[Aromasin]

I posted a comment a while back about this same phenomenon, which I can't for the life of me find now, but it was quoting some data from media posts about job cuts in the tech industry. The overarching theme was that the "tech worker layoffs" almost never featured actual, STEM degree educated, feature making, bug fixing, engineering focused, individual contributors. The layoffs impacted Sales, Marketing, Product, HR, and Manager roles. Despite this, media outlets continued to make it out as if engineers and scientists were the ones being primarily impacted. They were doing it by hiding the actual jobs roles of those being interviewed deep into the article, in a short one-liner. There was never good data to suggest who those being most effected really were.

I don't understand the reasoning behind it beyond blatant ignorance, or perhaps that they have a dislike for silicon valley types and get satisfaction out of demeaning the job role in some way by making engineers out to be as "easily dispensable" as everyone else. It's bizarre. I guess, whatever generates the most clicks.

[staticcaucasian]

The "hired to do nothing" Tech Company meme was almost entirely actually just recruiters: https://www.wsj.com/articles/these-tech-workers-say-they-wer...

[908B64B197]

Most of the 2022 and 2023 layoffs were for "Non-Technical" or "Tech-Adjacent staff". [0] [1] [2] [3] [4]

The market is still incredibly strong for SV caliber devs, and I see no signal it's going to slow down. If anything, it kept compensation for engineers from cratering by propping up the stocks.

[0] https://interviewing.io/blog/2022-layoffs-engineers-vs-other...

[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-01-24/tech-layo...

[2] https://www.computerworld.com/article/3690309/about-those-te...

[3] https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2023-03-0...

[4] https://techreport.com/news/3493451/microsoft-layoffs-ethics...

[jselysianeagle]

> The market is still incredibly strong for SV caliber devs

Perhaps if you're comparing it to other industries, but compared to tech's own (recent) past, it's most definitely not "incredibly strong".

Not trying to be snarky, but have you actively searched for a role recently, say in the last 2 months or so? Recruiters reach out far less frequently now on LinkedIn, the common theme even among many experienced engineers these days is instant rejections, or if not that, then being rejected after goin through the final round. Very few are able to land well paying, interesting roles within weeks (or a month at most) of starting their search like they were able to even as recently as a year ago.

It's still possible to find work, but you'll quite likely have to accept a lateral move (at best) or accept a pay cut these days if you've been laid off.

[grepfru_it]

Jobs fill with applicants within 30 minutes. Recruiters have 100+ applicants to chose from. Roles are not interesting. I wish you luck if you are searching..

[908B64B197]

> Jobs fill with applicants within 30 minutes. Recruiters have 100+ applicants to chose from.

That's not different than pre-layoffs.

The overwhelming majority of applicants are not qualified, or are "tech adjacent" applying for SWE to try to get "a foot in the door" (I kid you not, it happens).

[nonethewiser]

The overwhelming majority of anecdotal evidence by software engineer job seekers is that the market is rough. Much worse than before the layoffs.

[hotpotamus]

It came around.

> The latest round of layoffs at Facebook parent company Meta is impacting workers in core technical roles like data scientists and software engineers — positions once thought to be beyond reproach.

https://www.vox.com/technology/2023/4/21/23692515/tech-worke...

[gumballindie]

> Meanwhile, the economy is not as strong as it was, and Wall Street is telling tech companies that less is more. The rise of AI at work is also a contributing factor, since it allows coders to be more productive, or potentially allows employers to do the same work as before but with fewer workers.

Zero of these people have been let go because of ai yet vox is peddling this myth. How long until vox takes vice’s path?

[908B64B197]

Meta is different.

They are pivoting hard from VR to AI.

[TremendousJudge]

Are they going to rename the company to "Brain" now?

[hgsgm]

Meta...bolism.

Artificial Life.

[skuzye]

Can't say for other companies but they came for engineers as well at Google.

[gumballindie]

> I don't understand the reasoning behind it beyond blatant ignorance

Because class warfare and hate drive clicks and reads. Now who else to hate if not those members of society that earned what should be normal pay? Isnt that more entertaining than hating on those who earn billions, pay little tax, drive inflation up and make us poorer by the day?

You know, the good old pity worker against worker.