Bengaluru techie creates revenge button called ‘I got fired’: Click, and company's codebase goes public

A 27-year-old software engineer Pankaj Tanwar shared how growing anxieties around AI-led layoffs pushed him to build a wildly dramatic, and intentionally over the top ‘I GOT FIRED’ button, designed to unleash digital chaos with a single click.

The now-viral post was shared on X by Pankaj, a Bengaluru-based creator.His latest invention struck a nerve online for feeling a little too relatable in today’s uncertain tech climate.

In the post, Pankaj joked about rising fears around job insecurity in the age of automation, writing, AI layoffs are getting out of hand so I built an ‘I GOT FIRED’ button. But it was the supposed functionality of the button that really grabbed attention. According to him, pressing it would instantly trigger a chain of chaotic actions: one click, and it makes the entire company codebase public, pushes .env secrets to public repo, drops staging db and finally notifies his lawyer. 

He ended the post with an equally tongue in cheek disclaimer, adding, I hope I never need it but it’s ready. The accompanying visuals showed a tiny hardware button placed beside a laptop, with a finger dramatically hovering over it as a screen nearby appeared to display an ominous workflow labelled ‘I GOT FIRED’. 

While most viewers understood the post was satirical, it sparked conversations about burnout, layoffs and growing anxiety in the tech industry.

Several users admitted the joke felt uncomfortably relatable, saying the more worrying part was how posts like these no longer sounded absurd but increasingly reflected how disposable many employees have begun to feel in highly automated workplaces. 

Others leaned fully into the humour, joking that if AI was responsible for firing employees, perhaps an AI agent should also be tasked with deciding whether the dramatic button deserved to be activated. Some simply described the invention as unhinged in the funniest way possible, comparing it to a dead man’s switch built for frustrated tech workers navigating unstable job markets.