Is it true that less number of Tech employees will be needed in future compared to past years ?
Posted by Individual-Jacket928@reddit | ExperiencedDevs | View on Reddit | 27 comments
Note- not AI doom post just need to clear my doubt
As you guys know and aware about the current job market
How Big Tech companies are laying off their employees because of rapid AI Investment
Everyday i see layoffs news
Competition among CSE Graduates is high
So many question is ,
Is it true that less tech employees will be needed in future compared to previous years
Like most people are saying AI ain't replacing jobs it's just reducing count and software field is only for top 5% skilled people
Like example 1 Skilled Software Engineer with best AI tools can do Job of 4-5 Average Software Engineers
If it's true then I always wonder about what will happen to rest of the students ?
Will they face huge problems and unemployment ?
What are your thoughts about it
Just need clarity about this
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throwaway_0x90@reddit
Not less, different
CrispsInTabascoSauce@reddit
Tech is a shrinking field. Everything else is cope. Yes, going forward companies will need less and less people. Layoffs are only going to increase.
Individual-Jacket928@reddit (OP)
Damn I always wonder what will happen to CS Grads who are in huge number
Not everyone can't get Job thi
Idea-Aggressive@reddit
The tech field employed a lot of non technical folks, people who studied Literature or working as a psychologist. Even nurses.
Similarly, somebody with a CS will be valuable as an “AI operator” or any of the names they come up with. The diference is that they won’t be seen as special as in the past. But more like the 2000s IT guy doing work that no one wants to do and badly paid…
It’s sad.
CrispsInTabascoSauce@reddit
If there is no jobs, people aren’t gonna get hired. That’s practically what’s happening.
maxip89@reddit
No. It's just a marketing hoax.
Do you saw someone maintaining a system with AI?
Yes? How fast is the company gone bankrupt?
Seriously, even the big tech companies got it, to not use ai anymore.
Idea-Aggressive@reddit
A good professional today, doesn’t need a “SCRUM master” and several meetings. Much less hundreds of developers slowing them down. You’re delusional if you think that these LLM and the current future of AI is not disruptive.
We’re progressing to more centralised systems and networks. How many apps do you use? Some average people use less than 4.
LLMs are used heavily by the average Joe daily!
Individual-Jacket928@reddit (OP)
Then why big Tech spending billions in AI if they don't want to use it anymore ??
You can see layoffs on daily basis
0vl223@reddit
Have you seen their stock price explode? That's the reason to sell AI. And the reason they try to get others to buy AI with empty promises.
U_L_Uus@reddit
Yeah... if you are going to count on AI... this might not be the future you envision.
Sure, AI is a useful tool and all, but it has a lot of weak spots. Besides those related to LLMs one of them is their cost. Unlike other tools (e.g. computers whose avaliability by the likes of Commodore really allowed the layperson to be able to use one) they can not be cheapened.
Sure, you can run a local model, but the main cost is not only computing power, but also the huge databanks which it uses to predict information from. Until now its usage has been heavily subsidized, and that is changing. Some days ago there was this post here about the changes in billing by Github on their Copilot IDE.
The estimate is that they, at OP's company, were facing an expenditure fifteen times the former one. Thus, our five-times-worth SE would now cost fifteen times what he did before so it would be like paying three people to do the work of one. Which, from a mere costs standpoint, is a huge problem.
Thus, while I think that AI will not vanish into the night and that it will be used, the future that the AI peddlers sell of replacing workers with AI while they gloat in profits will just not be a thing
Idea-Aggressive@reddit
I think there’s going to be less need of programmers. You’ll still have problems to solve, but that’ll be driven by the domain. A product minded engineering practice will be more into play.
The ones lucky to keep their jobs during the transformation period, which may take a few years, will likely have the ability to secure other roles in the future since they won’t have any gaps, and HR will not filter them out. Millions of people will leave the field, they just don’t know it yet!
For example, somebody who might not be as talented as the average experienced software engineer here, that has a job, who works in popular companies, tweaking prompts, will cash in big. In fact they’ll have full control of who gets hired and make it as difficult as they wish. You can see examples of how they work in any of their open source projects; some of these people started during Covid from 12 weeks bootcamps.
It’ll be very hard to find out who’s actually capable because LLM can do a lot for you. Some people will be under the radar for years as long the company profitable.
