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Career Advice in 2025

lethain.com

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Re: Career Advice in 2025

#41

Post by makeitdouble »

__loam wrote: post #11
Zee2 wrote: post #6

The statement >The current market doesn’t value those skills particularly highly, but instead prioritizes a different set of skills: working in the details, pushing pace, and navigating the technology transition to foundational models / LLMs. depends on the assumption that technology must "transition" to "foundational models / LLMs". The author doesn't seem to interrogate this assumption. In fact, most of the career…

Think about what you're asking when you tell these people to interrogate the assumption that LLM based AIs are going to be the dominant technology going forward. Hundreds of billions, the growth of the technology industry, the entire US stock market, and the global economy has been wagered on this technology. Imagine the turmoil when those in power realize the reality of what they're betting the farm on.

> Hundreds of billions

Yes

> the growth of the technology industry

That's an overblown claim. AI companies failing won't mean technology doesn't advance nor that companies betting against/independently from AI would recind.

> the entire US stock market

Probably yes

> the global economy

Probably no

Re: Career Advice in 2025

#42

Post by scarface_74 »

tibbar wrote: post #39
scarface_74 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve worked for BigTech. If you look at how to pass any of the interview processes, it’s basically all about generic coding interviews. That’s it, those are the only “skills” you have to have to get into the BigTech - pass coding and system design interviews. And there are thousands of developers looking for jobs - even those who are coming out of well known tech companies.

I agree, that is how many big tech interviews look. I've done 'em too. If one's dream job is a generic, mid-level role at BigTech, then the path is clear - get very good at Leetcode and system design, and flag down a recruiter. My dream jobs tend to be more eclectic, and not necessarily at giant companies. I'm more interested in getting really skilled at a particular type of technology and being hired to work on that…

Most people’s “dreams” have nothing to do with working. Their dream is to have a combination of shit ton of money appear in their bank accounts every pay period and stock to appear in their brokerage account every vesting period.

True there are some who want to win the lottery and accept less than their market rate in exchange for “equity” in a non public company that will statistically be worthless.

Coding interviews are definitely is still the part of the process you have to pass unless you are a very well known big deal in the industry.

BigTech companies want versatile developers who can move around as necessary.

There are no “inside tracks” for 99% of positions aside from probably acquihires.

You go through the grind regardless. Open source contributions really don’t mean that much.

Infamously

https://x.com/mxcl/status/608682016205344768?lang=en

Re: Career Advice in 2025

#43

Post by flamboyant_ride »

> decision-makers can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent

Feels definitely true. I wish ICs had much more agency. Wish there was something actionable even as a small step (which I don't think is there on the article).

Having been laid off due to unclear reasons, can't help but think the same could happen in my next prospective job (if I get one in this market that is) and there's nothing I could do about it.

Re: Career Advice in 2025

#44

Post by roncesvalles »

__loam wrote: post #11
Zee2 wrote: post #6

The statement >The current market doesn’t value those skills particularly highly, but instead prioritizes a different set of skills: working in the details, pushing pace, and navigating the technology transition to foundational models / LLMs. depends on the assumption that technology must "transition" to "foundational models / LLMs". The author doesn't seem to interrogate this assumption. In fact, most of the career…

Think about what you're asking when you tell these people to interrogate the assumption that LLM based AIs are going to be the dominant technology going forward. Hundreds of billions, the growth of the technology industry, the entire US stock market, and the global economy has been wagered on this technology. Imagine the turmoil when those in power realize the reality of what they're betting the farm on.

We've become so accustomed to the rip-roaring growth that came from widespread Internet adoption and now that it has piped down, we're desperate to find the next big boom. VR, crypto, blockchain, generative AI. And each time, like degenerate gamblers, we're feeling it, this must be it, the next Big 'Un, the bet that redeems all the bets that went wrong, bigger, riskier, bigger, riskier.

But it just won't be, nothing in our lifetime will ever come close to what the Internet boom was. The window for becoming a Jeff Bezos or Mark Zuckerberg as easily as they did is closed now, and you just need to live with it. The title of this chapter till the end of our days will remain "After the Internet Boom" and it will chronicle this pathetic desperation.

Re: Career Advice in 2025

#45

Post by advael »

I get why someone would want to tell people this, but I think it fails to be advice, as it describes the current state of affairs without much actual guidance for how to do better in it

Which, to be fair, no one really seems to be able to answer that meaningfully

Re: Career Advice in 2025

#46

Post by [deleted] »

scarface_74 wrote: post #33
tibbar wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, as I said in another thread, I did not start out working in the Bay, and ended up here somewhat by accident. It shocked me how much easier it was to find good jobs here, and I'll stand by that. With that said, of course I say this with no judgment to anyone not in the Bay or other tech hubs, it's friendly advice from personal experience. > Those jobs in the Bay Area mostly require you to “grind leetCode” and sys…

I’ve worked for BigTech. If you look at how to pass any of the interview processes, it’s basically all about generic coding interviews. That’s it, those are the only “skills” you have to have to get into the BigTech - pass coding and system design interviews. And there are thousands of developers looking for jobs - even those who are coming out of well known tech companies.

