5 ms·

Section 174 was the big one that affected how SE salaries could be deducted, that many blamed for the start of layoffs. However, that's back for tax year 2025,

Section 174 was the big one that affected how SE salaries could be deducted, that many blamed for the start of layoffs. However, that's back for tax year 2025, so why aren't we seeing the jobs come back? Maybe it really was 174 then, but AI now?

MontyCarloHall 1y ago
>why aren't we seeing the jobs come back? It was only just reinstated, so it's probably too early to see the effects. I also expect that despite the restoration of Section 174, companies realized that they not only overhired during ZIRP, but also that they don't actually need that headcount, given the outcome of Musk's Twitter layoffs. There were so many prognostications that Twitter would imminently implode after downsizing from ~8k to ~1.5k employees, and when these claims never came to pass, it was a wake-up call to the rest of the industry [0]. [0] https://www.livemint.com/companies/news/elon-musk-fired-80-percent-of-twitter-x-silicon-valley-companies-meta-amazon-google-microsoft-adopted-practice-report-11718252374022.html https://www.livemint.com/companies/news/elon-musk-fired-80-p...
- cyberax 1y ago
  I don't think many people really doubted that Twitter could keep itself up and running. But that "everything app"? It hasn't happened. The money transfer app ("Twitter Payment Platform")? Still MIA.
  - MontyCarloHall 1y ago
    >I don't think many people really doubted that Twitter could keep itself up and running. Oh, they sure did: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34617964 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34617964 Even in that thread, a lot of people were saying "it's only been three months, give it a bit more time."
    - cyberax 1y ago
      And they were right, I think. Twitter's UI has degraded. I can't see this tweet linked from the thread: https://x.com/Grady_Booch/status/1620720537805922306 https://x.com/Grady_Booch/status/1620720537805922306 - it gives me an error. It might have been deleted, but Twitter just says "something went wrong". And I don't think it's even possible to view threads anymore without logging in? But more importantly, X has not released any substantially new features within the last 3 years. And I bet that it won't release anything new for a while, and anything they _do_ try to release will be laughably broken.
      - jdiff 1y ago
        Existing features are also suffering and going unfixed. If you browse any tweet with more than a few dozen replies, loading replies takes a notable amount of time, and X very conspicuously does not load all of them. Sometimes changing reply sorting algorithms loads entirely different batches of tweets. Besides that most basic functionality, many times notifications are not sent when the notification settings would suggest they should be. And of course, moderation has fallen by the wayside, although that's more of a policy shift than a technical failure.
        neilv 1y ago
        Incidentally, those defects would be good for censorship with deniability. (Occam says deficit of institutional capability is the most likely cause. But that could also turn into a feature.)
      - username332211 1y ago
        > But more importantly, X has not released any substantially new features within the last 3 years. Just on top of my head, there's the ability to write longer texts, the AI integration (that seems fairly popular in there). There was also some revenue sharing scheme where accounts can get paid for engagement. And from the point of view of management, making it impossible to view threads without login would also be a feature (as in "something we have to deliberately implement"). It's not a lot, but I don't think the pre-Musk Twitter changed even that much in the 3 year period before the acquisition.
- arscan 1y ago
