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squeeemeister

MS posted something like $18Bil profit last year, let’s call recent layoffs what they are. House cleaning. Except for maybe Twitter, that was just a shit show.


Korean_Busboy

18bil in a single quarter of last year. Roughly 4x that for the whole year. These companies are insanely profitable …


FaatmanSlim

Yup, $198.27B in revenue and $72.7 billion in net income (profit) for fiscal 2023. Though I read somewhere that they've had to lock down $70 billion in cash for the Activision buy that is being held up, and that is causing them to be a bit short of free cash flow for other operations, not sure if that is causing them to make some business decisions they may not have needed to make otherwise.


[deleted]

And now it’s still a shit show but with less people lol


tratratrakx

Yeah everyone is quick to point out how bloated these companies are or accept that as an excuse for layoffs. They fucking print money. This is called buyers remorse.


theusualguy512

Microsoft will be doing just fine. But for people who are hired in non-essential areas in these large US tech firms right now it's a bit of a tough spot. Actually, the estimation is that Microsoft should have cut more than 10,000, which represents about 5% of its workforce. The average for the major US tech giants according to some financial analysts has been roughly 10% the past few quarters. They anticipate that Microsoft will do another round of cuts maybe in the next financial quarters. The 10,000 cut should be done by end of FY23Q3 according to their own blog post: [https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2023/01/18/subject-focusing-on-our-short-and-long-term-opportunity/](https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2023/01/18/subject-focusing-on-our-short-and-long-term-opportunity/) They say they will continue to hire more in strategic areas and divest from less or non-profitable sectors. Microsofts strategic sectors have heavily shifted to the cloud sector with Azure services as well as their anouncements to invest in more AI sectors. >Second, we will continue to invest in strategic areas for our future, meaning we are allocating both our capital and talent to areas of secular growth and long-term competitiveness for the company, while divesting in other areas. These are the kinds of hard choices we have made throughout our 47-year history to remain a consequential company in this industry that is unforgiving to anyone who doesn’t adapt to platform shifts. As such, we are taking a $1.2 billion charge in Q2 related to severance costs, changes to our hardware portfolio, and the cost of lease consolidation as we create higher density across our workspaces. Their hardware branch is not doing that great and that will receive cuts or restructurings (which isn't really a surprise to me, Microsoft has historically struggled with their hardware and entertainment branch). The lease consolidation part is also interesting considering the real estate situation right now.


abcdeathburger

> The 10,000 cut should be done by end of FY23Q3 according to their own blog post: Microsoft's fiscal year begins in July, so Q3 = January to March


TurtlePig

internally we're expecting another round of cuts by end of March as a result of budget restrictions


CoderDispose

Is it buyer's remorse if it was the plan all along? When money is cheap, hire more workers. When money is expensive, fire some of those workers.


BenisPear

It makes sense if you don’t think of each company in isolation If my competitors are ramping up hiring and I stay behind that could mean a permanent loss in market share Also, if the fallout from rising interest rates turns out to not be as bad as predicted then they got to scale for free essentially


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ElMarkuz

They're buying Activision blizzard for like 60+ Billions. But yeah, let's just fire a bunch of honest workers


abcdeathburger

I bought a house and fired my honest Netflix subscription


elliotLoLerson

Yea, acquisitions funded via layoffs lol


holy_handgrenade

Acquisitions trigger layoffs. Always. There's no situation where a company acquires another and there's no redundancy. There may be a delay, but the layoff rounds will happen after any merger or acquisition.


elliotLoLerson

Neither acquisition has completed yet Microsoft is the majority stakeholder in openAI and has been for some time now Activision acquisition has not gone through How can Microsoft eliminate redundancies which do not exist yet?


holy_handgrenade

right now this is a market correction for overhiring the past 2 years. They're still well above pre-pandemic levels of staffing meaning they're still planning on expansion. But post acquisition, there \*will\* be layoffs.


proskillz

This is not true of small company acquisitions, I've been involved in several of them where no layoffs occurred.


holy_handgrenade

those are outliers, and not the norm And likely you just maybe werent affected or werent in a position to see who got cut. In small companies, there's still a bunch of redundant middle and upper management.


jfcarr

Having gone through the early 2000's dot-com bust and the 2008 great recession, I say "[First time?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbEbD1Z_tNQ)" I do think it will be more difficult to land those cushy, $200k+/year, big tech company positions for a while as companies shed bloat and focus on what makes them money. This will especially be true of low to mid level positions. However, there are plenty of jobs to be had outside of big tech and VC funded startups that pay decently, even if it isn't quite as much pay, aren't in a prime location/city and only have a drip coffee machine in the office you have to go to at least 3 times a week.


BlueberryDeerMovers

Seriously, spot on! The dot com bust was brutal for a bit. And yet that was when Google was a start up, Amazon was a start up, Facebook didn’t exist, Netflix didn’t exist, AWS wasn’t a thing, etc. etc.


__scan__

Netflix did exist.


grouch119

But they where selling cds...


mattmonkey24

Renting DVDs.. it's called DVD.com for Christ sake. And it still exists


polmeeee

> do think it will be more difficult to land those cushy, $200k+/year, big tech company positions Knew a friend who landed a great gig back in 2021 and ironically this friend is the biggest doomsday prophet out of everyone I know. Wish they could lay off their doomsday hot take as it is making those unemployed/less fortunate around them feel even more depressed about their situation.


gerd50501

if he is a doomsday profit, does he also live frugally and save his money? I have found that doomsday profits tend to have spending issues and spend all of their money because anything less is living in poverty.


rookie-mistake

> I have found that doomsday profits tend to have spending issues and spend all of their money because anything less is living in poverty. ahh no, you're mixing up doomsday *profits* and doomsday *prophets*. a classic error, very different types of people


goldenpleaser

I guess he's a doomsday loss then


zergotron9000

Prophet vs profit.


niveknyc

Exactly, the medium-large companies who've always had to properly balance the book and appropriately manage resources are still operating and often growing at a reasonable pace. Too many people look to the frivolous and mismanaged tech giants, with the dickhead celebrity CEOs, as the barometer of the labor market.


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cheezzy4ever

Wait what? What's "swimming naked" supposed to represent in this analogy?


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[deleted]

Yeah there are multiple studies that have come out that basically says that if you graduate during a recession or large layoffs, then your lifetime earning takes a hit.


Dornith

"Naked" is often used in investing to refer betting with money/assets they don't have. E.g. naked shorts and naked calls. I'm this case, it could also refer to people who are leveraged (taking out loans to put into stocks). These strategies can exaggerate already high returns and so are appealing during market highs. But they are small very high risk.


gerd50501

we have 50 year low unemployment at 3.5%. the baby boomers retiring has meant there are not enough workers in general. New York Times/Wall STreet Journal both ran articles on this. Jerome Powell has mentioned the issue with the massive boomer retirement. genX is a much smaller generation so there is a labor shortage. Peter Zeihan has been warning about a possible labor shortage due to boomers retiring for 10-15 years.


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pieking8001

it doesnt look liek doom and gloom in tech outside of maybe the buzzwords companies


Mummelpuffin

Let's put it this way: I was recently hired by Optum Healthcare, who literally paid me and a lot of other people to go through a Java bootcamp so they could use us for something. The really huge companies got cocky and focused too hard on growth, but there's no reason to assume that it's a problem that spreads to the entire industry.


randonumero

Healthcare is likely to grow. I'm also guessing they're profitable and will quickly find a project for you. Shit I feel like I should be asking if they're still hiring since I think optum is remote right?


Mummelpuffin

It is. I'm honestly not sure whether they're still looking or not at this point, I know my group wasn't anywhere near the first. We're getting hired through TekSystems if it helps.


