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Jobs and Software Is Fucked

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Re: Jobs and Software Is Fucked

#261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your phrasing here comes across as if you think that people who support social change are fickle and unprincipled, just following whatever is popular. No, this is not what I'm saying. I'm saying you need to do everything possible to present yourself as someone who is 100% dedicated to the company and not cause headaches and troubles. Anyone who is unemployed for a year should not be openly talking about controversial…

>you need to do everything possible to present yourself as someone who is 100% dedicated to the company This is wrong. You should strike a balance (that admittedly errs on the side of "I admire your business"). You absolutely do not want to be working for an employer who rewards "100% DEDICATION TO THE COMPANY" in an interview. That's absolutely sick. In fact, I'll go further: It is our duty to do everything we can t…

It entirely depends on the market. Starving and unemployed for a year? You gotta do what you need to do to survive. Let's take off those rose-tinted glasses.

Re: Jobs and Software Is Fucked

#262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So hypothetically one person can do a work of five. Note of that erases those people and their skills. It just doesn't magically take them out of the universe or turns them into unskilled persons. But it does magically erases those people with those skills as needed employees. > The real underlying issue is that demand for it doesn't catch up because world's coincidentally fucked (through a series of unrelated issu…

> Just because we can do something faster or automate parts of it doesn't guarantee demand will go up It's not guaranteed, but why wouldn't it? It's digital entertainment and art, and the market is not saturated, there's still tons of ideas unexplored. If more people would have spare money they can spend on digital purchases instead of making ends meet - I'm pretty sure there'd be more people seeking ways to earn tha…

You are indeed wrong, there's no infinite demand for everything

Re: Jobs and Software Is Fucked

#263
post #85

After 5+ years of actively trying to get into the field (pre AI), I left. I threw my degree in the toilet, I closed my linkedin, and I went to go work in the trades as a diesel mechanic. Greatest choice I've ever made. The pay is great, the work is steady, the coworkers are relaxed and not trying to one up each other. I'm now being paid to go to school, and get raises every year until I'm fully ticketed (way more tha…

> I closed my linkedin, and I went to go work in the trades as a diesel mechanic. Love it! A score of years ago, I considered being an auto mechanic after graduating HS but then ended up back in CompSci. Did you have to go back to school? Did you find a shop that would take you in as an apprentice? And if they did, how did you convince them you can/will be good at the job?

Adore it! Why did you not become an auto mechanic, then?

Re: Jobs and Software Is Fucked

#264
post #260
post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe 10 years ago. Now you have to fight 300 other applicants for an entry position that pays $50k in NYC. The biggest thing for me that pushed me over the edge was thinking, how will I get a mortgage? All this applying, 100s of applications, even if I land a job it's not stable. Maybe it pays more, but I'll be laid off in a year or 2. Then back to 100s of applications while my mortgage is ticking away. I have a fri…

Honestly, I think the biggest enjoyment I got from this thread is that programming culture is often toxic in ways that people aren't really ready to admit on this site which is dedicated to computers and programming. I can hear them now: "Surely, you can't be happy with your decision, Mr. Ralo. You're leaving so much money on the table!" And you're saying calmly: "Yes, yes I am." Best of luck to you and your efforts.

I've tried both. I've seen what both offer and I'm so confident in my decision that I just sit back and watch the gong show at this point.

My decision gets further cemented when I ask my tech friends how work is going.

Re: Jobs and Software Is Fucked

#265
post #257
post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely. It's not perfect but safety is in your control, and all up to you. I accept the trade off, as the alternative is going back to linkedin and begging for a job all day. This is why I try to hoard all my money. I don't want to do this when I'm 50. I've always thought about doing this for 10-15 years and then building a semi and doing some owner operator long haul trucking. I could easily fix anything on the…

Have you thought of opening your own truck repair shop? Often there are places where trucks break down and the solutions are slim to None. A good repair shop in the right place might make decent money.

I'm so at peace right now, the flow is good. I don't need the hustle of chasing mllions of dollars. The owner of the company can deal with that, I just want to do my 8 hours and go home free and clear.

Re: Jobs and Software Is Fucked

#266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

If you cannot find enough people in current market then pay is not that good as you think.

my last year's taxable income was over half a million and I am not even staff level, and I am not in the US. The reason we can't find people is because we are looking for people with specific skillsets - there's not that massive a pool of people who know e.g. PCIe at a very in-depth level. And trust me, we pay way better than companies like AMD or Qualcomm would, but a lot of the people at those companies just prefer staying because they are comfortable enough. Not like AMD is giving people poverty wages for PMTS level staff.

Re: Jobs and Software Is Fucked

#267

The industry will realize that while getting LLMs to write code is easy, getting LLMs to write good, production ready code is a skill all on its own, which simply must be done by a human and is not automatable to an LLM in any sense effectively. That will be the differentiating factor software engineering in the future, I think. If I'm being blunt, if you are in the game industry, you probably have nothing to worry a…

I've spoken about my troubles getting as much mileage out of LLMs as before while being vague about my industry and, well, this hits the nail in the head. > because the tooling used in the gaming industry is as unfriendly to LLM coding as it gets: Heavily visual scripting based At the start of the LLM craze, we (as a team) put ChatGPT to test with Godot. It wasn't very successful in that, IIRC, GDScript 2 was just re…

>I'm proud to say, I've managed to slay one of the giants, the only successful effort to my knowledge, and this only happened last year. But I did so by basically delegating to another of the giants; they turned out to be twins and we could do without one. The dirty way is the clean way because the alternative contains Lovecraftian geometries.

If you are interested, I've built an open source project specifically to solve this issue in game AI and it resolves the switch/if-else ladders pretty cleanly. It's C#, so it should work for .NET version of Godot as well, and I have a couple of sample MonoGame project on there to demonstrate that it works: HSFM + utility AI. Works not just for games, but weirdly for LLM orchestration too.

https://github.com/yuechen-li-dev/Dominatus

Try it out, I don't want people to think I'm here just to self-promote, but I think this could be the thing that helps you slay the switch statement giants once and for all. If it helps you for your work, hey, powers to you.

Re: Jobs and Software Is Fucked

#268
post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Understandable. Look at the possible directions: - GenAI becomes a foundational requirement for tech and non tech sectors. If you’ve refused to engage, you’ve self-selected out of any of those sectors. - GenAI usage shifts down to just the tech sector, but in an integrated fashion where current engineering practices are still desired. Everyone survives, but pay scales are adjusted down by a not-insignificant amount.…

The problem with scenario one is it's still cope: "if you didn't develop the skills to use GenAI then you'll be left behind". But that's not the promise of GenAI models. The skill floor is constantly lowering and your advanced workflow is rendered obsolete monthly.

I've not seen anything from the base models that replaces my engineering harness (workflow). There's a significant gap between what a generic LLM does and the domain I work in (software construction for complex applications).

Re: Jobs and Software Is Fucked

#269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Hi, looking for your contact info or you can find mine from the beginning of the month hiring post. Cheers.

Sent you an e-mail

Re: Jobs and Software Is Fucked

#270

If you don't have a full time job for a year, why don't you start a software business on your own? It's hard to succeed, but, successful or now, you will have something to show people and something that you are passionate to talk about. It will give you a new way to connect to people, and quite likely will help you to get hired. And who knows, maybe you will succeed.

Creating a business something that sounds soooo far fetched. It is such a tail event for me that I never even considered. How do you even begin? You just start calling people if they want your product?
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