Totally agree with you on the line-item point. My point there was that if a 50% RIF is in the works, the people who haven’t figured out how to become more efficient using AI would be more likely to be affected. Statistically.
But again, hope you’re doing well and everything has worked out for you!
Still optimistic that my generalist skillset and adaptability to new technologies (like AI) will make me an asset for IT teams who can’t afford multiple specialists in rough economic times like these.
> RIFed this year
Yeah that's why they are big on the force of agents, so they can justify trimming their workforce
Anyone who doesn't see this is kind of a sucker
I'm hoping that pays off for me someday. Thus far, it's just been a lot of burnout/layoff cycles.
> engineers to approvals only for ~20 tickets a week averaging ~40hrs of work, freeing up said engineers for actually valuable work instead of handholding customers through routine tasks
Not trying to be too judgy here but to me it sounds more like you are the one helping sink the ship than help everyone to life boats
Something to think about. Agreeing to bring AI into our workflows is actually digging out the foundation beneath our own feet (and our coworkers feet)
Ah well. At least seeing me get RIFed hopefully sent up signal flares with the rest of the team to GTFO while they can, and I had a lot of good accomplishments towards the end in particular. Take the good where I can find it, I suppose.
Work(ed) for a company super big on a force of agents. Brought them into my workflows early on, before the company even pivoted. Ran them at home on private hardware (that 3090 had to do something), at work when access was opened up. Provided valuable feedback on hallucinations (e.g., fabricating the existence of a MongoDB CLI module wholesale, documentation and all) and barriers to adoption. Pitched an integration of four disparate systems across ~20 data points to create tenancy in a core product line from scratch, with said AI at the center of it for customer service and workload creation, reducing engineers to approvals only for ~20 tickets a week averaging ~40hrs of work, freeing up said engineers for actually valuable work instead of handholding customers through routine tasks. Got great feedback and enthusiasm on it.
RIFed this year.
Doesn't matter whether you're bullish or bearish on it, the only thing that ever really matters is if scrubbing your line item from a spreadsheet will net someone higher up than you a bonus. That's what's driving this AI mania, and what needs to be addressed via policy before these employers gut themselves and the economy in the process.