It doesn't have to be either-or. I think there are a bunch of factors all contributing to the current state of developer job market:
1. Rise of remote work: sure, it was there in some form. But prior to 2020, state of the remote work tools was abysmal. The prevalent culture was also about hiring the whole teams. After covid, remote work tools are far better. And companies learned to onboard one new remote hire at a time which over time is now allowing them to replace US workers with cheap overseas ones at a manageable pace.
2. end of cheap money - if the risk free rate is 4-5%, the demand from risky ventures like software startups is going to go up. So funding has dried up at the margins.
3. rise in the discount rate - related to the previous point, the discount rate one applies to investments have gone up. That means startups valued at 1B are now valued only at a few hundred millions. So to avoid down or flat rounds, startups have to cut costs drastically and show profitability to justify a higher valuation. Cue all the job cuts, belt tightening and death marches with a skeleton crew.
4. rise of AI - AI is helping with productivity of coding and non-coding tasks. It is also acting as an excuse for #3 when laying people off.
In my experience, all these are meaningful factors for the abysmal state of the developer market.
Definitely agree that it's not mutually exclusive, however I think 4 is likely orders of magnitude less impactful than the others...so far. Which isn't to say the effects won't start to magnify soon.
I think most of the trends we are seeing started around 2022, but if AI delivers on its promise things may accelerate in the coming years.
I can understand your sentiment in the first two paragraphs, even though I think remote work was bound to fail for most of the companies simply because it is hard to update the culture. Broadcom mandated in-office work even during COVID as soon as the strictest lockdowns were lifted. And yet Broadcom stock is up 5x since 2022, so they are not missing out on anything by embracing the office. Same with Meta (mandated RTO, stock up 7x).
> the West, which has already lost so much, will lose what little remains
The West already advanced a lot until 2020 by working from office. If anything, fully remote conditions are a death knell for software jobs in the rich parts of the world. Most of the SW jobs do not require special talent and can be done for a fraction of the cost from Latin America, Eastern Europe, Africa or India.
The world is changing, yes, once upon a time, most innovation happened in person, because with the technology of the time, it was necessary to be there in person. But today's technology has made being there in person superfluous and inefficient. This means that some will continue remotely and they will be the ones who overtake those who have stuck to the old model.
The Bronze Age was characterised by bronze, which allowed for many advancements. But then we discovered iron, and those who chose it first massacred those who had remained with bronze. Bronze was no longer what had allowed for evolution; it had been surpassed.
This is my feeling and my point. These changes are obviously not that rapid; culture changes across generations, but they will happen, and those who are left bolted behind will not have the long and slow experimentation and refinement that allowed to master the new, and so they will simply be crushed. Software developed around the world matters little; quality software is so rare that only by working globally can we still create it. No single company, not even a single whole population, can truly do it on scale.
> But today's technology has made being there in person superfluous and inefficient.
Hard disagree. Lots of otherwise talented people still have problems with written communication or other norms of remote work. They thrive in an office though.
Mere proof of that is a lot of startups which are still flocking to SF and mandating in-person presence 5 (or 7) days a week so that they can move fast.
> and I see firsthand the way these people just waste time walking around with a coffee-cup shooting the breeze, or sitting in half-day meetings.
This point is a bit naive or misguided. Slackers are to be found in a fully remote setup as well. Also, hustlers like Soham Parekh or North Koreans impersonators are only possible in a fully remote setup.
The methodology finally addresses a pet peeve of mine to adjust based on prices and hours worked: "we ranked 178 countries using three measures. The first is GDP per person at market exchange rates. It is simple and intuitive, and widely cited. But it ignores price differences between countries. The second measure adjusts incomes for these local costs (known as purchasing-power parity, or PPP). This offers a better guide to living standards but one that takes no account of leisure time: the share of people in work, and how long they work, varies by country. Our final yardstick accounts for both local prices and hours worked"
NB: "average" can mean any of three measures of central tendency: the mean (sum/count), the median (middle value), or the mode (most frequently occurring value). All three may be valid choices in specific contexts.
Whilst it's common to interpret "average" as "mean", this isn't strictly accurate or reliable.
The Economist's article errs in failing to distinguish which measure of central tendency is actually meant by "average".
Can someone more versed in macro economics clarify to me, to what extent "price differences between countries." goes?
Like are we just comparing simple goods: grocery, white wares, cars, fuel/electricity etc the price of these things there. Or are we also considering things such as: need to save money for Healthcare, University, credit card transaction fee, housing cost (mortgage), required amount of fuel for basic functioning of everyday life?
