The Sundarban
This article is crossposted from IEEE Spectrum’s careers e-newsletter. Signal in nowto assemble insider guidelines, knowledgeable recommendation, and purposeful ideas, written in partnership with tech profession pattern company Taro and dropped at your inbox totally free!
Closing week, Microsoft laid off 6,000 workers—3 percent of its team—bringing the prefer of tech workers that contain already been laid off in 2025 to easily about 60,000, in step with layoffs.fyi. In a future edition we’ll procure in ideas the role AI is playing in this, and how application engineers must peaceable safeguard towards ever-smarter LLMs. But for now, I contain to share my prime recommendation within the event you’ve been laid off.
I honest spoke to a mid-level engineer who modified into laid off from a Substantial Tech company in London. They were understandably distraught and feeling demoralized.
The most efficient recommendation I in fact contain is very uncomplicated: Or no longer it’s some distance a must to name your advantages and exploit them.
When you are making some reflection, you’ll be ready to name a prolonged list of of us, sources, or opportunities that you contain odd entry to. The inquiries to depend to your self:
- Where make you contain a solid community of of us that would possibly per chance perhaps refer you? (Here’s likely your outdated colleagues or college alumni.)
- Where make you contain confirmed expertise in a skill that would possibly per chance perhaps well be treasured for employers? (For instance, being very effective with Search engine marketing or prompting.)
- What are the domains that you’ve been passionate about sooner than they turned chilly? (Asserting that you’re passionate about AI doesn’t depend since every person appears to be like to be passionate about AI for the time being.)
The “spray-and-pray” methodology for job applications is no longer most efficient wretched but additionally ineffective. Please don’t ruin your time applying to random jobs on LinkedIn or Certainly. As a replace, follow the template established by of us with the most enviable careers: safe positions the put you contain an “in.”
Too many engineers name a buzzy company and exhaust the long-established approaches in attempting to land a job. In an age the put the market is flooded with job seekers, there is too worthy competition for this to be effective. As a replace, work forward from odd advantages and promising eventualities.
—Rahul
Why Engineers Restful Need the Humanities
Amid frequent funding cuts to many U.S. companies, humanities examine grants are being slashed. Historian and IEEE Spectrum contributor Allison Marsh explains how engineering is, and continuously has been entwined with the humanities. “The bygone engineers of the 20th century known this solid bond to the humanities,” Marsh writes.
Balancing Work and Lifestyles: An Engineer’s Handbook to Fulfillment
How can busy engineers make a work-existence balance? The important thing to managing your profession and non-public existence would possibly per chance perhaps fair certainly lie in reframing the seek data from. “Terminate viewing work and existence as opposites and originate recognizing how they complement every other.” About a uncomplicated ideas would possibly per chance perhaps assist engineers with this total narrate.
ICYMI: This Man Made the Modem in Your Phone a Truth
In gradual February, Broadcom cofounder Henry Samueli obtained the 2025 IEEE Medal of Honor for his pioneering work in broadband dialog and networking know-how. Learn about his profession in this profile from Spectrum senior editor emeritus Tekla Perry.
