After 25 Years at Adobe, This Tech Veteran Couldn't Find Another Job – So He Became a School Bus Driver

After more than two decades working in tech, James Strawn is taking on a very different job as a school bus driver. The Colorado-based former senior software quality engineer at Adobe was laid off in 2025 and spent more than a year looking for another role before deciding to change careers.

Strawn worked at Adobe for about 25 years and also spent several years at Accolade. Reflecting on his prolonged job search in a LinkedIn post, he said he had been 'demoralised and discriminated against by the high-tech industry.'

From Tech to the School Bus

Strawn said he would start his new role with the local school district the following week. 'It pays a lot less than my previous job, but it's fun, the kids are good (mostly), and my co-workers are caring, kind, and down-to-earth,' he said. He called school bus driving his 'new—and hopefully final—career.'

He also thanked former co-workers and LinkedIn connections who offered encouragement during his job search.

Strawn Reflects on His Experience in Tech

Strawn also had some pointed words about his experience at his former employer. '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 wrote on LinkedIn. 'It's people like you who make me glad I'll be driving a 40-foot bus instead of a computer.'

He then turned his attention to the wider hiring process, criticising potential employers and recruiters who he said 'blindly filtered out' his applications, 'ghosted' him on direct inquiries, or failed to show up for interviews. Despite his frustration, Strawn ended with a call for better treatment: 'I hope this industry can find its way back to treating people better.'

Other Tech Workers Share Their Experiences

Strawn's post prompted discussion about layoffs and the difficulties some workers said they had experienced while looking for jobs in tech. One Reddit user praised him for embracing the change, writing: 'Props to this guy for doing this and enduring his next stage in his career.' The commenter also suggested that recruiters who 'ghosted him' could eventually be replaced by AI.

Another commenter with 30 years of software experience and more than three years in AI said they had sent 500 applications over five months, reached 10 interviews beyond the recruiter stage, and received no offers. They said companies were 'looking for unicorns' and that some of their friends, including former IBM and Google employees, had been job hunting for more than a year. Some were considering career changes. 'The tech industry is completely fucked,' they concluded.

Concerns Grow Over Ageism in Tech

Strawn's post also prompted a wider discussion about age and the job market. One Redditor in their early 50s wrote that 'basically nobody will hire me' and described age discrimination as a real issue, while others shared concerns about the difficulties older workers can face when seeking new roles.

Those reactions come amid wider research into age-related barriers in the workplace, including in the technology sector. Maureen Clough, host of It Gets Late Early, has described ageism as 'an open secret in the tech industry.' A 2026 AARP survey found that 64% of workers aged 50 and over had seen or experienced age discrimination in the workplace, while 22% of current workers in that age group felt they were being pushed out of their jobs because of their age.