AI is absolutely directly responsible. Managers are literally asking whether people need AI credits or interns over summer. Most people are taking credits, and internships are getting cancelled left and right.
> Managers are literally asking whether people need AI credits or interns over summer
That's a bit like asking them to choose between AI credits and a visit to the dentist. No engineer has ever hosted an intern in the hopes of improving their project's velocity; people host interns because "it's the right thing to do" for the industry, because it's psychologically satisfying for many people, and to build cred and/or experience as a mentor. And companies nudge their employees to host interns to hopefully influence potentially-valuable-in-the-future smart youngsters to come back as a year or two later as full time employees.
Where I work, interns are hired to work on projects that a senior person could do and failure won't wreck us. And your last sentence is where we see the real payoff: the bright ones come back and become valued team members.
> people host interns because "it's the right thing to do" for the industry
This is bullshit, assuming that we are talking about for-profit corporations.
In my experience, the reason why my teams have hired interns is to get a solid, multi-week preview of their potential quality and abilities. During the hiring phase for juniors, the signal-to-noise ratio isn't very good, but a good intern can get a lot done in one summer. You can easily pick the best one or two interns to hire when they graduate. Then you dramatically reduced junior engineer hiring risk. Also, if they suck or are disappointing, then the loss is minimal -- don't hire them. If they are really awful, then just throw shit work at them and don't waste time trying to mentor them. Really, it goes both ways.
> And companies nudge their employees to host interns to hopefully influence potentially-valuable-in-the-future smart youngsters to come back as a year or two later as full time employees.
And there's less incentive to do this when you anticipate needing fewer employees.
His point is that the engineers wanting to opt for "not intern" isn't really a data point on whether interns are helpful. It may instead be a data point on the propensity for people to opt out of work when they have a good excuse.
Wouldn't it go the other way? Instead of working, you're "mentoring the intern" over a long lunch and telling them long meandering stories about company lore.
In my experience hosting an intern does not count much towards your review. So sure, but you also could have done nothing and your review would probably be the same as if you hosted an intern.
It’s possible somewhere does properly incentivize this, but the companies who were regarded as doing it the best still don’t in my experience (at least once the company gets bigger than a startup).
> Managers are literally asking whether people need AI credits or interns over summer
My Brandolini's Law alarm is ringing loud and clear here. I would say the answer is both -- hire the intern and give them a bunch of AI credits. Ask them to work through the old backlog of shitty, low risk work that no one else wants to do.
That's a bit like asking them to choose between AI credits and a visit to the dentist. No engineer has ever hosted an intern in the hopes of improving their project's velocity; people host interns because "it's the right thing to do" for the industry, because it's psychologically satisfying for many people, and to build cred and/or experience as a mentor. And companies nudge their employees to host interns to hopefully influence potentially-valuable-in-the-future smart youngsters to come back as a year or two later as full time employees.