'I Gave It 110%': Graduate Worked a Year in Tech, Built AI Systems and Still Couldn't Escape Layoffs

A software developer hired in 2025 after an engineering degree described in a public post how a year of building high-throughput event pipelines and multi-agent AI workflows ended in layoff, saying 'I gave it 110%.' The account comes as US tech firms announced 149,023 job cuts from January to July 2026, up 67% year-on-year, with AI cited for 112,713, and UK digital and IT graduate hiring forecast to fall 53%, according to the Institute of Student Employers.

'I Gave It 110%': Graduate Worked a Year in Tech, Built AI Systems and Still Couldn't Escape Layoffs UK digital and IT graduate hiring is forecast to fall 53%, survey shows A software developer hired straight out of an engineering degree in 2025 has set out in a public post what a year of long hours at an enterprise employer delivered. The account starts before the job: degree years spent on competitive programming, system design study, and side projects, all to stand out in a market the developer calls brutal. Then the job itself. High-throughput event pipelines built, multi-agent AI workflows designed from scratch, and money saved on the team's API costs. The writer hit their metrics, worked the hours, and believed technical value would buy security. 'I gave it 110%,' the graduate wrote. Constant restructuring made none of it matter. The developer didn't name the employer, but his experience remains more relatable now than ever, seeing how tech layoffs are happening all around. Tech Layoffs Hit Record High American technology firms announced 149,023 job cuts https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/tech-industry-record-job-cuts-2026-1813332 between January and July 2026, 67% more than at the same stage last year, according to outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. The sector accounts for 31% of all US redundancies this year. Total announced US cuts fell 41% over the same period, to 477,033. AI was given as the reason https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/tech-industry-record-layoffs-ai-automation-1813145 for 112,713 of them, roughly a quarter, and has led all stated reasons for five consecutive months. Computer engineering graduates in the US now carry an unemployment rate of 7.8%, the second highest of the 73 majors in a Federal Reserve Bank of New York study published in February. Only anthropology, at 7.9%, is higher. Computer science ranks fifth at 7.0%. That 7.8% matches, to the decimal, the rate for young workers who never went to university. Recent graduates as a whole stand at 5.6%. Why British Graduates Are in the Same Position Graduate recruitment https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/generation-z-challenging-job-market-1809546 at Britain's 100 leading employers has fallen 24.5% since 2022, figures from High Fliers Research show. That is steeper than the 12.3% fall in the pandemic year of 2020 and the 23.3% drop through the 2008 to 2009 recession, and leaves vacancies at their lowest since 2012. Applications have gone the other way, averaging 140 for every graduate vacancy in the latest Institute of Student Employers ISE survey, a record since the ISE began tracking in 1991. ISE members reported graduate hiring down 8% year on year and forecast a further 7% fall across 2025/26. Digital and IT is projected to drop 53%, the steepest fall of any sector. Only the built environment, up 14%, and energy and engineering, up 1%, expect growth. Claire Tyler, the ISE's head of insights, said the survey pointed elsewhere: 'no one is telling us that AI is replacing entry level jobs https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/ai-impact-junior-employee-training-1814107 yet .' What a Year of Service Buys, and What Changes in 2027 For a British worker in the same position, the calculation is short. Statutory redundancy pay requires at least two years of continuous service with the same employer, so anyone let go after a single year receives none of it. Notice is what remains. The workplace advice service Acas puts the statutory minimum at one week for anyone employed between one month and two years. Those who clear two years face caps of £751 $1,015 a week and £22,530 $30,460 in total, where employment ends on or after 6 April 2026. One two-year threshold is moving. From 1 January 2027, section 25 of the Employment Rights Act 2025 cuts the qualifying period for ordinary unfair dismissal claims from two years to six months. Redundancy pay is untouched. The Department for Business and Trade puts 6.3M employees, 22% of everyone in work, in the six-month to two-year band with very limited protection. Building a Buffer on a Graduate Salary The median graduate starting salary at Britain's leading employers is £35,000 $47,300 , according to High Fliers. With no statutory payout, any cushion has to be built privately. Sammie Ellard-King, founder of Up the Gains and the Gains App, told IBTimes UK that graduates should start small. He said the aim is to 'work up to a month's worth of living expenses and slowly increase this to 3 months as soon as you can.' That means holding fixed costs down early. 'The key is to keep your costs as low as you can for as long as you can,' Ellard-King said. Hiring Has Not Stopped Challenger recorded 33,429 cuts announced in July, the lowest monthly total in two years, and 107,500 planned hires this year, up 25% on 2025. Technology leads the hiring column too, with 17,231 planned roles. Andy Challenger, the firm's chief revenue officer, said that 'while AI is shifting the labor market, it is not dismantling it.' No US or UK agency tracks redundancies by length of service, and neither Challenger nor the ISE breaks out entry-level roles. How much of the 2026 reduction has hit first- and second-year workers is not established. © Copyright IBTimes 2025. All rights reserved.