Has this board missed the huge contraction in tech?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Am very involved in the tech ecosystem and live here in DMV. Folks I know in the valley mostly have not found jobs yet. The Meta folks are struggling to find new work.

AI will crush many job types but especially so in tech. AI coding is ready quite good.

A company I know laid off its entire 20 person QA team and replaced with engineers QAing their own code with LLMs

It’s coming very fast. Human brains mostly are not evolving. AI is evolving weekly.

I’ve seen the next generation versions (we are about 6 mos into the public side of this) and they are rapidly evolving.

I don’t mean the world is ending thing. But I do mean that many jobs that we are training what we think are to-be high salaried future college grads for simply won’t be there

Remember how we used to all look at so called White Working Class and say “why are they so angry?”

Now get ready for that with CS grads in 5 years or less. The number of jobs will start to shrink fast. Meanwhile kids graduating with $200k+ of debt from private universities who expected the lifestyle of 150k plus starting comp and way more with RSUs and stock.

I personally would not encourage my kids to go in as CS (plus it’s hard as hell to get admitted given competition)

We need more skilled trades like plumbing and electrical but the DCUM crowd and our peers look down on that work. Just wait til those jobs pay more than tech coding jobs

It’s coming.

Signed,
25 year Silicon Valley guy now living in DC

Telling DCUM crowd to eschew CS for plumbing and electrician work.

Yeah...right.

You missed the point. Laugh all you want but all these CS kids graduating with hundreds of thousands of debt. Let’s see how it all plays out. Everyone is in the denial stage.

Not when you attend a large state school on scholarship with a well respected CS program.

+1 but ITA that having $100K+ debt for a CS degree is not worth it, which is why DC is going in state flagship with merit.

Nobody is graduating with $100k+ of loans from undergrad, unless their parents take out parent plus loans. Federal limit is around 30k. It’s grad school where people end up taking 100k+ in debt.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Am very involved in the tech ecosystem and live here in DMV. Folks I know in the valley mostly have not found jobs yet. The Meta folks are struggling to find new work.

AI will crush many job types but especially so in tech. AI coding is ready quite good.

A company I know laid off its entire 20 person QA team and replaced with engineers QAing their own code with LLMs

It’s coming very fast. Human brains mostly are not evolving. AI is evolving weekly.

I’ve seen the next generation versions (we are about 6 mos into the public side of this) and they are rapidly evolving.

I don’t mean the world is ending thing. But I do mean that many jobs that we are training what we think are to-be high salaried future college grads for simply won’t be there

Remember how we used to all look at so called White Working Class and say “why are they so angry?”

Now get ready for that with CS grads in 5 years or less. The number of jobs will start to shrink fast. Meanwhile kids graduating with $200k+ of debt from private universities who expected the lifestyle of 150k plus starting comp and way more with RSUs and stock.

I personally would not encourage my kids to go in as CS (plus it’s hard as hell to get admitted given competition)

We need more skilled trades like plumbing and electrical but the DCUM crowd and our peers look down on that work. Just wait til those jobs pay more than tech coding jobs

It’s coming.

Signed,
25 year Silicon Valley guy now living in DC

Telling DCUM crowd to eschew CS for plumbing and electrician work.

Yeah...right.

You missed the point. Laugh all you want but all these CS kids graduating with hundreds of thousands of debt. Let’s see how it all plays out. Everyone is in the denial stage.

Not when you attend a large state school on scholarship with a well respected CS program.

+1 but ITA that having $100K+ debt for a CS degree is not worth it, which is why DC is going in state flagship with merit.

Nobody is graduating with $100k+ of loans from undergrad, unless their parents take out parent plus loans. Federal limit is around 30k. It’s grad school where people end up taking 100k+ in debt.

I'm not sure that's true. CMU, MIT, Stanford undergrad $80K/year. Even Cal oos is $80k/yr.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People don't seem to understand that the kids that graduate from a CS program and typically much more intelligent that the others who didn't, especially considering the competition to get into those programs over the past several years. Do you think they won't be able to figure out their careers relative to someone who majored in, what, English?

