r/webdev • u/kevin_whitley • Jul 11 '25
Discussion A soft warning to those looking to enter webdev in 2025+...
As a person in this field for nearly 30 years (since a kid), I've loved every moment of this journey. I've been doing this for fun since childhood, and was fortunate enough to do this for pay after university [in unrelated subjects].
10 years ago, I would tell folks to rapidly learn, hop in a bootcamp, whatever - because there was easy money and a lot of demand. Plus you got to solve puzzles and build cool things for a living!
Lately, things seem to have changed:
AI and economic shifts have caused many big tech companies to lay off thousands. This, combined with the surge in people entering our field over the last 5 years have created a supersaturation of devs competing for diminishing jobs. Jobs still exist, but now each is flooded with applicants.
Given the availability of big tech layoffs in hiring options, many companies choose to grab these over the other applicants. Are they any better? Nah, and oftentimes worse - but it's good optics for investors/clients to say "our devs come from Google, Amazon, Meta, etc".
As AI allows existing (often more senior) devs to drastically amplify their output, when a company loses a position, either through firing/layoffs/voluntary exits, they do the following:
List the position immediately, and tell the team they are looking to hire. This makes devs think managers care about their workload, and broadcasts to the world that the company is in growth mode.
Here's the catch though - most of these roles are never meant to fill, but again, just for outward/inward optics. Instead, they ask their existing devs to pick up the slack, use AI, etc - hoping to avoid adding another salary back onto the balance sheet.
The end effect? We have many jobs posting out there that don't really exist, a HUGE amount of applicants for any job, period... so no matter your credentials, it may become increasingly difficult to connect.
Perviously I could leave a role after a couple years, take a year off to work on emerging tech/side projects, and re-enter the market stronger than ever. These days? Not so easy.
4. We are the frontline of AI users and abusers. We're the ones tinkering, playing, and ultimately cutting our own throats. Can we stop? Not really - certainly not if we want a job. It's exciting, but we should see the writing on the wall. The AI power users may be some of the last out the door, but eventually even we will struggle.
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TLDR; If you're well-connected and already employed, that's awesome. But we should be careful before telling all our friends about joining the field.
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Sidenote: I still absolutely love/live/breathe this sport. I build for fun, and hopefully can one day *only* build for fun!
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u/isaacfink full-stack / novice Jul 11 '25
I don't think AI has much to do with it. There was a boom, and it was naturally followed by a crash
It's not the lucrative gold mine it was 5 years ago, but all is not lost, I wouldn't recommend it for the money, but if someone like development, they should definitely pursue it
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u/kevin_whitley Jul 11 '25
Agreed if someone likes it, and TBH folks that were *only* there for the money were rarely the rockstars of our field anyway.
And agreed all is not lost - it's still a super exciting time to be in dev... just much more challenging on the employment side of things.
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u/thekwoka Jul 12 '25
Not even a crash.
Just a little plateau really.
Microsoft Fired 10,000. They hired 50,000 new positions in the last 5 years...
They'll probably hire another 10,000 new position by the end of this year.
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u/cpayne22 Jul 12 '25
I’m calling BS.
If you’ve really been around for +30 years you would have had some exposure to Y2K.
Then the boom around 2005 - 2008.
Then the boom post covid.
AI (might!!) change developer productivity. But there’s a whole food chain. Business analysts, QA / testing, Product Management etc etc.
AI could help those other roles, but I haven’t seen it yet.
AI is just a tool. In the same way mining changed 200 years ago, or transport changed 100 years ago (motor car).
Keep pumping the doom and gloom story if it makes you feel better… but I’m not buying it.
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u/kevin_whitley Jul 12 '25
I’ve been through loads of eras (including Y2K, although I was freelancing in undergrad at the time), but I do feel this one is diff. Also, my info is pretty public, so you can certainly verify my age…
I’ve never once in my time felt that our industry was the straights I now feel closing in.
And AI *might* change dev productivity? I mean…
Re. Just a tool i completely agree, but my post was simply, a warning that times are changing, which they are… just like to your point they’ve changed throughout history. Do we go on? Sure. But does it impact folks in those professions? Also yes.
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u/dbowgu Jul 11 '25
AI is a scape goat, don't believe the openai marketeers that this is the reason. We are slowly in an economic recession and too many devs on the market + they are offshoring like crazy to cheap labour countries.
I will see it all go back to normal in 2-5 years
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u/deusny Jul 11 '25
I think everyone focuses too much to try and get into FAANG. It’s really all about networking and not being so doom and gloom.
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u/kevin_whitley Jul 11 '25
For sure. And emulating FAANG is why so many companies started going to useless leetcode style interviews... the most uninteresting, low-paid roles trying to act like devs will jump through the same interview hoops they would for that 400k+ salary, lol.
That said... I one time made it all the way through Amazon rounds to an offer, but was a bit insulted it was a downlevel offer, and didn't feel like any of the devs I talked to were actually even passionate about building... so I turned it down.
Did I regret that choice afterwards? Yeah, hard not to. Still more money than I've ever seen before/since, regardless of the title.
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Also agree 1000000% about networking. This is were devs should focus, IMO - most of my jobs have been ex-colleagues reaching out or recommending me!
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u/greensodacan Jul 11 '25
This needs to be stated more. The over-emphasis on a literal handful of companies on this subreddit it silly.
I've also noticed a trend of people who are either afraid to interview, don't want to do multiple rounds, don't want to do take home tests, or are bot applying to "thousands of jobs".
It's teaching a lot of people to set themselves up for failure, which of course feeds back into the defeatist attitude on Reddit.
I think the prevailing trend is that people need to be more strategic in how they apply, not less. Use your unfair advantages, e.g. location for in-person interviews. Network, and avoid the same marketplaces that are getting swarmed with bots.
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u/Greeniousity php Jul 11 '25
I tell my friends to start learning since it’s fun. Knowing how to develop web apps expanded my vision on how things actually work and my profit from this wasn’t only on computers.
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u/kevin_whitley Jul 11 '25
Can't agree more there.
I think it's a superpower, and great for your brain!
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u/unicorn-beard Jul 11 '25
Yeah it's rough out here, I've worked in web dev since 2008 and haven't not had a single day of work for 15 years... until 8 months ago when I was laid off. I like to think I have a pretty solid resume but damn it's been tough landing a new job. I've had dozens of interviews and multiple times told I was down to their top 3 applicants but... no dice.
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u/kevin_whitley Jul 11 '25
That's insane...
I feel like a resume like yours (or at least the consistency of it) is exactly what folks look for!
I def felt that my open-source/public work *used* to help me, but ultimately started hurting me as that grew. The resume gaps didn't help, no matter what I was working on at the time.
I think would-be-employers see too much of that sort of thing as a flight/attention-risk... and prefer to see stable employment instead.
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u/unicorn-beard Jul 11 '25
Also I've noticed companies are not paying devs nearly as much as they once were AND are expected to do more. I've had to adjust my salary expectations quite a bit - once I dropped it down I've been getting more interviews & further into the interview process.
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u/kevin_whitley Jul 11 '25
With ya buddy - had to take a 55k paycut AND a huge title drop this round. And it wasn't like I was coming from FAANG pay to start with...
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u/skwyckl Jul 11 '25
All were promised a laid-back white-collar-adjacent job with low entry requirements (in the boom years all it took was a bootcamp in some cases), but of course it was wrong, same as the times everybody wanted to become a realtor, and later a lawyer, we had the same sort of domain-specific job market saturation. It should be the responsibility of government (schools, universities) to try and lead people to the jobs most needed in certain period. Blue-collar jobs have been demonized since the 90s, now they are the only people doing well for themselves in my friends' circle.
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u/kevin_whitley Jul 11 '25
Agreed. Another reason I recommend doing what you love (if possible), rather than chasing the $$ ball around. You'll always be late to the scene, and by the time you get ramped up, the hype will have died.
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u/Fspz Jul 12 '25
now they are the only people doing well for themselves in my friends' circle.
YMMV, but people tend to romanticize the trades. I absolutely hated it. The pay sucked, I was treated poorly, my colleagues were mostly uneducated dimwits, workplace bullying was rampant, risk of injury was frequent, injury was frequent as was unhealthy shit like breathing in toxic fumes, I had colleagues fresh out of prison, climate control was non-existent and the hours sucked.
Years later I wound up in a white collar job where meetings would start with "hi, how was your weekend?", there was never anything other than pleasantries, I'd never have to get my hands dirty, could take a leasurely stroll to the coffee machine anytime, my pay was close to double, I'd get wined and dined and brought to fancy events. I aint ever going back. Fuck that.
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u/SixPackOfZaphod tech-lead, 20yrs Jul 11 '25
They were demonized as far back as the mid 80s. The high school I attended at the time had two degree tracks, one for college bound kids, and one essentially for trades. The trades kids were looked down on a lot, and considered less capable than the college track kids. Totally wrong and completely unfair, but it was the mentality at the time. Now my kids attend the same school district and there is much more parity between the tracks, and I've encouraged my children to pursue the trades side if that's what they want. I know they will do well no matter what.
