5 ms·

> what happen if the market is right and this is "new normal"????? Then there's an oversupply of programmers, salaries will crash, and lots of people will have

by lmm 11mo ago

> what happen if the market is right and this is "new normal"????? Then there's an oversupply of programmers, salaries will crash, and lots of people will have to switch careers. It's happened before.

yungwarlock 11mo ago
I'm young, please when was that and in what industry
- forgetfreeman 11mo ago
  .com implosion, tech jobs of all kinds went from "we'll hire anyone who knows how to use a mouse" to the tech jobs section of the classifieds was omitted entirely for 20 months. There have been other bumps in the road since then but that was a real eye-opener.
  - tonyhart7 11mo ago
    well same like covid right??? digital/tech company overhiring because everyone is home and at the same time the rise of AI reduce the number of headcount covid overhiring + AI usage = massive layoff we ever see in decades
    - short_sells_poo 11mo ago
      It was nothing like covid. The dot com crash lasted years where tech was a dead sector. Equity valuations kept declining year after year. People couldn't find jobs in tech at all. There are still plenty of tech jobs these days, just less than there were during covid, but tech itself is still in a massive expansionary cycle. We'll see how the AI bubble lasts, and what the fallout of it bursting will be. The key point is that the going is still exceptionally good. The posts talking about experienced programmers having to flip burgers in the early 2000s is not an exaggeration.
      - nradov 11mo ago
        After the first Internet bubble popped, service levels in Silicon Valley restaurants suddenly got a lot better. Restaurants that had struggled to hire competent, reliable employees suddenly had their pick of applicants. History always repeats itself in the tech industry. The hype cycle for LLMs will probably peak within the next few years. (LLMs are legitimately useful for many things but some of the company valuations and employee compensation packages are totally irrational.)
- habibur 11mo ago
  After the year 2000. dot com burst. An tech employee posted he looked for job for 6 months, found none and has joined a fast food shop flipping burgers. That turned tech workers switching to "flipping burgers" into a meme.
  - throwaway2037 11mo ago
    I used to watch all of the "Odd Todd" episodes religiously. Does anyone else remember that Adobe Flash-based "TV show" (before YouTube!)?
  - kevstev 11mo ago
    What was a little different then was that tech jobs paid about 30% more than other jobs, it wasn't anything like the highs we have seen the last few years. I used to describe it as you used to have the nicer house on the block, but then in the 2010s+ FNG salaries had people living in whole other neighborhoods. So switching out of the industry, while painful was not as traumatic. Obviously though having to actually flip burgers was a move of desperation and traumatic. The .com bust was largely centered around SV as well, in NYC (where I live) there was some fallout, but there was still a tailwind of businesses of all sorts expanding their tech footprint, so while you may not have been able to land at a hot startup and dream of getting rich in an IPO, by the end of 2003 it was mostly stabilized and you could likely have landed a somewhat boring corporate job even if it was just building internal apps. I feel like there are a lot of people in school or recently graduated though that had FNG dreams and never considered an alternative. This is going to be very difficult for them. I now feel, especially as tech has gone truly borderless with remote work, that this downturn is now way worse than the .com bust. It has just dragged on for years now, with no real end in sight.
- throwaway2037 11mo ago
  The defense industry in southern California used to be huge until the 1980s. Lots and lots of ex-defense industry people moved to other industries. Oil and gas has gone through huge economic cycles of massive investment and massive cut-backs.
gloosx 11mo ago
It's not as simple as putting all programmers into one category. There can be oversupply of web developers but at the same time undersupply of COBOL developers. If you are a very good developer, you will always be in demand.
- ben_w 11mo ago
  > If you are a very good developer, you will always be in demand. "Always", in the same way that five years ago we'd "never" have an AI that can do a code review. Don't get me wrong: I've watched a decade of promises that "self driving cars are coming real soon now honest", latest news about Tesla's is that it can't cope with leaves; I certainly *hope* that a decade from now will still be having much the same conversation about AI taking senior programmer jobs, but "always" is a long time.
  - tonyhart7 11mo ago
    waymo and tesla already operate in certain areas, even if tech is ready regulation still very much a thing
    - ben_w 11mo ago
      Leaves: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46095867 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46095867
    - afavour 11mo ago
      “certain areas” is a very important qualifier, though. Typically areas with very predictable weather. Not discounting the achievement just noting that we’re still far away from ubiquity.
      - duderific 11mo ago
        Waymo is doing very well around San Francisco, which is certainly very challenging city driving. Yes, it doesn't snow there. Maybe areas with winter storms will never have autonomous vehicles. That doesn't mean there isn't a lot of utility created even now.
_DeadFred_ 11mo ago
Some people will lose their homes. Some marriages will fail from the stress. Some people will chose to exit life because of it all. It's happened before and there's no way we could have learned from that and improved things. It has to be just life changing, life ruining, career crippling. Absolutely no other way for a society to function than this.
- jakelazaroff 11mo ago
  That's where the post-scarcity society AI will enable comes in! Surely the profits from this technology will allow these displaced programmers to still live comfortable lives, not just be hoarded by a tiny number of already rich and powerful people. /s
  - lisbbb 11mo ago
    I'd sooner believe that a unicorn will fly over my house and poop out rainbow skittles on my lawn. Yeah /s for sure! You and I both know we're probably headed for revolutionary times.