DD majored in English and she makes just as much as DD who majored in engineering. They have good jobs, are smart and talented, and are paid the same amount of money. I worry more about DD the engineer that she's going to plateau at some point. DD the English major has a great personality and loads of ability, so I expect she'll have a C-suite job before too long. DD the engineer will be successful, but I don't see her becoming a top executive. I hope I'm wrong and both continue to be very successful. My point is that an English degree is no barrier to success to those who are talented and ambitious.

No, what will happen is: they both get married, have kids. DDEnglish will quit to SAH because executive roles are not conducive to hands-on parenting. And then will never return to work. DDEngineer will continue working in a chill $200k WFH role. Who is more successful now?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Am very involved in the tech ecosystem and live here in DMV. Folks I know in the valley mostly have not found jobs yet. The Meta folks are struggling to find new work.

AI will crush many job types but especially so in tech. AI coding is ready quite good.

A company I know laid off its entire 20 person QA team and replaced with engineers QAing their own code with LLMs

It’s coming very fast. Human brains mostly are not evolving. AI is evolving weekly.

I’ve seen the next generation versions (we are about 6 mos into the public side of this) and they are rapidly evolving.

I don’t mean the world is ending thing. But I do mean that many jobs that we are training what we think are to-be high salaried future college grads for simply won’t be there

Remember how we used to all look at so called White Working Class and say “why are they so angry?”

Now get ready for that with CS grads in 5 years or less. The number of jobs will start to shrink fast. Meanwhile kids graduating with $200k+ of debt from private universities who expected the lifestyle of 150k plus starting comp and way more with RSUs and stock.

I personally would not encourage my kids to go in as CS (plus it’s hard as hell to get admitted given competition)

We need more skilled trades like plumbing and electrical but the DCUM crowd and our peers look down on that work. Just wait til those jobs pay more than tech coding jobs

It’s coming.

Signed,
25 year Silicon Valley guy now living in DC

Telling DCUM crowd to eschew CS for plumbing and electrician work.

Yeah...right.

You missed the point. Laugh all you want but all these CS kids graduating with hundreds of thousands of debt. Let’s see how it all plays out. Everyone is in the denial stage.

Not when you attend a large state school on scholarship with a well respected CS program.

+1 but ITA that having $100K+ debt for a CS degree is not worth it, which is why DC is going in state flagship with merit.

Nobody is graduating with $100k+ of loans from undergrad, unless their parents take out parent plus loans. Federal limit is around 30k. It’s grad school where people end up taking 100k+ in debt.

I'm not sure that's true. CMU, MIT, Stanford undergrad $80K/year. Even Cal oos is $80k/yr.

Yeah, but parents are paying or they’re getting some scholarships. There are limits to how much loans an undergrad can take out and it doesn’t even hit 100k. Their parents would have to take that money out.

https://studentaid.gov/understand-aid/types/loans

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My understanding of the tech contraction is that while tech companies are laying off people, these employees are getting absorbed by other companies because these skills are becoming mainstream across all companies.

They will eventually get new jobs, but the question is at the same salary? If my husband gets laid off we know he will not make the same as he's looked.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People don't seem to understand that the kids that graduate from a CS program and typically much more intelligent that the others who didn't, especially considering the competition to get into those programs over the past several years. Do you think they won't be able to figure out their careers relative to someone who majored in, what, English?

Omg is this a joke? Like a caricature of how stupid people can be? You actually think a CS degree means someone is smarter than someone with an English degree? It's absurd that people think that all these code monkeys who can do math well are definitively smarter than people in other fields. The ignorance is really astounding.

NP. I was an English major and have learned CS on the job. CS is a very, very much more intellectually challenging field than English.

But that’s beside the point. PPP’s point was that with the intense competition for admission to CS schools, the average graduate tends to be a lot smarter than the average English or Education major because only top students are being admitted to CS programs. Sure, there are very bright people majoring in English, just like there are probably some great athletes pursuing curling. But those curlers are, on average, very much worse athletes than NBA players because the barrier to entry to become a curler is, like to become an English major, almost nonexistent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People don't seem to understand that the kids that graduate from a CS program and typically much more intelligent that the others who didn't, especially considering the competition to get into those programs over the past several years. Do you think they won't be able to figure out their careers relative to someone who majored in, what, English?

