The layoffs are here for those who chose to ‘learn to code’ • Hacker News Board

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

#81

Post by ChuckNorris89 » Tue, Apr 25, 2023, 3:06 PM UTC

giraffe_lady wrote: post #78

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…

It's also hitting just as hard the people who were humble and hard working and who learned to code because it is (or was) one of the last firmly middle class jobs you could be allowed to do without a degree or background check. It doesn't only affect the people you don't like so I would chill on the glee, personally.

Tech-bros were by far the best paid class in the middle class.

People laid off from big tech are now kicking it back in SE-Asia with the severance money they got. No tears will be shed for them.

They'll easily find other employment outside of big-tech. They'll still be middle class.

I'd put my energy caring more about underpaid teachers, doctors, nurses, emergency personnel, or other the lower classes of the middle class that got laid off, if I were you, instead of defending overpaid tech-bros that got a dose of reality.

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

#82

Post by everforward » Tue, Apr 25, 2023, 3:11 PM UTC

naravara wrote: post #80

effingwewt wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

History rhymes. This whole thing was a repeat of the dotcom bubble. Back then it was 'learn web design!' Here too we had bootcamps to learn to code in weeks. At that point the bubble was reaching critical mass. Same damn thing happened before. I tried warning people- here on HN the sentiment was 'we are indisposable'. When the cost-cutting measures and hiring freezes began I tried warning again and was told 'its not…

> I tried warning people- here on HN the sentiment was 'we are indisposable'. Maybe if you were actually any good. I reckon at least 60% of these bootcamp alumni were just dead weight. I've interviewed so many people who "learned to code" but had no meaningful logical reasoning or problem solving skills. They could maybe understand syntax, but for the most part they just have some basic familiarity with various frame…

I had friends that did bootcamps and this mirrors my experience. They know how to use Express a little bit, but not how the middleware works or what HTTP status codes mean.

They can write code if I translate it to requirements and show them something similar already in the code. They tend to flail around when handed a more open ended problem like "we need an endpoint that will return the last 5 purchases made by a particular user". They don't yet grok the kind of questions to ask like where should the data come from and what format should I return it in?

I don't mean to disparage them as students, I just think they were sold a lie. New programmers probably can learn the very basics of a language and framework in 8 weeks, but learning to solve open-ended problems takes a fair bit of practice for most people. There isn't really a shortcut through that.

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

#83

Post by GaryNumanVevo » Tue, Apr 25, 2023, 3:13 PM UTC

SirMaster wrote: post #75

And over here in the Midwest, among all my friends and collogues who are software developers, I don't know a single one that was laid off. This seems more like an issue in tech hubs or in primarily software companies. What does it look like for all the software developers in the IT departments in non-software companies?

Midwest "old school" firms tend to be very conservative in terms of compensation and headcount. That was definitely the case when I was managing teams there. Good talent, but at a fraction of the cost of hiring people at any tech hub.

Ninja edit: The company I worked for did layoff (around 2008) but that was more of a scare tactic which I ended up leaving the company over.

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

#84

Post by nerpderp82 » Tue, Apr 25, 2023, 3:17 PM UTC

naravara wrote: post #80

effingwewt wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

History rhymes. This whole thing was a repeat of the dotcom bubble. Back then it was 'learn web design!' Here too we had bootcamps to learn to code in weeks. At that point the bubble was reaching critical mass. Same damn thing happened before. I tried warning people- here on HN the sentiment was 'we are indisposable'. When the cost-cutting measures and hiring freezes began I tried warning again and was told 'its not…

> I tried warning people- here on HN the sentiment was 'we are indisposable'. Maybe if you were actually any good. I reckon at least 60% of these bootcamp alumni were just dead weight. I've interviewed so many people who "learned to code" but had no meaningful logical reasoning or problem solving skills. They could maybe understand syntax, but for the most part they just have some basic familiarity with various frame…

> had no meaningful logical reasoning or problem solving skills

This is 70% of software development, this is why I think people from the hard sciences often make better software engineers (in the true engineering sense of the word) than people actually trained in CS. Most CS folks can't experiment their way out of a paper bag.

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

#85

Post by giraffe_lady » Tue, Apr 25, 2023, 3:19 PM UTC

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #81

giraffe_lady wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also hitting just as hard the people who were humble and hard working and who learned to code because it is (or was) one of the last firmly middle class jobs you could be allowed to do without a degree or background check. It doesn't only affect the people you don't like so I would chill on the glee, personally.

Tech-bros were by far the best paid class in the middle class. People laid off from big tech are now kicking it back in SE-Asia with the severance money they got. No tears will be shed for them. They'll easily find other employment outside of big-tech. They'll still be middle class. I'd put my energy caring more about underpaid teachers, doctors, nurses, emergency personnel, or other the lower classes of the middle c…

My point is that those categories aren't as separate as you like to think. I used to teach at a code school, and every single cohort had a nurse and a public school teacher in it. It was a running joke among the staff mostly because it was a very alarming trend we couldn't avoid seeing.

