IT Workers Are Now Struggling to Find Work, as 'Picky' Companies Demand AI Skills (msn.com) 174
"Battered by years of mass layoffs, California tech workers were hoping the job market would rebound this year," reports the Los Angeles Times. "But things are getting worse."
The class divide is widening in Silicon Valley as a tiny group of employees is landing unprecedented packages for AI skills, while many others struggle to find work. The have-nots are doing everything that used to guarantee great jobs — refreshing resumes, optimizing LinkedIn profiles and doing interviews — but companies are much more picky these days. The tech jobless are rethinking their lives. Some are taking pay cuts, others are leaving tech. Some are going back to study or launch startups. Some have retired....
Since 2022, more than 815,500 tech workers have been laid off, according to Layoffs.fyi, a website that tracks job cuts. The tsunami of pink slips surged in 2023, when companies that had gone on hiring sprees during the COVID-19 pandemic began to cut back. From January to April, U.S. tech employers announced 85,411 job cuts this year, up 33% from the same period last year, according to global outplacement and executive coaching firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. The Public Policy Institute of California estimates that the number of information jobs — which includes jobs in hard-hit Hollywood as well as tech — tumbled 17% between the middle of 2022 and this February. The San Francisco Bay Area has been hardest hit, the institute said in a recent report, with the number of jobs declining by 0.4%, compared with 7.5% growth over a similar time span before COVID-19 slammed into the U.S. economy.
Tech layoffs are also spilling over into other industries. Automaker General Motors laid off roughly 600 workers in its information technology department, and Walmart is reportedly laying off or relocating roughly 1,000 workers in its technology and products teams. Recruiters say companies have become much more selective, requiring AI skills, combining different positions and interviewing more people for each job. "You're seeing elongated hiring cycles," said Robert Lucido, senior director of strategic advisory at Magnit, a California company that helps tech giants and other businesses manage contractors, freelancers and other contingent workers. "There's more opportunity to fill the need that they truly want."
Paul Flaharty, district president at staffing firm Robert Half in Los Angeles, said companies are laying off workers, but also creating new roles tied to AI initiatives. "For individuals that are displaced, it's really important that they find ways to upskill themselves so that they can make themselves as attractive as possible for these new jobs that are being created," he said. Kira Martins was already taking on more work in a small team at Snap — the parent company of disappearing messaging app Snapchat — when she was laid off in April. The company said the layoffs were to cut costs as it focuses on profitability, noting how employees are using AI to "reduce repetitive work, increase velocity, and better support our community, partners, and advertisers...." Martins, a 36-year-old Los Angeles resident, views AI as a tool and is optimistic about finding her next role. People still need to decide how to use AI and check the work it generates, she said. "In tech, you want to be a first adopter, because if you don't move quickly, it's very easy to become irrelevant," she said. "Everyone's kind of hopping on the AI train."
A former Google worker (laid off more than a year ago) says he's still job hunting, according to the article, and "he's learned it's not enough to just apply in this competitive market. Workers really need to network and leverage their connections to get seen by hiring managers and stand out."
But when 64-year-old product manager Bruce Bowers lost his job at Oracle — along with thousands of others — he just started his retirement early.
Since 2022, more than 815,500 tech workers have been laid off, according to Layoffs.fyi, a website that tracks job cuts. The tsunami of pink slips surged in 2023, when companies that had gone on hiring sprees during the COVID-19 pandemic began to cut back. From January to April, U.S. tech employers announced 85,411 job cuts this year, up 33% from the same period last year, according to global outplacement and executive coaching firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. The Public Policy Institute of California estimates that the number of information jobs — which includes jobs in hard-hit Hollywood as well as tech — tumbled 17% between the middle of 2022 and this February. The San Francisco Bay Area has been hardest hit, the institute said in a recent report, with the number of jobs declining by 0.4%, compared with 7.5% growth over a similar time span before COVID-19 slammed into the U.S. economy.
