Is the job market for software developers collapsing?
lemire.me
lemire.me
As a black man, I honestly think more of the apparent "discrimination" against American minorities is a direct result of offshoring and h1b.
My tenure at a BigCo came to an end recently-ish and in the 2 years before I left I saw:
- multiples of new openings in LatAm/India vs Domestic
- increasing use off offshore staffing firms even on big name stuff
- presumed increase in offshore teams based on my random heuristic of clicking usernames making recent posts in various Slack channels "team: $FOO, Location: Bangalore" and etc. The volume here was much higher than last year, and far higher than it was in the years prior.
- lots of open internal talk about "leveraging partners"
Majority of the work I did was working with private sector F500s and the extent to which those companies outsourced IT/Software was staggering. I encountered several major companies that had basically no "actual" IT/Software in the States: outside of a handful of meeting-takers the actual implementation work was almost 100% outsourced/staff-aug via H1B shops.
The talk about "AI" taking jobs is a total distraction from the actual source of the jobs disappearing.
Both sides are complicit as well. It's not just the left but in current times even more so the right. The right won't shut up about deporting "illegals" but has created even more opportunities for H1B's to flood in and no disincentive for corporates to outsource. Canada already has laws that act as "tariffs" for offshoring labor - we desperately need awareness first and unified action.
What is happening now to knowledge work in the U.S. is what happened to factory jobs in the 90s.
What is happening now to knowledge work in the U.S. is what happened to factory jobs in the 90s"
100%--this admin is a fraudulent disaster on so many levels.
There's a lot to unpack on this subject and tons of anecdata but the article manages to unpack an infinitesimal amount of real data.
The result shown is that the total number of software jobs has increased the last 3 years (of the data), even increasing relative to total USA population.
It shows a 23% increase in employment the last 3 years overall (1.6/1.3 million = 1.23).
Data ends before 2024.
It mentions BLS analysis projects a 17% growth until 2033. (Useful if LLMs are not a paradigm shift, or if BLS took that into account?)
This comment is longer than the article if you remove the preamble discussion of LLMs.
Article supposedly published by a CS professor but if I had published something like this in uni I feel I may have gotten laughed at.
As per the topic, I could see software jobs increasing in total number due to the emergence of machine learning jobs but to generalize and say the demand is as strong as ever is a little disingenuous especially when ever other CEO claims ai will and has already reduced the workforce
Yes, ending before 2024 might mask a lot of change from all kinds of factors.
And, not going back prior to 2021 might mask a downturn prior to that from which we haven't recovered.
Edit: 2019 levels were 1.4m, making the % increase from 2019 to 2023 17%.
https://www.bls.gov/oes/2019/may/oes151256.htm
And 2024 is available, but slightly more difficult to query. https://data.bls.gov/oesprofile/
It shows 1.65m, so basically level with 2023. That makes growth from 2019 to 2024 17% (1.64/1.4) as well.
My experience is that AI is easier to work with than inexperienced junior coders. I designed database structure and wrote function subs, and some comments, then asked AI to 1) fill the functions, 2) write unit tests while I work with interesting parts or read stuff.
I think the result is much less errors compared to junior coder. You have to review the code just like with human. Time it takes is just little bit less than working with other person, but it's orders of magnitude cheaper. I'm certain that many will cut corners and ship code not reviewed by humans, but that's on them.
Interesting question is, can inexperienced coder get more or less benefit from AI compared to experienced programmer, or is it skill multiplier.
I want to do X I can ask AI to help me with X.
But the thing is that as businesses grow and scale one person cannot even keep in their head all the things that have to get done, let alone write it in such a specific way to get an AI to accomplish it.
Even Jr developers (if used correctly) are not just code assistants, they can actually take your mental load away as they grow and then provide projects / ideas that you didn't even originate.
People have mental limits to how much they context they can keep in their head at the same time, AI does not magically solve this fact.
Hire and develop talent, share the load.
> makes sense to people in silos
Investors, especially PE investors, are in a motherfucker of a silo.
The sign on their silo says "short term growth at all costs. ZIRP/dotcom boom days are never coming back. The last train is leaving the station, and even if it isn't the real deal like eCommerce/app stores/social media, you had better be on it, because there won't be another one."
That last train is AI.
I do think that as a junior using AI could speed up your learning in programming significantly.
You essentially have a tutor in your back pocket who can help teach and also do some of the doing if you need it to.
I think we've all been triggered into talking about how AI is taking our jobs, so much that any discussion of job market is inevitably about AI, but it's worth looking at real numbers, as presented in TFA, to challenge that narrative a little.
Aside from all that, if the market slows, it seems to be slowing everywhere. I have friends in non-tech roles that are being laid off as well. It's probably the economy.