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Navigate Your First AI Layoff Scare

5 min read

Support Eng

Tier-1 support gets automated first. Your move: get really good at escalation judgment, complex cases, and relationship recovery. That's the keep list.

Tech Writer

Docs teams are 'efficiency' targets. The ones who survive own accuracy, internal knowledge, and 'nobody else knows where this is.' Be that person.

Tpm

TPM roles are often cut in 'do more with less' — but the good ones become irreplaceable. Own the chaos no one else wants.

Navigate Your First AI Layoff Scare

TL;DR

  • When leadership says "AI efficiency," they usually mean headcount cuts. It's not personal. It's math. Prepare accordingly.
  • The best defense: be the person who'd be painful to lose. That means ownership, context, and relationships — not just output.
  • Don't freeze. Update your resume, understand your value, and have a plan. Hope isn't a strategy.

So the all-hands said "we're exploring AI to increase efficiency." Or "restructuring." Or "right-sizing." Your stomach dropped. Good. Now let's do something about it.

What "AI Efficiency" Usually Means

It means: fewer people, same (or more) output. Sometimes it's real — AI actually multiplies productivity. Sometimes it's cover for cost-cutting. Either way, the result is the same: some roles get cut.

Juniors can be targets because they're seen as "replaceable." The countermove is to make that calculation wrong. How? By being the person who owns something no one else does.

Before the Ax Falls: Build Optionality

  • Update your resume. Today. Not when you need it.
  • Know your value. What would break if you left? If the answer is "not much," fix that. Own a system, a process, or a relationship.
  • Have a network. Coworkers who've left, people you've helped, a GitHub that tells a story. Layoffs are less scary when you're not starting from zero.

When It Happens: Don't Take It Personally

Layoffs are rarely about individual performance. They're about spreadsheets. The people making the list often don't know you. Your job is to land on your feet — not to internalize it as "I wasn't good enough."

Get your severance info. Understand your benefits. File for unemployment if you need it. There's no bonus for suffering in silence.

Quick Check

Leadership says 'we're exploring AI to increase efficiency.' As a junior, what's the BEST move?

Layoff rumors hit. You freeze. Your resume is from 2022. You don't know what you'd own in an interview. You're scared and unprepared.

Click "Prepared" to see the difference →

Do This Next

  1. Spend 30 minutes this week updating your resume and LinkedIn. Add one concrete project or achievement from the last 6 months. You'll feel better having done it.
  2. Identify one thing you could own more fully — a runbook, a doc, a relationship. Own it. Make yourself harder to replace.