Tech layoffs are also spilling over into other industries. Automaker General Motors laid off roughly 600 workers in its information technology department, and Walmart is reportedly laying off or relocating roughly 1,000 workers in its technology and products teams. Recruiters say companies have become much more selective, requiring AI skills, combining different positions and interviewing more people for each job. "You're seeing elongated hiring cycles," said Robert Lucido, senior director of strategic advisory at Magnit, a California company that helps tech giants and other businesses manage contractors, freelancers and other contingent workers. "There's more opportunity to fill the need that they truly want."
Paul Flaharty, district president at staffing firm Robert Half in Los Angeles, said companies are laying off workers, but also creating new roles tied to AI initiatives. "For individuals that are displaced, it's really important that they find ways to upskill themselves so that they can make themselves as attractive as possible for these new jobs that are being created," he said. Kira Martins was already taking on more work in a small team at Snap — the parent company of disappearing messaging app Snapchat — when she was laid off in April. The company said the layoffs were to cut costs as it focuses on profitability, noting how employees are using AI to "reduce repetitive work, increase velocity, and better support our community, partners, and advertisers...." Martins, a 36-year-old Los Angeles resident, views AI as a tool and is optimistic about finding her next role. People still need to decide how to use AI and check the work it generates, she said. "In tech, you want to be a first adopter, because if you don't move quickly, it's very easy to become irrelevant," she said. "Everyone's kind of hopping on the AI train."
A former Google worker (laid off more than a year ago) says he's still job hunting, according to the article, and "he's learned it's not enough to just apply in this competitive market. Workers really need to network and leverage their connections to get seen by hiring managers and stand out."
But when 64-year-old product manager Bruce Bowers lost his job at Oracle — along with thousands of others — he just started his retirement early.
20 years experience for new tech (Score:5, Insightful)
I remember back in 1997 seeing countless job postings that needed 20+ years of Cisco experience, and have seen the same sort of insanity repeated with every new tech fad that comes along. Why would the biggest tech fad of all be any different?
Re: 20 years experience for new tech (Score:2)
Yeah, like in that urban legend of the guy who went to a React job interview in 2014 where they needed at least 5 years of React experience but React had come out in 2013.
the vertical web (Score:2)
https://www.scry.llc/2014/05/1... [scry.llc]
"Saturated industries often consolidate for vertical integration. Large companies buy smaller competitors, and they also purchase their vertical supply chain to reduce costs and manage dependencies. A classic example is the American car industry, which went from 1500 companies to today's Big Three (and the occasional glitch like Tesla)."
I wrote The Vertical Web 13 years ago in expectation of this era.
It's just history repeating.
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At least though Cisco was around since 1984 so you could get the better part of 20 years of Cisco experience.
The worst was 1996 or so and needing 5+ years of Java. Which has only come out the year before.
I always wonder though what recruiters and HR folks think when al
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I always wonder though what recruiters and HR folks think when all their applicants all seem to fall well short of their requirements/
Probably to the effect "We failed to poach the people who developed this framework in the first place. Can we import some immigrants, pretty please?"
Re: 20 years experience for new tech (Score:2)
I always wonder though what recruiters and HR folks think...
They don't. They don't think, when they get too few applicants for a job with ridiculous requirements they open the position up to foreign workers who will happily claim anything to try and get a job in the U.S. or use the lack of qualified applicants to push back and increase the salary offered.
HR doesn't think about the requirements IT departments demand, that's not their job - their job is to review the applicants that make it through the automated filters and schedule interviews, that's it.
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I worked on 5 java projects simultaneously for a year, so that's 5 years experience, right?
I mean, if they can ask for the impossible, then I should be able to fudge things with mythical man-months, right?
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You mean the AC post showing a pattern? (I didn't even know you could still psot anonymously on Slashdot but I digress...)
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You have to have an account but you can still post "anonymously". Slashdot knows who's posting but the users don't. What this means is that every single anonymous post is a deliberate choice to be a coward.
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or a deliberate choice not to undo moderation. i'd rather not undo my +1 funnys when i can hand them out, this crowd desperately needs those.
also, some subset of "coward" might have legitimate reasons to be "cautious", for one because of psychos and thought police but there are several other valid reasons to engage anonymously with a crowd/conversation (regardless of the provider tracking you). there was a time (long passed indeed) where anonymous posts could be among the most worth reading.
