DevOps Engineer / Platform Engineer / Site Reliability Engineer

A subconcious insecurity

My overall education started a bit late than normal people due to my fathers transfers and school admission rules. Consequently when I applied for JEE Advanced back in 2017 i was 19.5 years old. I got it but wasnt satisfied so dropped a year and got a better rank. I was 20.5 years old when I finally joined IIT. Somewhere subconciously throughout my college life i felt that I did achieve what I wanted to but really late. I know theres nothing I could do about it but this was something still killing me inside. Most of my batchmates where 18 year olds and even the ones who dropped where at most 19. I always wanted to pursue my masters and phd but somewhere at the back of my mind I feel I would have to go theough the same feelings again. It just kills me so much inside. Currently I have completed 2 years as a software engineer and I am 26 years old. On one part my mind tells me that I am made for much more than just an IT job and should go to academia. On the other hand it feels like I am too old for it. I dont know what to do. I am not able to rationalize my thoughts. I am not able to understand how can I bring myself to overcome my fears and achieve what i really want in life.

Signs of layoffs because of AI and how to prepare for it in Big 4? 😱

I am an entry level analyst in at Deloitte. Just wondering if these are some signs of a practice not doing great + potential layoffs in a few months/year. 1. Utilization: ~45% last quarter. They originally said that it was a slow start to the year with low CapEx by companies but we still don't look good this quarter now. There was a small call last night between a few people in this project level meeting and the senior management straight up said "Their is no demand and people are still on bench. We need to reallocate some headcount" 2. Headcount growth - Last 1.5 years ago, every month we had 10-15 people join our practice, This has literally gone down to 1-2 hires to replace people who have left. 3. Resignations: 6-7 people are leaving every month in my practice, which is quite harsh. Someone told me that everyone they used to work with when they joined have already left. 4. AI-pocalypse - I feel most companies think that they can now do AI inhouse and niche projects but higher costs because of MS/PhD folks working on it is something they dont want to go for anymore. If a layoff is incoming, what would be the best ways to prep? I see two options: 1. Getting on a boring sad project but long term. 2. Do nothing: I am literally the cheapest resource in the company so they would ideally layoff senior folks first, right??

OpenAI's New AI Agents Priced Up To $20K

- OpenAI is planning to charge up to $20,000 per month for specialized AI agents. - Different agents will be tailored for specific applications like sales and software engineering. - The highest-priced agent will support PhD-level research at $20,000 per month. - SoftBank has committed to spending $3 billion on these agent products this year. - OpenAI needs the funds after incurring $5 billion in losses last year. Source: [TechCrunch](https://techcrunch.com/2025/03/05/openai-reportedly-plans-to-charge-up-to-20000-a-month-for-specialized-ai-agents/)