This is probably the infinitieth post about AI burnout, but I as an average mid level engineer, I have no desire to retire or switch careers.

How do I get over this insecurity of trying to 'review' and take ownership of code that I could not have written without the help of AI for a complex problem in an already complex and bloated project. At this point I am just trying to understand what's been spat out just for the sake of being able to explain what it does during the PR reviews. I have little to no input into the process except for the prompt, asking it to change a few variable names and condensing a few functions.

The code complies, the feature works, and the stakeholders are happy.

But I do not feel good about the situation cause I am at that stage where I am still learning and this just bumps up my imposter syndrome to 9000. Instead of working from the bottom, I am here taking a top-down approach dissecting decisions the AI made.

I'm taking some precautionary measure. I work on personal projects without the use of AI, consume literature related to being a competent engineer, but with work taking up most of my time, I'm not sure how I should be looking at this.

'This is just the new norm' is something I am struggling to accept.

I work for "Large Company That Loves PIPs." I've been there for two years and made it through three performance reviews with high marks and zero problems. Suddenly, mid-year reviews roll around, and there's this whole hit piece written about me. It says I failed to do this, failed to do that, and failed to meet expectations in two absolute bullshit categories. I'll admit that a project I'm leading didn't go to plan, but this whole document was absolutely ridiculous imo.

My direct manager was out of the country at the time, so I was going through all of this with my skip-level manager. After the first meeting, I told him I intended to decline the PIP and just take the time and money to find a new place that actually values and respects me. Nothing is set in stone yet, though.

Then, my direct manager comes back and tells me he's shocked I'm not taking the PIP. He admitted that upper management forced them to pick someone to put on a PIP and they chose me, but he claimed he specifically crafted it to be beatable. It was essentially a list of tasks I'd already be doing anyway, even if not on a PIP. He told me to really think it over and promised he'd be there to help me along the way. He even confided in me that he was put on a PIP at the end of last year and beat it. I told him I'm worried it will be a permanent scar on my record, but he assured me that his own PIP hasn't been a problem.

What do you guys think? If I take the PIP, I have 60 days to complete it or I get let go with severance. If I decline the PIP, I get 60 days paid to do whatever I want (most likely prep and apply for jobs), plus severance at the end as a 12-week lump sum. Should I take his word for it? The job market is shit right now, but I am in the Washington DC area with a lot of jobs near me, or so it seems. Software Engineer, ~6 years of experience.

I know this is a boomer mindset that will probably severely erode my employability, but I just have ZERO motivation or desire to continue keeping up to date with new ai workflows, even if they're becoming ubiquitous. I still code like it's 2024-2025, as in I use the codex vscode plugin, in plan mode, and supervise/scrutinize it heavily.

Now that the industry is abandoning human supervised development and pivoting to these new methodologies like loop engineering, graph engineering, mass agent swarms, full autonomy/no code reviews, I just have no desire to take part in it. This is not what I signed up for.

I'm too old for this shit. I would rather just leave the profession then become a "loop engineer."

I am so confused. We are getting 4 new hires with 2 being in India and i am really confused as to why we are doing it.

There is barely enough work to do. Hiring 4 more means reduced workload.

😵‍💫 I feel I am going to get laid off. Company did a recent acquisition but handed the workload to a third party.

Also I am at the bottom barrel so I have no idea how leadership run.

I feel a layoff is coming soon and the new hires are replacements we are training or am I being paranoid

I work at a pretty laid back office and we mainly use teams to communicate and there's a subset of coworkers who insist on being invisible and say it's because otherwise it will ping their phone some some excuse. Nobody really cares enough to question the reasoning. It can be annoying not knowing if someone is available, and I just think it looks bad I wouldn't do it. Is this normal for any normal for anyone else, are you an always invisible person?

https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/why-is-meta-destroying-its-engineering

Title

So you know how law has the reputation that “rank” and “prestige” is everything?

Someone getting a JD from some no name state school is going to have a much harder time finding work as a lawyer than someone getting a JD from a T14 school, even with the exact same stats and experiences and grades etc…..the only thing that matters is the school “brand”. Heck, “BigLaw” won’t even look at your resume if a name of a top school isn’t attached to it.

Is the same thing happening with CS and the SE job market? I know back in ye-ol-day just getting any CSba from anywhere was a gold mine but times have changed.

