IT/Software career thread: Invert binary trees for dollars.
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Control
Golden Baronet of the Realm
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Well, I don't think "we" were told that, but how else would you expect a journalist who doesn't know anything about software to talk to a reader who knows even less about software? I mean, there are obviously more reasonable ways to frame it, but I don't expect headline or sound-bite writers to be able to do that (or to care). Anyone could understand if you compared it to construction (architects aren't on your roof swinging hammers, interior designers aren't fixing pipes in your crawlspace), but ain't no journalist got time for that few seconds of thought. They've got lattes to drink! (and unemployment papers to fill out)
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Haus
I am Big Balls!
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Khane
Got something right about marriage
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AI isn't replacing people anyway, that's what the layman (the people being admonished for not understanding "coding jobs") think. There aren't less people in the workforce. They are just from other countries. Its the excuse being used to hire cheaper labor from elsewhere. Its the manufacturing exodus all over again, but its much faster and cheaper to outsource telecommute jobs.
My company has laid off around 1500 people from their American workforce over the last 2 years (and its not just developers, its HR, executives, everything), and replaced them with almost twice that many people from Brazil and India (opening offices in both those countries, these are full time, foreign employees, not contractors, not consultants, not H1B). This is what the future has in store.
My company has laid off around 1500 people from their American workforce over the last 2 years (and its not just developers, its HR, executives, everything), and replaced them with almost twice that many people from Brazil and India (opening offices in both those countries, these are full time, foreign employees, not contractors, not consultants, not H1B). This is what the future has in store.
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Control
Golden Baronet of the Realm
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Kirun
Buzzfeed Editor
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In this thread? Maybe not. Unfortunately, I don't have access to the general forums anymore, or I'd happily start posting receipts from 8-9 years ago. Back when entire politics/SJW threads were doing victory laps and ROFLcoptering over "l2code" memes.
After spending years working around so-called "white collar" and "tech" professionals, I can say without hesitation they are by far the laziest, most entitled workforce I've ever had the misfortune of dealing with (although somehow FoHers are all the Paul Bunyan's of the tech world.. shocker). The current FAFO phase (courtesy of AI and outsourcing) feels less like a tragedy and more like long-overdue karmic bookkeeping, especially given the work ethic they display. The way most of them "worked" during COVID pretty much sealed their fates.
Koushirou
Log Wizard
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The politics thread only did the “lrn2code” memes in response to the journalists who used said memes getting laid off after those same journalists repeated that to the blue collars for years and then cried about it when it was used on them. I don’t remember anyone here using it unironically towards blue collar work.
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I'm sorry that you're angry somehow, but I'd like to point out that you fell for the journalist propaganda, hook line and sinker. May I inquire if you heard about GamerGate? But I digress.
Also, it was never a moral panic. Do you know what it most likely was? The attempt to flood the market with entry level people to bring down the salaries of those, because companies had a boom and looked for cheap developers anywhere. All through an astroturf campaign.
True IT people would never, ever discourage someone from learning their trade--if you are interested in it. But at the same almost all of them will admit that after years of this shit, they second guess their career choice a lot ... and they'd be rather doing something else. So you never hear "LRN2CODE" from any of them. For the most part it is not about IT itself, but all the corporate politics and general "cover you ass" attitutde you need to have, because IT touches basically the whole corporation and every department. Yes, even facility management.
Personally, I'd rather grow roses, breed cats, or be an undertaker. Undertaker seems nice because your customers generally don't talk back.
Ironically, they tried really ... and by really I mean really fucking hard, because people who "think really hard" and are good at it are expensive. For DECADES. And they failed, for the most part. A selection:
- COBOL (this was sold to managers and not developers, promising them that they, too, can read and understand programs)
- Rapid Application Development (e.g. Microsoft Power Apps, Oracle APEX) -- which interestingly all have pivoted to claim "AI" now
- Fourth generation database languages, like Visual FoxPro
- CASE tools ("computer aided software engineering") and UML
- Low-code development
- Automatic programming
Here is the part where I'll say something and you'll feel mocked, however that is not my intention. Here it goes:
This shit, and by "this" I mean ALL OF IT, has never been exclusive, and it was never expensive to learn. You can basically learn all this shit, for free, for the most part by perusing the internet and trying it yourself. This has been the case basically since the beginnings of the Internet. I can vouch for this fact since 1996.
Why do you think some Finnish guy published his operating system kernel for free, on the internet, for everyone to use? Because he learned how to do it, also mostly for free. You can, too. How about MIT courses?
MIT OpenCourseWare | Free Online Course Materials
MIT OpenCourseWare is a web based publication of virtually all MIT course content. OCW is open and available to the world and is a permanent MIT activity
ocw.mit.edu
With the advent of the Internet we have even moved away from real, printed books. All the new technologies started moving so fast that books became obsolete once they were printed and shipped.
The education you really need is not some bootcamp, but the basics and "how it generally works" to enable you to quickly learn any language and framework. There is this old joke about how "A good C programmer can write C in any language."
Also if you call it "magical tech science", then you are the same as all the people that think the computer has a soul or something, and is responding to them on a personal level. This is 21st century techno-animism. If you ever hear someone ascribe agency, spirit, or "life" to non-human, technical entities ... you should fucking run. Because that is the point were you have yielded, and have stopped to try to understand the machine. You have basically replaced it by some form of modern religion. It is no longer science.
