On March 31, Oracle laid off 30,000 people. One of them was a software engineer who decided the only option was to lock in.
He built a 30-day self-study plan using Claude: transformers, attention mechanisms, the foundations of AI engineering. One to two hours a day. Alongside the learning, he built two portfolio projects to prove the skills were real. He applied to ten to fifteen jobs daily across LinkedIn, Indeed, Naukri, and Wellfound. LinkedIn Premium brought roughly twenty recruiters to his inbox.
By mid-May — forty-five days after the layoff — he had interviewed with seven companies and received three offers. He accepted a role as an AI developer.
When he posted the timeline on r/developersIndia, the response was equal parts admiration and realism. Some credited his Oracle pedigree as the real unlock. Others praised his refusal to let the layoff define the narrative. The community agreed on one thing: forty-five days from pink slip to three competing offers is a tempo worth studying.