Goodbye, $165,000 Tech Jobs. Student Coders Seek Work at Chipotle.

[neurosis]

Ouch!


https://archive.ph/nZyYu


Goodbye, $165,000 Tech Jobs. Student Coders Seek Work at Chipotle.
As companies like Amazon and Microsoft lay off workers and embrace A.I. coding tools, computer science graduates say they're struggling to land tech jobs.


So much for "learn to code"?



""The rhetoric was, if you just learned to code, work hard and get a computer science degree, you can get six figures for your starting salary," Ms. Mishra, now 21, recalls hearing as she grew up in San Ramon, Calif.
Those golden industry promises helped spur Ms. Mishra to code her first website in elementary school, take advanced computing in high school and major in computer science in college. But after a year of hunting for tech jobs and internships, Ms. Mishra graduated from Purdue University in May without an offer.
"I just graduated with a computer science degree, and the only company that has called me for an interview is Chipotle," Ms. Mishra said in a get-ready-with-me TikTok video this summer that has since racked up more than 147,000 views."

[TylerBeer]

Sorry you're going to have to take the 80k tech jobs.

[Brian]

We live in "Silicon Valley" and hear about this sort of thing, too. A good friend/customer/vendor here has built a nice business here doing (mostly) EDM, and his son just graduated from college with a BS in CS. He has started to work in the business mostly because he likes the work, but evidently also because it has become more difficult to get the "first job" after graduation. His dad and I are both interested to see how this shakes out, both for him personally of course, but also more generally for all recent graduates in this field.

More broadly, I think this is interesting ("concerning" is perhaps a better adjective), as it begs the question of how to commence one's career-in any field. How many of us got into machining by running a broom, or deburring parts in a shop over summer break, or being the delivery guy?

From the perspective of a business owner, how do we expect to keep the pipeline of (future) employee candidates full if we can't even provide a foundation or entry point for these folks? It's as if we removed the first three rungs of the ladder! And no....we're not going to automate the entire workflow, no matter whose flavor of AI/Automation, IOT bullshit you imbibe!

[Rstewart]

I just had this discussion other day with some people I work with (mostly software engineers and developers).  I asked them if they were going to send their kids to college for something other than CS, SW engineer, etc.

No one had a definite answer really.  Now that we have AI systems that are allowed to process IL5 & IL6 documentation, SW Devs may not be as valuable.

I work with a good amount of people that make >165k.  That goes a long way in Alabama.

[Brian]

I just had this discussion other day with some people I work with (mostly software engineers and developers).  I asked them if they were going to send their kids to college for something other than CS, SW engineer, etc.

Yeah, it will be interesting to see how all of this shakes out.

It's also interesting to ponder what this all means for our trade!

We're all participants in this big experiment called "life."

[YoDoug]

AI is to repetitive Intellectual computer work as robots are to repetitive labor. AI can do do the majority of the Code generation and PC work, the heavy lifting that replaces a lot of junior and entry level programmers, but there will still be a need for higher level professionals. Someone needs to manage all the agents producing code, as well as overall system design and orchestration. Employment in the future is going to be that which is high level AI managers and orchestrators, or intellectual/skilled physical that are hard to robotize. For the time being, lower level physical work that is not yet at a sound ROI for robotics or smaller companies that have people doing a lot of different functions are safe.

As for programming, 50%+ of my time is now programming. I have pretty much settled on Google Antigravity IDE with Claude code as primary coding Agent. Because or Antigravity's built in Agent manager I do also use Gemini Agent for research and some Unit tests. I use it produce C# or Python code for various apps. I use it to produce 61131-3 Structured Text code for PLC's, I use it to produce ABB rapid code. I have recently started using a whole system design work flow in Antigravity for automation cells. I have dedicated calude.md files for C#, Python, ABB Rapid, Codesys ST, etc standards. I have a JSON format I use for IO data sets and tracking. Instruction.promt files for each language. Standards docs for UI, themes, etc. I make a workspace for a cell and in that workspace I create separate folders for each item/program. Then as I create all the various C#, PLC, and Robot programs they have awareness of each other and overall system design and intent. Having this overall system design knowledge also make producing documentation, help files, troubleshooting guides, etc. easy. I am the system architect and manager, but AI Agents do the heavy lifting.

That workflow is very much the current state of "Vibe" coding and AI programming. This is why programmers are getting laid of by the thousands. AI can do the bulk of repetitive coding tasks. For some time to come, there will still be a need for system architects, managers, etc.

And, for any CNC programmer reading this, this same thing will happen to CAD/CAM in the future. As more AI Agents are built to understand CNC programming and CAM software, the less programmer that will be needed. A human architect/manager running AI assisted software will produce what takes 5+ programmers to produce now.

As for the future, I don't know when the AI will get smart enough to start to drastically reduce the number of AI architect/managers, but I'm hoping that will be at least 10-15 years so I can finish my career. I have fully embraced every AI tool I can to make me more productive and maximize my earning potential while I still can. 

[TylerBeer]

Doug you're a smart guy, where do you see the progression of this - what is the next step for those that would have done this programming?  We've gone through this transition - but some jobs like machinists got decimated - the way AI is going the scale of obsolescence may be exponential. I don't know what it means for society, my positive hope is it just leads to the next "thing" that will require a different type of work

[YoDoug]

Doug you're a smart guy, where do you see the progression of this - what is the next step for those that would have done this programming?  We've gone through this transition - but some jobs like machinists got decimated - the way AI is going the scale of obsolescence may be exponential. I don't know what it means for society, my positive hope is it just leads to the next "thing" that will require a different type of work

I'm not very optimistic about the distant future. In the entirety of human existence people have always been greedy. It's not going to change because of AI. In the future we are going to see a massive shift. Currently humans produce value in 2 ways, production and consumption. That will change to the majority of humans being mostly just consumers. That being said, the only way billionaires get to become trillionaires is to take away all things that don't contribute as consumers. Homeownership, automobile ownership, 401k's, will be only for the few in society that still are needed for production, IE, the AI managers and tech people. The high UBI that Musk keeps spouting off about will only be high enough to make sure you can consume enough to keep the elite's wealth growing. You can rent your housing, transpo, etc. from them. It will also come with a lot of strings like digital currency, completely tracked life, etc.

