[kbar13]

why do we feel that way? it's becoming more and more likely that developments in AI lead to a K graph in experience / value - senior / self sufficient workers will be significantly more valuable than ever.

unless you mean that the quality of domestic workers is declining, which i'd agree in most things (tho for some things like software i think still has a chance)

[vostrocity]

I don't think the quality of US workers has to decline. The quality of workers in lower CoL places like India simply has to increase, and it has. Both of the companies I've worked for have opened India campuses in the past few years.

[aprilthird2021]

I hire for such companies and the quality of US workers vs foreign workers who move here on visas is much different. To be fair, foreign workers who move here on visas tend to be the rich and highly educated of their own country and US workers are more distributed across SES. They also have more education on paper bc they usually need a masters or more to be eligible to work here

[ghaff]

The compensation of software tech (especially Silicon Valley) has also gotten much higher over the past number of years in the US compared to disciplines requiring the same level of education/experience both is the US and even Western Europe. I expect this will equalize with outsized tech salaries becoming a thing of the past except for a few individuals with proven track records.

[aprilthird2021]

I mean, the same can be said for consulting salaries, HFT salaries, hedge fund salaries, etc., which similar to software engineering only require a bachelor's and have a similarly grueling interview process.

Why would this equalize? As long as software companies make huge profits and have growth capability which the top ones clearly do, what change would make this happen?

[ghaff]

Some software companies are making huge profits today. Many software jobs are at companies making returns comparable to other engineering job profits. There's also a supply side. If the market is flooded with a lot of people in it mostly for the money, salaries will supposedly shrink.

[kbar13]

we've seen that most of the people who are only in it for the money don't actually bring much value to the company. a lot of middling software engineers are actually a liability. unlike operational work, engineering needs to have a higher bar than just a beating heart and hands

[ValentineC]

Hot take: their quality is possibly a reason these people were unable to leave their country in the first place.

[Insanity]

Too simplistic of a hot take. People have families and other reasons _not_ to emigrate. I also know people who moved to big tech companies in the states, worked there for a number of years and then went back home to “emerging countries” to be closer to their roots.

[sdthjbvuiiijbb]

>it's becoming more and more likely that developments in AI lead to a K graph in experience / value - senior / self sufficient workers will be significantly more valuable than ever.

I don't buy this at all, this narrative feels like pure cope to me. The skill ceiling for working with AI tooling is not that high (far lower than when everyone had to write all their code by hand, unquestionably). To me it seems far more likely that software engineering will become commoditized.

I'm sure everyone posting about the supposed K graph believes that they're on the valuable side of it, naturally.

[jordanb]

American workers got uppity. Forgot their place. Started protesting company decisions and wouldn't return to office. Hiring may eventually come back but not any time soon. Workers need to be chastised first.