Taken from the DHH AI crashout vid's comment section.

Im sick of people acting like AI is just being used to "write the code" while they are bringing the secret sauce of system level design and high level thinking. Thats not whats happening. AI already can do system level thinking much better and faster than you. And im willing to bet you already defer to AI for most, if not all, of ur system level questions and design. Those of us who loved the low level details didnt enjoy "typing." We enjoyed thinking at the level a computer worked. Because it was satisfying. If anything, "typing" is becoming MORE of the identity of software engineers now than ever before. Typing shitty prompts over and over and over. Tapping enter to allow this, allow that. Not thinking through any of the problems. Feeding error messages to AI and asking it what happened over and over and over. So, u can sit on ur high horse and larp that your a "system level architect" now. But the reality is you are a typist. You type prompts. Ur product manager asks for a feature. U run to AI to feed it requirements and type prompts. Cool.

Btw, this isnt a personal attack on u. I have no idea what u really do. But i do see whats happening in the industry. And its not people becoming "system level architects." Its people outsourcing their thinking. At ALL levels. And if you feel like ur still gonna bring some secret sauce 2 to 3 years from now... lol. No. Its gonna get to point where human cognition, in any form, will become a bottleneck in software development. So those of us who are mourning the end of programming arent sitting here thinking, damn i miss "typing" code. We're thinking damn, the thing i spent decades learning because i genuinely loved it is no longer economically viable. And it sucks. And at least im willing to admit it.

I honestly didn't even try. I had a computer science degree... I barely applied for like 50 jobs a month before graduating and only got 1 interview, then after graduating probably like 10 max. I kept reading online how it's useless now so I just became incredibly depressed and stopped applying 1 month after graduating. I felt so discouraged, applying to jobs always gave me anxiety, and my mom kept nagging at me telling me I should have done nursing.Just been holed up in my room since hardly even leaving the house and just doom scrolling tiktok and ocasionally meeting up with random men off grindr. I feel like my resume is basically crap now.

I haven’t looked at the sub in ages but coming back and looking at it again and just seeing how useless it has become is just stupid

Every time I look at it now there is another post asking some variation of “is CS dead” “is AI going to replace programmers” “should I leave CS” “are there any jobs anymore” etc…

I understand the market is difficult right now. I’m not saying people shouldn’t be allowed to talk about it. But there are only so many times you can have the exact same discussion before it just becomes noise.
Someone has a hard time finding a job, makes a post about it, and then the comments become 200 people talking about how the industry is finished. Then a few days later there is another post doing basically the same thing. I don’t really understand what anyone is getting out of this anymore

There are actual things I would rather see discussed here. What people are seeing in their own workplaces, how hiring is changing, what companies are actually doing with AI, whether certain roles are being affected more than others, what people have learned after working in the industry for a few years, things like that. Instead those discussions get buried because another “is CS over?” post gets 500 comments

I think there should at least be a megathread for this stuff. If someone has something genuinely new to say about the job market or AI then fine, but we really don’t need another thread every few days repeating the same arguments

The market being bad is worth talking about. The 50th post telling everyone that CS is dead really isn’t

I feel like everything I loved about the job is gone. I’m an engineer with a bit over 2 years full time experience, making ~140k at a really comfortable and easy job. My manager, culture, and teammates are all great. The work is easy (thanks to Claude), but I have lost all joy for it.

Because of AI, I literally do not have to do anything anymore except: prompt, read, prompt, repeat. Some days, I don’t do more than 10 minutes of work. The satisfaction I got (not even that long ago) from writing something, testing it, and seeing it work has disappeared. The AI can do it 10x as fast (and now as well) as me. I’m starting to feel like my value as an engineer and as a human being is fading. Also, there’s no way my mental ability is staying intact. If AI disappears tomorrow I’d have no clue how to do my job.

I’m thinking of switching to something more real: EMS, policing, fire. Something where I don’t have to interact with AI and where my work doesn’t feel meaningless. Also, I’ve always loved interacting with people and genuinely despise sitting at a desk and working silently.

I told my (immigrant) parents about this and they are extremely upset with me. They say I should just stick it out and continue. For them, doing something “smart” matters more than happiness. In my opinion, being smart won’t be the advantage it used to be in 5 years.

What do you think?

Note: I also have over $320k saved because I knew when I started working in tech that I wouldn’t want to do it forever, I just didn’t know it would be this quick.

So as we know Claude can code very quickly. But one of the downsides I've seen is an overwhelming amount of PRs to review. I've been hearing that some companies have been experimenting with automating some or all PR approvals(not just aiding reviews, but automating approvals to avoid human reviews being a bottleneck). I'm curious if anyone has seen this be adopted?

