Some part of me hopes that the current shit show eventually reaches some sort of conclusion and all of the people that actually have real-world skill sets will get to go back to what they know how to do because the business that ran on capital will have collapsed. I know it’s an unrealistic hope. But it’s a hope nonetheless.
Man, I hope so. I’ve been job hunting after my position with a government contractor was eliminated in February, and despite a decade of experience, I can’t even get to the first round of interviews.
I think we’re going to see a big shift towards small to medium IT/dev companies, and a ton of freelancers. I’m one of those, because I’m about to start doing IT work for businesses in my small town.
despite a decade of experience, I can’t even get to the first round of interviews.
I’ve had several places reject me without even a phone screen. My last job was the same role, the same tech stack, and I achieved the things they wrote about in the blurb. I just get back “we’re looking for someone more aligned with our needs”.
What needs?? I check every box you put on the post!
My friend thinks the jobs don’t exist, and they’re just posted so the company looks good. Or they’re some other fraud.
I think that happens, but also there’s incompetence in the funnel. Recruiters can’t read, ai sucks, blah blah blah.
I have over a decade of experience as well. Nobody in my small personal “network” knows anyone that’s hiring right now (I hate the fakeness of networking for networking sake, and am not very social, so I don’t have much of a network). I’ve applied to hundreds of job postings over 6 months, interviewed with maybe 6 companies, and rejected usually just because they were also interviewing 10-20 people for the same role, and another person had slightly more experience with a specific part of their stack, or they just liked another person more for whatever reason. I believe all remote job postings get 1000s of applicants, and every one local to me get 100s.
It all kind of reminds me of when I tried using online dating apps, lol.
I think we’re going to see a big shift towards small to medium IT/dev companies, and a ton of freelancers. I’m one of those, because I’m about to start doing IT work for businesses in my small town.
My friend is a townie, and he does this. Actually, we’ve been musing about putting our lot in together, since I usually work for the corp outfits, except I can’t find fuck all lately in the 9-5 realm.
I see a lot of people blaming this on AI and raised interest rates.
The real reason for this stagnation is Section 174 of IRS code that was added by the 2017 tax cut bill. The section took effect in 2022 and was added to balance the budget.
This section basically doesn’t allow to deduct cost of the software engineers and they are amortized over 5 years (10 years for international engineers). This puts some strains to regular businesses, but it kills start ups, as they are required to pay taxes even when they are still not profitable and might not even pay 5 years.
Lack of start ups means there is smaller number of openings which is lower mobility. Combined with amortization, it discourages hiring new people as again it requires 5 years.
I see this being dismissed and “it is definitively the interest rates and AI” AI is nowhere close to replace software engineers, in fact from the coworkers that enthusiastically embraced it I see lower quality of code. Interest rates actually came back to what they originally were before 2008.
The hiring issues started exactly when section 174 went into effect. I think the hiring craze in 2021 was only because companies realized that with slim margins in Congress a bill won’t pass that will repeal it so they were hiring like crazy before it become a law. Indeed Democrats were trying to repeal it, it even pass the house, but it was blocked by Republicans in the Senate. Because God forbid they would help Americans and in turn let economy to look good under Biden.
AI has currently captured the public consciousness more than tax codes ever will. My theory is that it offers a simple scapegoat to a complex series of problems, and that is easier for stock trading masses to understand
That’s my intuition too. In my experience, adopting AI mostly has lead to marginally faster MVPs, balooning sloc in PRs, and an explosion of wildly unqualified people applying for tech roles and sometimes even getting them.
It’s a better kind of nihilistic business story to say that LLMs have been so disruptive, that people are getting fired, rather than investors are scared and greedy and are just being guided around by vibes and their amygdalae right now.
Companies hype themselves to increase stock price. Trying to drive social change via the masses could easily backfire. If a company wants to change the tax code, they usually just hire lobbyists and donate to political campaigns, and you never hear about it.
I think this is only a small part. Interest rates are kinda high. VCs only want to invest in companies with AI exposure because of all the hype. From companies I’ve interviewed with, offshoring seems to have accelerated dramatically (companies only had or wanted a few US devs to manage larger Indian teams). I’ve visited career pages of companies working in the business domain I have the most experience with, and all open software positions are exclusively in India.
Unfortunately I have no hope of this happening in our lifetime. Maybe the lifetime of the next generation, but with climate change on the horizon, I have little hope for that as well.
With climate change on the horizon, people with real, applicable skills will come around again. Because we’re gonna need them when we’re all eating roach stew and 49’ing, like nasty boys in Fallout.