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so not checking the post anonymously box doesn't give any clues about your identity unless you picked an account name that does that.
well, there is the thing, if you pick your account name sensibly it's really indistinguishable from "anonymous coward", it only tels which anonymous coward you are. in practical terms we're all "anonymous coward" except those of us who don't bother ticking the box expose ourselves to some weirdo tracking our handle to periodically relieve his/her (often sickly) emotional urges. this will only be a problem if one has excessive or unfounded (and likely also sickly) attachment to his/her online "flavored anony
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well, there is the thing, if you pick your account name sensibly it's really indistinguishable from "anonymous coward", it only tels which anonymous coward you are.
Yes, and that is valuable to other users. The users depriving us of that information know their comments are shit, that's why they do it.
Re: If Only... (Score:2)
To be fair, the ground shifted really fast compared to most tech adoption rates. Even those of us who were following the tech developments and knew the options explored by science fiction found (find!) it hard to believe the speed of industry change. My job is not the same as two months ago, definitely not the same as 6 months ago.
It's getting tough out there for IT workers.. (Score:5, Funny)
Re: It's getting tough out there for IT workers.. (Score:3)
"Learn to farm" is the new "learn to code"
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For me, it's gotta be Snickers, not just any food will do!
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That is why the guy was at an on-ramp with a sign: "Will fix your printer for food". He has been there for 20 years !
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What millennium are you living in, bro.
Speak for yourself. I print stuff all the time, but the government is trying to stop me. They keep talking about about printable firearms or something.
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its time to start working on the food printers, so the guy can fix his own food.
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Re: It's getting tough out there for IT workers.. (Score:3)
The bidet has entered the chat⦠:-)
Yeah, I Noped Out (Score:5, Insightful)
The company I was working for went out of business in March because stupid spending crap (like AI!).
I took a look at the state of the software industry and am just horrified. There's just no room for someone who can just engineer solutions, knows about resource constraints (like disk and RAM and bandwidth - this may be hard to believe but those are not infinite!), and knows that what LLM coding produces is fast, fragile, insecure solutions with massive technical debt. I have played around it with (know the enemy or possible tool) and saw this at the last place! We had a junior guy spend six months trying to vibe code a network utility app that would have been very useful. 'Oh let me just have Claude do it!' Of course the VP was all over that s#$% and the guy's only 'job' at that point was coaxing Claude to make the app.
Except... every time he had a candidate it was broken. So he'd go back and tell Claude to fix it. And it would. And it would break two other things. And since this guy has no idea what the code Claude wrote does he can't just go in and fix things himself, he has to round trip. So I told him about unit tests... and he had Claude generate the unit tests [lawl]. Which are just abysmally bad. So every iteration was still broken. When the company went under he was still trying to make it work. This whole generation joining the industry is just lost. Most of them will be unable to do anything except produce slop. But in the mean time they sure look cheaper than us guys with the institutional knowledge.
So I said eff that, I don't want to work in this industry any more. I am still doing consulting here and there, hand picked, for sane stuff like embedded firmware which is (for now) mostly free of slop code. But basically I just retired way early, will see where the dust settles. And let me tell you it is GLORIOUS. I have never been busier than I am now when every day is free, I can (and do) work on all my spare projects as I want, and I don't have mentally deficient sociopath executives to deal with, and no slop. So congrats, AI, you beat me.
Re:Yeah, I Noped Out (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh yeah, sorry to reply to my own post, but I could have written that network app he spent six months trying to do with Claude in a week (leaving plenty of room) - give another week (not full time) for testing and feedback and changes and it's totally done in two weeks, one actual week of work at the outside. Woulda cost way less and it would be secure, upgradable, and maintainable. But we can't have nice things in the hellscape of 202x.
Re:Yeah, I Noped Out (Score:5, Interesting)
Using AI in the hardware world? Instant impressive cost reduction. Bankruptcy after everyone cashed their bonus and the product fails miserably in the field. What surprises me is how almost every programmer says this and how this is completely ignored. Management is behaving like a squealing audio system. The microphone is too close to a speaker. Out of touch with reality and squealing the same tone. AI AI AI AI AI. Nothing can change the sound.
