--- title: Tech Is Brutal Right Now. Stay or Go? Let's Think Clearly. description: An opinion piece for beginners and junior developers struggling in a brutal hiring market, arguing that the question 'should I quit tech?' is really two... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/tech-is-brutal-right-now-stay-or-go-let-s-think-clearly--tm1zzphmx twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Tech Is Brutal Right Now. Stay or Go? Let's Think Clearly. | daily.dev og:description: An opinion piece for beginners and junior developers struggling in a brutal hiring market, arguing that the question 'should I quit tech?' is really two... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/tech-is-brutal-right-now-stay-or-go-let-s-think-clearly--tm1zzphmx og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/tM1ZzpHmx.png og:image:alt: Tech Is Brutal Right Now. Stay or Go? Let's Think Clearly. og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Tech Is Brutal Right Now. Stay or Go? Let's Think Clearly. **[DEV](https://daily.dev/sources/devto)** · 11 min read · 55 upvotes · 10 comments ## Summary An opinion piece for beginners and junior developers struggling in a brutal hiring market, arguing that the question 'should I quit tech?' is really two separate questions: whether the job-hunting approach is broken versus whether the field itself is closed, and whether someone enjoys the actual work versus just wanting the rewards it promised. It cites stats like junior hiring share falling from ~15% to ~7% and entry-level postings down ~40%, while noting AI/ML roles are growing. It offers a four-question framework (enjoyment of the work, approach vs. fit problem, what you actually wanted, runway and risk tolerance) and concludes that both staying (by adapting the job-search approach) and leaving are legitimate, respectable choices. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### Why is it so hard to get a junior developer job right now even with a good portfolio and projects? Entry-level hiring has genuinely collapsed rather than it being a personal failing. Junior developers have fallen from around 15% of tech hiring to about 7%, and entry-level postings sit roughly 40% below prior levels, driven by automation of boilerplate and routine tasks juniors used to do, plus continued layoffs citing AI as a factor. _Job-hunting developers facing this squeeze can follow market shifts and hiring trends on daily.dev._ ### Should I give up on becoming a software developer if the job market is bad? Not necessarily, because a bad market signals a broken approach more often than a closed field. Mass-applying to hundreds of listings stopped working as hiring shifted toward problem-solving, AI-augmented work, smaller companies, and specializations, so adapting the job-search method rather than abandoning the field is often the more effective response. _Developers weighing whether to persist or pivot can track how hiring approaches are changing via daily.dev._ ## Community discussion Top comments from developers on daily.dev. **@lasepp** · 18 upvotes > Actually, the field feels broken, even already in the field. Most of the things I always enjoyed are getting lost. > > > With the move to the cloud, doing actual network engineering ist about to get rarer. The servers are in the cloud, so only basic things left to do on premise. > > > And what‘s left is simple enough AI can do just as well (and arguably better than what I see in a lot of customer deployments). > > > I get by. I am adapting to manage a herd of AI agents… but the actual fun is gone… **@jpdelatorre** · 3 upvotes > The 'adapted path' feels like corpo-speak for jumping through ten times as many hoops for half the stability. The golden era is dead, and we're all just fighting over the scraps now. **@faustocarrera** · 3 upvotes > I developed software for 20+ years, now I'm a software architect and I hate the AI flow: > - barely read what the agent is telling me, but clicked yes > - trying to read something usefull in the PR the agent wrote because most of it is trash > - giving up and asking another agent to review the code > - go back to click yes **@rizwanul** · 2 upvotes > Stay and evolve **@cristianc** · 2 upvotes > no, no. go ... less people remain, their value will grow 😌 > > There are way too many people not belonging, just doing "tech" because they heard it's good money. Encountered them everywhere I went, across 4 continents in my 28 years of professional experience. > > I've had enough of people talking about writing code by hand, as I am sure some housewifes were talking about the importance of washing laundry by hand at the river, when the washing machine came out. It has never been about writing code. It was always about solving problems, increasingly larger in scope and complexity, to provide real... ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Leaving Tech](https://daily.dev/posts/leaving-tech-9x0prwch6) · RUBYLAND · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Software developers are not okay](https://daily.dev/posts/software-developers-are-not-okay-pzkon36n4) · Lobsters · 66 upvotes · 9 comments --- Tags: [#ai](https://daily.dev/tags/ai), [#career](https://daily.dev/tags/career) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/tech-is-brutal-right-now-stay-or-go-let-s-think-clearly--tm1zzphmx) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Tech Is Brutal Right Now. 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Stay or Go? Let's Think Clearly."}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/tech-is-brutal-right-now-stay-or-go-let-s-think-clearly--tm1zzphmx","comment":[{"@type":"Comment","text":"Actually, the field feels broken, even already in the field. Most of the things I always enjoyed are getting lost.\nWith the move to the cloud, doing actual network engineering ist about to get rarer. The servers are in the cloud, so only basic things left to do on premise.