A Bengaluru-based software engineer has gone viral after revealing a humorous yet controversial “I GOT FIRED” button designed in response to growing anxiety around AI layoffs and job insecurity in the tech industry.
The post quickly exploded across social media, triggering reactions ranging from laughter to serious concerns about cybersecurity and corporate retaliation.
The viral post was shared by Bengaluru techie Pankaj Tanwar on X, where he jokingly claimed that pressing the button would instantly expose a company’s secrets after an employee gets fired.
“AI layoffs are getting out of hand so I built ‘I GOT FIRED’ button,” he wrote in the post.
According to the engineer, one click on the device would allegedly make the company’s codebase public, leak environment secrets to public repositories, wipe staging databases, and automatically notify his lawyer. While the post was clearly intended as satire, it struck a nerve among tech workers navigating uncertainty in the age of artificial intelligence.
Photos shared online showed a compact multi-button device attached to his laptop setup. Several buttons carried sarcastic labels including “Gaslight Them,” “Decode Corporate BS,” and the now-viral red button titled “I GOT FIRED.”
One image displayed a fake system notification reading, “.env secrets committed and pushed to public repo.” Another showed an automated out-of-office message stating, “Out of office: permanently. Contact my lawyer.”
The viral post arrives at a time when discussions around AI-driven restructuring and mass layoffs continue to dominate the global tech industry. Companies worldwide have increasingly turned to automation and artificial intelligence tools to reduce operational costs, leaving many employees worried about long-term job security.
Social media users flooded the comments section with memes, warnings and jokes. While some praised the engineer’s creativity and dark humour, others pointed out the serious legal consequences such actions could invite in real life.
One user commented, “The lawyer call should have happened before making this post.” Another joked, “This is funny until the cybersecurity team sees it.”
Several users also highlighted how companies usually disable employee credentials immediately during layoffs precisely to prevent unauthorised access or data leaks.
Despite being intended as satire, the post successfully captured the growing frustration and anxiety many young professionals feel amid rapid AI adoption across industries. The conversation quickly expanded beyond humour, turning into a wider discussion about workplace pressure, automation fears and trust between companies and employees.
The viral “I GOT FIRED” button has now become one of the latest internet symbols reflecting the uneasy relationship between artificial intelligence, corporate culture and modern tech jobs.
