after that I was working well as an IC without much guidance, moving at a good pace. Was told that I should expect “exceeds expectations” next year if I keep working as I have been after that injtial ramp up. Anyways when it came time for salary increase I was expecting 4% or so, pretty standard raise. Nope, 11%. A 11% raise with just meeting expectations. Went from 125,000 to 138 and some change.
Before this I was planning on job hopping every 2 years or so, get my TC up. But if this 10%+ raise happens every year, do I even job hop? Leave once the 10%+ raises stop happening? Id think even if I could hop to 175, 10%+ raises arent going to be a normal occurrence else where.
Do I just ride out my current role as long as possible?
I’m sorry for the language but this industry is currently absolute shit. Seriously what are us young people supposed to do? Just pray we don’t get laid off and can never come back? Work a 996 culture 60 hours a week to prove we’re valuable? Then still get laid off? And now have to compete with tens of thousands of senior engineers from the likes of Meta, Amazon, Snap, etc.? Learn a bunch of skills like prompting an AI because the companies tell us to use 100% AI now? So have to study actual important things in my own free time on top of the 996.
Feeling like I chose the wrong career. There will be so much friction the entire way up the ladder now. I’m disheartened about this field and it hasn’t gotten any better since 2022.