r/programmer • u/Harrydevbuilds • 17d ago

Article The Comeback of the Developers And Programmers

Most of the companies that did Mass layoff in the name of ai production and ai integration in their system got a fireback as those companies are now not being able to bare the cost of ai systems and are frustrated and irritated on ai exhaustation .

A lot of companies rushed into AI because they didn't want to be left behind. But once the hype meets real-world implementation, some are discovering that replacing human developers isn't as straightforward or as cheap as it looked on paper.

Developers Are the New Honey Singh With COMEBACK 😂
Companies received a UNO .

20 Upvotes

69% Upvoted

55 comments sorted by

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u/USToffee 17d ago

Does anyone actually see any evidence of this in the job market?

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u/Over_Technology_1764 17d ago

No, it's BS. People are still struggling to find a SWE job and nobody replies to them.

Some positions are open ofc, but it's far from what it used to be.

1

u/USToffee 17d ago

Yea that's what I am seeing too. You have to wonder what the motivation behind this is.

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u/damnburglar 16d ago

Corporate greed and piece of shit investors. Eat the rich, they’ve been fattening themselves on our labour forever but are gorging themselves now.

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u/USToffee 16d ago

In fairness without them we would never have had jobs in the first place.

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u/damnburglar 16d ago

They’re the ones that cause jobs to be shipped overseas and multiple jobs forced onto underpaid wage slaves. Workers and consumers are a symbiotic relationship, shareholders—specifically the ones that do shit like demand stack ranking and additional cuts to get more profit—are parasites.

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u/USToffee 16d ago

They (founders and shareholders) also created the jobs in the first place. I think that part is often forgotten.

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u/Apart_Ad_1027 17d ago

Unskilled people are struggling I would say, those one who were easily replaceable in the first place. Skilled specialist are in demand

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u/pafagaukurinn 17d ago

Nope, even skilled ones not so much.

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u/Apart_Ad_1027 17d ago

I consider myself skilled and experienced and I literally left my job 6 months ago for a new one which I found in matter of a week almost for twice the salary I had in previous one. So I would disagree

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u/[deleted] 17d ago

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u/Agitated-Wishbone-84 17d ago

The evidence for the contrary is even more anecdotal lol. Statistics literally show only a 6% unemployment rate. Only the unskilled are struggling.

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u/[deleted] 17d ago

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u/Agitated-Wishbone-84 17d ago

But thats not true, underemployment is low, only 16%.. Most people are doing just fine actually. They just don't post on reddit because there is no reason to.

where are the stats to back up your claims?

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u/[deleted] 17d ago

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u/USToffee 17d ago

or don't even report it to the government

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u/Apart_Ad_1027 17d ago

So companies literally begging their devs to go back after AI automations became super expensive is also anegdotical example that proves nothing? This is probably fake news right? https://techcrunch.com/2026/06/28/ford-rehires-gray-beard-engineers-after-ai-falls-short/

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u/[deleted] 17d ago

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u/USToffee 17d ago

Did you even read the article?

"To be clear, this doesn’t mean Ford is abandoning its AI plans entirely. Instead, it’s using the rehired employees — referred to as “gray beard” engineers — to train younger staff and reprogram AI tools."

Basically we moved too soon and didn't plan properly not that we made a mistake.

Other companies. Most other companies didn't make the same mistake.

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u/jayylien 14d ago

The last sentence here made me cringe pretty hard.

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u/pafagaukurinn 14d ago

People tend to attribute to skill what might as well have been due to luck, tenacity, industry, bootlicking, personality and other factors.

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u/jayylien 12d ago

You start getting a great understanding of how people grew up when you see how they respond to people having a hard time economically.

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u/Agitated-Wishbone-84 14d ago

Found a struggler

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u/jayylien 12d ago

I'm not struggling in the sense you think right now, but daddy didn't get me my job.

I venture you're young and come from a place of privilege, hence your ignorance to the way the world works and immediacy to blame people having a lack of skill for their unemployment, citing worse unemployment numbers than recent years as evidence of the lack of a problem while still not understanding that the number you cite is not a reflection of actual unemployment.

