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Where is the AI jobs crisis?

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Re: Where is the AI jobs crisis?

#141

Post by fdsdfsdfzxczxc »

txru wrote: post #127
bwestergard wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The decline in junior hiring began before ChatGPT had wide adoption, so AI is not a likely cause. https://www.employamerica.org/labor-market-analysis/dont-bla... The New York Fed has also released some research suggesting remote work has been a major factor differentially affecting early career workers. https://libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org/2026/06/remote... "But then people who work in actual tech companies…

I have a suspicion that Twitter laying off so much of the software staff was very influential for people with hiring abilities. The company didn't crash, and they (relatively slowly) began shipping new features again. I think that coincided with the pandemic-era overhiring, and we've been working against that combo ever since. Every now and then, I actively try to make an LLM replace my tasks, and fully do greenfield…

It does your job, but not completely autonomously so you don't see it?

It requires a lot of guidance, luckily, I mean thank god otherwise we would be goners. The job itself hasn't become easier, but it did change. If you come across failures you update the spec, the guard rails, whatever you use to guide it. It's not a "it produced bad code and now it's forever useless" type of situation.

Re: Where is the AI jobs crisis?

#142

Post by piloto_ciego »

txru wrote: post #127
bwestergard wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The decline in junior hiring began before ChatGPT had wide adoption, so AI is not a likely cause. https://www.employamerica.org/labor-market-analysis/dont-bla... The New York Fed has also released some research suggesting remote work has been a major factor differentially affecting early career workers. https://libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org/2026/06/remote... "But then people who work in actual tech companies…

I have a suspicion that Twitter laying off so much of the software staff was very influential for people with hiring abilities. The company didn't crash, and they (relatively slowly) began shipping new features again. I think that coincided with the pandemic-era overhiring, and we've been working against that combo ever since. Every now and then, I actively try to make an LLM replace my tasks, and fully do greenfield…

I hate to be "that guy" but you're crazy if you don't see AI being able to do greenfield projects you'd accept.

I mean, in your defense, last year I think you would have been right, but right now? Codex rocks, as does Claude. I am literally making money shipping a greenfield project to a customer right now. I'm basically a cheap consultant that is incrementally adding features to make something exactly what they want for way cheaper than it would be to do it the old way.

There are hiccups, outages, things to fix etc. but the customer is happy with the output, and the reduced price means they get bespoke solutions rather than some BS one size fits all SaaS app. Then my job is maintenance and effectively "ITSM." Which kind of sucks in some ways, I miss writing real code for real projects, but this is the future going forward. If you want something for your business, you'll generate it rather than pay for it and for now at least, getting beyond localhost requires someone who knows a bit about computers or is willing to learn. Most small businesses aren't willing to learn.

Now, to your point. Is the code all that clean? Nope (and in your defense sometimes I read through the codebase and shudder)... but who cares? Like, for awhile I would go through and frantically edit it, but why? It worked. Not only that, but there's going to be a new model in 3 months or whatever that can clean it up and make it less shitty. I've literally done that a couple times since I started doing this in January.

The customer ain't reading the code. They don't care as long as the the functionality works - that's what counts. The gazillion tests I have keep it stable as I push code, and the CI/CD pipeline removes a ton of the ass pain I'd have without it.

The biggest thing I'm worried about when it comes to clean code and good design is trying to make sure I keep the token count down on these projects so I can actually do meaningful work without burning through a week's worth of tokens in a single day. That, and I like to try to keep a sort of architectural bird's eye view on what's happening...

Like, I'm not sure what niche of the industry you're in, but for the stuff I'm using it for, stuff is working really well with LLMs.

Re: Where is the AI jobs crisis?

#144

Post by leptons »

scottious wrote: post #95
atleastoptimal wrote: post #69

It's crazy that so often I see articles, here on HN and elsewhere, where some pundit claims that there is no AI job crisis, AI isn't replacing any jobs, that layoffs are actually due to post-pandemic ZIRP overhiring, etc. But then people who work in actual tech companies come in and explicitly say they are not hiring any juniors anymore specifically because AI is good enough to do most of what juniors do, and that se…

the job description of a junior engineer can change. junior engineers can use AI to make themselves more productive too

"Productive junior" is vastly different than a productive software developer with a couple decades of experience. What they produce will differ in quality significantly, AI or no AI.

Re: Where is the AI jobs crisis?

#145

Post by fdsdfsdfzxczxc »

catigula wrote: post #140

We're on the cusp of it. Models JUST got good enough to be better than the average white collar worker at nearly everything. This literally is a brand new phenomenon; it's only a matter of time.

