"My wife is five months pregnant. I was just fired from my banking job"

I was recently made redundant after spending four years at a French bank in London. I worked in a team building and maintaining full stack applications that were used across several business areas.

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Over those years I became deeply involved in the systems we built and worked closely with traders, analysts, and other developers. I joined as a developer and gradually became a key engineer handling everything from backend services and APIs to the user interface and deployment automation. It was demanding work, but I believed I was contributing to something important and stable.

Then the redundancy news came suddenly. There was no warning or performance concern, just a short consultation period and a statement about business priorities changing. It was devastating because I am on a Skilled Worker visa, and a redundancy means my right to stay in the UK is at risk unless I find another sponsored job quickly.

I am also five months into my wife's pregnancy. The uncertainty is difficult to describe. After four years of commitment, I suddenly have no income, no clarity, and very little time to secure a new role before my visa expires.

I wanted to share this because many people in similar positions quietly face the same situation. They dedicate years to a firm, build products that people rely on, and then are left to navigate redundancy and visa rules alone. I am proud of the work I did and the relationships I built, but right now I am trying to stay hopeful and find a way forward for my family.

Thank you for reading.

Henri Brian is a pseudonym

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