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Tech employment now significantly worse than the 2008 or 2020 recessions

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Re: Tech employment now significantly worse than the 2008 or 2020 recessions

#61

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

mrweasel wrote: post #34
ppeetteerr wrote: post #26

Those are raw numbers. I would look instead at the job changes over total employment numbers. I don't have the numbers but I would wager we have many more people working in tech today (overall) than we did in 2008. Also, that spike in 21/22 really did a number on people's expectations. The one constant in this industry is its cyclical nature.

Maybe I'm reading the graph wrong, but the decrease comes after years on continuous growth, so total employment numbers in tech should still be absolutely massive, compared to 18 years ago? If it continues, then yes it could be bad, but so far it seems like a correction for over-hiring in 2021 - 2023. Seems a little weird to be focusing on a decline in 2024 - 2026, without addressing the large increase right in the y…

There's a lot of dynamics where it's the short-term numbers that matter. If you're a developer who needs a new job after your spouse got transferred to LA or something, it does you no good that the absolute numbers are massive, nor that a different person looking for a job 3 years ago would have found it uncommonly easy.

Re: Tech employment now significantly worse than the 2008 or 2020 recessions

#63

Post by _alternator_ »

lowkey_ wrote: post #55
mjr00 wrote: post #15

In my experience, tech employment is incredibly bimodal right now. Top candidates are commanding higher salaries than ever, but an "average" developer is going to have an extremely hard time finding a position. Contrary to what many say, I don't think it's simple as seniors are getting hired and juniors aren't. Juniors are still getting hired because they're still way cheaper and they're just as capable as using AI a…

Agreed on the bimodal, but I don't think this is junior vs. senior - I think it's just competence being rooted out. The majority of engineers, in my hiring experience, failed very simple tests pre-AI. In a world where anyone can code, they're no better than previously non-technical people. The CS degree is no longer protection. The gap between average and the best engineers now, though, is even higher. The best engin…

Largely agree, with a bit of clarification. Junior devs can indeed prompt better than some of the old timers, but the blast radius of their inexperienced decisions is much higher. High competence senior devs who embrace the new tools are gonna crush it relative to juniors.

Re: Tech employment now significantly worse than the 2008 or 2020 recessions

#64

Post by stackedinserter »

Are there real positions these days?

I get rejection for every single position that I apply to. Often I read literally a description of myself in job posting, and it's still "we decided to no move forward".

At the same time, I hire people and see that 8/10 candidates are just trash. Not in the sense they "are not aligned", or "emit wrong vibes", or other bs. They literally can't write a single line of code, on their own laptop, in their own IDE.

Make it make sense.

Re: Tech employment now significantly worse than the 2008 or 2020 recessions

#65

Post by overgard »

I know people will say AI, but I don't think it's that. The whole "everyone should learn to code" bullshit of the last 15 years or so has created a lot of developers that frankly aren't very good, and then you mix in the massive overhiring of the pandemic, and what you're seeing is a hard correction. CEOs love to use "productivity improvements from AI" as a smokescreen and investor catnip but the research shows it's not having the effects claimed.

Re: Tech employment now significantly worse than the 2008 or 2020 recessions

#66

Post by ex-aws-dude »

mjr00 wrote: post #15

In my experience, tech employment is incredibly bimodal right now. Top candidates are commanding higher salaries than ever, but an "average" developer is going to have an extremely hard time finding a position. Contrary to what many say, I don't think it's simple as seniors are getting hired and juniors aren't. Juniors are still getting hired because they're still way cheaper and they're just as capable as using AI a…

I don’t think that’s true

If intermediates were being pushed out they would just take junior roles to have something

Companies really don’t like hiring Juniors in general

Re: Tech employment now significantly worse than the 2008 or 2020 recessions

#67

Post by jghn »

lowkey_ wrote: post #55
mjr00 wrote: post #15

In my experience, tech employment is incredibly bimodal right now. Top candidates are commanding higher salaries than ever, but an "average" developer is going to have an extremely hard time finding a position. Contrary to what many say, I don't think it's simple as seniors are getting hired and juniors aren't. Juniors are still getting hired because they're still way cheaper and they're just as capable as using AI a…

