The Daily Podcast on CS majors 9.29.25

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:From the WSJ on 8/26:

The job market for entry-level workers is in a continued slump. The unemployment rate for new college graduates was 4.8% in June, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, compared with 4% for all workers.

While AI is part of the reason for the doldrums, there is a bright spot when it comes to workers with actual experience in machine learning. They’re in their early 20s, they have AI know-how, and a bunch of them are making $1 million a year.

“There is a significant salary difference between a machine-learning engineer job and a software-engineer job,” says Anil K. Gupta, a professor at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business and co-lead of its AI job tracker.

Databricks, the data-analytics software company whose value has skyrocketed during the AI boom, plans to triple the number of people it hires right out of school this year, in part because of their familiarity with AI.

Many jobs for machine-learning engineers that require zero to a year of experience pay upward of $200,000 a year at companies like Roblox, according to Levels.fyi. The compensation-data provider has seen 42 user-submitted offers of over $1 million from AI companies. Of those, nine candidates had less than a decade of corporate workplace experience, though some might have had Ph.D.s.

At Scale AI, which recently underwent a reverse-acquihire deal with Meta Platforms, around 15% of employees are under the age of 25. Right out of school, employees at Scale AI can expect base salaries of around $200,000 a year.

“We’re eager to hire AI-native professionals, and many of those candidates are early in their careers,” says Ashli Shiftan, Scale AI’s head of people.

Lily Ma, after graduating in December with an AI-concentration computer-science major from Carnegie Mellon University, applied for 30 to 40 jobs. She had interviews with about a dozen. “I did notice that having research experience helps a lot,” she says. (She also interned at Tesla.)

The 22-year-old landed at Scale AI but turned down some tempting offers, including from a startup that offered a 1% stake in the company.

So they aren’t paying entry workers $500,000!

You do know there are bonuses, right? Hence, base compensation.

That was not the assertion. Try again. Go find a $500,000 salary position- they’re plentiful in fact! This should be easy for you.

Uh...the assertion is they are making $300k-$500k...not that's it all from base salary. Again, whatever makes you feel good.

Yay another lie!

Again...if you makes you feel good...just know there are kids out there making some serious $$$s.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:From the WSJ on 8/26:

The job market for entry-level workers is in a continued slump. The unemployment rate for new college graduates was 4.8% in June, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, compared with 4% for all workers.

While AI is part of the reason for the doldrums, there is a bright spot when it comes to workers with actual experience in machine learning. They’re in their early 20s, they have AI know-how, and a bunch of them are making $1 million a year.

“There is a significant salary difference between a machine-learning engineer job and a software-engineer job,” says Anil K. Gupta, a professor at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business and co-lead of its AI job tracker.

Databricks, the data-analytics software company whose value has skyrocketed during the AI boom, plans to triple the number of people it hires right out of school this year, in part because of their familiarity with AI.

Many jobs for machine-learning engineers that require zero to a year of experience pay upward of $200,000 a year at companies like Roblox, according to Levels.fyi. The compensation-data provider has seen 42 user-submitted offers of over $1 million from AI companies. Of those, nine candidates had less than a decade of corporate workplace experience, though some might have had Ph.D.s.

At Scale AI, which recently underwent a reverse-acquihire deal with Meta Platforms, around 15% of employees are under the age of 25. Right out of school, employees at Scale AI can expect base salaries of around $200,000 a year.

“We’re eager to hire AI-native professionals, and many of those candidates are early in their careers,” says Ashli Shiftan, Scale AI’s head of people.

Lily Ma, after graduating in December with an AI-concentration computer-science major from Carnegie Mellon University, applied for 30 to 40 jobs. She had interviews with about a dozen. “I did notice that having research experience helps a lot,” she says. (She also interned at Tesla.)

The 22-year-old landed at Scale AI but turned down some tempting offers, including from a startup that offered a 1% stake in the company.

So they aren’t paying entry workers $500,000!

You do know there are bonuses, right? Hence, base compensation.

That was not the assertion. Try again. Go find a $500,000 salary position- they’re plentiful in fact! This should be easy for you.

Uh...the assertion is they are making $300k-$500k...not that's it all from base salary. Again, whatever makes you feel good.

Yay another lie!

Again...if you makes you feel good...just know there are kids out there making some serious $$$s.

There are definitely kids making 100-200k

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sounds like the key takeaway is attending an elite school will become more important than ever...unless I am missing something from OP's post.

This doesn't make sense unless you view this as a story exclusively about how your individual children will fare in the job market. Which I'm sure is important to you, but is not actually a newsworthy issue.

The vast majority of college students will not be attending elite schools, by definition. What happens to the 99.9% of college graduates who don't attend those schools? The answer is critical due the economy and the future if higher Ed. That's what this story is about.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sounds like the key takeaway is attending an elite school will become more important than ever...unless I am missing something from OP's post.

This doesn't make sense unless you view this as a story exclusively about how your individual children will fare in the job market. Which I'm sure is important to you, but is not actually a newsworthy issue.

The vast majority of college students will not be attending elite schools, by definition. What happens to the 99.9% of college graduates who don't attend those schools? The answer is critical due the economy and the future if higher Ed. That's what this story is about.