Omg is this a joke? Like a caricature of how stupid people can be? You actually think a CS degree means someone is smarter than someone with an English degree? It's absurd that people think that all these code monkeys who can do math well are definitively smarter than people in other fields. The ignorance is really astounding.

NP. I was an English major and have learned CS on the job. CS is a very, very much more intellectually challenging field than English.

But that’s beside the point. PPP’s point was that with the intense competition for admission to CS schools, the average graduate tends to be a lot smarter than the average English or Education major because only top students are being admitted to CS programs. Sure, there are very bright people majoring in English, just like there are probably some great athletes pursuing curling. But those curlers are, on average, very much worse athletes than NBA players because the barrier to entry to become a curler is, like to become an English major, almost nonexistent.

+1.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People don't seem to understand that the kids that graduate from a CS program and typically much more intelligent that the others who didn't, especially considering the competition to get into those programs over the past several years. Do you think they won't be able to figure out their careers relative to someone who majored in, what, English?

Omg is this a joke? Like a caricature of how stupid people can be? You actually think a CS degree means someone is smarter than someone with an English degree? It's absurd that people think that all these code monkeys who can do math well are definitively smarter than people in other fields. The ignorance is really astounding.

NP. I was an English major and have learned CS on the job. CS is a very, very much more intellectually challenging field than English.

But that’s beside the point. PPP’s point was that with the intense competition for admission to CS schools, the average graduate tends to be a lot smarter than the average English or Education major because only top students are being admitted to CS programs. Sure, there are very bright people majoring in English, just like there are probably some great athletes pursuing curling. But those curlers are, on average, very much worse athletes than NBA players because the barrier to entry to become a curler is, like to become an English major, almost nonexistent.

I don't know where you did your English major, but from personal experience, an English major (at least at a top 10 USNWR school) is NOT less challenging intellectually than comp sci and, in fact, may be more. English is much more than just reading and writing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People don't seem to understand that the kids that graduate from a CS program and typically much more intelligent that the others who didn't, especially considering the competition to get into those programs over the past several years. Do you think they won't be able to figure out their careers relative to someone who majored in, what, English?

Omg is this a joke? Like a caricature of how stupid people can be? You actually think a CS degree means someone is smarter than someone with an English degree? It's absurd that people think that all these code monkeys who can do math well are definitively smarter than people in other fields. The ignorance is really astounding.

NP. I was an English major and have learned CS on the job. CS is a very, very much more intellectually challenging field than English.

But that’s beside the point. PPP’s point was that with the intense competition for admission to CS schools, the average graduate tends to be a lot smarter than the average English or Education major because only top students are being admitted to CS programs. Sure, there are very bright people majoring in English, just like there are probably some great athletes pursuing curling. But those curlers are, on average, very much worse athletes than NBA players because the barrier to entry to become a curler is, like to become an English major, almost nonexistent.

I don't know where you did your English major, but from personal experience, an English major (at least at a top 10 USNWR school) is NOT less challenging intellectually than comp sci and, in fact, may be more. English is much more than just reading and writing.

DP but clearly this is the hill you want to die on. When I was in college, before CS was huge, so many freshmen dropped being pre-med or the engineering college because they couldn’t do decently in the courses. I couldn’t hack Chemistry and switched to Neuroscience. I personally have never met someone who had to drop a humanities major. But it’s fine, you can keep telling yourself English in harder than Computer Science if you want to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People don't seem to understand that the kids that graduate from a CS program and typically much more intelligent that the others who didn't, especially considering the competition to get into those programs over the past several years. Do you think they won't be able to figure out their careers relative to someone who majored in, what, English?

Omg is this a joke? Like a caricature of how stupid people can be? You actually think a CS degree means someone is smarter than someone with an English degree? It's absurd that people think that all these code monkeys who can do math well are definitively smarter than people in other fields. The ignorance is really astounding.