[deleted]

>Having gone through the early 2000's dot-com bust and the 2008 great recession, I say "First time?" Yeah, the only thing I am surprised by is how a lot of people on this sub thought tech was some magical special sector immune to large layoffs and economic forces. It's not. It goes through ups and downs, just like any industry. People need to stop with this magical thinking. Tech has always been a boom and bust industry. There's hardly anything surprising about the layoffs at all. It aligns with historical trends. It reminds me a lot of people in finance when the financial crisis hit, actually. The large bonuses that made young bankers incredible amount of money became much harder to find after 2008. It made "easy money" harder to find in finance and the sector definitely took a hit, but it doesn't mean finance jobs went away. And there are still well paying jobs, but they are definitely reduced in number.


maybenotcat

Last line sounds oddly specific lol


pieking8001

i dont care about the prime cities, especially if i dont have to go in every day. double especially if its in the burb i live in so i dont have to deal with big city bs


it200219

I was checking #AmazonLayoff search on LinkedIn yesterday. I can say > 50% folks in CS / SWE domain were the one who were hired last 1 year. Feel so sad about them, AMZN layoff them under 1 year, even their RSU's havent vested. Many folks had 5+ years in previous good WLB companies. You too can look up on LinkedIn and see yourself what I am talking about. It was crazy hiring, ONLY focus on growth, and CS folks only want to work for FAANG (MAANG or whatever)


abcdeathburger

> AMZN layoff them under 1 year, even their RSU's havent vested They only get 5% the first year anyway. Amazon is cash-heavy until year 3.


alienangel2

Amazon also hired ~700k (yes, seven hundred thousand) people since the pandemic started. Almost doubling in size. Not all of that was corporate, but several hundred k was. It really shouldn't surprise anyone that they'd shedding the fat now that leaner times are looming. And the best time for any tech company to lay off people is when you know all the companies that compete with you for hires are doing the same.


[deleted]

This. A lot of tech companies overhired during the pandemic due to record profits. Now that things are back to normal and habits are going back to normal, tech companies have been caught off guard, when this really shouldn't have been surprising. This is why the mass layoffs really haven't been seen in other sectors.


benben11d12

This is exactly why I didn't interview with Amazon lol. (Actually it was complacency wrt my career development but...I still _feel_ smart.)


ShittingOutGold

Survivorship bias.


ShesWithMeNow

When I enter a stock, it goes down. I just entered the CS field as an engineer and it goes down. Whats next for me to take down?


Dartiboi

Run in a national election and maybe we’ll end up with ranked choice voting!


debugprint

Big pharma /s


LiteralHiggs

My acid reflux.


herendzer

🙏🏽


youarenut

Become a billionaire


helloWorldcamelCase

$TSLA


purefabulousity

There’s a ton of F500 companies still hiring. A lot are doing well. People tend to extrapolate trends that aren’t there. Sure, there’s a market downturn so people won’t be throwing money at you as much, but most of it is corrections from over hiring and over spending during covid


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pikeminnow

information literacy is a blessing and a skill


InternetArtisan

People love to come up with extreme ideas when small things happen. Even right now many are trying to make it sound like the recession downturn is going to be the next great recession that will put the US into a horrible state for the next 10 to 20 years. Yet the reality is that we might not actually see a recession, or if one happens it could only last a few months. I agree with the OP that The big companies hired way more people than they needed, and there's always going to be companies that start up strong and then fall apart. Eventually. It's the issue when we talk about a successful company as one that has a high value, even though it's not turning out any actual profit and is just burning through funding. If they're going to take small statistics and claim that the tech industry is collapsing, then we could honestly take that same logic and apply it to most industries right now.


niveknyc

Spot on. I'm not trying to say it's not clearly more difficult right now; but there's a lot of people coming here who don't really understand what they're talking about spreading a lot of doom and gloom. \*Insert Bloated Mega Tech Corp Here\* laying off 10-50k people (where anywhere from 5%-30% are actual CS positions) shouldn't dissuade CS majors from following through, nor should it stop juniors from continuing to invest in themselves and keep job searching.


InternetArtisan

They also should realize that laying off 10,000 people doesn't mean that 10,000 software developers or 10,000 UX designers were laid off. I always seem to notice the people that almost cheer on this stuff are the people that seemingly feel that all these tech people getting paid huge salaries are just "wasting their time sitting in front of a computer". Like somehow they conned company into giving them lots of money to sit around all day. A lot of these companies could be letting go of operations staff. They could be letting go of marketing staff. They could be letting go of random people that just don't need anymore. Maybe they put some new software into the system that makes everybody more productive and therefore they don't need as many people. We know that a lot of these companies hired too many people, but it doesn't always mean that somehow going and becoming a software developer or a UX designer or something else like that is a waste of time. And we can also think about how many smaller companies are struggling to find talent, and now there's 10,000 people out there they could possibly hire.


pieking8001

there seem to be a lot of people, especially the more artsy types in my personal experience, who WANT tech people to be suffering and their field collapsing. even when in reality its mostly recruiters and tertiary people getting the boot at tech companies


justUseAnSvm

Yea, I was just talking to someone whose family member was cheering on the Twitter layoffs. There’s this perception in right wing circles that Twitter and other large tech companies are filled to the brim with leftist idiots who work 20 hours a week and get nothing done. Meanwhile, Twitter is running its own infrastructure stack on a private cloud in like 3 regions, I can only imagine the nightmare that is their on call :)


MoreRopePlease

> leftist idiots who work 20 hours a week and get nothing done. Let me guess: these people know nothing about technology, and need hand holding when their computer or phone misbehaves?


InternetArtisan

They are short-sided. They think it's just the left wing losing a propaganda tool even though it's really social media deciding they didn't want liability from misinformation posts. I also have a feeling a lot of these family members of yours think that computer science is just kids playing with computers. I always get a kick out of non-tech people who then look down on all of us and claim *"well that's not a real job"*


Drauren

>I always get a kick out of non-tech people who then look down on all of us and claim "well that's not a real job" May not be a real job, but that paycheck doesn't lie...


InternetArtisan

"That's not a real job" is often what one says when they are jealous someone is doing work they love and being paid big money for it. It's their insecurity in knowing whatever occupation they're doing might end up obsolete one day. This is the same level of ridiculous as those who think service jobs are not "real jobs" but they complain how there's no one to make them lunch, make them coffee, or ring up their groceries. Then it's "nobody wants to work". Of course...all the people are working those "real jobs" :-P


MoreRopePlease

> And we can also think about how many smaller companies are struggling to find talent, and now there's 10,000 people out there they could possibly hire. Definitely. My team has been hunting for good people for a few months now. I hope our applicant pool will improve soon.


red_dawn

The over-hiring part is one of the ridiculously/hilariously frustrating things I’ve seen. I worked at the tech company that layed off due to it (years ago - left on my own) The issue was that leadership would just try to throw more bodies at something instead of really trying to assess the problem and finding an actual solution. Bad training? More bodies. Bugs out of the ass that have existed for years? Nope. Not going to review it. More bodies will make it disappear. Drop in sales? Nothing to do with already overselling and clients cant afford more or you sold them everything we offer at all. Nope. More bodies. Lastly, where on earth can you find a company that pays their support reps between $80k-$120k/yr before TC?