\nAnd what‘s left is simple enough AI can do just as well (and arguably better than what I see in a lot of customer deployments).\nI get by. I am adapting to manage a herd of AI agents… but the actual fun is gone…","datePublished":"2026-10-12T11:16:29.383Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/tM1ZzpHmx#c-Nduel1LS1","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Josef","url":"https://daily.dev/lasepp","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--O0TOmw4y--/f_auto/v1715772965/public/noProfile"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":18}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"The ‘adapted path’ feels like corpo-speak for jumping through ten times as many hoops for half the stability. The golden era is dead, and we’re all just fighting over the scraps now.","datePublished":"2026-10-13T00:08:07.074Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/tM1ZzpHmx#c-pFLK8NSVL","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"JP de la Torre","url":"https://daily.dev/jpdelatorre","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--vMLSF3-1--/f_auto/v1787723050/avatars/avatar_0fMQQvxSIIVibBvP847Xo?_a=BAMAMicg0"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":3}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"I developed software for 20+ years, now I’m a software architect and I hate the AI flow:\n\nbarely read what the agent is telling me, but clicked yes\ntrying to read something usefull in the PR the agent wrote because most of it is trash\ngiving up and asking another agent to review the code\ngo back to click yes","datePublished":"2026-10-13T13:16:38.434Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/tM1ZzpHmx#c-exLCzvOtE","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Fausto Carrera","url":"https://daily.dev/faustocarrera","image":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/788338?v=4"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":3}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"Stay and evolve","datePublished":"2026-10-12T16:54:48.413Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/tM1ZzpHmx#c-kPm6DFlT1","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Rizwanul Islam Rudra","url":"https://daily.dev/rizwanul","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--BaXM-_5z--/f_auto/v1734625319/avatars/avatar_xbQ-tHbbo"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":2}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"no, no. go … less people remain, their value will grow 😌\nThere are way too many people not belonging, just doing “tech” because they heard it’s good money. Encountered them everywhere I went, across 4 continents in my 28 years of professional experience.\nI’ve had enough of people talking about writing code by hand, as I am sure some housewifes were talking about the importance of washing laundry by hand at the river, when the washing machine came out. It has never been about writing code. It was always about solving problems, increasingly larger in scope and complexity, to provide real value, to business and ideally to humanity. It is not about writing code vs. becoming an ML engineer… it has never been. How about becoming a better solution designer? better bridge between business and technical? Better at understanding how stuff works? Better student, always curious? Today is the easiest to dig deep in whatever topic. I’ve learned in the past couple of years with the help of those LLMs, particularly past year, particularly last 6 months as almost I’ve learned in my whole career. It helped a lot that I have a solid knowledge foundation.\nAgain, way too many people see this as getting a job at the factory. Wake up, now, it has never been a factory. Job hunters are mindless drones pushing on whatever is trendy. So what? Increase your value to humanity, and naturally you will get attention, and people will hire you. I am an employer and I see way too many so called specialists/developers/whatever-title that know way too little in the field they were supposed to master, as self-entitled seniors. It is not about titles. It is about deep knowledge and being smart in combining that knowledge","datePublished":"2026-10-12T17:35:29.043Z","dateModified":"2026-10-12T17:42:35.883Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/tM1ZzpHmx#c-uTbOaLXIM","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Cristian C","url":"https://daily.dev/cristianc","image":"https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/a/ACg8ocIHDjfvRf4004qYyQV-8Z9JI_VGvKgZXAPta-Su6fKS3dDFIg=s96-c"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":2}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"FAQPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/tech-is-brutal-right-now-stay-or-go-let-s-think-clearly--tm1zzphmx#faq","mainEntity":[{"@type":"Question","name":"Why is it so hard to get a junior developer job right now even with a good portfolio and projects?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Entry-level hiring has genuinely collapsed rather than it being a personal failing. Junior developers have fallen from around 15% of tech hiring to about 7%, and entry-level postings sit roughly 40% below prior levels, driven by automation of boilerplate and routine tasks juniors used to do, plus continued layoffs citing AI as a factor. Job-hunting developers facing this squeeze can follow market shifts and hiring trends on daily.dev."}},{"@type":"Question","name":"Should I give up on becoming a software developer if the job market is bad?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Not necessarily, because a bad market signals a broken approach more often than a closed field. Mass-applying to hundreds of listings stopped working as hiring shifted toward problem-solving, AI-augmented work, smaller companies, and specializations, so adapting the job-search method rather than abandoning the field is often the more effective response. Developers weighing whether to persist or pivot can track how hiring approaches are changing via daily.dev."}}]} ```