Global Economy Approaches Soft Landing, but Risks Remain • Hacker News Board

Re: Global Economy Approaches Soft Landing, but Risks Remain

#81

Post by oytis » Tue, Mar 05, 2024, 7:09 PM UTC

themagician wrote: post #66

throw1234651234 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Genuinely reads like a scare-mongering myths. I am doing the basic of the basic atm - adding an API endpoint to call an internal API and get a subset of data and ChatGPT can't even accomplish that. I have been reviewing the usability of AI for at least a year now, and it's still nowhere near even replacing juniors, despite these posts.

It already has replaced many junior and even mid level engineers. People are getting good at refining prompts. That's the new skill. Do you have people under you? If yes, I gurantee they can be replaced by a script kiddie with some prompt experience. If no, well… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdKqAVpUOwI

OK, so assuming a script kiddy with LLM can be as efficient as a junior without LLM, junior with LLM is going to be even more efficient. So we are back to where we are, except everyone is more efficient.

I myself don't tend to believe that performance improvement is that dramatic.

Re: Global Economy Approaches Soft Landing, but Risks Remain

#82

Post by AlotOfReading » Tue, Mar 05, 2024, 7:11 PM UTC

infamouscow wrote: post #72

AlotOfReading wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you consider "unrealistically high", because I find that hard to apply to what I'm seeing. For example, I was recently contacted about a bay area principal engineer spot for 150-190k. To give some context, a fast food place near my house has signs in the window offering 160k+ for managers. Maybe fast food is paying exceptionally well these days, but I have my doubts.

Does the bay area role also come with equity? I doubt that's true for the restaurant manager.

Probably, but the comparison wasn't meant to imply that fast food is a reasonable alternative. The point was to illustrate how bad things in tech are that recognizable companies (Oracle in this case) are hiring for extremely senior positions at salaries that make fast food look even remotely competitive. It's a very different market from two years ago.

Re: Global Economy Approaches Soft Landing, but Risks Remain

#83

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Mar 05, 2024, 7:12 PM UTC

infamouscow wrote: post #72

AlotOfReading wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you consider "unrealistically high", because I find that hard to apply to what I'm seeing. For example, I was recently contacted about a bay area principal engineer spot for 150-190k. To give some context, a fast food place near my house has signs in the window offering 160k+ for managers. Maybe fast food is paying exceptionally well these days, but I have my doubts.

Does the bay area role also come with equity? I doubt that's true for the restaurant manager.

[deleted]

Re: Global Economy Approaches Soft Landing, but Risks Remain

#84

Post by dkjaudyeqooe » Tue, Mar 05, 2024, 7:24 PM UTC

willcipriano wrote: post #74

dkjaudyeqooe wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Immigration is a reality, it always has been. There is no broad support for cutting off legal immigration, it's uncontrolled immigration that most people object to. The US has always had huge levels of immigration and probably always will.

High skill immigration into sectors that are highly productive is fundamentally a different animal than low skill immigration into low paying sectors. The low pay is itself a signal they don't require any more manpower. They can do little productive work with what they currently have and thus can't meaningfully reward who they employ currently, let alone someone new. These two types of immigration are intentionally c…

Lots of jobs have low wages, in fact most jobs are not high wage jobs. That doesn't mean the manpower isn't needed it means the jobs inherently can't support a high wage relative to others.

If you don't like immigration, then say so, because your arguments make no sense.

Re: Global Economy Approaches Soft Landing, but Risks Remain

#85

Post by pm90 » Tue, Mar 05, 2024, 7:43 PM UTC

vondur wrote: post #70

Funny enough, I was just watching a video from Peter Zeihan, where he's talking about most of the Western world is currently in recession (or close to it). Noteworthy is that North America is doing ok.

The rest of the western world was squeezed by oil/gas shortages while the US just pumped more.

Re: Global Economy Approaches Soft Landing, but Risks Remain

#86

Post by leoqa » Tue, Mar 05, 2024, 7:44 PM UTC

AlotOfReading wrote: post #23

cj wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the flip side, tech was booming during Covid when a ton of people in retail, restaurants were affected. All industries and all sectors can’t always be booming without there being a perpetual bubble. We have trouble finding good engineers to hire, so I’m skeptical when I hear people having trouble finding engineering jobs. My assumption (could be wrong) is a lot of people having trouble getting work haven’t adjuste…

What do you consider "unrealistically high", because I find that hard to apply to what I'm seeing. For example, I was recently contacted about a bay area principal engineer spot for 150-190k. To give some context, a fast food place near my house has signs in the window offering 160k+ for managers. Maybe fast food is paying exceptionally well these days, but I have my doubts.

