4 ms·

Correction, the layoffs will be followed by massive re-hiring overseas in 6 to 18 months. The domestic jobs aren't coming back.

simmerup 6mo ago
AI: actually an indian Seen in foreign workers remote driving ai cars, foreign workers training ai robots, etc etc
kbar13 6mo ago
why do we feel that way? it's becoming more and more likely that developments in AI lead to a K graph in experience / value - senior / self sufficient workers will be significantly more valuable than ever. unless you mean that the quality of domestic workers is declining, which i'd agree in most things (tho for some things like software i think still has a chance)
- vostrocity 6mo ago
  I don't think the quality of US workers has to decline. The quality of workers in lower CoL places like India simply has to increase, and it has. Both of the companies I've worked for have opened India campuses in the past few years.
  - aprilthird2021 6mo ago
    I hire for such companies and the quality of US workers vs foreign workers who move here on visas is much different. To be fair, foreign workers who move here on visas tend to be the rich and highly educated of their own country and US workers are more distributed across SES. They also have more education on paper bc they usually need a masters or more to be eligible to work here
    - ghaff 6mo ago
      The compensation of software tech (especially Silicon Valley) has also gotten much higher over the past number of years in the US compared to disciplines requiring the same level of education/experience both is the US and even Western Europe. I expect this will equalize with outsized tech salaries becoming a thing of the past except for a few individuals with proven track records.
      - aprilthird2021 6mo ago
        I mean, the same can be said for consulting salaries, HFT salaries, hedge fund salaries, etc., which similar to software engineering only require a bachelor's and have a similarly grueling interview process. Why would this equalize? As long as software companies make huge profits and have growth capability which the top ones clearly do, what change would make this happen?
        ghaff 6mo ago
        Some software companies are making huge profits today. Many software jobs are at companies making returns comparable to other engineering job profits. There's also a supply side. If the market is flooded with a lot of people in it mostly for the money, salaries will supposedly shrink.
        kbar13 6mo ago
        we've seen that most of the people who are only in it for the money don't actually bring much value to the company. a lot of middling software engineers are actually a liability. unlike operational work, engineering needs to have a higher bar than just a beating heart and hands
  - ValentineC 6mo ago
    Hot take: their quality is possibly a reason these people were unable to leave their country in the first place.
    - Insanity 6mo ago
      Too simplistic of a hot take. People have families and other reasons _not_ to emigrate. I also know people who moved to big tech companies in the states, worked there for a number of years and then went back home to “emerging countries” to be closer to their roots.
- jordanb 6mo ago
  American workers got uppity. Forgot their place. Started protesting company decisions and wouldn't return to office. Hiring may eventually come back but not any time soon. Workers need to be chastised first.
- sdthjbvuiiijbb 6mo ago
  >it's becoming more and more likely that developments in AI lead to a K graph in experience / value - senior / self sufficient workers will be significantly more valuable than ever. I don't buy this at all, this narrative feels like pure cope to me. The skill ceiling for working with AI tooling is not that high (far lower than when everyone had to write all their code by hand, unquestionably). To me it seems far more likely that software engineering will become commoditized. I'm sure everyone posting about the supposed K graph believes that they're on the valuable side of it, naturally.
Analemma_ 6mo ago
I’m curious why this meme is so sticky. In the early 2000s people were also panicking that all the software jobs were going to India and never coming back. It was so pervasive it made the cover of Wired magazine, but it never happened. Why is this time different?
- lotsofpulp 6mo ago
  Maybe it did happen, but the expansion of broadband internet, and then mobile broadband internet, caused an enormous demand for additional and different types of programmers that was unable to be satiated by people outside of the US.
- smallmancontrov 6mo ago
  Remote coordination tools are no longer utter dogshit.
  - phillipcarter 6mo ago
    Sure, but there's no getting around how terrible it is to communicate and coordinate between PST and IST. One of the divisions I currently work with operates in a model where the "drivers" are all in the US and there's a large IST-based team that "executes". It's ... not great, and nobody on either side of the equation likes it. And all the people involved are very smart! But it really does matter, and we're seeing a lot of things move far slower than initially thought.
    - torginus 6mo ago
      Why are people so focused on India when it comes to outsourcing? US dev salaries are so much higher than the rest of the world that basically you could hire anywhere in Europe and still save most of the cost per person. You could go to LATAM if you want the same timezone. On the corollary, salaries of capable Indian developers have certainly caught up to most Western countries, so that you wont be saving much per person.
- bdangubic 6mo ago
aprilthird2021 6mo ago
Meta has done several rounds of such layoffs since the post COVID interest rate hikes and they do not have a larger employee presence abroad since then. They also, unlike a lot of their cohorts in FAANG, don't have a significant engineering presence in India and it hasn't rapidly grown since COVID either.
apf6 6mo ago
Offshoring has been a common practice for decades, it works great for some functions and not great for others. Why would it suddenly have a massive uptick in 2027?