Some part of me hopes that the current shit show eventually reaches some sort of conclusion and all of the people that actually have real-world skill sets will get to go back to what they know how to do because the business that ran on capital will have collapsed. I know it’s an unrealistic hope. But it’s a hope nonetheless.
Man, I hope so. I’ve been job hunting after my position with a government contractor was eliminated in February, and despite a decade of experience, I can’t even get to the first round of interviews.
I think we’re going to see a big shift towards small to medium IT/dev companies, and a ton of freelancers. I’m one of those, because I’m about to start doing IT work for businesses in my small town.
I’ve had several places reject me without even a phone screen. My last job was the same role, the same tech stack, and I achieved the things they wrote about in the blurb. I just get back “we’re looking for someone more aligned with our needs”.
What needs?? I check every box you put on the post!
My friend thinks the jobs don’t exist, and they’re just posted so the company looks good. Or they’re some other fraud.
I think that happens, but also there’s incompetence in the funnel. Recruiters can’t read, ai sucks, blah blah blah.
Often companies post jobs “to be fair”, but have already decided on an internal hire. The word is 80% of hirings never appear on job boards.
I have over a decade of experience as well. Nobody in my small personal “network” knows anyone that’s hiring right now (I hate the fakeness of networking for networking sake, and am not very social, so I don’t have much of a network). I’ve applied to hundreds of job postings over 6 months, interviewed with maybe 6 companies, and rejected usually just because they were also interviewing 10-20 people for the same role, and another person had slightly more experience with a specific part of their stack, or they just liked another person more for whatever reason. I believe all remote job postings get 1000s of applicants, and every one local to me get 100s.
It all kind of reminds me of when I tried using online dating apps, lol.
They definitely did that at college job fairs. They wanted to keep their spot, but weren’t hiring that year.
My friend is a townie, and he does this. Actually, we’ve been musing about putting our lot in together, since I usually work for the corp outfits, except I can’t find fuck all lately in the 9-5 realm.
deleted by creator
I see a lot of people blaming this on AI and raised interest rates.
The real reason for this stagnation is Section 174 of IRS code that was added by the 2017 tax cut bill. The section took effect in 2022 and was added to balance the budget.
This section basically doesn’t allow to deduct cost of the software engineers and they are amortized over 5 years (10 years for international engineers). This puts some strains to regular businesses, but it kills start ups, as they are required to pay taxes even when they are still not profitable and might not even pay 5 years.
Lack of start ups means there is smaller number of openings which is lower mobility. Combined with amortization, it discourages hiring new people as again it requires 5 years.
I see this being dismissed and “it is definitively the interest rates and AI” AI is nowhere close to replace software engineers, in fact from the coworkers that enthusiastically embraced it I see lower quality of code. Interest rates actually came back to what they originally were before 2008.
The hiring issues started exactly when section 174 went into effect. I think the hiring craze in 2021 was only because companies realized that with slim margins in Congress a bill won’t pass that will repeal it so they were hiring like crazy before it become a law. Indeed Democrats were trying to repeal it, it even pass the house, but it was blocked by Republicans in the Senate. Because God forbid they would help Americans and in turn let economy to look good under Biden.
Why are all companies talking about efficiency and AI instead of creating pressure to fix easily changed tax laws?
AI has currently captured the public consciousness more than tax codes ever will. My theory is that it offers a simple scapegoat to a complex series of problems, and that is easier for stock trading masses to understand
That’s my intuition too. In my experience, adopting AI mostly has lead to marginally faster MVPs, balooning sloc in PRs, and an explosion of wildly unqualified people applying for tech roles and sometimes even getting them.
It’s a better kind of nihilistic business story to say that LLMs have been so disruptive, that people are getting fired, rather than investors are scared and greedy and are just being guided around by vibes and their amygdalae right now.
Companies hype themselves to increase stock price. Trying to drive social change via the masses could easily backfire. If a company wants to change the tax code, they usually just hire lobbyists and donate to political campaigns, and you never hear about it.
I think this is only a small part. Interest rates are kinda high. VCs only want to invest in companies with AI exposure because of all the hype. From companies I’ve interviewed with, offshoring seems to have accelerated dramatically (companies only had or wanted a few US devs to manage larger Indian teams). I’ve visited career pages of companies working in the business domain I have the most experience with, and all open software positions are exclusively in India.
Good fucking god, the traitor’s handlers are just pure unadultered fucking evil.
deleted by creator
Unfortunately I have no hope of this happening in our lifetime. Maybe the lifetime of the next generation, but with climate change on the horizon, I have little hope for that as well.
With climate change on the horizon, people with real, applicable skills will come around again. Because we’re gonna need them when we’re all eating roach stew and 49’ing, like nasty boys in Fallout.