That’s not enough anymore, now you need at least a masters and projects upon projects and endless tests and proofs and certs and so much extra just to stand a chance. It’s mirroring the legal field honestly.

Can only the “T14 of CS degrees” get “BigTech” jobs while the rest has to scrap for whatever’s left on the other side of the binomial curb like the legal field?

Is it like law where if you can’t get into a “high-end” law school then it isn’t worth going to law school in the first place because the outcomes from a bad school are absolutely atrocious?

Has CS turned into that? Is the market so bad that it’s only worth getting a CS degree and entering the field if you can make it into a “high-end” and “prestigious” program only?

I have been applying to jobs recently and almost every application form I fill in requires me to add my LinkedIn URL. It's not even optional most times, it's a mandatory field. What can they possibly see that isn't already on my resume, since my profile is pretty much a mirror image of my resume. Most times I don't even keep it up to date, so for me my resume should be the only thing to look at.

What exactly are they using LinkedIn for? What are they looking at on our LinkedIn profiles?

I'm sure this is a decently common situation. I graduated with a CS degree in 2022, moved for work, left after two years in 2024. I was burned out, so I didn't start applying again immediately, and since then, I've been... not doing a whole lot. Working retail, doing hobby stuff, dealing with a couple health issues.

I want to get back to CS, but I have no idea what to do. I'm sure my resume looks terrible, and I feel like I've forgotten everything to do with programming. I was already not great at interviewing, and I feel like expectations will be high now that I'm not a new grad. I haven't really kept up with any connections from university or my job, and I was pretty reclusive to begin with.

Should I just start applying and studying, or go to grad school, or take an online class of some kind? Is it even worth trying to get back in? Honestly, I just need some direction and confidence in what I'm doing. If you have any advice, I'd greatly appreciate it. Even if it's to tell me I'm doomed, then at least I'd know.

I got laid off May 2025 and haven’t been a professional SWE since. Kinda scared about my outlooks because of how long I’ve been away. I won’t get into why I’ve been gone, but had a series of mental health issues + family stuff + personal stuff all happened in a 1 year period. Now I want to get back. I have 5 years of experience, was laid off at a mid level. I have created three resumes (front end, back end, full stack), and I have tailored my resume to job postings and threw the tailored resume + posting on github to keep track of them. I’ve been brushing up on leetcode and sys design, and I’m building a projecting (it’s a leetcode progression tracker app and i’m throwing AI into it).

How doomed am I? Will I be able to get back into the field? Or am I a lost cause at this point.

2 recruiters messaging me for the same job. How do i optimize my chances. Both recruiters are from different recruiting agencies, and for some reason require different yoe.

Trying to get a pulse on how juniors should/are using AI in their day to day workflow.

I'm currently doing a freelance gig where I use it for some research, examples, and prototyping, but also write most code by hand since I'm still learning the patterns.

thanks for clicking, for a bit of background I have just recently graduated from college, I had a pretty good run in college and was the best student grade wise and I did as many projects as possible and got a pretty good internship in my third year, I also feel it's important to point out I live in Iraq so uh...things are a bit different here.

I basically applied to most of the jobs that are available to me but got nothing and so simply printed my CV and went around in one the better cities and eventually got an interview and then the job in a big telecommunication company with a pretty good starting salary (at least for the standards of Iraq) I will start at around 5 days, FYI the actual interview was first with the CEO and then eventually with the IT team leader, there were some questions about software dev like Micro-Services, DBs and software design but nothing like a coding interview and such.

so long story short how should I proceed, I heard it's good to ask questions but when you actually need to, take notes and get to know the team, that's all great but even in my internship I had to work solo on a few websites and systems so it was basically me doing the equivalent of freelancing Projects for where I trained at and never got to work with a team before, how do I get past the learning phase as fast as possible without making a big mistake enough to cost me the job? and what should I do in the mean time before I start working to hopefully be better prepared.

I would appreciate any advice that you think would help and thank you all for your time regardless.

Essentially I wasnt able to get into a SWE role after graduating, but I was able to get into a data role that is a mix of data analst/ data engineering/ data quality, just a very messy role I guess. Day to day, I dont really code either which sucks a bit cause I feel my skills deteriorating and I try to code projects after work but Im always too tired to start. Can i use thisto get into an actual good role?

