Comment by Lio
4 hours ago
I get why DHH would be really happy about getting rid of engineers. It's less clear how this isn't a little bit gloomy for the engineers.
Is the idea that they'll switch to doing "product owner" roles overseeing agents? I don't see that employing the same number of people or paying as well as engineering used to.
To be honest I expect that that role to suit different people to those that used to be engineers.
If this feels gloomy to some people, it's because it is.
Why are you saying he got rid of engineers? Did you watch the talk?
Yes, I watched it. I'm not saying he got rid of engineers so much as just not hiring new ones.
If he's hiring new people they won't be engineers or the people that used to do engineering.
They'll be people that are better suited to writing English than code.
I don't think that hiring the engineers was ever an option. He said that he couldnt maintain six native apps before agentic coding. The business never even considered expanding headcount by 6X to do it, it was a complete nonstarter.
There is no fixed pie of work that AI is taking from us. In this circumstance, increased productivity caused the company to just make more stuff, not lay off people (or avoid planned hires).
It is a real world example of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox
4 replies →
37signals typically doesn't do hire a lot of software engineers but just last week they hired Rob Zolkos who is very clearly a software engineer.
https://x.com/jasonfried/status/2100668586851537195