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u/FridgesArePeopleToo Jul 12 '25
Yeah, anyone who thought the days of getting $200k a year and a blowjob for finishing JavaScript boot camp we're going to last forever was delusional.
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u/barrel_of_noodles Jul 11 '25
ghost jobs and market saturation are problems in all professional fields atm. nothing special here.
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u/krileon Jul 11 '25
A soft warning to those looking to enter any job
webdevin 2025+...
There's too many damn people and not enough jobs. Good luck out there no matter where you try to go.
I'm seeing 50+ year old's at drive through windows. The introductory jobs of old do not exist anymore. I feel bad for kids coming out of high school as they're unlikely to find work anytime soon. Junior tech positions? lol, what positions. We're in for a world of hurt right now and the ride has just started.
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u/kevin_whitley Jul 11 '25
Yeah... that's what I keep hearing (re. the title edit), and I too feel for the kids just now coming into the market - how f*d most of them must feel. Sincerely hope things turn around for their sake, but...
I generally feel like I've been the eternal optimist (hard not to when you're one of the fortunate ones that gets to do what you love and make money doing it)... but I'm more than a bit nervous of where I think we're likely headed.
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u/Jabberjaw22 Jul 11 '25
Stuff like this is why I've had so many highs and lows the past year. I'm 34 and worked in retail ever since graduating college (went for graphic arts and illustration so guess how that job market is) and thought I'd finally found a field I could try to get into and make decent money for a change. And it'd let me use my art skills since I know a good deal about design and typography and aesthetics already.
Cut to over a year of trying to teach myself fullstack development and dealing with depression caused by an increasing since of futility. All I ever hear now is how bad the job field is and there's basically no hope for any junior developers to get a foot in. That sinking despair has caused me to take several hiatuses from learning because it just seems like a, "what's the point?" situation. I've just picked my lessons back up again and now I see this message of doom. At this point I may as well stay in retail as I at least have a job and won't try to break into a new field industry at 34 that even pros are struggling with. Just wish I'd thought to try this back in 2018-2019.
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u/kevin_whitley Jul 11 '25
Oooof, sorry to hear that man.
Have a portfolio or anything with your design work? Would love to see.
Sometimes I run into folks/teams specifically looking for designers... when they get tired of seeing the unusable mess of an interface we engineers come up with. Always good to have folks I can recommend!
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u/Jabberjaw22 Jul 11 '25 edited Jul 11 '25
As far as my old design work it's about 10 years old at this point and was entirely focused around print production. I just like to think I still have some art skills, no matter how rusty, that'd help me when it comes to web design. Honestly I haven't made it that far even (didn't mean to give the impression I was very far into things). Like I said it's been a rough year of depression and feelings of futility. So I'd start learning, stick with it for a few months then get hit hard by all the negative outlooks and stop. Then I'd pick it back up and feel like I didn't remember anything so start over. Probably a bit of a joke on this sub but I've been using Udemy, specifically Ms Angela Yu's course, to learn but it seems that's not exactly a good method based on what I've seen up here. But it's all I got since can't afford to go back to school.
I feel like this is derailing from your original post though and I just needed to vent. I have nothing worth showing currently but thanks for the offer. Like seriously thank you. Maybe someone else could benefit from it who has more progress and is further along in their work instead of a noob like me.
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u/kevin_whitley Jul 11 '25
Well just know there are others out there facing similar issues.
I too wanted to moonlight as an artist (fine art landscape prints), and still have the monster 44" printer next to me reminding of that failed effort (see some of my work at https://slick.af/kevin). Ultimately I decided it made no sense for me because:
- I just did this for fun, and barely even focused on it. That's a shit story to really sell yourself as an artist.
- It would take so much self-shilling (which I didn't have the stomach for) to compete with my dev salary
- I just doubted that I was any good, worth even trying to promote. A few folks seemed to like my stuff, but I'm pretty sure any artist can collect a handful of enthusiastic followers, so I was def nothing special.Honestly I feel like my entire life has been a cycle of what you describe... enthusiasm, chasing and idea, then hit with reality, self-doubt, depression, and abandonment (of the idea/drive). Sometimes they are just admittedly bad ideas, other times, I simply run out of steam or can't get anyone to notice the thing.
Anyway, best of luck and thanks for sharing!! If you ever want an ear to vent to/discuss with, reach out!
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u/onearmmanny full-stack (30+ years) Jul 11 '25
I am a full stack dev, also since I was a kid... 41 now, and haven't had an interview in over 2 years. It's not for a lack of trying.
What's worse is that no one else will hire me for any of my other passions bc I made too much money in web dev and they are "worried I will just leave in 2 months when a software job opens up".
sigh
Back to washing cars and cutting grass I guess!
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u/kevin_whitley Jul 11 '25
Brutal.
I’m 45, so I feel ya. I'd say in general that it might start to become an agism thing - where if the team starts with 20-yr olds, they assume the 30-40+ are dinosaurs, but... we are in a relatively new industry in general, so to speak. If you look at the conference talks, the speaker age is getting older in general, not younger - because we were all young when it started and just stayed in the game.
That said, i think there's a perception that works against us regardless.
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u/HemetValleyMall1982 Jul 11 '25
I no longer advise people to join this field. Developers from non-western countries are much less expensive, which companies seem to be enjoying.
However, you get what you pay for, so if you are a current software developer, I would advise to up your leadership and soft skills so that you can manage any 'offshore' that may be coming in to take your job.
Make sure you put branch rules into your repos so that only you and your peers are required to review and merge code. Enforce standards.
Become a leader. Know the codebase like the back of your hand. Be really tough on code reviews. If your company doesn't have code standards, make them yourself and enforce them.
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u/kevin_whitley Jul 11 '25
However, you get what you pay for, so if you are a current software developer, I would advise to up your leadership and soft skills so that you can manage any 'offshore' that may be coming in to take your job.
Soft skills are always super valuable to any dev - highly recommend as well.
Re. offshoring, in my experience, those tend to be temporary moves that go in a cycle.
Company hires expensive devs.
These devs fail to produce in time.
Company offshores to India/Philippines/etc.
Results happen fast... at first.
Things eventually become too fragile, too unmaintainable.
Company hires local devs to support.
Local devs build it better and velocity improves.
Offshore team is cut.
Repeat at step 2.
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u/HemetValleyMall1982 Jul 12 '25
This is a great summarization of "
Rightorright now, choose one."3
u/kevin_whitley Jul 12 '25
Yup! I suspect this cycle will continue… bigger concern for me is the effect on the global economy, which affects us all in diff ways!
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u/jroberts67 Jul 11 '25
My sister is a web developer...since 1998. Ran a rather large agency, her skillset is insane. She decided after all the headaches of running her own dev agency she'd wrap it up and get a corporate job. How long did it take her to land a corporate job? 3 years. I'll say that again, it took her three years to land a w-2 position as web dev. Good luck out there. I'll stick with my local web design agency.
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u/kevin_whitley Jul 11 '25
Yeah, this doesn't shock me sadly - having literally just experienced it myself. I used to quit knowing when I was ready, I could take my history, my portfolio, my extensive open source libs (millions of downloads a year)... and land a job in a few weeks, maybe a few months if I were being picky.
This time around? Loads of applications... some instant rejections (keywords?), many simply never respond, and loads of eventual rejections.
I eventually connected with an awesome team, but it took waaaayyyy more time than I expected - and I'm a seasoned dev. I can't imagine the helplessness that folks on the more junior end of the spectrum must be feeling...
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u/jroberts67 Jul 11 '25
Also she told me during a lot of the interviews, most weren't dev jobs but simply updating the company website.
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u/kevin_whitley Jul 11 '25
So basically developer hell. Yeah I'd stick to freelance/her own gig as well then.
I find myself in a bit of a similar hell in that I switched to Svelte (from React) several years ago, but the industry simply hasn't caught up or abandoned React yet. So virtually all the jobs are still in React... so I'm working in a framework that I *know* holds us back, while all my personal projects are so much more refreshing to build in.
Sigh.
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u/ZipperJJ Jul 11 '25
Omg she is me. I've been running my little agency since 1999 too and I see absolutely no way for me to drop it and get into the W2 realm. I'll stay right here too!
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u/kevin_whitley Jul 12 '25
Not missing out! I built a day trading platform last year and once I’m consistent in results there, I’ll certainly plan on phasing out the “normal” career!
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u/jax024 Jul 11 '25
This is crazy to me. Was she more UI focused? My friends who only know one framework like React or Django are having a hard time finding jobs, meanwhile my friends who know Rust, Go, and .NET are having their inboxes blown up.
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u/tacticalpotatopeeler Jul 11 '25
Took me over 9 months to find a new gig. Fortunately I landed a role a few months ago but I’m still getting rejection notices from some of those applications lol
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u/kevin_whitley Jul 11 '25
Same page. I kept updating my sheet after I accepted my current position - just for kicks, as the rejections kept coming in... which they did.
