Mid-40s software engineer here - industry is shrinking fast… what are my options?

[-]

BoopingBurrito@reddit

I was on a security training course earlier this year. The guy running is a top international expert in cyber security, and he gave what I think is a likely very accurate opinion on AI and employment.

He said through 2025 we're going to see massive layoffs, especially in technical roles, justified with the use of AI to replace those staff.

Then in 2026 we're going to see a massive boom in security incidents, data breaches, and downtime caused by zero or minimal supervision AI creating massive vulnerabilities.

In 2027 we'll see a bumper year for hiring of technical staff as companies realise they need to people to do the work, and also need more staff to go back through everything AI did for them in the last couple of years and fix any vulnerabilities.

So just stay the course if you can, the market is in a bad state right now for a variety of factors but it won't stay that way forever.

[-]

Wiltix@reddit

Seems about right, I just really can’t wait for the ai stuff to settle into its niche and bugger off from trying to insert itself into every aspect of my job and life.

[-]

HereticLaserHaggis@reddit

Right? It's like a really good ide, not a developer.

[-]

modmuse91@reddit

I keep describing it as a junior developer I can pass all my grunt work to that doesn’t need a lunch break

[-]

Wiltix@reddit

I can train a junior developer, I can’t train an LLM

If I had a junior developer getting things wrong, writing absolute spaghetti and being unwilling to learn after 3 years I would not longer have that junior developer

LLMs are like using SO only without the shitty moderators and I can get a some times good enough answer, but then sometimes it will just fly off the rails and make shit up.

[-]

harrywise64@reddit

You absolutely can train an LLM. The instructions document I use for my interactions with LLMs is tweaked almost daily and improves the outcome drastically. I sometimes wonder if people on reddit just use the free version of chatgpt with no prompt engineering and come running here to claim all ai is useless

[-]

ImpeccablyDangerous@reddit

You can not.

They still regardless of prompting produce sub standard output. You can pretend they dont or that you have a magic methodology to output good quality code but I have seen the output leading companies use as examples of LLMs and its simply not good enough so unless you know more than the people selling this tech its probably more an indication of your low standards unfortunately.

[-]

harrywise64@reddit

Could you share the examples of this bad output? Of course it can still produce incorrect output, which is what I'm saying when I say you can then train them by asking them to not do this in the future. My role has completely changed and everyone at my company uses AI to code now. I hate it too, but pretending it's bad is just sticking your head in the sand.

[-]

ImpeccablyDangerous@reddit

Do you really need me to? Anyone using them should be able to see it immediately.

I think the problem is most people arent equipped for even noticing correctness. Either that or they simply dont care enough to.

They are a method for incompetent people to be hyper productive.

Thats really not a positive thing. Being able to flood a system with garbage isnt good.

[-]

harrywise64@reddit

Yeah, if you're claiming the examples of output directly from leading companies showing off the LLMs is so bad, it'd be great to see what you mean. The entire industry is shifting process wholesale to include it in their workflow. Is everyone wrong but you?

\n>They are a method for incompetent people to be hyper productive

If you think they're only useful for incompetent people you are not as smart as you clearly think. They allow your output to multiply. Obviously you still need to be there to check on it and improve it, but at this point if you refuse to use AI to aid your coding at all you're actively hampering your output.

I've found the response to AI tends to differ between the devs who think the most important thing is the output and value to the company, and the devs who think the most important thing is how smart they look.

You are the system it's flooding with 'garbage' and you control how much of that is 'garbage' by actively interacting with the output, checking and iterating on the code it generates and constantly improving its context, source material and applying guardrails. Then you can manually fix issues if any still remain. All of this is still orders of magnitude quicker than doing it all manually.

Anyone who just takes its first output as garbage and dismisses it is hampering their company, and perhaps isn't the smart, problem solving engineer they think they are

[-]

ImpeccablyDangerous@reddit

Oh sorry I forgot the context for this. Yeah sure I can find you examples of posts of pull requests on open source projects on github later.

There are plenty of prominent open source projects vocalising this sentiment if you would care to do a 5 second google search in the meantime.

"If you think they're only useful for incompetent people you are not as smart as you clearly think."

Did I say that? I said they that the danger is that incompetent people think they are using them to become competent and that clearly is not what is happening they arent being productive they are just being prolific.

"I've found the response to AI tends to differ between the devs who think the most important thing is the output and value to the company, and the devs who think the most important thing is how smart they look.'

Again missing the point.

Output isnt a static slice its aggregate value over the lifetime of the product. Simply being able to immediately spaff out sort of semi-working code is not adding value.

The industry is ironically finding this out right now and the push back and regret has already started.

[-]

harrywise64@reddit

Right are these examples from leading companies showing off the power of LLMs as you said? Or just open source GitHubs from whoever just pushing their non-reviewed LLM output. Keen to see them if it's the former, but can only find the latter when searching.

I mean yeah you said

They are a method for incompetent people to become hyper productive

Your stance is that the existence of inaccurate or non-scalable slop means the whole thing is useless. You can use AI successfully in your workflow if you are competent and understand the output and it's limitations. Obviously there's a lot of slop that incompetent people make without understanding, too, but that doesn't invalidate the value it brings in the hands of someone who knows the codebase, context and forecast for future changes.

Being able to 'spaff out' semi-working code immediately is absolutely valuable in the hands of someone who can work with it to produce a valuable and scalable output. Of course there are those that have created spaghetti code, e.g. as a start up CEO with minimal tech experience and are now struggling to scale it, but dismissing the entire value of LLMs (which all of tech is using daily) because some people are using it incorrectly seems pretty short sighted. If the AI bubble pops (and I do actually hope it does because I don't like the new workflow) it'll be due to compute costs and running out of funding, not because it's not powerful enough

[-]

Klangey@reddit

That’s the LLM training you.

[-]

harrywise64@reddit

This means nothing lol

[-]

MonopedalFlamingos@reddit

The fact that you don't know the difference might be considered rather concerning by some...

[-]

harrywise64@reddit

Would you care to elaborate?

[-]

harrywise64@reddit

OK I'll bite - how is the act of updating project knowledge and LLM instructions to improve output 'AI training me'? Or did you just want to add a vague 'hmmm you don't know the difference lol' without actually meaning anything.

[-]

Expert-Reaction-7472@reddit

Sure. you can train an LLM but i'd rather invest time into an actual real person with hopes and dreams and goals.

[-]

Wiltix@reddit

Prompt engineering is more using a tool effectively than training an LLM.

[-]

ryan0583@reddit

I don't do this yet but I can see how it is akin to training a junior dev.

Example - Junior dev puts up a PR and implements something in a way you don't think is good (e.g. poor separation of concerns, not using existing patterns, whatever).

You write a PR comment to say how you'd prefer it to be done. Maybe you send a slack message too, or add something to a readme so that other devs know the standard (though this requires that they actually read it!)

In the same way, if an LLM generates some code that doesn't meet the standard, you can add the very same thing you'd tell the junior dev to a markdown file that all of your prompts reference.

If you're not using LLMs to write code, but perhaps just to review it, you could do a similar thing for the code review AI - give it a set of standards that you expect to be met in the codebase.

This is what I think potentially makes these tools so powerful - in my experience it's hard for all the standards to be well understood by all the developers who might contribute to a codebase. If those standards are codified, and the LLM always follows them, this reduces this issue.

As I say, I haven't put this into practice yet but I can see that this is the direction that things are moving in.

[-]

Wiltix@reddit

If you coding standards can’t be understood without an LLM you don’t need an LLM you need better coding standards.

[-]

ryan0583@reddit

I'm not talking about them being understood, I'm talking about them...

Not being read because people are lazy.
Not being documented because people said a thing but then no one ever wrote it down.
Being long and boring so people read them, but then forget things because they're human.
Team churn and the overhead in every new person having to read and understand the expectations.

I'm not saying it completely solves the problem. But I think there's certainly a use case here where LLMs can help automate ensuring that coding standards are enforced and don't slip.

[-]

Wiltix@reddit

I foresee a big problem where we shift our critical thinning skills to SaaS. Compound that with a lack of junior developers managing to enter the career or junior developers who are only capable of they have an LLM at hand.

LLMs are useful, im not saying they are not but doing tasks like code reviews helps keep things like coding standards as a living document which is subject to change if it fails to meet the needs of the team. If you automate that then at what point at people looking at code and making decisions.

LLMs write the code, LLMs review the code, LLMs fix / break the code Rinse and repeat.

[-]

Asyx@reddit

It's not just prompt engineering. Copilot can now hook into your GitHub essentially letting it see what does and doesn't pass PR reviews. They are getting clever enough that you at least don't need to tell it over and over again to not do the same stupid mistakes.

[-]

harrywise64@reddit

It improves the results, I don't care what you want to call it

[-]

ThatAdamsGuy@reddit

Alright who shat in your cereal this morning?

[-]

harrywise64@reddit

I don't know what has caused this haha, my reply was appropriate to the response I got. How would you suggest I reply?

[-]

Wiltix@reddit

They are fundamentally two very different acts, it seems a bit silly to call every ignorant of LLMs to then be ignorant of the difference between using the tool and creating the tool.

[-]

Pogeos@reddit

Was about to write this. Every time I have a systematic issue with LLM code, I just add notes to the LLM instructions.

[-]

budgiebirdman@reddit

At which point do you spend more time tweaking the LLM than you save?

[-]

harrywise64@reddit

Not sure but I'm absolutely nowhere near that breaking point and tool improvements have moved the bar quicker than I can

[-]

coolsimon123@reddit

You literally can train an LLM though... I've done it

[-]

Wiltix@reddit

When I wrote that I was tempted to go back and edit it

You absolutely can train an LLM if you have the time, skills and patience to collate all your relevant materials.

Averages users are using the models provided and trained by open ai et al.

[-]

coolsimon123@reddit

Yes I completely agree a layman will not be training custom AI, but this is literally the kind of niche people like OP should be looking in to. I was heavily in to image generation and learnt how to create custom LORAs for image models. The exact same logic applies to LLMs. The people with jobs in the future will be the ones who know how to configure and train AI for their own specific use cases

[-]

No_Dot_7136@reddit

So then what do all the junior developers do now? Seems very short sighted to get rid of people coming into the industry. When all the current seniors die off, who will replace them?

[-]

coolsimon123@reddit

I'm not saying to get rid of them mate but their role has been replaced almost entirely by AI, hard truth. If you've trained to be a coder in the last 5 years you're basically fucked

[-]

No_Dot_7136@reddit

That's why this whole AI thing pisses me off so much. It wasn't that long ago that everyone was being pushed into learning to code. There were adverts everywhere and probably government backed schemes... it seems like they were everywhere anyway. Learn to code! and now they are all investing in AI to replace all the people that did in fact follow the advice and learn to code. It's like some massive bait and switch!

[-]

Wiltix@reddit

No you still need junior developers so we can get senior developers.

LLMs and ai is a multiplayer not a replacement. At least in the current state

[-]

coolsimon123@reddit

We do need junior developers to turn in to senior developers you are correct, but even now I see junior techs just relying on AI for their investigation and fact finding. The younger guys aren't working out for themselves how things work, but AI told them how to fix it so they're a genius. All the new junior Devs will know nothing because they've been spoonfed by AI, essentially turning them in to very expensive LLMs

[-]

Icy-Formal-6871@reddit

agree on this. AI can super charge a coding process but that would work best when the juniors get the boost too

[-]

YourLizardOverlord@reddit

AI is predicted to reduce the number of entry level positions in a lot of industries.

So where are the experienced people going to come from?

[-]

Potential_Cover1206@reddit

And then there's no seniors to check what AI has vomited out.

Now's the time to learn to hack as it's become piss easy in 10 years time

[-]

turbo_dude@reddit

if you think that CxO's care about the quality of their IT rather than merely the cost per day then I have news for you.

They literally don't care that whatever systems and infrastructure they have are crap as long as there isn't an incident that draws press attention/share price negativity. Why? because all their peers are doing the same, they did it with outsourcing which led to even more rubbish being developed and now they're doing it with this. They just want the cheapest cost per day and yes this is the American mindset disease.

All the people cheering 'yay I can work from home' should really not be surprised when 'home' can be India for all the c-suite types care. None of them care about the long term prosperity of the country of even of the company they are currently working in. They can run it into the ground as long as they get paid, hit their targets giving them a nice bonus before leaving to wreak havoc elsewhere.