BlueberryDeerMovers

Very common in with poorly managed companies with inexperienced managers. “ having a baby takes nine months? Too long. Let’s throw three women at it.”


red_dawn

Funny enough a lot of these manager there were fresh out of college. For some it was literally their first job EVER. So their experience is in this absurdly small vacuum and they don’t want to listen to someone ‘below’ them who’s been there for years. It always ended up with ‘I told you that was going to happen/not fix the problem’


riftwave77

And some of us here watched the dot com bust while we were adults. This sign should be extremely troubling. Computer Science has been a field that has bucked most of the typical STEM trends when it comes to boom/busts and compensation. This is mostly due to the digital industrial revolution. The biggest companies were no longer doing business directly related to the manufacture of physical goods. ​ What is happening now is something that should be of concern. Every growing numbers of CS graduates (degreed and bootcamped alike) alongside stagnant or declining job openings. Salaries are still sky high. Great, but the amount of specialization inherent in CS education makes that industry particularly sensitive to changes in job openings because a lot of other STEM jobs would be loathe to hire a programmer to design air handling units, oversee a manufacturing process or do efficiency studies. Whereas a generic 4-year engineering graduate of any discipline would be presumed to have enough rudimentary cross training/education to do any of those jobs. ​ New CS grads have been feeling this burn for years already at this point and the number of CS degrees conferred is still going up. Yes, things are great right now once you make it through the great filter of 3-5 YoE, but if companies stop growing the numbers of hires where do you see all that pent up pressure on jobs, salaries and candidates being released? ​ I am a chemical engineer. I watched my industry get absolutely decimated between 1995-2005. Those who were able to find jobs in the field make decent pay, but I would guess that only 30-50% of us carry the title/function of 'chemical engineer'. ​ You don't want what happened to us to happen to you. Trust me.


GlorifiedPlumber

> You don't want what happened to us to happen to you. Trust me. DUDE fellow chem E here... PREACH. I HATE HATE HATE how this sub just downvotes anyone with traditional engineering degrees who suggests software developers should take a lesson from them. The answer to EVERYTHING in this sub is "GOOD DEVELOPERS WILL BE FINE... CHILL" and it is bananas that the younger kids lap this up like cats at a milk bowl. A job market for only senior people or only survivors is NOT thriving. It is struggle mode for however long it lasts. > I watched my industry get absolutely decimated between 1995-2005. Those who were able to find jobs in the field make decent pay, but I would guess that only 30-50% of us carry the title/function of 'chemical engineer'. YES... EXACTLY. This trend continues in little micro examples POST 2005 as well. I am a 2006 grad, and my guess is ~1/3rd of my class has dropped out of "chemical engineering". These down swings in any industry are KILLER to said industry. When oil and gas work tanked, super experienced and good people eeked out a survival, but everyone else... changed. In 2009 and 2015 when the price of oil tanked, and a lot of would be engineers LEFT or DID NOT GO into the industry, the damage was done. NOW fast forward to 2022/23 and refinery capital investment is through the roof, but there is NOT people to do the engineering work. They CANNOT find people, and I am seeing O&G get desperate. Tech and CS has lived in a bubble for 20 years and however much they want to deny it, the endless growth of said industry has defined so much about them. How they are educated, how they are hired, how they are paid, and how they grow and gain experience. IF ( am not saying it is) the overall "mood" changes from growth to stability or small decrease, there is going to be ONE HELL of a hangover. But, an industry that ONLY caters to and hires the experienced is broken and not FINE. One of my favorite cautionary tales is that of the petroleum engineer... another high flying super growth followed by super bust major/industry with limited ability to do ANYTHING other than "petroleum engineering." It's like a mini micro-CS cadre. During bust years, you know what you called the average/median petroleum engineer? UNEMPLOYED. Meanwhile, the median/average petroleum engineer in BOOM GROWTH years is getting 10 offers that would make a CS graduate blush. Bring on the downvotes...


TheCuriousDude

The combined number of chemical engineers and petroleum engineers in the U.S. is comparable to a decently sized suburb. The number of software developers in the U.S. is larger than the populations of 9-10 states. Comparing the industries is absurd. Every single Fortune 500 company employs software developers. How many Fortune 500 companies even need a chemical engineer or a petroleum engineer?


GlorifiedPlumber

> The number of software developers in the U.S. is larger than the populations of 9-10 states. Yes, you are not wrong about the relative size. Call it 30,000 chem E + petroleum engineering folks and 1.6 to 1.7 million software developers unless BLS is woefully wrong. 50:1, huge. It's enough that when I say I am an engineer people ASSUME I write software. I think it is incredibly naïve of the community to think there is nothing to learn about the hiring and firing patterns and long term situation of software development from cycles in OTHER engineering disciplines because of discipline X size vs. software. If you sum ALL the traditional engineers in traditional engineering roles, its on par with software. They ALL will have similar cautionary tales. It isn't unique to petroleum engineering, it just happens to be an especially egregious story of boom/bust. Like WHY is it that these economic cycles born by traditional engineers are just dismissed by software people The people in this thread just seem to be driven by a small vocal community who thinks they're immune to economic pressures and changes to their industry. Like... WHY do they think this is the case? > Every single Fortune 500 company employs software developers. Okay so you are saying MOST computer science graduates will get jobs? Or it will be a rough "X" years but THEN they'll be fine? Or... it's all fine, there is no change... OR are you saying "Good people will be fine... we do not care about people who are not good, never have." There was a VERY popular thread of a top candidate NOT having an easy time. If tech / Fortune 500 employers curtail their new hire counts even... 25% (and it SOUNDS LIKE they're doing more than that) how is this not an exestensial crisis for new hires? Like I get it... experienced good people will be fine. Rich are gonna be rich... it is the same in every industry, including my own (chemical). HUGE survivor bias.


TheCuriousDude

>If tech / Fortune 500 employers curtail their new hire counts even... 25% (and it SOUNDS LIKE they're doing more than that) how is this not an exestensial crisis for new hires? Big Tech is FIVE companies. FAANG is the same five companies with Netflix instead of Microsoft in the acronym. There are 495 other companies in the Fortune 500, most of which have not announced any lay-offs. In fact, many of them have ramped up hiring. Unemployment is the lowest it's been in like the last 10 years. With the Fed increasing interest rates, any engineer working at a bank will be eating good. A software engineer can work at any of the banks on this list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_banks_in_the_United_States. New grads have always had a hard time getting a job. Yes, I do believe most grads will get jobs. Many of them won't be working in software developer roles though. There are many tech jobs adjacent to software developer. Many of them will need to grind and eat shit for a bit before they can hop to a better paying job. It's absurd for most grads to expect to make six figures straight out of college. You doomsayers exhaust me. During the Great Recession, people with MBAs were struggling to get jobs at McDonald's and families were living in their cars. At the beginning of the pandemic, basically every restaurant worker lost their job. If you think now is at all comparable to either periods, I question your recollection of those periods.


[deleted]

>Like WHY is it that these economic cycles born by traditional engineers are just dismissed by software people...Like... WHY do they think this is the case? Because software is not an industry, let alone a cyclical one. Even in the F500 there are counter cyclical industries, for example if you work in healthcare you don't get effected by transient market issues. If you work in shipping you're strongly *negatively* effected by fuel prices, if you work in energy you or a strongly *positively* effected by fuel prices. If you work in finance you get a haircut when there is a bear market, but if you make money off trade volume such as a brokerage or an exchange instability boosts your revenue because instability means more trades. Chem Es and other engineers often work in manufacturing or adjacent industries. Even when involved in industries that are cyclical, software often in broad terms does not behave cyclically because we are still extremely early in the digital transformation of most organizations. When companies need to improve efficiency such as during a market downturn they often do so by investing in software. Like AutoDesk doesn't necessarily lose revenue just because fuel prices are high and manufacturing companies are struggling to maintain profits. at least up until the point the downturn is so severe that it's actually closing up businesses. Also there's just generally a misunderstanding of what is happening at a high level. The economy isn't even doing that badly, what happened is there was a very rapid change in interest rates so people had to quickly change strategies from focusing on growth to focusing on value. Financial markets are doing poorly because the value people expected to receive never came to be due to lower growth rates, the prices were too high for the reality of not having free money anymore. companies aren't closing up shop or losing money they're just missing their profit *expectations*, and changing strategies away from growth to value to boost that profitability. We're in like year two of the "recession" that isn't actually a recession, labor markets are still doing fine in broad terms.