simmerup 6mo ago

AI: actually an indian Seen in foreign workers remote driving ai cars, foreign workers training ai robots, etc etc

kbar13 6mo ago

why do we feel that way? it's becoming more and more likely that developments in AI lead to a K graph in experience / value - senior / self sufficient workers will be significantly more valuable than ever. unless you mean that the quality of domestic workers is declining, which i'd agree in most things (tho for some things like software i think still has a chance)

vostrocity 6mo ago
I don't think the quality of US workers has to decline. The quality of workers in lower CoL places like India simply has to increase, and it has. Both of the companies I've worked for have opened India campuses in the past few years.
- aprilthird2021 6mo ago
  I hire for such companies and the quality of US workers vs foreign workers who move here on visas is much different. To be fair, foreign workers who move here on visas tend to be the rich and highly educated of their own country and US workers are more distributed across SES. They also have more education on paper bc they usually need a masters or more to be eligible to work here
  - ghaff 6mo ago
    The compensation of software tech (especially Silicon Valley) has also gotten much higher over the past number of years in the US compared to disciplines requiring the same level of education/experience both is the US and even Western Europe. I expect this will equalize with outsized tech salaries becoming a thing of the past except for a few individuals with proven track records.
    - aprilthird2021 6mo ago
      I mean, the same can be said for consulting salaries, HFT salaries, hedge fund salaries, etc., which similar to software engineering only require a bachelor's and have a similarly grueling interview process. Why would this equalize? As long as software companies make huge profits and have growth capability which the top ones clearly do, what change would make this happen?
      - ghaff 6mo ago
        Some software companies are making huge profits today. Many software jobs are at companies making returns comparable to other engineering job profits. There's also a supply side. If the market is flooded with a lot of people in it mostly for the money, salaries will supposedly shrink.
        kbar13 6mo ago
        we've seen that most of the people who are only in it for the money don't actually bring much value to the company. a lot of middling software engineers are actually a liability. unlike operational work, engineering needs to have a higher bar than just a beating heart and hands
- ValentineC 6mo ago
  Hot take: their quality is possibly a reason these people were unable to leave their country in the first place.
  - Insanity 6mo ago
    Too simplistic of a hot take. People have families and other reasons _not_ to emigrate. I also know people who moved to big tech companies in the states, worked there for a number of years and then went back home to “emerging countries” to be closer to their roots.
jordanb 6mo ago
American workers got uppity. Forgot their place. Started protesting company decisions and wouldn't return to office. Hiring may eventually come back but not any time soon. Workers need to be chastised first.
sdthjbvuiiijbb 6mo ago
>it's becoming more and more likely that developments in AI lead to a K graph in experience / value - senior / self sufficient workers will be significantly more valuable than ever. I don't buy this at all, this narrative feels like pure cope to me. The skill ceiling for working with AI tooling is not that high (far lower than when everyone had to write all their code by hand, unquestionably). To me it seems far more likely that software engineering will become commoditized. I'm sure everyone posting about the supposed K graph believes that they're on the valuable side of it, naturally.

Analemma_ 6mo ago

I’m curious why this meme is so sticky. In the early 2000s people were also panicking that all the software jobs were going to India and never coming back. It was so pervasive it made the cover of Wired magazine, but it never happened. Why is this time different?

lotsofpulp 6mo ago
Maybe it did happen, but the expansion of broadband internet, and then mobile broadband internet, caused an enormous demand for additional and different types of programmers that was unable to be satiated by people outside of the US.
smallmancontrov 6mo ago
Remote coordination tools are no longer utter dogshit.
- phillipcarter 6mo ago
  Sure, but there's no getting around how terrible it is to communicate and coordinate between PST and IST. One of the divisions I currently work with operates in a model where the "drivers" are all in the US and there's a large IST-based team that "executes". It's ... not great, and nobody on either side of the equation likes it. And all the people involved are very smart! But it really does matter, and we're seeing a lot of things move far slower than initially thought.
  - torginus 6mo ago
    Why are people so focused on India when it comes to outsourcing? US dev salaries are so much higher than the rest of the world that basically you could hire anywhere in Europe and still save most of the cost per person. You could go to LATAM if you want the same timezone. On the corollary, salaries of capable Indian developers have certainly caught up to most Western countries, so that you wont be saving much per person.
bdangubic 6mo ago

aprilthird2021 6mo ago

Meta has done several rounds of such layoffs since the post COVID interest rate hikes and they do not have a larger employee presence abroad since then. They also, unlike a lot of their cohorts in FAANG, don't have a significant engineering presence in India and it hasn't rapidly grown since COVID either.

apf6 6mo ago

Offshoring has been a common practice for decades, it works great for some functions and not great for others. Why would it suddenly have a massive uptick in 2027?