[-]

No_Dot_7136@reddit

I can't understand people who say AI will never replace people because the quality isn't as good, or it can never do things as good as a human. Like... It doesn't need to. There will be massive drop offs in quality but the companies don't give a shit. Look how good customer service used to be at some companies when they hired loads of call centre staff. Now it's rare that you can even get to talk to a human when you have a problem with a product. But because that's the new norm, we just have to put up with it.

[-]

Otherwise_Dot_8876@reddit

been doing web development for 20+ years, switched to small clients but it's crazy how bad basics like performance optimisation and accessibility are handled by some of these big corps.

The worse I've seen are the big outsourcing companies like Crapccenture... pay peanuts get monkeys but the big boys don't mind monkey-level deliverables and haven't for decades.

[-]

dibsyjr@reddit

100% agree with this, the main benefits I’ve said to my line manager when using Copilot are that I can get it to write tests, documentation and analyse and explain files to me and it’s right a decent amount of the time with very minimal context needed.

[-]

ThatAdamsGuy@reddit

This is how I see it. I work in quite a large software team where this issue has been discussed time and time again. My take was always that yes these tools are fine and useful etc but where's the learning and training for developers? Are the more junior devs actually learning better coding practices if they're throwing things at an AI? I can throw my grunt work at the AI but am I really improving?

[-]

tcpukl@reddit

It's nowhere near as good as an intern.

[-]

Gold-Advisor@reddit

really good ide

yeaa.... nope

[-]

CDWphoto@reddit

Same here, they’ve tried inserting it in my job making product videos and the ai is laughable but they keep insisting on it so I’m just letting them find out the hard way it’s never going to work, the images we get as plate to work from off the factories in china have ridiculous stuff in them like in fridges they have an empty container with full whole fish just lying on top of it and stupid things you wouldn’t put in a fridge, the brand owner has strict guidelines as well so you have to manually fix them images 100% of the time making it a time sink where we could have just pulled a product from stock and turned it around in a week including the various models.. I’m tempted to pull what op is doing just to show them the mistake, all the big brands are doing it and people are making fun of it on comments but our stuff until now is always genuine as we have a studio and shoot our own material so you see the actual thing being used.

[-]

jamblia@reddit

It feels like we have already seen an increase in major outages in global tech - cloudflare again today. I think the next few years will get crazy. Plus more traditional tech for companies is still going at the moment, but they are getting us to implement AI tools to test but at the moment its for office staff and productivity. Interesting times indeed.

[-]

luciferslandlord@reddit

Ask chatgpt for solutions to mitigate the problem, perhaps?

[-]

omz13@reddit

It will come up with a confident step-by-step plan. What could possibly go wrong?

[-]

Asyx@reddit

Telling you how insightful and interesting your idea is and how it shows a great amount of experience and skill as a software engineer in the first sentence right before it tells you to do the dev equivalent of sticking a fork into a power outlet.

[-]

odc100@reddit

You may be waiting a while…

[-]

Silver-Swim4357@reddit

I’ve been a node react AWS javascript/typescript engineer for years.. I think you are right. I have done cyber security before and I did find it a bit dull. Hoping the other skills are valued on the comeback 😂

[-]

Psychological-Mud-42@reddit

I’ve been saying this for the past two years. I’m in my 40s. Current CTO level and everyone is minimising staff and I’m looking at this like all the other booms I’ve experienced.

AI will be here forever it just is. But the impact that we see will diminish I’ve started hearing from staff that we’re all in on AI getting immensely f*cked off with AI being shoehorned into everything that they are deliberately seeking out tools that has no AI.

I think your friend is correct. Us senior engineers will be in so much demand in and around 18 months that we will see pre 2008 rates and consultancy spiking.

[-]

Silver-Swim4357@reddit

I was a CTO for a small startup. Lost my job. So going for the comeback

[-]

Gold-Advisor@reddit

Ai may be around forever but usage costs will rocket, see the eye watering losses all AI companies operate on currently

[-]

Asyx@reddit

You can run gpt-oss:20b on Ollama on an average gaming PC. The small, local models get better every time a new one is released.

I think we're more likely to see smaller but focused models. Like, one area where I see AI is generating dialog or text for video games based on actions the player took, be it in game actions or picking a name. But instead of piping that through a 2 trillion parameter model hosted by OpenAI or Google you're gonna pipe that through the players GPU with a very specialized model for that specific purpose with single digit, low double digit billion parameter count.

[-]

ColonelKlanka@reddit

running the model is not the real cost. the real money is spent on training each new model (which ai companies end up doing over and over to keep up with their improvement promises).

I listened to a podcast where a jetbrains employee talked about the costs of training big ai models to be tens of millions dollars each time in servers compute and energy costs.

[-]

Asyx@reddit

Yeah sure but if you take that cost once, train a new version of Gemma (Google's small local model) and it runs on every single Android device, the cost per AI message is not as high as what we've seen with bitcoin (which was where people really started to care for the energy consumption of our IT infrastructure).

Also I know that big tech companies like to green wash but if you take an open foundational model and train it on hardware from, for example, Hetzner, you are running on green energy already. Google and friends say the same for their datacenters but I'd assume that Google trying to pretend to run on green energy is still a lot better than a random bitcoin mining operation in China.

Still a concern of course but something I think can be taken care of in the future.

[-]

christophercurwen@reddit

I don't think so..

Technology gets better & more efficient year on year.

If anything it should get cheaper & any premium features will then become standard like all other developed tools.

[-]

tcpukl@reddit

Yeah because Netflix gets cheaper each year?

[-]

christophercurwen@reddit

Computational power usage is down per unit on AI year on year because of more efficient hardware & efficient models.

Literally 2-3x better than its infancy.

Now costs are increasing because AI is being used more & more by everyone.

Once we hit that plato of adoption where 80% of populous is on it. Costs will come down generally.

We are in that paradox situation where costs are down, useage is up massive.. So it looks like AI is costing loads.

Netflix is a terrible example as its not closely related to AI but more like the BBC & TV license.

[-]

Kristoff_Victorson@reddit

It doesn’t “look like ai is costing loads” ai companies are losing money hand over fist, and ai companies themselves don’t expect that to change until after 2028.

It’s nothing to do with high user demand, most of the costs are simply standing up ever more compute to make the models more powerful, R&D and training new models.

OpenAI predict they will become wildly profitable by 2030, that simply won’t happen by offering their models to the public for free. Free will likely disappear and the costs of all subscriptions will have to increase, I guess the plan is that the public will be hooked enough to pay it.

[-]

christophercurwen@reddit

loosing money? You mean investing due to high demand.

Ai is already profitable or they wouldn't invest. You have stated massively profitable by 2030, thanks So profitable even today just not the margins they are planning or expecting..

Free wont go away as its there most powerful tool to get people onboard. You have gemini & Ai on phones, all which are free, then you have other free AI web tools from music, image & video generation.

AI is more like cloud storage or broadband in terms of subscription. AI isnt paying for Content Licensing for a start. Its price per unit

[-]

Kristoff_Victorson@reddit

No I mean what I said- losing money; their revenue is less than their running costs so they are operating at a loss, no they are not profitable today.

Yes they are investing but not “due to high demand” AI companies are betting big on attaining AGI. This is primarily what they are investing in. It’s a bet that may pay off, it depends how quickly they get there and who gets there first.

This is freely available information published by the AI companies themselves, if only you’d google it.

You don’t need to explain AI to me, I’m an AI automation engineer working at a datacenter.

[-]

tcpukl@reddit

The current transformer technology is incapable of AGI.

That's not really what they're expecting is it?

[-]

Kristoff_Victorson@reddit

No one has proven that scaling today’s transformers alone won’t reach AGI but I think it’s unlikely without architectural or training breakthroughs - this is where a lot of R&D is currently focused.

[-]

PatienceIsMore@reddit

You're serious in believing that once AI has washed out vast swaythes of human employees and companies are dependant on it that AI providers won't resist raising pricies by eyewatering amounts overnight?

Have you seen the IBM CEOs take on the capex requirements for data centre investment?

We are in the early Amazon style disruption phase, just wait until they chase down the enshitification phase!

[-]

Sackyhap@reddit

The cost of the better more efficient technology will keep going up though, and the hardware running these AI datacenters burns out in 2 or 3 years so needs continuous replacement. Theyre going to need to massively hike the prices soon to get ahead of these costs and actually turn a decent profit.

[-]

turbo_dude@reddit

Nothing will change until we have major lawsuits and bankruptcy.

Today I saw a story on reddit about someone having their entire hard drive deleted by AI, foolhardy of the user to assume such trust but obviously someone who didn't know what they were doing. Now imagine some sysadmin does the same only to find that actually, no one tested the backups to see if they would restore properly so your company has a dead IT system.

The sooner these things explode the better.

[-]

BoopingBurrito@reddit

We're one bad leadership decision away from an AI deleting the source code for a massive company because after being told to prevent unauthorised access they decided the most efficient and effective way to do that was to prevent all access, and the easiest way to do that is to delete it all.

[-]

MaleficentShame1546@reddit

[-]

Turkeysteaks@reddit

I'm junior, probably close-ish to mid level - laid off after 3 years with redundancy in August. It's been so hard to find a job. The only adverts out there are for seniors, because yeah you guys are in demand. But how does anyone get to senior if you can't get a junior job.

Doesn't help I have no degree, but I thought 3+ years of industry experience at a very large company would make up for it.

Had some luck with interviews etc but I've been fucked around so much by companies now; saying they're no longer hiring anyone for a position right after my 4th and final interview with them, recruiters leaving their job without telling anyone so I get ghosted, and also just endless stages. Trying to join some startups but it's all AI hype, some of which still seems cool but I wonder what it's going to turn into within a year or two

[-]

CheesyLala@reddit

Agreed - I remember the offshoring and outsourcing boom of the late 90s and early 00s. Every company decided that shifting all their IT to India would work well for them, seduced by cheap day-rates for programmers. Mostly it didn't go very well.

[-]

Asyx@reddit

I used to work for a large German bank and their story was basically:

Split of IT and developers into subsidiary
Outsource IT and dev work to Polish agencies
Buy Polish agencies
Hire more local IT and developers
Incorporate Polish agencies into IT subsidiary
Incorporate IT subsidiary into main corporation

[-]

account1786@reddit

Hey how did you become a CTO? Just wondering as part of my own career journey

[-]

Psychological-Mud-42@reddit

I would say it’s about being the cleverest person in the room. This is what I thought before. But it’s actually inverse it’s about surrounding yourself with more intelligent people and you become the person who organises it.

I’m very much a hands on cto and that’s usually for tech companies < 5 years old. I have no interest in the paper pushing CTO.

Honestly the way I done it was via startups. Be a founding engineer get CTO by osmosis then move on. Prove yourself as a leader.

There is no hard and fast rule. But learning how to manage teams as a lead engineer is important. Then being able to tell the future effectively with architecture and then budgets. Once you have these skills then try going for startup founding engineer is the quickest way to to get the label then you spend 5 years earning the label.

[-]

Cyanopicacooki@reddit

This is very accurate - where our work, or Service Delivery Manager (the title of the senior IT officer) is not the best programmer, database administrator or Audio/Visual officer, but is the best at organisation and delivery. If that was left the the DBA or analyst we'd be up shit creek in 30 seconds as they're about as organised as freshly kicked ant heap.

[-]

pineapplecoffeebean@reddit

May i ask which company did the training?

[-]

diyer_straits@reddit

Would you be able to share the details of the training course? I am looking to join one. Thx.

[-]

DarkCz@reddit

Out of interest do you work in IT sec? It's an area I thought of getting in to. I'm a senior test engineer and done bits of hackthebox etc seems like a fascinating industry but I've no idea how to break in to it.

[-]

Antique-Total2020@reddit

They will ask just AI to fix itself and sadly I’m not even joking.

[-]

Aforster1993@reddit

He is naive to think that AI won't learn cyber security. His industry is also at risk, of course he's going to try and tell you it can't be replaced by AI.

[-]

Captaincadet@reddit

I don’t think 2026 or it be tail end or 2026 but yeah, it will be a massive boom as many jobs will come back.

