Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

businessinsider.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 143 posts

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

#51

Post by safety1st »

ProllyInfamous wrote: post #39
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 d…

I'm a blue collar IBEW electrician that inevitably injured myself working in confined spaces. Summer 2022, I set out on my quest to become a technical writer, but by Holidays 2022 I was generating images and tip-toe-ing into the emerging ChatGPT stuff. By January 2023, I was already certain that professional writing would be increasingly-difficult to enter (as a career field) as a novice content creator: I was alread…

Here's one thing you've got going for you: you can reason about electrical work far better than the general population as well as ChatGPT, which can barely reason at all. It can regurgitate what it scoops up from its training data very well. When it has to combine ideas in novel ways it starts to hallucinate and requires an operator with genuine expertise to separate fact from fiction.

As a general purpose novice copywriter I think yeah a lot of people are gonna struggle in this new world. But you are an electrical expert. Maybe that's your angle.

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

#52

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

sumedh wrote: post #35
SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

All those astronauts had to pass some kind uniform skill test by NASA. There is no uniform skill tests for all the Devs.

Well, I was just trying to point out that median is a silly measure, but now we're really comparing apples to oranges. Every astronaut is not a NASA astronaut and so they haven't had to undergo a uniform skill test but there are still excellent odds that every astronaut is qualified for their role even if they are below the median "astronaut". Yes, it could be argued that every space agency has some sort of test, but the same could be argued of every employed dev as they'll have had to pass an interview.

Again, not saying that every dev is a good dev, but that median is a silly measure.

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

#53

Post by michaelt »

Thorentis wrote: post #4

> Coders made up 14% of employees at tech companies Wow is this true? If so, I'm extremely surprised it is this low. No wonder Elon could cut 80% of jobs and everything would keep ticking along.

It depends.

Many people would call Amazon a tech company - but they employ a lot of customer service folks, warehouse workers, and delivery drivers. Most people would call Facebook a tech company - but they employ a lot of content moderators and ad sales people. And so on. Most people would call Apple a tech company - but they have people staffing their retail stores and repairing broken laptops. And so on.

Not every business can be run like Google, with zero customer support and zero service delivery :)

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

#54

Post by gorbachev »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #6
CraigRo wrote: post #2

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

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

I remember what hiring was before the dot.com bust. People straight out of school with no professional experience, or even any open source or personal project work, were hired as senior engineers.

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

#55

Post by hef19898 »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #52
sumedh wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All those astronauts had to pass some kind uniform skill test by NASA. There is no uniform skill tests for all the Devs.

Well, I was just trying to point out that median is a silly measure, but now we're really comparing apples to oranges. Every astronaut is not a NASA astronaut and so they haven't had to undergo a uniform skill test but there are still excellent odds that every astronaut is qualified for their role even if they are below the median "astronaut". Yes, it could be argued that every space agency has some sort of test, but…

The median does apply to NASA astronauts as well, it is just measuring a different population.

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

#56

Post by throwawayfaang9 »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #16
yobid20 wrote: post #12

There are a lot of "software engineers" who can't code well. I see a lot of "google and copy paste until it works and deploy". No thoughts behind design. No idea about performance. No testing. No innovation. They all need to go.

Is that the fault of the devs or the broken processes where management promises unrealistic deadlines up the chain, so devs have no time to think about the bigger picture and just do everything in their power to ship something that barely works at the end of each sprint and move on to putting out the next fire? To me, the fault is in the industry and how the ships are run.

I agree the problem you are describing also exists.

But I think the GP here is describing when people really can’t program. Like they can only write trivial programs by copy/pasting code from stackoverflow, and they don’t understand CS at all.

That is a different issue then knowledgeable devs cutting corners to meet deadlines.

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

#57

Post by ep103 »

yobid20 wrote: post #12

There are a lot of "software engineers" who can't code well. I see a lot of "google and copy paste until it works and deploy". No thoughts behind design. No idea about performance. No testing. No innovation. They all need to go.

But I bet you these people sure can leetcode!

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

#60

Post by hef19898 »

thegginthesky wrote: post #50
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

High performing people adding the most value to the business were rarely the highest paid ones as they had long tenure and the best institutional knowledge but got mediocre wage increases as a punishment for being to loyal too the business. The highest paid ones were usually the ones who job hopped the most during the times of economic boom. They added little value where they went as their tenure was too short for th…

No joke at all. I personally know people that rode this last hiring bubble very stellar and got from analyst to manager in just 2 years, while raising their salary over 300% upwards because of strategic company hopping. Some of them did get fire and are having trouble finding a job that paid as well as the last one. It was a risk they were willing to take and I believe in some cases it paid off.

It does, if the plan included an option to step back to a lower paying job. Of it didn't, say because the life style continued to match the new salary and / or because people thought that career plan is going to work for ever, well then that plan can backfire hard.
Post reply on HN