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A Reddit post alleging that a software services company laid off nearly 90% of its development team after embracing artificial intelligence has triggered a heated debate over AI's growing role in the workplace.
While the claims have not been independently verified, the post has resonated with developers concerned about how rapidly generative AI is reshaping the tech industry.
The anonymous developer claimed that their mid-sized services company reduced a department of around 70 software engineers to just eight employees, with executives reportedly citing productivity improvements from Claude Fable 5 as the reason behind the decision.
“Nearly the entire team of ~70 laid off citing efficiency from Claude Fable, 8 of us remain. This is insane,” the Reddit user wrote. According to the post, the company had employed a large number of developers before 2023 but had not hired any new engineers since 2025.
The employee said the decline in client projects had already suggested difficult times ahead, but the scale of the layoffs still came as a surprise. “The writing was already on the wall because the number of projects drastically reduced, but today morning I got to know they laid off over 90% of the dev team,” the developer added.
The Reddit user further claimed that company executives told the remaining employees that Claude Fable 5 would enable the reduced team to manage all ongoing projects.
“CXOs basically saying Claude Fable 5 is enough for those of us remaining (supposedly the top performers) to handle the projects the company has left,” the employee wrote.
The post also reflected growing anxiety among software professionals. The developer admitted they had once dismissed AI as ‘just fancy autocomplete,’ but said recent advances in large language models had significantly changed their outlook, raising concerns about long-term career security.
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The post drew mixed reactions from Reddit users. Some questioned whether AI alone could realistically replace dozens of software engineers, arguing that the costs of running advanced AI models would be substantial.
However, others noted that the layoffs could be triggered by poor business performance rather than AI. One contributor who self-identifies as a CTO stated that sometimes corporations use the implementation of AI as an excuse for laying off employees, rather than mentioning the actual business or financial difficulties.
On the other hand, some developers advised laid-off programmers to develop higher-level skills, such as software architecture, product design, testing, and requirements gathering. They claimed that although AI can speed up programming, experienced programmers were still necessary to create, review, and maintain robust software systems.
Even though the Reddit thread was not verified, it once again sparked debate on whether generative AI replaces software engineers or serves as an excuse for cost-cutting efforts in the tech sector.
