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Sorry, grads: Entry-level tech jobs are getting wiped out

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Re: Sorry, grads: Entry-level tech jobs are getting wiped out

#11

Post by Loudergood »

ty6853 wrote: post #2

I did a lot of driving forklifts, construction, moving, factory work, etc when junior in the job market after graduating near the top of my class with strong internship experience from a top 10 engineering college. Adjusting expectations is important. If you start with the expectation that all you will have is a pot to piss in then it is all up from there. Things may never look up, but when they do, I've found a lot…

Student loans generally don't wait, and most people wail while they're working the shitty jobs.

Re: Sorry, grads: Entry-level tech jobs are getting wiped out

#12

Post by erehweb »

There are a number of industries where you may need experience to become more productive than AI, but nobody wants to hire you when AI is more productive in the first couple of years. Is there a good equilibrium for this, or does it end up with each company saying "We won't hire the juniors, just the experienced people" and then finding there aren't enough experienced people around?

Re: Sorry, grads: Entry-level tech jobs are getting wiped out

#13

Post by ty6853 »

palmotea wrote: post #7
ty6853 wrote: post #2

I did a lot of driving forklifts, construction, moving, factory work, etc when junior in the job market after graduating near the top of my class with strong internship experience from a top 10 engineering college. Adjusting expectations is important. If you start with the expectation that all you will have is a pot to piss in then it is all up from there. Things may never look up, but when they do, I've found a lot…

> Adjusting expectations is important. If you start with the expectation that all you will have is a pot to piss in then it is all up from there. You're just coaching people to be passive in the face of a hostile society, and that's bad, because it lets society off the hook for providing for its citizens. Also isn't it strange that's mainly expected of the people at the bottom? Maybe the shareholders should start to…

It would be nice if society will help you, but you should expect that they will not, especially if you are a childless adult which is the one class of people society will actually tax back below the poverty line.

Re: Sorry, grads: Entry-level tech jobs are getting wiped out

#14

Post by aredox »

ty6853 wrote: post #2

I did a lot of driving forklifts, construction, moving, factory work, etc when junior in the job market after graduating near the top of my class with strong internship experience from a top 10 engineering college. Adjusting expectations is important. If you start with the expectation that all you will have is a pot to piss in then it is all up from there. Things may never look up, but when they do, I've found a lot…

>I've found a lot of employers admire people who were willing to wipe old peoples' asses when the economy is bad rather than wale about the circumstances.

That's what they'd say to your face, but statistics show that anything than a spotless carreer means you'll never recover. Once you fall behind your peers, you will never be promoted as much as them nor be paid as much.

Re: Sorry, grads: Entry-level tech jobs are getting wiped out

#15

Post by belter »

Its not AI, its the economy. Almost 100k US tech layoffs in 2024 and 55k already in 2025. I know it's not showing in the US unemployment statistics yet...I judge because of the relabeling. CCIE's become Tech Support engineers, Junior Developers become Uber drivers..

Re: Sorry, grads: Entry-level tech jobs are getting wiped out

#16

Post by alephnerd »

margorczynski wrote: post #5

Is it AI or just good ol' offshoring? Mix of both? If AI can just make any dev 10-20% more efficient that's a whole lot of jobs no longer needed.

Mix of both.

You can't justify hiring a new grad for $130K when you can hire top tier mid-career talent in Warsaw, Cluj, or Bangalore for $50-80K and average mid-career talent for $20-40k

In fact, companies like Infosys have begun adopting coding copilots en masse to reduce their own new grad hiring by 20%, but increase utilization rates from 70% to 85%. That said, most new grads were not getting substituted by Infosys freshers - they're getting replaced by mid-career H1Bs who were laid off during COVID and returned to the CEE or India

Furthermore, a significant number of mid-career Eastern European and Indian engineers, PMs, and managers returned to the old country during the COVID layoffs due to visa status. A lot of those guys were rehired by their old companies to found GCCs abroad.

Finally, state and federal governments in India, Poland, Romania, Czechia, etc provide tax incentives that reduce hiring costs by an additional $10-20k in aggregate.

Re: Sorry, grads: Entry-level tech jobs are getting wiped out

#17

Post by corp8drone8sf »

Commenting anon, because i'm very concerned about how we are leaving the industry for our children, and how little executives care about the future.

1. anything we used to give to entry-level we now give to offshore workers, typically in Asia. While mean wages metrics look great, the cost savings are an illusion because we spend twice as much time communicating and tacking back and forth to the final answer across timezones. compensation consultants dont care about that, they care about mean wage metrics

2. people are are told to hire h1 only -- not explicitly -- but implicitly

3. tech execs hired into the org have relationships with major h1 placement agencies and place from those exclusively, the jobs are advertised with impossible requirements and then quickly sent to h1 pools

4. it is ridiculous to expect a computer science grand to "driving forklifts, construction, moving, factory work" -- what was the point of grinding thru 12yrs of intense schooling if you were going to throw the kids under the bus when they graduate?

5. ai is part of it, perhaps for certain jobs, but it isnt AI causing the issues in technology

Re: Sorry, grads: Entry-level tech jobs are getting wiped out

#18

Post by monero-xmr »

I used to pay $125k standard to entry level SWEs back in the 2020-2022 COVID days, fully remote, great benefits. Can hire the same now for $90k, great candidates with good internships, CS degree, etc.

But lately I just hire 5+ year experience because there are so many available now, and the cost for them has gone down also.

Re: Sorry, grads: Entry-level tech jobs are getting wiped out

#19

Post by kcorbitt »

erehweb wrote: post #12

There are a number of industries where you may need experience to become more productive than AI, but nobody wants to hire you when AI is more productive in the first couple of years. Is there a good equilibrium for this, or does it end up with each company saying "We won't hire the juniors, just the experienced people" and then finding there aren't enough experienced people around?

There are many industries where you need lots of experience before you're a net contributor to productivity. This is true for everything from hairdressers to doctors. We have ways of dealing with this (eg. taking out loans to undergo years of training).

The problem comes if the number of years of experience you need to outperform the frontier AI models advances at more than 1 per year, which is not out of the question.

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