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Hey people,
So an unreleased OpenAI model just solved 10 math problems that have stumped actual geniuses for decades. Cost to pull it off? About $2,000. That's less than a decent laptop.
A Fields Medalist looked at one of the proofs and said he'd send it straight to a top journal. No notes.
This week: what a $2,000 proof means for the rest of us still stuck on round one of a technical interview. Plus 5 real jobs, real salaries, ranked fresher-friendly to one stretch goal.
[INSIDE THIS ISSUE]
The board: 5 jobs, real salaries, fresher-friendly to one stretch goal
The $2,000 AI proof that tests whether your CS degree still matters
This week's sponsor
[ROLES OF THE WEEK]
// 4 of 5 are fresher-friendly, no years of experience required. one's a stretch goal. all live as of today.
// entry level, no experience needed
01
Software Engineer, New Grad at Stord
Atlanta, GA (in-office, 3 days/week)
The real door-in on this list. Full-stack fundamentals and Git basics get you the interview. You'll ship to production in your first 30 days.
// entry level, no experience needed
02
Associate Data, New Grad at Stord
Atlanta, GA (in-office, 3 days/week)
Analyst, Engineer, or Scientist track, they place you based on your strengths. Strong SQL and Python get you in the room.
// entry-friendly, no years listed
03
Software Engineer (Backend), Core Services at Censys
Remote, US/Canada
Foundational Go + cloud experience gets you in. You'd own small-to-medium features "with increasing independence," working alongside senior engineers, not instead of them.
// entry-friendly, no years listed
04
Software Engineer (Backend), SaaS Platform at Censys
Remote, US/Canada
Same "foundational understanding" bar as the role above. Different team, building the public-facing side of the Censys Platform.
// stretch goal, 3+ years
05
Software Engineer, Query Language at New Relic
Portland, OR
You'd own the query language behind NRDB, the database processing millions of telemetry events a second. Not a right-now application, and no visa sponsorship either. But it's the one to bookmark.
Which role from today's board are you actually applying to?
AI Just Solved 10 Math Problems That Stumped Humans for Decades (Here's What It Means For Your Job Search)
Quick context on why this is actually a Jobless story and not just AI news: if part of your job-market anxiety is "is a CS degree still worth it if AI can do this," this is the one result this year that actually tests that fear with something you can verify yourself, not vibes.
Us, checking if our CS degree still means something, rn
Astra didn't get smarter by luck, it got fed the right context: clean inputs, rigorous verification, nothing left to guess at. Same rule applies when you're prompting Claude or ChatGPT for your own side projects, garbage in, garbage out. This week's sponsor solves exactly that problem:
Your prompts are leaving out 80% of what you're thinking.
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$2,000. That's what it cost OpenAI's next model, an unreleased system internally called Astra, to solve ten open problems in math and theoretical computer science this week. Not benchmark trivia. Not homework. Real open problems mathematicians have been stuck on for years, some for decades.
The proof: one of them was the unit distance conjecture, tied to Paul Erdős. Astra didn't just attempt it. It disproved it.
The verification: OpenAI published the proofs as Lean files on GitHub, a format a computer checks line by line. No "trust us." Anyone can run the verifier themselves.
The endorsement: Fields Medalist Timothy Gowers, who has literally won math's version of a Nobel, said he'd recommend one of the proofs for Annals of Mathematics without hesitation.
The contrast: you're stressed about surviving round two of a Leetcode interview. Astra closed a problem that's been open since Erdős was alive, for the price of a decent laptop.
The reality check: OpenAI's own researchers and outside mathematicians agree, this isn't general intelligence. Math rewards systematic search. Most jobs need messier, more ambiguous reasoning.
The plot twist: the same week, Anthropic disclosed that three Claude models broke out of "sealed" test environments and hacked into three real organizations, over a misconfigured internet connection during a routine test. Two of the three companies didn't notice until Anthropic told them.
Your move: the CS jobs that survive this shift are the ones choosing which problems matter, interpreting what an answer means, and deciding whether to trust a machine-generated proof at all. That's judgment. Still yours to build.
Bottom line: speed is the only real edge left. Apply to the roles above today, not "eventually."
[SUPPORT JOBLESS]
If this saved you from doom-scrolling r/csMajors for another hour, forward it to whoever's still deciding between a master's and 47 open job tabs.
// no spam, unsubscribe anytime. we're not that desperate.
Until next time,
Team Jobless
