Computer Science Students Face a Shrinking Big Tech Job Market | Hacker News Reader

Computer Science Students Face a Shrinking Big Tech Job Market

nytimes.com

20 pointsTT48218 comments

> A Boston native, Ms. Singer graduated from Brown University with a degree in comparative literature and has a master's degree in creative writing from Boston University.

> Ms. Huang is from New York and graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a degree in statistics.

I’m so darn tired of reading front page articles written largely by liberal arts folks that never worked in tech that never created anything in tech commenting on the fate of tech and the future of tech graduates and workers. Why do we even upvote these to the top of the orange site? Because it came from the New York Times?

The people that know can’t write and the people that can write don’t know what the hell is actually going on imho.

Tend to agree. NYT's tech coverage especially can be pretty dire, not just on stuff like this but on crypto, too. Credit to the author/editor, though, for mentioning jobs elsewhere in IT are still in demand, halfway down the story.

Totally. And when the coverage on tech is this way it practically degenerates into tabloid journalism. It’s not even useful journalism. It’s just clickbait entertainment for dorks that enjoy reading about the doom of tech.

That's the truth of it. The sad thing is, there's probably a bigger market among NYT readers for more nuanced tech coverage than editors assume. Instead, there's a hierarchy of publications where these stories filter down, from the trade mags and review journals through to places like Wired, then finally to the big papers/mags. By the time the story gets there, though, it's lost all flavour.

It is pretty poor form to attack the author.

For example, one could say, I'm tired of the top comment on HN always being some rando who knows nothing about journalism and attacks both the publication and the writer in an effort to garner credibility.

The last sentence I wrote agrees with what you just said. The great writers are rarely good sources of tech commentary and even moderately decent tech contributors are rarely good writers. I’m not sure what you’re trying to start here but it’s not working.

I called out the authors because they aren’t some big (or even small) tech contributors turned journalist. They might be great writers but they aren’t providing very good commentary on tech from a knowledgeable tech insider perspective.

This journalism sucks pretty badly; it’s frankly bad for tech and it’s bad for journalism too. I wish I hadn’t called them out by name after some reflection based on your comment but I was frustrated with the article and it is what it is.

>I’m not sure what you’re trying to start here but it’s not working.

I am making a point about Hacker News comments by taking a meta perspective on your post.

But let's focus on a specific criticism: what I took from the article is that the job market is shrinking and the evidence is that job offers and internships rescinded. We also know about broad layoffs.

It would be interesting to hear your claims as a "knowledgeable tech insider" then a rant on journalism in general.

> But let's focus on a specific criticism: what I took from the article is that the job market is shrinking and the evidence is that job offers and internships rescinded. We also know about broad layoffs.

I’d argue this take isn’t a particularly insightful bit of tech journalism, and what I didn’t like about the article is that it relied on too much anecdotal evidence. There’s still a massive number of CS grads that are finding great paying great jobs. I felt it paints a dire picture based on a few interviews where in reality most CS grads even now probably have it better than grads of most other fields had it even in the “good times.”

> It would be interesting to hear your claims as a "knowledgeable tech insider" then a rant on journalism in general.

I have to start by saying it’s not fair or accurate to equate a dislike of the lacking quality of most tech journalism as a general rant on all journalism.

That said, in the space I work in (that has a lot of systems, compilers and algo work involved) the hiring both for new grads and experienced folks is still quite strong. What I see on the ground is far less extreme than what the article says.

> where in reality most CS grads even now probably have it better than grads of most other fields had it even in the “good times.”

I would agree and that is a valid criticism. Imagine you are not a CS grad, you may also be impacted by layoffs and hiring freezes in tech. But outside of tech the story may be different. It may be different at non FAANG tech companies as well. From what I heard on NPR the most recent jobs report still shows robust hiring which likely means the Fed will keep raising interest rates. Also the article mentioned that the profiled CS grads were expanding their job search outside of the big tech companies in general.

If the assumption is that liberal arts majors can't do or work in tech, please don't tell my manager. I'd hate to get fired from my tech role at AWS because of my degree.

Journalists can research industries and talk about job trends without having worked in those jobs. Assuming, of course, the journalist hasn't worked in tech. Which is quite an assumption.

My liberal arts background has helped me write blog posts, product documentation, and runbooks. It's also helped me thrive in a tech role at a FAANG.

I'm really tired of this trope that liberal arts degrees are worthless and you can't work in tech unless you have a CS or EE degree.

Poor new grads may have to settle for a non-MAANG job like the rest of us.

And then compete with the horde of h1b's/offshored people.....

Is this actually a concern amid a global IT skills shortage? Get the impression that this seems to be mainly gifted students having less of a chance of getting their dream job.

Well, that would inevitably filter down. Gifted students take regular jobs. Regular students take lousy jobs, if they can find jobs at all.

There are not enough gifted students to take all of the positions that are open.

I also think the same.

And it is not "gifted" per se, but well-guided, and serious students.

The demand for a truly skilled exceptional engineer will always remain, even in FAANG, even now.

The demand for mid-rung IT workers will also remain.

The first case study mentions a student who taught younger students in HS, interned at MS during the same, and interned at Meta during college. These are all-checkbox-ticking serious students. I wouldn’t be so keen on the true talent of such student.

Maybe they will be forced to take mid-rung IT jobs, and the people suited for there, would go downwards.

The lowest rung would be the sufferer and loser in this scenario. Much of their job will be replaced by no-code tools in the short-term, and automation in the long-term.

The lowest jobs in IT will surely be wiped out, and it has already began ~decade ago. The pace will only increase.

I think the most enraging thing is that the article is using the term “computer science” graduate as a label for all tech workers.

If you’re a bright talented CS graduate you’re going to find a good job with good pay even in this environment. Maybe some people may not find their “dream job” straight out of school and they will have to wait out some cyclic hiring slowdown for a year or so but it’s hardly some terrible end of the tech dream for the youngsters.

Is it just me or is it a good practice to glance down to the last (or two) paragraphs for the gist of the story?

I'm finding this to be frequently true but not so sure once the "evil" ChatGPT takes over.

Perhaps, it's time to make a Turing Test browser app?

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