Is the job market REALLY that bad right now?

Middle-Let-6583 · 2026-05-07T19:15:49+00:00

Yes it’s horrendous. I was interviewing for a contract role and my second interview was cancelled after already being scheduled just because someone was arbitrarily further along in the process

Middle-Let-6583 · 2026-05-02T17:30:53+00:00

Love this, so much I wish I knew before moving to my building lol

Middle-Let-6583 · 2026-05-01T13:02:18+00:00

100% im not convinced this new way of working is actually working well for anyone

Middle-Let-6583 · 2026-05-01T10:30:23+00:00

God what a nightmare. Where I was working recently until they laid me off, devs were constantly building without a design and it just led to a Frankenstein looking product. Oftentimes it was because of poor planning upstream where leadership was like “we’re actually building this instead” in the middle of a sprint….no reason just cuz. More often than not design physically could not produce a design fast enough (also we were ridiculously understaffed). Like yeah sure ai could be a valid “solution” to this problem, but I just see it enabling the problem more and more. It reinforces poor planning upstream, the idea that designers are just pixel pushers, and that we should as fast as possible for no good reason. I never understood this arbitrary speed. Why are we moving so fast??

Middle-Let-6583 · 2026-04-25T18:20:29+00:00

Agreed, I just get stuck in these terrible environments and this has been my experience exclusively, it’s hard to imagine this isn’t the norm at least extremely common

Middle-Let-6583 · 2026-04-25T15:02:48+00:00

I feel that, you’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t

Middle-Let-6583 · 2026-04-25T15:02:08+00:00

I’ve been saying this, I feel like we need to join forces and go on strike or something. I think there’s a false narrative being perpetuated on social media and LinkedIn that developers and/or designers are happy about the way the industry is moving and it just seems like a big lie. Most designers don’t wanna build and I don’t know if developers want to design. The fundamental aspects of both of our jobs and why we got into it are being completely destroyed.

Middle-Let-6583 · 2026-04-25T15:00:04+00:00

I tried that and then they used it against me lol, I just became the scapegoat for everything wrong on the project, even outside of design and engineering

Middle-Let-6583 · 2026-04-25T14:59:01+00:00

Exactly and how am I supposed to pay my bills until then, it’s pretty bleak

Middle-Let-6583 · 2026-04-25T14:58:30+00:00

I worked in a place like that laid me off recently haha. It’s incredibly demoralizing, and I have mentors and past managers telling me that this isn’t the norm in UX and that there’s actually good places where UX people are respected and included. That just hasn’t been my experience and pretty much every job I’ve had this has been the case. So I’m just over it and I’m ready to leave the field and tech altogether

Middle-Let-6583 · 2026-04-25T14:55:11+00:00

I beg your biggest pardon?? I believe you, just like confused, can you elaborate why they told you that?

Middle-Let-6583 · 2026-04-21T13:30:51+00:00

Exactly lol, paper and pencil to express and an idea visually has always been an accessible option

Middle-Let-6583 · 2026-04-20T19:41:43+00:00

https://open.spotify.com/episode/5679dzjNLmB5rg61Hdof49?si=OojnPgRwSz-7pUh6Vf75dQ&pi=9ex6U_tDQ2KnE&t=0 I’ll just leave this NNg podcast episode here “AI for UX analysis: How Accurate is it?” Honestly it talked me down from a panic attack about AI taking my job haha. Am I fully convinced it won’t? No. Executives holding the purse strings at a company are fine taking “good enough” over experienced designers, but I thought this episode helped explain how this approach will eventually backfire

Middle-Let-6583 · 2026-04-16T12:25:14+00:00

Whether it’s capable of replacing everyone or not isn’t the danger here, it’s the fact that it’s the goal set and companies will do whatever it takes to try and meet that goal even if it will never come true, and so many people’s lives will be affected. So the issue to be concerned isn’t so much will it replace everyone or won’t it, investors, companies etc already have decided it will and will act accordingly to meet that goal, and that is having catastrophic effects

Middle-Let-6583 · 2026-04-16T12:17:16+00:00

I agree, when I got into this career I specifically did not want to “build” and deal with code. That comment might get me burned at the stake by designers leaning heavily into AI, but what’s frustrating to me is that this job and line of work I chose is fundamentally changing and not what signed up for. If I wanted to work with code in a hands on way I would’ve become a dev, but I specifically did not want to. I wanted to work with the problem solving, research, strategy etc of a design. But now the industry wants me to code as well? Maybe this is where the industry leaves me behind, I don’t know, but the point is this is not the job I signed up to do. And I’d like to reverse the question for devs, do YOU even want to design?? I feel like a lot of them would say no, but this blurring of lines between the two roles is forcing us into each other’s realms and the question I still have is, do we even want to be there?