Those people didn't become "tech bros", to the extent they were admirable individuals before coding they remained so afterwards. A lot of people only entered the middle class because of coding work and will exit it when they can't continue. I'm one of these and I enjoy mocking tech workers as much as anyone but I trust my class solidarity is well placed in bowing out of this one.

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

#86

Post by ChuckNorris89 » Tue, Apr 25, 2023, 3:20 PM UTC

nerpderp82 wrote: post #84

naravara wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I tried warning people- here on HN the sentiment was 'we are indisposable'. Maybe if you were actually any good. I reckon at least 60% of these bootcamp alumni were just dead weight. I've interviewed so many people who "learned to code" but had no meaningful logical reasoning or problem solving skills. They could maybe understand syntax, but for the most part they just have some basic familiarity with various frame…

> had no meaningful logical reasoning or problem solving skills This is 70% of software development, this is why I think people from the hard sciences often make better software engineers (in the true engineering sense of the word) than people actually trained in CS. Most CS folks can't experiment their way out of a paper bag.

Probably because CS now has become synonymous with CRUD web development.

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

#87

Post by WastingMyTime89 » Tue, Apr 25, 2023, 3:21 PM UTC

effingwewt wrote: post #79

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…

History rhymes. This whole thing was a repeat of the dotcom bubble. Back then it was 'learn web design!' Here too we had bootcamps to learn to code in weeks. At that point the bubble was reaching critical mass. Same damn thing happened before. I tried warning people- here on HN the sentiment was 'we are indisposable'. When the cost-cutting measures and hiring freezes began I tried warning again and was told 'its not…

I agree with you it’s in a lot of way similar to the dotcom bubble but the issue seems to me simpler than you make it seems. Propped by an easy access to cheap investment fonds, companies massively over hired developers to work on projets which have actually no value. The massive demand leads to under qualified people being hired. The current layoff is a return to a sustainable situation. And even then if you look at the number for the entire market we are not even back to a prepandemic number.

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

#88

Post by nerpderp82 » Tue, Apr 25, 2023, 3:22 PM UTC

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #86

nerpderp82 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> had no meaningful logical reasoning or problem solving skills This is 70% of software development, this is why I think people from the hard sciences often make better software engineers (in the true engineering sense of the word) than people actually trained in CS. Most CS folks can't experiment their way out of a paper bag.

Probably because CS now has become synonymous with CRUD web development.

I am talking about BigTech top 10 CS school grads. They literally don't understand the scientific method or how to use mathematics to design their systems.

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

#89

Post by everforward » Tue, Apr 25, 2023, 3:23 PM UTC

randomdata wrote: post #72

moate wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Shame about your house and life savings. One man's brilliance is another man's "who wrote this crap?" It is indeed quite likely that most of us, possibly even all of us, will fall below the median of someone's measure.

They're making a math joke. It's impossible for more than half of the sample to be below the median since the median is constructed so that half fall on each side.

Having 60% of a sample below the median means someone calculated the median wrong.

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

#90

Post by naravara » Tue, Apr 25, 2023, 3:26 PM UTC

everforward wrote: post #82

naravara wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I tried warning people- here on HN the sentiment was 'we are indisposable'. Maybe if you were actually any good. I reckon at least 60% of these bootcamp alumni were just dead weight. I've interviewed so many people who "learned to code" but had no meaningful logical reasoning or problem solving skills. They could maybe understand syntax, but for the most part they just have some basic familiarity with various frame…

I had friends that did bootcamps and this mirrors my experience. They know how to use Express a little bit, but not how the middleware works or what HTTP status codes mean. They can write code if I translate it to requirements and show them something similar already in the code. They tend to flail around when handed a more open ended problem like "we need an endpoint that will return the last 5 purchases made by a pa…

Yeah your choice of the word "practice" is the important part. A lot of people imagine that developing skills is like plugging into the Matrix and downloading knowledge into your brain. But it's about cultivating a style and approach to thinking that only works through practice.

The first year of law school is often said to be the hardest for the same reason, they're breaking down your intuitions and teaching you to think like a lawyer. I went through the same process as a social scientist. Every discipline has this acculturation process where its disciples are trained in the skills and values of the discipline. It's not just information transfer. You can study sheet music all day, but unless you actually PLAY you will never get it. It's not something you can just boot-camp in a few months.

If people have the skills or values they developed from other disciplines that they can transfer over then the boot-camp can work. If you learned how to do logical reasoning from being a philosophy major, then you'd probably figure out symbolic logic and learn to program pretty easily. If you figured out how systems are put together from a career as an electrician or mechanic, then you can probably apply those skills to architect software too. But you need some foundation there to build on and I don't think a lot of people just getting into it because they heard it's a lucrative career have that.