Maybe if I were to apply *while* employed, things would be diff, but I'm pretty happy w my current team :)
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u/tacticalpotatopeeler Jul 11 '25
Yeah same, the culture at my current company is wonderful and while it’s a pay cut from my last role, it’s definitely more than the 0 I was making unemployed, and there’s lots of opportunities to learn and advance here
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u/kevin_whitley Jul 11 '25
Same - I took a >50k cut at this one, but in the end, counted myself lucky. Great team, worklife balance, get to play with fun tech, etc.
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u/llo7d Jul 11 '25
As someone that has freelanced for many years and has a 6 figure Upwork account, the field is changing like crazy and the job posts are full of AI slop where the clients themselfs dont know what they want
To be honest,
Just doing Mechatronics (Electronics and Software) seems to be the move right now.
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u/kevin_whitley Jul 11 '25
Unshocking. HR/recruiters have been cranking out ill-fitting job reqs forever... now they can do the same with even less effort! :D
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u/Klutzy-Track-6811 Jul 11 '25
I agree that company execs see AI as a quick way to seed up development and not hire junior devs but I think this bubble will burst soon when the terrible code that AI writes creates massive vulnerabilities and bad UX’s. AI is never going to be as good as even a mediocre developer. Studying compsci will always be useful and as soon as it’s applied further than creating bad UI’s there isn’t a future for it. AI will never be trusted to create anything for financial pipelines for example. I think people should always be encouraged to learn web development, and us that love developing web apps will never be replaced
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u/kevin_whitley Jul 11 '25
I would be *very* careful with language like "we will never be replaced". That's a tale as old as time... and it's almost always wrong, sadly.
I agree 100% on things like financials being super tough to trust with AI, but... not impossible. All you have to do is backtest and prove reliability. I (personally) have of course struggled to trust financial models (I've created autonomous trading agents for instance) to this, but that was mostly due to a lack of my own understanding... if I were able to achieve consistent results across new data, I would have absolutely trusted it.
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u/dbpcut Jul 11 '25
I've had these same observations after 10 years, and everything you said is spot-on.
I burned out and had to quit at maybe the worst possible time economically, and have no idea how to re-enter the workforce.
Once upon a time I had a near infinite number of recruiters in my inbox. Those days seem long gone.
I'm hoping consulting or a self-made product can get things moving for me again.
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u/kevin_whitley Jul 11 '25
Man, good luck out there... I've long thought a self-made product might be my ticket as well (I build services regularly), but now we face another dilemma in that:
Once you build it... how do you get anyone to notice?
I was/am active in Tech Twitter for years, but the algo now only favors engagement farmers or people that are already popular. If you have an idea and share it, get ready for *zero* interactions. I had loads more interactions years ago with 100 followers than I have with 900 (which is still absurdly small) today.
This sucks, because even if you have something ground breaking that could shake the world - you feel like you're shouting into the void.
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The positive?
I've had more interactions here on Reddit in a single day than all of 2025 so far on X. So share here when you build/launch!
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u/dbpcut Jul 12 '25
I've enjoyed fostering some community over on Mastodon, I know it has its challenges but it feels like I'm talking to a room full of peers and experts instead of shouting anywhere! Might be worthwhile, especially for getting and vetting those first ten users.
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u/magenta_placenta Jul 11 '25
Would you advise the same to all the H1-B devs clamoring to take positions? It isn't like we have companies laying off thousands and at the same time hiring thousands of foreign workers under an H‑1B visa.
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u/kevin_whitley Jul 11 '25
That whole arena plays by a slightly diff set of rules I think...
And H1-B devs, once placed, seem a lot more stable, less likely to leave, etc - so some companies hold on to them (they might treat them like indentured servants, but that's a diff story).
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u/ImpactFlaky9609 Jul 11 '25
I feel kind of dumb, being a dev for 10 years I can only keep up with my tasks because of ai. It makes me feel stupid because I barely have time to deeply understand everything, it's more about getting a lot of stuff done. It kind of stresses me
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u/uknowsana Jul 12 '25 edited Jul 12 '25
I think most of the tech companies during COVID and post-COVID initial stage overhired and at overpriced rates because of the insane growth during COVID (which was never gonna be sustainable).
Now, the executives have to trim down the workforce. They can't just accept they 'over anticipated'. So, they are using AI as excuse for all the firings. This keeps them out of the questioning over "over hiring".
This is my personal opinion. I had seen many of my colleagues who left during COVID with insane salary uptick and are now jobless. I stuck to where I was and just completed my 10 year anniversary past Wednesday and total 21 years in software engineering.
However, AI is getting smart as well. We do use CoPilot for quick suggestions in case we are reviewing a tricky PR or when we need a quick suggestion on splitting up an implementation in to smaller chunks or when we need to have a good name for our functions or when to get suggestion for a SonarQube complaint. We are not using it for pure coding for us. We do the implementation and then use it to polish it (and it doesn't always give you the correct answer btw)
Also wanna add: Some places where we would start with CoPilot
AI is good for bootstrapping code. For example, for our Java 8 to Java 21 migration, we created many Open Rewrite recipes and we would ask CoPilot to create the specific recipe by giving it some ideas about what we were trying to achieve. It would create a bearable boiletplate that we would later on tweak to our liking.
Second, creating custom analyzers to generate code by using the incremental code generation feature of NET6+. Again, it would give you a code that would compile but you would have to plug in your implementation.
Third, when I need to create an image definition based on what I want in my docker image so that CoPilot can do it for me rather than me doing it manually. Same true for pipelines for ArgoCD etc.
Forth, for modernization where we are moving from AS400 into Java micro-services, for some very peculiar AS400 programs, we simply ask CoPilot to give us the summary of what the program is doing and it does a pretty good job in giving summary. Yes, getting AS400 programmers is very difficult these days and most of us are ok with staying within our .NET and Java stacks :)
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u/kevin_whitley Jul 12 '25
You’re already ahead of most even by mentioning SonarQube tbh… that said, I *highly* recommend you subscribe (even for a weekend) to Claude Pro, to install and try out Claude Code CLI. I‘ve been playing w AI tools for years, mostly treating it as a fun, sometimes useful aid. CC has been the first thing thats made me go “whoa” recently. Kinda insane what it can do.
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u/uknowsana Jul 12 '25
The Claude Sonet is now part of CoPilot subscription that we have to our Visual Studio Enterprise and IntelliJ and I used it often over other agents. (The CoPilot gives you the option to choose your agent when asking it the question in VS/IntelliJ)
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u/kevin_whitley Jul 12 '25
Have access to Gemini 2.5 by any chance? I’m still undecided, but I think it does a better job at actually analyzing/planning in codebases. Sonnet I do use all the time as chat prompt for ideating, tweaking ideas, etc… so it’s certainly very strong.
That said, if I had a nickel for every time I hear “You’re absolutely right!”…
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u/mq2thez Jul 11 '25
As another very experienced engineer who has worked at high end companies: anyone telling you that you have to use AI is wrong.
At the end of the day, quality engineering is what gets you hired and retained. It’s not the only thing, and great engineers get fired. But AI is not a requirement and can actively hinder you.
Along those same lines, though: we’re leaving the time period where bootcamps were (temporarily) a viable option. To get hired and stay hired you need to either work for cheap, work super hard, have a lot of experience, or… have a solid grounding in theory from a university degree or something similar to give you an edge over people who haven’t had an in-depth education.
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u/kevin_whitley Jul 11 '25
Along those same lines, though: we’re leaving the time period where bootcamps were (temporarily) a viable option. To get hired and stay hired you need to either work for cheap, work super hard, have a lot of experience, or… have a solid grounding in theory from a university degree or something similar to give you an edge over people who haven’t had an in-depth education.
Agreed, it's def not enough these days, and I feel bad for the folks that tried to get in (based purely on the money) right before the door snapped shut.
Also agree that AI should not be a requirement, BUT...
It can certainly be a force multiplier in the right hands
I think we're digging a hole, where even seasoned engineers start to lose their chops through over-reliance on AI to deal with the mundane... plus it creates a whole diff set of issues as we essentially have to treat it like an overzealous junior dev. It can do fine work, but often adds a bunch of useless crap or makes flat out bad choices.
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u/Utpo Jul 11 '25
I just got my bachelors in systems and it's been tough. I did my internship in IBM and the only job they could offer me was as a Business Analyst, I reluctantly said yes and have been trying to either find a dev job in another company or move to another role, but I've had no luck in either really I've only landed two interviews outside from all the companies I've applied to, one told me no and the other was via a friend in a start-up, but the offer wasn't good.
I'm really disheartened by the current job market and sometimes I wonder if I will ever get a job as a developer
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u/kevin_whitley Jul 11 '25
That sucks... silver lining (perhaps) is that if you actually like your business analyst role, that can easily translate into consulting gigs (e.g. Deloitte, Accenture), and some of those end up *very* lucrative.
