*I work at another

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So I’m no Bezos fan but this is Jassey who is a weak CEO.

Amazon, Google and Meta are aging and haven’t had a win in longtime. They’ve approached market saturation and declining market share. The layoffs are all about keeping the stock up. Their only lever to not bleed is to announce layoffs aka operational cost reduction before the next reports.

It’s also a mechanism to lower or keep salaries down. During the pandemic and even several years prior, these companies were burning cash with massive hire to keep talent away from competitors. They created a frenzy of insane recruitment offers. They all also obsessively copy each other.

They don't keep experienced, skilled people and fire them. Managers manage, but they often lack in-depth knowledge of the products or systems. Jassey was good with AWS, not Amazon. They don't do anything new or creative and their aging systems are not updated as many don't know how to update the legacy systems and it's not a priority. They got away from being a customer-driven company and the competitive, cut-throat environment is toxic. There is no teaching and mentoring.

The good experienced people develop the younger generation. I don't work at another tech company and it's the same here. Very good ppl were let go or moved on due to no raises. The rest are training hib or offshore ppl (we never get US ppl) and, out of the blue, now have a managers job title. Guess what's next? It's about cost not lack of talent.

Anonymous wrote:Nervous parent of a jr CS major. However he will be taking a $65/hr internship next summer working with AI. Even brought him on as a PT currently so they can work on his clearance. That sounds like an investment to me. Hopeful.

This DC should be fine.

However, for the long term, DC should be trying to take the more rigorous CS electives (such as Compilers, Embedded systems, Real-time programming, OS Internals / Advanced OS).

DC needs to be comfortable developing software in C using tools like emacs/vi, debugging with gdb and the llvm devugger, creating and using Makefiles, using command-line gcc and llvm, and other UNIX command line tools. (Linux and BSD are examples of UNIX for this purpose.) Those more difficult / less common skills have been in shortage for decades and will continue to be in shortage for decades in the future.

People who focus on easier CS electives (such as web programming or scripting) and who rely on GUI integrated development environments (example: Eclipse) and can only work on Ms Windows are at higher job risk, both short-term and especially longer-term.

Rigor in college matters as much or more than it did in HS -- at least in STEM.

Anonymous wrote:Joe six pack CS undergraduates desirability will plummet… top notch CS folks will always be in demand ( much less than before though CS premium vs others fields will plummet as well

Rigor matters. CS grads who take harder electives (example: Compilers) will always have better options.

Anonymous wrote:The jobs cut are low level tech jobs not the kind of entry jobs ivy/T20/T5 public engineering students get. Students who have in depth, rigorous science/math/programming skills, along with curricula that involve creative thinking, technical writing, difficult labs have no problem getting jobs in tech. These people never had bottom tier tech jobs of the type amazon is firing.

This often in the case with Tech firms.

Amazon’s recent layoff wave is hitting NYC hard, with 660 corporate jobs cut across several Manhattan offices. On the AWS side, costs can escalate quickly, there are real-world reports of runaway Lambda bills, including one case where a misconfigured Lambda loop generated $3,200 in just three days, and another where a traffic spike and chained retries resulted in a $75K charge over 48 hours. Even as Amazon trims staff in AWS, the risk of high cloud costs from spikes or inefficient configurations remains a serious concern for companies relying on their services. AI automation seems to be a quick fix.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tech seems prone to booms and busts in hiring. Nothing new here. And Amazon is known for regularly culling weaker employees.

Many tech companies are replacing American employees with imported H1B immigrant employees. Go to the Political forum to read the H1B thread which is full of information. Essentially an Indian racket involving middlemen in cooperation with tech hiring managers (themselves Indian immigrants) colluding to squeeze out Americans and bringing immigrant Indians to replace the American employees. Watch these tech companies carefully. You will see them quietly hiring Indian replacements when they think nobody is looking.

Isn't there a 100k fee now?

Anonymous wrote:Tech seems prone to booms and busts in hiring. Nothing new here. And Amazon is known for regularly culling weaker employees.

Many tech companies are replacing American employees with imported H1B immigrant employees. Go to the Political forum to read the H1B thread which is full of information. Essentially an Indian racket involving middlemen in cooperation with tech hiring managers (themselves Indian immigrants) colluding to squeeze out Americans and bringing immigrant Indians to replace the American employees. Watch these tech companies carefully. You will see them quietly hiring Indian replacements when they think nobody is looking.

Vibe coding is taking over.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tech is dead fred. CS programs bleeding out as well. Bust out those basket weaving degrees!

You seem happy about that. Sounds like typical American.

And you are what exactly?

Untypical American. Educated, strategic, resilient, intelligent, not poor and not afraid of AI.

oh, also...family still intact and parents paying for college!

NP:

That's me too. Biglaw here. $25M NW.
Have embraced AI - in everything. It will change our world. Already has.
But, I wouldn't have my kids study CS - right now - or prob ever again.
Be strategic, people.

I think your last comment is more relevant...who do you think are the ones creating these new AI companies that you use? They are primarily CS and other STEM majors.

Nervous parent of a jr CS major. However he will be taking a $65/hr internship next summer working with AI. Even brought him on as a PT currently so they can work on his clearance. That sounds like an investment to me. Hopeful.

Parent of a 2024 CS grad. He’s had multiple job offers for after graduation. He’s interested more in startup/high tech. DC did have great internships over the years summers, including at OpenAI

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tech is dead fred. CS programs bleeding out as well. Bust out those basket weaving degrees!

Definitely time for humanities to shine. The one thing AI does poorly is anything creative. People who can write and tell stories are going to be in high demand and command astronomical salaries.

Nah, that squishy stuff just goes to people who know people or have the right parents. Lots of people write and are good storytellers but end up as baristas.

Actually this isn't true. Ai is incredibly good at making all kinds of art. It is not good at math and logic...

You are at least a year behind, and focusing on the free AIs. It's extremely rare to find someone better than AI at math and logic, outside of math PhDs. A modern paid model can pass your college math exams with ease.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tech is dead fred. CS programs bleeding out as well. Bust out those basket weaving degrees!

Definitely time for humanities to shine. The one thing AI does poorly is anything creative. People who can write and tell stories are going to be in high demand and command astronomical salaries.

Nah, that squishy stuff just goes to people who know people or have the right parents. Lots of people write and are good storytellers but end up as baristas.

Actually this isn't true. Ai is incredibly good at making all kinds of art. It is not good at math and logic...

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tech is dead fred. CS programs bleeding out as well. Bust out those basket weaving degrees!

We just go back to the old ways, where you got the good job because of who you know and maybe your gender and race, like the old days. Meritocracy, high tech degrees, hardly knew you.

Getting jobs due to those things was the past few years of dei

That wasn’t DEI.

Anonymous wrote:No surprise.
CS entry level is dead.

Doesn't that just mean the new entry level is different?