No, you're wrong and have no data to back it up. I, on the other hand, bring valuable personal experience that says AIs are useless. I asked it to do X and it did X, but it did it differently than I would do it. This means it is fundamentally flawed and complete utter trash. If it can't do X exactly how I like it without any guidance whatsoever it is not ready for prime time and never will be because it lacks "intelligence".

Re: Where is the AI jobs crisis?

#146

Post by txru »

fdsdfsdfzxczxc wrote: post #141
txru wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a suspicion that Twitter laying off so much of the software staff was very influential for people with hiring abilities. The company didn't crash, and they (relatively slowly) began shipping new features again. I think that coincided with the pandemic-era overhiring, and we've been working against that combo ever since. Every now and then, I actively try to make an LLM replace my tasks, and fully do greenfield…

It does your job, but not completely autonomously so you don't see it? It requires a lot of guidance, luckily, I mean thank god otherwise we would be goners. The job itself hasn't become easier, but it did change. If you come across failures you update the spec, the guard rails, whatever you use to guide it. It's not a "it produced bad code and now it's forever useless" type of situation.

[flagged]

Re: Where is the AI jobs crisis?

#147

Post by colesantiago »

Daishiman wrote: post #107
5701652400 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

same applies for seniors as well. ther isn't much distinction of senior vs junior human dev (as in cost and efficiency) compared to AI-dev (cost and efficiency). more so, at current imrpovement rate. in couple more years you would not need seniors anymore either.

As long as architectural decisions have long-term costs and you need human taste and judgement to speculate on what business needs will come about in the next few years you'll still need human engineers.

We replaced most of our juniors and seniors at my company with AI.

We only have like 2 seniors down from 30 and they are more productive than ever.

I expect with Mythos we can get this down to at least 1 highly paid senior engineer and the rest a swarm of agents they are managing.

Re: Where is the AI jobs crisis?

#148

Post by elektronika »

gruez wrote: post #102
heathrow83829 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

be careful with "real" hourly earnings. if they're using the CPI then it can be very misleading. One need only compare nominal wages vs nominal rents per square foot for the last 50 years to see that actual wages have dropped by 30% and yet the "real" hourly average wage calculated via the CPI is flat, falsly implying that actual wages have not dropped.

> if they're using the CPI then it can be very misleading. One need only compare nominal wages vs nominal rents per square foot for the last 50 years to see that actual wages have dropped by 30% and yet the "real" hourly average wage calculated via the CPI is flat, falsly implying that actual wages have not dropped. Yes, if you get to pick prices of arbitrary items to compare against, it's easy to come to whatever co…

CPI functions to obscure disproportionate price increases in essentials by lumping them in with cheapening commodities (e.g. electronics) that have a high demand elasticity. It's as much a choice to to use CPI to come to the conclusion things are fine, as it would be picking "arbitrary items" such as the essentials: food, shelter, medical care, and transportation that would paint a picture distinctly less fine.

Re: Where is the AI jobs crisis?

#149

Post by sshine »

paulpauper wrote: post #53
RigelKentaurus wrote: post #39

The most glaring gap in this "analysis" is that it's too early to tell. I don't understand how people can be certain in both extreme viewpoints.

How much time has to pass before we can dismiss the widely cited predictions by the media (and also many popular bloggers and podcasters) that AI will lead to mass joblessness? Those people need to at the very least acknowledge that their forecasts are so far wrong.

To answer your question: It depends on your claim. All claims of mass unemployment thus far are evidently not true. All claims of mass unemployment in the near future: We'll have to wait and see.

The prediction that AI will lead to mass unemployment is largely a widespread fear more than an observation.

AI washing: On the one hand, you have periodic mass layoffs that could be related, but also could be "AI washing", with the companies citing AI to sound progressive when, in fact, they just over-hired.

Multiple independent sources find no broad signal. (Anthropic's labor research, Yale Budget Lab, Apollo's chief economist Torsten Sløk)

I'd still like to know more about the junior situation, though.

Re: Where is the AI jobs crisis?

#150

Post by sshine »

RigelKentaurus wrote: post #125
paulpauper wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much time has to pass before we can dismiss the widely cited predictions by the media (and also many popular bloggers and podcasters) that AI will lead to mass joblessness? Those people need to at the very least acknowledge that their forecasts are so far wrong.

Both sides should take a deep breath and stay away from predictions.

Both sides of what?
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