The tech world is going through a big wave of change and uncertainty. Maybe it's due to the rise of AI agents and the hiring freeze of juniors that came with it. Or maybe it's just the inevitable correction after the pandemic-era exuberance and overhiring. Either way: you’ve been laid off.
But before I hand you a list of recipes for what to do, let me start with Via Negativa: a way of thinking about what not to do.
First of all: don’t take it personally.
I know, easier said than done. Feeling ashamed is normal. After all, you think: if I’d been even better, if I’d been truly irreplaceable, they wouldn’t have let me go. But remember that this isn’t your fault. There was nothing you could have done to prevent it. When you chose to study computer science, to invest your time in it, the work was in demand and had been stable for years. One of the best-paid jobs out there. One of those jobs where you could move to any country and still find work. Data scientist, for one, was “the sexiest job of the 21st century,” according to Harvard Business Review.
Looking back, I still believe that working in tech was one of the best choices I ever made with my knowledge at that time. I was a science fiction girl from a humble background with an appetite for learning and doing. In other words, I was a nerd. And tech has always been one of the most democratic professions for us. Almost all material was free, except for a laptop.
You write code, and you create something. It was the only job where saying "I'm a dropout" was kind of cool. I remember coming home from every computer science-related event with business cards from managers or recruiters and at least two job proposals.
The second mistake to avoid — and this is the important one — is shrinking yourself, or getting drawn into the competition. I want you to pay close attention here.
Take a walk through r/recruitinghell on Reddit, and you’ll see what I mean. You probably already know.
Avoid “getting in line” at all costs. Avoid, at all costs, the companies that have swapped human recruiters for artificial intelligence. There are multiple reasons for that: a human values other things. Can this candidate communicate? Can they solve problems? Are they self-directed and collaborative at the same time? And guess what? Those are irreplaceable qualities.
But none of that gets valued by the AI. ATS resume optimizers, LinkedIn Premium... It's a losing battle. It's an automated system against an automated system. Second, many other people are in the same situation, and you want to avoid competition because competition is draining and lowers your salary.
I'm not telling you to stop sending CVs optimized to get through the filters — absolutely send them. What I’m telling you is to let go of your hopes there and understand that, statistically speaking, it’s a game you'll most likely lose. Also, do not settle for less so easily.
What nobody does is pick up the phone and call. And no, this is not just "networking".
Work through your contacts. Call everyone you’ve worked with before. Your colleagues, your old managers, even friends, and see what they are up to. Set your pride aside. Be open and vulnerable, be proactive and useful. Ask how they’re doing, and explain your situation. I’m not saying it will work, at least, not immediately. It highly depends on your network. But you can’t know until you try. That’s the beauty of human interaction: it’s chaotic, and therefore full of possibility.
Here’s an example of how human interaction beats every cold calling or ad. I went to a private clinic because I was having trouble breathing. There was only one person there: a young doctor, visibly stressed because all doctors had gone on vacation. He examines me, listens to my chest, and tells me I have bronchitis. He takes an X-ray, and the X-ray confirms it.
Then, while he’s taking down my details, he asks what I do for a living. I tell him I’m a principal engineer and that I co-founded a technology company and the family office behind it.
He looks up, suddenly very interested. He tells me he’s the owner of the clinic and that he had been looking for a technology partner for a while. He desperately needed someone to overhaul the entire IT infrastructure at his clinic.
The bronchitis got me a lead.
This is the shape you want. Low effort, high-gain. The application funnel, on the other hand, has the opposite shape; it requires a huge effort, and the best possible result is a job at the price the market deems fair for you (now, as I said before, it's lowering, precisely because of competition).
Do you think you and I are the only people who hate AI recruiters? Not a chance. Call, and you’ll find we’re all in the same boat. Some of my mentees who still have a job are actually venting to me about how problematic and out of control AI agents have become. They are seriously discussing with their executives to stop the tokenmaxxing madness and just return to code. Some engineers are even quitting and pivoting because they find no joy and purpose in their work anymore. Maybe someone in your list of contacts is a little further along. Maybe someone has started a company. Maybe an old colleague just got promoted.
The AI agents are slowly revealing that any tech job was never just sitting in front of a computer and typing code, but architecting, working in a team, collaborating, starting open source projects to promote a technology and attract eyeballs, going to conferences and LAN parties, debating which Linux Distro is the best, staying receptive while keeping your ego from getting in the project’s way.
An AI agent can’t do any of that.
Ford recently rehired, hired, or promoted around 350 veteran engineers after discovering that its AI-driven quality systems couldn’t deliver because all the knowledge and experience they had was never written down.
I'm not promising you anything. I'm not saying: “Tomorrow you’ll be rehired and Claude will get laid off.” What I am telling you is to think laterally and to do everything an agent can’t: be human first. Because if you already found the job through an optimized ATS resume, you weren't reading this article.