My boss has actually dealt with things being off showed before and coming back because businesses think we can save a lot of money however quickly realise that’s cold quality and over reliability issues pop-up and while AI might fix things short-term, if you don’t have the quality control which is very difficult to do with international teams you’re just going to be digging yourself a hole in bugs. I completely agree with him, and we have seen caution thrown to the winds now with AI and we’ve taken on more junior devs as they are pretty cheap currently but also because we think there’s going to be a gap in a year or so where we will need them

[-]

BoopingBurrito@reddit

As I said, 2026 will be a boom year for incidents and breaches. 2027 will be a boom year for hiring.

[-]

Captaincadet@reddit

Yea your right. Totally agree with you, tired eyes read it as one

[-]

CarpetGripperRod@reddit

tired eyes read it as one

Interesting, self-deprecating spin on "great minds think alike". For giggles do you know the German expression? «Zwei Dumme, ein Gedanke» == "Two fools, one thought". Always makes me chuckle.

[-]

BoopingBurrito@reddit

The saying "great minds think alike" has a second clause that is rarely brought up along side - "Fools seldom differ".

[-]

AirconGuyUK@reddit

Apart from AI coding tools are starting to build in security vuln checking routines.

Claude Code for example has a /security-review command that will review everything it wrote since last git commit with its security hat on and it does find some whoppers in my experience.

It's clear the tool makers are working to correct this particular issue.

[-]

BoopingBurrito@reddit

I'm glad they're adding that sort of function in, and that it is able to catch issues. But as a security professional I wouldn't trust it to self-verify the security of its code, I'd still be wanting a human in the loop who has the right skills and experience to review everything the AI has written to check for security problems.

[-]

Snoo_90612@reddit

Wasn't this exactly what happened with Jaguar Land rover in the UK? Cheaped out on security and technical support that then it broke and cost the whole UK economy billions. Ai uptake is too quick and a call centre just can't fix things as fast.

[-]

BoopingBurrito@reddit

My understanding is that the root cause comes down to poor credential management, bad access control practices, and shitty authentication processes. Which are problems I see just about every where I do a security audit.

[-]

Gold-Advisor@reddit

That was uhhh... the other meaning of "AI" lol. The one that begins with "actually". TCS was at fault there.

[-]

Glad_Possibility7937@reddit

Artificial insemination?

[-]

SMTRodent@reddit

Actually Indians, i.e. outsourcing somewhere cheaper (usually India because there are a lot of them and English is India's official language).

[-]

CountryBulky7105@reddit

Same parent company, Tata

[-]

slim_pickings14@reddit

I agree. A human in the loop will be required for many years to come.

[-]

Safe_Database_6782@reddit

The ‘Security Guy’ thinks he knows exactly what a dev does does he, and is so confident that he can make future predictions about the entire market? LOL - perhaps he thinks we just sit there and someone comes and dumps us a bale of hay whilst we munch and donkey out the code. Self absorbed people like him are so annoying. About 20% of development is coding. The rest is thinking of new ideas or ways to solve problems or working with non devs on solutions to solve problems. AI can help you code once you’ve done that but it can’t relay the complexities or edge cases or pitfalls with the commands you give it. It’s never very inventive, it just draws on what others have done. I love it that a guy doing a bit of network analysis thinks he knows exactly how complex software engineering projects work. Chomp chomp 🫏

[-]

dvb70@reddit

I see this as a reasonable prediction but have a feeling the time lines might be longer than we are hoping. I am thinking it might take a few years longer to reverse the trend as leadership I think will be slow to act due to how much they really want to believe AI is the magic solution to having to have those pesky staff requirements. AI is like a C level dream come true of how they can finally cut requirements for expensive expertise. C level have never been overly enamoured to having to rely on experts and they think AI was their silver bullet to cut this reliance.

[-]

Tiny-Sandwich@reddit

I've heard many horror stories of people blindly running AI generated code and it having unintended consequences.

This will be a major issue for companies who lay off staff and replace them with AI prompt "engineers". It's easy to tell an AI agent exactly what you want, it's not so easy to check it's given you that.

[-]

Objective_Mousse7216@reddit

They said that about offshoring to places like India, that the terrible quality will override any $$$ savings.

Turns out shareholders and c-suite bosses only care about short term $$$, always have and always will.

[-]

theModge@reddit

...and if that fails cyber security really is booming, and your experience as a dev, whilst not sufficient on there own definitely represent a good start.

Also, I do find that developers with good domain knowledge have a massive advantage over developers working on something they know nothing about.

[-]

iMac_Hunt@reddit

Cyber security will only get bigger in the years to come due to AI threats. I find the field quite dull but it’s a backup route for me if I ever want to move away from from dev work

[-]

TheMusicArchivist@reddit

Sounds like it's sensible to market oneself as able to clean up AI messes and to try now to get several years of experience so that in 2027 when they're hiring you're the most experienced person applying.

[-]

Icy_Holiday_1089@reddit

What if the AI is fixing its mistakes in 2027?

[-]

tcpukl@reddit

Unspaghetifying it's slop?

[-]

Icy_Holiday_1089@reddit

Exactly, that’s if AI does get better. All I’m saying is there isn’t one potential future. It’s not guaranteed that AI will fuck everything up and the industry will rehire.

[-]

impamiizgraa@reddit

Yes, as much as the wishful thinking hopes companies will abandon AI and rehire after a series of AI fuck ups, I highly doubt that will happen — the change is permanent. More likely companies will hire people who know how to better instruct the AI, and even more likely AI will be built to better instruct the other AI.

It’s like thinking our reliance on computers and data centres would end after a few big security breaches and malfunctions. They’ve happened. Hasn’t ended it!

[-]

Icy_Holiday_1089@reddit

That’s exactly what I mean. It’s not a good plan to say I’ll wait for 2 years when companies want to hire me again. No idea how the future winds will blow.

[-]

VanillaCandid3466@reddit

That's already happening. I saw a BBC article earlier this year talking about an agency that was picking up failed vibe coded apps and making them actually work properly ...

[-]

Tech_n_Cyber_2077@reddit

Let me compliment that.

We will need technical staff in 2027 for sure, but we will see AI auditors.

That is people who will review and QC stuff that were done by AI.

[-]

Traktion1@reddit

I suspect this is the inverse of what would work well though.

I think the idea of AI auditors is good. Checking code against a trove of bad solutions would be handy. Passing code through a sequence of AI filters, checking for security flaws, bad patterns, etc, would be powerful. Much like SonarQube, but more capable and interactive.

Maybe such tools exist now, but just haven't had wide support due to the obsessions with AI being pushed to remove the human/creative elements too.

Having AI create automated tests would also help. It seems pretty decent at building unit tests for decoupled code already. Stuff like this with clear requirements and outcomes, which may feel less interesting/challenging for humans, could lead to mutually beneficial outcomes.

In short, tooling that helps engineers do their job, by removing much of the mundane, repetitive, work. If AI can do that well, then it will save money and improve quality, while getting the best from human engineers.

The bubble seems to be trying to go from no AI, to no humans, in one giant leap (of faith), devaluing human input in the process. I can see why AI corps want to pitch this to c-suite, but it feels detached from reality.

[-]

WealthMain2987@reddit

I feel the same. Every company wants to use AI and cut costs but I think it will bite them in the face and they will need to rehire people.

[-]

turbo_dude@reddit

Previously: we don't know what's going on in the company because our data quality is shit

Now: hey we automated stuff so now our data quality is just as shit but automated!

[-]

WealthMain2987@reddit

Hearing the first bit now.

[-]

ThatAdamsGuy@reddit

Wish this take was in an article I could send to people that I don't think have looked past the "AI will replace everything" stage

[-]

Academic_Rip_8908@reddit

I think this is pretty accurate.

I'm a translator who also does some language support work, and really my industry was the canary in the coal mine for AI.

Lots of low-end translation work and multilingual support work has been taken by AI as companies want to get results as cheaply as possible and therefore want to avoid using freelance contractors.

However, AI has proven that when there is no human to double-check things, it become sloppy and makes terrible mistakes. I've had loads of previous clients contacting me in the last 6 months asking to give me work, because AI has royally fucked things up for them.

[-]

phead@reddit

All I see is bad AI that causes more complaints.

SKY is using AI to give updates to customers, it gave me 2 updates 100% opposed to each other,a totally impossible situation. It caused a phone call to them on every update, the staff tell me it just causes more work.

AI will replace jobs like the computer did, and the calculator, and the power loom ,and the spinning jenny etc etc etc. Yes there is change, but nothing like what the doom mongers predict.

[-]

adamm255@reddit

Self inflicted Y2K

[-]

turbo_dude@reddit

It's nothing like Y2K.

That was a known problem with a known solution. The issue was that the amount of time needing to fix it all, without actually being able to state if it would impact in the way that was advertised, led to sloppy work and rush jobs.

It had a hard deadline which when passed, 'solved' the problem.

[-]

Nearby_Woodpecker_23@reddit

The problem is 2030. No way these greedy fools give up on AI working on Christmas day rather than paying actual humans,

[-]

HafFrecki@reddit

I am an internationally recognized cyber security expert and I 100% agree with the person who told you this. Although I would say it's going to happen faster than that. I am already seeing a huge increase in requests for code security reviews and assessments against LLM generated code.

In fact I have just completed a web app assessment against a home-grown React SPA that was obviously vibe coded by the client. Once the SPA had been beautified I extracted all the user logins and their roles from the publicly presented SPA code and logged in to their app as the super admin. The client is having a meltdown about it. They are shocked.

So to the OP it's time to start skilling up. Learn about effective SSDLC strategies as well as key standards like NIST and OWASP. Do the Burp Suite Academy training (free) or read some books and become an even more senior player. Good luck!

[-]

IndependentOpinion44@reddit

I think this cyber security expert is half right. We’ll soon start to see all the problems start to manifest themselves, and companies will “want” to hire people to fix those problems, but that will signal the start of the AI bubble bursting.

This bubble is so big, everyone is going to get fucked in every single industry. My concern is there wont be much money floating around to actually hire people with.

[-]

racsssss@reddit

Yeah and it will only get worse as there's less and less human content to learn on and it starts to feed on its own slop. There's a very good reason you don't feed cows on the brains of their ground up cousins

[-]

reedy2903@reddit

I think your right this has been a trend in IT for a long time I think they get rid of dead weight lots of people in tech jobs nowadays who are robbing a living we don’t need a scrum master per squad 1 can run 3 squads. We don’t need 2 project managers when we can get 1 to do both. I actually think the people with the technical skills will be safer.

[-]

Crazycrossing@reddit

You don’t need scrum masters period. You need a project manager and product manager per x amount of engineers depending on the project and team size. I guess you could get away with just a product manager but then they end up doing project management instead of impact work.

[-]

CheesyLala@reddit

Yes, I'd agree with this. For me, the fact that AI can generate code completely ignores lots of things about software development that aren't the actual typing-out of the code. It will make developers more productive, sure - but also anyone who thinks they can do without developers, or even without half their current development team, is in for a shock if you ask me.

And given the rate at which companies are laying off developers I agree that there is going to be some serious regret to come for some.

I do think there are a lot of jobs that AI will replace, but software developer isn't one of them.

[-]

TheTackleZone@reddit

Perfect time to start a "We fix what your AI broke" consultancy.

[-]

Pleasant-Put5305@reddit

Yeah. Meanwhile the entire industry gets used to daily code delivery and 4 hour sprints. You don't think humans can write vulnerable code? Development has become something different and can never go back - if nothing else, your entire job life-cycle just got thrown in the bin, as humans are far too slow comparatively. Devs can say what they like - as it was - it was terrible, and AI has shown us the way. At best you are now a badly paid bug hunter, working with non-human code. Doesn't sound very enjoyable. At best, you might find yourself writing the prompt, but almost certainly not.

[-]

SYSTEM-J@reddit

I think something similar will prove true for more than just software engineering. I've said before on Reddit that at some point in the near future there's going to be some high profile corporate fuck-ups because someone trusted an AI's output without checking it thoroughly. Once a few big businesses have lost a lot of money in this way there'll be a negative backlash against the current boosterish AI uptake craze and human accountability will suddenly seem a lot more valuable again.

[-]

Pat8aird@reddit

This 100%. The bubble is going to burst and it isn’t going to be pretty, but companies will pay top dollar to people like you to fix it.

