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2026 tech layoffs reach 45,000 in March

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Re: 2026 tech layoffs reach 45,000 in March

#81

Post by genthree »

small_model wrote: post #24

Mangers and executives have better tools now to track a tech workers output/performance, they will cut the useless/low performers/in over their head people who were hired during preceding years. A small tech team with proficient intelligent devs augmented with AI can replace 100's of duds.

My experience has been that a good small team, even full of people who’d stand no chance in a FAANG interview (fwiw) can outperform at least 5x as many devs in your median bigco, while maintaining a relaxed pace.

The reason for this has nothing to do with how productive the devs are per se and everything to do with bloated decision making processes and extremely high communication overhead. “AI” does nothing for that (in fact, I’m seeing integrated suggestions in ticket tracking tools making things spammier and reducing quality of tickets, so if anything, it’s making it worse)

Re: 2026 tech layoffs reach 45,000 in March

#82

Post by js8 »

bayarearefugee wrote: post #35
PlanksVariable wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And for how many more years are we going to be calling this a post-Covid market correction?

Also, whether Covid is to blame or not, all these layoffs (not just the Meta one) contradict some of the most common rationalizations I've seen for how AI won't destroy the labor market but rather expand it. If there really is all this latent untapped need to drive a Jevron's effect software explosion that will keep developers employable, why would so many profitable companies be laying off so many workers into the t…

I have an explanation (or rationalization, if you wish) for this.

The AI caused the developer productivity to increase (similar to other two big SW engineering productivity jumps - compilers and open source), which gives them more leverage over employers (capital). Things that you needed a small team to build (and thus more capital) you can now do in a single person.

In the long run, this will mean more software being written, possibly by even larger number of people (shift on the demand curve - as price of SW goes down demand increases). But before that happens, companies have a knee-jerk reaction to this as they're trying to take back control over developers, while assuming total amount of software will stay constant. Hence layoffs. But I think it's shortsighted, the companies will hurt themselves in the long run, because they will lay off people who could build them more products in the future. (They misunderstood - developers are not getting cheaper, it's the code that will.)

Re: 2026 tech layoffs reach 45,000 in March

#84

Post by doomslayer999 »

apatheticonion wrote: post #59
tayo42 wrote: post #39

Unemployed people, what are you doing?

I was laid off from Atlassian this/last week. Since then I've been playing Satisfactory for 12 hours a day. Crazy thing is, I delivered optimizations that saved 1m USD over the last 12 months, with another optimization in-flight that would save another 1m USD. I thought that was enough to protect me from layoffs/PIPs - I guess no one was counting. AI is just an excuse for layoffs which IMO CEOs are trying to use to r…

Your problem was that you tried doing work. What you want to do as an employee is make it so they can’t fire you not that you are actually useful.

Re: 2026 tech layoffs reach 45,000 in March

#88

Post by davidw »

PessimalDecimal wrote: post #48
CoastalCoder wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not in some AI "dey took er jerbs" kind of way FWIW, I read this as equating a particular regional accent with stupidity. I imagine it wasn't intentional, but it's something to consider.

It's a South Park reference. It very much is equating the accent with stupidity and backwardness. In their defense, they make fun of nearly everyone. But they definitely were mocking White Southerners there.

In the episode, it's not what I'd call a southern accent.
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