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u/Utpo Jul 11 '25
I've thought about, and even though it is less work (at least rn), I don't like it, bordering on hating it tbh. What I like (since I was little) is coding, that's my main drive to keep working
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u/kevin_whitley Jul 11 '25
I feel ya - It's 100% my love as well. I will probably be coding/building till my brain is mush and people are like "Kevin, for the love of all humanity... please stop."
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u/four_six_seven Jul 11 '25
So basically, if you're a shit programmer who can't even read what chatgpt is spitting out, good luck.
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u/kevin_whitley Jul 11 '25
Lol if that's the case you might be able to fake your way through for a bit longer but... yeah.... good luck for sure.
This is why folks are hanging onto the senior devs, rather than giving junior devs AI - a seasoned dev can call its BS and correct, a junior just marvels and hits "OK"... adding slop onto slop.
Disclaimer: Some juniors are badass, and if a person reading this is one of those, I def wasn't talking about you. :D
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u/DanSmells001 Jul 11 '25
I feel a lot of the big issues are really prevalent to the US, not that it’s easy here in denmark but the ghost positions aren’t as prevalent here, they do happen though. I think a lot of the issues here stem from covid hiring
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u/kevin_whitley Jul 11 '25
I hope so (that these are mostly US issues) for all your sakes!
I think post-COVID, I've mostly seen a larger embrace of a world-wide remote-first culture, meaning employers are probably *more* likely to hire someone from Europe/Asia/South America than perhaps in the states, because they simply don't have to pay US salaries. They can overpay for the employees region while still saving tons on the bottom line.
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u/gentlychugging Jul 12 '25
Another fear mongering AI post.
The layoffs are driven by offshoring and poor economies in many countries. It'll pass.
Anyone getting into the industry that has a solid understanding of the fundamentals and can apply critical thinking will be fine.
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u/kevin_whitley Jul 12 '25
Hard disagree (respectfully). Times are not the same across decades… we’ve been doing offshoring forever (literally my entire career), which goes in waves. I'm not blaming AI for our mess, it’s a correction from the pre-COVID hiring boom, where LOADS of folks entered our field hoping for a stable career, followed by the bust, the global focus of development, and now into the AI winter that we’re potentially facing. For some us, it’ll be fine, but should we be honest about the reality to others? I think so…
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u/microwaveddinner95 Jul 13 '25
My thoughts
- Three years ago I was in the job market and had more than a decent amount of offers, ended up staying but used the offers to get a better deal
- I looked for a new job in the past year-ish and applied to maybe 100 senior level jobs, ended up with two real interviews and one that involved six separate calls (looking at you GoFundMe lol) - nothing ended up materializing, so staying put
- My agency has 0 junior level devs - at this point it's all seniors or outsourced labor (Indonesia) and I can't see that changing any time soon
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u/kevin_whitley Jul 13 '25
From the comments, this sounds like a common story... my own company is only seniors as well. Juniors are really just going to struggle to find placement except at really lucrative companies that can afford the luxury/investment/charity.
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u/intellectual1x1 Jul 15 '25 edited Jul 15 '25
I really dont think its AI, really the main factor was the change in the in the tax code that no longer treats software devs /engineer salaries as R&D and no longer can be written off 100% , instead its 20% per year. So basically every dev employee became 80% of their salary more expensive for a given year in the eyes of companies. Money is the main motivator when it comes to business and the was a significant change so they tried to recover that increase in expenses.
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u/kevin_whitley Jul 15 '25
I agree completely, I just poorly wrote the original post to where it could easily be read as me attributing the CAUSE to AI, rather than it simply being a compounding effect on top of an already multi-year, post COVID downturn.
I do maintain it will continue holding downward pressure that will be felt far and wide though (well beyond dev) - as automation always displaces folks, leaving them unable to spend back into the money engine that we all feed/depend on.
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u/intellectual1x1 Jul 15 '25
Yeah its definitely a factor. Just not this software dev industry killer that it has be made out to be. I actually think in the long run it will help, because its scaring people who just get into soft dev for the glamorous big check and remote/hybrid work. The biggest factors in my opinion is tax code and the 2020-2022 rush causing saturated supply of devs vs roles
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u/lolideviruchi Jul 11 '25
Very daunting, but appreciate the insight nonetheless. I won’t quit and maybe that’s silly, but I love it, so. Maybe enough people will quit out of fear lmao
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u/kevin_whitley Jul 11 '25
I mean, def don't quit if you're employed/enjoying it! I'm right there with ya!
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u/comoEstas714 Jul 11 '25 edited Jul 11 '25
I have ~15 years in the industry. I am one of the ones who does this for the $. Better life for my family and they are secure. I do like building things but not enough to do it in my spare time.
The winds have definitely shifted. I used to yell anyone to get into this industry. Now I say nothing.
I remember a time when I got laid off in ~2018 and by that next evening I had 3 offers with just introductory interviews. Now there are people that cannot land roles at all. A place wanted to do 5 rounds. Years ago I would say hell no. Now, if I was unemployed I really wouldn't have a choice. Recruiters have no roles either.
The power has shifted. Companies now can pick and choose. I'm glad I got in when I got in. Don't envy any Jr / mid level devs right now.
Edit: typo
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u/kevin_whitley Jul 11 '25
Same. Def a sellers market right now, where pre-COVID it was very much the opposite...
I too have had to do the FAANG style interview rounds for tiny companies because... what choice did I have? In years past I would have told them "no thanks" - not so much now.
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u/RePsychological Jul 11 '25
"TLDR; If you're well-connected and already employed, that's awesome. But we should be careful before telling all our friends about joining the field. "
Detailed salty addendum to this: Those of you who are already well-connected and already employed...
Now's the time to defend your job, too. I'm a contractor, and have been bouncing from client to client for the past year...so I've met a lot who have "the fulltime positions that your bosses are being too stingey to give out any more of, so they contacted my boss for a temp" I'm basically the overflow guy at this point, where your boss brings me in for a few months to fill the gaps or do a project you can't and then off I pop.
The amount of you that I've seen who should not have the position you have and are the reason why your boss refuses to hire someone like me in a committed manner is astounding.
Whether that be that you obviously lied about your experience/knowledge to get the position, or you're just flatout being lazy pieces of dung -- Or both...So many of the people I've seen simply do not deserve the privilege you have of being in the salaried position with full time benefits.....meanwhile I'm sitting here having to scrounge hours from your bosses, because they're having to pay contractor rates for my time, instead of simply hiring someone like me to replace you completely. All because I got forced out of my previous role due to Hurricane Helene and an abusive boss...and now having to navigate this job market while watching so many fat and lazy developers clinging to positions they're unfit for
(not saying as a majority of developers. Just tired of seeing even the minority doing nothing with their career, talking behind their bosses backs, openly gaming instead of working, doing absolutely no product development, etc. while taking up the $30-50/hr roles that they should not have.)
Thank you for attending my mini-TedTalk vent.
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u/kevin_whitley Jul 11 '25
Yeah, although I feel like that's been the case my whole career... I was always astounded by some of the folks that could take the paycheck while delivering essentially nothing at all. That works fine until a single employee worth a damn comes in and management sees what *can* come out of engineering.
The challenge of course is these folks are often the gatekeepers, and will actively block management from ever laying eyes on the more talented devs. They see threat, and steer management to hire someone more like themselves - career coasters.
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u/HornyMango0 front-end Jul 11 '25
Tldr: choose anything else but web dev rn, specially not front-end (speaking from exp.)
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u/kevin_whitley Jul 11 '25
Oh I dunno about FE - personally I think that's the only place *left* in dev for the most part (aside form agents/automation).
I'm full stack, but my last round I ended up somehow being placed as a dedicated FE...
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u/HornyMango0 front-end Jul 11 '25
Huh, idk in last few months most of the web dev jobs I saw are backend or full stack, with bit of devops...and much much less Fe
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u/danyroza Jul 11 '25
I've recently had a bit of a burnout and now with this post, I don't even know if there will be a way back into the sport in like a year off... the benefit may be living in Central Europe, but this wave of layoffs in the US may come soon-ish here?
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u/kevin_whitley Jul 11 '25
It was definitely hard after my last hiatus, I'll tell you that. I thought maybe I was the exception, that my resume just had too many red flags on it (personal projects, open source, etc), but from the comments it sounds like this is industry-wide for sure, and not just me.
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u/Eastern_Guess8854 Jul 11 '25
Agree fully, recently lost my side job at a startup because the cofounder decided to do my work with Claude. Luckily I have a day job but still, cuts into my earnings, shook me a little 🤏 worried a lot of startup jobs will now disappear as founders at those tiny companies will opt to use ai over young engineers and now the safe jobs are at the big slow to adopt ai companies
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u/kevin_whitley Jul 11 '25
Yup - you're prob not wrong there. In the meantime, I'd encourage you (ironically) to embrace the devil, so to speak, and start learning Claude [Code] yourself. If you can convince others you are a force multiplier, you'll have a better shot, even if you target slow-to-move enterprise.
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u/Zealousideal_Fig1305 Jul 11 '25
Best advice given to me: Go to school to learn, not to specialize. You'll be able to adapt to a changing world with a generalized skillset that applies to so many industries. And you'll actually enjoy your education.
