Adiós 2025. You were not the year I expected — and somehow, you were the year I needed.
2025 was the year tech moved faster than people could keep up. AI everywhere. Roles erased overnight. Layoffs normalized. The loud reminder? Your next job won’t come from your resume anymore — it comes from your networking. Consequently, this year forced many of us to buckle up, rethink identity, and bootstrap courage alongside ideas. Here are the 10 things that died in tech in 2025 — and what you need to survive 2026.
10 Things That Died in Tech in 2025
The Death of Coordination Roles
1. Roles like Scrum Master, QA, and Business Analyst. When AI can write test cases, analyze requirements, and facilitate standups, these coordination roles got flattened into PM and engineering responsibilities.
2. Managers who manage managers. The org chart got a violent trim. In fact, companies axed middle management layers that added overhead but no value. Amazon, Dell, Apple, Google, and IBM doubled down on return-to-office mandates while quietly cutting the bureaucratic bloat.
AI Killed the Pretenders
3. The “AI Strategy” consultant who can’t code. If you’re selling AI transformation but can’t build a working prototype, you’re selling theater. As a result, the days of PowerPoint-only consultants are over.
4. The belief that product managers don’t need technical skills. Wireframes and roadmaps aren’t enough anymore. Instead, PMs who can’t prototype with AI are becoming PMs who can’t compete.
5. The 3-6 month MVP timeline. What used to take a quarter to ship now takes weeks. Furthermore, AI tools can generate a working prototype in days, and founders who still think they need months of dev time before launching are losing to competitors who shipped last Tuesday.
6. Subscription pricing that pretends tokens don’t exist. We all learned the hard way: “unlimited” AI plans are lies wrapped in fine print. Eventually, usage-based pricing became the norm after enough people burned through credits in a week.
Perks That Died in 2025
7. The nice office perks from COVID. Free snacks, fancy coffee, catered lunches — all going away. Specifically, as part of the recently passed One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), starting January 1, 2026, businesses will no longer be able to deduct the cost of meals provided to employees on business premises. Additionally, eliminating the deduction is projected to raise $32 billion in additional taxes on employers through 2034.
8. Work from home as the default. Just in the last couple of weeks, Novo Nordisk and Paramount told employees they’d have to start coming in five days, and Microsoft and NBCUniversal announced they would be upping the number of required in-office days. Meanwhile, hybrid or fully in-office have taken their place. New York enjoyed a U.S.-high 3.5% net gain in tech talent from 2022 to 2023, while San Francisco ranked last with a 3.7% net loss. Subsequently, people are moving back to San Francisco and New York, reversing the pandemic exodus.
Hiring & Talent Programs
9. H-1B visa sponsorship and DEI programs as we knew them. Trump’s $100,000 H-1B visa fee killed casual sponsorship. Therefore, TCS and Cognizant stopped hiring anyone requiring visas. Simultaneously, Trump’s executive order ended federal DEI programs, while Meta, Amazon, Target, and Walmart eliminated DEI teams, supplier diversity programs, and employee resource groups. Ultimately, political pressure beat corporate commitments.
10. The entry-level software engineering role. Among college graduates ages 22 to 27, computer science and computer engineering majors are facing unemployment rates of 6.1% and 7.5% respectively — more than double the unemployment rates of recent biology and art history graduates. Instead, companies want seniors who can ship on day one. AI handles what juniors used to learn on, and nobody has time to train.
My 2025: Rebuilding While Tech Burned
For the first time in 24 years, I didn’t measure my year by money, team size, logos, titles, or “impact metrics.” This year didn’t look impressive on paper. However, it looked honest.
I revamped clarityforproduct.com — not to impress, but to finally explain who I am and how I help. First, I got my first paid customer. Then, I improved my social media marketing by triple digits. Additionally, I started a podcast called “Two Coffees In” with my friend Lu (launching soon). Finally, I took a bet on myself with Questimate — solo founding while managing personal investments and staying disciplined about what work I take on.
In the middle of all the uncertainty, I did something grounding: I married my love, Fatima. No KPI beats that.
The Year of Reconnection
While watching these things that died in tech in 2025, I was also experiencing the year of reconnection. Long-lost college friends. Former colleagues. Conversations that resumed like no time had passed. Importantly, staying visible while rebuilding kept doors open I didn’t know existed.
The 3-day silent retreat changed me. Silence taught me what noise never could. Most nights, the loudest thing was my laughter watching Jimmy Kimmel before bed. Surprisingly, it became a ritual.
Confession: I don’t know how full-time WFH folks do it. I need people. Proximity. Energy. Accidental conversations. Clearly, being around humans isn’t a distraction for me — it’s fuel.
What You Need to Survive 2026 After Tech’s 2025 Reckoning
I’m ending 2025 with fewer guarantees, more grit, deeper relationships, clearer work, and quieter confidence. I don’t have a team, but I have a vision. I don’t have a title, but I have credibility. I don’t have venture funding, but I have paying customers who trust me to fix what’s broken. Understanding what died in tech helps you see where the opportunities lie.
Moreover, I’ve intentionally kept my consulting calendar clear while building Questimate. I have bandwidth for one fractional or full-time engagement in 2026 — specifically for companies dealing with the aftermath of flattening their org: your large codebase is now owned by a skeleton crew, tech debt is piling up, morale is low and you need someone who can bring clarity, rebuild trust, and get a lean team shipping again with hope and purpose.
If you want to survive 2026, build one habit: ship or learn something small every week. Not polished. Not perfect. Just proof you can execute and build a habit. Learn one AI tool deeply. Write one thing publicly. Fix one broken workflow. Ultimately, the people who make it through aren’t the ones with the best ideas — they’re the ones who kept building when everyone else froze.
I’ve seen this before. 2001. 2008. 2020. Every time, the ones who kept showing up, kept learning, kept shipping — they didn’t just survive. Instead, they thrived when the boom came back. And it always comes back.
After seeing what died in tech this year, I’m more convinced than ever: you still got this. Ride it out. Build quietly. Stay visible. The next wave is coming.
Adiós 2025. Onward to 2026.
Reference Links
- Return to office mandates – ARC Relocation
- Changes to meal deductions – LMC
- Trump tax law office snacks – Fortune
- Remote work ending – Marketplace
- Tech workers leaving SF for NY – SF Chronicle
- H-1B visa fee changes – SF Chronicle
- Companies stopping H-1B sponsorship – Law Firm
- DEI rollbacks in 2025 – HR Dive
- Federal DEI programs ending – White House
- H-1B visa restriction – White House
