Software Engineer Lost His Job 4 Times in 18 Years: 'AI Isn't the Culprit'

Marc Kriguer, who has been in the programming industry for 28 years, told Business Insider that he was first laid off in 2008 at Sun Microsystems. He then lost jobs at three other companies, including a plagiarism-checking startup, a business affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, and most recently Walmart Global Tech, where he was a senior software engineer before being cut along with about 1,500 other employees.

AI has changed the employment landscape in a number of ways. (Source: Getty Images)

Don't Blame AI

Despite the widespread adoption of AI, Marc Kriguer asserts: “ AI is not the reason I lost my job. The problem lies in recruitment strategy and operating costs.”

The root cause of the layoffs, according to Marc, is that companies hire too quickly and too much, leading to costs exceeding revenues: “They take on a lot of capital investment, then expand beyond their long-term ability to pay.”

He also said that software engineers are often targeted because of their high salaries, so when it comes to cutting costs, engineers are often laid off.

Programming engineer Marc Krieger on a recruitment site. (Source: Xing)

According to Dylan Serota, CEO of recruitment platform Terminal, AI is not replacing software engineers but changing the nature of work: “ There is an evolution of the profession, not a replacement. Companies are now looking for engineers who can think systems-wise rather than just write code.”

He said industry CTOs agree that AI increases productivity, but humans are still needed to handle complex, creative, and strategic problems.

Cases where AI replaces humans

Although not the only cause, artificial intelligence (AI) has contributed significantly to the wave of mass layoffs at many large technology corporations.

Microsoft, for example, has announced plans to cut about 9,000 jobs by 2025 as part of a restructuring to increase investment in AI – a technology that can now write up to 30% of its code internally.

IBM is also not out of the game when it lays off about 8,000 employees, mainly in the human resources (HR) department, which will be replaced by AI systems that automate the recruitment and employee management process.

In fintech, Klarna has scaled down from 5,000 to 3,000 employees by applying AI to customer care, significantly reducing the need for support staff.

Even more notable is Dukaan – a technology company in India – which laid off 90% of its customer service team and replaced them with an internal chatbot, surprising the public with the speed of “digitalization” of the workforce.

Top tech companies have cut thousands of jobs since early 2025. (Source: Forbes)

AI is not the “enemy”

MIT economist Daron Acemoglu believes that AI currently only affects about 5% of jobs and is not yet capable of completely replacing humans: “ AI is good at predictive environments, but most real-world jobs require judgment and interaction – things that AI cannot do yet.”

He warned that putting too much hope in AI could lead to strategic mistakes, and called for AI to be developed in a way that works with humans, rather than replacing them.

Marc Kriguer also believes that AI cannot replace humans, even when it comes to coding. Marc admits that many jobs today require experience with AI, but he doesn’t feel cut out of the market: “Most companies are open to AI training after hiring.”

The market still has opportunities

Despite losing several jobs, Marc Kriguer has never been unemployed for more than five months. He has applied to about 40 companies and interviewed at 15. “I don’t see the demand for software engineers going down. Maybe not up, but not down, ” he said.

Marc and other experts’ stories show that AI is not the sole culprit in the wave of software engineer layoffs. Instead, financial strategy, human resource management, and excessive expectations for new technology are at the root of the problem.

In the future, software engineers will not disappear, but they will need to adapt to new roles. They will need to learn additional skills, combining systems thinking, creativity and the ability to work with AI.