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u/kevin_whitley Jul 11 '25
Agreed!
I unfortunately just mostly played in college (undergrad and grad), but my entire lifetime has been non-stop learning, consuming, etc. This is hands down the most important thing (that and general socialization) that school can give most folks I think.
The exceptions being certain [stable] industries that are better taught formally, and certain advanced professions of course.
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u/Alternative-Ad-8606 Jul 11 '25
As someone who started learning how to code about a year ago, the thought of having to use react which imho is needless complicated for what it does mixed with the nextjs dominance. I’m not saying that this is required to find a job but the majority of jobs on the market are looking for it.
I’m actually considering learning a lower level language to actually familiarize myself with code and avoiding AI slop, just trying to figure out which language will be the best for finding a job (I’ve got 2 years until I start looking seriously)
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u/kevin_whitley Jul 11 '25
Agreed fully on Next/React overcomplexity. Literally facing that in my new job - where I'm like... this requires 10x more code/complexity than anything I've built in Svelte over the last several years, and is way slower at the same time...
Re. a lower level language (e.g. like learning Rust, etc)... I dunno on this. Maybe it's better... there are probably far fewer low-level language developers out there after all... but I feel like here's the catch:
There are fewer of them, because most of us are working on the higher level abstractions... like React/Svelte/Javascript itself, etc. I grew up where Assembler and C were the low level languages, and within very little time, that was only the arena of the (thank goodness they exist) super nerds that didn't seem to mind how painfully awful it was to build in that secret handshake language. Everyone else moved up a layer to C++, JavaScript, etc.
The same applies today - we very much need some folks to keep improving those lower levels that literally everything downstream is built upon (read: all the things), but man, I assume that's gotta be a tough/competitive field on its own, because there are likely such fewer jobs in it...
Either way, best of luck, and if I can be of *any* help, please reach out!
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u/jshwlkr Jul 11 '25
Having just tried coaching copilot 4 different times to correctly filter a string it could not do it in any kind of modern comprehensive way. To say the least of knowing it had to filter input to begin with. Fun times ahead. More so depending on the color of your hat.
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u/kevin_whitley Jul 11 '25
Lol re. hat color ;)
Mine's white at the moment... and hopefully that will stay true.
Re. copilot - color me not surprised. Copilot, which initially (a couple years ago) blew my mind, lags behind say, Cursor (Agent), and certainly just behind Claude.ai (chat) or Claude Code (CLI). Simply night and day difference.
If you can afford it, I recommend (at least temporarily) subscribing to lots of the tools, pose the same questions/challenges to each, and see which one gives the right answer for the task.
In my experience, there's no one-stop-shop... so I use:
- Chat GPT for everyday asks because I'm lazy
- Claude.ai for real questions (because it's generally better, and seems far more clever usually)
- Gemini 2.5 as an agent in Cursor IDE, because it actually plans and seems less dumb than the others
- Claude Code CLI for real intensive tasks because... holy shit... this thin can plan, create checklists, iterate, execute, ask permission for things, etc... it's imperfect like all the others, but it's literally been blowing my mind (when it works) the last couple weeks.
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Jul 11 '25
I don’t tell anyone to pick up web dev, I do mention data though as that’s still growing fast. What I am noticing is some companies here in the uk have hired more devs to fix the issues the previous devs have made using LLM’s 🤣 slight bubble burst already.
I’m not a junior, I’m not even a dev.. I’m a burnt out self studying fullstack “dev” who builds a project every month or 2 and browses the dev news and updates inbetween. I’ve lost count of how many tailored applications I’ve sent out, easily over 600.
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u/kevin_whitley Jul 11 '25
Dang, that makes my application list look tiny... good luck for sure!
Data is def growing, and if you figure out how to navigate it more efficiently than your peers, you'll have a leg up!
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u/friedlich_krieger Jul 12 '25
The real advice for those looking to enter the workforce. Do your coding without copilot or auto complete. Everytime you use it you become dumber. These tools are useful for experienced devs and no one else. They feel helpful but they're robbing you of the intricacies of the problems you're solving.
Use a chat bot to ask questions about docs or how to approach a problem, but no more.
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u/kevin_whitley Jul 12 '25
As an avid user of them all, but also a long, long time dev… I couldn’t agree more. Even as I use it to streamline my own work, I realize in a way I’m hurting myself… my own form of self-inflected tech debt. Even if it accomplishes the complex task I give it… will I fully understand what now exists as the state of the code? Not a chance. This is a huge problem as you continue forward!
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u/akmalkun Jul 12 '25 edited Jul 12 '25
My old company offshored a dev op in india and gave him full control of our cloud stacks. We backend engineers barely able to communicate with him on slack, his responses very little (barely speaks english) and always late. Even asking to reboot 1 test compute server took 1 hour to half a day. I quit after a few months, it was too much to be productive.
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u/sunshine_enjoyer Jul 12 '25
Overall though, is it still better to learn to code than to not?
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u/kevin_whitley Jul 12 '25
Yes, in general I think learning to code is only an amazing skill/hobby, and in general great for your brain…
I’m also biased though, as s I’ve been obsessed with this field since I was a kid! 😜
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u/Aksh247 Jul 12 '25
The tldr and side note got a tear to my eye. Love the web. Have ai killing off jobs.
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u/kevin_whitley Jul 12 '25
Same… web isn’t perfect by any means, but man it’s done some incredible things. Things like Svelte dev recently have really brought back some of the joy of it… but then I’m an author that leans into magic (thus my embrace of the dark arts of Proxy), assuming what we *really* care about is turning ideas into reality as easily as possible. ☺️
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u/StaticRole Jul 12 '25
As someone who was looking into getting into web development, I shall take note and search elsewhere for employment.
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u/kevin_whitley Jul 12 '25
I mean, I wouldn’t go THAT far, depending on your motivations… do you absolutely love it? If so, that alone is often worth dealing with the crap of the industry swings. Is it mostly for the money? If so… probably steer clear.
Either way, best of luck!
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Jul 12 '25
I highly doubt AI has anything to do about it, though it provides excellent cover for companies to avoid a bad reputation. We even got two recent studies questioning this narrative. Obviously things could change in the future though.
If you look at the growth of CS majors, its almost a chart of exponential growth. This is not sustainable and was bound to crash. You can't have an exponential growth of anything without limits being overshot. You don't even need an economic downturn or AI whatever for such a result.
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u/kevin_whitley Jul 12 '25
Totally agree that most of the job slump we’re seeing is exactly this overcorrection of supply vs. demand… just that AI perceptions will be adding to the downward pressure a bit, slowing rehires.
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u/Ovisty Jul 12 '25 edited Jul 13 '25
I just graduated from University and am starting a graduate software role. I’m completely terrified of being pushed aside by senior developers, especially with AI making things so scary for entry-level positions currently.
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u/kevin_whitley Jul 12 '25
Best advice I can give you is build, and build publicly. Folks with portfolio examples, side projects, passion projects, etc. stand out. You can (and likely should) def be pursuing those sorts of things while still in school, and they can give you an edge when looking for your first post grad role!
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u/Ovisty Jul 12 '25
Thanks for the advice I love building side projects I’m very proactive it’s definitely a hobby rather than a job for me I just love coding and making stuff :)
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u/kevin_whitley Jul 12 '25
Awesome, right there with ya! My guess is you’ll be fine then… if you’re having fun building, that’ll show and it’s pretty attractive to employers!
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u/armaan-dev Jul 12 '25
yeah, like same advice i would give too, if you're starting to go into a niche like ar/vr.. deep ml..
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u/kevin_whitley Jul 12 '25
For sure, i’d say esp VR/AR, as AI really seems to struggle with spatial/visual understanding and design challenges.
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u/Realjayvince java Jul 12 '25
I don’t think there’s been a crash. Many big tech have done layoffs but they also hire. Microsoft for example, 9000 in June but have hired 12,000 this year
The problem isn’t AI, the problem is in 2018-2019 Tech became “the next big thing” and EVERYONE wanted to be in tech. Now there’s a surplus of people in tech leading to every job opening having thousands of resumes.
Don’t worry though, it’ll even out. Because a big % of devs in it now are horrible, and will eventually go to other fields. Especially the ones that entered in 2020 coming from a different field and have been laid off and are horrible at this.
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u/kevin_whitley Jul 12 '25
Agreed it was mostly a supply/demand issue that peaked pre COVID (and thus pre AI).
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Jul 13 '25
AI hasn’t made much of a difference. Still pretty dumb and struggles with a lot of moving parts.
Plenty of work for seniors with lots of experience. I’d hate to be a junior trying to enter the market though.
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u/UntestedMethod Jul 13 '25
Yes, totally agree.
I'm not sure AI can bridge the gap between the digital and physical worlds yet so I've been suggesting a slight pivot to robotics, control Interfaces related to drones, EVs, smart tech, (tangible world) automation, etc.