A lot of talent will realise they need to start their own business and will bring new ideas to the market. The very few successful, will force the industry to question their work force, demanding innovation, rapid growth and that’ll cause further layoffs.
As a lot more people start looking for jobs, those hiring practices they have originally created will crush them, causing most to never get hired again or at the compensation and equity of the past. The difference between what they think are worth and reality will cause them to lose opportunities of interviewing regardless of any sounding company names.
The ones working in complex environments such as infrastructure, system engineering always had it rough. They’ll still be valued and work will be highly available for them. But as before, interviewing for these opportunities will keep being hard and as people retire, we’ll soon realise the youth had no incentive to study computer science and software engineering and will be extremely hard to find good professionals which will cause companies to start easing the recruitment process for these people.
Sales, marketing will keep going! As capital start flooding back to startups in digital transformation initiatives some people will secure work for some time, until failure.
Finally, most popular AI companies will keep adding features and products destroying SaaS and other small businesses.
Robotics going to become a field of greater importance and innovation.
Programming as you know it, as a way of employability is fading away.
In summary, there’ll be less need for software from now on, specially because capital will flood to hardware and compute. A lot of people were employed to work on projects with no chances of profitability and some of them are workers with no true passion to make it ever work.
Secret_Jackfruit256@reddit
1 month old account…
This got to be part of some coordinated effort to scare us, every frikking day there’s something trying to make us feel obsolete, even when evidence seems to prove the opposite
Individual-Jacket928@reddit (OP)
You seems to doing ragebait lol I see I have already written its not AI doom post just clearing my doubt
Ok-Host2005@reddit
I personally think it is creating huge opportunity. It’s just a case of whether people are willing to take those or not.
Individual-Jacket928@reddit (OP)
How ? Will AI not become much advance in future ? Like currently it may be average but in future it can be capable of reducing job roles
You can see tech companies are not much hiring now compared to past years
wardrox@reddit
In future lots of things cause changes to jobs, but... The track record now exists and shows the hype to be mostly unfounded, adoption of technology is always slower than expected, and AI only solves one part of the work.
There's many ways to easily make a website without technical skills, and there has been for decades now. Yet, more people now are employed to make websites.
Change is coming, just like always.
Ok-Host2005@reddit
Yes because it’s powerful you can do great things with it. That’s opportunity.
mllv1@reddit
What’s one good thing that’s been done with it
chosenoneisme@reddit
The demand remained consistent but the supply for the demand is much higher that's why there is this unemployment crisis.
Its like for 1 job there is 5 people or 10. That's whys it is hard to find a job nowadays. Ai has nothing to do with it. The layoffs are due to bad management decisions occured during Covid.
bombaytrader@reddit
The headcount’s haven’t decreased significantly yet.
Individual-Jacket928@reddit (OP)
Yeah But don't you think AI has also bit bit little role ?
chosenoneisme@reddit
Maybe
MatMathQc@reddit
yes... but no... Before we have 10 non technical startup owner that hunted down engineer, now they can do it themself. So a lot of less technical people can now "code". Big team might scale down yes but there is so many area that would benefit from a big upgrade. Just look at the amount of paperwork in the world and the number of people doing it, we need Tech driven people to fix the issue and make it more automated, so it might not be in big tech company but in a lot of smaller startup.
tortilla_mia@reddit
It could create a new boom. More AI deployments could mean more engineers required to run them. AI could lead to more work being done meaning more revenue incentivizing more deployments to make more money.
Bemteb@reddit
The world always changes.
Back in the old days, computer was an actual job, someone who did computations on paper. A little more recent you had people doing what a compiler does these days. So jobs do get lost.
On the other hand, a few decades ago there wasn't a single web developer. And look at now, webdev is one of the biggest groups of devs.
Same with the current changes. There will be jobs gone, but others created. The world needs both people going with the times and legacy experts; for the latter see banks and cobol.
Unfortunately, no one has invented a good crystal ball so far, thus we can all only guess and not offer clarity.
Last_Ad3456@reddit
Could be the other way around as software dev becomes more accessible, there will be more software and a larger need, especially for skilled devs, which outweigh the effectively boost that ai tools give.
But to be honest, there are too many unknowns to for us to know anything for certain now. The above is just my theory/hope