This is a perception problem and from experience, I see this only getting solved in one way. Companies hitting the wall at 100mph. I will enjoy that moment.
I have seen these things happen on a much smaller scale. You think they will learn something? Nope, next is the blame game. Been in a meeting where my boss ranted at me. "Why did you not tell me this was going to be a big issue." "Uhm sir, I prepared a little document showing all the steps I took to flag this. Including dancing naked on my desk with a big sign saying that this was going south." "You techies just do not know how to get a message through! You should have shouted! You should have hit my desk with your fist and stand your ground! This is your fault!" (Figure out yourself what the hyperboles are here
The alternative is that we are completely out of touch with reality. With all what is going on, it is a thought lurking in the back of my head. So many people can't be wrong? Time will tell. Sooner or later, time will tell.
Corporate sucks these days. I moved to an insignificant teacher position. It is a school in a rich district. Kids get dropped of with the second car of the mother: a porsche.But it is diverse due to diversity rules mandated by government. Some kids can't afford basic food. Colleagues are great. Kids are great, but themselves of course. Then there are the parent meetings. 90% of people are great as well, nice and understanding. Then the corporate types walk in. Instant domination attempts, demanding to see an action plan. "What are you going to do about my son's low grades!" I love it when that happens. After the talk, when they concluded they did not had a grip on me and notice I have a sharp tongue as well: "Are you laughing at me? You are laughing at me!", they storm to the principal. An old lady, close to retirement, nothing to lose, who states the facts in the most dry manner possible and then leaves a long silence.
Too many of us think they are gods, while we all are just apes with some small updates.
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I think it well could.
I, a relative amateur when it comes to software development, was using ChatGPT to advise me on a personal coding project. I'd put it on par with sharing an office with an experienced programmer who could answer your questions and steer you in the right direction.
I decided to try out Claude Code and I'd describe it as more like asking that experienced programmer to do the work for you. It occasionally didn't do what I wanted when I under-specified my requirements, and I of course d
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it's like comparing street food with a 3 course dinner. both will nourish you but the experience/context is not the same.
higher tier llms can be more powerful out of the box and can be further tuned specifically for coding or specific domains and fitted with reasoning loops increasing overall quality. apart from that, an environment with context management, history and local rules can greatly optimize the actual experience of producing, validating and merging ai generated code.
this is just starting, new mod
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IMHO, you still need to be a developer to be able to use AI effectively. If you start with a really solid schema, or an existing framework, AI is great at building on top of that. If you give it specific guidance for what and how you want it to develop code, it can do a good job. It is NOT just "lol write me a network utility lol" -- that is a path to disaster.
I've also had good luck with updating and modernizing older code, migrating to a new frameework, and refactoring.
If i'm using claude code, my steps g
It seems to be getting a lot better fast (Score:3)
A friend who is a coder reckons that whilst it was as bad as you describe, it's now pretty competent if used carefully. Let's not assume it's useless as that may well be the route to foolish complacency!
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Exactly, pretty competent if used carefully. Far too many people use it wrong, don't provide it any documentation and assume that it already knows everything and does everything correctly.
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Re: It seems to be getting a lot better fast (Score:3)
ChatGPT never sandbags me with deception like offshore resources and never slanders me to management behind my back like onshore resources. That alone makes it a superior coworker.
Yeah, closing in on this too. (Score:3)
A complete redo of lifestyle design and moving 'sitting at screen, doing computer stuff' to some side-task level cultural technique rather than my actual day job is due for me too. AI does 90%+ of coding now and way better than me and I'm just shooing it around and double-checking the diffs and commits in case something goes haywire. Which it doesn't happen that often compared to the output.
I'm clearing out my stuff and preparing to do more human things. Coding is still fun, but so is hiking, biking, travel
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We're at the brink of a post-scarcity economy. Might as well get on with it.
As a species we've been producing way more than enough for everyone to live comfortably on for years, decades even. Yet we're not living in a post-scarcity economy because economies are gamed for the benefit of the worst people. You know how everyone seems to think that Warren Buffet is a kinder, gentler billionaire? Well, Berkshire-Hathaway is the corporation behind buying up most of these mobile home parks that the old people on fixed incomes can no longer afford to live in, so they're going to go to a ho
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Liquidate every billionaire in the U.S. and the government would only get a few months respite
Oh look, another cowardly clown cuck who doesn't understand how the velocity of money works. Fuck off with your elementary school understanding of economics, kiddo.
