{"id":60832,"date":"2025-08-12T04:50:12","date_gmt":"2025-08-12T04:50:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/60832\/"},"modified":"2025-08-12T04:50:12","modified_gmt":"2025-08-12T04:50:12","slug":"the-prestige-tech-job-being-decimated-by-ai-as-graduate-21-expecting-six-figure-starting-salary-says-she-could-only-get-interview-at-chipotle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/60832\/","title":{"rendered":"The prestige tech job being decimated by AI as graduate, 21, expecting six figure starting salary says she could only get interview at Chipotle"},"content":{"rendered":"

Aspiring computer scientists are sinking in a job market overtaken by AI<\/a>, as a recent graduate who expected to make six figures could only land an interview at Chipotle.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Manasi Mishra, 21, was under the impression that if she worked hard in school and mastered coding, she’d have a prestigious tech job<\/a> with a cushy salary lined up straight from college.<\/p>\n

‘The rhetoric was, if you just learned to code, work hard and get a computer science degree, you can get six figures for your starting salary,’ the San Roman, California<\/a> native told The New York Times<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But the bright-eyed young coder – who created her first website when she was in elementary school – was in for a rude awakening.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She spent a year scrambling for jobs and internships and still found herself graduating from Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana<\/a>, without a single tech offer.<\/p>\n

In a May\u00a0TikTok<\/a> outlining her increasingly uncommon dilemma, Mishra declared: ‘I just graduated with a computer science degree and the only company that’s called me back for an interview is Chipotle.’<\/p>\n

To her dismay, she did not secure the job<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘Of course, the year I graduate is the year the tech industry goes downhill,’ she elaborated in the ‘get ready with me’ video.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Manasi <\/p>\n

Manasi Mishra (pictured), 21, was under the impression that if she worked hard in school and mastered coding, she’d have a prestigious tech job with a cushy salary lined up straight from college<\/p>\n

\"Mishra <\/p>\n

Mishra did not land the job at the popular fast food chain (file photo of Chipotle)<\/p>\n

Mishra is just one of the discouraged young adults finding themselves with a virtually meaningless computer science degree because of AI’s growing prominence in the tech industry.\u00a0<\/p>\n

People aged 22 to 27 who graduated from college with aspirations of scoring a tech job are facing some of the nation’s highest unemployment rates.\u00a0<\/p>\n

According to a report from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the unemployment rate among those who majored in computer science is 6.1 percent.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The rate is even more alarming for computer engineering majors at a staggering 7.5 percent.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Last year alone, more than 170,000 people majored in tech-related fields. This number is more than double what it was 10 years prior, according to the Computing Research Association, which collected data from more than 200 US universities.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

For comparison, the unemployment rate for the same age group of people who graduated with art history and biology degrees is just three percent.\u00a0<\/p>\n

These troubling statistics are the result of the disastrous combination of AI programming tools and sweeping layoffs from industry leaders <\/a>such as Amazon, Microsoft and Meta.\u00a0<\/p>\n

AI bots can write thousands of lines of code in a matter of minutes – making humans with coding and software engineering skills obsolete in the eyes of employers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"AI <\/p>\n

AI bots can write thousands of lines of code in a matter of minutes – making humans with coding and software engineering skills obsolete in the eyes of employers (stock image)<\/p>\n

\"These <\/p>\n

These troubling statistics are the result of the disastrous combination of AI programming tools and sweeping layoffs from industry leaders such as Microsoft (file photo)<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

‘I\u2019m very concerned,’\u00a0Jeff Forbes, former program director for computer science education and workforce development at the National Science Foundation, confessed to The New York Times.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘Computer science students who graduated three or four years ago would have been fighting off offers from top firms.<\/p>\n

‘And now that same student would be struggling to get a job from anyone.’<\/p>\n

Young people have been encouraged by executives and even US presidents to pursue coding, claiming it would help them stand out and land high-paying positions.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘Learning these skills isn’t just important for your future, it’s important for our country’s future’ then-president Barack Obama said in a 2013 partnership with Code.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n

‘If we want America to stay on the cutting edge,\u00a0we need young Americans, like you,\u00a0to master the tools and technology\u00a0that will change the way we do just about everything.’<\/p>\n

This call to action was reflective of the general sentiment of the industry at the time – before the rapid expansion of AI.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In 2012, top Microsoft executive Brad Smith said most starting salaries hovered around $100,000, paired with a $15,000 sign-on bonus and about $50,000 in stock grants.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Mishra <\/p>\n

Mishra (pictured) ultimately decided that software engineering or consulting was not in the cards for her<\/p>\n

\"Young <\/p>\n

Young people have been encouraged by executives and even US presidents to pursue coding, claiming it would help them stand out and land high-paying positions (stock image)<\/p>\n

These financial incentives, coupled with a feeling of importance surrounding the field, created a sense of industry stability that may soon disappear entirely.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Discouraged graduates reported to The New York Times that over the last few years, they have applied to hundreds – some thousands – of jobs and have been hit with nothing but rejection.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mishra ultimately decided that software engineering or consulting was not in the cards for her.<\/p>\n

But through her hobby-turned side gig as a beauty influencer – garnering more than 15,000 followers on TikTok – she decided she was better suited for the marketing side of the tech industry.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On a whim, she applied for a tech sales position and last month she was offered the job.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘Last week, I was hunching over my bathroom toilet, nauseous over the anxiety I had from being unemployed in this horrible economy,’ Mishra said in a TikTok about the successful interview, which she shared on Monday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘And this week, I’m walking into my first onsite interview…Praise God!’<\/p>\n

The New York Times reported that she will start her new job this month.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Aspiring computer scientists are sinking in a job market overtaken by AI, as a recent graduate who expected…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60833,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[554,733,4308,776,97,775,696,394,1996,50,86,617,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-60832","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-california","12":"tag-dailymail","13":"tag-indiana","14":"tag-microsoft","15":"tag-new-york","16":"tag-new-york-times","17":"tag-news","18":"tag-technology","19":"tag-tiktok","20":"tag-uk","21":"tag-united-kingdom","22":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60832"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60832\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}