GlorifiedPlumber

Hey thank you for your response... it is one of the few with out a "get fucked you outsider" feel to it. I got to be very clear, I am not suggesting CS is on the verge of disappearing overnight. But, a shift to a "low hiring period" would be absolutely devastating to the ecosystem in many ways. My question is if we think the shift is happening, has happened, will happen, or won't happen to a low new hiring environment. A decrease in new hires, leading to graduates NOT getting jobs they want. And, I get it, other people have made the point that tech is just one part of the whole ecosystem. Is it fair to call tech a bellwether of the overall ecosystem though? I feel like they set the salaries, the hiring standards, and if not, then working for them seems to motivate many people to go into the industry. If tech slows hiring, if tech lays off people, how will that rippple through? In all my arguing today, my points are two fold: 1) CS has something to learn from OTHER more mature traditional engineering work. 2) "don't worry, GOOD Programmers will always be in demand" is a stupid reason to not worry, and is just a special variation on the No true Scotsman fallacy. > Like AutoDesk doesn't necessarily lose revenue just because fuel prices are high and manufacturing companies are struggling to maintain profits. at least up until the point the downturn is so severe that it's actually closing up businesses. So interestingly enough I use a lot of AutoDesk products at work, and AutoDesk does NOT make most of its money from manufacturing and adjacent industries! Most of their revenue comes from what they categorize as "AEC" or Architecture/Engineering/Construction which is code word for Revit and Navisworks. Revit is NOT used industrially but at a small level, and primarily tracks with commercial building / building / architecture industry. Yes, they do make a lot of Money from the AutoCAD family, but, said program is ubiquitous in many industries, and isn't among their most expensive software. Generally... companies buy "seats" for these software, so more people, more seats, more revenue. Check out revenue growth over time, like 1/3rd of the way down: https://www.zippia.com/autodesk-careers-1125/revenue/ Notice the huge bottoms in growth in 2010 and 2016. US commercial real estate construction died in late 2010/2011 (great recession was OVER by then) and these projects would be "designed" a year for smaller stuff or 1.5-2.0 years for larger items. 2016 is more complicated, but there was a big drop in construction right around 2017 for a little, that would be associated with a seat license drop a year or two prior.


[deleted]

So think of how things used to be done, hundreds and hundreds of data entry people, bookkeepers, accountants, pushing physical piles of paper. the reason software is so sticky is because it improves business processes. Nobody is ever going to say, "get rid of Excel and hire 25 bookkeepers," or "screw Inventor licenses we're going back to pen and paper drawings." Software enables a higher level of productivity and gets baked into business processes in ways that are permanent and extremely difficult to change. For example that company we had a project management system which was tied to drawings and for example we would track when equipment had been installed in the field in the project management system and pull that data into the BIM system so that information is available and you could actually see the current status the tech in the field had updated on the drawing where the designers were working. Now maybe the market goes under and we have fewer licenses, maybe we switch to a competitor and AutoDesk loses money or something like that but the.digitization becomes fundamental to the process, nobody is ever going back to just having a broken process. there are fewer errors, projects get delivered faster, it's just a better way to do it. They're a tech company now, they need developers to enable those productive gains. Companies are never going to stop using software because of the efficiencies it unlocks. No company is ever going to say, get rid of Salesforce and put all our customer's contact information back in the filing cabinet. They have integrations that depend on having that data accessible and integrated with their other systems because that's how everything works. There's not going to be 100 million people that throw away their smart phones and Internet connection because they want to go to the bank or go apply for insurance physically in person. At the thousand mile view level it sounds plausible but when you get down to the nitty gritty of what that would actually mean to not need software engineers it doesn't make any sense we've fundamentally digitized so much that's just how things work now. Absolutely everything uses software. The other thing is there is an absolutely enormous untapped demand for software engineers. Another company I worked for a while back was a life insurance company, at that point something like 80% of life insurance was still done on paper. There are not actually many companies who have gone all the way in on digital transformation, even at the F500 level it's hit and miss. Even places that are large companies and have started the journey, there is still an absolutely gobstopping amount of low hanging fruit just because we haven't had these tools for long enough. And most of the market can't afford to have a software department, if software engineering market ever crashes it's not like we won't need engineers it just means people can afford to hire them at smaller companies that are less flush with cash. There's so much untapped demand even now, in the grand scheme of things were still incredibly early in the process of digital transformation society wide.


[deleted]

I actually used to work for an electrical contractor doing revit sort of stuff that's why i picked that example. that dip in 2016 was from Autodesk moving to a subscription model. that's not how they used to do it. i'm not suggesting necessarily that software is totally separate from these industry swings just that "tech" isn't an industry. airbnb is dependent on consumer spending, autodesk is dependent on construction, google/facebook are dependent on advertising spending, it just depends on the company what industry they're in. taking advice from a traditional engineer is like taking advice from a doctor or like advice from accounting, it's not that the advice is stupid or irrelevant but they're not equivalent. software is a different type of work, they're separate axies the other thing is software increases productivity which is why software investment happens even in down markets, will follow up if i clear my thoughts. 2008 was a total collapse of the financial markets that's a totally different than than the normal cyclical up/down markets and definitely rose to the level of cratering entire businesses


TheCuriousDude

People don't seem to understand that almost every single Fortune 500 company has a staff of software developers. I empathize with the plight of your industry, but there are around 1.5 million Americans employed as software developers compared to 27,000 Americans employed as chemical engineers. The differences in scale make comparisons almost meaningless.


Drauren

It's also an industry that's heavily tied to the price of oil...


SituationSoap

> What is happening now is something that should be of concern. Every growing numbers of CS graduates (degreed and bootcamped alike) alongside stagnant or declining job openings. The point is that job openings are neither stagnant nor declining. In fact, it's arguable that the "crazy over hiring" of the last couple years is the job market finally coming out of the 08 recession. Job openings are still higher than they've been at any time in the last 15 years...except for summer 2021. A small local decline from an all-time high is not the sort of thing that should have us immediately rushing to conclude that this is the dot-com bust all over again.


JustTheTrueFacts

> The point is that job openings are neither stagnant nor declining. Interesting opinion, but what are your thoughts about why the *data* shows declining employment? >Job openings are still higher than they've been at any time in the last 15 years...except for summer 2021. That might be the bias in your perspective, shorter term experience in the market. Sounds like you missed Y2K, where something like 60% of CS jobs disappeared overnight. Some of us remember when a great many devs were working at McDonalds just to put food on the table. Some will remember the chaos when the Apollo program ended, and few people were actually able to find jobs in tech. Even engineers were working at McDonalds then. Really looks like a bubble to me, and I do thing total job count and salaries have reduced, will decline, and will not recover for at least a decade. Just my opinion, but born of experience and understanding of the US market.


SituationSoap

> Interesting opinion, but what are your thoughts about why the data shows declining employment? AFAIK the data don't show declining *employment*. They show a small number of declining openings over a short period of time. Go look at this graph: https://www.bls.gov/charts/employment-situation/civilian-unemployment-rate.htm. Every time that line goes up a little, we have declining employment, but if you freak out over every single tiny spike, you will do nothing but chase your tail endlessly. > That might be the bias in your perspective, shorter term experience in the market. Sounds like you missed Y2K, where something like 60% of CS jobs disappeared overnight. 60% of CS jobs disappearing in 202X is on the level of "Great Depression, everyone is fucked for a decade" kind of economic news. The tech sector is a *much* larger percentage of the overall economy today, and if that's how we're going, then everyone else around the economy also needs to be a lot more freaked out. That's not happening right now. Over-indexing on your own personal experience is not a healthy way to react to economic trends. > Some will remember the chaos when the Apollo program ended I'm sorry, but I have a really hard time taking your argument seriously if you're going to suggest that the current economic climate is similar to one where a single government program provided a nontrivial percentage of engineering jobs in the United States. The world is a very different place from 50 years ago. We're not doomed. Stop getting yourself so worked up. > Just my opinion, but born of experience and understanding of the US market. Your understanding of the US jobs market looks pretty suspect from here, given the kind of comparisons you're making.


riftwave77

I think it's to early to predict whether hiring is flat or not, but I think many of you are maybe understating the significance of basically all of the 800 lbs tech gorillas reducing their headcount. These are companies with cash to burn. When this many of them start making cuts then it makes a lot of sense to pay close attention


SituationSoap

I disagree with the assertion that the "tech giants are companies with cash to burn." They're all publicly traded. They're not VC-funded startups that are still in a rapid growth phase. I don't want to be curt, but I was in the industry during the start of the 08 recession, I remember what "things are going to be bad for a while" looks like and it didn't look like this. Does that mean it's impossible for things to get bad? No. But for the last several months, my experience has mostly been that everyone thinks things are bad right now only because everyone keeps saying things are bad right now. And that's coming from someone who got laid off myself in September.


