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The tech market is fundamentally fucked up and AI is just a scapegoat

bayramovanar.substack.com

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Re: The tech market is fundamentally fucked up and AI is just a scapegoat

#81

Post by billy99k »

cong-or wrote: post #47

Interesting framing. The article makes a compelling case that we're seeing the hangover from 14 years of ZIRP-fueled hiring rather than an AI apocalypse. But I'm curious what people think the equilibrium looks like. If the "two-tier system" (core revenue teams + disposable experimental teams) becomes the norm, what does that mean for the future of SWE as a career? A few scenarios I keep turning over: 1. Bifurcation -…

"Consulting/contractor becomes default - Full-time employment becomes rare; most devs work project-to-project like other creative industries"

I'm in the tech industry and have been doing this for 12+ years now. In the beginning, it was because I wanted to live overseas for a few years, without a break in my career.

Now, it's about survival. I buy my own health insurance (me and my family) in the marketplace every year (so I'm not tied to an employer), work with multiple clients (I never really have to worry about getting laid off), and make much more than a FTE.

While all my friends in tech are getting laid off or constantly in fear of getting laid off, I don't have to worry.

I also find that because I touch so many different technologies, I have to turn down work. I turned down a company last year, that wanted me in-house and one this year that would have been too demanding on my schedule.

It's also flexible and always remote.

Re: The tech market is fundamentally fucked up and AI is just a scapegoat

#82

Post by direwolf20 »

carlosjobim wrote: post #48

Should information technology be a stable employment sector? As far as I'm concerned, the main purpose of IT is to automate work. Tech companies make these systems of automation and provide them to other industries, so they can automate. Making a program or an IT system is something you only do once. So once it is completed, it is expected that a lot of people who helped make it have to go. It's like building a skysc…

There is churn in the work being done. An automation solution for one company shouldn't be expected to work for the next company. Every company has different processes, and developing software to fit the exact needs of one company will continue to be useful.

Some software is finished, like Microsoft Office 2003, and requires no additional work except to force ads on people. Those jobs may end.

Re: The tech market is fundamentally fucked up and AI is just a scapegoat

#83

Post by anovikov »

oytis wrote: post #24

Anecdotally, I didn't see more safety for engineers working on cash cows. Quite the contrary, if a product is already bringing revenue, it is an easy decision for the business to squeeze a bit more margin by letting people go. Stable, cash-generating projects are often first to be put into efficiency/maintenance mode.

It may be not such a bad idea because many engineers have an itch for fixing things that aren't broken.

Re: The tech market is fundamentally fucked up and AI is just a scapegoat

#84

Post by HWR_14 »

mexicocitinluez wrote: post #44
oytis wrote: post #24

Anecdotally, I didn't see more safety for engineers working on cash cows. Quite the contrary, if a product is already bringing revenue, it is an easy decision for the business to squeeze a bit more margin by letting people go. Stable, cash-generating projects are often first to be put into efficiency/maintenance mode.

Also anecdotally, I've had a handful of software development positions throughout the years (never at a position with more than 200-300 person company) and have yet to be laid off due to money. I've yet to be laid off at all, but that's irrelevant. I truly believe that these new tools will actually hurt the bigger companies and conversely help smaller ones. I'm in healthcare. The big players in the EMR space are Epic…

> What if, instead of having to reach out to the big players, the economics of having a software developer or 2 on staff make it such that you could build custom-tailored, bespoke software to work "with" your company and not against?

It's probably risk and liability and not development costs that keep things from moving in house. Not things AI is great at mitigating.

Re: The tech market is fundamentally fucked up and AI is just a scapegoat

#85

Post by AdamN »

dangus wrote: post #58
miohtama wrote: post #26

There is some fat in the system that likely needs to cut off. Here is Google complaint about not serving lobster biscue: https://x.com/Andercot/status/1768346257486184566?s=20 Zero interest rate phenomenon.

Reminder: this tweet could be totally made up.

Also lobster (or any other seafood) bisque isn't really expensive in the scheme of things.

Re: The tech market is fundamentally fucked up and AI is just a scapegoat

#86

Post by shiandow »

Having stable core revenue teams and disposable experimental teams seems like an excellent way to ensure the experienced developers will leave as soon as they can, and that any new knowledge leaves the company as soon as possible.

So in the end you lose both your ability to acquire new knowledge and to keep existing knowledge.

There has to be a better way surely?

Re: The tech market is fundamentally fucked up and AI is just a scapegoat

#87

Post by __MatrixMan__ »

anovikov wrote: post #83
oytis wrote: post #24

Anecdotally, I didn't see more safety for engineers working on cash cows. Quite the contrary, if a product is already bringing revenue, it is an easy decision for the business to squeeze a bit more margin by letting people go. Stable, cash-generating projects are often first to be put into efficiency/maintenance mode.

It may be not such a bad idea because many engineers have an itch for fixing things that aren't broken.

Yeah, 'cause slide rules were doing the job just fine!

Re: The tech market is fundamentally fucked up and AI is just a scapegoat

#88

Post by Bayramovanar »

j05ev1f3 wrote: post #52
jasode wrote: post #15

>In traditional industries like manufacturing you don’t hire 500 factory workers unless you have a production line that needs them. You don’t over-hire based on a guess. Traditional factories do make wrong guesses about the future and overhire all the time. Example: https://www.google.com/search?q=Ford+f150+lightning+laid+off...

The whole article rests on this false economic claim, that traditional industries don’t overhire based on expectations. They absolutely do, ALL THE TIME. Manufacturing, automotive, airlines, energy etc. all of them make demand bets and lay people off when those bets fail. Cheap money amplified this cycle, but this isn’t a tech specific "failure", it’s just how forecasting under uncertainty work. It’s incredible how s…

I will avoid getting into a “who understands economics better” debate.

But factory workers usually require specialized machinery, tooling, and physical capacity, which makes overhiring slower, harder and more constrained. Those investments force more deliberate planning.

By contrast, engineers mostly require a laptop and company hoodie... That low marginal cost makes it far easier to hire aggressively on expectations and unwind just as aggressively when those expectations change.

Re: The tech market is fundamentally fucked up and AI is just a scapegoat

#89

Post by paulnpace »

YetAnotherNick wrote: post #74
Bayramovanar wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, factories also overhire sometimes or shrink their businesses but not at the scale or frequency we see in tech.

Manufacturing sector has the most job cuts over time because the prediction of China not surpassing them was wrong. Tech employment on the other hand almost never decreased.

While the surpassing is true, something I've found interesting is that across very different industries that have nothing to do with one another, and including publicly traded and private (though still huge) companies, I have heard directly from buyers that top management has given them a directive to find new suppliers in China.

From a supply chain management perspective, this does not make sense. The directive should be something like "find the best suppliers on the planet."

Re: The tech market is fundamentally fucked up and AI is just a scapegoat

#90

Post by rozenmd »

cong-or wrote: post #47

Interesting framing. The article makes a compelling case that we're seeing the hangover from 14 years of ZIRP-fueled hiring rather than an AI apocalypse. But I'm curious what people think the equilibrium looks like. If the "two-tier system" (core revenue teams + disposable experimental teams) becomes the norm, what does that mean for the future of SWE as a career? A few scenarios I keep turning over: 1. Bifurcation -…

I always saw it as bimodal (even before LLMs) - you have folks working in regular shops making average comp, and you have the big tech elites earning high base + equity comp.

The Pragmatic Engineer argues it's actually trimodal (at least in Europe): https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/software-engineering-sala...

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