[deleted]

Re: Career Advice in 2025

#47

Post by tibbar »

scarface_74 wrote: post #42
tibbar wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, that is how many big tech interviews look. I've done 'em too. If one's dream job is a generic, mid-level role at BigTech, then the path is clear - get very good at Leetcode and system design, and flag down a recruiter. My dream jobs tend to be more eclectic, and not necessarily at giant companies. I'm more interested in getting really skilled at a particular type of technology and being hired to work on that…

Most people’s “dreams” have nothing to do with working. Their dream is to have a combination of shit ton of money appear in their bank accounts every pay period and stock to appear in their brokerage account every vesting period. True there are some who want to win the lottery and accept less than their market rate in exchange for “equity” in a non public company that will statistically be worthless. Coding interview…

It seems like you're really focused on the interview process for a small number of very large tech companies. My experience doesn't match yours - I have been recruited to a specific BigTech team based on my background, and the interviews were more focused on specific skills than leetcode. But it seems like most BigTech interviews probably are coding/system design.

With that said, I have tended to interview more at scaleups/late-stage startups in recent years, and it's been very rare to see a truly leetcode-heavy interview process. These are positions that pay comparably to big tech, although the equity is generally more risky. But I've also been able to cash out some startup equity, so maybe my experience is not representative again...

> Most people’s “dreams” have nothing to do with working

This line always seems like a cop-out to me. Almost all of us have to work, and it takes a huge amount of our time. And for many of us in the tech industry, we have been intrinsically interested in this tech since we were kids, and have specific stuff we'd prefer to work on. Can we just accept that certain work is going to be more interesting for certain people, and that they might want to steer their careers in that direction, especially if it pays better?

Re: Career Advice in 2025

#48

Post by tonyedgecombe »

kristiandupont wrote: post #32
tibbar wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm mostly thinking of frontend dev work, but also some types of light backend work that you might see in a CRUD app. And listen, I've done that work, I've done a lot of it, and I saw that it's mostly a career dead-end, becoming more and more automated/copiloted away. It's not a career moat to be a mid-level React developer. By contrast, some things I think are worth pivoting into include infrastructure, databases, d…

>infrastructure, databases, data engineering, stats Why would those areas be less exposed to the "LLM threat"?

Less data to train on? Github et all are awash in front end code but the stuff most enterprises run on is locked away and not accessible to the AI companies.

Re: Career Advice in 2025

#49

Post by ozim »

kristiandupont wrote: post #32
tibbar wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm mostly thinking of frontend dev work, but also some types of light backend work that you might see in a CRUD app. And listen, I've done that work, I've done a lot of it, and I saw that it's mostly a career dead-end, becoming more and more automated/copiloted away. It's not a career moat to be a mid-level React developer. By contrast, some things I think are worth pivoting into include infrastructure, databases, d…

>infrastructure, databases, data engineering, stats Why would those areas be less exposed to the "LLM threat"?

Amount of quality fronted code in public repositories, blogs etc. is much higher. Then even if it is not in the repo it is available via browser.

Backend code is much less available as a training set.

Re: Career Advice in 2025

#50

Post by weatherlite »

__loam wrote: post #27
bayarearefugee wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The next time I am angrily typing to claude 3.7 in all caps because he overengineered a bunch of code I didn't even ask him to write in the first place, I'll be sure to let him know his continued failures are risking the entire world economy.

You can be as snarky as you want but the reality is we're years deep into a market cycle that has seen a tremendous amount of capex with very little visible return. How much more productive do you think claude makes you as compared to Google or Stack Overflow? 15%? 50%? 200? Do you think that's enough to satisfy the market or are we all trading on unrealistic expectations? Do you think shareholders are going to like…

I don't think companies like Meta, Alphabet or even Amazon are extremely overvalued. Their growth in revenues and earnings is still very solid, so even if A.I is a no show their earnings should continue to do fine (I'd even add Microsoft to the list). Sure stock price might slow down significanty but it can easily add 10% yearly for the forseeable future. Its much less than what we're used to, but its solid growth that has not much to do with A.I.

And I totally agree people should forget about the s&p 500 returns we've seen in the last 15 years going forward, it would probably be less (though I have no crystal ball, but regression to the mean seems likely).

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