In 2015, Paul Ford published a 38,000-word essay in Bloomberg called What Is Code? It’s an explainer for non-technical people who may find themselves in technical meetings with software developers and engineers. Recently, on an episode of The Vergecast, Ford says, “I wrote What Is Code? because I really did believe that this was a good way into the middle class, and it had been for me.”
In the same episode, he acknowledges, “There’s somebody out there… who is counting on their tech job. That somebody like me told them 15 years ago was the safest possible bet. And they went and got a certificate in AWS management. And now people are telling them, ‘Why would I ever do that? I’ll just deploy by using Claude.’” These jobs are existentially at risk.
For a generation, the career advice given to displaced workers, uncertain graduates, and anyone looking for a stable path was essentially the same: find a way to get into tech. Learn to code. Become a product manager. Work for the sales or marketing department at a tech company. Join the industry that is the disruption, not the one getting disrupted.
I’ve worked in the tech industry (and now, tech-adjacent) since 2006. It was well-paying and, until late 2021, felt safe. I left my tech job voluntarily and went into content marketing for tech companies. 18 months later, I lost my job. A lot of factors played into that turn of events, but one was that the tech company was being decimated. Companies no longer had the budgets for marketing, impacting the marketing agency I worked for.
Over the past few years, I’ve watched the ground shift beneath the feet of so many people I know. That assumption that tech is “safe” has crumbled into dust. And the people who believed it most are the ones feeling it hardest.
The decade that didn’t deliver what was promised
There’s a cohort of workers — mostly elder millennials — who arrived at what was supposed to be the “payoff phase” of their careers at the exact moment everything started to change. Mid-to-senior titles. Accumulated equity at startups. Stable (even growing!) compensation. The decade was supposed to deliver on the promise that patience and hard work in tech would lead to security.
But then the pandemic hit. Tech layoffs hit. Generative AI hit. Just as this cohort reached the positions they’d been climbing toward, the industry started dismantling itself.
As of early April 2026, tech layoffs this year alone have impacted over 91,000 workers. In 2025, that number was approximately 246,000 across 783 companies. While some layoffs have been from startups struggling to survive, others are from companies that aren’t strapped for money. Amazon reported record revenue of $716.9 billion in 2025 while cutting 30,000 corporate roles. Block — the fintech company behind Square and Cash App — cut 40% of its workforce, roughly 4,000 people, explicitly because of AI. CEO Jack Dorsey said it wasn’t driven by financial difficulty. After the announcement, the company’s stock went up.
What makes the current wave of layoffs structurally different from what came before is what’s driving it. The first wave of tech layoffs (2022–2024) was a post-pandemic correction. Companies had to dial back the hiring sprees they went on during COVID. Painful, yes, but cyclical. The thing that’s happening now is something else entirely. Companies are explicitly stating that they are replacing human roles with AI systems. In a Resume.org survey, 44% of hiring managers anticipate AI will be a top driver of layoffs in 2026.
And here’s what I keep thinking about: the executives making these workforce decisions are acting on a capability that, by most reports, hasn’t fully materialized. Microsoft’s AI CEO, Mustafa Suleyman, predicted that most white-collar tasks — lawyers, accountants, project managers, marketers — will be “fully automated” within 12 to 18 months. Meanwhile, a randomized controlled trial by METR (published July 2025) found that experienced developers using AI tools took 19% longer on tasks than those working without them, even though they were faster.
The gap between what executives promise (or what they believe will happen) and what workers actually experience is enormous. Employees are bearing the cost of a bet they didn’t place, when we were promised something different.
The decision to pivot
Not everyone who’s leaving tech is being pushed out. Some are choosing to go.
There’s a steadily growing sentiment among the cohort that was supposed to be entering the highlight of their careers. It’s less about the dramatic exits of The Great Resignation and more about a widening gap between what tech promised and what it actually delivers at this stage of life. Kids entering adolescence. Parents aging. Bodies changing. Energy levels changing. Perspectives changing. People already juggling more “life outside of work” are rightfully questioning the constant grinding of their careers.
And the incentive to retool themselves again — this time at the breakneck speed that AI requires inside a corporate structure — just isn’t there. Think of it this way: why apply yourself to learning AI, when all of the benefit goes to the company, not the individual? The company gets more output. The individual gets more work.
Many are choosing something else, such as consulting, starting a business, or even learning trades. They’re turning long-held hobbies or passions into second careers. It’s intentional.
Part of what’s driving this shift is that people want more from work itself. More meaningful work instead of more money. More flexibility and control instead of a prestigious title at a company that might lay them off next quarter. RTO mandates, constant restructuring, AI-related pressures at every performance review… the culture of tech has changed. For some workers, the industry that used to feel generous and exciting doesn’t feel that way anymore.
And then there are the golden handcuffs. The math used to be simple: the paychecks from working for a tech company are often big enough that leaving feels irresponsible. But the equation changes when those paychecks come with layoff anxiety, RTO mandates, and the persistent feeling of dread, thinking that you’re one AI deployment away from being replaced. At some point, the handcuffs aren’t golden anymore… they’re just handcuffs.
I left my work at a tech company years before AI arrived, and before the mass layoffs hit. But the desire for “something else” was my motivator. I felt the thrill of building something — a product I truly believed in — early in my career. As I reached my 40s, with older kids and a post-pandemic lack of tolerance for bullshit, my personal calculus changed.
Was tech ever the destination?
Here’s what’s worth knowing if you’re in that space of “what do I do next?” right now: career pivoters are overwhelmingly happy on the other side. I’ve talked to many, many people over the years. And sure, it’s a small sample, but I feel confident that it’s representative of how people feel overall. They’re relieved, even if the initial “getting through change” phase is hard.
I’ve written before about the portfolio career replacing the career ladder, and about the different types of career pivots people make. What’s happening in tech right now is a collision of several of those pivot types at once: forced pivots from layoffs, anticipatory pivots from people who see the writing on the wall, and boredom pivots from workers who’ve mentally checked out of an industry that no longer resembles the one they signed up for.
Non-linear paths are not consolation prizes. They’re increasingly what sustainable careers actually look like — especially for people who’ve already navigated one or two major industry shifts. They can build on what they’ve learned, instead of clinging to something that’s disappearing.
We don’t fully know how this plays out. But the assumption that tech was a career safe harbor? That’s gone. So if you’re in tech and uneasy, considering leaving, or already have one foot out the door, keep this in mind: your experience is more portable than it feels right now. Systems thinking, project management, data interpretation, navigating ambiguity…. those skills don’t evaporate when you leave the industry that taught them to you.
Thinking about a career change? Download my guide: 5 Types of Career Pivots.
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