Planned my Exit a decade Ago! (Score:2)
I personally planned my exit a decade ago after a 30-year career in technology. Since I started focusing on a whole different career path that required me to become a teacher, an instructor and a coach along with a referee in a precision sport that requires humans to be involved in every aspect because everything is still running on centuries old proven technologies with almost no changes.
Cert & Lic Up... but in A Second Career
Instead of spending time getting technical certifications that would become i
Re: Yeah, I Noped Out (Score:2)
You are witnessing the rise of the tech-shaman, my grey-bearded brother! The only ones who still understand what is actually going on and able to fix it on multiple levels.
Praise the Omnissiah and perform the holy rites of the power-cycle!!!
Re: Yeah, I Noped Out (Score:2)
If junior spent 6 months, that means this was done with early gen tech. The game changed big time in January and again in April. Would have again last week if Fable was still out. These are not minor skill jumps. They are akin to a human taking years of skill growth. Any true statement about agentic capabilities is only good for a few weeks before it has to be re-evaluated.
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i read a lot from users that say AI has gotten better over the last few years, i am sure it has, but I wonder if the users have actually gotten better moreso at asking AI the tasks. so not really that AI is progressing but that some people can use the tool more instinctively than others.
not everyone can do a web search equally well either.
comms (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:comms (Score:5, Informative)
Re:comms (Score:5, Informative)
I believe knowing how to use external tools, MCP servers, skills, md-files, etc. and how to integrate agents into your workflow goes a long way these days.
I feel like nowadays you can just go: "Claude, add a mcp-server". Or "Claude, add a skill to do so and so"
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I feel like nowadays you can just go: "Claude, add a mcp-server". Or "Claude, add a skill to do so and so"
You can and Claude is pretty good at auto-configuring itself. You still need to tell him what you need though, which means having familiarity over what MPC servers, skills and plugins can do.
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Tell It. It's an algorithm that creates predictive text that's sometimes useful. Not him, it.
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"I want to use claude code to run 10 unattended Chrome beta testers [more info about what is being tested and specifics]. Write me one or more md files to execute and give me instructions for enabling Chrome mcp, then give me an sh script to launch 10 separate Chrome instances on macos."
I wrote that exact prompt, more or less, a month or two ago, and then other iterations since then, and it's been working very well.
Using LLMs to create prompts for LLMs to use was a good realization.
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A lot of people are doing this Claude skills/context engineering right now. People are actually getting startup money to create a business around a skill they farted out. Seriously. I bet thousands of startups right now are people thinking they vibed out a skill that's going to revolutionize something.
In the last few months I saw EVERYONE creating skills and trying to add them to our skills repo. It slowed down a lot once we started reviewing them and asking what the hell the benefit of the skill is and not
Re: comms (Score:2)
..for all of that you need some pretty good understanding of fundamentals. Which vibecoding juniors wont have, and will have a hard time developing these skills and understanding.
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Will it matter if companies demand to hire vibe coders and never realize the gap between their skills and real skills? The gap will be there, but some C-Suites will refuse to see it.
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There's much more than just writing the promp here. I believe knowing how to use external tools, MCP servers, skills, md-files, etc. and how to integrate agents into your workflow goes a long way these days. It's not about "vibecoding", it's about getting sh*t done faster.
And about understanding that maybe 90% of what LLM coders provide is good, 10% is somewhat off to outright bullshit and LLMs can be very good at making things do what they are told to do without actually being right when a solution is hard to produce. Ultimately, it is about being a good manager who knows in detail what the solution should be, not just accepting what an LLM or junior coder produces. At least for being a good engineer, many companies just want faster code and are happy to provide 10% bugs
Re: comms (Score:3)
That all sounds like shit you can learn in an afternoon of training. That wouldn't explain why you would use it as a hiring filter.
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I still don't really understand what AI skills are. Communication? They want employees who can ask things? What?
