this post was submitted on 14 May 2025
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Software engineer lost his $150K-a-year job to AI—he’s been rejected from 800 jobs and forced to DoorDash and live in a trailer to make ends meet (www.yahoo.com)
submitted 6 hours ago by remington@beehaw.org to c/technology@beehaw.org
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[–] jupdown@lemmy.ca 11 points 1 hour ago

So the author of the blog post that the article is based off of actually interacted with some comments over on Hacker News and there were some pretty interesting revelations - such as his resume having Vibecoding as the first skill listed on it and living/looking for jobs on the East Coast with a website sounding like he's on the West Coast among other things.

I guess the media saw his blog post as a quick means of driving clicks through a clickbait headline. That's not to say that the market isn't hot trash at the moment, but I personally doubt Engineers are being replaced by AI.

[–] Not_mikey@slrpnk.net 3 points 1 hour ago

So do you have to basically ai spam applications if you want a job now? Cause it seems like companies are using ai to filter out 99% of applications so there's no use into putting manual effort to adjust resumes and write cover letters if a human isn't going to read it.

[–] philpo@feddit.org 39 points 5 hours ago

I have a strong feeling, that someone who characterises himself as a "metaverse and web developer" that is interested in "super intelligence" might have other reasons why people do not consider him.

Don't get me wrong,he might be a totally nice fella and IT outside a narrow field of healthcare IT is not my field. But this guys makes all my spidey HR/management senses tingle hard.

[–] dumblederp@aussie.zone 28 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago) (1 children)

Headline aside, if you're on $150k p.a. you should have an ample emergency fund and frankly aim to live below your means while earning that kind of money in such a volatile employment field.

[–] Powderhorn@beehaw.org 20 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

What people should do has historically been at odds with their actual actions.

[–] dumblederp@aussie.zone 2 points 1 hour ago

True that. Captain hindsight to the rescue.

[–] MagicShel@lemmy.zip 49 points 6 hours ago (2 children)

I also have a job in that neighborhood and I could not be replaced by AI. I'm sympathetic to him in the sense that this is a shitty time to be looking for work for a number of reasons, but it seems in the realm of possibility that this guy is a shitty developer who made bank of the fact that for a while companies were desperate for anyone to increase IT headcount, and now finds himself unable to compete with the shitty output of AI.

I've 100% worked with developers worse than AI, but not many and if it were up to me they would be retrained into some other career where they can make more of a contribution.

You want to blame it on AI CTS scanning? Yep. Totally believable. AI generated technical questions? Sure.

But because AI is coding circles around you? Bruh....

[–] andrewrgross@slrpnk.net 7 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago) (2 children)

I think this post is a cope.

You might be 100% right. But that wouldn't change the fact that you're focusing on the individual in a story about trends, and I think you're doing so because doing so is a way to avoid engaging with the larger point of the article.

Tech work isn't safe. No work is really safe these days. It doesn't even matter if AI can do your job well. It is just a facet of a project to devalue labor and disempower laborers. And that project is going really well! No matter how good you are at your job, none of us can "merit" our way out of that project.

I'm great at my job, and my job is very AI proof. But that doesn't protect me from the fact that my company is looking for ways to gigify the work and hire contract workers from among highly paid laid off scientists and engineers to take over little easy parts of my job. They'll concentrate the hard parts, of my job and yours, and reorganize it until it's as modular as possible, and raise our workloads without increasing our pay until they can make it hard enough to say we're not doing it fast enough.

No chatbot will replace me in the next 10 years. But my company doesn't need them to in order to limit my bargaining power! They're fostering an ecosystem of abundant cheap, fungible atomized workers so they will never have to bid for your labor or worry about you being irreplaceable.

All of us need to get wise to the con. We need universal incomes, universal services, universal healthcare, universal housing. We need a guaranteed safety net that is high enough that everyone has the ability to turn down bad jobs. Even the people you think suck at their jobs.

You cannot escape this by dismissing any laid off worker as too slow to keep up. Because this is a team event. And the bosses are on the other team.

