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How much have tech layoffs affected engineers vs. other departments?

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Re: How much have tech layoffs affected engineers vs. other departments?

#341

Post by tomrod »

junofan wrote: post #301
tomrod wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Economists don't favor democrats but rather seek reality, and the argument that conservative viewpoints are somehow not present in universities, especially in economics departments where Marxists econ profs and Austrian econ profs dine at the same tables and chair the same candidates, is both hilarious to people who have lived experience there and somewhat sad for those same because to communicate reality to folks es…

There’s been an extreme amount of unprompted bellyaching about Donald Trump at these dinner parties past six years.

And?

Re: How much have tech layoffs affected engineers vs. other departments?

#342

Post by RC_ITR »

WillPostForFood wrote: post #325
RC_ITR wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bro, what you are not understanding is that equating a recession to a decrease in production is pointless. It’s why you won’t answer my C+I+G question. What is happening is that Americans are selling debt/assets in exchange for goods/services (that’s what a trade imbalance is). They are still able to consume and invest an increasing amount of goods/services and there’s no signs of that ability to finance those activi…

equating a recession to a decrease in production is pointless I didn't equate a recession to anything. In fact, I never even used the word recession in any post, I don't have a framework, and not trying to push a political agenda. Literally, all I want to do is help you understand the GDP equation, which is often misunderstood as to how imports are excluded. (production is not the economy my guy, trade imbalances hav…

I'm also curious what you mean by "trade is not zero sum" when definitionally, trades are zero sum.

Definitionally, trading doesn't create things on its own (though I do recognize your D-K mind is probably trying to make an irrelevant and inappropriate point about comparative advantage or personal utility).

The point that you're too stubborn to see is that one can trade goods/services (GDP) for debt/assets (Not GDP), and that is why imports can cause GDP to go down without economic activity going down, which I think is a fair read of the comment that started this whole dumb thing. You seem to have some reason to not want to understand that, even though I've tried very hard to gently inform you of that fact.

Do you not think one of the most important features of the US economy is its ability to form capital/assets? Because if so, I bet you are German.

Re: How much have tech layoffs affected engineers vs. other departments?

#343

Post by RC_ITR »

yellowapple wrote: post #340
RC_ITR wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was a joke? I'm aware I'm not 'fighting for my life'

And I'm likewise aware that a centuries-old English monarch didn't call me to discuss the economic theories of her time (though it'd be pretty cool to see how accurately or inaccurately we've reconstructed Elizabethan-era English pronunciations).

Yeah so I responded to your joke with a joke then things got all serious because you didn't take it as a joke.

And here we are, two nerds online.

Re: How much have tech layoffs affected engineers vs. other departments?

#344

Post by b20000 »

bigtunacan wrote: post #256
b20000 wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

tech workers are not highly compensated on average, lawyers, doctors etc are.

Average salary for a lawyer isn't that different than for a software engineer (slightly higher). Doctor's average on the other hand is more than double.

any lawyer you try to hire in the bay area will be charging you $700+ per hour. doesn't matter if they work for a big law firm or not. the lowest I ever paid a lawyer was $400 per hour.

Re: How much have tech layoffs affected engineers vs. other departments?

#345

Post by WillPostForFood »

RC_ITR wrote: post #337
WillPostForFood wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

equating a recession to a decrease in production is pointless I didn't equate a recession to anything. In fact, I never even used the word recession in any post, I don't have a framework, and not trying to push a political agenda. Literally, all I want to do is help you understand the GDP equation, which is often misunderstood as to how imports are excluded. (production is not the economy my guy, trade imbalances hav…

>Might be true, but we were talking about GDP. GDP is production. Imports are not included in GDP, so an increase in imports doesn't cause GDP to go down. Imports cause GDP to go down relative to C+I+G . Full stop. I'm sorry I didn't say "relative to economic activity which should be the true measure of a recession" but again, that's why I call you a pedant. >Wrong, because math. Spending is up equal to the amount of…

Imports cause GDP to go down relative to C+I+G.

Imports are included in C+I+G, so when imports increase, C+I+G also increases. But the goal of calculating GDP is to exclude imports, so imports are subtracted from the total. Therefore there is no effect on GDP from increased imports.