I used Gemini. My prompt was: "create a bullet list in html syntax of skills that might be useful or required to use an AI in a professional setting". This is the result:
Re: comms (Score:2)
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1 - People with those skills might actually say "Go to Hell" if posted with morally grey, or downright illegal task.
2 - Managers like "yes" men/women/other
3 - It hurts profit to think. Just DOOOOO.
4 - Never mind the quality, feel the width
Re: comms (Score:2)
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Sometimes the question is only if you put these skills in your resume. There is also a notable amount of people saying "fuck AI" and HR might want to avoid interviewing them when they won't want to use the company's tools anyway. So asking for "AI skills" is a reasonable thing to do even when "AI skills" may not be that hard to acquire for usual programmers.
Re: comms (Score:2)
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Or I guess what I mean to say is, none of these skills seem very difficult to obtain. So what's the problem?
IMHO the problem is that many professional are sleeping on AI. They don't take the time to try it and become proficient with it. Part of it is likely due to inertia, part of it due to prejudice or bad experience with earlier iterations.
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Or I guess what I mean to say is, none of these skills seem very difficult to obtain. So what's the problem?
IMHO the problem is that many professional are sleeping on AI. They don't take the time to try it and become proficient with it. Part of it is likely due to inertia, part of it due to prejudice or bad experience with earlier iterations.
Well put! Inertia, plus distrust with anything new.
The most I can add is from historical experience. When I first got into tech, technology was largely tube, with transistors starting to be employed. Even early RTL logic IC's in a few places.
Tube guys didn't want to upgrade their knowledge.
Computers were migrating from ferrite core drum memory. Dunno if many people lost their jobs over migrating to IC's from that, probably some.
Ive seen people lose their jerbs over refusing to transition to digital
Waiting for Doe v. GitHub to shake out (Score:2)
Inertia, plus distrust with anything new.
Especially when this particular "anything new" is the subject of pending copyright litigation. See Doe v. GitHub.
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Yes, and there's another reason to it as well (old fart ranting here):
When you do suggest that LLMs can be terrific and explain why they CAN be useful, old professional coders will often chime in, chop your head off and absolutely hate on you, every move you make, everything you say with passion.
I'm old so the last time that happened I just said "oh you're right, I didn't think about that, my bad" and they were happy.
Do you think I stopped experimenting with the tools? Not in any way. In fact I run my ow
Re: comms (Score:2)
Hehe :-) Exactly.
"AI" is not a skill, it's a tool.
Being able to build a bridge, or a plane, or an ERP system, or a data processing pipeline... those are skills.
Re:comms (Score:5, Informative)
I work for a consultancy which is "AI native". My employer is actually very good at getting things done for clients, and was good at it before AI too, so there's room to argue how much AI really does or doesn't do, but that's besides the point. Clients are asking for it, and my employer genuinely delivers on it.
For anyone looking for work, I'd recommend you spin up a docker container and run $someone's CLI agent in it*. I personally use Gemini at home, but you can use any you're happy with. Run up the CLI, and ask it to do some stuff. It'll go off and do some things, and you'll wonder how this is different from using ChatGPT in the browser. Then you'll realise it can read and write files, so it can look over an existing repository, or perhaps make a fresh one for you.
* You can run agents directly on your laptop too. Be aware they're still absolute crap though (even the good ones). Gemini has memory leaks, so probably has a million other bugs elsewhere that no one is fixing - the same is true of most of the others too. Personally, that's all too risky for me - they get a container and a very small mapped directory and nothing more.
Next, I suggest you look up Spec Driven Development (SDD). This is grown up vibe coding. The idea is you write a load of markdown files which specify what your app does. The AI reads them and generates code. If you don't like the code, you fix the specs and go again. Do that a bit and make an actual app you're actually happy to run for real somewhere.
Anyone 'vibe coding' is essentially the equivalent of the self-taught kid who thinks they're a coder. SDD at least makes you a professional. It takes a bit to get used to it, and to make it do the things you really want and assumed it would do all by itself (but of course it doesn't). That, I guess is the difference between "junior SDD" and "senior SDD" or whatever. The jury's out on deciding if it's actually quicker than just coding, but at least you end up with a stack of documentation (which otherwise no one ever quite gets around to writing).