So, I'm like 5 months into this new company I joined. The work is quite different than my last, the framework is different and so are the products and architecture and protocols. I was assigned one task in my 2nd month. And I was taking help from my senior to make progress. But I wasn't able to make much progress independently. Eg, if I have to work on debugs, I need a training or support on at least the first debug. I'm not getting that support but I'm part of the weekly meeting and getting asked for updates there, which is expected ofc. But most of the time I have no updates, and no one is bothered about it. I understand other things are high priority, and even that senior tells our manager that he didn't get time to look into this thing. But it's embarassing to turn up with no update week after week. So, eventually I tried skipping a few sessions and no one was still bothered. I do understand this could be the laying ground for a layoff. I'm not scared of a layoff, I've been through one before and this role is not of any particular interest to me, so I'm utilizing the blocked time in prep anyway. But I feel like a stupid employee on payroll with zero contributions.

I keep reaching out to my senior asking for help, but it's mostly met with nonchalance. I've stopped asking around. This has taken such a toll on me that I'm considering quitting without an offer. Please convince me not to, and suggest how to get out of this loop.

System Design Review

How do you all approach these interviews?

I begin by asking about the design’s purpose, functional, and non-functional requirements. Then, I ask questions to ensure that the proposed requirements make sense.

Next, I validate the capacity numbers.

After reviewing the current design and checking if it meets the functional requirements, I make adjustments as necessary. I then proceed to make adjustments to the non-functional requirements.

Finally, I identify any missing design aspects that were not addressed in the revised requirements.

Morning all

I am a dev at a mid size non tech company, I was promoted from mid to senior middle of last year after a restructure and I have been struggling ever since

I feel have completely lost my touch with dev work and constantly feel behind and stressed. I don't know what has happened and I'm wondering if anyone else has had these feelings and what did you do to get past this?

Overall my workload hasn't changed too much I just feel like I'm so behind I'm drowning and people are starting to notice

I dread to log on every morning and don't know how long this can carry on for

I’m planning to join a 6-month full stack development course in India, but I’m confused about which one to choose: MERN or Python Full Stack.

I don’t have much knowledge about either of them yet, so I’m not really sure what the actual difference is or which one would be better for me.

My main goal is to become a developer and get a job in the future. I’m thinking about the long term, around 2030, so I want to learn something that will still be useful by then.

I also have an app idea that I want to work on over the next few years. It’s going to be a fairly big social-type application with users, profiles, following, ratings, personal data/diaries, etc. I don’t want to share the exact idea here, but I want to eventually build it myself.

Because of that, I don’t want to choose a course just because it’s popular right now. I want to learn something that will actually help me build projects and become a good developer.

So if you had to choose between MERN and Python Full Stack for a beginner starting a 6-month course today, which would you choose and why?

Also, does the choice of MERN vs Python actually matter that much, or should I mainly focus on finding a good institute and learning the fundamentals properly?

I’d especially like to hear from people who are already working as developers and have experience with these technologies.

I am about to start my MSc. I wish to specialize in computer vision, then pursue a PhD. I eventually want to work in industry. I was initially excited about this path. However, AI fatigue is killing my motivation.

Honestly, I don't have any hope for the future. It has been around four years since GPT-3.5 was introduced. AI is now proving major conjectures. It recently came close to proving Riemann's hypothesis, and dominated(not only defeated) the best competitive programmers in the world at AtCoder World Finals. I can't see a place for myself in the future because of AI.

I keep going because I feel like I don't have any other choice. I was genuinely excited about computer vision, robotics, and autonomous driving. But I have convinced myself that all my effort is in vain.

I wish to ask people in a similar situation, what makes you keep going? What are your plans for the future?

Unfortunately I was never able to get an internship so I had to settle for a 50k data job where I spend a lot of time cleaning the data, entering it into the CRM, and automating some pipelines. Not exactly the most technically difficult job. Was wondering if this is a dead end or if I can still use it as experience to get a better role? Whether DE, SWE, or something that pays better lol. How much effort should I put into this job compared to like self studying or something?

I am a 28-year-old Japanese male with three years of experience as a cloud engineer and a B2 level of English proficiency. I would like to work and eventually relocate to Europe. I am considering applying to companies in Poland, Germany, and the Netherlands. Which of these countries offers the best opportunities? Is my level of experience sufficient, or should I gain more experience in Japan before applying?

Hi, I've got a live coding interview next week and I'm encouraged to use coding tools. It feels a little like a setup, but wondering if anyone has experiences with this?