When Joshua Tan turned up to Chinese New Year dinner last month, he hadn’t expected to spend the evening defending his career. He was 27 and freshly employed as a junior software engineer in Singapore. The questions from relatives were pointed: is your job safe? Can’t the computer just do it? It was an awkward conversation, equal parts interrogation and familial concern. But Tan knew the anxiety behind the questions was real. Not so long ago, he and his classmates had been so sought-after by...