I got laid off when I was 27 and planning a wedding as the primary earner. I was fortunate enough to have savings to get us through till my next job, but that took about 6 months. Its scary, but my advice would be to focus on yourself for a few weeks if you have the financial means to. I dont mean spend a lot of money or go on vacation, but maybe get started on your job profiles and resumes and apply here and there, but also just take time to process and grieve. Go for a walk or a drive and see the world during the day. Play some games or something or work on that fun project you never had time to before.
For me, it was around the time Tears of the Kingdom came out, and zelda is one of my favorite franchises. I would wake up play some Zelda, apply for jobs online for an bour or two, play some Zelda, make dinner for my wife and hang out until she went to bed, then play some Zelda some more.
There’s no “correct” amount of time to be out of a job. I’ve seen people get hired within weeks, but I’ve also seen people go for mo tha or even years. It’s all a process, but like other people said, your job does not define you and you did nothing wrong.
Yeah, I was gonna say, most engineers are gonna be taking a lot of code from the internet anyway. Most problems modern companies face have already been solved in one way or another, its just figuring out what fits your specific product and needs. That being said, I’m pro “ai as a tool in non-creative fields”, but it certainly doesn’t replace engey level engineers. I see it closer to a calculator or like factory machine. It can cut out the grunt work and summarize things well, but it takes a looooot of steering to actually work. And the engineer can maybe learn some new concepts or techniques along the way