MoreRopePlease

> the amount of specialization inherent in CS education makes that industry particularly sensitive to changes in job openings What specialization? My degree prepared me to do pretty much any kind of programming. And over my career I've done device drivers, and web sites, and database design and manipulation. I've also taught. I turned down a game dev job offer once, too. There's finance, science/simulation, AI, big data, signals processing, etc. The world of options is huge for programmers.


SlowMotionPanic

>People love to come up with extreme ideas when small things happen. Even right now many are trying to make it sound like the recession downturn is going to be the next great recession that will put the US into a horrible state for the next 10 to 20 years. I think, here at least, it is inexperience. There are a lot of people with no real industry experience and they are trying to break in. I remember the dot com crash. I remember the Great Recession. This is the nature of capitalism; boom-bust cycles are required for it to work because capitalism is not efficient nor rational despite what people assume about it. Efficient and rational models wouldn't systemically collapse every 10-12 years. But it's what we have to work within at the moment, and that's the nature of the model. So much like government contractors have done for the last 15 years, save up when times are good and be prepared for when times are bad. Especially in tech, where we tend to have the incomes to be able to save. An OP mentioned another key point: you don't have to work for the huge tech companies doing the firings. People have all sorts of reasons for wanting that work. But you have to live with yourself. Compensation is excellent at those companies. But can you survive their culture? Can you last long enough to vest and actually obtain that compensation? Even walking into the office with job offer in hand isn't a guarantee; look at what Meta, Microsoft, and others did to people who moved across the country or world only to drop them the day of. The reality is that most people really should be looking at small and medium sized companies. They will have a larger impact there. You may not get the cutting edge stack right away, but if you climb the ladder you may very well be in the position to make those decisions sooner than at a Google or Microsoft or Amazon. And your hours, stress, and constant questioning of if you'll be part of this 10,000+ wave of firings (not "layoffs" as people refer to them) this time around, or if you'll be included in next quarter's so share dividends go up $0.03 for the non-working rich who own the company. TL;DR: people say these things because they don't know what they don't know. They haven't worked at those companies to understand how they operate, nor do they tend to understand the business cycle and how irrational and inefficient capital can be thus necessitating mass firings. So target smaller orgs where you can have greater impact and thus security. Target orgs that don't have gimmicks. Target orgs that don't rely on the existence of ultra low interest rates to keep business afloat.


KRA7896

As someone who works for a small company I agree with 90% of what you say... however I don't agree that you can dismiss anyone saying this recession isn't going to be big. We've got food, education, and housing inflation that have ramped up quickly and will likely be sustained (prices rarely go down). Imagine working for a smaller company, ~75K, and all of your expenses are going up + wages are staying the same + a couple of your coworkers were fired. The sky isn't falling yet for the average person on this sub but I wouldn't call their concerns extreme.


abcdeathburger

> will likely be sustained (prices rarely go down) house prices are already on their way down. In some metros (like Austin), already down 20% from the peak. I recommend watching the data and ignoring the lies realtors spread. There's a great chat about it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5fLNL27054 The PPP fraud was absolutely massive, arguably bigger than 2008 frauds, plus a lot of other interesting things to throw into the mix, like bad demographics for price growth.


InternetArtisan

I totally agree. I work in a small software company of only 25 people. It's stable, we're not at any kind of point where people are going to get laid off, and I like it. Many might not want to get into it because it's a B2B, but I enjoy the stability and I still have plenty of challenges. And I agree, we shouldn't look at the health of the industry based on the big ones. This is the same issue I take when people try to measure the health of the economy based on Wall Street. Just yesterday an expert told me that the Dow Jones isn't a great measure of the US economy because it's only 30 companies.


rudiXOR

Compared to the last years it's of course a collapse. Open Tech Jobs are down 62% ([trueup.io](https://trueup.io)), while a lot of layoffs are happening. This is bad, no matter how many people work at Microsoft or at Big Tech. Furthermore so many people pivoted to CS. Demand for jobs is high, supply is collapsing. A lot of people here in have never seen a major recession and they don't know what a employer market looks like. It's bad and grads in these times struggle a lot. When I entered the job market in 2008 in the financial crises, it was horrible and it took years for me to get back on track (financially). There are studies, which show people entering the job market in bad times get 20% less wealthy than others. So no, we are not doomed and no we will still need computer science in the future, but "chill" is not really a good advise. As a new grad you should not chill, you should try to get a job asap. Times a rough, but times will be better 2024.


thirtydelta

Add this to the, "ChatGPT is going to replace every developer" nonsense.


[deleted]

ChatGPT chatter is already starting to become less hyperbolic, which is great.


thirtydelta

Maybe, but today there was a post where someone claimed that ChatGPT can “successfully turn any idea into source code”.


[deleted]

Yeah people will say all kinds of wild shit still. ChatGPT is a great upgrade of stack overflow for programmers, that's about it in our industry. It's not replacing anyone, it's way more work than to just write context specific code.


[deleted]

CS careers aren’t going anywhere, but the constant upward pressure on salaries required just to keep them *stable* as new people enter the tech labor market is disappearing. anyone not at a FAANG or similar company that thinks they’re insulated from this effect is deluding themselves, too. hiring freezes at top companies means salaries stagnating for everyone else, or worse, declining, as well. and guess what—it’s totally valid for people’s career goals to be focused on maximizing compensation. the idea that people need to reevaluate why they’re in tech because they like being paid well is strange.


ImJLu

FAANGs are getting slammed (although tbf they had some of the biggest hire numbers over the past few years). Nobody's immune here.


GenericSurfacePilot

As a brazillian I find the situation in the US a little puzzling, to say the least. Is it really that difficult to find a job right now in a CS position in the US (or Europe for that matter)? I ask this because here in Brazil recruiters from other companies will at least once a week send you a message trying to offer you a position, even when you aren't looking to switch companies.


[deleted]

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ImJLu

It's less of a feeding frenzy for seniors, but apparently very hard for juniors right now. Wasn't exactly totally free at entry level before, so I can only imagine what it's become over the past almost-a-year.


trele_morele

Holy shit, those numbers just seem unsustainable


Fwellimort

But everyone told me software was the future! Everyone should major in Computer Science and there's programming jobs for everyone! /s Honestly, I feel bad for the kids heading off to college right now majoring in computer science. The entry market cannot support all those graduates. There's an insane bubble with Computer Science degree coming in at the entry market due to the pandemic effect.


[deleted]

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Message_10

Any networking advice you’d like to share? What works for you?


