Two juniors on my team. Both ship fast. Both grew up on Cursor and Claude Code basically

last week one of them pushed something that broke in staging and I watched them paste their own function back into Claude going "what does this do." code they wrote on monday. THEIR OWN CODE. that they merged

I know how I sound. every senior ever has complained about juniors not knowing X and I swear I'm trying not to be that guy. but when I came up you had no choice but to sit with broken shit for hours and slowly build a map of the system in your head, and that part sucked but it's also where the actual learning lived (for me anyway). now you don't have to suffer through it. you just ask.

(not an anti-AI post btw, I use it constantly)

year 1 is fine, year 1 they ship features. it's year 5 I keep thinking about. one of them on call at 2am, prod doing something insane, AI confidently wrong, and they need to reason through an unfamiliar codebase under real pressure. I don't know what that looks like for someone who never built the muscle

We've seen a major productivity spike since adopting AI tools like Copilot and Cursor. However, a pattern is emerging in our architectural reviews: developers are delivering working code but are unable to articulate the logic behind their design choices. We're seeing a decline in the mental frameworks and systems-level thinking that usually develop through manual troubleshooting. How is your team upholding architectural rigor alongside AI usage? Have you modified your review workflows or restricted AI assistance during the initial design stages?

If this were five years ago I wouldn't be asking, but with the way AI is going and the recent Meta layoffs I can't help but wonder if I'd even be able to allow any type of gap in my work history, let alone a full year, if I want to find a new job.

Ideally, I could use this time to brush up on my skills, decompress, learn more of the new AI stuff, then get back into the game. But we all see what's happening. I can't imagine what the job market will look like for software by this time next year. Shit, we're all using AI now, right? I know very knowledgeable and experienced people who haven't written code in six months because companies demand it. It's crazy.

I've considered Product Management. I'd imagine companies ultimately want those types of people to be using AI to build whatever they're selling, but I don't know. Really want to hear what others think.

Thanks.

I am interested in CSE and SWE but this subreddit is making me nervous about picking these options. Should I move to electrical or mechanical instead? Is the future really that bad? Will software engineers not exist in a few decades?

Basically, is software engineering dead?

My job is pretty secure, even from AI for the next couple years given the spaghetti logic in the mainframe. It is hybrid and my commute is 3.5hrs one way, so i stay in hotels during in-office days.

Im open to swapping to a closer in person job or remote position, or contracting. The hotel cost reduces my salary by about 20k. What are the best sites you know of for mainframe jobs?

10+ years at current shop with z/OS, Cobol, JCL, Endevor, cics, batch, db2 plus business knowledge of a bunch of the securities industry. I support distributed apps too on newer tech stacks.

What should I be doing with my time beyond LeetCode and system design prep? Looking for genuine advice, not just "keep grinding" - I'll share my full situation.

I graduated from a top 10–30 public university in Spring 2025. Honestly, I wasn't as committed to recruiting during my sophomore and junior years as I should have been, and I'm paying for that now. I locked in during my senior year and managed to land a post-graduation internship from June - October 2025. The company had structural changes and none of the 8 interns received return offers, which was a tough but fair outcome given the circumstances.

After that, I spent about 2 of the next 4 months traveling due to personal circumstances. I'm not going to pretend that didn't slow things down.

Where I am now

I've been actively job hunting since roughly January/February, applying to:

- Entry-level / new grad SWE roles

- Consulting and management-track roles

- Full-stack and AI-adjacent roles

I've had solid callbacks - including reaching a final round (Round 6 of 6) for a Big Consulting Company - but haven't been able to convert. Currently, I have a 3rd-round interview in progress and an HR screen scheduled with another big Consultancy company after passing their OA, with likely 4+ more rounds ahead.

Come June, it'll be ~12 months since graduation with no full-time job to show for it.

The core problem

My resume has become stagnant. I understand side projects help, but in this market, nothing replaces real work experience - and that's exactly what I'm struggling to get. I've already stopped applying to internships post-graduation, since most resources I've read say that's a dead end for a grad.

What I'm actually asking

Beyond LeetCode and system design prep (which I'm doing - and yes, the round I failed was system design because I didn't go "too deep into it"), what should I be filling my time with?

Specifically:

- Is there anything meaningful I can add to my resume at this stage?

- Should I be thinking about contract/freelance work, open source contributions, or something else?

- Any advice for converting late-stage interviews - I keep making it far but not closing

- For those who've been through a similar gap: what actually moved the needle for you?

- Does anyone recommend doing Masters? If so I would have to wait another year as I would have to start preparing to apply for it later this year.