It was just a response to what OP wrote:

The end of the podcast is the most revealing. By the time the edicts from tech successfully filter down to dominate curricula—hectoring kids to learn how to prompt/correct AI while stealing others’ actual creative work to perpetuate the system—those skills will be completely outdated, and only the top 20 univ grads will once again be hired, leaving yet another debt-saddled generation to wonder what went wrong.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just listened. My take away is the increased/continued importance of liberal arts. We can't predict the job market so many years out, so much better to focus on the critical thinking and writing skills that will be important to any job, regardless of AI or new technology.

This is what every businessperson has been saying for the last five years.
Send your kids to schools where they learn to think critically, analyze, speak up, and write effectively. Progressive high schools. That's why they tend to outperform in the last two cycles in college placements.

College professors need these kids in their classes. They are begging T20 AO for more of them. Private high schools focus on these skills more than public high schools.

You think comp sci majors aren't learning to think critically, analyze problems or speak up?

[Anonymous]

This thread has too many liars and bad actors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just listened. My take away is the increased/continued importance of liberal arts. We can't predict the job market so many years out, so much better to focus on the critical thinking and writing skills that will be important to any job, regardless of AI or new technology.

This is what every businessperson has been saying for the last five years.
Send your kids to schools where they learn to think critically, analyze, speak up, and write effectively. Progressive high schools. That's why they tend to outperform in the last two cycles in college placements.

College professors need these kids in their classes. They are begging T20 AO for more of them. Private high schools focus on these skills more than public high schools.

You think comp sci majors aren't learning to think critically, analyze problems or speak up?

Seriously. My dual cs/math major had several technical interviews where he had to problem solve quickly on their feet, and explain the thought process coherently.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just listened. My take away is the increased/continued importance of liberal arts. We can't predict the job market so many years out, so much better to focus on the critical thinking and writing skills that will be important to any job, regardless of AI or new technology.

This is what every businessperson has been saying for the last five years.
Send your kids to schools where they learn to think critically, analyze, speak up, and write effectively. Progressive high schools. That's why they tend to outperform in the last two cycles in college placements.

College professors need these kids in their classes. They are begging T20 AO for more of them. Private high schools focus on these skills more than public high schools.

You think comp sci majors aren't learning to think critically, analyze problems or speak up?

Seriously. My dual cs/math major had several technical interviews where he had to problem solve quickly on their feet, and explain the thought process coherently.

Glad you discovered technicals.

[Anonymous]

humanities majors will not somehow be magically more employed than stem

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:humanities majors will not somehow be magically more employed than stem

Not to mention liberal arts aren't necessarily teaching their students to be critical and objective thinkers these days. It isn't 1995 anymore. Need to look long and hard at the declining popularity of liberal arts and understand why.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:humanities majors will not somehow be magically more employed than stem

Not to mention liberal arts aren't necessarily teaching their students to be critical and objective thinkers these days. It isn't 1995 anymore. Need to look long and hard at the declining popularity of liberal arts and understand why.

It's ridiculous to assert the 90s were any better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just listened. My take away is the increased/continued importance of liberal arts. We can't predict the job market so many years out, so much better to focus on the critical thinking and writing skills that will be important to any job, regardless of AI or new technology.

This is what every businessperson has been saying for the last five years.
Send your kids to schools where they learn to think critically, analyze, speak up, and write effectively. Progressive high schools. That's why they tend to outperform in the last two cycles in college placements.

College professors need these kids in their classes. They are begging T20 AO for more of them. Private high schools focus on these skills more than public high schools.

Last five years? People who value the liberal arts have been saying this for decades, or maybe centuries now.

Millennia, really.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ouch that is a harsh reality the CS majors are facing.

The fact that tech has so much influence on every aspect of our lives is the scary takeaway from it all.

dont worry, Democrats are busy expanding H1B and OPT and H4 and L1 and all the other alphabet visas used to replace US workers with cheap foreign labor.

here is their leader Pramila

Indians in green card backlog welcome Indian American lawmakers strong support for Eagle Act

https://americanbazaaronline.com/2022/12/15/it-took-me-17-years-to-become-a-us-citizen-pramila-jayapal-451833/

no US worker should ever vote for a Democrat.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ouch that is a harsh reality the CS majors are facing.

The fact that tech has so much influence on every aspect of our lives is the scary takeaway from it all.

dont worry, Democrats are busy expanding H1B and OPT and H4 and L1 and all the other alphabet visas used to replace US workers with cheap foreign labor.

here is their leader Pramila

Indians in green card backlog welcome Indian American lawmakers strong support for Eagle Act

https://americanbazaaronline.com/2022/12/15/it-took-me-17-years-to-become-a-us-citizen-pramila-jayapal-451833/

no US worker should ever vote for a Democrat.

Instead they should vote a party that’s purposefully tanking the economy?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sounds like the key takeaway is attending an elite school will become more important than ever...unless I am missing something from OP's post.

This doesn't make sense unless you view this as a story exclusively about how your individual children will fare in the job market. Which I'm sure is important to you, but is not actually a newsworthy issue.

The vast majority of college students will not be attending elite schools, by definition. What happens to the 99.9% of college graduates who don't attend those schools? The answer is critical due the economy and the future if higher Ed. That's what this story is about.

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