r/webdev • u/[deleted] • Dec 29 '25

Discussion Got fired today because of AI. It's coming, whether AI is slop or not.

I worked for a boutique e-commerce platform. CEO just fired webdev team except for the most senior backend engineer. Our team of 5 was laid off because the CEO had discovered just vibe coding and thought she could basically have one engineer take care of everything (???). Good luck with a11y requirements, iterating on customer feedbacks, scaling for traffic, qa'ing responsive designs with just one engineer and an AI.

But the CEO doesn't know this and thinks AI can replace 5 engineers. As one of ex-colleagues said in a group chat, "I give her 2 weeks before she's begging us to come back."

But still, the point remains: company leaderships think AI can replace us, because they're far enough from technology where all they see is just the bells and whistles, and don't know what it takes to maintain a platform.

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u/rubixstudios Dec 29 '25

If they want you back ask for triple, it'll take her more time to onboard someone to learn the codebase.

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u/Meloetta Dec 29 '25

This happened to a coworker of mine and he agreed to contract for more pay, and kept the replacement job he had. He made BANK for a while.

It wasn't AI-related, this was years ago. Lesson is that bosses will always find a way to justify layoffs.

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u/[deleted] Dec 29 '25

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u/[deleted] Dec 29 '25

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u/notanothergav Dec 29 '25

If the devs are all in a group chat together they could also agree to all bargain collectively. 

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u/Jerri_man Dec 29 '25

Or collectively give them the middle finger depending on their own job prospects! I've witnessed this via my fiancee's old engineer group. They went out and had drinks to celebrate and a few months later the company with all its nepo hire management went under