The near future for work will be a slow change. There are roughly 160 million people employed in the US. AI and robotics will take a good portion of those jobs over the next decade, but it will take some time to take the majority. Small businesses will be slow to adopt. The ROI and logistics of implementing humanoid robots and other AI driven advancements will take time to reach levels acceptable for small business. UBI will not really take hold until we start seeing unemployment in the 20%+, until then the economy will sustain although the middle class will shrinking will accelerate. When UBI does start the remaining jobs will still pay and offer a slightly better life, but because of the amount of competition for those jobs, pay/benefits will be capped by market dynamics. A lot of people say learn a trade instead of college or white collar or tech work, the problem is, the US doesn't need 20 million plumbers.

More specifically to your question, in programming type tech jobs, there will be a transition for some time. Currently there is way too many workers. You will see wages and benefits slowly degrade as the competition for remaining jobs increase. Far less people will start seeking education in those fields. Eventually it will balance out as older experienced workers leave the workforce those jobs will open up to the remaining workers. It is going to be rough for a decade or two.

I have told my kids this scenario for the future. They ask what can they do. My advice is while they are in their 20's, do everything they can to get $100K invested. They can't wait until their 30's or 40's to think about building wealth. If it means they live at home until they are 30 and/or work multiple jobs and/or live like they are poor, it is imperative they start to build that base now while the still can. To get a little metaphoric about, JFK said a rising tide raises all boats. The issue is we need to start looking what exactly is a boat and what is the tide. Employment and income can no longer be considered the boat and the tide. Your investments are your boat and the market/economy is the tide.

For me personally, that is why I am not as active on here. I really have stopped following politics and tried to remove more distractions from my life. I spend a lot more of my free time now learning and studying. I am working on building my consulting business. I have enough in my 401k/investments that we will be able to retire and not be dependent on gov, but I also know it could be better. I don't know if I will figure out a way to build or at least start real generational wealth over the next decade or so, but I know it won't happen if I waste my time following politics and arguing with people I never met about shit I have no effect on.

Lastly, as a guy who works with robots, I see a massive opportunity in Raas (robots as a service) coming soon. In the early days of the humanoid robot takeover, most small businesses will not be ready or tech qualified to integrate them. I think there will be an opportunity for third party integrators to have fleets or robots for lease with integration teams to get them set up. this will be some of shifting work type for out of work programmers and tech. Some one will need to come in asses job functions, create integrations, API work, and bridge applications to get these robots tied into a company's systems and processes. Develop training systems and processes for the robots. Validation, and testing, etc.

[Here's Johnny!]

As for the future, I don't know when the AI will get smart enough

According to Musk it will be soon enough!


https://youtu.be/Q7FR-so-7Kw?si=7fvA_YLWNSS5FECq

Also says Humanoid robots will out number humans.

https://youtu.be/oQjTKMgh2J8?si=wgB-uXv45fOAUoLl

[megatronprime]

A lot of the giants in tech have been laying off a lot of people too, the market definitely became oversaturated in the 2020's due to a number of factors such as high enrolment in computer science, and a wave of mass hiring at google and meta. There also are a large number of temporary workers or h1B to compete with in the industry depending on your location.

As far as coding goes, I wouldn't trust code written by an ai too far, there are a lot of small nuances that might slip past an llm in programming, of course there are things humans miss too..

In my opinion ai isn't at the level of coding to compare with actual programmers, there are some very smart people out there, I would say the overall products have improved in terms of processing files and doing agentic tasks, but the actual performance gains have been marginal and there are many regressions, it's not going anywhere..

[rdshear]

I was surprised how fast AI did this:

[YoDoug]

it's not going anywhere..

Once upon a time manual machinist said that exact thing about CNC machines. Carburetor mechanics about fuel injection, etc.

Yes AI code is still not at the level of top programmers, but at the rate it has progressed in just a couple years, in a few more it will be better than 99% of top programmers.

[Here's Johnny!]

I was surprised how fast AI did this:

Apparently the paid versions of AI are much faster and more capable. Not sure how they are going to keep these LLM from copyright infringements.

[YoDoug]

Apparently the paid versions of AI are much faster and more capable. Not sure how they are going to keep these LLM from copyright infringements.

As far as coding, most IDE's have access to the latest models regardless of the subscription tier. They say it is just rate limits. However, I think I have noticed a lot of improvement when I moved my subscriptions up to the top tier. 

There are a couple of big lawsuits right now against a few of the AI companies claiming copyright infringement.

[megatronprime]

Apparently the paid versions of AI are much faster and more capable. Not sure how they are going to keep these LLM from copyright infringements.

The 200$/month chatgpt plan for business is good, you get fast inference and u can make long ai videos and such, capable ai agents, Sam Altman says open ai loses a lot of money for each account, because people are using it much more than they anticipated.

They have an api too, so u can embed chatgpt into any app and just pay for tokens that it needs to generate.

For coding there is a new app that is popular right now called cursor, I would look at that one for sure based on reviews but i havent tried it.

They recently faced backlash for a large hike in prices