Agreed on the bimodal, but I don't think this is junior vs. senior - I think it's just competence being rooted out. The majority of engineers, in my hiring experience, failed very simple tests pre-AI. In a world where anyone can code, they're no better than previously non-technical people. The CS degree is no longer protection. The gap between average and the best engineers now, though, is even higher. The best engin…

I agree that what you're describing is the required skillset now. But two things I've been unsure of are what that looks like in terms of hiring to test for it, and for how long this remains a moat at all.

So much of tech hiring cargo culting has been built up around leetcode and other coding problems, puzzles, and more. We all pay lip service to systems thinking and architecture, but I question if even those are testing the correct things for the modern era.

And then what happens in a year when the models can handle that as well?

Re: Tech employment now significantly worse than the 2008 or 2020 recessions

#68

Post by groby_b »

palmotea wrote: post #8

The ideal software engineer will code himself out of a job and be happy about it. Be that ideal. The shareholders are counting on you!

Counterpoint: I've been desperately trying to code myself out of a job for almost 4 decades now. I inevitably ended up (and keep ending up) getting more responsibilities instead.

So have all the great engineers I've been working with - there's a deep desire for growth past the things that you're currently good at.

The people worrying they might code themselves out of a job are in a different skill demographic. (Ironically, that means they won't be able to code themselves out of a job)

Re: Tech employment now significantly worse than the 2008 or 2020 recessions

#69

Post by johnnyanmac »

serial_dev wrote: post #44
mjr00 wrote: post #15

In my experience, tech employment is incredibly bimodal right now. Top candidates are commanding higher salaries than ever, but an "average" developer is going to have an extremely hard time finding a position. Contrary to what many say, I don't think it's simple as seniors are getting hired and juniors aren't. Juniors are still getting hired because they're still way cheaper and they're just as capable as using AI a…

I’m not sure it is just that, I don’t even see positions listed where I would like to work. For salary ranges, I see lower upper limits than my second best offer three n half years ago. Considering the high inflation, that’s crazy. I would not mind switching but 1. I don’t see interesting positions 2. they don’t pay well, and only 3. they might not even want me. It might also be just my niche, but finding a good posi…

Yeah, I don't know if I'd call myself competent (I'm late intermediate/early senior. So the worst of the curve here). But there's a difference between "interviews have gotten a lot harder now" and "I can't even get a response back". It's far, far more in the latter.

My resume isn't bad on paper either. It's not FAANG coded, but it's decent experience.

Re: Tech employment now significantly worse than the 2008 or 2020 recessions

#70

Post by dakiol »

lowkey_ wrote: post #55
mjr00 wrote: post #15

In my experience, tech employment is incredibly bimodal right now. Top candidates are commanding higher salaries than ever, but an "average" developer is going to have an extremely hard time finding a position. Contrary to what many say, I don't think it's simple as seniors are getting hired and juniors aren't. Juniors are still getting hired because they're still way cheaper and they're just as capable as using AI a…

Agreed on the bimodal, but I don't think this is junior vs. senior - I think it's just competence being rooted out. The majority of engineers, in my hiring experience, failed very simple tests pre-AI. In a world where anyone can code, they're no better than previously non-technical people. The CS degree is no longer protection. The gap between average and the best engineers now, though, is even higher. The best engin…

> While this could be done by junior or senior, I think junior usually has the slight advantage in being more AI-native and knowing how to effectively prompt and work with AI, though not always.

But juniors don't (usually) have the knowledge to assess if what the AI has produced is ok or not. I agree that anybody (junior or senior) can produce something with AI, the key question is whether the same person has the skills to asses (e.g., to ask the right questions) that the produced output is what's needed. In my experience, junior + AI is just a waste of money (tokens) and a nightmare to take accountability for.

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