Jobs and Software Is Fucked

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

State of the Software Job Market

  • Many describe this as the worst market they’ve seen: strong resumes (10–15+ YOE) getting no interviews, online recruiter spam drying up, and automated rejections after perfect screening tests.
  • Others report pockets of normalcy or ease (e.g., some new grads, some seniors in specific cities), suggesting highly uneven conditions.
  • Perception that there are “too many programmers, too few jobs,” especially post‑COVID boom.

Causes: Macro vs. AI

  • Several tie the downturn mainly to macroeconomics: pandemic money printing, cheap‑money hiring frenzy, then rate hikes, layoffs, and over‑supply of devs.
  • AI is seen by some as an accelerant or scapegoat layered on top of those macro forces.

Hiring Practices and Interviews

  • Complaints about leetcode/Hackerrank, especially unsupervised online tests where cheating is easy.
  • Reports of HR/ATS/ML filters choking off candidates, mysterious rejections, fake or “process only” job postings, and heavy reliance on referrals.
  • High value placed on brand‑name employers on resumes; networking often viewed as more important than raw skill.

AI and Coding: Tool, Threat, or Hype?

  • One camp: refusal to use AI is career suicide; most software jobs will vanish or compress to a small number of engineers orchestrating agents.
  • Another camp: AI code is unreliable “slop”; real engineering, testing, and domain expertise can’t be automated, especially in complex domains (e.g., game engines, hardware‑adjacent work).
  • Strong culture‑war tone in creative fields (games, art, writing). Some see using AI as betraying peers whose work was used for training and whose jobs are at risk; others reject this framing.

Sector and Geography Differences

  • Hardware/ML‑adjacent roles (PCIe, DDR, Ethernet, silicon design/verification, firmware) reported as in strong demand with very high pay, but requiring niche skills.
  • Some regions (e.g., London, parts of Asia, some Japanese/Chinese game studios) are perceived as more active or more aggressive in adopting AI.

Coping Strategies and Career Pivots

  • Advice ranges from “adapt and learn AI deeply” to “build your own product/business” to “pivot out of tech” (examples: diesel mechanic, actuary, physical goods business).
  • Several stress long‑term networking, side projects, and accepting that steady, modest careers in other fields may be more stable and satisfying than chasing volatile tech roles.