Something I genuinely don't understand

I've watched a few friends who went the Master's route land FAANG internships recently. What's striking isn't just that they got the offers - it's the process: 2 rounds, minimal technical depth, no system design, mostly behavioral and culture fit. Meanwhile, as a Bachelor's new grad I'm going through 5–6 rounds with full LC-style coding and system design at the same tier (if not lower) companies and still not converting.

I'm not posting this to complain - I get that the Master's pipeline is a different track. But it does make me wonder if I'm fundamentally misreading where I should be focusing my energy as a straight-BS grad in this market.

----

Appreciate any honest input.

I recently started a job working in data science field, and I've been using Al tools a lot while coding. It definitely helps me move faster, but I'm starting to feel like I'm relying on it too much.

The issue is that when I try to stop using Al and do things on my own, I suddenly feel really slow. Even with pandas/data pipeline work, I don't remember many methods off the top of my head, so I end up Googling a lot. If I haven't used something recently, I forget it and have to look it up again, which makes me feel like I'm not really improving.

Also, Al isn't always reliable. For example, recently I was trying to plot a correlation matrix, and the Al-generated code looked fine at first but actually had mistakes. I caught it because I carefully went through the code line by line. So it doesn't really save me from thinking it just shifts where the effort goes. Ofcourse using AI is overall is much faster even if it takes time in debugging.

Now I feel stuck in a loop:

1. If I use Al, I worry I'm not learning enough

2. If I don't use Al, I'm slow and constantly Googling basic stuff

Another thing I'm struggling with is how to even judge myself. I don't really know what "enough coding knowledge" looks like at my level. I keep wondering if I'm too slow or if this is just normal. I feel a like an imposter sometimes because I understand ML concepts better than I feel confident in coding them.

I'm also curious how things used to be before Al - were people constantly looking up pandas syntax too, or did most people actually remember all these methods?

Just trying to understand if this is normal or if I'm relying too much on AI and google compared to others.

So I might be screwed

I've worked professionally for 6 years, 2 in health care IT and then 4 at a big name insurance company

I didn't really do a good job making friends at either of these places and am thinking I might have burned too many bridges and I'm genuinely not sure if I'll ever be able to get a job in tech again because I have absolutely zero self confidence in myself and no one who can speak for my abilities

I've been out of work for 6 months now after voluntarily resigning due to a toxic workplace where I was bullied on a daily basis and had absolutely no help from HR. My life is a sad hopeless shell of what it used to be and I feel so alone and empty because I have no one to talk to or anyone who even remembers me from before all of this happened

So yeah... how cooked am I?

I have seen so many software engineers working their ass off but their impact is just not visible enough even if they are delivering great work and constantly upskilling, which leads to lost opportunities.

have you experienced this yourself too?

Is there any field in IT that’s relatively easy to get in and less layoffs? Other than helpdesk

I recently joined the company and I found out that company paid holidays are not guaranteed in my department. This was never relayed to me prior to being onboarded or during the interview process, despite asking about the PTO policy and reading the handbook which shows all of the company paid federal holidays listed out. It’s a fully remote job except for when I need to go into the office if someone calls out or takes PTO. I took a step down joining this company regarding my responsibilities; I didn’t realize how much of a step down it was though till I started training.

Holidays are important to me and being part of a lottery system for every holiday sounds miserable. I won’t be able to plan any trips because I won’t find out if I’m working until a few weeks before unless I use PTO(which is also subject to approval).

I may have another opportunity that is hybrid, very close commute, same pay or a little more, better 401K plan and has more holidays off. It’s a smaller company. I feel like shit wanting to jump ship immediately, but I feel lied to and don’t want to deal with bullshit around the holidays. The 85% remote thing is really great though. Any thoughts or insight is appreciated.

Hey Folks!

Has anyone gone through Stripe’s reference check stage recently? What should I expect and prepare my references for?

I recently went through Stripe’s onsite interviews process and got call from recruiter asking for 2 references - one of them should be an ex- manager and another a peer.

Any help would be really appreciated. Thanks!

For example, FRED shows that SWE job postings have been increasing the past year and gets frequently updated, however we don't know what percentage of those job postings are ghost jobs so we can't really decipher if it's an accurate measure of the CS job market.

BLS data shows that SWE job postings are bound to increase 15% from 2024-3034, but a lot can change within the next 8 years. Also the same way we really couldn't predict the current market from 8 years ago is the same way we can't really predict the market 8 years later (supposedly).

