I know the leftist in me is supposed to have sympathy for these people and get them to unionize. But only after I stop laughing and enjoying this moment. For years these fucks told the rest of us to “learn to code” and pretended like studying anything else at uni was a fucking waste of time.
GUESS WHAT FUCKERS. SO WAS CODING. Looks like we’ll be baristas together, only I’ll have three years of experience!!!
You must log in or register to comment.
A handful of speculative super-bubbles are on the verge of popping (one might argue that sites like Twitter have already popped and just won’t admit it).
The overwhelming majority of software engineers and systems architects and coders are either
a) doing just fine in their non-imploding industries, such as finance and energy and manufacturing
b) eating the same pile of dogshit they’ve been eating for the last 30 years, assuming they’re doing entertainment software or working Fivr jobs or otherwise engaged in the most precarious forms of software development work
This isn’t bad news for coders. This is bad news for Silicon Valley VCs and their promise of unlimited borrowing capacity.
Yes, I have been in software development for close to 15 years and I have never seen it this bad. Everyone seems to mythologize 2008 but I was working age in those years and it is just as bad now as it was then; maybe worse, especially seeing as we weren’t collectively in denial about a plague wiping out millions of the working population at the time. It has been almost 1.5 years since I was furloughed, and I don’t even get calls back anymore. Echoing sentiment elsewhere in this thread that tech workers are an especially clueless bunch as far as class relations, too; I have been attempting to organize for as long as I’ve been in this field and absolutely none of them want it. We had experienced the largest white collar labor leverage in living memory (mandatory remote work) that we just let them take from us because this field is all miserable men who can’t actually stand to be around their families and nonexistent home life. It would be remarkable if it weren’t fucking all of us over, and they all love it. Very bleak.
Everyone seems to mythologize 2008 but I was working age in those years and it is just as bad now as it was then; maybe worse
One point I’ve seen making that case that it’s not as bad as 2008 is that this time companies mostly aren’t shutting down, but instead just downsizing. Which is true, but I think part of that is just because the economy is more “consolidated” into large companies than before. Think of the Apple car or Metaverse shutting down and presumably laying off most of the people on those projects; each likely had at least a few hundred employees, which in 2008 could have been entire companies. Or AWS, which most of the western internet runs on at this point, if they layoff 10% of their employees that’s potentially thousands of engineers putting pressure on the rest of the tech labor market, yet on the surface it doesn’t look that bad since AWS continues to exist and “it’s just 10%”.
I think this is mostly going to end up hurting PMC ghouls who were middle managers at like Google, Facebook, or Twitter, at least in the long run. The world would have to radically collapse in order for coding/IT jobs to stop growing in general, since every business and industry is only going to get increasingly entangled with digital technology. What’s drying up are the “Lead Metaverse Development Specialist” type positions, as the US Government slows down the free money tap and giant tech conglomerates have to stop setting cash on fire.
That’s all to say: I think it’s fine to laugh at this. If these people have real skills beyond “project management,” they’ll probably be fine (or as fine as anyone) eventually; they might just have to get real jobs.
Yeah this anecdotally checks out. We had lay offs at my company and like 80% of people affected were management of some type. They specifically didn’t cut people “that contribute” so kinda just admitting how bullshit many of these jobs are. Some junior level devs were affected too though and that was sad of course
Shoutout to my dad in 2020 who told me to become a blockchain developer because it was the future.
I am not a programmer at all, btw.
What was that saying, uhh, um, “in a gold rush, pan for gold”?
Learn to code bros have fallen. All that’s left are the Go to trade school bros who act like trades are completely free to learn, guarantee unionized employment and don’t absolutely destroy your body.
people are underestimating the severity of the situation, a lot of furry artists and coffee shops are gonna go bust as well.
As long as I could remember I just wanted to make contraptions. I was always ripping apart my toys and connecting wires. I always resented the “I’m going into engineering for the money” crowd, like damn, leave some room for the people who actually want to do this.
Thankfully I know about more than making web pages, but I’m sorta worried elite tier web devs who have been living in the most convoluted systems ever designed by man are going to realize its actually easier to learn electrical engineering.
