OK, I probably shouldn’t post this, but I’m going to anyway.
I’ve just been laid off from Plex, roughly 60 days after starting, having already been made redundant from 3SS earlier this year.
And quite frankly, I’m sick of what the tech industry is becoming.
You spend over a decade building your career, developing your skills, gaining experience and becoming genuinely good at what you do. Then suddenly, you’re given 60 days to prove yourself in an industry that’s changing almost overnight because of AI.
Let me explain.
From 3SS to Plex
When I was made redundant from 3SS, the industry was already going through a difficult period. To be fair to them, they gave me two weeks’ notice, although I’d literally just landed back from a holiday when I received the news.
What followed was a genuinely difficult few months. Struggling financially, worrying about paying the mortgage, taking in lodgers to help cover the bills and desperately trying to find another job.
And finding work in tech right now? What an absolute mess.
Everyone is using AI to generate CVs, while recruiters are using AI to filter them. We’ve somehow created a ridiculous situation where AI is producing applications and another AI is deciding whether they’re worth reading. Where does the actual human fit into any of this?
Eventually, I managed to secure two opportunities.
One was with a marine technology company in Plymouth, working on underwater vehicles. Something completely different and genuinely fascinating.
The other was Plex, working in the media industry, where I’ve spent most of my career.
Both companies put me through four-stage interview processes. Both offered me positions.
I chose Plex.
It was a permanent, fully remote position paying £95,000. It seemed like the sensible decision, especially after everything my family had already been through.
I turned down the other opportunity.
And roughly 60 days later, I’m unemployed again.
A different profession
But here’s the bigger issue I want to talk about.
Starting at Plex was a real eye-opener in terms of how much software development has changed.
I’ve been writing code for years, but suddenly it felt like I’d walked into a completely different profession.
Instead of spending your day understanding problems, designing solutions and writing code, so much of the workflow now revolves around prompting AI.
Pick up a Linear ticket. Feed it into Claude. Wait for a response. Try to understand what it’s generated. Review it. Correct it. Move on to another ticket. Repeat.
Meanwhile, pull requests are coming in thick and fast. You throw those at Claude too, and before you know it, you’re caught in an endless cycle of AI suggesting changes, reviewing changes and sometimes inventing solutions to problems that didn’t need fixing in the first place.
The sheer amount of context you’re expected to manage becomes overwhelming.
And while all this is happening, you’re also trying to learn an entirely new codebase, understand the architecture, get familiar with the team, learn the company’s processes and figure out how everything fits together.
Then, before you’ve even had a proper chance to find your feet, you’re out.
What the actual fuck is going on?
People’s livelihoods
I understand businesses need to make difficult decisions. I understand restructuring happens. I understand the argument of “hire fast, fire fast.”
But we’re talking about people’s livelihoods here.
You put candidates through four rounds of interviews. You offer them permanent positions. They turn down other opportunities, make financial commitments and start rebuilding their lives around that decision.
And then, 60 days later, they’re unemployed again.
How is that a sustainable way to run an industry?
What are we measuring?
And what exactly are we measuring developers against anymore?
Are we measuring their engineering ability? Their understanding of complex systems? Their problem-solving skills? Or simply how quickly they can produce output using an AI tool?
Because those are very different things.
I’m starting to feel like the traditional software engineer is being replaced by a human in the loop.
Someone who manages prompts, checks AI-generated code, reviews AI-generated pull requests and keeps the machine moving.
And if that’s where the industry is heading, fine. Technology evolves. I’ve spent my entire career adapting to new technologies.
But companies need to recognise that this is a fundamental change in how people work.
You cannot expect someone to join an unfamiliar company, learn a complex codebase, understand an entirely new AI-driven workflow, build relationships with a new team and demonstrate their full value in just 60 days.
Especially when the people who’ve been there for years already understand the systems, the history, the architecture and the expectations.
Of course established employees have an advantage. They’ve earned that knowledge and experience.
But what chance does that give someone coming in from the outside?
What is the strategy?
And I have a genuine question for the people making these decisions.
What is the strategy here?
Is it that development teams are overwhelmed, so you hire more engineers to help? Then, a couple of months later, you decide you don’t need them after all?
Are companies genuinely planning their workforce requirements, or are they experimenting with how few developers they can get away with now that AI is involved?
Because from where I’m standing, it increasingly feels like developers are becoming disposable resources in a giant experiment.
Hire people. See how much they can produce with AI. Change direction. Let them go. Repeat.
And it’s people’s mortgages, families, careers and mental health that are caught in the middle.
The people
I worked with some genuinely brilliant people at both 3SS and Plex. Proper engineers who care about their craft, understand complex problems and take pride in building good software.
This isn’t a criticism of them. I have nothing but respect for the people I worked alongside.
And I know layoffs are sometimes unavoidable.
But I think the industry needs to have a serious conversation about what we’re doing to people.
AI should be making engineers more effective, not turning their careers into a constant cycle of uncertainty.
We’ve spent years talking about improving developer productivity. Maybe it’s time we started talking about how we’re treating the developers themselves.
Because right now, after more than a decade in this industry, I’m genuinely questioning whether I want to be part of it anymore.