Re: comms (Score:3)
"For anyone looking for work, I'd recommend you spin up a docker container and run $someone's CLI agent in it*. I personally use Gemini at home, but you can use any you're happy with. Run up the CLI, and ask it to do some stuff. It'll go off and do some things, and you'll wonder how this is different from using ChatGPT in the browser. Then you'll realise it can read and write files, so it can look over an existing repository, or perhaps make a fresh one for you."
That's pretty much what I tried last time I d
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> That's pretty much what I tried last time I delved into LLMs. It was not impressive. On the somewhat rare occasion it produced working code that was useful, the structure of the code reminded me of when I was hired to cleanup the mess at a startup that had rapidly built their system using outsourced talent and had lost control of their system
Then you need to refine your specs to say what you actually *do* want. You're the senior dev, if the junior's not doing what you want, then you've got to guide the
Re: comms (Score:2)
Its quicker to write working code than exhaustive documentation, though. That's not a value add.
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Okay, so don't apply for jobs that say they need "AI skills".
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Give the recent models a new look every few month. And the tools as well. The field is evolving rapidly. Two years ago these things could barely code, now they manage to work with large code bases given a good setup. Judging them by experiences that are a few month old is like some artists still claiming image AI couldn't do hands. Even if you're pretty sure you won't want to use them, you should at least know what they can do what you decide against.
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Re: comms (Score:2)
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You should ask Claude this question, I'm sure you'll get a detailed, helpful answer!
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That's he problem. People think AI just does things on its own and they need no skill. That's also why they think they won't find employment, while companies now seek for people with AI skills. Because without skill you can get *something* out of AI, but companies want something *good*.
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I still don't really understand what AI skills are. Communication? They want employees who can ask things? What?
This makes me laugh! I see classes at universities and colleges on using AI. Not just in the tech arena either, I'm talking liberal arts--med school, law school, you name.
As best as I can tell, "how to use AI" is more or less "don't be a dumbass."
To be succesful with AI, you need the same skills you need to be successful otherwise. Analyze problems, test solutions, think critically, etc. Unattended vibe coding or turning in of AI slop is the same as people who cribbed essays, copied and pasted from Wikipedi
Al skills? (Score:5, Insightful)
I thought these Al were really intelligent and powerful, why do I need special skills for them? Can't I just tell them what to do?
Re: (Score:3)
Is there anything in this world you can say that about? Short answer: AI can be really powerful for some things but has some glaring weaknesses too. It is not a mature discipline. It has a limited reasoning capability and is heavily dependent on the amount (cost) of processing power thrown at it. It can make bone-headed mistakes unintentionally like forget things that scrolled past out of its context window, fail basic arithmetic, be drawn into conflicts with hidden directives from the vendor, lie when stre
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p.s. I should mention the most popular related topic, what are called "AI hallucinations". It is kind of like a primitive brain, that grasps for concepts and then believes they are real, like citing a research paper that doesn't exist with a made-up title. Also things can creep into its "mind", a popular anecdote is telling an image drawing AI system "draw a room without any elephants in it". You will often get a picture of a room with many cute elephant images worked into the corners, in the drapes, the ru
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Re: Al skills? (Score:2)
The difference is Google wants you to be terse and focus on what you want, while the LLM wants you to be verbose and focus on all the little details, corner cases, and misunderstandings from the LLM.
Google makes me learn to be efficient in queries.
LLMs waste my time requiring me to be more verbose.
Re: (Score:2)
You can say the same thing about computers in general. When the computer is so powerful, why do we need programmers? Maybe the combination of computer and programmer is what is giving it the power.
Yes sir, I can google (Score:3)
There is only one rule: I have it on good authority, never type Google into Google!
Plan your exit strategy. (Score:3)
Five years ago I started telling my direct reports that they'd better start planning their exit strategy from coding and simple BA work. Get started on business and managerial skills. Prepare to go upward or out. I didn't know it would be AI specifically, but I knew that the tools were already getting sophisticated enough to signal that the front line jobs would be under threat.
Some took the advice, some didn't. Other managers were willing to tell them not to worry, which took away the sense of urgency.
