6 ms·

Offshoring to people who use AI, and are now much more productive and can produce high-quality written output. If a junior role can be done with ChatGPT and Co

• collingreen 1y ago
  Why doesn't that equally mean pay a new grad to use it?
  • bilbo0s 1y ago
    Because a new grad in the US costs more than a new grad in Vietnam, Hyderabad, Uruguay, or Ningbo.
  • entuno 1y ago
    If often does - but it's a new grad in India or Bangladesh or Indonesia or somewhere else that costs a fraction of what a new grad would cost in a western country, and who can be "fired" at with no notice or rights.
• bilbo0s 1y ago
  Most succinct answer to this general concern I've seen in months. It's business. Less dollars paid out for the same LLM content that the managers know the developers will produce in any case. Foolish to pay more for essentially the same LLM response.
  • franktankbank 1y ago
    Ammonia clouds lift all Hindenburgs.
• pksebben 1y ago
  Because eventually you're going to need a senior dev who actually has an understanding of the underlying system, when the one you have retires. The human junior will eventually become that, while it would be foolish to rely on the inevitability of LLMs getting there in time. Of course, this only matters if you give half a rat's ass about whether the company is going to be solvent in a decade. If your management strategy is "pump metrics for bonuses and bail before they notice" then potayto potahto I suppose...
  • entuno 1y ago
    Even if you are thinking long term though, it's a big risk investing in training up a junior, because the culture of have a "job for life" that previous generations had is pretty much gone. People nowadys are much more likely to jump between companies than to still be in the same place a decade later, so there's every chance that the money you spending training up a junior will just benefit whoever hires them in a few years down the line. And sure, people say "well just pay them more" - but most businesses are never going to be able to match the salaries that the FAANGs and VC backed companies can - so training juniors has turned into a big gamble for them. Which is terrible for the industry long-term, but in the short term it's not really in any single company's interest to try and change that.
  • jimbokun 1y ago
    Also assuming the worker you train will stay with your company.
  • rozap 1y ago
    fwiw this happens regardless of AI or offshoring or whatever. my old employer was bought out, and the senior staff trickled out the door over the years as the working environment got more frustrating. i heard from a friend who still works there that the product has been having "rolling brownouts" for months that "nobody can figure out" which sounds exceedingly bleak - it's just a saas product for crying out loud. so you're right - but whether it's AI/offshoring with layoffs, or just regular churn with no plan to train people up to replace the knowledge that leaves, the result is the same, which is a degraded product that eventually falls apart. and yea, who cares if you're not in it for the long haul.