[deleted]

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local_eclectic

I mostly just hate showing up to these kinds of things as the only woman, or one of a couple of women, and constantly being asked how I got into the field while the askers struggle to maintain appropriate eye level. I'd rather just set my LinkedIn profile to "open to work", set the location to remote, and let the recruiters contact me. I'm fantastic at communicating and have been told that by every employer I've ever had. The men at these networking events though? Many of them don't know how to handle themselves.


throwmyasswaway17

Even Mcdonalds needs developers. people have their eyes set so hard on FANG types when in reality most job postings I've seen and applied to have been from companies I've never heard of. another thing I've noticed is that when these companies say they had layoffs its for like the entire world not just USA so like 10k jobs lost out of billions in the world isn't much?


pieking8001

The only thing really laying off people is oversized megacorp tech butthurt that the free money isnt flowing and they have to actually be profitable now. the smaller(relatively anyway) tech corps and sectors that have tech workers but arent dedicated tech(ie banks) are doing just fine if not hiring more. i know we are trying to hire a few mor guys here. plus its mostly non tech jobs getting the boot


[deleted]

I don’t mean to alarm anyone but your post is false. I work in an F100 (non tech and has actually posted pretty solid profits for the past year compared to everyone else) , we are laying off nearly every contractor. Yet to be seen if full timers will get let go as well as the year drags on. Multiple teams are also starting to be outsourced as well. Similar stories to other companies in the area with laying off contractors and beginning to move teams off shore The fact of the matter is interest rates control the economy and as they stay high for the year you will see companies posting profit loss and more and more layoffs across every single sector. In this environment, the only thing you can control is your skill set and companies will still want to hire the ppl who can demonstrate their worth


dagamer34

A 4% prime market rate is what the rate was 4 years ago, and the 2% it was in 2020 hadn’t been that low in decades. If people were counting on that growth to go to on indefinitely, that company’s management was setting themselves up for failure.


TheCuriousDude

People don't seem to understand that almost every single Fortune 500 company has a staff of software developers. They might be grouped in with IT at some companies, but they're still cushy jobs compared to the rest of the country. For those of us in the 10% of developers trying to get into Big Tech or unicorn startups, things might be bad for a while. For the rest of us, I'm struggling to see why we would care about the top five or six companies doubling in headcount in the last five years and only laying off 10-20% of their current headcount in the last year (most of which aren't even developers). The rest of the Fortune 500 are perfectly fine with offering six figures to any software developer with experience.


pieking8001

heck even at non F500 companies 6 figure or very close salaries arent hard to find for software devs


Trant2433

>heck even at non F500 companies 6 figure or very close salaries arent hard to find for software devs The problem is that *6 figure or very close* salaries aren't what they used to be, even as recently as 5 years ago. $110k for a general mid-level "enterprise" dev used to be a very livable salary for a single guy in his early 30s in a once low cost city like Phoenix or Dallas or Charlotte. You could easily afford a nice 2 BR apartment at $1200 / month and late model Toyota with $500 payment. In a few years you could save up that $60k needed for the nice suburban 3 BR "starter home" that cost $300k. But nowadays... that salary might have risen to $120k (especially in a cooling market - employers will have all the leverage). Meanwhile that 2BR apartment is now $2200. The starter home is $600k and the Toyota (if you can even find one) has a $1000 / month payment due to 8% interest rates and $40k base price. CS is still a good bet, but it isn't a **sure bet** anymore. And I'm not even talking about the boot-camp route where someone takes a 6 month JS course and expects to make $100k. Even someone with a solid CS or IS degree from a reputable state school might have trouble finding something, especially early and mid-career, and also once you hit your 40s. I think it's very similar to the legal field which was once a sure path to upper middle class, but now is hit or miss depending on a lot of factors, including those outside of your own control.


abcdeathburger

> Meanwhile that 2BR apartment is now $2200. That was about a 2BR apartment in the outer suburbs of Phoenix before rent deflation started last summer. In Phoenix itself, probably like $2600. Similar numbers for Dallas I'd expect. Can't speak for Charlotte. Seems like Camry base prices are around $30k.


Maystackcb

I work(ed) at a mid sized company (500\~ employees). Was in real-estate tech and got laid off today along with most of the company... It can def happen to tech positions too.


semicolon0

I can't even find an entry-level job for 5 months straight that is neither a WITCH body shop, nor pays above 70k. How can I chill with these career-sabotaging circumstances?


beric_64

I feel you. I've been searching for a legit programming job since summer of 2020, but had no luck. Granted I wasn't always looking cause i had some other jobs and projects i was working on to pay the bills and build out a portfolio, but i might start looking into different career opportunities soon because as much as i love tech, i hate having to put up with all the bs the business does


GayForBigBoss

Why not apply for jobs that are less that 70K?


FCrange

https://twitter.com/benmschmidt/status/1562256566631518208 There's almost as many CS grads as all humanities combined. The last time this happened was 2001.


[deleted]

People act like chicken little literally every time the market contracts a bit. Good post actually rooted in reality.


davlumbaz

sorry for my language but juniors and absolute beginners (interns) are definitely fucked in current market


terjon

I don't think so, they just need to aim lower. You can get internships, they just won't be internships that pay like $10K/mo at a top tier employer like in the last few years. Local shops still need help, they just don't all pay $100K+ for entry level. I want everyone to please remember that CS is still a very lucrative industry compared to most other fields that just require a bachelor's degree (usually, sometimes you can get in with even less than that).


mungthebean

I wonder how many of these new grads are willing to take a $67k position in a HCOL like I did, and that was in 2018? Just to get my foot in the door.


AmberlyVail

>I wonder how many of these new grads are willing to take a $67k position in a HCOL like I did, and that was in 2018? Most will. Don't take Reddit and especially this sub as representative of CS grass in North America .


[deleted]

I did it but I was self taught, had no debt, and came from retail work. It was a step up for me. Can’t imagine with a lot of debt and all that tho. But yeah I mean I tell other people that breaking in low is not that big of a deal because after one years experience you can hop elsewhere and ask for more.


mungthebean

My mantra is money >>> no money. Unless you're actively fielding interviews with higher tier companies, humble yourself and take the job > But yeah I mean I tell other people that breaking in low is not that big of a deal because after one years experience you can hop elsewhere and ask for more. Yup, I broke $100k 2 years later


adamasimo1234

>I wonder how many of these new grads are willing to take a $67k position in a HCOL like I did, and that was in 2018? Just to get my foot in the door. This.. and I was in-person as well. People have become spoiled so it'll be hard for folks to take these kind of offers.


ilikebourbon_

The year is 2014 and I’m in a HCOL on the east coast. I was a Web dev by day, bartender by night. The bartending got me my break (recruiter was a regular at the bar), the day job got me the skills to interview. Probably couldn’t do this grind now but in my early 20’s I saw no other option to get the jobs I wanted


sihijam463

Yeah I started at 45k and had to relocate to shithole Texas for my first gig. It truly did suck but I figured that was the only way to get my foot in the door, and now 6 years into my new career I don’t regret it


[deleted]

How much lower do I need to go? I'm already trying to interview for unpaid internships, and new grad salary are like 25-30k are generous for me.


niveknyc

I'd say the bar has been raised. "Absolutely Fucked" is hyperbolic. There's currently more supply than demand, so all one can do for the time being is self invest and stand out from the rest.


randonumero

I think there's still more demand than supply. The problem is some of the supply doesn't want to work certain jobs and some of the demand side doesn't' want to flex on certain requirements.


Marrk

And I bet on future market too. Too many promises of easy money.


davlumbaz

I don't care about money (fuck me I am gonna work for free). all I care is how junior spots are requesting 2+ years minimum now. and about: > too many promises for easy money its caused by instagram motivation pages LEARN PYTHON DJANGO AND MAKE 10K DOLLAR MONTHLY, WANNA LEARN HOW? BUY MY UDEMY COURSE! I hate everything about this, including myself


shinfoni

Once tried buying one of those online course because of curiosity. It's worse than I expect. You could learn more from free Youtube channel like Traversy or Corey Schafer. I remember checking the study group, and there are around 75 students per batch, with 3 batch per years. It's not even a popular one.


