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Apr 07, 2026
90,000 Tech Jobs Gone in 2026. Here's What Nobody's Saying.
The layoffs aren't really about AI. And the people who survive them won't be the ones you'd expect.
Hi Friends!
What’s Inside Why Oracle just laid off 30,000 people via a 6 AM email, why Block’s CEO openly said AI can do his employees’ jobs, what “AI-driven layoffs” actually mean when you look past the press releases, and what this means for developers who are early in their careers right now.
Why You Should Subscribe I write about building a career in tech while the ground is shifting underneath it. No sugarcoating. No hype. Just what I’m seeing, what I’m doing about it, and what I think you should know.
Let me tell you something that keeps coming up in every group chat, every Discord server, every DM I get from someone who’s learning to code right now.
“Is it even worth it anymore?”
I get why people are asking. In the first three months of 2026, over 90,000 tech workers lost their jobs. Oracle cut 30,000 people with a six AM email signed by “Oracle Leadership.” Not a name. Not a face. Just a corporate signature and a link to severance paperwork. Block’s CEO Jack Dorsey laid off 4,000 people and said out loud what most executives won’t: that AI can now perform a wider range of tasks than humans in those roles.
Amazon. Meta. Dell. Atlassian. Ericsson. The list keeps going.
And every headline says the same thing. “AI-driven layoffs.” “Companies restructure for the AI era.” “The future of work is here.”
But here’s what nobody’s saying.
Most of These Layoffs Aren’t Really About AI
I come from sales. I’ve seen this exact playbook before, just with different buzzwords.
In 2018 it was “digital transformation.” In 2020 it was “pandemic restructuring.” In 2023 it was “efficiency.” Now it’s “AI.” The language changes. The pattern doesn’t. Companies over-hire during a boom. Revenue slows or margins tighten. Leadership needs a narrative that sounds strategic instead of reactive. So they attach the cuts to whatever technology story is dominating the news cycle.
That doesn’t mean AI isn’t changing anything. It is. But when Oracle lays off 30,000 people while sitting on a 25% stock decline and a $20 billion infrastructure funding gap, that’s not an AI decision. That’s a financial decision dressed up in AI language.
Fortune recently pointed out that many of these so-called AI layoffs don’t even stick. Klarna proudly announced that AI agents were doing the work of 700 humans in customer service. A year later they were hiring humans again because the AI wasn’t cutting it.
The narrative is cleaner than the reality.
Here’s where I’m not going to lie to you.
Some roles are getting compressed. Customer support, QA, basic data entry, internal tooling, junior copywriting. These are the first functions companies automate because the output is measurable and the risk of getting it wrong is low.
Developers are not immune either. AI can generate boilerplate code, scaffold projects, write tests, and handle repetitive refactors faster than any human. I use Claude Code every day. I know firsthand how much it accelerates my workflow.
But here’s the part most layoff articles skip entirely.
AI Doesn’t Replace Builders. It Replaces Followers.
The people getting cut are not the ones making decisions. They’re the ones executing decisions someone else made. The people writing tickets, not defining products. The people following specs, not questioning them.
If your job is to receive instructions and produce predictable output, yes, AI is coming for that. It’s already here.
But if your job involves understanding a client’s actual problem, making architectural tradeoffs, debugging something nobody’s seen before, communicating with non-technical stakeholders, or shipping a product that has to work in the real world with real users who do unpredictable things? I do that with Fabbuilds all the time. You’re fine. More than fine. You’re more valuable than ever because there are fewer people who can do that well.
The developers who will thrive in this market are the ones who can think, not just type.
What I’m Actually Doing About It
I’m not just watching this from the sidelines. I’m building.
I run FabBuilds, my freelance development business. I work directly with small business clients who need someone to understand their problem, not just write code. I'm shipping a real mobile app with real subscriptions and real bugs I have to fix myself. I'm studying systems architecture, not just frameworks. And I'm writing about all of it publicly so people can see the work, not just the resume.
That’s the play right now. Build things. Ship things. Own things.
Because when the next round of layoffs hits, and it will, the question isn’t “do you know React?” It’s “what have you built with it?”
Nobody gets laid off from their own product.
What I’d Tell You If You’re Worried Right Now
Stop scrolling layoff trackers. I mean it. Close that tab.
Instead, ask yourself: if your company laid you off tomorrow, what would you show the next interviewer? If the answer is “I worked on a team that built...” then you need to start building something that’s yours.
A side project. A freelance client. An app. A tool. Something you can point to and say, I made this. I shipped it. I own it.
AI isn’t going to take your job if your job is thinking, deciding, and building. It’s going to take your job if your job is waiting to be told what to build.
