Has this board missed the huge contraction in tech?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:People are constantly pushing CS and other majors for “Big Tech” jobs. Meanwhile FAANG companies have done massive layoffs and the truth of fake jobs warehousing talent has come to light. Salaries are tanking because demand has plummeted. But the parents on here are still so focused on these employers!

The belt-tightening by a few companies has had little or no impact on the industry. Issues with META and Twitter were largely caused by mismanagement and aren't a symptom of anything. For anyone with talent, there's no lack of demand. Salaries have also increased so much these past few years that this blip isn't all that noticeable. At least from my view as someone who has worked at more than one of those companies over the past 35 years, I don't really see the problem.

Twitter and Meta have shed an absolutely massive number of highly qualified employees. I don’t understand how you can say this huge increase in supply isn’t harming demand. And prices.

Because they get new jobs immediately. There has always been such high demand and honestly, at least now they may do something useful.

That’s not what I’m hearing from my millennial friends in the SV area. Finding equivalent paying jobs has been a struggle.

Yes. I live in CA and work for a tech company (although I'm a lawyer). Laid off folks (including developers and engineers) are not getting quick jobs at similar salaries.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Imagine other majors

+1 STEM is a much safer bet than humanities majors.

Absolutely! If the job market is bad for CS and engineers, it won’t be any better for history majors. Hate to say this. The amount of workload and difficulty between STEM and liberal arts/social studies majors is not even remotely comparable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Imagine other majors

+1 STEM is a much safer bet than humanities majors.

Absolutely! If the job market is bad for CS and engineers, it won’t be any better for history majors. Hate to say this. The amount of workload and difficulty between STEM and liberal arts/social studies majors is not even remotely comparable.

OP here. I’m absolutely NOT saying other majors are better or don’t major in CS. It just seems like this board is salivating over tech salaries and tech hiring rates from certain schools completely oblivious to the fact the data they are looking at has aged like milk.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People are constantly pushing CS and other majors for “Big Tech” jobs. Meanwhile FAANG companies have done massive layoffs and the truth of fake jobs warehousing talent has come to light. Salaries are tanking because demand has plummeted. But the parents on here are still so focused on these employers!

The belt-tightening by a few companies has had little or no impact on the industry. Issues with META and Twitter were largely caused by mismanagement and aren't a symptom of anything. For anyone with talent, there's no lack of demand. Salaries have also increased so much these past few years that this blip isn't all that noticeable. At least from my view as someone who has worked at more than one of those companies over the past 35 years, I don't really see the problem.

Twitter and Meta have shed an absolutely massive number of highly qualified employees. I don’t understand how you can say this huge increase in supply isn’t harming demand. And prices.

Because they get new jobs immediately. There has always been such high demand and honestly, at least now they may do something useful.

That’s not what I’m hearing from my millennial friends in the SV area. Finding equivalent paying jobs has been a struggle.

Yes. I live in CA and work for a tech company (although I'm a lawyer). Laid off folks (including developers and engineers) are not getting quick jobs at similar salaries.

Definitely agree with the poster you’re quoting. From the people I know in tech - those in technical roles who were laid off are getting new jobs within a few months but usually with a pay cut. Non-technical folks at tech companies are taking even larger paycuts or having trouble finding a job. This may be in part to unrealistic salary expectations.

[Anonymous]

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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Long term the world has always and will always become more “computery” so a degree in CS is a good bet. It moves in fits and starts though. But technological innovation never stops

I don’t disagree with this as a baseline, that someone with a CS degree will be able to find a job. But the assumption that there will be a big fat firehose of money/upper middle class salaries, that is what I am more skeptical of.[b]

Ok, we’ll what else then? They’ll still have better prospects than English majors.

[Anonymous]

How about advanced mathematics or theoretical computer science? That is what DS wants to study. Will these jobs be more protected?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:CS without higher order math and physics at undergraduate level is a risky bet, especially. For every thousand CS degrees, only 5-10 are actually deep enough to be change-makers. Much of CS is now coding and relatively banal.

Better choice to major in some form of engineering and do CS as a minor (if you like engineering). That gives you a bit more focus for what to do with the CS

[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?

100% agree.. a successful person changes careers multiple times. I for one was a civil engineer, worked as a programmer (don't ask me how), then completed an MBA by moving to US, worked in marketing and now finance at a Tech company. I go where the opportunities are and where I can achieve my personal preferences of work life balance

And this kind of black and white thinking is why people are dubious. People can be "smart" in a lot of ways.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Cybersecurity is still hot.

For now, I question how that field can possibly absorb all of the kids who are flocking to it now, especially given how ripe it is for automation.