by lmm 11mo ago

yungwarlock 11mo ago

I'm young, please when was that and in what industry

forgetfreeman 11mo ago
.com implosion, tech jobs of all kinds went from "we'll hire anyone who knows how to use a mouse" to the tech jobs section of the classifieds was omitted entirely for 20 months. There have been other bumps in the road since then but that was a real eye-opener.
- tonyhart7 11mo ago
  well same like covid right??? digital/tech company overhiring because everyone is home and at the same time the rise of AI reduce the number of headcount covid overhiring + AI usage = massive layoff we ever see in decades
  - short_sells_poo 11mo ago
    It was nothing like covid. The dot com crash lasted years where tech was a dead sector. Equity valuations kept declining year after year. People couldn't find jobs in tech at all. There are still plenty of tech jobs these days, just less than there were during covid, but tech itself is still in a massive expansionary cycle. We'll see how the AI bubble lasts, and what the fallout of it bursting will be. The key point is that the going is still exceptionally good. The posts talking about experienced programmers having to flip burgers in the early 2000s is not an exaggeration.
    - nradov 11mo ago
      After the first Internet bubble popped, service levels in Silicon Valley restaurants suddenly got a lot better. Restaurants that had struggled to hire competent, reliable employees suddenly had their pick of applicants. History always repeats itself in the tech industry. The hype cycle for LLMs will probably peak within the next few years. (LLMs are legitimately useful for many things but some of the company valuations and employee compensation packages are totally irrational.)
habibur 11mo ago
After the year 2000. dot com burst. An tech employee posted he looked for job for 6 months, found none and has joined a fast food shop flipping burgers. That turned tech workers switching to "flipping burgers" into a meme.
- throwaway2037 11mo ago
  I used to watch all of the "Odd Todd" episodes religiously. Does anyone else remember that Adobe Flash-based "TV show" (before YouTube!)?
- kevstev 11mo ago
  What was a little different then was that tech jobs paid about 30% more than other jobs, it wasn't anything like the highs we have seen the last few years. I used to describe it as you used to have the nicer house on the block, but then in the 2010s+ FNG salaries had people living in whole other neighborhoods. So switching out of the industry, while painful was not as traumatic. Obviously though having to actually flip burgers was a move of desperation and traumatic. The .com bust was largely centered around SV as well, in NYC (where I live) there was some fallout, but there was still a tailwind of businesses of all sorts expanding their tech footprint, so while you may not have been able to land at a hot startup and dream of getting rich in an IPO, by the end of 2003 it was mostly stabilized and you could likely have landed a somewhat boring corporate job even if it was just building internal apps. I feel like there are a lot of people in school or recently graduated though that had FNG dreams and never considered an alternative. This is going to be very difficult for them. I now feel, especially as tech has gone truly borderless with remote work, that this downturn is now way worse than the .com bust. It has just dragged on for years now, with no real end in sight.
throwaway2037 11mo ago
The defense industry in southern California used to be huge until the 1980s. Lots and lots of ex-defense industry people moved to other industries. Oil and gas has gone through huge economic cycles of massive investment and massive cut-backs.

gloosx 11mo ago

It's not as simple as putting all programmers into one category. There can be oversupply of web developers but at the same time undersupply of COBOL developers. If you are a very good developer, you will always be in demand.

ben_w 11mo ago
> If you are a very good developer, you will always be in demand. "Always", in the same way that five years ago we'd "never" have an AI that can do a code review. Don't get me wrong: I've watched a decade of promises that "self driving cars are coming real soon now honest", latest news about Tesla's is that it can't cope with leaves; I certainly *hope* that a decade from now will still be having much the same conversation about AI taking senior programmer jobs, but "always" is a long time.
- tonyhart7 11mo ago
  waymo and tesla already operate in certain areas, even if tech is ready regulation still very much a thing
  - ben_w 11mo ago
    Leaves: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46095867 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46095867
  - afavour 11mo ago
    “certain areas” is a very important qualifier, though. Typically areas with very predictable weather. Not discounting the achievement just noting that we’re still far away from ubiquity.
    - duderific 11mo ago
      Waymo is doing very well around San Francisco, which is certainly very challenging city driving. Yes, it doesn't snow there. Maybe areas with winter storms will never have autonomous vehicles. That doesn't mean there isn't a lot of utility created even now.

_DeadFred_ 11mo ago

Some people will lose their homes. Some marriages will fail from the stress. Some people will chose to exit life because of it all. It's happened before and there's no way we could have learned from that and improved things. It has to be just life changing, life ruining, career crippling. Absolutely no other way for a society to function than this.

jakelazaroff 11mo ago
That's where the post-scarcity society AI will enable comes in! Surely the profits from this technology will allow these displaced programmers to still live comfortable lives, not just be hoarded by a tiny number of already rich and powerful people. /s
- lisbbb 11mo ago
  I'd sooner believe that a unicorn will fly over my house and poop out rainbow skittles on my lawn. Yeah /s for sure! You and I both know we're probably headed for revolutionary times.