Re:Domain expertise has always been the real moat
by wiseowise on Sunday May 31, 2026 @05:55AM
(#48344373)
> That last sentence is verifiably false if you look at SWE job postings and their recovery since 2022.
Do you take into account recent layoffs of Meta (8k people), Block (4k people) and others?
Re:Domain expertise has always been the real moat
by ElProlactin on Sunday May 31, 2026 @09:09AM
(#48345401)
> That last sentence is verifiably false if you look at SWE job postings and their recovery since 2022.
Source?
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/IHLIDXUSTPSOFTDEVE
And it's probably worse than it looks because phantom job postings are a real thing.
> ...who nonetheless continue to hire large numbers of SWEs while paying double the market rate.
Tech companies have laid off over 200,000 people since the beginning of 2025. Even putting aside the fact that (from what I understand) over half of Anthropic and OpenAI's employees are in non-engineering roles, if you assumed every employee was an engineer, Anthropic and OpenAI could triple their staffing levels and it still wouldn't even fill a quarter of the void.
Re:Domain expertise has always been the real moat
by batshit_beaver on Sunday May 31, 2026 @02:40PM
(#48348414)
Yes that’s the right source. There would be no recovery in SWE market after the higher interest rates killed it if LLMs had any major impact on SWE employability.
Re:Domain expertise has always been the real moat
by ElProlactin on Sunday May 31, 2026 @08:01PM
(#48351106)
You have a very interesting definition of "recovery".
That last sentence is verifiably false if you look at SWE job postings and their recovery since 2022.
It’s also a poor take in general, buying very much into the narrative propagated primarily by OpenAI and, especially, Anthropic, who nonetheless continue to hire large numbers of SWEs while paying double the market rate.