  I also think it’s fashionable to have a smaller headcount these days. Historically, the dynamics of businesses encouraged rising headcounts, as ICs weren’t as valued as managers (salary caps basically, as impact for ICs is hard to measure unless you are in sales), and managers generally view headcount as a metric to career and salary growth. So there was just this general pressure from the middle up to grow instead of paying more to existing staff or finding some other way to spend the money. After all, investors generally want you to spend the money you have access to, otherwise they’ll put it to use elsewhere. It seems that there is external pressure right now from investors, and on to executives, to push headcounts down as there is a general feeling that good companies should be able to leverage AI to become much more efficient, and higher headcounts just burn money and bog things down. Whether or not that’s true is another question, but the perception exists. I’m not sure if this is a fundamental change in the dynamic, or just a temporary push against it that will eventually lose steam.
  - janalsncm 1y ago
    > good companies should be able to leverage AI to become much more efficient I feel like this should be a “both and” situation. AI is not a panacea. If your company has 10 good engineers and a ChatGPT subscription, and my company has 100 good engineers and a ChatGPT subscription, we are going to move considerably faster. Until someone gets an exclusive contract with AGI, it doesn’t change things.
    - jdiff 1y ago
      This isn't how it practically works though. You hit a saturation point where there's no more work to be done. There's only so much software to write, only so many ad campaigns to push, sometimes you just need to maintain, stabilize, and not iterate. If you have a problem that requires 10 engineers, 100 isn't going to speed it up. 9 women can't make a baby in 1 month and all that.
yieldcrv 1y ago
Recruiters have been blowing my inbox up since the day Trump signed the OBBB although I think entry level is still in shambles, for now
ENGNR 1y ago
Anecdotally I saw a post on reddit about a senior SWE in the USA who was laid off and couldn't get any interviews, with their old job outsourced to eastern Europe. And then this month the people he hadn't even got a response back from started requesting he apply for their jobs. Only one data point but the market might be coming back.
- tayo42 1y ago
  I did a bunch of interviews, I was actually busy with them, earlier this summer. I just can pass the damn system design interview lol ugh I think if your willing to go to the sf bay and work in an office there are lots of opportunities. Remote and high pay doesn't have alot of options.
  - lisbbb 1y ago
    Remote is career suicide anyways.
    - boredtofears 1y ago
      How so?
    - tayo42 1y ago
      No other options though. I did the sf thing and don't want to go back. Don't want to live in NYC or Seattle or commute over an hour from NYC suburbs.
    - esseph 1y ago
      Not remotely true.
    - silisili 1y ago
      As a 20 year remote employee across multiple companies...in my experience, this is true depending on one's definition of career. If you want to advance high in the company, remote is going to stifle you unless the entire company is remote. And even then something as small as skipping an offsite or keeping your cam off will stifle you. Humans like connection, apparently. My own career progress was much slower and topped out lower than (in my enlightened opinion) much less qualified folks in office. That said, it's a tradeoff. I -still- wouldn't move to work in office knowing this. I value my family, time, and lifestyle I'm able to afford in a place I want to be more than making tons of money. In another 10 or 20 years I'm half sure I'll run the numbers and regret that, but so far so good.
tomrod 1y ago
Also overhiring in the pandemic.

