Sorry, grads: Entry-level tech jobs are getting wiped out • Hacker News Board

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

#171

Post by jimbokun » Thu, May 22, 2025, 8:43 PM UTC

palmotea wrote: post #134

spacemadness wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have to understand lots of people on HN want to be one of those people on top eventually so they will bend over backwards to apologize for the executive class until they supposedly get there.

> You have to understand lots of people on HN want to be one of those people on top eventually so they will bend over backwards to apologize for the executive class until they supposedly get there. Oh, I totally understand that. HN is full of workers LARPing as tycoons; advocating for policies, attitudes, and ideology that are most likely going to end up being harmful to their own interests.

Probably true for the majority of Hacker News hackers.

But there are a substantial minority here who are either independently wealthy or very comfortable from a career in the software industry.

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

#172

Post by alephnerd » Thu, May 22, 2025, 8:52 PM UTC

ty6853 wrote: post #61

alephnerd wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't help with the tax incentives which is a major driver for why you are seeing significant offshoring. Plenty of major tech hubs in CEE and India give 80-100% tax rebates or PLIs to foreign companies opening and hiring locally IF they also mandate RTO in those offices. They tend to recover the cost through income tax and VAT.

At worst your wage would be tax discounted by that margin. You're competing on real cost, all you have to do is operate on a competitive basis against people with similar level of education, skill, and the unfortunately highly valuable 1st world cultural and language integration. Might be racist but that is going to likely overcome the tax savings on some random guy of otherwise similar software skills in India.

> Might be racist but that is going to likely overcome the tax savings on some random guy of otherwise similar software skills in India

The model used by India is the exact same as that used in Romania, Poland, Czechia, Costa Rica, Israel, and other countries.

Having a couple digital nomad contractors works fine for small organizations, but once you break the 300+ number, that's when you start seeing the kind of tax optimizations I mentioned above kicking in.

> At worst your wage would be tax discounted by that margin. You're competing on real cost

That's the point. Wages don't play a significant role inasmuch as the tax optimization. And that's where the issue kicks in at scale.

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

#173

Post by jimbokun » Thu, May 22, 2025, 9:12 PM UTC

pksebben wrote: post #95

entuno wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Offshoring to people who use AI, and are now much more productive and can produce high-quality written output. If a junior role can be done with ChatGPT and CoPilot, why pay a western salary for it when you can pay someone a fraction of the salary to use the same thing?

Because eventually you're going to need a senior dev who actually has an understanding of the underlying system, when the one you have retires. The human junior will eventually become that, while it would be foolish to rely on the inevitability of LLMs getting there in time. Of course, this only matters if you give half a rat's ass about whether the company is going to be solvent in a decade. If your management strat…

Also assuming the worker you train will stay with your company.

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

#174

Post by jimbokun » Thu, May 22, 2025, 9:19 PM UTC

jauntywundrkind wrote: post #146

The industry feels so much more mature, in a bad way. We had such an exciting set of decades of making new software, new frameworks, finding out new ways to do things. Devs would be working on all kinds of exciting interesting personal matters. It was frontiers work, expanding possibility. Everything feels so set now. Ever larger industry dominating ever more, with large scale software using established frameworks an…

I think the lack of spark is because the cutting edge is LLMs that cost billions to train and operate. Eliminates the possibility of Ramen profitable startups.

“Prompt engineering“ isn’t exactly a defensible moat.

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

#175

Post by lotsofpulp » Thu, May 22, 2025, 9:20 PM UTC

dttze wrote: post #127

lotsofpulp wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Government funded schools with lower tuition (possibly even community college), more rigorous degrees with higher likelihoods of stable pay (e.g. medical/engineering), trade schools/apprenticeships.

They did that. Then those jobs still went away. So fuck them, right?

That’s why you choose lower tuition options so debt levels are manageable even with jobs that pay less.

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

#176

Post by jimbokun » Thu, May 22, 2025, 9:27 PM UTC

Der_Einzige wrote: post #62

There’s plenty of entry level jobs in AI itself. For some reason, many tech grads still refuse to reskill into AI itself. Ironic for a field that prides itself on how fast moving it is.

Do those jobs require PhDs?

