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Ask HN: What is the current driver of tech layoffs?

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Re: Ask HN: What is the current driver of tech layoffs?

#171

Post by cqqxo4zV46cp »

pera wrote: post #162
leetharris wrote: post #19

This is going to be a controversial opinion. The quality of your average tech worker has completely nosedived in the last 10-15 years. All these huge companies wanted more products, more marketshare, more money, etc. They needed more people to pull this off. They started lowering hiring standards across the board because there just weren't enough people in tech. Simultaneously, a huge portion of the world saw tech sa…

> The quality of your average tech worker has completely nosedived in the last 10-15 years I find this opinion hilarious: Almost 30 years ago the second most popular software product was Windows 95 (Doom was the #1), which couldn't run for a few hours without BSODing. Almost 20 years ago the average tech worker was building atrocities with Visual Basic, MS Access and PHP. Meanwhile today it was announced that Google…

GP left a fair number of qualifiers in their post which you have conveniently ignored so that you could cherry pick an example of people being laid off from roles perceived to be comparatively hard / prestigious.

This is a bad-faith argument. If you disagree with what they’re clearly trying to convey, and want to make a case against it, I’d be keen to hear one without cherry-picking some compiler engineering layoffs in a company where the vast majority of others are obviously doing something very different to that.

Re: Ask HN: What is the current driver of tech layoffs?

#172

Post by cqqxo4zV46cp »

tennisflyi wrote: post #115
akg_67 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you define "quality" of tech worker? What is the profile of people being let go? Are they recent hire or people with quick certification, bootcamp, etc? A quick review of people on LinkedIn with Open to Work badges seems to paint a different picture than any claim of people being let go are of lower quality. > It turns out that compared to the dedicated nerds of the previous generation, most new people just do…

Knowing what files are and not being afraid how to use the printer are a start.

NOT being afraid of printers is a red flag.

Re: Ask HN: What is the current driver of tech layoffs?

#173

Post by bjorglo »

janalsncm wrote: post #113
theturtletalks wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The simple answer would be AI. That’s been the major change in the past year. I find it odd that everyone thinks Uber’s end game is automated cars, but no one seems to be talking about how tech companies end game is automated coders. LLMs are not even close, but what’s to say internally, they don’t have something that works. Or they have enough data to show they need fewer workers since they can leverage AI now.

It’s a fair hypothesis but is it true? Are companies actually replacing engineers with ChatGPT? I haven’t heard anything about this.

[dead]

Re: Ask HN: What is the current driver of tech layoffs?

#174

Post by Fervicus »

pera wrote: post #162
leetharris wrote: post #19

This is going to be a controversial opinion. The quality of your average tech worker has completely nosedived in the last 10-15 years. All these huge companies wanted more products, more marketshare, more money, etc. They needed more people to pull this off. They started lowering hiring standards across the board because there just weren't enough people in tech. Simultaneously, a huge portion of the world saw tech sa…

> The quality of your average tech worker has completely nosedived in the last 10-15 years I find this opinion hilarious: Almost 30 years ago the second most popular software product was Windows 95 (Doom was the #1), which couldn't run for a few hours without BSODing. Almost 20 years ago the average tech worker was building atrocities with Visual Basic, MS Access and PHP. Meanwhile today it was announced that Google…

Developers who were building atrocities with VB and PHP 20 years ago are the seasoned vets that you would want on a team today.

Re: Ask HN: What is the current driver of tech layoffs?

#175

Post by willcipriano »

hamandcheese wrote: post #117
dalyons wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another factor here is that for many reasons startup equity (and thus startup comp in general) is much less valuable statistically than it was 10-15 years ago. Everyone knows that it a shit deal now, so many of the best engineers, those who can, are in big tech now. Leaving startups with lower quality talent pool, or those who just need a first job. I say that with sadness and fond memories of ~2013 startup culture.

Yeah, having interviewed pretty recently, I was shocked at how low startup offers were compared to established companies and late stage startups.

I started my career in start ups, they ask for 150% and want to pay 75. It's only fresh graduates and bootcamp people who fall for the equity scam nowadays. Everybody who has been around the block knows they are going to dilute the hell put of it before any liquidity event. It's really a shame beacuse I am far more productive in that environment I just wish I was able to eat more of what I kill there.

Re: Ask HN: What is the current driver of tech layoffs?

#176

Post by somewhereoutth »

leetharris wrote: post #19

This is going to be a controversial opinion. The quality of your average tech worker has completely nosedived in the last 10-15 years. All these huge companies wanted more products, more marketshare, more money, etc. They needed more people to pull this off. They started lowering hiring standards across the board because there just weren't enough people in tech. Simultaneously, a huge portion of the world saw tech sa…

And this is on a backdrop of a long term 'hollowing out of the middle' as technology automates rote work (AI being the latest incarnation), leaving only high skilled jobs (including in tech) on one end, and manual jobs (driving, picking, construction) that we've been unable to automate on the other. Thus both ends (high and low skill) are seeing 'refugees' from this economic process, with overskilled people doing menial work, and underskilled people trying to tackle high end work.

Re: Ask HN: What is the current driver of tech layoffs?

#177

Post by mikebelanger »

leetharris wrote: post #19

This is going to be a controversial opinion. The quality of your average tech worker has completely nosedived in the last 10-15 years. All these huge companies wanted more products, more marketshare, more money, etc. They needed more people to pull this off. They started lowering hiring standards across the board because there just weren't enough people in tech. Simultaneously, a huge portion of the world saw tech sa…

Interesting idea. But supposing that the quality never nosedived, I suspect companies would still be doing these mass layoffs. Quality is always relative to the overall pool of job applicants, and companies would just layoff people with a higher bar in mind.

Re: Ask HN: What is the current driver of tech layoffs?

#180

Post by theturtletalks »

bennyelv wrote: post #148
theturtletalks wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The simple answer would be AI. That’s been the major change in the past year. I find it odd that everyone thinks Uber’s end game is automated cars, but no one seems to be talking about how tech companies end game is automated coders. LLMs are not even close, but what’s to say internally, they don’t have something that works. Or they have enough data to show they need fewer workers since they can leverage AI now.

A counterpoint would be: if you kept the same number of engineers and increased their productivity with AI, rather than keeping output the same and reducing the number of engineers, wouldn't you be producing more value overall?

Maybe the rate of diminishing returns as they realized too many cooks in the kitchen just slows down everyone.
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