[–] MagicShel@lemmy.zip 1 points 8 minutes ago

I respect what you're saying, and while I agree with you—as you say yourself, he's not being replaced by AI like that article states. And that was as far as I was trying to go. It's not even impossible that he's a good developer who got fired by an idiot who bought into AI hype, but that's not my first guess, you know?

That's all I was saying. I largely agree with your points. I don't think we are really in opposition here, you're just coming at it from a different perspective than I contemplated in that comment.

Cheers.

[–] wildncrazyguy138@fedia.io 2 points 1 hour ago

I agree. Lots of “blame the victim” going on in this thread.

[–] wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 5 hours ago

I think it's less likely this has anything to do with skill, and more likely this is a company looking for an excuse to cut a highly paid position.

[–] originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com 57 points 6 hours ago (2 children)

K’s last job was working at a company focused on the metaverse

hahaha well, howd ya not see that coming

[–] Corngood@lemmy.ml 17 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 1 hour ago) (1 children)

Zero chance this company replaced him with an AI that actually does anything useful.

[–] Zaktor@sopuli.xyz 15 points 5 hours ago

It's kind of by definition. They're working on the metaverse.

[–] some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 5 points 4 hours ago

That fact alone makes me question his judgement and therefore critical thinking skills.

[–] Feyd@programming.dev 34 points 6 hours ago (2 children)

Earlier this year, the CEO of Anthropic Dario Amodei predicted that more software jobs will soon go by the wayside. By September, he said AI will be writing 90% of the code; moreover, “in 12 months, we may be in a world where AI is writing essentially all of the code,” he tells the Council on Foreign Relations.

Sure, Jan

This is drawing lines between the job market and AI that probably aren't there. We're just in the beginning of an economic downturn.

[–] socsa@piefed.social 1 points 19 minutes ago* (last edited 18 minutes ago)

More than that, "software engineer" has been drifting towards "software technician" for a while now. If you don't have any additional physics, math or engineering specialty on top of software skills, things are pretty crowded. Anyone can learn to write decent software. It's really never been a traditional academic topic for the most part, and AI is definitely making that worse.

[–] Powderhorn@beehaw.org 9 points 5 hours ago

An engineered one to finally end the middle class by grabbing assets at fire-sale prices so everyone has to rent, while simultaneously being able to further raise rents on account of all the new demand.

[–] 30p87@feddit.org 31 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago) (1 children)

Let me guess - Silicon Valley-like company? Focused on new fads, long or short, eager to adopt any new trend for themselves?

Yes

The only part "AI" plays in this is giving employers the sensation that they can replace workers. Which companies that are building on trends, especially silicon valley ones, are much more likely to fall for. And I'm very sure that the "800" applications were sent to very similar companies.

[–] Powderhorn@beehaw.org 6 points 5 hours ago (2 children)

In my last job search, I sent out more than a thousand applications across multiple industries, got one interview, didn't get the job. It's very plausible.

[–] YesButActuallyMaybe@lemmy.ca 4 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago) (1 children)

Getting ghosted like fuck was the norm before this nonsense started.. he just didnt notice because he wasnt looking.. Just look at his linkedin and tell me you'd hire someone who's position is 'vibecoder'

[–] Powderhorn@beehaw.org 2 points 3 hours ago

Sounds like he should jump over to adult entertainment.

[–] 30p87@feddit.org 3 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

I sent out ~20 applications, got four interviews, got two jobs

[–] Powderhorn@beehaw.org 4 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

What platform were you searching on?

[–] 30p87@feddit.org 5 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

Multiple ones, and directly through people I know.

[–] Powderhorn@beehaw.org 4 points 4 hours ago

Yeah, I've just gotten to the point of trying to network instead of applying for things that don't exist.

[–] orca@orcas.enjoying.yachts 8 points 5 hours ago

I have avoided working for the FAANG companies my entire career and I’m happier for it.

[–] Powderhorn@beehaw.org 7 points 5 hours ago

This sounds shockingly familiar. The job market is a scam these days, and I've been homeless for a year and a half. AI hype is just going to make it worse.

[–] a1studmuffin@aussie.zone 2 points 4 hours ago

Reminds me of: https://youtu.be/4R4uTrA1vQ8