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Jobs and Software Is Fucked

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Re: Jobs and Software Is Fucked

#51
post #7

Curious about the perspective from anyone who has a skill set / reputation where finding jobs is easy right now. I imagine people in ML or who've found a good way to demonstrate prowess with agentic systems may be highly in demand right now(?)

I work in an industry tangentially involved with the ML build-out (think companies like Broadcom, Marvell, etc.). We can't find enough people, if you have like 3+ years of experience with PCIe, Ethernet, DDR, you're a shoe in. Verification, Validation, Design, Customer Applications, Firmware, you name it, we need it. The pay is good too, especially for people who got in a year ago or more, stock base compensation has taken off like a rocket.

Hiring here is a little bit more old school, I guess? Especially because the types of roles we are hiring now are usually 5+ years of experience, we focus more on learning about what the candidates have done in the past, the leetcode type of question interview is just a small part, and matters more for prospective Jr. hires.

That being said, we aren't hiring that many fresh graduates anymore, we already have some we hired, we're focused on investing in them, getting them to learn more about our hardware and code, etc. and hoping to retain them.

Re: Jobs and Software Is Fucked

#52

> I've seen people supposedly smarter than I advocate for just giving in, conceding to AI coding as it's the future. But doing so means tossing out my friends who make art or the people who work their asses off to properly test and review code or the writers pouring all of their energy into even mundane dialogue. It means throwing out my dignity Conflating things in this inflammatory way is a big mistake. Using a tec…

I think you might not get the context this is coming from, it’s about a game developer laid off from Blizzard not wanting to partake in the technology that will justify layoffs of their friends. Pretty straight forward to me.

Re: Jobs and Software Is Fucked

#53

> I've seen people supposedly smarter than I advocate for just giving in, conceding to AI coding as it's the future. But doing so means tossing out my friends who make art or the people who work their asses off to properly test and review code or the writers pouring all of their energy into even mundane dialogue. It means throwing out my dignity Conflating things in this inflammatory way is a big mistake. Using a tec…

The author is coming from the games industry. As an arts based industry, AI is EXTREMELY divisive. The author really will lose friends over even so much as touching AI in certain ways, because the artists that built the games industry were already badly abused, and now, they're being squeezed out entirely. For business developers, AI is somewhat less existentially terrifying, as it can be seen to be really empowering to an experienced user.

In the games industry, AI usage immediately eliminates a human job. Why pay a pixel artist if AI can generate 100's of unique little people pixels in seconds, and output them in the right format? Hollywood is going through the same thing: the companies that are building AI for Hollywood have to do so in the bushes, hiding. You don't see them advertising or flashing cash. That's because no one involved in using their wares wants anyone to know they're using them, lest they alienate the highly-talented people they still need to fill the gap between concept AI and full theatrical release AI.

In the software world, we are worried about AI. In the creative industries, they are absolutely pants on fire, screaming at the sky, burning down the village terrified of AI.

Re: Jobs and Software Is Fucked

#54

> I've seen people supposedly smarter than I advocate for just giving in, conceding to AI coding as it's the future. But doing so means tossing out my friends who make art or the people who work their asses off to properly test and review code or the writers pouring all of their energy into even mundane dialogue. It means throwing out my dignity Conflating things in this inflammatory way is a big mistake. Using a tec…

This particular technology has been trained by explicitly ripping off a lot of peoples' friends, though.

Re: Jobs and Software Is Fucked

#55

[flagged]

You aren't wrong. But it is a sad state of affairs if you have to self-suppress you're freedoms to work. That is how freedom dies isn't it? Everyone fearful to speak or lose a job. "Just shut up and code, have to get those gas chambers up and running themselves, so we can stick the rest of you lot into them."

You don’t have to at all. They are actually wrong, you can express yourself, share your pronouns, and find a job

Re: Jobs and Software Is Fucked

#58
There are a number of reasons I’d site for the current job market tightness:

- political: there’s an enormous amount of uncertainty here. All businesses make plans and uncertainty puts them all on pause.

- economic: related to political, but we’re teetering on a very bad recession. Watch where national oil reserves go.

- AI: I throw this in with every new technology that comes out. There is always a period of chaos before normalization. We’re still in the chaos phase.

- Business Pain: Right now I don’t see any sector that’s in pain. Inflation has hurt consumers, but we’re still spending. When consumers lock it down, that pain comes back and job market shifts with it.

I have no solution other than figuring out a way to do your own thing. There’s no better time to be a founder.

Re: Jobs and Software Is Fucked

#59
post #17

It's not like the job market was that much better before AI infested every single corner of the market, but it supercharged all of the worst aspects of everything. I've seen people supposedly smarter than I advocate for just giving in, conceding to AI coding as it's the future. But doing so means tossing out my friends who make art or the people who work their asses off to properly test and review code or the writers…

Also, never, ever give more of a shit about things than the people leading the effort. Doesn't matter if that's a for-profit enterprise, a FLOSS project, or just a way to pass the time.

You cannot and will not force them to care more. Don't waste your time on Earth trying to do so.

Re: Jobs and Software Is Fucked

#60

It really is awful right now. I'm lucky enough to still have a job, but floated my resume around earlier this year. I have a pretty good resume and and 15 YOE, and got turned down EVERYWHERE. I used to at least get interviews at like 50% of places I applied to. And then recruiter spam is COMPLETELY gone. I'm not really complaining, but it feels indicative of where things are at.

You're right on the latter point. I always wondered if Linkedin increased their spam filter or make it 10x more expensive to DM candidates, but I guess it's simply because there is simply a lack of demand right now
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