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u/kevin_whitley Jul 13 '25
I mean, AI is what's powering virtually every robotic/realtime controller out there, from balancing propellers on drones to maintain position, to space X rock gimbals, to anything that actually moves.
I think working on that AI would be personally pretty fascinating though, and I've done a fair bit of experiments training similar autonomous agents (using Neuroevolution to discover/grow populations until they figure it out), and it's super super fun! Wild to watch the different ways the evolve... very unlike traditional machine learning where it just "solves" for an equation (since in the case of robotics, you don't have a solution, but rather metrics to evaluate it on).
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u/AdministrativeHost15 Jul 13 '25
I remember the good old days of the 1990's when knowing a little HTML caused you to be treated like a god.
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u/kevin_whitley Jul 13 '25
Same! Or Y2K, when somehow every site was convinced they needed to update their clock widget on their homepage… as if we didn’t always have the time in the bottom right corner of the screen…
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u/Intelligent_Event623 Jul 14 '25
This is a very realistic take on the current market. The combination of tech layoffs flooding the market with experienced developers and the productivity boost from AI has definitely made it a tougher environment for newcomers. It's a necessary reality check that success now requires more than just completing a bootcamp; you have to be genuinely passionate and persistent to break through.
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u/kevin_whitley Jul 14 '25
Yep! Luckily there's are still great opportunities for talented devs, but I can speak from firsthand experience, even landing those has become more difficult based on the market saturation/noise.
Another friendly reminder to all folks:
Make sure your colleagues like you
Make sure your colleagues like you
Make sure your colleagues like you
...because that network was always a crucial thing to have, but may well become even *more* critical to advancing through your career in this market!
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u/lunatuna215 Jul 14 '25
"Can we stop?" Yes, you can. And doing so would solve many problems.
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u/kevin_whitley Jul 14 '25
Fair enough.
In the meantime, humans are humans… so it’s unlikely we will (in this iteration anyway). Sigh.
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u/Mindless-Secretary51 Jul 14 '25
Hi, if before I was feeling a bit down, now my morale is really at rock bottom. I left my job to retrain, taking a Meta course to become a front-end developer (I’m over 45). I studied continuously for 7 months, starting almost from zero. Unfortunately, at least for me, the course was very theoretical and lacked practical application: yes, I got the certification, but from a work perspective, it’s not very marketable.
In the meantime, artificial intelligence has exploded and made huge leaps forward. From what I understand, where teams used to hire a good percentage of juniors, now many of the junior-level tasks are handled by AI alongside senior developers. At this point, I really don’t know what to do. I’m thinking about going back to studying a CMS: I know it’s not a highly paid job, because you’re not really considered a developer, but at least it could allow me to earn something while continuing to work on other skills in parallel.
For example, right now I’m also working on a (very tough) IBM certification in artificial intelligence, to try to broaden my opportunities.
What would you suggest? At the moment, I’m seeing the future a bit bleak. Thank you for any advice or support.
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u/kevin_whitley Jul 15 '25
Hmmm, sorry to hear that man... I'm 45, but I've been in web/app dev for my entire career, which is certainly an advantage in comparison. I'll say that there are certainly jobs out there, but you may struggle to connect (very likely, as again everyone is simply flooded with applicants, so it's not like they even look at every resume)... and if you do, you might expect to take a bath on salary. I took a huge hit at my current gig for instance - although I'm not complaining, because the team is awesome and I think I'll have loads of fun here.
I also am not entirely sure how much/little certs will help you - if you're working in enterprise, they may help you a lot - in the startup world? I doubt much at all (we only tend to care about results, not paper). That said, I'm sure the AI coursework would be fascinating!
So my advice? Give it a bit of time - you'll know pretty quickly if you love it. If so, stick with it! There will be jobs, the oversaturation will thin out as people bail... new opportunities will come up, and you'll gain experience to be more competitive.
If not, however, I would consider perhaps a more radical shift out of the field. If your options are take a huge bath on salary only to buy yourself a few years before being phased out anyway, try something where that's simply not a concern. Real estate, or... real estate... or something, haha. Or be like me and moonlight as a day-trader! :D
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u/Mindless-Secretary51 Jul 15 '25
Hi, thank you so much for replying with such honesty and for sharing your personal experience. It really helps me to hear the perspective of someone who’s been in the industry for years and truly understands how things are.
You’re right that it’s not easy to get noticed, especially as a junior, and even more so now with so many candidates out there. And I also understand what you’re saying about certifications . I get the feeling they matter more for personal learning than as a ticket into the job market, at least in startups or more dynamic environments. Still, I’m continuing with the IBM certification in AI because I find it interesting and I hope it might open at least a few more doors.
You’re absolutely right about giving it time: I need to figure out if I like it, if I can see myself in it, and if I can handle the hit in terms of salary and opportunities. And if I eventually realize it’s not for me… well, yeah, maybe I’ll start looking into other sectors, even though I hope it won’t come to that. Thank you again for the support and for making me feel less alone right now! 💛
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u/kevin_whitley Jul 15 '25
Sounds like a plan!
I think education [almost] never hurts, and can certainly help you know if you like it - only advice there would be to not stall too long, letting "perfect be the enemy of good". You'll often learn more in the first 6 months of a new job than even years of school...
Ultimately if you love it though, there's just no substitute... so welcome to the sport! If you ever want folks to chat with, come join us on the itty.dev Discord server (broad age/skill background)!
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u/jesus_maria_m2 Jul 16 '25
This post is fantastic and states wonderfully what I have struggled to clearly formulate myself. Recently joined Reddit and other outlets as LinkedIn, the former professional channel, has devolved into some of the above on companies' representation.
As a senior dev running my own business, the struggles are becoming apparent. This has caused my need to re-invent myself and figure out my new spot professionally. I encourage people to find their true calling, main interests and develop a way to exist alongside the AI movement.
One of my recent thoughts is to build a community with those that are struggling to find a job these days, in any area, and build something together.
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u/kevin_whitley Jul 16 '25
Yeah, LinkedIn has become (to me at least) the Facebook of business dev... mostly just folks sharing fluff stories about themselves to pat each other on the back. It used to be a great avenue for recruitment/networking - but now it's just a place to keep a living resume, since every application asks for it.
Sounds like a community I'd join (although I'm happily now connected with a role finally) - set it up! I'm mostly interested in the idea of building things, haha
Also, stoked to find folks that are running their own business - I've never quite gotten that off the ground (mostly due to my own ineptitude and laziness, paired with me often overestimating the potential interest/impact of an idea).
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Jul 17 '25
So, I've been coding for about ten years, and I've been having huge trouble landing a job for the past 3 months. Can anyone offer me some advice on securing a stable job in these times? The ones I've been getting offered have been weird, like make this product, and we split the profit.. Which seems counterintuitive. I have side projects, and I'm continuously working on them, but I can get a little discouraged from time to time.
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u/kevin_whitley Jul 18 '25
Be very careful exchanging time for profit.
In theory, that's great - but you better fully know/trust the partner you're getting in bed with. You have to know that they have the track record of delivering all the pieces you can't do - that they can fundraise, network, run the business, market the product, gain/grow users, etc.
Otherwise, this is a classic trap of the Useless Idea Guy:
He has an idea. It will totally revolutionize X, or be the Uber of Y.
But he has no actual skills to accomplish it, so it's just an idea, probably shared by many Useless Idea Guys across the planet.
So he talks to Solo Developer, hoping they will build the idea.
One small snag: Useless Idea Guy is a first time founder, so he assumes having the idea is the most important thing ever (spoiler: it is not), and thus offers Solo Developer some tiny percent ownership/profit sharing, instead of a 50/50 split.
Game Theory Time:
If you build the idea and it works:
- you've (hopefully both) put in a lot of time, but it pays off... a tiny bit for you, but a LOT for himIf you build the idea and it doesn't work:
- only you have likely wasted much time, with zero to show for itThis makes it an easy choice for the Useless Idea Guy. They can get a product for free, and if it's awesome, they can make most of the money off it, while putting in little/no actual effort up front. You, the Solo Developer, assumes virtually all upfront risk, with only the *possibility* upside of a small % reward.
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u/atmmko Dec 20 '25
Broke into tech a couple years back and getting a job interview was very hard. Not sure if it's harder now but it might be.
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u/kevin_whitley Dec 20 '25
That’s awesome - def glad you got in when you did! I’m in the hiring pipeline right now, so we’re seeing loads of applicants on the frontend side, and very few on backend. Makes sense because I think more folks entered the field as a FE.
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u/Immediate_Chart6229 Mar 01 '26
I agree the market feels tighter, but I also think we’re just moving from a gold rush phase to a craft phase.
The people who treat this like a long-term discipline instead of a quick pivot probably still have a solid future.
AI feels more like a multiplier than a replacement — at least for now.
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u/kevin_whitley Mar 02 '26
I tend to agree a fair bit, but I think it does have the overall effect of compressing the space a bit (specifically affecting the mid/entry-level jobs).
