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Comment by pjot | Hacker News Reader

  > Employment for software engineers has cooled as resources shift toward developing artificial intelligence

Wait, who is doing the developing?

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Also I'm yet to see any AI tool replacing a developer in a complete manner

Better tooling replaces job openings. Not just AI tooling but better tooling in general. Instead of hiring that new developer, our new tools make our existing developers more efficient so it is no longer needed.

I've been told this by the people closing the job postings but not by the people doing the work.

I agree fully but this thread is about why there are fewer tech jobs. Everything is a cycle. New tooling improves developer efficiency, management looks at this as a sign that they can hire less and scale back, devs get overworked, management struggles against the reality that they need to hire again. This happens all the time.

Even the baseline of improving dev efficiency is unproven. These types of decisions are being made with zero basis in facts, it’s just the whims of people in charge.

Yeah but have you ever been at a company where there weren't and infinite list of things that needed to be done? It has way less to do with "having enough developers" and more to do with, we can't afford any more developers.

If you have a machine that prints money, you will flood that machine with whatever resources it can handle, push it so it can handle more, and duplicate the machine so you can double your printing.

If you have a machine, that sort of maybe brings you value, you are going to be very cautious about how many resources you give it.

The article states due to the cost of AI engineers, they are hiring less non-AI engineers. I doubt there’s real data to work with there, more of a vibe. I wouldn’t doubt it is having a measurable effect.

Procurement specialists.

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