No iPhone. No food.

It’s estimated that 1 in 3 developers has been laid off in the last 2 years.

At the same time, 36% of employees in the USA say they won’t be able to afford food within a month if they lost their job.

Not holidays. Not a new iPhone. 

They can’t afford food. 

(For employees in the EU, food might be easier to get; it is rent that will get you in trouble.)

Which is probably why 1 in 3 people say they would accept a 10% to 20% pay cut just to avoid being laid off.

Such a pay cut when real inflation sits at about 10% means you are suddenly 30% poorer.

Yes, inflation should include the price of your rent. 

(It doesn’t get much better in the EU. The unemployment rate in Germany is at its highest level in 12 years. 3.08 million people. A reported 25% of adults in Germany cannot cover living expenses for at least three months if they lose their primary income.)

The natural reaction when people read this kind of statistic is to blame it on companies.

On the system. On capitalism. 

But, except for a few tech companies raising billions because of AI psychosis, most companies are also struggling.

Scared people who live on their savings don’t make good consumers. Without consumers, you have no one to sell to.

We are all in the same boat. 

And that boat is sinking.

By tariffs, war, global chaos, and, more recently, gasoline prices.

Tech bros in San Francisco might drive a Tesla to show off, but most mining, manufacturing, transport, and whatever industry you can think of... Runs on diesel.

Don’t forget about jet fuel.

I bet this summer holiday trend on TikTok will be “exploring your own country.” Great news for local tourism.

But even better news is the fact that all those things can be solved by political means. 

Whenever the sun goes down, it rises again. 

The only question is when.

Meanwhile, all AI LLM providers are massively raising prices. 

It turns out that “giving your product for free” is a great marketing strategy. But then, you run out of money. I thought Silicon Valley “tech executives” could do basic math. 

Regardless.

Software developer job postings have increased by 15% as of March 2026 in the US (last month, FED stats).

Not bad for an industry claimed to be “cooked” and "obsolete". 

The median salary for software devs has alos increased. From 185k to 190k USD in the US, in the EU is hovering at around 75k+ EUR; it depends a lot on the country.

(For my US-based subscribers, before you laugh at EU salaries, keep in mind that these folks still pay 4 to 5 times less than you do on medicine, healthcare, & education. Yes, even if you account for those, US salaries are still higher, but not by such a big margin.)

Is not a big increase. 

But it proves that developers still have pricing power in the market. 

Yes, companies are obsessed with AI tools. But 55% of tech companies report plans to hire more developers regardless of AI adoption. What stops them is the economy, not Claude Code.

The market is slowly recovering. 

But, not for everybody. 

Junior dev job postings are still way below 2023 levels (approx. 45% less).

For the rest of devs, technical skills seem to have a “shelf life” of about 2.5 years. After that time 

After that, you either seriously upskill or fall behind (matches what I hear during my weekly calls, with devs telling me they feel like seriously falling behind after year 2 of joining a company).

Developers complain companies want only Senior Devs.

In reality, companies don’t know what they actually want.

For them, a Senior is an engineer who can deliver value from day one.

An engineer who “stays up to date” with the current AI hype train and learned a bit about it. But an engineer who can fix things when AI messes it up. Which it does, at least 25% of the time.

We can help you get there faster.

And honestly, in this kind of market, you can’t afford to waste any time.

A mentorship program like ours will give you a clear roadmap, accountability, feedback, and a community of other engineers all on the same path.

Which is how our students get results most developers can only dream of right now.

Also, Bogdan and I are currently working on a bunch of different things:

1. Integrating LLMs where we see fit into our own apps. It seems promising when it comes to text manipulation and sentiment analysis. Aside from that, AI-hype is mostly noise. 

2. Improving the technical assessments we offer (both free and inside training programs).

3. Updating our training with more Senior Mental Models and deeper Fundamentals (the 2 things that matter most these days).

I wish you folks a lovely end of the week :) 

Stay safe and sane, 

Dragos 

P.S. I will be back in Europe for the next couple of months. Mostly Spain, but will also go up north (London & Berlin) a few times. I'll keep you updated in case you want to grab a coffee and catch up. 

P.S. When you try to book, if you don't find any spots, it's because my calendar will be closed these days. We’ve already filled out cohorts for now. But we are putting together a list for May. Email me, and I will send you a slot for next week.