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AI Programming Technology

Tech Job Slump Hits Coding Bootcamp Graduates as AI Reshapes Industry (nytimes.com) 32

U.S. software developer job listings have plummeted 56% since 2019, according to CompTIA data, as coding bootcamp graduates face mounting challenges from AI tools and widespread tech industry layoffs.

For entry-level positions, postings have dropped even further at 67%. The downturn has forced several bootcamps to adapt or close. Boston's Launch Academy suspended operations in May after job placement rates fell from 90% to below 60%. Meanwhile, AI coding tools like ChatGPT and GitHub's Copilot are transforming the industry, with Google reporting that AI now generates over 25% of its new code.

"This is the worst environment for entry-level tech jobs I've seen in 25 years," said Menlo Ventures partner Venky Ganesan.
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Tech Job Slump Hits Coding Bootcamp Graduates as AI Reshapes Industry

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  • ...at any rate, the amounts of dupes is outright laughable.

    Why are we even here? To reply to articles thrown up by a bot or script?

    Vete 'pal carajo con esta mierda.

  • by peterww ( 6558522 ) on Monday November 25, 2024 @09:40AM (#64970463)

    20-25 years ago, the same thing happened. Companies realized that hiring people just because they passed a boot camp and had a certificate in XYZ was a terrible idea.

    Simultaneously, a new set of technologies (open source/Linux) were being widely adopted into the workplace, and they needed people who understood it. So they started hiring whoever could do the job because they had experience with these new tools.

    We really need an apprenticeship and trade school for tech work. I get that it's supposed to be "a profession", but in practice it's not. No four year school will prepare you for the reality of working in the industry. You need to learn a lot more, and some of it is book knowledge, but a lot is also practical skills.

    • tech needs to more trade school like with less theory and faster updates to course work in school.

      • You hit the nail on the head. Tech needs to be like trade school, or maybe even like a guild, where guild membership is a must if a company wants to be covered by cyber insurance. The guild handles apprentice/journeyman/master/grandmaster ranks.

    • by GoTeam ( 5042081 )

      Companies realized that hiring people just because they passed a boot camp and had a certificate in XYZ was a terrible idea.

      ...We really need an apprenticeship and trade school for tech work. I get that it's supposed to be "a profession", but in practice it's not. No four year school will prepare you for the reality of working in the industry. You need to learn a lot more, and some of it is book knowledge, but a lot is also practical skills.

      A certificate from one of these "boot camps" has no value on its own. They teach for a test that you take at the end of the camp. It doesn't show proficiency or knowledge learned. I agree 100% with your point about apprenticeships being the best way to find and develop talent. In my opinion, most jobs would be better served by hiring through apprenticeships. You learn what employers actually value by working with someone who is still actively employed in the profession.

  • The Software Guild (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Big Hairy Gorilla ( 9839972 ) on Monday November 25, 2024 @10:11AM (#64970553)
    Frank Herbert was right.. We are moving into a reality of Hyper-Feudalism... everybody is closing ranks.

    Boot Camp!? forget it chumps. That's just about the people selling you "Boot Camp" for their own profit. You're still a novice after a boot camp.

    All specialty knowledge domains are being slurped up by LLMs right now, the idea is to put all programmers out of work and keep the intellectual property private and owned. Software as a profession will be obsolete... Not that LLMs are going to do a GOOD job of it atm, but in the interim, the real brainy people will be bought up to write better algorithms, to tweak the LLMs. At some point those people will close ranks and form a Guild. Which is nearly the same idea as a monopoly on knowledge in an arbitrary domain.
    • Anything I feed into an AI/LLM I wouldn't count on being 'private' or 'owned'.
      Ever
      • You're thinking like a pleb, fool. If you own the cluster it's running on, you can own the data. It won't be public facing any more. There is no scenario in which there is AI for the masses in the long run like they're selling it now. It's too goddamned expensive and needs curation to be useful.
    • by andydread ( 758754 ) on Monday November 25, 2024 @11:35AM (#64970775)
      From the summary:

      Boston's Launch Academy suspended operations in May after job placement rates fell from 90% to below 60%

      So it seems that they actually were useful in doing more that "boot camping" they were actually placing these new students in entry level jobs at a 90% rate.

