Manasi Mishra did everything by the book. Growing up in California, she was told that a tech job is the safest way to a six-figure salary. So she learned to code and built her first website when she was still in elementary school. She then went on to major in computer science in college.
“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,” Mishra, 21, told The New York Times.
But having studied computer science at Purdue University, the Indian-American graduate is struggling to find a tech job in the age of AI.
“Please hire me”
Mishra said that she had graduated from Purdue University in May without a job offer in hand despite months of sending her CV out for jobs and internships.
“The only company that called me for an interview was Chipotle,” she said in a viral TikTok video. Chipotle offered her 10 hours a week, which Mishra had to decline as she would not have made enough to survive.
“Somebody please hire me,” she captioned her TikTok video.
Tech jobs in the age of AI
For more than two decades, a computer science degree was seen as a ‘safe’ option – something that would almost guarantee a job after graduation. Billionaires, tech leaders, and even US presidents have urged young people to learn coding, promising high salaries, big bonuses, and job security. This push led to a surge in computer science majors in the US, more than doubling between 2014 and 2024, according to The New York Times.
But as Mishra’s case lays out clearly, that is no longer the case.
In the day and age of artificial intelligence, where AI tools can quickly generate code, entry-level coders are finding it increasingly difficult to land a job.
Some surprising statistics – Recent computer science and engineering graduates face some of the highest unemployment rates among degree holders — 6.1% and 7.5% respectively — more than double the rate for biology or art history graduates.