After spending roughly a quarter-century working in technology, James Strawn never expected his next career move would involve getting behind the wheel of a 40-foot school bus. Strawn, a Colorado resident who spent most of his career in tech, worked at Adobe for 25 years, including as a senior software quality engineer. But after he was laid off in 2025, he found himself facing a job search that proved far more difficult than he had anticipated.
Jeff Bezos backs a platform that lets anyone invest in rental homes for as little as $100 — 6 ways to build wealth like a landlord without actually being one Dave Ramsey warns nearly 50% of Americans are making 1 big Social Security mistake. Here's what it is and 3 simple steps to fix it ASAP The tax breaks in Trump's 'big beautiful bill' expire after 2028. Here are 4 moves to make before the window closes "To the potential employers and recruiters who blindly filtered out my applications, ghosted me on direct inquiries or never even bothered to show up for interviews: I hope this industry can find its way back to treating people better," he wrote in a recent LinkedIn post.
Strawn wrote that he spent more than a year looking for jobs after losing his position. Eventually, he decided he was done waiting for another tech job. In August 2026, he began a new chapter as a school bus driver for his local Colorado school district.
"After a long, difficult year-plus of looking for work and being demoralized and discriminated against by the high-tech industry, I'm glad to share that my next chapter has begun," he wrote. "Next week I start my new — and hopefully final — career as a school bus driver for my local school district." The job comes with a major pay cut compared to his previous career, but Strawn says he has found something he wasn't getting from the tech world: a sense of community. He described the students as "mostly" good, while praising his new coworkers as caring, kind and down to earth.
"To those at my previous employer who passed me over, brought me down, and ultimately laid me off: thank you as well, but only because you showed me the door to a better future," he continued. "It's people like you who make me glad I'll be driving a 40-foot bus instead of a computer." Read More: Vanguard reveals what's coming for U.S. stocks — and it could be bad news for this group of investors Strawn's forced career change is an example of what can happen when an experienced tech worker finds himself on the wrong side of an industry-wide shift. Technology companies continue to slash jobs while pouring unprecedented amounts of money into artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies.
U.S. tech companies cut more than 140,000 jobs during the first half of 2026, according to an analysis by the Financial Times, with the sector accounting for more than one-third of all announced U.S. layoffs. Companies including Amazon, Oracle, Meta and Microsoft accounted for nearly 50,000 of those cuts. The cuts don't necessarily mean technology itself is disappearing as a career field.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
