How should software engineers adapt to AI-driven layoffs?

10 points by nguyentranvu 21 hours ago | 21 comments

With major tech companies laying off mid-level engineers due to AI efficiency gains, what strategies are engineers using to stay competitive?

I'm interested in both immediate adaptations from those affected and how upcoming CS graduates are preparing for an AI-augmented industry.

What does the engineering career look like in the future ?

Terr_ 20 hours ago | next |

Assuming it's a real trend rather than hype/excuses... It'll be interesting to see all the bugs and maintenance headaches that occur on a delay. That said, the job market can probably stay irrational longer than I can stay solvent.

I expect to lean heavily on softer skills like "being able to collaborate with product owners help them figure out what they actually want to build", or "able to usefully simplify concepts in a way that helps non-developers make decisions."

paradite 20 hours ago | prev | next |

I recently wrote my thoughts on this topic.

https://github.com/paradite/ai-replace-swe

Short answer: Leverage AI, become more productive with AI and make sure you can output more value than just AI itself. Also move up the value chain to product management, team management.

kasey_junk 8 hours ago | root | parent |

It’s a strange idea that team management is going to be more valuable if individual engineers are more productive.

I’m actually _more_ worried about team managers than line engineers when it comes to AI impact.

paradite 2 hours ago | root | parent | next |

I think someone needs to "manage" these AI engineers still, to supervise them working, and review code, PRs.

It's less about personal development, but more on performance management.

matt_s 6 hours ago | root | parent | prev |

AI can’t attend meetings and converse with humans on other teams to understand what the priorities are, what features need to be built, what issues are happening, etc.

gdhkgdhkvff 4 hours ago | prev | next |

Senior eng at a big tech here. Layoffs have nothing to do with AI. There’s more work to do then any time in recent memory because of the shift going on with AI enablement. Layoffs are because of a few things.

1. Coordinated layoffs flood the market with talent forcing wages down overall and creating a chilling effect for existing employees. Believe it or not, layoffs are actually having the reverse effect from what some might think. They don’t make people want to leave, they make people scared to leave.

2. Wall Street loves layoffs.

3. Money is more expensive now.

4. Layoffs have a performative aspect for the incoming administration that all tech execs are so desperately trying to publicly please.

5. The narrative that “tech employees are lazy mooches” that’s been pushed by tech execs in alternative media has become mainstream. Places like the AllIn podcast and anything that Musk posts on Twitter have been pushing this narrative for a while and people have bought it. Since people think this now, it gives tech execs much more leeway in cutting employees “because they were underperforming” rather than “because we don’t have enough money” or “because Wallstreet wants us to.”

Ask any manager at big tech companies. They’ve been WANTING to hire for like 2 years now, but hiring freezes because of budget constraints have left them without the wanted headcount. Pretty strange that managers almost universally have been wanting to hire, but been told “no we don’t have the budget,” but then layoffs come through and it’s “because ai is handling all the work!”

scarface_74 18 hours ago | prev | next |

It’s funny, when this article was submitted earlier today…

https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/careers/you-blamed-dei-for-hur...

Someone said that people would start blaming AI.

It’s not AI. There are too many people chasing too few jobs and the BigTech companies aside from Google are focusing on profitable segments.

The IPO market is dead and which caused the entire VC Ponzi scheme to collapse.

As far as upcoming CS graduates? They are screwed. Why would most companies want to hire new grads when there are proven experienced people looking for jobs?

gnz11 14 hours ago | root | parent |

New grads will work for less and less compensation?

scarface_74 13 hours ago | root | parent |

And they are spending months doing negative work. How much use are new grads for the first year? Especially with remote work, you can find plenty of experienced CRUD/enterprise/framework devs willing to work for $125K.

RicoElectrico 20 hours ago | prev | next |

Is it really AI or an excuse for a COVID / low interest rates over-hire?

I find it very confusing that everyone took the AI narrative at face value, and the AI "replacement" as fait accompli. Did it happen at all? At best, AI is intern level right now.

exitb 16 hours ago | prev | next |

So, Salesforce stops hiring software engineers, but OpenAI has 20 pages of open positions? That doesn't sound quite right.

AznHisoka 16 hours ago | root | parent |

That makes complete sense to me. OpenAI is selling shovels and putting $$$ into improving and selling those shovels.

Salesforce (and other app builders) are buying those shovels (AI) to lower costs to build applications

exitb 10 hours ago | root | parent |

Keeping this analogy, I guess it would be like not using shovels to build a shovel factory. Obviously, OpenAI needs a group of very talented experts, which are not getting replaced by AI soon, but they hire for all kinds of positions, including regular software engineers.

kadushka 7 hours ago | root | parent |

Even if OpenAI hires 1000 people this year at $1M salary each, that’s just $1B. This year they plan to spend $8.7B. People they hire are still competitive with their best models, so why not hire people?

Though I’ll be surprised if they’re still hiring two years from now.