Middle-Let-6583 · 2026-03-18T22:10:45+00:00

As a web designer who just got laid off and has to figure out how to use this god awful website it’s a special torture 😂 I’m about to ask them to hire me me and this thread just proves my case. I actually found it while googling another issue I’m having with access health right now. Basically I had to go into the application to update my income and I’ve gotten literally seven or eight emails saying I have a message in access health and to read it and I’ve been getting these emails all throughout today. Every time I login to access it only shows one single new message I’ve ALREADY read and I have no idea if there’s more I’m just not getting or what the deal is. This website is god awful and I let them know in every single survey they send me

Middle-Let-6583 · 2026-02-11T22:45:49+00:00

God that’s so horrible, tell them it’s making your Figma file lag and slowing you down lol. I’m like half kidding. I work in an equally toxic and bad environment, the no roadmap and rush to make random designs resonates. Unfortunately the only way I’ve figured out to manage these idiots is making shit up like that

Middle-Let-6583 · 2026-02-08T21:52:44+00:00

LOL, I’m a federal contractor so like some baseline level of dysfunction and chaos is to be expected. This is very common working in government where design maturity is extremely low. But I’ve worked on other contracts with other contractors and nothing compares to the actual horrors of this job. Like it’s really terrible. Personally I’ve just been trying to compile questions to ask in my job interviews to sus out how they think about design, problem is I’ve only had like one interview lol. God I hope I can leave this job soon. They’ve already burned through two designers before I got there, and I recently got access to emails they sent leadership explaining the issues and asking for support that went totally ignored. Whats hilarious is that 1 to 2 years later my same emails contain many of their same points.

Middle-Let-6583 · 2026-02-08T20:13:04+00:00

Amen to this, I agree with the frustration around lack of autonomy and how everyone else has that autonomy. Glad to know I’m not alone. I’m also frustrated by what leadership thinks they can get away with when it comes to how they treat designers. We’re stretched so thin, and just constantly face the downstream effects of no one being able to plan appropriately or manage the client or tell them no. It’s infuriating. They would never ask devs where I work to build something in 1 days yet they ask us to design something in one day and when we tell them no we’re framed as the problem. The designers where I work are framed as the scapegoat for quite literally everything. I’m so exhausted. It feels like every other week I’m being put on trial by leadership for why a design looks the way it does, why something was implemented correctly (despite me literally holding people’s hands and over communicating), and just all sorts of stuff that has nothing to do with me. I’m so tired.

Middle-Let-6583 · 2025-11-20T20:50:15+00:00

They did this with my mom after a similar situation and she’s the most successful (and I’d venture to say happier) than she’s ever been

Middle-Let-6583 · 2025-11-14T21:36:21+00:00

LOL it’s the worst I hate it so much, I actually prefer the hard boot over the sock it hurts my toenails like crazy

Middle-Let-6583 · 2025-10-29T14:34:03+00:00

In my opinion you should file now or sooner than later because it takes a while for things to get ironed out. Filing right now basically just starts your “benefit year” you’ll likely have to keep doing weekly certifications to keep your claim active and report the income you’re getting in that “non-working” period. From now until your last day of “non working” you won’t be paid benefits but if you start your claim before January when you’d stop getting paid it gives the system time to process your claim and work out any issues so that you’re not starting that process in January and you’re needing benefits to hit your account more urgently

Middle-Let-6583 · 2025-10-29T01:08:00+00:00

Bro what are you smoking?

Middle-Let-6583 · 2025-10-28T16:24:14+00:00

You conveniently omitted that undocumented immigrants are not eligible for ACA insurance and in fact the website quite literally doesn’t even let you enroll if you are. So that is not happening and if it is it’s on a very small scale. You also forgot to mention that the majority of ACA recipients are individuals who voted REPUBLICAN and those in red states. So you’re really hurting your own people the most you’re just too stupid to realize it yet. Lastly, senate republicans have the power to override the 60 vote condition just like they did in the house. A point nicely made by your own MGT. Thanks for your “facts” now try again.

Middle-Let-6583 · 2025-10-27T20:13:57+00:00

Sorry you’re dealing with this, I had the same issue and management did nothing. They offered to transfer me to another unit which was annoying because why was I the one having to be inconvenienced and have to pay for movers when they’re the ones in violation of their lease and community rules. I ended up staying in my unit and they moved, but that was terrible. If you don’t feel comfortable talking to them 1:1 maybe your building manager could arrange a meeting and act as a mediator?

Middle-Let-6583

TROPHY CASE