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TJT
Mr. Poopybutthole
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Now that is something certainly feel. I still love tech, I still love programming and tinkering, but everything else sucks. I have some family obligations I need to meet with kids and college and stuff. But in 7 years I will be done. I am currently 14 years deep in this career.
Already sketching out what my exit might look like.
Already sketching out what my exit might look like.
You forgot "Declarative Solutions." Something that is shoehorned in everywhere.
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Kirun
Buzzfeed Editor
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Oh good, "Excel sheet jockeys", the classic scapegoat. Every time this conversation gets uncomfortable, someone rolls out that same defense as a catch-all. "Ah, but those don’t count. That wasn't REAL tech."
It’s amazing how the definition of "true tech" keeps shrinking in real time. First it was "learn to code." Then it was "well, not that kind of coding." Now it's "okay, but spreadsheets don't count." Funny how the people being automated are always reclassified as "fake tech" after the threat appears. And let's not pretend Excel jockeys are some fringe species. They're the backbone of modern white-collar work: finance, operations, analytics, PMs, compliance, planning, etc. Meanwhile "real tech" debates architecture in Slack threads. For years, these roles were sold as knowledge work, high-skill, future-proof careers. Now that AI eats them alive, suddenly they're dismissed as glorified button-clickers who never mattered.
That's the pattern: Blue collar jobs get automated > "adapt or die." White collar spreadsheet work gets automated > "well, those weren't the important ones." Next up: "Sure, AI writes code, but that's not TRUE TECH! Real engineers think."
Sure they do. Just like factory managers "thought" while machines did the work. And just like those managers, many of today's "real tech" roles exist precisely because someone else used to do the grunt work manually. When the grunt work disappears, the hierarchy above it doesn't magically stay sacred.
So yeah, AI and outsourcing are chewing through Excel jockeys faster. But that's just the opening act. History suggests the people insisting they're exempt are usually next in line, loudly explaining why their job is different, complex, and misunderstood… right up until it isn't.
TJT
Mr. Poopybutthole
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Dude, an excel sheet analyst was never, ever a tech worker. A spreadsheet developer was never a thing. This person was never an engineer. There are plenty of these people in tech companies. But there are plenty of them in any company.
Keep being angry for no reason I guess.
Today your shield against outsourcing will be domain knowledge and years of experience with systems of systems and engineering them together. As AI will always be poor at that. Due to how much of the critical nuance of certain systems simply is documented poorly and always has been. Or is proprietary.
Keep being angry for no reason I guess.
Today your shield against outsourcing will be domain knowledge and years of experience with systems of systems and engineering them together. As AI will always be poor at that. Due to how much of the critical nuance of certain systems simply is documented poorly and always has been. Or is proprietary.
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Flobee
Ahn'Qiraj Raider
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I'm an engineer for a large company and we're automating everything. If it has a work plan, it will be automated. There will still be room for people that run and manage the automation but 80% of jobs will be obsolete. There will be new "white collar" jobs of course but a lot of what would have been thought of as "hard" technical work won't be done by people. One engineer will determine the how, and a small team will take the work instruction developed by the giga-brain engineer and automate it.
A large amount of what makes tech jobs hard is fixing things that you, or someone else with access did wrong. As human error is removed from processes you need less human error correction roles. There are larger issues there of course... Like you have to assume previously mentioned giga-brain engineer actually does it right... And who's going to be second guessing him when you've stripped out all the people between him and the suits? Lol gunna be a rocky road.
As for me I've been planning for my inevitable layoff since 2020 when they went mask off regarding employee value /shrug. If you're in this field and not planning a transition or how to survive a gap in employment I'd say you're being foolish.
A large amount of what makes tech jobs hard is fixing things that you, or someone else with access did wrong. As human error is removed from processes you need less human error correction roles. There are larger issues there of course... Like you have to assume previously mentioned giga-brain engineer actually does it right... And who's going to be second guessing him when you've stripped out all the people between him and the suits? Lol gunna be a rocky road.
As for me I've been planning for my inevitable layoff since 2020 when they went mask off regarding employee value /shrug. If you're in this field and not planning a transition or how to survive a gap in employment I'd say you're being foolish.
Noodleface
A Mod Real Quick
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Did you try to say engineers were telling people to go to boot camps? Or are you confusing it with journalists and idiots telling people to do that?
I guarantee 95% of engineers will tell you bootcamps are worthless.
I think you were listening to the wrong people.
I guarantee 95% of engineers will tell you bootcamps are worthless.
I think you were listening to the wrong people.
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Khane
Got something right about marriage
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I'm not sure why he thinks its acceptable and appropriate to come into a thread where none of what he is describing happened and people are commiserating about how this current state of things is effecting them in negative ways and act like that.
But sure Kirun, I guess all of us who just went into a field we enjoyed that also happened to be lucrative are now getting our "just desserts". Sure.
It was 1998 and I was 16 years old when I decided to apply to colleges for a CS degree. What a dumbass right?!
But sure Kirun, I guess all of us who just went into a field we enjoyed that also happened to be lucrative are now getting our "just desserts". Sure.
It was 1998 and I was 16 years old when I decided to apply to colleges for a CS degree. What a dumbass right?!
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Its pretty shit tbo. Its the same misery trolling he does elsewhere. He needs a fucking ban hammer from this thread too
Noodleface
A Mod Real Quick
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I remember being in highschool fascinated by video cards and went into computer engineering to design them. Actually landed not too far from that.
I figured there was some money in it, but didn't know it would become the "it" job.