It is a strange misconception that CS is ripe for automation...creative fields, law, accounting, etc. are routinely cited as far more ripe for automation. Not to say CS is not as well, but it is impossible to know what to study if you are worried about being automated out of a career. Unless you are planning to pursue a trade...basically, every white collar job is vulnerable.

At least someone needs to program the AI and build the robots overlords...until they become aware at least.

CS is far more ripe for automation than law. I can already use automation to build a functional app but would never use it to write a brief to file in federal court. I am a lawyer and DH is a software engineer and he whole heartedly agrees, BTW.

Good luck with that...

You really don’t get it. Law is war. Increased technology hasn’t ever made wars cheaper. Just more effective. If you give me an AI tool that makes my “troops” 1,000x more effective I’m not going to fire them. I’m going to rain hell down on my enemy. But wait, they will have the same tech, so we will still just be going head to head.

They guy selling the pick axes always does better than those doing the mining.

My whole career in litigation I’ve been hearing tech would bring down bills. The opposite has happened the whole time. We use tech to do more.

dp.. yes, exactly. There will be more B2B type of software, too. It's not as sexy as AI or social media or gaming software, but the job market in that field is pretty good.

CS jobs in biotech is also pretty hot.

I stated earlier, they high pay we saw is cyclical. We are at a downturn right now, but there will eventually be an upswing in tech again. Some of it is a matter of timing and luck.

My kid is going into Biotech (Chem Eng) with a. CS minor---figure they will be set for deciding what where they get a job upon graduation

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:People are constantly pushing CS and other majors for “Big Tech” jobs. Meanwhile FAANG companies have done massive layoffs and the truth of fake jobs warehousing talent has come to light. Salaries are tanking because demand has plummeted. But the parents on here are still so focused on these employers!

I feel bad for students who like tech and just want a job in a field they enjoy.

But it would be nice to see the bust lead to bankruptcy and an old age spent eating cat food for the parents who bullied their kids into being CS majors.

Maybe most of the bullies here are AIs or shills. If they’re real people, they’re awful people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How about advanced mathematics or theoretical computer science? That is what DS wants to study. Will these jobs be more protected?

If he’s trying to major in a hot subject purely because he thinks that’s where the money is, he’s likely to have problems.

If he’s bright, sane, industrious and loves what he’s doing, he’ll be fine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People are constantly pushing CS and other majors for “Big Tech” jobs. Meanwhile FAANG companies have done massive layoffs and the truth of fake jobs warehousing talent has come to light. Salaries are tanking because demand has plummeted. But the parents on here are still so focused on these employers!

The belt-tightening by a few companies has had little or no impact on the industry. Issues with META and Twitter were largely caused by mismanagement and aren't a symptom of anything. For anyone with talent, there's no lack of demand. Salaries have also increased so much these past few years that this blip isn't all that noticeable. At least from my view as someone who has worked at more than one of those companies over the past 35 years, I don't really see the problem.

Twitter and Meta have shed an absolutely massive number of highly qualified employees. I don’t understand how you can say this huge increase in supply isn’t harming demand. And prices.

Because they get new jobs immediately. There has always been such high demand and honestly, at least now they may do something useful.

That’s not what I’m hearing from my millennial friends in the SV area. Finding equivalent paying jobs has been a struggle.

Yes. I live in CA and work for a tech company (although I'm a lawyer). Laid off folks (including developers and engineers) are not getting quick jobs at similar salaries.

Yep, laid off folks in areas like marketing are taking even bigger pay cuts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Long term the world has always and will always become more “computery” so a degree in CS is a good bet. It moves in fits and starts though. But technological innovation never stops

I don’t disagree with this as a baseline, that someone with a CS degree will be able to find a job. But the assumption that there will be a big fat firehose of money/upper middle class salaries, that is what I am more skeptical of.[b]

Ok, we’ll what else then? They’ll still have better prospects than English majors.

I’m an English major. I’ve been without a job for exactly seven days in the 35 years since I got my degree, and every job has been a fun job that’s related to my degree.

And I wasn’t even a very good English major, and I entered the job market as the economy was collapsing.

Obviously, I’ve been very lucky, but I think it’s a mistake to assume that STEM degrees all lead to paradise or the humanities and social sciences degrees always lead to hell. Bright people who major in something they love and do related jobs and activities while they’re in college can make all kinds of majors pay.

Kids who major in something like CS solely for the money probably aren’t going to stay current enough to hold CS-related jobs for very long.

[Anonymous]

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

Yea encourage your kids go plumbing
Sure!