[-]

asmiggs@reddit

The market did pickup in the Autumn locally to me for infrastructure roles (DevOps, SRE, SysAdmin etc) there's another aspect to consider the Return to office mandates and inflated salaries offered during the pandemic froze the market, and it's only just started to pick back up. I've heard that it's picking up elsewhere as well, so stay the course and pickup security skills while staying away from AI centred companies seems like a viable strategy,

[-]

nkosijer@reddit (OP)

That actually lines up with what I've been seeing and hearing as well. I just hope companies realise this before too much damage is done. Cutting experienced staff always looks efficient in the short term. Fingers crossed the market stabilises sooner rather than later.

[-]

nosuchthingginger@reddit

From this advice OP, probably best trying to learn some more about technical security

[-]

Technical_While_5483@reddit

As an old software engineer with limited skill, i am facing the same situation.

[-]

--Lucan@reddit

No advice about next careers, but I would suggest not being so glum about your prospects. The job market is terrible and not specific to software. Offshoring is a problem, but from my experience, UK based experienced developers are still desired. The advent of AI in corporate environments isn’t a sign of the end, it’s just a tool and being able to adapt is key.

[-]

rdxc1a2t@reddit

Offshoring is a problem, but from my experience, UK based experienced developers are still desired.

Our offshore developers are shit and the offshore test team are shit at checking their work; they'll pass anything. It's an absolute shit show, has been for a decade. Only progress that's been made is that we now have a new onshore test team in place to check the offshore test team's work. Absolute lunacy.

[-]

billy_nelson@reddit

People never learn that when you outsource, the goals of the organisation you outsource to are simply not aligned with yours. They want to sell you as many hours at the highest rate they can. Every single time it looks like an arranged marriage where no one is happy.

[-]

nkosijer@reddit (OP)

Thanks, I'm definitely not giving up. I'm just trying to figure out whether I could realistically do something outside of IT if I ever had to. Ideally I'd stay in tech... that's still where I'm happiest. But I think it's smart to have a plan B

We were actually required to use AI tools over the past year, and they genuinely improved our delivery speed and code quality. The flip side is that I'm very aware that mid-level devs with AI tools can now produce work that used to be associated with senior roles, and that's one of the reasons salaries have dropped. So I'm just trying to stay realistic while still aiming to stay in the industry.

[-]

Elegant_Pop_7356@reddit

My 2p:

AI makes code easier to write at the expense of being harder to read, which never ends well. As soon as you get beyond trivial sized problems, you spend a lot more time reading code.

Being a good software engineer is about expressing human level concepts of a problem into code. Good code is mostly about breaking a problem down for humans. Without some general super intelligence, AI isn't going to be any good at this any time soon. And if it is, well that's pretty much it for humanity in any field...

[-]

billy_nelson@reddit

Also agree that this is spot on. And never, ever, was there a tech capability improvement that was not almost immediately swallowed whole by increased requirement complexity. AI will make easier to build systems that AI can’t cope with. As long humans are able to cope with necessary tasks that AI can’t, people will be around while we build more complex stuff. If AI was all what people say it is, then, for instance, any SaaS app would be up for grabs, and that is simply not the case.

[-]

UsuallyWhirlwind@reddit

Spot on. I’m in the same field and have had similar thoughts recently. Tbh AI is also pretty good at problem solving, conceptually, but I find what it lacks is the ‘big picture’ way of looking at a project, and obviously the human touch and effective communication needed to deliver an actual solution for someone.

[-]

RyanMan56@reddit

It’s easy to think that, and on the surface it may look that way. But I’ve seen mid level developers come out with code that’s more convoluted and unmaintainable because AI has led them down a wrong path and they haven’t been experienced enough to recognise it.

AI is a tool, and it just amplifies the skills people already have. It’s not a silver bullet, and execs will begin to realise this over the next couple of years.

[-]

typhon0666@reddit

No doubt OP can probably find work... Of course he must be ready for a possible paycut, at total salary compression at the higher end< mids earning junior wages< senior earning mid level wages etc.

[-]

cranberry-smoothie@reddit

Yep my company (mostly EU based) has had a specific push to hire experienced UK developers. In the past few years we've grown from having no one in the UK to a significant chunk.

[-]

theNixher@reddit

I feel bad for my son, he was so excited to get into software engineering, dev work, programming etc. but knowing that the industry is going to shrink by over 90% in the next decade and basically be swallowed up by AI is sort of killing that dream very quickly. He's started computer science and will carry on through college/university but hopefully they have an "AI" path to follow because that's the only future the industry has right now.

[-]

222thicc@reddit

the problem really isn't AI, it's the offshoring

[-]

Head-Inflation-6348@reddit

110% agree. Firsthand experience of this in almost 20 years in the game (TM) and offshore companies who are setting up buildings in the uk are simply shipping staff over from likes of India on visas. Bidding on contracts and putting in stupidly low bids and winning. Putting UK workers out of work. If I could have my time again I’d have gone into a physical trade. Again hate to be doom and gloom but right now it’s not looking great. There’s definitely jobs out there but nowhere near what there was, pay also a lot less and all being saturated or lost due to offshoring/ onshoring. They’re winning big contracts and unless that changes can’t see it improving.

[-]

Dan_85@reddit

"Actually Indians"

[-]

theNixher@reddit

Asian Intelligence

[-]

222thicc@reddit

Cheap* intelligence

[-]

libsaway@reddit

but knowing that the industry is going to shrink by over 90% in the next decade and basically be swallowed up by AI

Good fucking Christ. How's much was that future-telling crystal ball?

[-]

msesen@reddit

I really don't understand how people can say AI will replace developers/engineers. Have you used an AI to create something? The code produced is garbage. The technical dept is huge.

Also, you need to understand the code the AI gives you. So no, your HR manager won't be able to do it. It's just a glorified, interactive search engine at this time.

[-]

theNixher@reddit

"at this time"

I'll be the first to say AI is fucking garbage, in its current state yeah it's definitely a glorified search engine, but have you seen the fucking progress, it's insane, give it time...

[-]

msesen@reddit

Yeah I agree, but when it gets to that stage then I think everyone will have problems, not just software engineers. The current models are not good enough "yet". The energy required is not feasible. I can see that lot of admin jobs can be replaced. I use AI as a personal assistant/consultant, but I rarely use it for coding. I think marketing jobs, copy writers, junior developers, lawyers etc. are in a worse situation then developers.

The other day I asked AI to write a Letter Before Action and it did it better than the solicitors (when given the correct context) :)

[-]

oscarandjo@reddit

In the summer we hired a grad as a software engineer onto my team.

When we listed the job ad, we had ~200 CVs submitted within a couple of days and then shut the listing off.

We get around to interviewing a grad, really smart guy. Submitted an exceptional programming homework (part of our interview process). Knew his shit in the interview. We gave him the job.

Later I spoke with him about how things have been since graduating. For him, he'd been searching for over a year. He'd applied to over 200 jobs. The interview processes were so soulless and impersonal. He remarked about how our interviews were a breath of fresh air because we didn't do anything like AI screening, online quizzes, and actually treated him like a human. I don't think we don't do anything particularly special, so that just goes to show how bad things are elsewhere.

This guy was a much better applicant than I ever was (4 years ago). Better homework, better CV, etc. The difference is, I got an offer from every internship or grad job I applied for, literally 100% success rate.

Something is very wrong, and I would say this industry might not be worth perusing anymore unless you are willing to give it your all. You need to be top of the class. You need to make programming projects in your personal time as a portfolio. You need to land internships.

But these internships are also highly in demand. This summer we also listed an intern job add and got 600 applications in a day, and new ones were popping in every 5-10 minutes.

I would say, seriously consider the trades. Electrician, plumber, whatever.

[-]

defram@reddit

This guy was a much better applicant than I ever was (4 years ago). Better homework, better CV, etc. The difference is, I got an offer from every internship or grad job I applied for, literally 100% success rate.

I’ve done a PhD in STEM and switched to industry into the same role my friend from the lab did 3 years earlier. My search took 6 months and 200-300 applications and ended up in a short term project role that luckily transformed into a full time position. She, on the other hand, applied to 5 openings, got interviews from 3 of them very quickly and accepted the first position that gave her an offer without even bothering to finish the rest. We worked together and had very similar experience. I saw her CV (writing, formatting etc) - and it was honestly below average even for 2020, right now no one would look at it. Good for her, but it’s insane to me how different experiences we had coming from the same background and aiming for the same jobs.

[-]

theNixher@reddit

That's horrific, with our modern reliance on tech I'd have imagined the the job market would be very healthy.

It's the same as everything else though, once there is high demand, the wages look good, the government gets involved, it gets over-subscribed then the bubble starts bursting, job losses, wages drop. Add to that the fact that AI is taking more jobs in this sector than anywhere else and it's a recepie for disaster.

[-]

oscarandjo@reddit

Thats the thing I am uncertain about too. I think the fundamentals of it are good, we use a lot of tech, it makes a lot of profit, so in principle there should be jobs galore.

I think there are a few big factors, some of which are temporary.

On the surface, if these AI tools give every software engineer a 10% productivity boost, that is potentially millions fewer jobs. The productivity boost is also only going to get higher as the tools get better.

Ontop of that, the 2010s “near 0% interest rate” era is over. I think this aspect is understated (and AI overstated), loads of tech companies would operate at a loss or with readily available venture capital funding because borrowing was so cheap. Anyone with a mortgage knows how that borrowing isn’t cheap anymore, so fundamentally companies need to make profits - and staffing is the #1 cost to any business.

In big tech I think AI has been a way to put a positive spin on classic penny pinching and cost cutting layoffs. They have been able to simultaneously boost profits by making layoffs, while telling the markets it’ll have no impact on output because of their exceptional AI leading to untold productivity boosts. I call BS. That’s just positive spin where they can make the numbers look good while also pretending they’ve achieved AI nirvana.

I don’t hear so much of these horror stories when speaking with our graduates from Norway. I think this might disproportionately affect the U.K. tech jobs market because we are so exposed to the whims of big tech. We have fewer small-medium sized tech companies and lots of big players in London - Google, Amazon, Apple, etc. Comparatively Norway seems to have a lot more of these small to medium sized companies, which are less volatile.

And of course on-top of all this you have the regular pressures of outsourcing, but to be honest, I think a lot of companies have learned their lessons on this front. The further your development is away from your stakeholders (and I don’t necessarily mean geographically), the worse the outcomes are.

I can see a situation where things bounce back. Once people realise AI isn’t all it’s made out to be. If the situation changes around interest rates. When big tech stops trying to drum up the AI hype. But it might get worse before it gets better, when this AI bubble pops it’s probably going to be messy.

[-]

coolsimon123@reddit

As someone with a few years under their belt and extensive understanding of training their own AI models, there will be plenty of job opportunity for techs that are able to support and maintain these AI models. The AI bubble will pop but it's here to stay and as long as you can stay on the right side of it as in, developing the AI your son should be good. Steer him away from low level coding, make him strive for infrastructure and devops

[-]

Gold-Advisor@reddit

See my comment here r.e your son: https://www.reddit.com/r/UniUK/comments/1pdkqr9/comment/ns6gjxs/?context=3&utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

[-]

theNixher@reddit

I read this bit "You should be willing to give up an unlimited amount of personal time during uni"

Felt sick,

Told him to be a sparky and earn 100k 👍

He can code in his spare time, which he will have lots of because he will be finishing work 3pm most days.

[-]

flowering_sun_star@reddit

but knowing that the industry is going to shrink by over 90% in the next decade

It really, really isn't. The job market for tech right now is rough because a lot of companies over-hired during Covid, then more recently laid people off. So you have a lot of experienced folks looking for work.

Anyone with experience will tell you that writing code is one of the least important parts of a developer's job. It's looking more like all the other technologies over the decades that promised to do away with programmers by allowing people to specify what they want in more human language. Turns out people are really bad at knowing what they want!

[-]

Scribbio@reddit

Once AI is able to totally replace the highly skilled and complex work of a software engineer (if ever), then we've got way bigger problems.

