From Layoffs to AI Self-Rescue: I Spent a Week Using Alibaba's AI Coding to Build a Usable Protein Analysis Script

A friend recommended Alibaba's AI Coding to me, saying it could cut my script-writing time from half a day down to thirty minutes. I didn't believe it until I saw that IT Home news last week—over 124,000 layoffs in the global tech industry in the first seven months of 2026, with Oracle, Amazon, Dell, and Meta all cutting staff. Two wet-lab researchers from the group next door to my lab just got laid off, and even postdoc contracts were slashed from three years to one. Real talk: if I don't pick up some AI tools, I'm terrified there'll be a termination letter waiting in my inbox someday.