[Hypathia]

Over 30,000 tech cuts in May, AI is cited as the reason for 40% of all cuts across every sector. What's less clear is whether these are roles that will come back in a different form, or whether this is a permanent structural shift. The last 2 industrial transitions created more jobs than they eliminated eventually. the question is what happens to the people in the middle of "eventually."

[sameers]

If my experience running a small company, and not needing to hire junior talent as urgently as in the pre-AI days, is any indication, this transition is going to take a while. I can't justify hiring someone that isn't already ready to use AI tools to get familiar with the codebase, work out designs on their own, etc. In an alternate universe, I would have just hired someone at a lower level of maturity and let them learn the ropes, or fired them. Now I would rather get someone who already knows what questions to ask of LLMs, how to sequence the work, etc.

Ofc, eventually we'll all run out of that limited supply of experienced engineers, and will have to hope there's a cohort that's been training on these new skills, and is ready for employment. Meanwhile it'll be hell for everyone stuck in the middle of these experience levels.