[-]

Head-Inflation-6348@reddit

Glad to have found this as I’m in the exact same boat. TM - Lead here in Test. Been in the game a long time also and decline is noticeable and jobs being loft to offshore companies who are buying up UK properties and shipping resources over on visas and taking all of the work. Less and less available and salaries out there on listings are a good 10k less nowadays it’s shocking and isn’t spoken about. Glad others here are speaking out about it as needs to see some light this does. Suspect the UK visa laws also make this situation worse as these companies can ship resources over on the cheap and fulfil roles for significantly less (and thus win contracts as overheads way less than our native uk staff) see this happening everywhere. Becoming a real issue and genuinely concerned job wise. Personally I think of doing a trade every single day I can’t see as it’s going to get any better not to be negative but hundreds of us where work are of the same opinion and have noticed the same thing. Following this thread 👍🏻

[-]

khooke@reddit

Unless things have gone downhill radically since last year, I was looking for a new role in the London area and thought things were nowhere near as bad as what people are making out. I’m in my 50s, had multiple interviews and was lucky enough to choose between offers. Of course everyone’s in different positions with skills and experience etc, but with a number of years experience you should have that to your advantage.

[-]

twncn@reddit

Agree with this, I would say the market is actually better than last year. I had the same experience as you, multiple interviews, multiple offers for my first senior SWE role. I think a lot of the doomer stories come from new grads or people looking for junior roles - the market there has definitely taken a big hit but for everything else it's nowhere near as bad

[-]

quantummufasa@reddit

What tech stack?

[-]

pvaa@reddit

Honestly, when hiring Seniors you get a lot of people applying who can't do what you'd expect mid level engineers to do.

If you're good, it's much easier to get a job, because you stick out clearly

[-]

Frequent_Field_6894@reddit

yes, everyone is a “senior“ completely meaningless.

[-]

MrPeterMorris@reddit

According to itjobswatch there are half as many job adverts in 2025.

[-]

Historical_Owl_1635@reddit

Jobs in general have a bit of a a mortality bias where you usually only hear from the people struggling.

[-]

beseeingyou18@reddit

Unless things have gone downhill radically since last year

They have,

[-]

UK-sHaDoW@reddit

Companies no longer advertise due to spam, but I'm getting a lot of recruiters.

[-]

Helpful-Vacation6763@reddit

Yeah, my company is recruiting at the moment and every open role gets spammed with Indians despite us stating we only want people that don't need visas, so we only go through recruiters now

[-]

iMac_Hunt@reddit

I’m getting probably 10-15 recruiters a week on LinkedIn message me, can’t be that bad.

[-]

AimToMisbehave@reddit

I'm seeing the same and beginning to wonder if Reddit is in a bubble or I am. Plenty of roles going and still frequent linked in recruiter messages for senior engineers, albeit half of those are AI in some form. My company has had trouble filling several senior software engineer roles because of our return to office policy, we can't get the experienced staff because a lot of them are holding out for hybrid, but the roles are there if you're willing to get them.

[-]

Head-Glove-4726@reddit

Try other jobs if you wish to grind again in job cycle.

Try own business if you a good budget in hand or form a partnership with like minded friends and start a profitable business.

REal profitable. Not something influenced by some random internet post or ads on social media sites.

Anything which you confident about.

I did Virtual call center business . Almost a decade now , and it is still stable business compare to any other options .

Only drawback is , it is expensive business , means, little big budget ( around 20 to 30 Lakh ) which is kind of scary for new investor or first time investors.

Experienced and mature investors does same with confidence.

See if you could make it .

Good luck.

[-]

reedy2903@reddit

Do you work for Accenture just you mention the bench I’ve been on that before they ended up getting me a new role in like 2 weeks of sitting on it. If it is Accenture the problem is they can literally send you anywhere in the country might end up living out a crap hotel.

[-]

nkosijer@reddit (OP)

We're actually a direct competitor to Accenture, but from everything I've seen and heard, my company generally treats employees a bit better. I was already at risk earlier this year after turning down two roles that would have required commuting to Manchester and Birmingham 2/3 days a week. I'd just started the process of buying a new home, and I couldn't justify that kind of travel... still can't, to be honest.

But thanks for the advice. I just hope the situation doesn't get desperate enough that I'm forced into something like that.

[-]

True_Joke_5248@reddit

Civica?

[-]

reedy2903@reddit

You should be able to expense the travel? Hotel stays etc?

I worked for Accenture in a good location for years then they sent me to a horrible one for 6 months, I had to just ride it out and managed to get back on old team with new funding.

I wouldn’t be to worried with your level of experience should be able to get another role. I’ve heard it’s bad out there but I haven’t looked for 4 years now. I work in test automation so no idea if it’s still booming or not out there.

[-]

flippertyflip@reddit

You could put me in first class travel with an incredible hotel. I'd still rather be at home.

[-]

Jimmy90081@reddit

That’s why you won’t get the role.

[-]

HP_10bII@reddit

Working at a consultancy in a consultant role and then pulling up your nose to business travel.

Big brain move.

Some dude willing to travel and use Ai will get the job. You'll get... forgotten.

[-]

flippertyflip@reddit

And that's fine. I doubt I'll look back on my deathbed and wished I'd lost time with my family in order to be paid a bit more.

[-]

shapeless_nodule@reddit

All of the big consulting companies work the same way, they just have different share prices. And they're all digging themselves into the AI pit right now, at the expense of anyone they can't immediatelt find jobs for or push into the AI space.

[-]

Scared-Guitar-6846@reddit

What about being a lecturer at college? Pretty good job, you know your hours, time off etc. pay isn’t amazing but it could be a nice little change of pace for you

[-]

nkosijer@reddit (OP)

One of the things I enjoy about my current job is that I don't have to deal with too much people contacts. It's not that I couldn't handle lecturing, but at this point I'd much rather skip roles that involve humans :)

[-]

toorightrich@reddit

I'm totally with you on that, believe me! But couldn't help but chuckle at the irony; concerned about AI impacting jobs - doesn't want to work with humans! 🤣 But, I get it.

[-]

Scared-Guitar-6846@reddit

Completely understandable!

[-]

No_Dot_7136@reddit

I was pretty much in the exact same position. I'm 46 and worked as a Technical / Environment artist in the video games industry. The studio I worked for closed doors in November last year due to no one wanting to invest in games at the minute. I've found it really difficult to even find suitable openings as they are few and far between, and like you say, pay less than they used to, which is insane seeing as salaries in the games industry stagnated 15 - 20 years ago. Managed to get a few interviews over the 12 months but never landed the job, and the ones I interviewed with all went on to have staff layoffs shortly afterwards anyway. I feel like my 20 years experience is now working against me as well as my salary expectations. AI is definitely having an impact even tho Reddit is full of people that will tell you AI won't replace artist... It already is and has. People need to get their heads out of the sand / their asses. We came incredibly close to missing mortgage payments as we burned through 50% of our savings starting renovations on the house we bought 10 months before redundancy. Then the rest of the savings propping up the mortgage payments that the wife is now paying from her salary, which doesn't cover our cost of living, not even close. So we now live in a building site until we get more income. Anyway, to finish up, I ended up taking a part time Xmas retail job as it literally the only thing I could get. This is what a University degree and 2 decades of professional experience will get you these days.

I just really hope there's some sort of reversal of all.this AI nonsense otherwise we're all fucked.

[-]

toorightrich@reddit

I think you've basically hit the nail on the head. We are all going to be screwed by AI, ultimately. Well, maybe not all, but a significant proportion of the non-physical workforce. And this is only the start. It's going to get better and even more productive. Sure, there'll be new opportunities that it throws up. But overall, it'll be horrendous for workers IMO.

I'm 45, self employed SWE for most of my working life. Thankfully have a few good clients, but definitely sensing a shift and hard times ahead. I just wish I'd put absolutely everything I had into pensions and investments right from an early age and could be done with it all at 50. But as it stands, I somehow need to keep in work for the next 20+ years, which is not a pleasant prospect 🙄

[-]

Devilchimp@reddit

What about teaching in a further education college? Your experience and skills would be very useful in that field?

[-]

EvidenceDependent639@reddit

Learn a skill in a new industry - cross pollinate and be come an expert in that niche with unique traits. Think of it as an RPC with a skill tree unique to you.

[-]

Icy-Formal-6871@reddit

networking. call people you know, go for drinks or whatever. i think the job market isn’t as bad as it looks, it’s that AI is screwing the recruitment process too (which i believe is 100% broken)

[-]

Frequent_Field_6894@reddit

I am a software engineer with 20yrs experience. I feel your pain !

My sector has largely been offshoring for 5years and buying platforms or paying large sums of money for consultants to undertake work spikes. AI is just the next step of this journey.

my small team have capable / skilled Uk engineers essentially managing and configuring these projects. defacto technical product owners and actively told not to code. used to be 12 devs coding, now it’s 4 managing other people to do our work.

AI has a long way to go, use it, don’t fear it. the uk economy ( cost per head) is a bigger problem than AI , we aren’t internationally competitive . trump will look to tariff services like he has with tangible goods, EU will follow to protect workers.

you might need to take a pay cut, the party isnt over but the music is slowing.

[-]

acar2021@reddit

I wouldn’t go into the trades…it will take you 10 years realistically to acquire a competent skill set and all the tools. Even then you have to be prepared to work brutally hard and long hours to earn good money.

[-]

gyrofx@reddit

Suggest you look for consultancies that have large government contracts that can't offshore work, depending on skillset, a lot of government work is of an open source nature, requirements are normally eligibility for clearance, minimum 5 years in the country, with legal status and no longer than 28days continuously outside of the UK.

Go to their websites and apply directly for roles, some suggestions of companies, Cognizant, Version1, Atos, CGI, NTTData, Kainos, Capgemini.. many others.

[-]

Nanshe_Dreami@reddit

as they say. if you cannot beat them, join them. AI is a threat for job losses, off-shoring as well. Think about unique traits that are hard to find. Most of the companies are looking for unique capabilities which they cannot delegate to AI or outsource them.

[-]

AlexLorne@reddit

People I knew who left the software development world, one bought a pub and became a landlord, one wrote an algorithm to find differences in horse race bets and offer odds that gave him a return, one went full time on stocks and shares (I feared for him more than the landlord).

I’m currently applying for a job that pays roughly 2/3 what I was making a year ago. I’m a bit defeatist about the whole thing myself, it is what it is, money funnels upwards, not down to the people making things.

[-]

nkosijer@reddit (OP)

I recently got into stocks and shares, and every day I'm realising how little I actually know. I'm still in the green, but nowhere near making any meaningful profit. Hopefully I'll figure things out with time. I even caught myself thinking about building some prediction software, but let's be honest I'm definitely not the first person who's tried to outsmart the system

[-]

Boring-Abroad-2067@reddit

Try teaching as a career

[-]

nordiknomad@reddit

Good advice

[-]

bigbendyoctupus@reddit

The reality is that trying to doing that puts you up against the smartest 0.0001% of software engineers on the planet, who have a datacentre’s worth of compute to use, which is located microseconds from the exchange you’re trying to trade on. If you couldn’t get a job as a quant at a top firm don’t bother trying to play this game. You might as well just gamble on sports.

[-]

NomDeiX@reddit

Or you need to go into super illiquid new markets that these big firms havent/couldnt tap in yet like into some crypto in 2016 or into prediction markets in 2022, before it boomed. But you need to get extremely lucky and have some quant experience to be able to prop trade on your own account like that, or have some kind of niche specific finance skills. I know of a PM from a quant fund who went solo after a decade to run a strategy on some exotic emerging markets bonds, was able to make couple Ms on that.

But yeah for a typical software engineer with no finance knowledge to create something like that is impossible. But funnily enough I know a lot of developers who tell me every month about this algorithm they had in mind, I wish I had their confidence

[-]

germansnowman@reddit

“Time in the market beats timing the market.” If predicting the stock market were possible, others would have done it. Just get an index fund, set and forget.

[-]

nordiknomad@reddit

It is a sad situation. I am in the same boat, but I'm in my early 40s now. I think the best chance I have is to get into farming or become a train driver

[-]

dynze@reddit

All the jobs i'm seeing are RTO and a lot of companies have reversed offshoring.

If you have 10+ years experience you will see it through to retirement.

It's the grads I feel sorry for

[-]

Alex_Strgzr@reddit

Just pretend you're a tradesman, you'll be no worse than half of them and you can charge 300 pound a day.

[-]

JKO-1991@reddit

Dude my company (tech firm) is looking for people. I’m not a techie but we have a high number of software engineer roles that might fit the bill - only downside they are in Bristol but we have a London office. DM me if you want.