I thought you were saying you were into making contraception and kinda confused
After seeing the DIY electrolysis posts on here, I’m sure there’s another user who has done that.
it’s funny. I’ve ended up here because it’s what I’m good at doing. but slowly I’ve come to learn is that what I’m better at and what I really like to do is solving the sociotechnical problems that make working in a particular workplace miserable. so I’ve adjusted over time. it’s not really a position you can interview for, so my resume is all normal technical engineering, but there’s a narrow slice I target because doing that particular job means solving the social problems I really want to get at. and my dream is that I stay at one place long enough so that I can make it obvious that the root of all these problems is the fucking executives so it’s time to form a union!! (tech types will never go for it without the upfront work that gets them to see you as a friend and ally in their struggles, personally, and without the plank by plank evidence that the owners are genuinely to blame).
in other words, my life became politics even before I became a leftist
Ironically I’m not even that good at it but I can’t imagine doing anything else. I seem to lack the ability to disconnect the idea of “work” and my mental health. Its incredibly unhealthy but I basically shut down when given a long, monotonous task so I’ve optimized my life to avoid that, if that makes sense. If I’m not doing this, I think my only other option is construction or some other manual labor.
It’s honestly crazy how tech people can be so abused but are so trained to hate unions. They just hope there’s someone high enough with sway to have their interests at heart, and if not, go “oh well”
I always resented the “I’m going into engineering for the money” crowd, like damn, leave some room for the people who actually want to do this.
I always resented the people who thought this way, because I went into engineering for the money, and the people who vocally thought this tended to be upper middle class with big safety nets. Not saying this is where you’re coming from, btw. But it always felt like some people thought I didn’t belong there or couldn’t be a good engineer because my motives weren’t “pure” enough, like I should feel bad for wanting to live a more comfortable life than my parents and I did when I was growing up.
Oh sorry I guess I could be more specific, the people who I had in mind saying that, were very wealthy upper middle class people.
At least they were the ones loud enough to say “I’m in it for the money”. Folks who had more difficult economic backgrounds just, didn’t talk like that I suppose.
This specifically applies to the big companies in the US.
Companies are still desperate for coders in Sweden. I got my current job first week of searching months before graduating.
I absolutely agree that “learn to code” is obnoxious of course. Just saying that coders are still in high demand even if the tech giants are laying off.
I still think we should learn to code just cuz its a genuinely useful skill and we shouldn’t let giant corporations determine what software we use
That applies to all skills, but unfortunately there are so many hours in a day dor us to learn skills. Somee of us can code, some can bake. Some are excellent woodworkers, and others have a knack for gardeneing/farming. All skills are valid and needed in society. What we REALLY need to do is meet up with various people with various skill sets and form co-ops/communes to ensure everyone has everything they need.
Well python is pretty easy to pick up. U don’t have to be a full on software engineer, u can write simple scripts
It’s good to know, but I honestly can count on one hand the amount of times I’ve used my coding skills to automate something I needed to do outside of my projects/work/gaming. It’s pretty low down my list of practical skills, just based on personal experience.
Somee of us can code, some can bake. Some are excellent woodworkers, and others have a knack for gardeneing/farming.
I’m one of those crazy people that want to do all of that
I do wanna learn some Python for if I ever brush up on my GIS skills.
deleted by creator
I don’t have any other skills and my company is insistent on doing more layoffs, while telling us everything is great. The previous layoffs are showing since we’re having more impactful bugs with nobody to fix it. I want to unionize but other techies at my office think on the individual level when it comes to their career. I can’t blame them I guess since any of us can be decided to go whenever. But that’s more the reason we’re stronger together so I’ll still tell them about how much more power we have and hope it sticks
I know the leftist in me is supposed to have sympathy for these people and get them to unionize
Meh, read these essays from somebody in the industry who has tried this for decade+. This is all extremely accurate from my experience
https://www.shanley.com/blog/stop-feeling-bad-for-tech-workers-these-people-are-the-enemy
https://www.shanley.com/blog/tech-workers-they-are-exploiting-you-too-wake-up-10x-moron
https://www.shanley.com/blog/stop-feeling-bad-for-tech-workers-these-people-are-the-enemy
Okay so I haven’t read this dudes entire body of work so I don’t have a totally clear view, but I did read this article and, hot take, everything he says here could be applied to all workers in the imperial core.
Yeah, this is just describing the difficulties of unionising a labour aristocracy. And you absolutely can unionise that.
I think you’re right, but as someone in tech, I’ve talked with the EXACT people that the author describes as not self-identifying as workers, and it’s not just the same false consciousness you see in all settlers. This paragraph was particularly salient,
Their entirety of identification as workers comes from being better than everyone else. They are like air benders of morality, doing the most fraudulent arguments to justify how the tech industry has somehow turned, on their watch, into Mordor. They aren’t even telling people the TRUTH about what is happening in the tech industry. They should have been whistleblowers; the positive perception that the outside world has of tech is very much maintained by the employee’s silence. Things in the tech industry have advanced far beyond what the general public thinks. The reality of what is happening in the industry is about 1000x worse than even generally understood in a mainstream that more or less accepts the industry deeply problematic at best. But techies are complicit even in the very worst of it: like the startup-created, VC funded surveillance towers that help round up children at the US/Mexico border and feed them right into detention and death and sexual violence. The programmers themselves have created an absolute maze of false logics to justify directly working on software that directly kills people and is used against the People by policing and intelligence agencies and the military. In this particular case, the argument is that they can’t be responsible for how their software is used, even when designed specifically to do that thing; nor can they be responsible for working somewhere which requires that thing. Oh, okay!
