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Software engineering job openings hit five-year low?

blog.pragmaticengineer.com

91–100 of 279 posts

Re: Software engineering job openings hit five-year low?

#91
I don't think this means what they think it means: a _lot_ of job postings get filled before they get counted. Think about it, there have been a lot of layoffs. Many of these people have friends that can refer them to jobs before they are posted.

A better graph would be of the number of people who self-report as being employed as software developer. I doubt that would show the same decline--there have not been many stories of people abandoning the profession because they could not find employment...

Re: Software engineering job openings hit five-year low?

#93

Kind of strange to see no mention of outsourcing in an otherwise detailed analysis

Our company just let go of all our remote LATAM hires. We paid high end in their LCOL areas. They were somewhere between ok and not good. Felt like we got about what we paid for - their cost was about 50% of a US dev. They were as productive as a low end US dev, so in some cases ok value but since hiring low performers tends to hurt a team overall they weren’t worth it. We’re a mid range company (decent cash comp, no…

>Felt like we got about what we paid for

This is the usual ebb and flow of offshoring in the tech industry that's been going on since the 90s.

There has never been a scalable arbitrage for tech talent by going over to another geo, and there won't be one in the foreseeable future. What US HCoL talent gets paid is unfortunately the fair and natural market rate for that caliber of talent, at least if you need to hire more than like 10 people.

Re: Software engineering job openings hit five-year low?

#94
post #89

"Programming languages are simpler than human languages" this is a very stupid thing to say. The formal structure of a language doesn't easily determine the complexity of what can be done with a language, nor is it a way of predicting the difficulty of expressing an equivalent idea vs other formal or natural languages.

> this is a very stupid thing to say

Well, it does have the virtue of being straightforwardly true. For example, programming languages can't be ambiguous.

Re: Software engineering job openings hit five-year low?

#95
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting… 50% of US dev cost is like what if you don’t mind saying? 100k? I found the biggest issue with these engagements is the trust with remote developers.

I would think $40k-$50k

Dev costs are around 40-45 USD per hour for a lower average in Ukraine. Annual salary would be closer to 90K.

Re: Software engineering job openings hit five-year low?

#96
post #60

FRED wants the implication to be AI related, but it seems pretty clear that all/most of this decline is related to their interest rate policies creating a raft of bullshit companies funded by too many dollars chasing ever more far-fetched returns...

Does FRED editorialize? Do you have any links?

Re: Software engineering job openings hit five-year low?

#97

The number of job postings means nothing. 75% of the job postings are either scam or ghost postings.

That should change by tomorrow. The EEOC is going to crack down on companies cheating H-1B and posting ghost positions: https://x.com/USTechWorkers/status/1892771344540193076

Not gonna happen, I wish there was a way to measure outside of boasts on Twitter.

Re: Software engineering job openings hit five-year low?

#98
post #60

FRED wants the implication to be AI related, but it seems pretty clear that all/most of this decline is related to their interest rate policies creating a raft of bullshit companies funded by too many dollars chasing ever more far-fetched returns...

Tax changes in Section 174 (both advantageous years ago, and terrible recently) also play a huge part.

That interest rates started to rise right when the tax changes to make it less advantageous happened? 1-2 punch.

Re: Software engineering job openings hit five-year low?

#99
post #98
post #60

FRED wants the implication to be AI related, but it seems pretty clear that all/most of this decline is related to their interest rate policies creating a raft of bullshit companies funded by too many dollars chasing ever more far-fetched returns...

Tax changes in Section 174 (both advantageous years ago, and terrible recently) also play a huge part. That interest rates started to rise right when the tax changes to make it less advantageous happened? 1-2 punch.

Article covers that, 174 is US, changes are worldwide.

Re: Software engineering job openings hit five-year low?

#100
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was unsurprising when American employees decided to use the significant power they gained over the pandemic to insist on WFH. Whether working collaboratively in an office was beneficial or not, employers certainly believed it to be so. They believed it so much that employers, pre pandemic, were willing to hire employees a single time zone away from SF, and then pay them a significant one time amount along with a…

That doesn't explain why many execs were keen on RTO. If it was reducing costs, you would thing they would've wanted to draw out WFH for as long as possible. But there a clear rush to end WFH as soon as possible and implement unilateral mandates to get everyone back to office.

It’s really hard to see what a team/people on it is actually doing if people are remote.

It’s also much harder in general to communicate less formally and form deep relationships.

For execs and managers, this can be a big problem.

If it isn’t possible to do it the ‘old way’, remote work can and does work (albeit in different ways and with different constraints). But if doing remote work, why not do it somewhere else?

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