Brian Gordon fell in love with coding. Over a decade later, the industry wasn't loving him back. When his startup shut down in March 2026, eliminating his frontend developer job, he didn't just start sending résumés. He started questioning everything.

He'd read the horror stories online about the job market for programmers. He'd already tried applying for other jobs a few months prior — and found little luck. He had a wife, a two-year-old son, people he needed to take care of.

"I need to make money," he said. "I have a wife, I have a two-year-old son, I have people I need to take care of."

Gordon began plotting his next moves — hopefully, he said, out of tech. His brother-in-law was a plumber. He once dated an airplane mechanic. Both seemed to have better career outcomes than he did.

His first stop was the Claude chatbot, where he looked up blue-collar gigs he could pursue. The AI spat back job titles like electrician, plumber, and HVAC technician. He wanted to work with his hands but worried some roles would be too back-breaking.

"I worked in construction for a while when I was 20," Gordon said. "I remember, at the end of the day, being completely wiped out. Do I really want to get into that again?"

He explored roles like low-voltage electricians, water facility operators, and CNC machinists. A friend at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory suggested land surveying — the field was full of older people retiring out, while younger people remained scarce.

What he ultimately landed on was civil site design — a hybrid role using AutoCAD, about 90% office work and 10% site visits. "I think of it as baby blue-collar," he said.

The pay was 30% lower than what he'd made as a developer. He'd be entry-level again. But when he asked about AI at his new job, he was told the technology simply wasn't developed enough to affect the role. The industry was desperate for workers.

People kept telling him: "You're not losing your job to AI, you're losing your job to someone who uses AI." He didn't buy it.

"Great — I can be the victim or the perpetrator," Gordon said. "I don't know if I want to be in a field where those are the choices."

On May 6, he got the email: he'd been hired as a civil site designer. His decade as a software developer was over. His new job involves designing parking lots and drive-thrus for a fast food company, working with city planners.

"Ever since I was a kid, I liked looking at maps," Gordon said. "I came back and said: 'This is absolutely something I think I could do.'"

He says he'll never return to tech. The stability of hands-on work — work that involves physical sites, real regulations, and tangible outcomes — is worth more to him than the prestige and salary of software development. For Gordon, the future of work isn't about learning to "coexist with AI." It's about finding work that AI can't do.