7 ms·

All of his analysis about financial markets, can apply to all jobs, all hiring. Don't think he explicitly states that, but all hiring is down. Or at least all

All of his analysis about financial markets, can apply to all jobs, all hiring. Don't think he explicitly states that, but all hiring is down. Or at least all entry positions it seems like. From a SWE perspective. Doesn't it seem like systems are falling apart? You can only cut back programmer/tech jobs for so long, someone has to know how it all works. This is what I don't get, all around me, people don't know how things work, are literally walking a knifes edge toward collapse, systems are failing all over, and yet companies wont staff up on tech people. The enshitification.

mwigdahl 2y ago
I see what you see. I'm not sure what the motive is here. So many business processes designed to minimize risk, but core technical and design knowledge that is required to keep systems operational is left to rot away.
Quothling 2y ago
> Doesn't it seem like systems are falling apart? They always were. > This is what I don't get, all around me, people don't know how things work, are literally walking a knifes edge toward collapse, systems are failing all over, and yet companies wont staff up on tech people. You'd think that you would take digitalisation seriously in a company where 100% of your employees spend 100% of their working hours on a computer. You'd be wrong to think so though. It is what it is, but it's not exactly new. At least not in the world of enterprise where all employees have wanted for the past 40 years is an Excel that scaled. I once worked in an organisation where IT spent a lot of money (by company size) on a real world scenario roleplay of cyber security. They had this whole thing lined up in a fancy hotel to simulate a ransomware attack, and at the last minute the CEO canceled to go golfing and sent some personal assistant instead. A lot of decision makers just don't care about IT until it really, really, doesn't work. Since IT is always sort of wonky though, I think that people are just so used to it being mediocre that they won't notice if it drops a little further in quality.
- golergka 2y ago
  Depending on who he went golfing with, it could actually be the right call.
- dathinab 2y ago
  An interesting thing to observe is that while everyone uses tech ever day the "mass" is getting further away from having a good understanding of it instead of having a better understanding. And I man it makes sense, the technology is constantly getting more complex and at the same time you increasingly don't have to know how it works to use it effectively/professionally. At the same time knowing how it works doesn't mean you can use it effectively, e.g. knowing how to program a Windows GUI app doesn't mean you know the keyboard shortcuts of any specific GUI app or where in the settings you find some important option etc. To add on top of that there is a lot of artificial nonsense obfuscating proper technical understanding.
  - Terr_ 2y ago
    > An interesting thing to observe is that while everyone uses tech ever day the "mass" is getting further away from having a good understanding of it instead of having a better understanding. IMO that's mostly because earlier technology required a greater degree of dedication and study and troubleshooting. Back In My Day when I wanted to play computer games I had to check my IRQs and configure Sound Blaster.
    - A4ET8a8uTh0 2y ago
      Oh that is a blast ( happy coincidence ) from the past. I remember the first time I saw autodetect. What a time saver that was. And don't get me started on getting the memory in batch set up just right for moonstone. Things are a lot easier now, but it getting easier made us forget how complicated it is underneath it all.
digging 2y ago
> Doesn't it seem like systems are falling apart? Far beyond the scope of tech staffing, yes.
radiator 2y ago
I read an assumption there, that if a company hires more tech people, the situation of its systems will improve. This contradicts the tao of programming, from which I quote: The manager asked the Master: "How long will it take to design this system if I assign five programmers to it?" "It will take one year," said the Master promptly. "But we need this system immediately or even sooner! How long will it take if I assign ten programmers to it?" The Master Programmer frowned. "In that case, it will take two years." "And what if I assign a hundred programmers to it?" The Master Programmer shrugged. "Then the design will never be completed," he said.
- FrustratedMonky 2y ago
  Yes. That does go along with article I just saw on Valve that they operate their systems with 350 admins, versus EA with 10,000 people.
  - trallnag 2y ago
    Doesn't Valve only have like 400 employees?
    - FrustratedMonky 2y ago
      Was using this. You're right, total was 350. Compared to EA at 10K. Was remembering the section on Admins, Valve pays a lot for top Admins, and do a lot with little. https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2024/07/valve-runs-its-massive-pc-gaming-ecosystem-with-only-about-350-employees/ https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2024/07/valve-runs-its-massiv...
      - me_me_me 2y ago
        valve is not publisher. Valve is 95% Steam + 4% side projects + 1% keeping their games barely alive. They have minimal pr. EA manages (with aim to kill) many game dev studios. Schedules and executes release PR campaigns. Its not a fair comparison to be honest
  - 2y ago
coliveira 2y ago
This thing won't take long to collapse. We already see this happening when it comes to security: every major company has already been hacked, frequently quite easily. The web search industry is already serving 99% ads instead of proper results, the job market is completely broken, social networks are saturated with bots, and AI companies are proposing to replace knowledgeable people with machines that fabricate their own dreamed of solutions.
rconti 2y ago
https://www.stilldrinking.org/programming-sucks https://www.stilldrinking.org/programming-sucks I'll add: Generally, everything works just as well as it needs to, and no better.
spamizbad 2y ago
I predict that in a few years we're going to see a lot of these companies get "disrupted" by new entrants who eschewed current trends and actually make proper investments in technology, allowing them to build things people actually want to use. What's interesting is the tech industry itself made a big deal about how it disrupted dinosaurs who under-invested in technology only for them slowly fall into the same trap. Everything feels so much like it did in the early aughts.
- ttyprintk 2y ago
  That’s how I see it. We’ll give enough business info to AI and ask it to design a disruptive competitor. Half the time, it’s design will lose upper management in favor of a team of endurance problem solvers.
kwere 2y ago
outsurcing to India or similar cheap places has been the "solution" to most big non-tech firms for decades now, smaller ones hire local or "same continent" contractors (latam or eastern Europe), keeping a small team onsite for operations / reliability

mwigdahl 2y ago

I see what you see. I'm not sure what the motive is here. So many business processes designed to minimize risk, but core technical and design knowledge that is required to keep systems operational is left to rot away.