  • Vanity! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jenningsthecat ( 1525947 ) on Monday November 25, 2024 @10:12AM (#64970557)

    How long ago was it that we read, on this very site, about Silly Valley wonks braying yet again about how public education needed computer and coding classes? Oh yeah, here it is from about a month ago: https://developers.slashdot.or... [slashdot.org]

    So which is it folks? Do we need universal coding courses to prepare young people for employment in our glorious tech-company-defined future? Or are those future skills already obsolete as a result of AI?

    I'm tempted to say that this confuses me, but it really doesn't. The jerk-offs making these pronouncements are simultaneously greedy, power mad suckers to their own PR propaganda, and clueless fuckwits who are making it all up as they go. What DOES confuse me is our society's collective assumption that their success in a rigged system gives them the sense, knowledge, and wisdom to define educational policy. Why we continue to listen to them, when they've proven both their incompetence and their psychopathy so repeatedly, is totally beyond me.

    • All those coal miners have saturated the market.
    • "Public Education" itself is on the chopping block. If you want to enter the coder lottery (or weld pipes) that's going to require a capital investment. Public schools will be transitioned into combination daycare/indoctrination/bible schools. The populace having no education is no particular problem to those in power, they'll find a nice meat grinder somewhere to feed them into.

  • by JasterBobaMereel ( 1102861 ) on Monday November 25, 2024 @10:51AM (#64970647)

    ...but we don't need junior programmers anymore - just advanced programmers with 5 years experience

    Just like every other job

  • I'd love to see an actual real-life example of AI coding or AI Assisted coding starting from an idea to a finished program. It may be an 8 hour YouTube stream or have some one do an edited example (editing out all the time the programmer looks something up on Google!). I really want to see what AI actual does that works.

    • by narcc ( 412956 )

      I'd love to see an actual real-life example of AI coding

      So would a lot of now disappointed people who discovered that AI can't code.

    • by vyvepe ( 809573 )

      I asked Llama 70B to get me some code I sometimes do (things around motor control - FOC). The code had some bugs. It resembled what needs to be done but not really usable. Definitely not directly. The code was not complete. Anyway the LLM also told that the code is not complete. It felt like the model was taught how a skeleton of a FOC code looks like. But it did not understand it.

      My experience is that LLMs can get some first attempt at something I never did before. Then I can rewrite their proposal so that

      • by HeyBob! ( 111243 )

        When I asked ChatGPT for some code, it simulated typing it out, line by line. When I googled the code, it was just an example from a Microsoft programming example with no changes..

        • by vyvepe ( 809573 )

          That is in congruence with my experience. They have been taught some responses but they do not understand them. Their biggest advantage is that they can pick the best memorized answer to a very vague query. They have some limited reasoning ability(*) but things go awry if one digs deeper (more detailed questions). They feel like rote learners. They are also annoyingly "polite" :)

          (*) I have seen them to specialize a generic rule to a specific situation quite often (e.g. a single application of Modus Ponens)

  • Couldn't access the article. Was interested in the following: a decrease in job postings isn't necessarily caused by an increase in the usage of AI assisted code generation. What I was specifically interested in was to see if the article mentioned productivity gains for a software engineer at a company that's decreased its advertising for entry level programmers. Specifically, the productivity gains would have to correlate with the decrease in job postings. For instance, if the productivity gain is 5%, then

  • "journalists" tell various working class people to do as their jobs are eliminated by the latest government edicts when "Learn to code" is so obviously non-viable?

    That phrase, incidentally, was always obnoxious in that it implied that any person could easily do the work of programming computers with just a bit of re-training. Professional software developers ought to have been outraged back when that became a thing.

    Now, if only somebody could get AI to replace all corporate management and politicians...

  • One thought exercise here - the recent slump in tech is not super different than the manufacturing tech slump that started in the 80s and 90s, and driven in large part by a hyper focus in efficient operations and expansion of financial margins.
    Let's be honest guys, large tech have grown to the point where bureaucracy is abundant. Lots of reviews, green light, and way too many components in a tech stack. Once a product is out in the wild and builds enough of a user base, the developers and most of the s
  • by Tony Isaac ( 1301187 ) on Monday November 25, 2024 @06:19PM (#64972039) Homepage

    Yes, all the hype is about AI, but despite that hype, relatively few businesses are actually using it. https://www.marketplace.org/20... [marketplace.org]

    While AI might be one factor, there are much larger factors at play. https://www.forbes.com/sites/e... [forbes.com] Tech companies seriously over-hired, and now they are having to reset.

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