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The layoffs are here for those who chose to ‘learn to code’

businessinsider.com

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Re: The layoffs are here for those who chose to ‘learn to code’

#21

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

bratao wrote: post #14

As a fellow developer who has been passionate about open-source programming since childhood, I was disgusted in this last hiring bubble how condescending and disrespectful the developers were towards other professions, which is disappointing. My general feeling was that it elevated developers to a seemingly different caste of "special" people, and here in my country (Brazil) there was advertisements everywhere about…

Don't worry, the sweet irony is hitting those condescending tech-bros now too the same way it hit the condescending crypto/stock bros who kept preaching "the market only goes up", "to the moon" and, my personal favorite which I read on HN, "developer demand is infinite". How's that infinite demand working out now tech-bros? Just ask Twitter employees.

https://imgur.com/a/ZSEl44o

A lot of people working in tech were delusional by the 10+ year long cheap money printing bonanza which fueled VC growth, and a bust is a good reality check that no boom lasts forever and that it's best to be humble and not inflate your lifestyle while you're on top, as your position on top was most likely due to survivorship bias and great market conditions and not earned through raw skills and hard work alone.

Re: The layoffs are here for those who chose to ‘learn to code’

#22

Post by soVeryTired »

jzb wrote: post #15
CraigRo wrote: post #2

A lot of very mediocre people were getting pretty astounding money. Happens every cycle.

Yes, but this article is about developers getting laid off - not c-suite and VPs.

Over the past decade more and more devs have been out-earning surgeons and white-shoe lawyers. The tech salaries of today feel like the i-banking salaries of the early 2000s. It’s not just the c-suite that’s been earning crazy money.

Re: The layoffs are here for those who chose to ‘learn to code’

#23

Post by drewcoo »

hef19898 wrote: post #8
SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this one of those sentiments people like to say until the monkey's paw curls and they too find out they are mediocre?

By definition, half of us are under the median.

> By definition, half of us are under the median.

Given that no one can agree how to measure, I'd bet that most of us are.

Re: The layoffs are here for those who chose to ‘learn to code’

#25

Post by onion2k »

larrymyers wrote: post #20

This seems logical. The software engineers are likely going to be some of the highest paid employees, so laying off underperforming engineers is going to help reduce labor costs substantially. Many of these engineers have been hired for new business units that didn't end up being profitable with cheap credit going away. Others might be in business unit that is purely a cost center. Nothing has really changed over the…

The software engineers are likely going to be some of the highest paid employees, so laying off underperforming engineers is going to help reduce labor costs substantially.

It might seem counter-intuitive, but often businesses lay off the high-performing-but-best-paid people because that drives the biggest savings while reducing the vanity headcount metric less, especially in companies where the effort of the team greatly outweighs any individual. They assume (sometimes rightly, sometimes wrongly) that the team will carry on without the 'superstar' people. There's also an assumption that the best people will leave when there's a layoff (mostly rightly), so getting rid of them means maintaining control of who's gone.

There should never been an assumption that you're safe from layoffs because you're the highest performing person on the team. Sadly.

Re: The layoffs are here for those who chose to ‘learn to code’

#26

Post by jongjong »

It feels like we are facing a software security armageddon. There are millions of disgruntled coders, powerful AI tools to help hackers find security holes in record time, broken media, no trust in institutions, software complexity has grown out of control (increasing the surface area for security vulnerabilities)... Will centralized software survive the next decade?

Re: The layoffs are here for those who chose to ‘learn to code’

#28

Post by moate »

drewcoo wrote: post #23
hef19898 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By definition, half of us are under the median.

> By definition, half of us are under the median. Given that no one can agree how to measure, I'd bet that most of us are.

No, don’t do that, now you’ve upset math.

Or rather: I’ll mortgage my house and put my life savings on the line against that bet.

Re: The layoffs are here for those who chose to ‘learn to code’

#29

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

hef19898 wrote: post #8
SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this one of those sentiments people like to say until the monkey's paw curls and they too find out they are mediocre?

By definition, half of us are under the median.

But is that a useful measure? By definition half of the astronauts who went to the moon are under the "astronauts who went to the moon" skill median.

Re: The layoffs are here for those who chose to ‘learn to code’

#30

Post by KoftaBob »

jongjong wrote: post #26

It feels like we are facing a software security armageddon. There are millions of disgruntled coders, powerful AI tools to help hackers find security holes in record time, broken media, no trust in institutions, software complexity has grown out of control (increasing the surface area for security vulnerabilities)... Will centralized software survive the next decade?

This comment sounds like the output that ChatGPT would give you if you asked it to generate a discussion board comment that maximizes fear mongering and hyperbole.
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