MontyCarloHall 1y ago

>why aren't we seeing the jobs come back? It was only just reinstated, so it's probably too early to see the effects. I also expect that despite the restoration of Section 174, companies realized that they not only overhired during ZIRP, but also that they don't actually need that headcount, given the outcome of Musk's Twitter layoffs. There were so many prognostications that Twitter would imminently implode after downsizing from ~8k to ~1.5k employees, and when these claims never came to pass, it was a wake-up call to the rest of the industry [0]. [0] https://www.livemint.com/companies/news/elon-musk-fired-80-percent-of-twitter-x-silicon-valley-companies-meta-amazon-google-microsoft-adopted-practice-report-11718252374022.html https://www.livemint.com/companies/news/elon-musk-fired-80-p...

cyberax 1y ago
I don't think many people really doubted that Twitter could keep itself up and running. But that "everything app"? It hasn't happened. The money transfer app ("Twitter Payment Platform")? Still MIA.
- MontyCarloHall 1y ago
  >I don't think many people really doubted that Twitter could keep itself up and running. Oh, they sure did: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34617964 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34617964 Even in that thread, a lot of people were saying "it's only been three months, give it a bit more time."
  - cyberax 1y ago
    And they were right, I think. Twitter's UI has degraded. I can't see this tweet linked from the thread: https://x.com/Grady_Booch/status/1620720537805922306 https://x.com/Grady_Booch/status/1620720537805922306 - it gives me an error. It might have been deleted, but Twitter just says "something went wrong". And I don't think it's even possible to view threads anymore without logging in? But more importantly, X has not released any substantially new features within the last 3 years. And I bet that it won't release anything new for a while, and anything they _do_ try to release will be laughably broken.
    - jdiff 1y ago
      Existing features are also suffering and going unfixed. If you browse any tweet with more than a few dozen replies, loading replies takes a notable amount of time, and X very conspicuously does not load all of them. Sometimes changing reply sorting algorithms loads entirely different batches of tweets. Besides that most basic functionality, many times notifications are not sent when the notification settings would suggest they should be. And of course, moderation has fallen by the wayside, although that's more of a policy shift than a technical failure.
      - neilv 1y ago
        Incidentally, those defects would be good for censorship with deniability. (Occam says deficit of institutional capability is the most likely cause. But that could also turn into a feature.)
    - username332211 1y ago
      > But more importantly, X has not released any substantially new features within the last 3 years. Just on top of my head, there's the ability to write longer texts, the AI integration (that seems fairly popular in there). There was also some revenue sharing scheme where accounts can get paid for engagement. And from the point of view of management, making it impossible to view threads without login would also be a feature (as in "something we have to deliberately implement"). It's not a lot, but I don't think the pre-Musk Twitter changed even that much in the 3 year period before the acquisition.
arscan 1y ago
I also think it’s fashionable to have a smaller headcount these days. Historically, the dynamics of businesses encouraged rising headcounts, as ICs weren’t as valued as managers (salary caps basically, as impact for ICs is hard to measure unless you are in sales), and managers generally view headcount as a metric to career and salary growth. So there was just this general pressure from the middle up to grow instead of paying more to existing staff or finding some other way to spend the money. After all, investors generally want you to spend the money you have access to, otherwise they’ll put it to use elsewhere. It seems that there is external pressure right now from investors, and on to executives, to push headcounts down as there is a general feeling that good companies should be able to leverage AI to become much more efficient, and higher headcounts just burn money and bog things down. Whether or not that’s true is another question, but the perception exists. I’m not sure if this is a fundamental change in the dynamic, or just a temporary push against it that will eventually lose steam.
- janalsncm 1y ago
  > good companies should be able to leverage AI to become much more efficient I feel like this should be a “both and” situation. AI is not a panacea. If your company has 10 good engineers and a ChatGPT subscription, and my company has 100 good engineers and a ChatGPT subscription, we are going to move considerably faster. Until someone gets an exclusive contract with AGI, it doesn’t change things.
  - jdiff 1y ago
    This isn't how it practically works though. You hit a saturation point where there's no more work to be done. There's only so much software to write, only so many ad campaigns to push, sometimes you just need to maintain, stabilize, and not iterate. If you have a problem that requires 10 engineers, 100 isn't going to speed it up. 9 women can't make a baby in 1 month and all that.

yieldcrv 1y ago

Recruiters have been blowing my inbox up since the day Trump signed the OBBB although I think entry level is still in shambles, for now

ENGNR 1y ago

Anecdotally I saw a post on reddit about a senior SWE in the USA who was laid off and couldn't get any interviews, with their old job outsourced to eastern Europe. And then this month the people he hadn't even got a response back from started requesting he apply for their jobs. Only one data point but the market might be coming back.

tayo42 1y ago
I did a bunch of interviews, I was actually busy with them, earlier this summer. I just can pass the damn system design interview lol ugh I think if your willing to go to the sf bay and work in an office there are lots of opportunities. Remote and high pay doesn't have alot of options.
- lisbbb 1y ago
  Remote is career suicide anyways.
  - boredtofears 1y ago
    How so?
  - tayo42 1y ago
    No other options though. I did the sf thing and don't want to go back. Don't want to live in NYC or Seattle or commute over an hour from NYC suburbs.
  - esseph 1y ago
    Not remotely true.
  - silisili 1y ago
    As a 20 year remote employee across multiple companies...in my experience, this is true depending on one's definition of career. If you want to advance high in the company, remote is going to stifle you unless the entire company is remote. And even then something as small as skipping an offsite or keeping your cam off will stifle you. Humans like connection, apparently. My own career progress was much slower and topped out lower than (in my enlightened opinion) much less qualified folks in office. That said, it's a tradeoff. I -still- wouldn't move to work in office knowing this. I value my family, time, and lifestyle I'm able to afford in a place I want to be more than making tons of money. In another 10 or 20 years I'm half sure I'll run the numbers and regret that, but so far so good.

tomrod 1y ago

Also overhiring in the pandemic.