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Julik's avatar

While I agree that "creating a culture" was top-of-mind for CTO's in the "fatty years", I think there is a very important point that is not mentioned here. Hiring is a way of gaining power within an org. It is the prime and proven way to do exactly the "politics" the CTOs apparently "weren't doing enough of". What if we flip the idea here to "instead of trying to obtain influence and inflate headcount, CTOs should focus on building product and delivering value"? The "can you just use NORMAL WORDS" comment is a strange aside, and showing the person who wrote it in a very negative light. I know plenty of engineers who can use "normal worlds" alright, should anyone bother to actually listen. But the trend of the "fatty" years would be to prevent engineers from speaking to anyone because there was a thick (and thickening) layer of management which was laser-focused on usurping access to stakeholders.

Personally, I think "the big shrink" will likely do very well by CTOs who can get back into the building mindset and the experienced engineers who will suddenly find themselves in a position where there is no insulating layer of middle management between them and the C-suite. Time will tell.

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Bart's avatar

I think this mistakes a short term correction for a long term trend.

Current AI models aren't nearly good enough to even approximate a junior-junior developer. Let alone compensating for not-having top talent.

On the contrary, AI is tremendously useful for many low-skilled repetitive tasks, such as help center work. In my mind the AI revolution people dream about is still at least 20 years away. And could turn out much like Fusion turns out to be always 10 years away.

Regardless, corrections are normal things in a market. It doesn't invalidate the trend though. I predict the next five years we will see the IT job market not only recover, but boom. Precisely because the world is made of software.

The only genuine long term risks are wars and an increased frequency in disasters.

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