Dave Merritt

Dave Merritt graduated with a BS in Computer Science in 2001 and worked his way up to Senior Software Engineer at a FAANG-adjacent firm — backend, internal tools, the reliability work nobody talks about at conferences.

He found out he'd been laid off via a 5-line Slack message in March 2025. He stopped posting on LinkedIn six weeks later.

He now runs three small income streams in parallel: technical due diligence for two small VC funds, a $2,800-MRR SaaS for fintech compliance teams, and AP-math tutoring at $100/hour. Household income is down 35% from peak. His wife works in clinical research administration; that's the only reason the mortgage still gets paid.