I've started interviewing this last two weeks and have 6 interviews scheduled for staff FANG remote. Meta, Amazon, Netflix are all hiring.

Re: Global Economy Approaches Soft Landing, but Risks Remain

#87

Post by jstarfish » Tue, Mar 05, 2024, 7:50 PM UTC

ak_111 wrote: post #77

ulfw wrote: post #6

Soft landing except for us in tech who have been unemployed for months or years

Sorry to be critical but if you are in tech and have been unemployed for years (especially if those overlap with covid) then you are most certainly doing something wrong and need some guidance. Even now the situation is bad, but not that bad that it should take you more than a couple of months to land some kind of tech job that can pay the bills.

[flagged]

Re: Global Economy Approaches Soft Landing, but Risks Remain

#88

Post by hosteur » Tue, Mar 05, 2024, 7:50 PM UTC

themagician wrote: post #34

cj wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the flip side, tech was booming during Covid when a ton of people in retail, restaurants were affected. All industries and all sectors can’t always be booming without there being a perpetual bubble. We have trouble finding good engineers to hire, so I’m skeptical when I hear people having trouble finding engineering jobs. My assumption (could be wrong) is a lot of people having trouble getting work haven’t adjuste…

Things are different now. The reality is that probably close to 80-90% of self-described software engineers face permnanet unemployment as they will be replaced by low paid "prompt engineers", likey from India. It's already happening and it's happening at scale. The top 10% will see enourmous income gains as they will be the only people left who actually know what they are doing and how to correct mistakes that can't…

> The shift is happening fast. It won't be measured in years, but weeks and months. By year's end everything will be different.

What are some real world examples of this that you have personally witnessed that makes you think this is happening so fast?

Re: Global Economy Approaches Soft Landing, but Risks Remain

#89

Post by oytis » Tue, Mar 05, 2024, 8:07 PM UTC

hirako2000 wrote: post #75

carlosjobim wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We have trouble finding good engineers to hire > unrealistically high salaries That's expected if you don't want to pay the salaries your candidates want. Admitting to not being able to find qualified workers is admitting fundamental incompetence as an employer and as a business. Hiring and retaining workers is the foundation of any business that employs people. Haven't it struck you that maybe you are unrealistic…

This. Of course the comment is not just paradoxal, it's contradictory. Behind a basically bias mind, blinded even by the irresistible desire to basically pay little, bank fat profits, and do nothing. It's an amazing time to be alive. To see how broader access to Information turning against those who used to think the asymmetry would last forever.

It's really funny to see both "times have changed" and "we can't find anyone" in one comment. And it really summarises the attitude of business post-covid. "Doing more with less" is just childish if you think about it. I'm going to do what I like, and there are not going to be any consequences. Oh, there are consequences? That definitely not because what I did.

Re: Global Economy Approaches Soft Landing, but Risks Remain

#90

Post by willcipriano » Tue, Mar 05, 2024, 8:18 PM UTC

dkjaudyeqooe wrote: post #84

willcipriano wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

High skill immigration into sectors that are highly productive is fundamentally a different animal than low skill immigration into low paying sectors. The low pay is itself a signal they don't require any more manpower. They can do little productive work with what they currently have and thus can't meaningfully reward who they employ currently, let alone someone new. These two types of immigration are intentionally c…

Lots of jobs have low wages, in fact most jobs are not high wage jobs. That doesn't mean the manpower isn't needed it means the jobs inherently can't support a high wage relative to others. If you don't like immigration, then say so, because your arguments make no sense.

If the wages are so low that the workers require government assistance, that business isn't productive enough to be allowed to survive in a modern economy. It doesn't produce enough (or its owners demand too much of the rewards, or its customers arent willing to pay, the "reason" is immaterial, those all basically are the same problem). The customers and shareholders aren't entitled to unlimited immigration to prop up their unproductive business model at the cost of the taxpayer.

True progressives would seek to raise the living standards of the working poor over importing a slave caste to do the work leaving wages stagnant or in decline.