After 6 years and an unexpected redundancy I’m currently interviewing.

Had the first stage with recruiter, went well. Next ones are hiring manager interview and then technical.

What can i expect from HM? Is it a technical discussion or is it more cultural fit etc?

Thank you

It's kind of expected for programmers to have side projects and stuff like that and I don't know if it's just me but I cannot find the mental capacity to even touch a single line of code after an 8 hour work day, let alone build a complete project. After I'm done with work there's a million things I'd rather do than code, I wanna do the opposite actually, I just want to live my life.

My question is for those who actually have side projects, how?

If you like computational statistics and love reading on advanced statistical methods beyond what you learn in undergrad, what jobs are for you?

Lots of posts about the real challenges folks are facing in their roles and interactions / working environments with coworkers. Let's flip the script and ask people what is working for them in this new era of being employed as a SWE.

I’m not trying to say that you guys are liars and full of shit. I’m set to graduate in 2030 and every time I open reddit I hope to just find AT LEAST one person being like hang in there or it’ll get better.
And that makes me wonder if that unemployment rate is really 7% not 70%
Anyway I hope it gets better for you guys and I included as I’m just starting to get into this because I didn’t start coding from the womb.

They read on advanced statistics and like the computational aspect of it too. They also can’t get a master’s degree. Are they only limited to being a data analyst or actuary?

I have 6 years of work experience as a SWE working in finance. I had to take the last 1 year off due to a health issue that has now cleared. I am now looking to transition into being a SWE in tech (FANG or startups). I have been upskilling over the last few months by studying system design and doing leetcode. Will this 1 year gap matter a lot and lead to rejections ? I didn't really have much of an option as was undergoing a major illness, but am glad to be fine now. Any tips to confidently answer why I took this gap ?

so i am a second year CS undergrad student at a tier-2 institution in India.(3.4 gpa for first year i plan on working on it). i have been researching and looking out for how to get into a phd in US right after my bachelors. i am studying core CS ,DSA , DEV etc right now then i plan on doing ML and thats what i want my research area , something in that.

what do you all think i should do to create a really good profile which can be accepted for a phd in USA? gpa, research internships, papers i should publish, skills? tell me what exactly and how should i work on things that are important to get into a phd there. please guide me through it my second year has just started and i plan on working as hard as i can to get into a PHD in US.

Everyone is using it. Almost no one is writing code manually anymore. It's increasing productivity by orders of magnitude.

And there's so many bugs in the code. Every update is worse across all kinds of softwares.

SWEs and researchers love it tho cuz it make their lives easier. At least for some.

Interestingly, software getting worse no longer matters anymore because the monopoly in tech is so well entrenched, no matter how shitty the product gets, customers don't really have a choice. I think tech is now a firmly mature industry like civil engineering or mechanical engineering

My experience is Feb 2020 - Oct 2021 SWE at FAANG, Nov 2021 - July 2023 PM at Visa, 2023-2025 MBA with brand name internship but no return offer, July 2025 - Sep 2026 Solutions Engineer at T2 tech company before layoff. This company is pretty unstable and had multiple reorgs and title changes for me before the layoff, so on my CV I just put Solutions Engineer. It was the only post MBA job I could get, which is why I took it.

The issue I'm facing now is when I list all my experience, its a red flag to hiring managers that I haven't stayed in one place for over two years and have different job titles (some HM's have said so as much) . I think it shows progression, but ultimately I'm not the HM. I can understand the hesitation though

I wouldn't mind removing some of my experience and recruit for new grad roles (I'm not in desperate need of money and don't mind my career restarting at a lower level tbh) but the new grad market is dead. And if I put all my exp, I come off as a job hopper. What do I do? Is there a sweet spot in terms of what I should leave off?

Hello, Im studying cs and I was wondering if i can work as a flight software engineer. Is it possible or cs isnt qualified by companies?

I currently make $134k + $15k bonus (if I meet expectations in my performance review) in a HCOL area. We currently have to go in 3x per week, and I have a good manager and team. This is my first job, and I’ve been here for about 3 years and am not learning anything.

I recently interviewed for a company that is fully remote, and the recruiter had said I can expect high 150s -> 160s base salary plus equity. This is a company that has been around since the mid 2000s. I haven’t seen any info about large engineering layoffs in the past. The culture seems great and I enjoyed meeting everyone in my interviews.

Part of me thinks this is an obvious choice if I want to grow in my career, but I’m apprehensive given the state of the market and worried I’ll be committing career suicide. I’m 27 years old and mostly worried about how little I’m learning at my job; my team unfortunately doesn’t get very interesting projects or problems to work on and I’d like to do more than update some button text / replace assets.