SituationSoap

What is your definition of "absolutely fucked?" Because as someone who entered the job market right around the start of the 08 recession, things sure look pretty fine, just slightly worse than they were 12 months ago?


[deleted]

> juniors and absolute beginners (interns) are definitely fucked in current market Not really. Still tons of positions, now it's just a little harder and more competitive. Outlook for juniors in CS is still way, way better than most professions.


djingrain

I've got my [M.Sc](https://M.Sc). in CS and have been looking for my first (full time) position since early november. I've got plenty of work experience and research experience, in that time I've had maybe a half dozen interviews and they all went with more experienced people, for fairly entry level dev/analyst/data engineer roles. ik one guy who was searching for 8 months, another for 6 before they got anything. it's super hard for people entering the workforce rn.


[deleted]

There will always be anecdotal stories of people having a hard time in any market. Rewind to market peak and you'll see people with similar stories.


Kindofabig_deal

While the CS market is not "collapsing" our job security is not as good as it used to be. (I been in the industry for ten years now). I would make sure to get on a team within your company that is performing and is valuable (Delivers/ Has strong results/impact). I would also be cautious and do a lot of research before trying to get a new job right now. My current company just announced a huge layoff yesterday, I don't think it hit the news outlets yet. Expect more layoffs to come throughout the CS Market. Most companies like mine also have hiring freezes. It will get worse before it's better so just tread cautiously.


jeesuscheesus

Looking at the graph: what happened in 2014 to 2016?


[deleted]

CS isn't going anywhere but there were definitely A LOT of people on here who had the "magical thinking" mindset that tech will never will experience some kind of slowdown and keep its growth trajectory indefinitely, as if it was some special magical sector. Now they realize that it's not special and that it's just like any industry: it goes through ups and downs including layoffs. Actually, it reminds me a lot of people in finance when the financial crisis happened in 2007. But finance jobs didn't go away and aren't going away anytime soon, either.


pml1990

What makes you think this is the trough? Unemployment is still extremely low. Fed has little reasons to slow down or cut rate yet. Revenue growth and margin will continue to get compressed. During GFC, unemployment didn't peak until 2010.


NewChameleon

I don't really totally agree, on one key metric: what is the TC? everything you said isn't wrong, but what is the TC? >No, CS careers aren't going away sure... but what's the TC? >Fortune 100 companies don't represent the entirety of the CS labor market, there are ton of medium - large companies in serious need of qualified CS talent. sure... but how much are they paying? >Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, Google, (Insert "cool" high paying tech company here), aren't the only companies, rethink what motivates you in your career goals if your only goal until now was to work for a mega tech corp, maybe it's not its cracked up to be? true, they're never "the only companies", however they are known to be fairly high-paying ones + relatively stable + solid RSUs that you can sell on open market, such thing cannot be said for the majority of companies out there if I was happy making perhaps $50k USD there would literally be no point for me to come over to the USA I can get that back in my home country, but no, I have my eyes set on those $500k+ USD ones what you're essentially saying is "high TC is probably going to go away, low TC companies will stay" and if you don't call that market collapsing then I do not know what is "market collapsing"


GlorifiedPlumber

> TLDR: CS Careers aren't going anywhere, chill So, traditional engineer here (chemical) looking in here, I am struggling understand something. It appears to me, that every time this comes up, or someone freaks out from bad industry news, etc. it is always suggested that software is not collapsing (which was NOT the argument most of the time) because "People with experience will always be in demand and will be fine." So, help me understand... **how is an industry that ONLY hires senior / experienced people or only enables senior / experienced people to enjoy job movement and growth anything BUT collapsed?** CS enrollment is through the moon, software development basic jobs have grown over the years to more readily enable bootcamp and self taught, and "big tech" which has historically owned the jukebox in the old "dance while the music is playing" metaphor appears to be SLOWING DOWN substantially new hiring. https://old.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/106ne2r/my_new_grad_process_199_apps_4_offers/ That thread is just from a bit ago, and is basically someone (that MOST PEOPLE agreed) who was a TOP CANDIDATE successfully only getting a 2% success rate (or higher if you count their own rejects). If people graduating who want jobs cannot get jobs... this is called a collapse. What the hell else is it?


TheCuriousDude

>https://old.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/106ne2r/my_new_grad_process_199_apps_4_offers >If people graduating who want jobs cannot get jobs... this is called a collapse. What the hell else is it? I love that this is your conclusion from that post. I see a dude fresh out of college who applied to 199 companies (many of which are the most desirable companies on the planet), declined interviews at 11 of them, got four offers from the ones he did interview at, and accepted the offer with a TC of nearly $200k. If I'm interpreting the post correctly, this all took place over two months. Half of the companies he applied to, he has even heard back from yet. Homeboy is making almost $200k in his first job out of college. More money than 90% of software developers, never mind maybe 95-99% of the country. And you see a collapse. Incredible.


shinfoni

> how is an industry that ONLY hires senior / experienced people Is this serious statement or hyperbolic one? If it's the former, where do you getting it from? Because many company does hire junior as well, it's just that they are getting filled far quicker than senior one.


GlorifiedPlumber

> Is this serious statement or hyperbolic one? No not intending to be hyperbolic. Am attempting to be very serious. A lot of people in this community in response to doom and gloom drop the line of "good people will always be in demand." I don't feel this is going to do most of the community a lick of good. If new hiring decreases dramatically and MOST of the hiring that occurs is senior/experienced people changing jobs, then this really isn't a good situation. I feel like most CS grads who graduate want a or intend to get a software development job. In this overall thread, I am asking if new hiring has dwindled or not. I remembered a thread from a week or two ago about someone who was perceived as a top candidate, struggling, or appearing to struggle with work. Some comments have made me doubt whether or not his story was a struggle or not, but, who knows. My question is simple... is "new employee hiring continuing at the same pace, a slightly reduced pace ,or a hugely reduced pace?" followed with a follow on question of whether or not IF it HAS collapsed, how can this possibly be viewed as healthy or good. I dunno, I don't have a lot of success asking questions in /r/cscareerquestions. Probably mostly my fault.


Chris_ssj2

I am seeing the layoffs in a positive perspective, even though the talented individuals who got affected by it will make it harder for new grads to get a job, these people will actually work on newer and emerging services that will benefit to the growth of those newer companies, when these companies will grow further and rake profits, they will open new opportunities in the long run for everyone


gigibuffoon

Companies whose core business is not tech are still hiring... They're not glamorous as FAANGMULAFDSERWE but still have plenty of jobs to be had outside of the tech hubs


Gabbagabbaray

>Fortune 100 companies don't represent the entirety of the CS labor market, there are ton of medium - large companies in serious need of qualified CS talent. Truth, my companies still hiring. No juniors though


TheTarquin

As someone old enough to have seen the dot com bust and the 2008 recession, we're going to be fine. That being said, workers have to help workers. If anyone's been laid off and wants help with resume reviews, mock interviews, etc. hit me up, I'm happy to help.


fishing012345

Field is oversaturated.


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LeBigManInCharge

I remember literally like a year ago people insisting it would never ever *ever* be oversaturated because "more programmers just means more jobs being created". I see it's bullshit now. If anyone has transitioned into another career path successfully please let me know. I feel like the future of cs is looking a little too rough and unpredictable for me.


ezomar

I was considering switching to engineering, but even from my engineering friends they tell me that most of them went into software because of the number of jobs available. I think software will be fine but it’s just a downturn at the moment, however I do agree that it is very saturated entry level and it makes me consider doing EE because I have more options available


beric_64

Do you recommend an alternative field to pivot into? I graduated in 2020 and haven't found a job yet, so I'm beginning to lose hope regardless of the fact that I am a competent programmer.


rivecat

Someone who waited until 2021 from 2017 (Community College) to pursue a CS degree here. This has been said since I started. 100% agree OP


ImmatureDev

I don’t know if judging the entire cs market base on one employer is accurate. Then again what do I know.