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

#177

Post by rozap » Thu, May 22, 2025, 9:31 PM UTC

pksebben wrote: post #95

entuno wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Offshoring to people who use AI, and are now much more productive and can produce high-quality written output. If a junior role can be done with ChatGPT and CoPilot, why pay a western salary for it when you can pay someone a fraction of the salary to use the same thing?

Because eventually you're going to need a senior dev who actually has an understanding of the underlying system, when the one you have retires. The human junior will eventually become that, while it would be foolish to rely on the inevitability of LLMs getting there in time. Of course, this only matters if you give half a rat's ass about whether the company is going to be solvent in a decade. If your management strat…

fwiw this happens regardless of AI or offshoring or whatever. my old employer was bought out, and the senior staff trickled out the door over the years as the working environment got more frustrating. i heard from a friend who still works there that the product has been having "rolling brownouts" for months that "nobody can figure out" which sounds exceedingly bleak - it's just a saas product for crying out loud.

so you're right - but whether it's AI/offshoring with layoffs, or just regular churn with no plan to train people up to replace the knowledge that leaves, the result is the same, which is a degraded product that eventually falls apart. and yea, who cares if you're not in it for the long haul.

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

#178

Post by em-bee » Thu, May 22, 2025, 9:35 PM UTC

clusterhacks wrote: post #117

We recently had an open position that could have been a fit for a new grad with some internship experience or a solid portfolio of projects from just school. We had just over 20 applicants and selected 6 for interviews using a rubric to score candidates by reviewing CV/resume and cover letter. The rubric doesn't include a specific "years of experience" guideline anywhere. Of our 6 selected candidates, 3 were new grad…

the hiring process clearly selects for "has worked with experience. Even a great candidate can't seem to be attractive to other folks in our hiring process if their past experience doesn't include use.

this is what i find most frustrating, and what makes getting a job as a generalist so hard. i have experience with a number of tools and languages, but never the right combination that is asked for. if i don't find hiring managers like you, i don't stand a chance.

many candidates don't have a CV/resume or cover letter that leans into demonstrating the candidate can write code

how does one demonstrate that? in my CV i list projects that i contributed to or created, languages and frameworks that i am familiar with, but to me that doesn't demonstrate that i can write code. or does it? are there applicants that don't list these things, or am i missing something?

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

#179

Post by BuckRogers » Thu, May 22, 2025, 10:23 PM UTC

OutOfHere wrote: post #158

BuckRogers wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Denaturalization has always been done and nothing new. The US government can revoke citizenship for those who obtained it fraudulently. This can happen if an individual made false statements or concealed material facts during the naturalization process. The government must prove "clear, convincing, and unequivocal evidence" of fraud to succeed in a denaturalization case. I'd expect more of this going forward.

And what does this have to do with a visa worker? Nothing. It's the government that allow lax policies for work visas. The fault here is not the worker's.

I was responding to you. So you tell me. You did not mention H1Bs so I did not address that concern. You asked me about denaturalization and I gave you the answer to that.

I'm open to discussing visas if you wish, but I did not imply there was a connection between denaturalization and cancelling visas. These are two distinct avenues for removing excess resources from the American labor pool. The only connection between those two groups is that both do place a downward effect on our wages.

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

#180

Post by lotsofpulp » Thu, May 22, 2025, 10:48 PM UTC

red-iron-pine wrote: post #153

lotsofpulp wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Government funded schools with lower tuition (possibly even community college), more rigorous degrees with higher likelihoods of stable pay (e.g. medical/engineering), trade schools/apprenticeships.

> more rigorous degrees with higher likelihoods of stable pay (e.g. medical/engineering) this is the dumbest thing ever. first off, they already chased degrees that paid better -- they went STEM. secondly, things change a lot in 4 years. the 2020 college freshman is now getting screwed for choosing STEM right now, today. 4 years ago it was a good choice, 2 years ago it was shaky, and now it's a mess. medicine is also…

Not all STEM are equal. I would be surprised if significant numbers of electrical/chemical/civil/mechanical engineers are unemployed.

But the more important thing is if tuition and other expenses are low (which they are if one goes to state school or community college for first 2 years), then even a different job can provide enough income to service debt.