The Blubber

After weathering two major economic downturns—the 2008 financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic—software engineer K managed to bounce back each time within a matter of months. But when he was laid off again in April of last year, he quickly realized this time was different. The tech world was undergoing a seismic shift, and artificial intelligence was at the center of it.

Despite his 20 years of experience and a degree in computer science, K has sent out over 800 job applications and received fewer than 10 interview opportunities. Some of those weren’t even with people—they were conducted by AI tools.

“I feel like I’ve vanished,” he told Fortune. “It’s like I don’t exist. I’m being screened out before a human even sees my résumé.”

While concerns about AI replacing workers have circulated for years, K believes what he’s experiencing now is just the tip of a much larger crisis. “The Great Displacement is already underway,” he wrote in a recent post on his Substack.

From Six-Figure Salary to Gig Work

K’s most recent role was at a metaverse-focused startup—once considered a promising frontier, but now eclipsed by the AI boom sparked in part by tools like ChatGPT.

Now based in a small RV in upstate New York, he’s struggling to make ends meet. Between delivering DoorDash orders and selling old electronics on eBay, he’s barely pulling in a few hundred dollars a month—far from his former $150,000 salary.

He’s considered going back to school for additional tech credentials or getting a commercial driver’s license to shift into trucking, but the upfront costs were too steep.

That someone with K’s background is in this position may seem surprising, especially given that the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics still ranks software engineering among the fastest-growing professions. But his situation may soon reflect a broader trend.

Earlier this year, Dario Amodei, CEO of AI company Anthropic, warned that the number of software development jobs could shrink dramatically. By September, he predicted, AI will be writing 90% of code—and within a year, possibly nearly all of it.

The wave of layoffs supports that outlook. In 2024 alone, more than 150,000 tech workers were let go, and another 50,000 have already been laid off in 2025, according to Layoffs.fyi.

“This is coming for everyone eventually,” K wrote. “And as a society, we’re still not seriously addressing the consequences.”

He believes the broader public conversation still treats AI-driven job loss as something looming on the horizon, rather than a reality that’s already unfolding.

More Than a Job Loss

Even after more than a year without stable employment, K hasn’t given up—and he doesn’t blame AI itself. He still sees himself as an “AI maximalist.”

“If AI truly can outperform me, I’m not going to resent that,” he said. “It’s not about clinging to some romantic idea of the ‘human touch.’”

What bothers him most is how companies are using AI simply to cut costs by reducing headcount—rather than empowering their existing teams to do more with better tools.

“We’re stuck in this old way of thinking,” he said. “If AI means one developer can now do the work of ten, businesses just fire nine people. Instead, why not keep the team and aim to do 1,000 times more?”