[-]

mavwok@reddit

Sounds like we work for the same type of organisation. Perhaps try and make a sideways move into a different sector. In my experience, working on defence type contracts almost certainly precludes the prospect of offshoring. That sector also seems to be the most averse to the AI opportunities. Despite having an AI solution available within my company, I am not allowed to use it for project work.

Use your bench time to upskill. Hopefully your company has online training courses available. Make full use of them. And work your network. Reach out to previous people that you have worked for/with. If people are evaluating two equivalent people for a role, they are likely to go for the person they already know that they can work well with (everything else being equal).

My company seems to be doing the same kind of thing, and I know two people that have been made redundant in the last couple of months. I just want to wish you all the best in these unsettling times.

[-]

DinkyPrincess@reddit

Technical architect role maybe?

Either that or Dev Manager / Head of Engineering roles?

[-]

Weehendy_21@reddit

45 with a new 25 year mortgage. Sorry you didn’t see these changes coming. I don’t have much job advice - but agree with another poster - cyber security is worth a look or look for system’s development agency work with Government agencies or departments- can pay quite well and can be remote. Look at whole UK working from home.

Suggest that you look hard at your current financial situation such as debts/outgoings/savings. How will you manage in 2026?

Would a lesser paid job be enough to cover your outgoings ££ is that an option? What contingencies can you put in place? Plan what to do with any redundancy pay, think carefully.

What about up skilling or short courses to make you more employable?

Think Risk - what are the risks facing you and how could you minimise those or address them?

On a positive note, there is an opportunity in every threat. Also, it doesn’t matter how you fall but it does matter how you land.

[-]

brightonbloke@reddit

Risk is how I've been approaching this also. We have deliberately not allowed our expenditure to grow with our income, so we're in a half decent position financially. Also I've saved 8 months of what I put into the joint each month as an emergency fund.

Gotta be prepared.

[-]

Weehendy_21@reddit

Best wishes for you future career. 😊

[-]

AugustCharisma@reddit

My understanding is that there is a big need for computing teachers in secondary schools. That might be an option until things turn around.

I’m sorry.

[-]

jpcafe10@reddit

Oof imagine getting a 80% pay cut

[-]

AugustCharisma@reddit

Better than 100% 🤷‍♀️

[-]

OldLondon@reddit

The rise in AI means one thing. A rise in Data Centres. As far as I know a server can’t rack and connect itself. Look at a move to DC infrastructure

[-]

dmc-uk-sth@reddit

That’s true, but I never seem to see any of these roles advertised. When I was a solutions architect I used to love my time in the data centres. Who’s building all this cloud infrastructure?

[-]

blizeH@reddit

I guess it’s not in the U.K. for the most part unfortunately

[-]

CommercialCockroach9@reddit

Uk is like number 3 globally for amount of dcs

[-]

blizeH@reddit

Oh thanks, didn’t realise that! Maybe new ones are mostly elsewhere?

[-]

OldLondon@reddit

I’d work backwards, look at who’s running the big DCs. Who has the contracts to build and operate them. Go to those companies directly. Probably ten minutes of googling. Same look at the big co lo facilities in your area.

[-]

PurpleEsskay@reddit

Just go look at the job pages of FANG, it's them building and operating their own DC's for the most part, along with Equinox.

[-]

JoesRealAccount@reddit

I'm actually surprised by this. I thought that automatic replacement of failed hardware would already be a part of major cloud provider data centers. I don't really like hardware, or computers in general anymore... so I dunno if I could handle this. It'd mean retraining and 100% on-site probably with worse on-call schedules... although at least I'd get my steps in more easily!

[-]

OldLondon@reddit

There’s loads of jobs in and around DCs. And while some automation exists ultimately unless AI can open a box, take the component out and physically screw it in to an enclosure and connect the cables then real people still be needed.

[-]

Emergency-Public-722@reddit

Been .NET developer for 8 years now and I was made redundant 3 weeks ago tomorrow. Applied to all the remote/hybrid jobs in North within 50miles during this time and only received one reply - that they have enough candidates.

This market is brutal and Im not gonna lie but interesting times ahead. Not only for developers but for other people too. My wifes company announced they are making over 100 people redundant next month.. and other friend in very similar place.

Not in a panic mode.. but thinking of getting a HGV licence if nothing comes up before mid Jan.. plenty of jobs around at the moment. Might not be for everyone but always wanted to try it.

[-]

nkosijer@reddit (OP)

Good luck with that! Do you think you'll ever get back to .NET after if you change your career now?

[-]

Emergency-Public-722@reddit

Thank you!

I'm not sure at the moment tbh. I guess depends if Im gonna like the new job and how developers job market will look like. I think there will always be work for talented developers but offshoring and AI will make it hard to get it and that doesnt give any job security most people are looking for. I hope Im wrong!

[-]

Schnapper94@reddit

The tech world is a rollercoaster, so consider pivoting to areas like data science or cybersecurity where experience still holds weight and the demand is rising.

[-]

MuhBlockchain@reddit

If you can make a push towards software/solutions architecture then that might be a safe avenue. At least, that's kind of the direction I've gone in and fond success personally.

UK consultancies will be selling into UK businesses and will need people in the UK who can meet prospective and existing customers to understand their problems, run workshops, produce solutions, and ultimately sell the engineering work, even though that engineering work will actually be done increasingly by nearshore/farshore resource. Essentially, leaning into the parts of your role or landing a new role where being UK-based is an advantage and where your years of engineering experience is valuable.

It can be a big shift, particularly if you're an engineer who loves the engineering part and less so the people part. Though with AI being what it is today and what it could well be tomorrow and the years ahead, I do sometimes wonder what the future is for software engineering in general, UK-based or not. Taking that engineering mindset and using it instead to problem solve and solution in a more general/abstract sense is where the value is nowadays in the UK, rather than providing the hands-on-keyboard stuff. Seemingly to me anyway.

[-]

nkosijer@reddit (OP)

I know, that's the direction and my current career path I'm heading in at the moment. If I manage to stay with the company for a bit longer, I'll likely get promoted at some stage into architect

[-]

CageyCharleroi@reddit

I moved into a solution architect role, there seemed to be plenty around. If you get a smaller company it will be a mix of architect, BA, coding and PM so fairly interesting.

Maybe look at getting the AWS and azure accreditation whilst on the bench.

I'm confident that AI isn't going to replace me yet because companies need someone to understand the big picture and do the planning.

[-]

shapeless_nodule@reddit

We're in the shit right now - if you have a job, hold on to it, and if you get laid off do what you can to make ends meet; there's a fairly big market for 3D printed tat on etsy.

With that said, the new generations coming up from university are already reliant on ChatGPT to do their job. I think there's going to be a resurgence in people who actually know how to code in the next few years. the AI bubble isn a self-feeding nightmare and it's not going to last forever.

[-]

PurpleEsskay@reddit

Software dev here - get out of london, its only shrinking there. Up north we've got work up to our eyeballs. Anyone utterly stupid enough to try and think they can replace their dev team with AI will be finding their business on its knees within a couple of years. The good news is as a developer you can use it as a way of getting more done, but it's not replacing you.

As for 3d printing - not worth it, tried it and you've got more chance making a living selling stuff from charity shops on ebay. Everyone and their dog has a 3d printer these days and the cost of them has dropped significantly enough that they've become pretty commonplace. Nobody with an ounce of sanity is paying you £30 for one of those shitty dragons anymore.

For me personally I'm still doing software dev bug have moved more into a consulting role for our team and clients. Not quite PM work but basically having an overall say in how we do things, what we recommend, etc. It sounds like you've been doing this a while so you should be in a position where you can go up a level to more of a consulting and architectural role whilst still keeping your toe in the water as a dev so you don't have skill regression.

[-]

Pretty-Resolve-818@reddit

Things are still ok... don't panic just yet. Your ability to finding a job will be down to how well you can present yourself. I've changed jobs recently, got a promotion, and my company is hiring as well as a lot other companies I know of.

However, we can afford to be a bit picky about whom we hire... but that's not a problem at the senior level. If you told me you were a fresh grad however...

[-]

Gold-Advisor@reddit

The poor market will be mostly affecting juniors and grads, the mids and seniors I know aren't having much trouble.

I'm a British graduate who just spent 15 months looking for a grad scheme and junior role (got both). This is with a 1st, year in industry, several business and personal projects, active linkedin, sharp CV etc.

Additionally, none of those roles were fullstack development. Even with fullstack experience at my YII and a large fullstack personal project, I had no luck. My roles are both desktop application development.

The junior role was also a recruiter coming to me on CV Library. Every junior role I applied to, I got ghosted for. The only interviews I've had came from recruiters.

It is grim out there, but there is still a path if you really keep at it. We actually still have it pretty good compared to the USA where grads literally cannot get jobs period. Their unemployment rate is way higher.

[-]

delboy182@reddit

Nah mids and seniors are still in the rough. Of the people I know who have lost their roles, the few that have found work have had to change professions or take hefty pay cuts.

[-]

Gold-Advisor@reddit

Yeah apologies. I should've said not as rough, but rough. Also heard of plenty of ageism stories which quite frankly rips my heart to shreds

[-]

ChirronT447@reddit

I was made redundant recently, very (very) similar circumstances to you. I found a better paying job in about 5 weeks.

Firstly I think finding a job is really a full time job in and of itself and timing matters. The first week I started looking it was like a dead zone, there was very little, I applied and didn't hear back.

As time went on, more roles came online, I kept applying and started hearing back and then started interviewing. I must have interviewed at at least 15 companies and of course everyone wants to see you a half dozen times so it takes time.

If I hadn't have gotten something this side of the new year I was planning to wait until roles come online early next year and go from there.

I really think getting in the door early (with relevant experience of course) is what's needed and then it's just a numbers game

[-]

Routine-Rip-2414@reddit

It's a tough market, but the consensus seems to be that experienced UK devs who can adapt are still valuable. Hang in there and maybe use this time to skill up in an area like security, which is predicted to bounce back strongly.

[-]

yamamsbuttplug@reddit

I would make sure to re-look after the new year. Lots of not so fast paced companies will wait now before hiring.

[-]

danmingothemandingo@reddit

The market is so so dire. I know so many good highly skilled people struggling to find their next gig, it's scary.

[-]

seopher@reddit

I think the issue is overstated for strong senior candidates; I see a lot of high calibre engineers still moving between important roles. There definitely is contraction in the market for junior developers, partly because the economy means businesses are just sweating their seniors and trying to achieve more with less. And graduates/juniors are a big investment in a future no one is sure about, so lots of businesses aren't hiring at the lower end of the market.

Offshoring is another big problem, but you're starting to see a few companies re-onshore, partly because the mad salary expansion of the 2020-2022 era has slowed/ended and folk who believed you could hire entire teams in India at a fraction of the cost and get the same output. And they didn't. For a multitude of complex reasons that I won't go into.

I believe we'll see a big upswing in engineer demand in a year or two; when a ton of startups have vibe-coded their way into a corner and need experience to dig them out, or when people realise that generating the code was never the issue. Working out how to solve the problem was the issue, and that's (not yet) been AI's forte.

YMMV, of course, but I still see an awful lot of prosperity in the industry. It's just the entry-level roles I think are going to really struggle for a couple of years.

[-]

fuzzy_life@reddit

I'm 54, my company is going through redundancy right now. I'm praying they don't pick me, because even though I really want to leave, and especially take the package, I'm not sure I'll be able to find work again. Mainly because of my age.

Also because of my salary. I may be able to wangle one of those "senior" positions that pay 45k, but that's a massive drop, and would probably be very shitty work.

In short, I am terrified of losing my job

[-]

hermanzergerman@reddit

Hey, not sure appropriate or not but depending on your skill set I might be able to help. That or one of my contacts.

I'm a recruiter (own business, only me) in the software space across Europe and the US.

If you're open to it, send me a DM and I'll see if I can either help directly or at least proffer some advice.

[-]

Judge_Dredd-@reddit

I agree the market is getting tough but I'm still able to earn above £100k as a contract s/w engineer and I'd be surprised if you can't do so too.