NP. I was an English major and have learned CS on the job. CS is a very, very much more intellectually challenging field than English.

But that’s beside the point. PPP’s point was that with the intense competition for admission to CS schools, the average graduate tends to be a lot smarter than the average English or Education major because only top students are being admitted to CS programs. Sure, there are very bright people majoring in English, just like there are probably some great athletes pursuing curling. But those curlers are, on average, very much worse athletes than NBA players because the barrier to entry to become a curler is, like to become an English major, almost nonexistent.

I don't know where you did your English major, but from personal experience, an English major (at least at a top 10 USNWR school) is NOT less challenging intellectually than comp sci and, in fact, may be more. English is much more than just reading and writing.

DP but clearly this is the hill you want to die on. When I was in college, before CS was huge, so many freshmen dropped being pre-med or the engineering college because they couldn’t do decently in the courses. I couldn’t hack Chemistry and switched to Neuroscience. I personally have never met someone who had to drop a humanities major. But it’s fine, you can keep telling yourself English in harder than Computer Science if you want to.

Similar experience for me. I tried electrical engineering in college but gave up and majored in Economics and went on to Business School and Law School (top 30). Business School & Law School were challenging but hack of lot easier and less time consuming than courses in electrical engineering, physics, math beyond calculus etc.

[Anonymous]

Let's face it, most kids can't hack it as an engineering major or cs major. They will run to study communications or sociology. Maybe English.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Am very involved in the tech ecosystem and live here in DMV. Folks I know in the valley mostly have not found jobs yet. The Meta folks are struggling to find new work.

AI will crush many job types but especially so in tech. AI coding is ready quite good.

A company I know laid off its entire 20 person QA team and replaced with engineers QAing their own code with LLMs

It’s coming very fast. Human brains mostly are not evolving. AI is evolving weekly.

I’ve seen the next generation versions (we are about 6 mos into the public side of this) and they are rapidly evolving.

I don’t mean the world is ending thing. But I do mean that many jobs that we are training what we think are to-be high salaried future college grads for simply won’t be there

Remember how we used to all look at so called White Working Class and say “why are they so angry?”

Now get ready for that with CS grads in 5 years or less. The number of jobs will start to shrink fast. Meanwhile kids graduating with $200k+ of debt from private universities who expected the lifestyle of 150k plus starting comp and way more with RSUs and stock.

I personally would not encourage my kids to go in as CS (plus it’s hard as hell to get admitted given competition)

We need more skilled trades like plumbing and electrical but the DCUM crowd and our peers look down on that work. Just wait til those jobs pay more than tech coding jobs

It’s coming.

Signed,
25 year Silicon Valley guy now living in DC

Telling DCUM crowd to eschew CS for plumbing and electrician work.

Yeah...right.

You missed the point. Laugh all you want but all these CS kids graduating with hundreds of thousands of debt. Let’s see how it all plays out. Everyone is in the denial stage.

Not when you attend a large state school on scholarship with a well respected CS program.

+1 but ITA that having $100K+ debt for a CS degree is not worth it, which is why DC is going in state flagship with merit.

Nobody is graduating with $100k+ of loans from undergrad, unless their parents take out parent plus loans. Federal limit is around 30k. It’s grad school where people end up taking 100k+ in debt.

I'm not sure that's true. CMU, MIT, Stanford undergrad $80K/year. Even Cal oos is $80k/yr.

Yeah, but parents are paying or they’re getting some scholarships. There are limits to how much loans an undergrad can take out and it doesn’t even hit 100k. Their parents would have to take that money out.

https://studentaid.gov/understand-aid/types/loans

Yes and the parents do take out the loans, and the students help pay them. CMU doesn't offer merit aid, and the threshold for FA is pretty high.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are engineers going back to school for CS degrees.

CS majors will still be in high demand and command good salaries. It doesn't necessarily have to be FAANG.

Even a CS graduate working for one of the many defense contractors in the DMV area will do well.

But as good as the last couple years? No.

again, still better than English majors, or most majors. Top paying jobs are all engineers.

