[brianleb]

I have to say I appreciate your aplomb in these responses. The whole thread is littered with shocking (and unsurprising?) tech-bro overconfidence that they can manage a situation they literally know nothing about better than someone who's already done it. Cheers to you and have a good weekend.

[Karrot_Kream]

FWIW I don't think these are techbro responses. They're from people who are scared because the industry is changing. I think software folks were quite lucky that the job didn't change much from 2016-2022, due to the SaaS-ification of the old economy, so the skillset and working practices the industry sought was mostly standardized, and candidates mostly competed on salary. This is why there was so much job hopping both by companies offering high packages to new hires and employees who hopped every 1-2 years.

From 2022 this all changed as markets became more FCF sensitive, ZIRP went away, and AI started automating a lot of the dev practice. I know a sadly high amount of people (though in my circles not too many) who built up lifestyles predicated on high software salaries and a static set of requirements. A lot of these folks are angry and scared and desperately trying to navigate this changing world.

[shagie]

I know a lot of developers who have learned their skillset by rote from the early 2010s and have not progressed in competency (they still write code with the same issues as they did a decade ago) or technology (haven't been able to pick up technologies that they lacked when they started).

That puts them in a precarious place since the organization that downsizes would be looking at them first ... and that they haven't been able to attain any mastery of the newer technologies that are coming into play in the system.

For many of them, they're finding themselves leaning on AI to make up for the lack of learning new things (and without learning those new things). They're also realizing that any candidate who is more skilled than they are would be a stronger candidate (and that their job is increasingly becoming entering prompts into an LLM that is easily replaced).

Why they got to that spot and stopped? That's an open question. Some might have gotten comfortable at that spot. Others forcefully reject the idea that continuous learning outside of the 9-5 is needed (spend 40 hours a year learning a new technology). Others may lack the problem solving capabilities to go beyond that spot. I know I've seen all three of those. There are probably other reasons too.