[-]

nkosijer@reddit (OP)

It's good to hear that contracting is still going well. Thank you

[-]

JS-Labs@reddit

Contracting is still holding up because companies have dumped long-term headcount commitments but still need work delivered fast. They don’t want the liability of permanent staff, they don’t want to carry pensions or redundancy exposure, and they definitely don’t want to navigate internal hiring freezes. A contractor is a clean line item: buy the output, end the contract, no strings. When budgets shrink, flexibility wins. When teams are gutted, delivery still matters. That gap is exactly where contractors sit, which is why the market hasn’t collapsed the way perm roles have.

[-]

Judge_Dredd-@reddit

It's not going well but I do think that with a little effort someone with your experience can find roles which would match your expectations

[-]

Alternative-Wafer123@reddit

What made you proud here

[-]

Judge_Dredd-@reddit

I am a little puzzled by your response.

I'm suggesting that someone with OPs skills and experience could find a role in contracting which would give them the income they are looking for in the near future.

[-]

SeamasterCitizen@reddit

Mid 30s. I quit software dev last year and went into in-store retail. Absolutely love it.

[-]

JS-Labs@reddit

Your instincts aren’t wrong, but the picture is slightly different from how it feels when you’re standing in the middle of it.

The real collapse isn’t in engineering. It’s in the non-technical layers that used to sit around engineering. That’s where the bulk of the automation pressure is landing. Project managers, delivery coordinators, business analysts, offshore-handoff roles, middle-tier consultancy work those are the groups getting hollowed out first. Your core skill set still has value because you build things. Output survives. Overhead doesn’t.

The offshoring you’re seeing is just the first stage. Firms are trying to cut the expensive glue-roles before they touch the people who actually ship product. The problem is everything slows down at once, so everyone feels exposed.

Seven years ago the market rewarded competent engineers by default. Now it rewards engineers who can directly move a needle without layers of process. The jobs still exist; they’re just fewer, harder, and the pay is flatter because companies know AI has taken over the commodity work.

A 45-year-old engineer doesn’t need a reinvention. You need to strip the noise off your profile and show you’re a producer, not a passenger. Anything that proves you deliver independently side projects, repos, small automations, internal tools signals the right thing.

Your fear about fast food or trades is misfiring. You’re nowhere near that cliff. The people who should worry are the ones who never wrote code, never touched infra, never automated anything, and spent a decade in meetings explaining what engineers do. They’re the ones getting wiped out.

The downturn is real, but the collapse is selective. Builders survive. Non-technical roles are the ones in the blast zone.

[-]

ShoddyKnee3320@reddit

I work at a generalist IT consultancy and we're really busy at the moment. AI or no AI, businesses are always dealing with inefficiency, politics, lack of structure etc. and need external help. We have ex-technical consultants who just provide SME input rather than hands on development. Might be worth considering as a potential avenue.

[-]

oojiflip@reddit

It's wild that despite the major decreases in cost due to offshoring and AI, EVERYTHING COSTS MORE

Thanks billionaires 🖕🏻

[-]

Objective_Mousse7216@reddit

I saw the writing on the wall, piled everything into pensions, and tax free investments.

[-]

Not_That_Magical@reddit

You’re a senior developer. The market isn’t great, but there are plenty of opportunities for people with your level of experience. Entry level is the bit that’s borked.

[-]

Toughebook@reddit

My serious advice, go into controls engineering. You've got a good background, controls engineering won't be hit anywhere near as hard by AI/remote work.

[-]

nosuchthingginger@reddit

This and civil service. They won’t be adding AI anytime soon, not until it’s bullet proof which… it won’t be

[-]

scottishkiwi-dan@reddit

And councils. Chat GPT is blocked on my partner's laptop.

[-]

OminOus_PancakeS@reddit

To add to this, I work in NHS admin. No sign of ai yet.

[-]

Out_Lines@reddit

I was going to suggest this. Could easily transfer skills in to SCADA / DCS.

[-]

astrobe1@reddit

I hear these conversations frequently in IT circles, I think there are two unfortunate certainties coming. AI will rapidly take entry level jobs forcing an unprecedented level of unemployment. Demand for work will drive down salaries as a capable workforce gets competitive. Whilst it’s not something I want our generations to experience once AGI takes hold it will be more intelligent and capable than any human, require no sleep, no annual leave, no breaks. I don’t believe there is safe path because when this comes it will be so fast, jobs created reactivity will be replaced by AI just as quickly. Best course of action, shut it down but we know that won’t happen. Sorry I can’t steer you more positively however at least you have your head up early.

[-]

Asyx@reddit

AGI is a lie. AGI is both used as a scrape goat to make people think negatively of AI as a replacement for humans and not a tool to help us but also it is used as the light at the end of the tunnel by OpenAI and Nvidia to justify burning that much money.

There is no real indication in my opinion that AGI will ever happen. The people that say it will happen always have motivations where lying about AGI becoming a thing benefits them.

[-]

astrobe1@reddit

I hope you are right, motivation always propagates false narrative however I think greed trumps ethics and its a race to the top. I think it will come, after all our brains are just a super computer interconnected with consciousness.

[-]

LeavingSoonBye209@reddit

I don't know about the UK housing market but if it's anything like the US one, buying recently wasn't the best move.

[-]

timwtuck@reddit

Why is that? It's a buyer's market here, prices have had a couple of years to tank but instead they've seemingly stayed mostly stagnant. No one ever knows the future, but feels like now is as good a time to buy as any as long as one can afford it

[-]

nkosijer@reddit (OP)

Yeah, it's been really tough for a while, but I decided to take the plunge anyway. Honestly, I don't think anyone ever really says - Now's a good time to buy a house

[-]

hopenoonefindsthis@reddit

The lower end of dev/tech jobs are def moving offshore. But anyone that worked with them will know the quality is shit. So there is an even greater demand for people with deep domain knowledge/expertise.

So my general advice is keep learning and upgrading your knowledge. If you are good enough, you don’t have to worry.

[-]

creamandchivedip@reddit

Lean into cleared work - once you're cleared it's a lot easier / roles are plentiful.

[-]

CatHerdler@reddit

You’ve got a lot of industry insight. A couple of good alternative career paths - product management and solutions / sales engineering. Both will keep you close to tech. Solutions engineering is the more lucrative of the two (but you have more variability due to a sales comp plan).

Keep your technical capabilities up to date in the interim - these things are swings and it will swing back again.

[-]

911KM@reddit

Maybe you should move where the jobs are? Eaten Europe is only 2-3 hours flight and if you want the sun all year around, go India.

[-]

MessAcceptable2909@reddit

Defence and Aerospace companies are still hiring hard for software engineers - there's not much appetite for leaving safety-critical or defence-sensitive software to AI!

[-]

banedlol@reddit

We have some software engineers in manufacturing workplace and absolutely could not do without them now or anytime soon. Legacy systems will always be around.

[-]

Ecstatic-Pie-9955@reddit

There are some good comments made. Here is what I’d add: - consultancies tend to pay a premium. You may have to consider a salary drop for your next job - offshore/nearshore development still requires onshore supervision, ideally by technical competent individuals. You could look for that as a possible role. It does mean moving away from pure development, which you have to consider as you may not want to do that - cyber is big, but again, you have to decide whether that’s a direction you want to take

[-]

UK-sHaDoW@reddit

Consultancies don't pay a premium. Product companies and tech companies pay for more

[-]

jpcafe10@reddit

Imo you’re overreacting a little bit, I would apply to some roles first

[-]

nkosijer@reddit (OP)

I really hope you're right. I'm mostly just trying to get a sense of the market and hear other people's experiences. I know Reddit tends to amplify complaints, so the bad news feels louder than the good, but I genuinely hope I won't run into any issues. 7 years ago, it took me about 16 days to find a new role, and that wasn't exactly considered a golden era for the IT job market.

[-]

UK-sHaDoW@reddit

My experience is senior roles are actually fine. It's junior roles that are a problem.

[-]

jpcafe10@reddit

Report back in a few weeks!

[-]

defram@reddit

This guy was a much better applicant than I ever was (4 years ago). Better homework, better CV, etc. The difference is, I got an offer from every internship or grad job I applied for, literally 100% success rate.

I’ve done a PhD in STEM and switched to industry into the same role my friend from the lab did 3 years earlier. My search took 6 months and ended up in a short term project role that luckily transformed into a full time position. She, on the other hand, applied to 5 openings, got interviews from 3 of them very quickly and accepted the first position that gave her an offer without even bothering to finish the rest. We worked together and had very similar experience. I saw her CV (writing, formatting etc) - and it was honestly below average even for 2020, right now no one would look at it. Good for her, but it’s insane to me how different experiences we had coming from the same background and aiming for the same jobs.

[-]

Trab3n@reddit

You're posting in AskUK but note there are a few Software Engineer specific UK subs you can also cross post too

However! Not all is doom/gloom! There's a few reasons to be optimistic.

The job market changes quickly, someone is going to need to fix all that AI slop that companies are producing on mass soon!
There's a new generation of programmers that need people like you to be a guidance, apply for senior roles, apply for staff roles at mid level companies. You're not out the fight yet!
Every company I personally know that went off shore had massive failures. I don't think this is to stay or is done by smart engineering teams
The public sector can be one of the most challenging (problem solving kind) areas to join. Look at the likes of GDS (folks who run gov.uk)
Consultancy is poop in my opinion, look at establishing yourself as a product owner type of software engineer! Get involved in a mid to late stage start up, there are plenty of them!
You have a lot of options, it's just about choosing what's right for you. The market look bad but once you get in touch with recruiters, it's really not as bad as it looks.
Don't don't don't don't use LinkedIn to find a role, go direct to companies
Explore other tech stacks

[-]

cine@reddit

++ a lot of people in this thread (presumably outside tech industry) are suggesting retraining into non-SWE roles

As someone working within tech, I'm not that pessimistic at all. I would focus more on upskilling into AI than switching industries.

[-]

UK-sHaDoW@reddit

It's people outside the industry, who have no clue what software engineers actually do.

[-]

AdventurousTeach994@reddit

Remember when kids were being told to study computer programming as it was a copper bottomed career choice? Me too.

The world is changing at warp speed. Most of the learning taking place at the moment will be redundant in 20 years.

We just cannot imagine what skills will be required in the future and what the world of work will look like.

We only need to rewind 50 years to see how much has changed and that even more innovation lies ahead.

The 21st century is finally taking its own unique clearly identifiable shape that can be viewed apart from previous centuries. It can be compared to the previous century- just look at 1900 compared to 1925.

This is an exciting time to be alive.

[-]

Theo_Cherry@reddit

r/UKJobs

[-]

jaynoj@reddit

Thoroughly depressing sub. 1/10 wouldn't recommend.

[-]

LordSn00ty@reddit

Check out the civil service. They haven't been able to compete with private sector salaries for years, are thus desperate for software ppl, and have a lot of catching up to do.

[-]

FarSplit@reddit

I’m a contractor. I’ve been contracting in similar roles for a long time.

With IR35 and inflation, I’m earning 31% less than I was 19 years ago.

[-]

No-Elderberry-7695@reddit

Just to add, IMO the layoffs, while sold as being "driven by AI" is not the actual case - AI has enabled sensitive management to consider reshaping the teams in the context of flat growth, but:

- if AI dev starts living up to the (over) hype, there'll be more work/output to oversee, requiring a team of equivalent size :D

- if poorly supervised AI dev doesn't live up to the over hype, they'll need to hire the teams again

[-]

Thorongil_1802@reddit

Look at the defense industry. Starved for engineers and can't be offshored

[-]

budgiebirdman@reddit

As others have said AI isn't replacing jobs, it's being used as an excuse for getting rid of jobs. No company wants to admit they're uncertain of the future and they need to tighten their belts. Hopefully the clown show in the Whitehouse won't last another four years and some kind of certainty will return.

[-]

Volemic@reddit

So a little perspective here.

Personally, I think this year has been bad compared to last.

For disclosure, I’ve worked in mostly corporate roles: from tier 1 banks to cloud; I know AWS internals very well and half of that translates to what consumers use. I’ve also been a reliability engineer.

In finding a new role, I’ve had to step out of the management arena; there’s a race upwards and I find that interesting. Last year I was getting loads of interviews (and early into this year, Meta, Amazon/AWS) etc. a lot of roles I bombed at, and I got very little feedback beyond they preferred other candidates. Only 1 piece of feedback was useful and explains the recent neurodivergent diagnosis… damn. (And was the only no on the full hiring panel).

