Generative AI as Seniority-Biased Technological Change

its like how the generic "we take anyone" online security degree has poisoned that market -- nothing but hoards of entry level goobers, but no real heavy hitters on the mid-to-high end. put another way, the market is tight but there are still reasonable options for seniors.

then again we live under capitalism

Other than that, I guess developing software in some capacity while doing a non-strictly software job - say, in accounting, marketing, healtcare, etc. This might not be a relevant number of people if 'vibe coding' takes hold and the fundamentals are not learned/ignored by these accountants, marketers, healthcare workers, etc.

If that is the case, we'd have a lot of 'informed beginners' with 10+ years of experience tangentially related to software.

Edit: As a result of the above, we might see an un-ironic return to the 'learn to code' mantra in the following years. Perhaps now qualified 'learn to -actually- code'? I'd wager a dollar on that discourse popping up in ~5 years time if the trend of not hiring junior devs continues.

For the tech side, we've reduced behavioral questions and created an interview that allows people to use cursor, LLMs, etc. in the interview - that way, it's impossible to cheat.

We have folks build a feature on a fake code base. Unfortunately, more junior folks now seem to struggle a lot more with this problem

companies must do this, 'cause if they don't then their competition will (i.e. the pressure)

of course, we can collectively decide to equally value labor and profit, as a symbiotic relationship that incentivizes long term prosperity. but where's the memes in that

When you constrict the market like they have done, you naturally get distortions, and the adversarial nature of the market fails to perform economic calculation potentially leading to grave consequences. Even at this point, whipsaws would be quite destructive. I know people who have abandoned their careers due to lack of job availability for the foreseeable future. They were searching for years with no recovery.

When you destroy a pipeline of career development for short-term profit which is possible because of the decoupled nature of money-printing/credit facility, decisions made are psychologically sticky. When there is no economic benefit for competency, the smart people leave for a market where this is possible.

The smart people I know right now are quietly preparing for socio-economic collapse as a result of runaway money-printing. When you have a runaway dangerous machine, you can either step back and let it destroy itself (isolating yourself), or you can accelerate the breakdown of its dependent cycles. Many choose the former, since the latter carries existential risk for no real benefit in the short-term but the latter would result in the least amount of causalties.

70% of the economy covers the white-collar market, which will be gone soon, not because the jobs can be replaced by AI, but because the business leaders in consolidated industry all decide to replace workers becoming the instrument of their own demise through deflationary economics.

I have always kept that latter point to myself at work - the next generation have to learn somewhere, and training them can be a pleasure (depending on the person) - but even quite good folk with 4-5 years of experience need (what feels like) a lot of assistance to understand/follow the architecture laid out for them.

I don’t use AI to help me code because IME it’s no better than an enthusiastic junior dev who doesn’t learn, and helping them learn is the main reason I might want to work with such a dev.

- Generative AI is genuinely capable enough to replace entry level workers at a lower cost.

- The hype around Generative AI is convincing people who make hiring decisions that it is capable enough to replace entry level workers at a lower cost.

- The hype around Generative AI is being used as an excuse to not hire during an economic downturn.

Could even still be other things too.

I think it's the expectation. We have some publicized examples of needing to hire people back. My company isn't laying off, but they also aren't hiring much, especially at the entry level. They're also trying to force attrition with PIPs and stuff. If it was a right now thing, they'd just layoff.

Also, just because coding gets 30% faster (say some studies), doesn't mean that's a 30% reduction in headcount since many tasks are about design and stuff. This seems to further point to a lack of hiring being anticipatory in my estimation.

So companies reduce junior hiring because their work is relatively less valuable, and they can meet their goals by shuffling existing resources. When they can't do that, they go for seniors since the immediate bang for the buck is higher (ofc, while depleting the global pipeline that actually produces seniors in the long run, in a typical tragedy of the commons)

I'm not disputing your point, but I'm curious: given that the main headline measures that we tend to see about the US economy right now involve the labour market. How do you establish the counterfactual?

Young people are cheap and they love AI!

I personally think we're still a ways from the latter...

In the late 90s you weee considered a prodigy if you understood how to use a search engine. I had so many opportunities simply because I could find and retain information.

So LLMs have solved this. Knowing a framework or being able to create apps is not a marketable skill any longer. What are we supposed to do now?

It’s the soft skills that matter now. Being well liked has always been more important in a job than being the best at it. We all know that engineer who knows they are hot shit but everyone avoids because they are insufferable.

Those marketing people don’t need to spend a week on their deck any longer. They can work the customer relationship now.

Knowing how to iterate with an LLM to give the customer exactly what they need is the valuable skill now.

You have to somehow have the discipline to avoid getting caught up in the noise until the hype starts to fade away.