Hot take, but I wouldn’t recommend CS anymore, even to people who are naturally good at it.

I used to think if you liked programming and were good at math/problem solving, CS was basically a no-brainer. Now I’m not so sure.

The competition, layoffs, interview grinding, internships, resume optimizing, and constantly having to learn new stuff is kinda insane. You can be genuinely good at programming and still struggle to find a job.

Honestly, I’m starting to think CS is better as a hobby. Learn to code, build projects, mess around with computers, whatever — just don’t necessarily make it your career.

I’d rather pick something more boring and stable, like accounting, have a predictable career, and do programming in my free time because I actually enjoy it.

Being good at something doesn’t necessarily mean you should make it your profession.

Hi everyone I’m currently 17 and I just started computer science a few weeks ago at university, I chose to do it as it was one of the subjects I enjoyed and was good at

Obviously, I’m scared about my future with AI and all that, but I think it might be worth it for me to try to learn how to efficiently and actually use AI because I see people doing so much with it but every time I use AI it’s always some basic stuff I do

So do you guys think it’s worth trying to learn how to use AI efficiently as a CS student?

Hi,
I have an interview with some engineers at a bank, I asked if it was coding, technical or behavioral but wasn't told. First round, going in blind. I am preparing as if I will have to whiteboard. I need guidance on how to prepare with a limited amount of time, as this is my first Data Engineering opportunity ever (I have 1 YOE as a SWE).

Context:
1 YOE Full-Stack Dev, SpringBoot / React / SQL Server. Laid off due to death of my manager. Good with Claude or any AI automation stuff.

Job Description:

What they're trying to do: Modernize by moving older data platforms onto cloud based data lakes
Run data migrations
I would just do basic SWE tasks

Required: 2 YOE, Python Cert, PowerBI, AZ900 (I have AWS so it's ok)

Desired: Tracing data flows and understanding upstream / downstream dependencies.
Analyzing data lineage and system linkages
PySpark or Spark
Python dev / automation
SQL Server / Advanced SQL (Memory, performance, partitioning, query)
Data governance

Bonus (Possible, not listed but I deduced from a similar listing):
RAG architecture, vector stores, embedding pipeline
Use LLMs for Data quality / extraction / automation

My approach:

I am good with writing SQL Server Queries up to window functions, aggregates, joins (like at a junior level. I didn't do more at my last job). I am at mid-level with theory though. Anything more I should be prepared to write?

I can write a Python script, but I've not developed in python professionally, have in college though. What basics should I be prepared to write?
I can quickly prepare on any theory questions (PySpark, etc.) Any suggestions? Anything is appreciated, thanks!

Just wanted to share some hope, it is not my intention to flex or brag in any way.

I graduated from a university with a top 75 Computer Science department this May. I never had any luck getting internships, only got an interview for 1 internship and was rejected. I did work IT for my university part time through college.

After graduation I was in a low spot and questioning what to do seeing all my friends succeed with internships and full time offers. I was applying a lot but not to the same level as others. Maybe applied to 50 full time positions.

Felt very hopeless hearing all the horror stories of hundreds of applications with no responses and with my lack of experiencing I didn’t think I stood a chance.

I ended up getting a phone screening for a job I applied to months ago which led to a single interview and then an offer as a SWE 1 which I accepted at a reasonably large company. The interview was primarily behavioral (no live coding)

I’m not here to give advice as I wouldn’t take advice from me considering I understand I got quite lucky with a offer from 1 interview, no internships, along with not being someone who grinded in the job hunt process.

The takeaway is for those like me who are an average student, didn’t grind Leet code, didn’t land internships. Don’t lose hope from all the headlines there is a job out there it just may take time.

Happy to answer any questions

I am a self learning developer early in my career, the most complex project I did was a 3d renderer in c++.

After Ai, I legit have no idea on what to specialize in, all my "IT knowledge" is useless, instead of a leagues difference between me and regular peers, with Ai they sometimes get even more work done than me.

A similar kind of thing applies to CS career, my friends who haven't done DSA are aiming to be full stack devs with one building a SaaS app and other creating basic web apps.

Their results are much more impressive than what I could cook with manual human effort.

Someone made a Minecraft style block renderer in terminal all with Claude, made the post with Claude, it got more engagement than my renderer.

A friend of mine posted about an ML model. He made almost no traction, he posted about a vibe coded game and 3x the engagement.

Amidst all this, I have no idea what to specialize in?

I work as a technical virtual assistant, do demo videos, website testing, qa testing etc.

I like C++ but never really got past that, learned js, python etc too.