Now, something I’m hesitant about is RTTO, I do look for more hybrid options and I recognise these are being swallowed up. For me, it’s a neurodiverse issue.

There’s also the other problem for me; I’m at the top end for an IC for many roles; earning a significant amount. There’s little room to budge for me, so I’d be swinging around 20k +/- which is a large swing.

[-]

Away_Cauliflower1367@reddit

I can see a similar pattern, but companies will realise it's difficult working with these people from the subcontinent and it's simply not worth all of the hassle and security incidents from hiring people off the street.

They will then go back to hiring proper employees, just hang in there.

[-]

Opening-Winner-3032@reddit

You need to speak to recruiters.

Companies don't advertise hard as they get swamped with 1000s of applications from people who can't work in the uk

[-]

turbo_dude@reddit

Good, serves them right for relying on ATS. I hope their HR departments are drowning and they end up making shitty hiring decisions.

[-]

seamakx@reddit

whats your stack? do you do any coding or more of a project management job

[-]

YesIAmRightWing@reddit

The market is shit because the economics shit

Honestly it was way worse for contracting during COVID when it was a literal ghost town for contracts

Ofc demand came back with a vengeance

Once this AI bubble bursts and it will demand will return

[-]

asuka_rice@reddit

Your post is very accurate about the direction of white-collar IT work in London as London shrinks in importance on the world stage. Walking around Canary Wharf and the City explains all. Empty shops and less foot flow during lunch time. Over the last decade, it was more about push than pull and here we all are in a stagnant U.K. and unable to reverse the wrongs that was done because it will dent earnings/ profits.

I wouldn’t advise 3-D printing given a poor economy means poor demand and over supply. In fact a YouTuber across the pond has a 3-D printing business and he recently posted his business is in a poor business cycle where it might not survive.

As for moving totally out of your business sector like the food business then remember it be more difficult to return back into IT field given that how employers think, the longer your on the shelf the longer you’ll stay there.

Suggest looking another job with a lot less pay and be flexible about locations be it outside London or the U.K…consider public sector rather private sector.

Seems like ai, outsourcing and over regulation will be the final death nail in London. You could consider becoming a gas engineer, an electrician, plumber or the trades skills. This they can outsource abroad nor AI can dent yet as times goes by this will become saturated too.

[-]

notmyname192@reddit

Try jobs in transformation or tax software companies

[-]

Amir_D1@reddit

I work in cyber security and am learning about AI security and governance to future proof my career.

I agree that the AI hype will die off soon.

If you’re into AI governance, check out NIST AI framework.

[-]

GoochBlaster420@reddit

Look at a company in the defence industry, it's impossible to offshore a lot of work there due to security concerns.

BAE, Boeing etc.

[-]

Teh_yak@reddit

I did have a big thing typed here, but realised I don't want to give a lot of the info out. Without specifics, it ended up worthless.

Short version: same age, same industry. Not in the UK, work with the UK a lot. Do a lot of AI adjacent work. Part of my job to know where things are going.

If you want to talk, message me. Might be able to help.

[-]

ClintonLewinsky@reddit

Shift sideways in to software consulting/training. End user training. Or use your skills in sales?

The industry still needs your knowledge and the AI bubble will burst

[-]

BrightwaterBard@reddit

Probably not of interest or correct skillset but there is a new direct entry scheme for cyber including training in the MOD :

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/cyber-direct-entry-scheme

[-]

unseemly_turbidity@reddit

Freelance?

[-]

nkosijer@reddit (OP)

I've thought about that, but none of it would cover my mortgage. It usually takes ages before you start seeing any real income... I know from experience, having worked at a startup before joining my current company

[-]

unseemly_turbidity@reddit

You've still got time to get some savings though, and perhaps there'd be a redundancy payout too.

[-]

pizzaboy235@reddit

It's bad in health care too

[-]

boy_oh_boy@reddit

The grind will be hard but there are still opportunities and more will come up in the new year. Learn and be ready for hard interviews, but I am sure you will get an offer👍🏽

[-]

TechnoAndy94@reddit

Your overreacting there is still a market especially for seniors. I've landed 2 different jobs this this year with decent salaries. I'm still getting message from recruiters, albeit not at 2021/22 levels.

My current place is just south of London,but If your around C# dev with cloud experience we are hiring a lead, maybe seniors/mids but I'd have to check.

[-]

LastOfTheMohawkians@reddit

I'm 47 and my job is pretty safe right now. I've been doing this for 30 years pretty much and I still enjoy it. Recently my large org is all about AI. While I'm not worried about my role, I see it as a way to do more, I do worry about the less experienced ones.

See AI is great if you're experienced enough to call out its bulls&_t. When you're lacking that experience you blindly take what it gives you. This will lead to prod outages and a lack of understanding when these problems arise.

I worry my management thinks AI will be a way to replace expensive resources (me) but actually I think the end result is that us older experienced guys and gals will become very sought after and we'll be controlling many agents to do our work and be able to validate their results. Unfortunately this is at the expense of the juniors.

If I was 17 again I wouldn't be looking for a career in Tech that's for sure.

Now if I was looking to pivot out of this career I think the hardest problem is maintaining income levels. On this I have no idea. I think reality is most other jobs would pay far less OR I'd have to retrain completely. I'm totally up for that but my hunch is nobody wants to employ a 47 year old man and train them while paying them a decent salary.

[-]

trickster-is-weak@reddit

I’d look at the defense industry. It might be a pay cut based on “city” work but it’ll be pretty secure.

[-]

Pure-Kaleidoscope207@reddit

As someone at a CTO level, I've had more recruiters reaching out to me in the last month than I have since 2022.

I know a single data point doesn't mean but but I'm hopeful it's green shoots I'm seeing!

[-]

LateToTheParty013@reddit

If you re a consultant for such company and given your experience and seniority, they wouldnt probably let you go but even if the market is shit, the people with your experience, which from the looks might be Deloitte, Capgemini, Accenture(which recent years bought InfinityWorks) or ThoughtWorks, you d be fine. Yes, it would take longer, yes you d have to do some networking but probably you d be fine.

Please dont go down the route of creating some new thing and trying to make it work, like you spoke about the 3D etc. I mean, as a fun hobby or side hustle, maybe, but to make a full living to replace such a career, absolutely no fucking chance. All these selling online things are oversaturated, I started some myself, did pretty well and the reality hits hard. Once you calculate your time, pay the corp tax, your accountants, VAT and all, you re left with £10-20p/h wage so maybe under min wage. I also been part of a small successful compant that we re closing down, where in 24 months we made about 50x revenue of our initial investment (5000 euro => 250k euro) and the work needed to achieve that was ASTRONOMICAL. In my opinion, look at contracting, look at anything that needs no money investment from you, so you can just do it with what you know already: your tech experience, your laptop, internet and your time. This will cost you 0 upfront, and a bit of time.

[-]

eat_play_love@reddit

Teaching apprentices or at a senior level, assessing apprenticeships (EPA)

[-]

CarpetGripperRod@reddit

Approaching 50 here. It has been my experience that current AI (as LLMs, statistical prediction engines) is not great at stuff that it has not been trained on. Thankfully, there is not a lot of Perl on github etc. And Perl was my first language, so... I picked up some work that way.

There's prolly a shitload of COBOL/Fortran/Whatever in the wild that LLMs have no idea what to do with because of lack of training data.

An opportunity there for you, maybe?

[-]

Illustrated-Society@reddit

Onlymans.

[-]

nkosijer@reddit (OP)

Good idea... I just wish I looked younger than my age

[-]

SeagullSam@reddit

With the magic of filters, you will.

[-]

quieroperderdinero@reddit

You sob, I'm in

[-]

dave_the_dr@reddit

Like others have said, cyber security consultancy isnt a bad shout. It wouldn’t even take you much to start that up, just a website with decent key words.

I work in civil engineering and there’s a huge jump in the use of AI to help speed things up, which means that companies are needing AI policies and procedures writing in order to meet the requirements of ISO27001, cyber essentials or whatever accreditation they need to maintain.

As long as you keep your rates reasonable, you should get a decent amount of work. And it’s repeatable, every company has the same compliance requirements

[-]

yorkshirewisfom@reddit

Think out of the box, there are many small and mid sized companies who need IT specialists, specifically the security side of things. Don't think what you can't do, think what you can. Good Luck

[-]

Pleasant-Put5305@reddit

This is such a fever dream - development is forever changed. Get used to it. If Ai writes sloppy code, so what? Most developers write sloppy code. Nothing has changed, faults will be picked up and fixed exactly the same way as they are now - just much quicker. Sprints can now be hours long, code releases can be daily...you can't do that without AI (or millions of employees).

Imagining elderly devs being called up out of retirement or redendency to try and make sense of this totally new world is frankly a fantasy.

Especially if they are the ones currently noisily moaning about computers taking their jobs - didn't mind when it was everyone else's jobs, did you? Lol.

[-]

pilkafa@reddit

Product designer chiming in - yes market is horrible on my end as well. Ai is quite ruining the whole process. The other day I’ve interviewed with an Ai. Asking me what I was feeling about the company etc etc. UK is a hostile working environment if you’re trying to earn honest money. Feels like we’re nearing to the end of “western prosperity”

[-]

GaldrickHammerson@reddit

Engineer more software to make the industry bigger. R u dum?

[-]

FootballUpset2529@reddit

Wait until you hit 50 and discover that you're unemployable. I'm in the process of finding something else to do - on the plus side after doing senior software development for decades everything looks ridiculously easy :)

[-]

twncn@reddit

Obvious disclaimer that I don't know your particular situation but as someone who just landed my first senior SWE job I'd say you're overreacting.

There's a lot of very bad news about the software market right now but I'd say a lot of it is in comparison to peak 2020 when everyone was full-time remote and money was raining from the sky. Yes, it's certainly worse than that, but equally it's far better than the trough we saw in 2023 and it continues to recover.

As someone who recently did a job search recently I saw similar things to you (although I don't think the number of listed senior roles is that low). What surprised me was that a lot of new jobs seem to only be available through recruiters, far more than the previous couple of times I've done this (presumably because there're so many candidates on the market from the 2020 boom that employers want someone to filter for them).

If you're someone who got an overpaid job during 2020 then yes you might well find the experience worse or have to take a pay cut or something but I'd be very surprised if you couldn't find a role at all.

[-]

HMS_Northumberland@reddit

In all honesty I’ve seen the opposite. AI has augmented coding and has replaced some of the administrators and sales reps. It’s anecdotal so don’t take my experience for anything other. We’ve had an insane run, can you get into robotics, autonomous systems engineering, or cad programming?

[-]

Fabulous_Slice_5361@reddit

Have you started applying for any roles?

[-]

nkosijer@reddit (OP)

No, I don't want to do that before I consider all options

[-]

blood__drunk@reddit

How can you consider options thay you dont know about?

I know it's effort, but you only know your worth by interviewing and getting offers.

[-]

Competitive_Scene_63@reddit

Could you maybe make a move/pivot into cyber security stuff using some of your transferable skills? Must have the aptitude for it and I don’t think the need for that will be reducing any time soon

[-]

Isgortio@reddit

I got out 7 years ago and changed entirely to dentistry. I missed it for a while, but then when I saw my friends being made redundant over and over, I didn't feel like I had made the wrong choice.

There are lots of other things you can try :)

[-]

Dry-Grocery9311@reddit

AI is replacing headcount in roles not roles themselves. I mean, where you had 10 staff, you may now get by with 2 staff and more AI.

The engineers that are most valuable in this scenario are the senior experienced ones.

I see the graduate market shrinking massively but the senior market for those embracing AI tools is getting stronger.

It's harder to give a graduate, who already used AI, 20 years of experience than for a person with 20 years experience to get up to speed on the AI tools.

You could either aim to position yourself as being above average at leveraging AI tools or pick a more AI proof job.

[-]

SpicyNoseClams@reddit

Its not good but have you spoke to any recruiters? Let them do the heavy lifting… im also a developer near london, my colleague is trying to leave and fwiw the recruiters do seem to be getting him interviews.

[-]

AutoModerator@reddit

Please help keep AskUK welcoming!

When replying to submission/post please make genuine efforts to answer the question given. Please no jokes, judgements, etc.
Don't be a dick to each other. If getting heated, just block and move on.
This is a strictly no-politics subreddit!

Please help us by reporting comments that break these rules.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.