You were wrong when you said GDP decreased because imports increased, which is how this started. That's not being pedantic, that's correcting a misunderstanding of the how GDP works.

Don't feel bad, this is very commonly misunderstood and misreported, so you have company. People see the "- Imports" at the end of the equation and think they understand imports subtract from GDP. Easy but naive mistake. It's your confidence in your misunderstanding that pushes it into DK territory. Your unwillingness to read or comment on the Fed's own explanation of this is a little shocking though.

Re: How much have tech layoffs affected engineers vs. other departments?

#346

Post by lumost »

spacemadness wrote: post #209
davewritescode wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need to write code and you need to get people around you to write better code. That’s basically what a staff engineer does in addition to making large design decisions.

That’s my belief as well but there are managers out there that think staff engineers should never write code. It boggles my mind they think this way but many do.

Writing code means that your impact can be directly measured. Others can see quality, volume, and impact. If you stop writing code then you can't be measured. If your impact is measured by others, and you aren't bound by a team... then you can just float to where the wind is blowing. It's comparatively easy to surf in this manner.

Re: How much have tech layoffs affected engineers vs. other departments?

#347

Post by ivalm »

RC_ITR wrote: post #311
ivalm wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Errors in counting generally go as square root of the count. So yes, as number goes up so does the deviation.

Inflation readings being higher have nothing to do with a higher count. Exact same amount of data points for inputs as 2% inflation.

It’s not about the amount of measurement points, uncertainties in dollar amounts tend to scale as sqrt. When you error propagate that you see that inflation uncertainty scales with inflation.

Very simple model

Inflation=v1/v2

D(inflation)=sqrt((D(v1)/v2)^2+(v1/v2^2 D(v2))^2)

Suppose

D(v1)=c sqrt(v1)

D(v2)=c sqrt(v2)

D(inflation)=c sqrt(v1/v2^2+v1^2/v2^3)= c sqrt(inflation+inflation^2)/sqrt(v2)

So can be seen that the leading term for uncertainty in inflation is linear with inflation.

Re: How much have tech layoffs affected engineers vs. other departments?

#348

Post by Hermitian909 »

jamesfinlayson wrote: post #287
Hermitian909 wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interestingly, as a side effect of this, the marginal gains on the most skilled engineers continues to increase. For certain classes of work it is very difficult to hire even at the top of the market. There are positions my company would happily pay a million/yr to fill and simply cannot find anyone who meets the requirements.

What sort of positions out of curiosity?

It's hard to list all of the sorts because sometimes the needs are quite nebulous. Sometimes it's someone who's a great engineer who's just... really great at certain kinds of growth hacking, whatever that entails. These are more "you know it when you see" opportunities. Engineering leadership can be sort of similar. The kind of person who can "make things happen". More technical roles are often easier to describe. A few concrete examples:

Someone who got their PhD researching databases who is also a very experienced software engineer.

A senior software engineer who's worked for a few years in the finance world, and understands some of the more advanced math like stochastic calculus.

Someone with experience helping hypergrowth mode startups whose main DB is MySql to adopt Vitess.

Re: How much have tech layoffs affected engineers vs. other departments?

#349

Post by yellowapple »

RC_ITR wrote: post #343
yellowapple wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And I'm likewise aware that a centuries-old English monarch didn't call me to discuss the economic theories of her time (though it'd be pretty cool to see how accurately or inaccurately we've reconstructed Elizabethan-era English pronunciations).

Yeah so I responded to your joke with a joke then things got all serious because you didn't take it as a joke. And here we are, two nerds online.

> because you didn't take it as a joke

You sure? :)

> And here we are, two nerds online.

Well yeah, that's kind of a given.

Re: How much have tech layoffs affected engineers vs. other departments?

#350

Post by za3faran »

hirvi74 wrote: post #271
wobbly_bush wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are also plenty of people unhappy with their FAANG jobs and don't want to trade it for a growth-chasing but ultimately unfulfilling startup. Those might be tempted to join a more robust startup.

Really? Why? I thought FAANG jobs were the closest thing to heaven on earth. Okay, I am being obnoxious, but seriously, this is first I have heard of this. Do you know why? Surely it can't be the remote work thing. I would assume there has to more to this.

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