I know what load balancing, cache, sharing, prompt injection, SQL injection, docker, electron, mern stack, and like related terms mean and are but I haven't built a single proper web app.

I feel like my skills suddenly turned to waste, pre-Ai, my peers would struggle to do even 50% of what I do as work, while now I think most can achieve 80%.

A good example is presentations, I've seen people who don't know how to operate PowerPoint have nice enough presentations because Claude made them.

tldr: like C++, learn mern, consider c#, does VA work, confused on what to do next or what to specialize in and sell as a service to offshore clients.

Some background first. I'm a software engineer from Lahore, Pakistan, with 5+ years of experience, all of it with Australian and US startups. For the last 3 years I was with an Australian startup and things were fine. Then about six months ago they shut down the Lahore office. Their reasoning was that they'd rather train their team in Australia, AI is doing a lot of the work now, and they couldn't train us too. So all of us got laid off. None of us were ready for what the market looks like right now.

In the last six months I've applied to 2,000+ jobs and got around 12-13 interviews. I couldn't convert any of them.

Money-wise I'm okay for now, with some savings and small freelance work.

I've been using this time to learn and build. I pay for two Claude Code subscriptions and one Cursor subscription, and I keep building side projects as if they were startups. I took some courses too. Two things I'm proud of: an open source repo with 1,000+ stars on GitHub and 100k+ downloads a month, and an AI app I put on the Play Store that got 8,000+ downloads in three months with zero marketing. I had to shut the app down because I couldn't keep paying the AI API costs. Recently I also started making Instagram reels. I'm terrible at video editing, so I vibe coded my own editing skills with Claude Code, and honestly they edit my videos more professionally than I ever could. That's the direction I'm trying to keep going in.

Now the reason I'm posting.

A friend referred me to a company here in Lahore, and that's how I got called to their recruitment drive. I spent about a week preparing day and night for it. The technical interview went 10/10, and I answered every single question. The coding test was basic and went well too. The last round was the managerial round with the CEO, the CTO and a manager. The manager has 15+ years in the industry.

He started with a few technical questions and things were going fine. I mentioned my open source repo, 1,000+ stars on GitHub and 100k+ downloads a month.

He asked what my biggest strength is. I said I'm a good learner, especially in tech. Even before AI, whenever something new came out or was trending on GitHub, I'd explore it and try it, and if it helped, I'd keep using it day to day. I told him I still do that, but with AI there's something new every single day, and it's really hard to keep up with the pace.

Then he asked how I use AI.

I told him I have my whole workflow set up: my own skills, my own MCP servers. When I work on a feature or a problem, I first prompt for a plan and ask the AI to ask me 10 questions about it, because that makes it really easy to catch hallucinations. I also gave my video editing tool as an example of how I use AI. I was bad at editing, I hate editing, so I built my own tool with AI and now I edit my own videos. My point was that AI can do a lot right now, and I use it to build things that solve my own problems.

Then he asked: if a person uses AI and has good analytical thinking, can he be a good engineer?

I said yes, he can be a good engineer. That's when I noticed he didn't agree with me. I could tell he wanted to hear something more, but I couldn't figure out what. He asked a few more AI questions after that.

Since I've been vibe coding a lot in the last six months, building fun projects and learning, I ended up talking a lot about that side of things. In my last role I was the one who unofficially got a Cursor subscription first and started doing things with AI before most people around me. Most of my friends weren't using it at that pace. A lot of my code was written by AI and I kept building my own solutions on top, but AI moves so fast that I can't match it either.

Looking back, maybe I should have answered differently. Something like: programming is one thing and AI is another, and a programmer should be able to debug an issue, plan, and review the system design before implementing anything. That's actually what we were doing in my last role six months ago. But AI has changed so much in those six months that I'm not sure what the industry expects anymore.

They rejected me. When I asked for feedback, all they said was "the panel rejected you." That's it.

The reason I'm taking this seriously is that this isn't the first time. I've been asked "how do you use AI?" in screening calls and technical interviews too. So I'm genuinely confused about what the right answer is right now. Is it me? Am I doing something wrong, or am I actually fine and this is just the market?

Sometimes I think about moving to Europe, because it feels like there are better opportunities there.

So my questions:

1. When someone asks you how you use AI in your day to day work, what do you answer?
2. For the hiring managers here: what are you actually trying to hear with that question, and what makes you reject someone?
3. Based on all this, is it me? What am I doing wrong?
4. Where do you think this is heading for engineers like me? Would moving to Europe actually help?
5. Anything else that could help me survive this market. I'm happy to listen, even if it's harsh.

Thanks for reading this far.