So stop waiting.
Let’s Build It Beautifully,
Fab
What’s Inside Why Oracle just laid off 30,000 people via a 6 AM email, why Block’s CEO openly said AI can do his employees’ jobs, what “AI-driven layoffs” actually mean when you look past the press releases, and what this means for developers who are early in their careers right now.
Why You Should Subscribe I write about building a career in tech while the ground is shifting underneath it. No sugarcoating. No hype. Just what I’m seeing, what I’m doing about it, and what I think you should know.
Let me tell you something that keeps coming up in every group chat, every Discord server, every DM I get from someone who’s learning to code right now.
“Is it even worth it anymore?”
I get why people are asking. In the first three months of 2026, over 90,000 tech workers lost their jobs. Oracle cut 30,000 people with a six AM email signed by “Oracle Leadership.” Not a name. Not a face. Just a corporate signature and a link to severance paperwork. Block’s CEO Jack Dorsey laid off 4,000 people and said out loud what most executives won’t: that AI can now perform a wider range of tasks than humans in those roles.
Amazon. Meta. Dell. Atlassian. Ericsson. The list keeps going.
And every headline says the same thing. “AI-driven layoffs.” “Companies restructure for the AI era.” “The future of work is here.”
But here’s what nobody’s saying.
Most of These Layoffs Aren’t Really About AI
I come from sales. I’ve seen this exact playbook before, just with different buzzwords.
In 2018 it was “digital transformation.” In 2020 it was “pandemic restructuring.” In 2023 it was “efficiency.” Now it’s “AI.” The language changes. The pattern doesn’t. Companies over-hire during a boom. Revenue slows or margins tighten. Leadership needs a narrative that sounds strategic instead of reactive. So they attach the cuts to whatever technology story is dominating the news cycle.
That doesn’t mean AI isn’t changing anything. It is. But when Oracle lays off 30,000 people while sitting on a 25% stock decline and a $20 billion infrastructure funding gap, that’s not an AI decision. That’s a financial decision dressed up in AI language.
Fortune recently pointed out that many of these so-called AI layoffs don’t even stick. Klarna proudly announced that AI agents were doing the work of 700 humans in customer service. A year later they were hiring humans again because the AI wasn’t cutting it.
The narrative is cleaner than the reality.
Here’s where I’m not going to lie to you.
Some roles are getting compressed. Customer support, QA, basic data entry, internal tooling, junior copywriting. These are the first functions companies automate because the output is measurable and the risk of getting it wrong is low.
Developers are not immune either. AI can generate boilerplate code, scaffold projects, write tests, and handle repetitive refactors faster than any human. I use Claude Code every day. I know firsthand how much it accelerates my workflow.
But here’s the part most layoff articles skip entirely.
AI Doesn’t Replace Builders. It Replaces Followers.
The people getting cut are not the ones making decisions. They’re the ones executing decisions someone else made. The people writing tickets, not defining products. The people following specs, not questioning them.
If your job is to receive instructions and produce predictable output, yes, AI is coming for that. It’s already here.
But if your job involves understanding a client’s actual problem, making architectural tradeoffs, debugging something nobody’s seen before, communicating with non-technical stakeholders, or shipping a product that has to work in the real world with real users who do unpredictable things? I do that with Fabbuilds all the time. You’re fine. More than fine. You’re more valuable than ever because there are fewer people who can do that well.
The developers who will thrive in this market are the ones who can think, not just type.
What I’m Actually Doing About It
I’m not just watching this from the sidelines. I’m building.
I run FabBuilds, my freelance development business. I work directly with small business clients who need someone to understand their problem, not just write code. I'm shipping a real mobile app with real subscriptions and real bugs I have to fix myself. I'm studying systems architecture, not just frameworks. And I'm writing about all of it publicly so people can see the work, not just the resume.
That’s the play right now. Build things. Ship things. Own things.
Because when the next round of layoffs hits, and it will, the question isn’t “do you know React?” It’s “what have you built with it?”
Nobody gets laid off from their own product.
What I’d Tell You If You’re Worried Right Now
Stop scrolling layoff trackers. I mean it. Close that tab.
Instead, ask yourself: if your company laid you off tomorrow, what would you show the next interviewer? If the answer is “I worked on a team that built...” then you need to start building something that’s yours.
A side project. A freelance client. An app. A tool. Something you can point to and say, I made this. I shipped it. I own it.
AI isn’t going to take your job if your job is thinking, deciding, and building. It’s going to take your job if your job is waiting to be told what to build.
So stop waiting.
Let’s Build It Beautifully,
Fab