Having posted here before about my efforts to try to get people to see MIC companies for what they are, I can freely share that every single time it’s just an insane uphill battle to get techbros to even recognize they’re the same species as the victims of the systems they build at Palantir or whatever other garbage company. I might not be as pessimistic as the author (I’m also not exactly in the imperial core, per se) since I have had some success with the occasional person, usually those who aren’t cishet white or white-passing dudebros, but MAN are techbros ridiculously reactionary.
Bourgeoisified workers do not see themselves as working class because they were specifically elevated above the rest of the working class for their usefulness to the imperial project. They have to be elevated, because otherwise they’d stop being complicit.
So if the bubble is popping that just means they’re being re-proletarianized. I think those types of people are going to find out really fucking fast that they are mere workers like the rest of us, and if we don’t radicalize them they’re just going to become psycho reactionaries.
I guess that’s the point, right? These settlers already were carrying out the necessary actions the imperialists, landlords, etc needed through their gentrification and development of automated surveillance or military systems. Now they’re being re-proletarianized and desperately wish to keep their mouths on the treat dispensers, they’ll kick everyone else down the pile as long as they can keep sucking on the treat teat.
I’m hopeful that time in the dirt with the rest of us will soften them up. Without a constant supply of treats their boogie ideology will either collapse because they’ll realize they weren’t the special boys they were told since childhood or their egos will collapse instead and their ideology will reconstruct itself as reaction.
It’s going to have to get much much worse before engineers unionize. I am sorry to say my fellows do not occupy reality in a class sense and these layoffs are just a taste of what’s to come.
I also don’t encounter a lot of the “learn to code” types irl, if ever. If anything, i hear pushback on outsourcing and bootcamps. I wonder how much of that sentiment was actual engineers vs students online who hadn’t entered the workforce yet.
Most engineers I know are OK but not at all class conscious people.
I also have some bias here, I don’t live or work on the coasts so the silicon valley elistist tech bro musk worshipping cutthroat competitive culture you see at big tech is just not there. And those types tend to be the loudest shittiest dudes online.
Midwest here, most folks just treat it as a job like any other. Still won’t fucking unionize though, US propaganda is too strong.
for some reason techies who have never worked in the trades tend to be more “learn a trade” type guys
tradies: learn to code
techies: learn a trade
deleted by creator
coding is a trade.
You’re an individual paid to use skill to make things that someone else profits from. You may be paid well but you’re also at the bottom of the ladder, having to do what you’re told, discarded as it suits the employer.
My point is both are alienated and aggrieved, and they both use some “grass is greener” shit to justify why the problem isn’t the capitalist system but just that you chose the wrong line of work
Agreed. I was more making conversation than contradicting.
Nerds wanna be macho men, macho men wanna be nerds and I just kinda wanna vibe.
The only people I’ve ever actually heard say “learn to code” are like Cory Booker and co
Yeah it tends to show up IRL more as a proposed solution than an insult. The whole, we just need to train these laid-off coal miners in West Virginia how to code, that will reverse the economic decline there.
There are l2c programs in a lot of elementary schools right now. Parts of STEAM curriculum
I learned to code and I honestly kinda hate it. Started having an existential crisis in my 30s, learned enough to get me hired, do the same shit every day, I’m kinda going nuts. I miss doing manual labor honestly.
Idk how long I’ll stay in this industry. I guess until I get fired for being bad at my job. Maybe I’ll go back to school and get an English degree and just teach overseas or something
That’s a fucking amazing idea
The thing about mental labor (or worse, simultaneous mental and physical labor) versus physical labor that really sucks is… You don’t have time for your own thoughts. Can’t listen to a podcast. You can’t even listen to music with lyrics. You’re stuck thinking only about some goddamn bullshit for 8 hours a day every day.
Some kinds of mental labor use different parts of the brain and that doesn’t apply as much… But anything heavily word-based takes up your full attention
learn to pull espresso shots, nerds
CS = Coffee Specialist
Excuse me I’m actually going to be a Chief Coffee Experience Architect.
Definitely not a recession
A speculative bubble can pop without throwing the whole country into recession.