Quothling 2y ago

> Doesn't it seem like systems are falling apart? They always were. > This is what I don't get, all around me, people don't know how things work, are literally walking a knifes edge toward collapse, systems are failing all over, and yet companies wont staff up on tech people. You'd think that you would take digitalisation seriously in a company where 100% of your employees spend 100% of their working hours on a computer. You'd be wrong to think so though. It is what it is, but it's not exactly new. At least not in the world of enterprise where all employees have wanted for the past 40 years is an Excel that scaled. I once worked in an organisation where IT spent a lot of money (by company size) on a real world scenario roleplay of cyber security. They had this whole thing lined up in a fancy hotel to simulate a ransomware attack, and at the last minute the CEO canceled to go golfing and sent some personal assistant instead. A lot of decision makers just don't care about IT until it really, really, doesn't work. Since IT is always sort of wonky though, I think that people are just so used to it being mediocre that they won't notice if it drops a little further in quality.

golergka 2y ago
Depending on who he went golfing with, it could actually be the right call.
dathinab 2y ago
An interesting thing to observe is that while everyone uses tech ever day the "mass" is getting further away from having a good understanding of it instead of having a better understanding. And I man it makes sense, the technology is constantly getting more complex and at the same time you increasingly don't have to know how it works to use it effectively/professionally. At the same time knowing how it works doesn't mean you can use it effectively, e.g. knowing how to program a Windows GUI app doesn't mean you know the keyboard shortcuts of any specific GUI app or where in the settings you find some important option etc. To add on top of that there is a lot of artificial nonsense obfuscating proper technical understanding.
- Terr_ 2y ago
  > An interesting thing to observe is that while everyone uses tech ever day the "mass" is getting further away from having a good understanding of it instead of having a better understanding. IMO that's mostly because earlier technology required a greater degree of dedication and study and troubleshooting. Back In My Day when I wanted to play computer games I had to check my IRQs and configure Sound Blaster.
  - A4ET8a8uTh0 2y ago
    Oh that is a blast ( happy coincidence ) from the past. I remember the first time I saw autodetect. What a time saver that was. And don't get me started on getting the memory in batch set up just right for moonstone. Things are a lot easier now, but it getting easier made us forget how complicated it is underneath it all.

digging 2y ago

> Doesn't it seem like systems are falling apart? Far beyond the scope of tech staffing, yes.

radiator 2y ago

I read an assumption there, that if a company hires more tech people, the situation of its systems will improve. This contradicts the tao of programming, from which I quote: The manager asked the Master: "How long will it take to design this system if I assign five programmers to it?" "It will take one year," said the Master promptly. "But we need this system immediately or even sooner! How long will it take if I assign ten programmers to it?" The Master Programmer frowned. "In that case, it will take two years." "And what if I assign a hundred programmers to it?" The Master Programmer shrugged. "Then the design will never be completed," he said.

FrustratedMonky 2y ago
Yes. That does go along with article I just saw on Valve that they operate their systems with 350 admins, versus EA with 10,000 people.
- trallnag 2y ago
  Doesn't Valve only have like 400 employees?
  - FrustratedMonky 2y ago
    Was using this. You're right, total was 350. Compared to EA at 10K. Was remembering the section on Admins, Valve pays a lot for top Admins, and do a lot with little. https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2024/07/valve-runs-its-massive-pc-gaming-ecosystem-with-only-about-350-employees/ https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2024/07/valve-runs-its-massiv...
    - me_me_me 2y ago
      valve is not publisher. Valve is 95% Steam + 4% side projects + 1% keeping their games barely alive. They have minimal pr. EA manages (with aim to kill) many game dev studios. Schedules and executes release PR campaigns. Its not a fair comparison to be honest
- 2y ago

coliveira 2y ago

This thing won't take long to collapse. We already see this happening when it comes to security: every major company has already been hacked, frequently quite easily. The web search industry is already serving 99% ads instead of proper results, the job market is completely broken, social networks are saturated with bots, and AI companies are proposing to replace knowledgeable people with machines that fabricate their own dreamed of solutions.

rconti 2y ago

https://www.stilldrinking.org/programming-sucks https://www.stilldrinking.org/programming-sucks I'll add: Generally, everything works just as well as it needs to, and no better.

spamizbad 2y ago

I predict that in a few years we're going to see a lot of these companies get "disrupted" by new entrants who eschewed current trends and actually make proper investments in technology, allowing them to build things people actually want to use. What's interesting is the tech industry itself made a big deal about how it disrupted dinosaurs who under-invested in technology only for them slowly fall into the same trap. Everything feels so much like it did in the early aughts.

ttyprintk 2y ago
That’s how I see it. We’ll give enough business info to AI and ask it to design a disruptive competitor. Half the time, it’s design will lose upper management in favor of a team of endurance problem solvers.

kwere 2y ago

outsurcing to India or similar cheap places has been the "solution" to most big non-tech firms for decades now, smaller ones hire local or "same continent" contractors (latam or eastern Europe), keeping a small team onsite for operations / reliability