The latter is basically stuff that is either cheap or free in certain places while astronomically high in other (US, but I guess housing price is everywhere if city).
I feel like layman AND economist doesn't truly account (or even understand) how different some countries have it on those metrics; A person in Tokyo or most capital cities in Europe can get away with ZERO fuel + car cost, while for Americans that's a death sentence. Same for Healthcare. So comparing those prices doesn't even make sense to begin with, but leaving it out is a major boost to places where salaries are high (US) but the (hidden) cost are not measured.
> The latter is basically stuff that is either cheap or free in certain places
Healthcare is absolutely not free anywhere. It maybe that the costs are indirect via government taxation and benefits are curtailed via rationing or simply unavailability of certain types of care.
Sure. But that again depends on calculation? If we are talking about "disposable income" in the average statistic (after tax) then ofc anywhere that does it through tax will have lower purchasing power because it's (easy to be) included. While places where it's mostly out of your pocket (or private) you can only really do an educated guess.
Ofc it's not free. But the point is that in the way you calculate, it can present as free. My question is to what extent do they calculate
And seems to vary with the economic situation just like everywhere else.
Plus quite a few North African countries ... well, they're just lying. Look at Egypt, even Tunisia ... these figures are just not possible, they're either misclassified or just lies.
I think the real underlying premise is that Elon is unhinged, cannot be trusted and just makes stuff up. Self driving Teslas were going to launch "next year" since 2017. DOGE was going to find 1-2T dollars worth of waste in our budgets. Thai rescue diver was a pedophile. etc.
For all I know, SOTA model can be a copy with some additive work on Claude or OpenAI models.
You are exactly right that the underlying premise is a dislike of Musk, who has famously made mistakes, I too am critical of all of the things you listed.
So, if a very contentious personality is involved, is there any purpose or value in pointing out seriously flawed assumptions/POV/rationale?
Another example is the excessive divisiveness in politics, what would make discussions around those topics better? In my opinion, it would be better to rein in serious factual errors, even if the errors skew towards "my side"
It's about the ideas, and the idea is bad. It would be bad if Elon Musk came up with it, it would be bad if Martin Luther wrote it down on a handkerchief on the eve of his death.
Do we want to discuss this on merits, or are we concerned that the merit of the idea might undermine... checks clipboard ...commercial LLM businesses cashing R&D checks expensed by the US taxpayer?
“The idea” is that (the only) megaconstellation sat internet provider is investing in and partnering with an AI company. On its face that seems to make sense to me. If it does not make sense, why not? The reasons you have given are irrelevant and also false.
The “taxpayer” (govt) pays SX a very low rate for launches, and gets an excellent product in return. In what way is the “taxpayer” being swindled?
I don't know if you are being sarcastic or not, but most kids do follow rules. Only a few have hacker spirit, which should be over represented here on Hacker News, but is not that prevalent in society.
This is not happening in a vacuum. The reasons are - Instagram inspiring me with beautiful stories of my friends visiting these exotic locales, cheap and easy ways to be a tourist thanks to low cost airlines and AirBnB, ease of spending in local currencies thanks to credit cards and apps where I never have to carry any cash, answers at fingertips for almost any question I might have about venturing to these places.
In short, any desirable place is going to attract hordes of merely affluent tourists thanks to multiple converging tech trends. If you experience any friction in your travel plans, please share. There might be a startup idea in there /s
I was planning to spend a few weeks in November working from Mexico City. It seems to be a cool place with cheap CoL, great food and lots of entertainment options. Some friends recommended a few AirBnB's as well.
But it seems I am a villain for Mexico City residents now.
1. Rise of remote work: sure, it was there in some form. But prior to 2020, state of the remote work tools was abysmal. The prevalent culture was also about hiring the whole teams. After covid, remote work tools are far better. And companies learned to onboard one new remote hire at a time which over time is now allowing them to replace US workers with cheap overseas ones at a manageable pace.
2. end of cheap money - if the risk free rate is 4-5%, the demand from risky ventures like software startups is going to go up. So funding has dried up at the margins.
3. rise in the discount rate - related to the previous point, the discount rate one applies to investments have gone up. That means startups valued at 1B are now valued only at a few hundred millions. So to avoid down or flat rounds, startups have to cut costs drastically and show profitability to justify a higher valuation. Cue all the job cuts, belt tightening and death marches with a skeleton crew.
4. rise of AI - AI is helping with productivity of coding and non-coding tasks. It is also acting as an excuse for #3 when laying people off.
In my experience, all these are meaningful factors for the abysmal state of the developer market.