“All” engineers? I am quite sure you’re wrong about that. I’d rather be a liberal arts major on track to be an MD at a major Wall Street bank (like my BIL now making 7 figures) than a CS major working on AI at a tech company.

you are comparing apples and oranges.

Engineering majors make a lot without needing a higher degree; lawyers and doctors need a lot more schooling to get paid well. Premed and prelaw student don't get paid like engineers with just an undergrad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People don't seem to understand that the kids that graduate from a CS program and typically much more intelligent that the others who didn't, especially considering the competition to get into those programs over the past several years. Do you think they won't be able to figure out their careers relative to someone who majored in, what, English?

Omg is this a joke? Like a caricature of how stupid people can be? You actually think a CS degree means someone is smarter than someone with an English degree? It's absurd that people think that all these code monkeys who can do math well are definitively smarter than people in other fields. The ignorance is really astounding.

NP. I was an English major and have learned CS on the job. CS is a very, very much more intellectually challenging field than English.

But that’s beside the point. PPP’s point was that with the intense competition for admission to CS schools, the average graduate tends to be a lot smarter than the average English or Education major because only top students are being admitted to CS programs. Sure, there are very bright people majoring in English, just like there are probably some great athletes pursuing curling. But those curlers are, on average, very much worse athletes than NBA players because the barrier to entry to become a curler is, like to become an English major, almost nonexistent.

NP. I’m a CS major (from MIT no less). I don’t think I’m smarter than my sister who majored in English. The same brain/personality quirks that inspired you (and her) to major in English are why you found CS harder probably just as the brain/personality quirks that make me good as CS caused me to struggle in English and have to retake my foreign language classes twice to actually learn anything. Declaring subjects universely “hard” or “easy” is silly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People don't seem to understand that the kids that graduate from a CS program and typically much more intelligent that the others who didn't, especially considering the competition to get into those programs over the past several years. Do you think they won't be able to figure out their careers relative to someone who majored in, what, English?

Omg is this a joke? Like a caricature of how stupid people can be? You actually think a CS degree means someone is smarter than someone with an English degree? It's absurd that people think that all these code monkeys who can do math well are definitively smarter than people in other fields. The ignorance is really astounding.

NP. I was an English major and have learned CS on the job. CS is a very, very much more intellectually challenging field than English.

But that’s beside the point. PPP’s point was that with the intense competition for admission to CS schools, the average graduate tends to be a lot smarter than the average English or Education major because only top students are being admitted to CS programs. Sure, there are very bright people majoring in English, just like there are probably some great athletes pursuing curling. But those curlers are, on average, very much worse athletes than NBA players because the barrier to entry to become a curler is, like to become an English major, almost nonexistent.

NP. I’m a CS major (from MIT no less). I don’t think I’m smarter than my sister who majored in English. The same brain/personality quirks that inspired you (and her) to major in English are why you found CS harder probably just as the brain/personality quirks that make me good as CS caused me to struggle in English and have to retake my foreign language classes twice to actually learn anything. Declaring subjects universely “hard” or “easy” is silly.

I agree that people are wired to do well in say English vs. CS/Math and vice versa. However, I think when the discussion is whether a subject is harder or not boils down to whether someone can at least produce something passable in one area vs. maybe not even understanding much of anything in another.

As an example, I tried to take a higher level math course in college for which I qualified based on prior coursework...and it is was as though I stepped into a different world. I sat at the first class while a professor wrote a massive equation and to me it was just a series of letters and numbers...I couldn't even begin the answer the first set of problems...I didn't even understand what they were aksing. It might as well have been asked in Chinese it was so foreign to me. I knew after the first class I needed to drop and pick something else.

Now, I probably would not have received a stellar grade on some upper level English classes, however, I doubt I would not even understand how the answer the question. The English class likely had more work, however, more work does not mean more difficult (relatively speaking). Again, the math class would be the equivalent of taking an English class and the teacher said...you have to learn and answer in 8th century English vernacular...BTW, I am not going to teach you the 8th century vernacular, you are going to have to learn it on your own just to comprehend and answer the 1st assignment.