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Software engineering job openings hit five-year low?
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Re: Software engineering job openings hit five-year low?
#32No mention of Section 174... Edit: I am an idiot, there is a mention. Or possibly the article was edited and I'm not an idiot, it does say there was an edit recently.
Author of the article - and analyzed the likely impact of Section 174 in detail a year back [1], in Jan 2024, when it became clear that it was not being reversed like most assumed it would be.
I originally didn’t mention this because S174 impacts the US and US-HQ’d companies. In this data other countries like Germany, UK, France all see a similar drop. Also, S174 impact likely really started from early 2024, when companies impacted had to pay high taxes and realized the change is here to stay with no end in sight. Doesn’t explain the drop since 2022.
Updated the article to make this clear though. It was not in the original version - thanks for the note!
Re: Software engineering job openings hit five-year low?
#33- Interest rates
- Offshoring, nearshoring
- Generative AI
- Coding camps
- Better and more open source libraries. More high level open source libraries
- Low code and no code
- Easier to use technology, more documentation
Re: Software engineering job openings hit five-year low?
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
If the analogy is LLMs are today's equivalent of the web, I'm skeptical. Internet-based communication replaced technology like telephones and fax machines for synchronous and asynchronous telecommunication. People like and need to talk to other people. It was clearly valuable from day 1. What is the equivalent value proposition for LLMs? They make for really cool and splashy demos. But practical usage doesn't seem to…
It seems to me that I can research and study much faster as a result of using ChatGPT's Deep Research, FWIW.
Only for information available on the Internet…
Re: Software engineering job openings hit five-year low?
#35We are in a period analogous to the end of the Dotcom bubble. The Internet is obviously going to change the world, but right now all it can do is pets.com, etoys.com, kozmo.com. People are out of work, and those with other alternatives or preferences will leave the tech industry. In 10 years entire new platforms and modes will exist that generate even more opportunities than before. Some variation of this wave has be…
If the analogy is LLMs are today's equivalent of the web, I'm skeptical. Internet-based communication replaced technology like telephones and fax machines for synchronous and asynchronous telecommunication. People like and need to talk to other people. It was clearly valuable from day 1. What is the equivalent value proposition for LLMs? They make for really cool and splashy demos. But practical usage doesn't seem to…
I have personally written VBA macros (or hell - just a decent Excel spreadsheet...) that have put people out of their jobs. I didn't know this at the time, I was just a young gun able to see how to make some slow repetitive jobs, faster.
Later moved to Oracle / SQL Server / C# / microservices / CICD etc etc) but hell, that was my whole career 2002-2012 across various companies. Making cool tools for smart people, things the accelerated the company in smal;l but measurable ways, that unbeknownst to me would absolutely have directly resulted in a team of 3-5 being reduced to a team of 1, or a team of 1 not being expanded to be a team of 3-5.
The same will happen (IS happening) with LLM's.
Re: Software engineering job openings hit five-year low?
#36Re: Software engineering job openings hit five-year low?
#37We are in a period analogous to the end of the Dotcom bubble. The Internet is obviously going to change the world, but right now all it can do is pets.com, etoys.com, kozmo.com. People are out of work, and those with other alternatives or preferences will leave the tech industry. In 10 years entire new platforms and modes will exist that generate even more opportunities than before. Some variation of this wave has be…
If the analogy is LLMs are today's equivalent of the web, I'm skeptical. Internet-based communication replaced technology like telephones and fax machines for synchronous and asynchronous telecommunication. People like and need to talk to other people. It was clearly valuable from day 1. What is the equivalent value proposition for LLMs? They make for really cool and splashy demos. But practical usage doesn't seem to…
> It was clearly valuable from day 1
I’m not sure that’s the case even if in retrospect we can clearly argue this
In 1998, Paul Krugman, winner of the Nobel memorial prize in economic sciences, infamously predicted that “the growth of the Internet will slow drastically, as the flaw in ‘Metcalfe’s law’—which states that the number of potential connections in a network is proportional to the square of the number of participants—becomes apparent: most people have nothing to say to each other! By 2005 or so, it will become clear that the Internet’s impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine’s” [1] and even though that turned out to be spectacularly wrong it shows the attitude in the early days wasn’t one of absolute certainty.
And certainly the current AI boom is most visibly known for LLMs but there is a lot more happening beyond chatbots.
[1] https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/paul-krugman-internets-eff...
Re: Software engineering job openings hit five-year low?
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
The internet created vast new opportunities for software engineers to create value. Generative AI is about replacing software engineers in creating that value. These are very different things.
Software engineers also create value by recognizing opportunity.
Opportunity: you can buy $1500 in shingles, put them on someone's roof yourself in 4 days, and clear $5000 profit -- somewhere where rents/mortgage are under $1500 a month and a nice restaurant meal for two is under $50.
It's rapidly looking like nerding out while pining for the old days where engineering knowledge and education was valuable is maladaptive. The sunk cost fallacy can be real.
Re: Software engineering job openings hit five-year low?
#39Re: Software engineering job openings hit five-year low?
#40Development always slows down in down turns and times of uncertainty - companies hoard their money and don't want to start on new projects.