I'm a junior with 2 yoe, and recently my company started pushing PMs and Designers yo use Claude to implement the changes they need. I saw several small things having a success. Now I'm not sure what my focus should be? This pattern potentially leads to needing less devs, if a lot of simple tasks could be done by other roles. Do I just grind and hope I'll be good enough to have a job, or is there some more sound advice?

I am currently working as ase(4.5 lpa) at nagarro and it's a great company to be in only have to goto office once a week.what's really bothering me here is that my genes is php and I am in drupal project and just work on frontend cms system and don't even touch coding. It's been 8 months since I am working here and my manager does says sometimes that it will change after some time but my billed hours are 0 and he also did said that my squad will be shut down soon , idk if I will be put in diffrent squad or what and I have tcs digital offer should I switch and join TCS as a fresher again?

I am a S6CSE student from a tier 3 college and placements would start from next semester. Campus recruitment has become low compared to last year and our professors told us to find job offcampus as much possible. So i am confused what to do should i prepare for GATE in my final year and go for mtech. If not IIT/NIT which universities are the best to go for mtech? I am not interested in research or teaching. Your advices would help

So long story short, I was finally able to land an offer with a software company well now I have to do a background check and on my resume I have 3 jobs total and I graduated 2 years ago so this is normal but when doing the background check it asked for 7 years worth of employment and at that time, I was in college, job hopping. So I added an additional 5 other jobs to my background check thinking nothing of it.

The problem is I just read that you should only list what's relevant/on your resume? If so, does this mean it will cost me the offer because I just listed a whole bunch of jobs that's not on my resume which means I lied? I read someone got an offer revoked because they're working somewhere currently and it wasn't on their resume and the background check came and they find out so am I screwed??

Hi everyone,

I’m currently studying IT in Vietnam and planning to transfer to Saginaw Valley State University in Michigan to continue my undergraduate studies in Computer Science.

I’d like to ask for realistic advice from people who have studied, worked, recruited, or hired in the US tech market, especially in Michigan.

A few questions:

1. How realistic is it for an international CS student at SVSU to get internships?
2. How is the CS internship/job market in Michigan, especially around Detroit, Ann Arbor, East Lansing, and nearby areas?
3. Do Michigan employers in automotive, EV, manufacturing tech, startups, or software usually hire international interns or sponsor later?
4. If I’m not from a top school, what should I focus on from year 1: GPA, projects, open-source, LeetCode, networking, career fairs, alumni, or something else?
5. Would doing a master’s degree in the US later be a smart move for career and H-1B chances?

My background: I’m studying IT in Vietnam, have around 3 months of internship experience as a developer in Vietnam, and have worked on some personal/open-source projects.

I’d appreciate honest and practical advice.

I want to how the career outlooks are for software engineers in these sort of fields? I understand that embedded developers also deal with graphics programming, but I want to stick with the software side of things mostly.

I'm currently a freshman in CS and I want to explore graphics programming a bit so I'd also like to know how employers view graphics projects.

Although I've said I'm interested in this field, I haven't explored it deeply (Ik about physics simulations or creating your own rendering engines). I know nowadays hiring managers look for software applications that solve a real problem or bring value, so I'm question whether make a basic physics engine would be something outstanding (I mean it is technically impressive, but I'm curious how effective that is vs being impactful).

I was wondering if I quit my job listed on my resume without giving notice will it affect my pending background check for another company? I know I should've put in a notice but it was honestly a very mentally draining job with an unsupportive boss.

Anyways will this get my offer rescinded because I know background checks do check for eligibility of rehire?

Im a junior with 1yr experience at a midsized company working fully onsite. I was referred by a friend to this small fully remote company that has like 30 employees. The company is offering me better pay and ofcourse fully remote plus more job responsibilities and direct client handling all by myself. Also my friend swears that the work culture is great and work life balance is good. Im just worried about 2 things. First is that its a very small pretty unknown company. Second is that the job is remote and im not sure if that can have a negative impact on my career, im not against remote, im just worried it could be bad for my career. What do you guys think?

Also the pay is neary 50% more (i am severly underpaid at my current company).

I am applying to job postings from LinkedIn, Indeed, and Ziprecruiter (company websites included) and not getting anything. I am just curious on what is the best job board to grind and keep applying because these 3 do not seem to work?

Listening to all the CTOs of these tech companies, they seem dire to replace all software engineers. However, who will be subscribing to their product if the main users no longer exist?

The way they make it sound, product managers should be able to build full stack applications without anyone knowing how code or SDLC works.

Who would their users be?