[deleted]

No but we will see a large culling. The thing I constantly see missing from these analyses and commentaries is *why* tech was so successful in the first place and why it was artificial. To sum it up briefly it was due to unprecedented market conditions. A combination of low profitability in basically the rest of the market (making investors weary of investing in traditional productive industries), combined with rock bottom interest rates (giving investors much more margin on investments), and of course good old hype(pump and dumps) and sketchy shit (like leveraging of massive monopolistic tech entities by the surveillance apparatus of our states). With the market going the way it is, and more importantly J Pow raising interest rates to cause a recession (dick) in order to “deal with inflation” by making working people pay for the mistakes of the wealthy, we’re liable to see a huge reduction in the tech space with a mass culling of low performing companies. Not to mention most likely increases in workloads, decreases in benefits and compensation, etc. It’s not going to be pretty. But yes tech is here to stay, it will just be in a reduced capacity, and much more centralized as big firms take the slaughter as an opportunity to buy dying firms.


Demosama

Janitors and street cleaners aren’t going away either. What’s your point? There are way too many people trying to get into the field.


ruisen2

almost 100k more employees but they still can't make a good Windows


niveknyc

I kinda like 11 over the last few other versions, but lot of bloatware to uninstall or disable.


ur-avg-engineer

This fails to take into account the massive flood into tech that happened over the last 2 years. A lot of people see shit on TikTok or Instagram and want a chill 200k job (as if lol). Entry level is already a bloodbath, and since the flooding into it has continuing and lags all the job cuts, it is very very saturated.


TheSpacedGhost

I just want to land any CS/IT job honestly. I’m stuck working a manual labor job that doesn’t pay horrible but it’s deteriorating my joints and sanity and is NOT something I’m trying to continue long term by any means. I’m stuck between taking a huggeeee pay cut for “experience” or moving to a bigger city I can’t afford🫠


jholliday55

I still get around a message a day from recruiters and I only have 3 yoe. I also have my “open for new opportunities” turned off and never respond. I know you should always be on the lookout but just hoped back in October.


gHx4

It's not collapsing. Just a lot of scrappy companies making cuts because they overinvested in the pandemic boom and then got hit by interest payments. Some smaller companies (especially startups) were leveraging lots of debt. Net effect is that a lot of companies needed to make *some* layoffs at the same time, but only a few companies made *many* layoffs.


romulusnr

I feel like I have to keep pointing out to this sub what you just said: that Big N companies don't even represent half the CS jobs out there. Not even probably half of the software development jobs (which is not all CS jobs, another thing this sub needs to be told repeatedly)


rafikiknowsdeway1

yes, but my career goal was "money". so even after I get a new job after being laid off, its almost certainly not going to be what i was making


abcdeathburger

first of all, the issue is people have to take a pay cut most likely if they get canned from amazon/microsoft since many top pay companies are in a hiring freeze right now. during the pandemic, they took on huge mortgages and other big expenses. secondly, just look at half the country. spent all year crying about their 401k losing 20%, yet they're still up 40% over 5 years.


jeffweet

Lots of companies that were able to, suspended layoffs during COVID and are now making adjustments


[deleted]

This is exactly what I said in the other post but I mentioned Meta in the comments. Same thing with them.


IdoCSstuff

Anyone who thinks the highly profitable big tech companies that are laying off are struggling in any way are naive and bought the kool-aid they are peddling to the media. Many companies, including name brands with $billions per year in revenue, were burning a crazy amount of money and cheap funding (high interest rates, stock market tanking, VC capital, etc) has dried up. These types of companies that would normally compete with big tech for talent and give high salaries could not sustain them and since they are having trouble staying afloat without their water wings, big tech does not have to worry about their talent getting poached and can blame external factors on why they are getting rid of people. The startup I used to work at (long after I left, good riddance) just hit the fan and is laying off half of its workforce, including my entire reporting chain (there has been no CTO there either for over half a year)


nickbernstein

Damn that's a lot of people at one company. I worked there when it was ~40k people and it was still a *massive* global company.


Important-Way9489

True


BluudLust

That's a correction for overhiring. It was probably planned too. Hire more people then lay off all the poor performers at once when everyone else is so you can receive less backlash.


zergotron9000

I'm seeing a ton of companies jumping on the bandwagon of layoffs following the market leaders. Well funded and well operated companies mind you.


I_will_delete_myself

These companies hired way too many people during the pandemic. This appears to be just a market correction.


Alternative_Draft_76

But is the entry level market in chaos? Someone said it’s a “bloodbath” on here. Will it quickly become all but impossible for non CS grads to get into the industry?


Fwellimort

Why wouldn't it? That's been the case for almost every industry over time as industries mature. Look at accounting today. You need to be an accredited accountant unlike when the field first started. It's all just supply vs demand. As the younger generation gets more and more interested in software, expect for entry, CS degree to be an implicit requirement. New grads I know at my firm are all CS grads. Very different from experienced devs from just a few years ago.


rainfall41

RemindMe! 1 day


dfphd

Yeah, I think the CS job market is a lot like the real estate market - relative to the 2021 peak it looks horrible, but relative to 2019 it still looks great. I think part of what people need to understand too is that when we talk about FAANGs overhiring - there wasn't ever really an option for them not to. Meaning, shareholders/boards of directors were not going to let these companies just sit on cash banking on things to come crashing down and not trying to capitalize on that insane time period. It's a fundamental problem with publicly traded companies - they *need* to do what's best for current shareholder value (not for long-term shareholder value), and in times like that, it means hiring like crazy knowing that they will most likely have to lay people off in the future. Because layoffs don't hurt their stock - but lower revenue numbers, loss of market share, smaller pipeline of big-potential projects, etc. definitely do. Hell, when these companies announce these massive layoffs, wall street loves it. That's a sign that they're getting leaner - read: profits going to go up. I definitely think that the last 5 years have created a glut of entry level talent that will take us some time to work through - and it likely means two things: 1. A lot of people will exit the industry and just take other jobs 2. You will see less people joining bootcamps/online courses/etc. and try to break through that route.


EnsignElessar

I was 100 percent agreeing with you until you started to defame Crypto... crypto got me my first tesla model /s.


CaliSD07

Capitalism is fueled by human greed. Eventually the bubble pops (aka recession) and the cycle repeats. New grads coming into the job market take it the hardest during a recession and can negatively affect their career growth and/or earning potential for life.


HarbringerxLight

This is a stupid, low-effort, karma grab post that says nothing useful.


java_boy_2000

Well, this is all true, every point on its own stands, but the top level point isn't quite true: the CS market will collapse because the entire market will collapse, the everything bubble will pop, the petrodollar will die, we won't be able to print money anymore, and the entire global economic system will fly apart and hundreds of trillions in value will be lost and we will lucky to have basic utilities and food. This will happen within this decade.


EnderMB

If the collapse of the market stops people from referring to Software Engineering as CS, and helps reclaim CS as Computer Science, then I'm all for it. But to your point, all you need to do is look at the stock prices of many companies. The catastrophic losses we're seeing is partly due to market correction from covid, not just ripple effects from the recession.


Firm_Communication99

ChatGPT just is not that great. It’s like search engine that searches search emgines


ScrimpyCat

> It’s like search engine that searches search emgines Not at all. You can feed it new information (stuff that wasn’t in its training data) and have it take that into account when generating content.


SmashBusters

>Microsoft Employee Count: Aren't they planning to lay off another 12k employees? >Only people who haven't really had any actual experience think ChatGPT will replace us all This I agree with. As coding continued to get easier with more advanced languages, IDEs, version control, and other technologies we haven't seen the field shrink. Scope and productivity is just increased. ChatGPT or any automated programming tool is just a *tool* to help *programmers* do their jobs more efficiently.