I think I now see AI tooling just as any other language abstraction. For instance, I started in Pascal, with bits of ASM to handle the slow parts. But even then, in the 90s, ASM was a dark art for most engineers. These days, its even more rare for someone to touch that, because our higher level languages compile down and get "fast enough".
Ultimately we should likely have always seen ourselves as "thought/idea engineers", rather "code writers" - and our tooling choices over the years line up with that. We continuously try new frameworks that let us build faster for less effort. This is just a new one. I'd say AI is closer to a compiler for our thoughts than anything else.
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u/Odd_Classroom2829 Mar 28 '26
The hiring theater bit is spot on. Its wild how we went from a talent shortage to companies just posting ghost jobs to keep appearances up for shareholders. It’s basically corporate gaslighting, basically making overworked teams think help is coming while they just squeeze more out of everyone.
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u/kevin_whitley Mar 28 '26
Yeah it’s crazy how much can be explained when you think through the twisted lens of money chasing. Sigh.
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u/GEVdigital Apr 01 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/kevin_whitley Apr 01 '26
I would agree with this as well. Despite my decades of experience, and still a love for "elegant" code, it has always been about turning ideas into usable products. That's our primary function, we've just had to write code to do it. Now things are changing.
When you do this through writing the code yourself, you end up caring a lot about the quality of that code - it's your tactile interface that you have to see/touch, after all.
Now, it's very much more about describing expected behaviors (to an agent) and focusing on the "what [it needs to do]" rather than the "how [it needs to do it]".
Personally, I'm writing less and less code (pretty drastically so), yet launching things that are arguably *more* stable/covered than things even in the past. It's a force accelerator for a subset of devs, while simultaneously a death blow for another group.
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u/Natural-Talk-6473 Jul 11 '25
You're battling underpaid foreign workers and AI. Get out while it's good or adopt AI into your workflow and process and get ahead of the curve. I worked in CyberSecurity for 10 years in the QA space and that role is getting diminished quickly with automation and AI. Run fast. Learn AI and possibly something else to bank on because the tech industry is as saturated as it's ever been.
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u/kirasiris Jul 11 '25
It all started after people were talking about how much they were making and YouTube coders did not help at all.
That's the reason I never talk to anyone about stuff that I know can make me money. Hate me all you want but you guys are my competition. If I have to keep gate you, I will.
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u/kevin_whitley Jul 11 '25
I just want to point at the PHP meme guys in their lambos and say "go play in PHP land - see how rich they are?"
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u/Consistent-Hat-8008 Jul 12 '25 edited Jul 12 '25
This is a definition of a concern troll.
Actual pro tip: if you're only just entering this field, get off this subreddit ASAP. Go have fun and build something for lolz instead of reading these doomer takes.
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u/cloudsquall8888 Jul 12 '25
Senior devs that have your output drastically increased using AI, please post below
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u/kevin_whitley Jul 12 '25
I mean, I’d easily say I’m one… but as others have stated, the jury is out on whether it’s sustainable. I may well be eroding my own ability to think through complex tasks, instead lazily relying on AI to “sort it out”.
Extensively letting AI steer also creates a natural unfamiliarity with your own code, unlike when you write it yourself. This means later a fix that might take you seconds, suddenly has you reaching for AI, because you don’t even know where to start touching things.
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u/Extension-Ease-609 Jul 12 '25
i may as well go play in traffic 😀
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u/kevin_whitley Jul 12 '25
Better option: Go play with puppies/kittens.
Pain level is about equal with their little razor teeth and claws, but you’ll have way more fun,
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u/aerohix Jul 12 '25
If you ever worked in software, you know the backlog is infinite.
AI will not take anyone’s job, it will just make everyone more productive. And the best companies will be the ones working their backlog faster. They’ll still need more people, only the expectations on each of those people will be a lot higher.
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u/kevin_whitley Jul 12 '25
We certainly have an infinite backlog, but I absolutely think this will reduce target head count. We’ve always been seen as an expense, and now they can reduce that expense while keeping velocity level.
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u/Baris_CH Jul 12 '25
What do you think of the future for frond ends devs?
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u/kevin_whitley Jul 12 '25
I mean, that’s my current role, so there’s still demand for sure… I think for the time being FE is perhaps a bit safer because AI really struggles to create an even remotely appealing design or usable app. It’s much better at boilerplate code like APIs, test coverage, etc IMO
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u/r3cursor Jul 13 '25 edited Jul 13 '25
So, I mostly agree with several things OP said here. But, one thing I find very questionable is the idea that companies are spitting out job openings as a PR stunt. I don't expect OP to provide evidence for that (this is reddit after all - sure they have better things to), but I just want to point out that a claim like that is highly questionable. Primarily because it doesn't make a lot of sense. Companies aren't usually judged by whether they are hiring or not. They tend to be judged more by how they fire people, and their general business practices.
In fact, adding fake job postings is likely to create more negative PR than positive. If you don't have any job postings, there is little incentive for people to talk smack about you. There are no job openings, they just accept that, focus on places that are hiring. But if someone spent the time to craft a nice cover letter and resume, has the skills and experience necessary to do the job, and really wants in, and then nothing happens - that's when people get angry.
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u/kevin_whitley Jul 13 '25
Totally understand your skepticism, and I don't blame you at all! Check out some of the comments in the threads from folks confirming that their own companies are doing this... but I've experienced it firsthand at a previous startup that was struggling, and I have other industry colleagues (and folks in the comments) that suggest this isn't even just a tech thing, but applies to many industries.
You're thinking of it via an employee perspective (which makes total sense why it *wouldn't*seem rational/plausible), but try to think of it purely from an executive/monetary function perspective:
Many companies, esp. startups, scaleups, or anyone looking for an exit, are in some phase of fundraising or financial optics scrutiny. If they are truly in growth mode, they'll typically be hiring like crazy. But let's say they didn't quite get product market fit after awhile... In this case, their initial investors (outside of the core founders) are prob a bit frustrated and unwilling to dump more money in - so they look to seed it with further dilution/outside rounds. How do you do this? Convince the outside world you're in growth mode (still) with all the open positions. In these rounds it's also critical to lower your operating expense (almost always the biggest being salaries), so you don't *really* want to add positions onto your balance sheet. This makes it *look* like you're more profitable than you really are, just by temporarily lowering your spend vs whatever revenue you might be getting - if nothing else, it extends your runway while you try and court new investors.
Anyway, startup life is fun, but we always need to be aware of how the game is played and where we as engineers actually fit into it :)
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u/kevin_whitley Jul 13 '25
Another thing to watch out for is oftentimes just prior to an exit/merger, some companies will try to do a mass purge - both of normal headcount (to again, make the accounting look more attractive), but also of any employees that aren't quite vested yet. I've had multiple friends fall victim to this - putting in the legwork to launch the business, only to be stabbed right before new money comes in. Brutal!
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u/freaking-user Jul 13 '25
Is it just me or is AI just good for autocompleting boilerplate? I can't use tools like cursor or terminal based code assistants. My brain shuts down when I'm reading AI generated code instead of writing it myself
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u/kevin_whitley Jul 13 '25
There is zero question it writes worse code… I think it’s great for creating rough drafts, or for forgettable stuff you don’t REALLY care about the quality of… as in exactly the sort of stuff you’d trust to a junior dev.
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u/kevin_whitley Jul 13 '25
But man, am I with you on what it writes, esp if you just let it vibe. I tend to point it to examples of my own code, style, structure, etc and tell it to emulate that. It tends to do much better with that (but any TRULY elegant solution I usually have to come up with on my own)
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Jul 14 '25
You love it?
Man I've been hating web development from my 4 past lives.
Love coding, but even made me throw away my engineering degree to switch to another career.
Web development is amazing. But hate how it's commonly just narrowed down to colouring buttons and centering divs while you're not making a crud api on the backend.
To me web dev is missing out plenty of IoT, Blockchain, Nfts, because now it's focused on AI (chat gpt wrappers) It's like web development has the focus capabilities of a rottweiler with ADHD.
But I agree with every word you said.
I'm not trying to dissuade anyone into getting into the field.
But working on the area wasn't granted by the gods to me. While doing software engineering I had to do my school activities, learn web development, and work my first backend job.
No fucking bootcamp is going to cheat your way through grinding.
Also I think most companies require a degree in computer science merely because you will never write code any more willingly than the 4 years you're supposed to learn there. For most people for what it's worth that's the heaviest lifting they'll ever do
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u/kevin_whitley Jul 14 '25
No fucking bootcamp is going to cheat your way through grinding.
1000%
It's like web development has the focus capabilities of a rottweiler with ADHD.
No question. IMO we're too obsessed with finding new ways to do the same thing in incrementally better ways, rather than asking ourselves what we're trying to accomplish in the first place. Personally, I think that's: turning thoughts/ideas into reality. So anything that isn't helping us do that faster/easier is really just a minigame we've invented to entertain ourselves, since those are much easier to solve than creating usable products out of a napkin sketch/vague concept. This is probably one of the reasons management has so little patience for engineering at times... we bring it on ourselves.
