Comment by MattGaiser
14 hours ago
The shift is from tarpit to unemployment. A Jira ticket processing dev still has use. Probably not for much longer.
14 hours ago
The shift is from tarpit to unemployment. A Jira ticket processing dev still has use. Probably not for much longer.
Doubt we'll see that in the short term. Long term, possibly, especially if you add a financial crisis.
Truth is most larger software development organizations could have even before LLMs downsized significantly and not lost much productivity.
The X formerly known as Twitter did this and has been chugging along on a fraction on its original staff count. It's had some brand problems since its acquisition, but those are more due to Mr Musk's eccentricities and political ventures than the engineering team.
The reason this hasn't happened to any wider degree is quarterly capitalism and institutional inertia. Looks weird to the investors if the organization claims to be doing well but is also slashing its employee count by 90%. Even if you bring a new CEO in that has these ideas, the org chart will fight it with tooth and nail as managers would lose reportees and clout.
Consultancies in particular are incredibly inefficient by design since they make more money if they take more time and bring a larger headcount to the task: They don't sell productivity, but man hours. Hence horrors like SAFe.
The thing is, Twitter is stuck. It's not growing, most likely it's shrinking. We also have no idea if it's profitable or not.
Twitter had a lot of engineers on its payroll to look for the next big thing.
If you give that up and keep a skeleton crew, sure, that works.
Most businesses don't want to become husks of their former selves.