Ask HN: Is the gold era of tech gone forever?
I have over 10 years of experience in software development, mainly in Ruby/Rails and Node.js. I have done consulting for some large companies and even co-founded a startup that raised approximately $4M in funding.
Pre-pandemic, I could cover my eyes, throw a stone out the window, and hit 10 $150,000/year software engineering job offers.
Fast forward to today, and I've been unemployed for 3 months. Not only that, but some very impressive colleagues are unemployed too—I'm talking top 5% FAANG-level talent.
Will the tech industry ever bounce back? It feels like it won't. I think the contributing factors are:
We are mostly an investment-funded industry: We build things and then move on to the next project. It takes fewer people to maintain a system than to extend it. Right now, central bank rates are super high, and it's a terrible time to borrow money.
The hypernormalization of mass layoffs. Thanks, Elon! It seems like it's now completely normal to lay off large numbers of people in tech. I can't recall another industry where the same happens.
AI. I think LLMs aren't there yet, but they can make quantum leaps. Yes, I know the code they generate is rough and mostly wrong right now. Remember the Will Smith eating pasta video? We now have Gen AI producing 4K 60fps POV videos of an ant going underground. If code generation makes the same jump, I think it's over.
That being said, I am looking for a remote placement ASAP and can accommodate permanent or contract roles.
You can find me on GitHub @shellandbull or by email at mariojgintili at gmail dot com