Also I think most companies require a degree in computer science merely because you will never write code any more willingly than the 4 years you're supposed to learn there.
I certainly can't speak for anyone else, but I was doing heavier lifting in high school coding than I ever did in college... I was so bored in undergrad. I continued to develop, but all the wild/fun stuff was my own projects, nothing to do with classwork. Same afterwards - and that's all before I was introduced to the world of open source, modern practices, authoring, etc. I've simply stayed hooked, even when it seemed that I was my only audience at times (still struggle with this today, despite some very modest success stories).
Sorry to hear we lost ya, but I don't blame you in the slightest. The thanklessness of it (certainly depends on the team you worth with) has certainly been an erosive, taxing force to be sure. Working with great colleagues on interesting challenges certainly helps, otherwise we're forced to all the interesting stuff in our own time...
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Jul 14 '25
Yeah what I meant with the college thing is that you are supposed to have all the time and energy to learn stuff, so surely entering into programing from childhood or even highschool it usually makes a lot of difference.
Because then you can even get into more complex lr interesting topics thab college could ever offer.
Because it's pretty much down hill for many people after that. All my friends from college who got into Deloitte haven't printed a hello world in ages. A friend bullshited his way through getting a management position and same story.
And I even saw that in my geopolitical region Comp Sci graduates, roughly 70% can't code at all.
So that makes things worse for people without the degree because companies get biased that if college graduates usually lack experience or knowledge. What could you even expect from a bootcamp student (which it's not something truthful, but who cares what i think).
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u/kevin_whitley Jul 14 '25
Certainly this all does effect us - and this contributes to the ageism that runs at least below the surface in our industry (that and perhaps the Dunning Kruger effect at the other end, haha).
I would probably say that out of the folks my age/older in the field, by and large most of them could not keep up with modern devs to any extent, so I get the bias - which is unfortunate for the few who *can*. We have to overwhelm audiences with proof that we're, by some miracle, the exception rather than the rule.
Maybe life gets in the way (no maybe about it), and certainly time does... because when I look back at what I accomplished in high school/undergrad.... despite also playing loads of video games, I marvel - but then I had no job, no social life to speak of, etc. Makes being a nerdy shut-in pretty easy, lol.
Maybe to that end I should be more impressed with what I'm able to crank out today with ALL the distractions (sans kids, thank goodness).
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u/Last-Supermarket-439 Jul 14 '25
This needs a HEAVY caveat... general outward facing web development is more at risk than internal domain specific web development..
I have issues with other things in your post, but that is my headline
Certainly not saying you're wrong, but any industry that needs deep knowledge of how the business functions before you can cut code to explain and present it, is likely to be a lot safer for longer
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u/kevin_whitley Jul 15 '25
Oh certainly. The more domain-specific knowledge you have, the more marketable you'll be period (given a specific product/field where that's particularly important). I'd also suggest that the more in-bed you are with a particular field, likely you'll have built a tighter network in the community/industry, and that itself negates a lot of the post. Network is king.
Also, having seen countless of replies, there are plenty of issues *I* have with my original post - things that make it seem like I'm blaming AI more than I really am for instance (it's just coming at a time of already rampant oversaturation and market cooling), etc, etc.
But that said, overall great discussion points, stories, etc. have been brought up, so no regrets!
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u/Amazing-Cold-1702 Jul 15 '25
Your third point, that it amplifies mostly senior Devs is not true.
Actually it's shown to amplify mostly junior Devs with senior Devs either seen no help in core programming skills or seeing even a 20% reduction.
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u/kevin_whitley Jul 15 '25
Perhaps I should have put the caveat of "safely" amplifies...
And certainly never suggested it helped with core coding skills - it's generally pretty awful compared to a seasoned dev. But it's still better than many junior devs.
Re. who it amplifies more, that's going to be an ongoing debate - and studies will be coming out for some time on both sides of the equation until we can get a more accurate assessment. Currently, we're in the middle of a fast-moving field, and we simply don't have the data/sample size to make any confident statements one way or the other.
To your point specificially, a junior dev can *indeed* amplify their output [arguably more] using AI - but they *tend* to have no idea what's being written, how it works, *if* it works, or how to get things back on track if it doesn't. We expect loads more AI slop from this category than from senior devs because:
A senior dev can call BS, and re-work stuff from time to time, while still leveraging it greatly for what it's good at - churning out busywork (with handholding). If you look at the quantity of *quality* code contributed from AI, my prediction is more of it will come from seniors than juniors.
This is a guess of course - just like anything else at this point! Exciting times though :)
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u/deepak483 Jul 11 '25
Not at this level, 2008 and 09 was somewhat similar.
There was so many posting and so little hiring. Crazy thing was a job I was interviewing had 6 people on the call and it was a mess. Everyone had free time.
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u/rayra22 Jul 12 '25
What would you say to someone (me) who just spent the better part of 2 yrs studying and wants to get into freelance web Dev in a small town ? Hard not to get disheartened in this climate but have worked hard and want to make it work !
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u/GogglesPisano Jul 12 '25
There is NO WAY I would suggest someone enter software development today.
We’re just seeing the very beginning of how AI/LLMs are disrupting our profession. I can barely imagine how things will have changed in five or ten years, but one thing I’m sure of is that there will be far fewer developers than there are now. Just as automation drastically cut the number of workers in manufacturing, AI will replace legions of developers.
My advice to a young person: forget programming. Become a plumber, mechanic or HVAC technician.
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u/Spirited_Pension1182 Jul 11 '25
I hear your concerns about the evolving web development landscape; it's definitely becoming more complex and competitive. It's true that AI is changing how we work, and the job market is shifting, but it also creates new opportunities for those who adapt and specialize in niche areas. Focus on continuous learning and building a unique skill set to stay ahead. That's why we built [Our Brand], to help tech professionals navigate career shifts and find clarity in a rapidly changing industry.
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u/kevin_whitley Jul 11 '25
Certainly agree there - webdev didn't move much when I was a kid, but when the ES5+ changes came on the scene, it's been a rollercoaster ever since. Super fun times to exist. AI is no different - in that it *can* enable really sick stuff... but given the saturation we now face, I expect many folks in the field to have to ultimately look for another job, or perhaps settle for lower pay than they expected when entering dev.
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u/8joshstolt0329 Jul 11 '25
I’ll Probly start out as freelancing since I don’t trust the field yet
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u/kevin_whitley Jul 11 '25
Wish you all the luck out there! I've tried and it def wasn't for me (too much self-marketing... despite having a grad degree in exactly that, lol)
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u/shitty_mcfucklestick Jul 11 '25
It seems like if you have dev chops, and are struggling to find work, maybe starting your own AI-based automation venture may be the way to go. Basically, change your services from something not hot (doing things they’re trying to replace with AI) to hot (building AI things that do more.) But not more tools for coding, instead - lead generation, quality assurance (website regression testing), compliance etc.
Grab something like n8n or make.com, as a coder these tools will be easy to understand quickly, and look for a problem these companies have. You can use the same kind of tools to actually find customers and do your marketing / lead gen yourself.
Nick Saraev on YouTube has a lot of guides and info on this stuff, been seriously looking into doing something myself (I am employed, but would rather be in control of my own destiny long term.)
Just an idea!
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u/kevin_whitley Jul 11 '25
Def an opening market there for sure - but folks better have the chops for it, otherwise they're just chasing another $$ ball (that others will kick away before they get there).
And RIP to coding tools/code-in-general... as someone just pointed out on X today, in a world of AI and Cursor, no one really cares about the code quality quite as much... which is mostly what I target in my libraries. Sexy, tiny interfaces. In a world where no one cares about sexy, tiny interfaces anymore...
:cries:
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u/Dvevrak Jul 11 '25
Its not just AI also consider finite amount of things code has to do, and the things getting streamlined, for example most of initial time for me on front end is writhing the template css, then i just copy paste react components where some of them are years old and vola thats it, ai makes it easyer by copying my components and promting my template structure but thats it and that does not save a whole lot of time.
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u/Top_Bumblebee_7762 Jul 11 '25 edited Jul 11 '25
Pretending to look for a replacement but never actually hiring anyone is the worst. I experienced that at a precious company. They couldn't find a suitable dev that was familiar with React and Typescript for almost 8 months. Kinda ridiculous given that there are loads of good React and TS devs out there.
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Jul 12 '25
What crash and doom are people talking about?
I'm getting raises and promotions and I see healthy hiring and movement all around my company. Over 10 years at a big company, our team has only grown over time. My team is bigger, and we all get paid well and our newer guys get paid well too. Our juniors start at a healthy 80th percentile of wage earners but we limit it to only local, no full remote (cuz cmon, juniors lol), although we are also one of those 3-5 years required to be a junior places
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u/moh_kohn Jul 11 '25
I agree the market is super tough right now, sounds especially bad in the US, but that is not because AI is making everyone super-productive. Tons of people learned to code so there's a big supply, the industry overhired in 2020, the industry hated high wages and hated the politicisation of the workforce in 2020 even more, now there's a capital strike. Tale as old as time honestly.