I've since met with some of those folks who were looking for advice on upcoming interviews or the job search, and I've been helping as best I can, but also telling them to have Plan C figured out. Nobody wants to exit the industry and reinvent themselves... but that is the world some of them are finding themselves inhabiting.
Like it or not, we have more technical people than roles for them to fill. And the math is heartless.
Re: Plan your exit strategy. (Score:2)
Here's a glimpse of the naute of plan D: angry mob with highly technical skills are way, waaay more to be feared than just plain angry mob.
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Five years ago I started telling my direct reports that they'd better start planning their exit strategy from coding and simple BA work. Get started on business and managerial skills. Prepare to go upward or out.
Stasis is a strange animal. People want it, yet it is bad to get stuck in it. Especially in tech.
They even comfort themselves with platitudes about how stupid and evil managers are, how the C suite is stuffed with psychopaths. What I call the inverse worthiness effect. The lower one is on the food chain, the smarter and more adroit they are.
I didn't know it would be AI specifically, but I knew that the tools were already getting sophisticated enough to signal that the front line jobs would be under threat.
Yeah, and it was pretty obvious quite a while back. I knew a reckoning would come around the time the "learn to code" BS was happening - there was some politics happ
Bean counters (Score:2)
Remember, these are filthy greedy bean counters making these decisions. They are testing the waters and dropping dead weight, seeing how far they can go and how much they can nickel-and-dime you and how much they can demand in the job market they so heavily influence.
This could be a golden time for hiring talent by just NOT bullshitting people during interviews! Treat them with decency and do 2-3 rounds at absolute maximum, and you will be flooded with outstanding CVs.
And big tech will come crawling for tal
Competitive Market and Personal Networking (Score:2)
From the summary:
A former Google worker (laid off more than a year ago) says he's still job hunting, according to the article, and "he's learned it's not enough to just apply in this competitive market. Workers really need to network and leverage their connections to get seen by hiring managers and stand out."
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Thank you, Captain Obvious. There's bots screening resumes and bots submitting them. If you want to have any chance at all of getting noticed, you absolutely need to leverage your network. Simply
Re: Competitive Market and Personal Networking (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
From the summary:
A former Google worker (laid off more than a year ago) says he's still job hunting, according to the article, and "he's learned it's not enough to just apply in this competitive market. Workers really need to network and leverage their connections to get seen by hiring managers and stand out."
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Thank you, Captain Obvious.
It isn't obvious to many in here. My Slashdot experience has been that "networking" is considered a 4 letter word. Often referred to as sucking up, or schmoozing, or some version of "I hate the people I work with - why would I want to talk to or socialize with them?"
Even though I'm semi retired I still network. And people might consider that they might be more likely to keep their jobs if the people around them - including managers - actually like them.
Another protip for them - if you think everyone ab
CCNA (Score:2)
My Slashdot experience has been that "networking" is considered a 4 letter word.
Last I checked, networking was a four-letter word, and those letters were CCNA.
Re: (Score:2)
Surely your maladjusted "eat the rich" attitude will take you far.
Your pathetic "suck off the rich in the hope that they will reward me" attitude is destroying everything. Congratulations, cuck.
HTTPS (Score:3)
"What is the difference between HTTP and HTTPS?"
"Well , I know HTTPS is the secure version."
"Well, what makes it secure?"
There is so much opportunity is this fucking basic technology question to show off what you know. You can talk about CAs, (browser and system), how websites identify themselves, how people use to pay a lot of certs but now we have LetsEncrypt, how even some of the paid cert providers now use ACME challenges LetsEncrypted pioneered, man-in-the-middle, certification revocation
Zero clue what-so-ever. Some people can explain SQL-injection, but barely. If you're not out west, the talent pool is pretty bad out there.
Some foolish employers... (Score:2)
In other words employers still need professionals and Subject Matters Experts to tell the AI how to do things, what a good job looks like, how to check it, where the AI is shit, what to change etc etc.
I used AI every day. I program with AI every day. I used the same agents everyone can access but I get better results because you need to know what good is, you n
this happens with every Republican President (Score:3)
I don't have a solution for this, but maybe we need to tax millionaires and billionaires out of existance until we figure out this "full employment" thing.