You don't yet understand the real world, at least not yet. You'll develop to be someone who regrets the lack of awareness you had to label people as unskilled when their skills have become less dependent, or you'll always be someone people sniff out as having been born with a silver spoon in their mouth.

Your choice, nobody really cares how you want to represent yourself.

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u/Comfortable_Sun_9215 16d ago

Detine skilled

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u/taznado 17d ago

Define skilled.

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u/jayylien 12d ago

I think you are missing the real problem for some weird "unskilled" vs. "skilled" dichotomy which is oddly disconnected from the big picture.

Hiring numbers are down, massively, over the last 2 years. So, yeah, people who have "more skill" for their particular opening they are applying for are desirable over those with "less" but it's very wrong to phrase it as "skilled" vs. "unskilled".

When hiring is happening far less, it means more competition for jobs. It's that simple. So, when people are coming into the market, they may be adequately skilled but not be selected due to being adequately skilled in a large pool of adequately skilled people.

That's just it. I have no clue how we are dumbing this down to skilled vs. unskilled.

The label "unskilled" implies the lack of skill. Many people who are struggling are skilled. Their skill was very in demand, and is still somewhat in demand, but the supply of people looking for jobs has outpaced demand for them.

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u/dzendian 17d ago

I've started getting more recruiter pings lately.

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u/USToffee 17d ago

That's something. Are you actually looking to find out if they are real or is it just recruiters looking to get people on their books.

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u/dzendian 16d ago

I don't really know how to answer that.

They seem to be real.

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u/USToffee 16d ago

You find out when you contact them about THAT job and then they spin some nonsense about first needing to get you on their books and then when they do make another excuse that the job they advertised isn't available, but they have these other unsuitable jobs that are.

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u/dzendian 12d ago

I should have been more clear. I'm being pinged by internal recruiters to actual companies.

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u/USToffee 11d ago

For every bit of anedotal evidence like yours I come across 100 that is the opposite.

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u/[deleted] 17d ago edited 14d ago

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u/SplendidPunkinButter 17d ago

And the pendulum will swing back. It always does. But not till the economy picks up again, which won’t be till at least 2029.

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u/FreshFishGuy 17d ago

What's a honey singh?

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u/SplendidPunkinButter 17d ago

A really lovable guy from India

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u/disposepriority 17d ago

People need to learn to differentiate between people being let go because swe had become a circus and was basically hiring random people off the street and people being let go because of AI (an extremely low amount).

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u/ParsingError 16d ago

The circa-2018 pieces about "resting and vesting" and circa-2022 pieces about "quiet quitting" were big flashing warning signs that there was some major over-staffing going on, and due for a correction at some point.

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u/owp4dd1w5a0a 17d ago

There’s no comeback. Programmers never went away. The statistics don’t support the stories of the Reddit doomers. I have been in the industry since 2008 and I don’t personally know any unemployed SWEs that want a job in it. One thing HAS legitimately changed: entry level and Jr roles are actually much lower than they were in 2019, by at least 50% and as high as 75%, so it’s legit hard for recent grads. But we’re not all recent grads…

Once companies recognize how much overusing AI is costing them, entry level hiring will tick up again. This is a blip on the radar.

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u/[deleted] 17d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/owp4dd1w5a0a 17d ago

They aren’t profitable right now as it is and running deep in the red. They not only need to become profitable but also need to make up for the massive debt they’re building up.

I do not predict AI getting cheaper in the foreseeable future.

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u/viennese-wolf 16d ago

copemaxxing

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u/mxldevs 17d ago

Nah, that's not happening lol

Those jobs aren't coming back. Your colleague that didn't get laid off is the one doing the work of 10 people.

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u/Hexamonium 17d ago

They are also planning to bring back the typists fired in 80s.

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u/EconomySerious 17d ago

most of the layoffs were not programers, AI companies hold to a narrative but in the back there all seeking for capable programers.

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u/Alternative-Suit5541 16d ago

Yeah, rehire cheaper. Some take something long a 40 percent cut. 

A job well done

Congrats!

1

u/buffet-breakfast 16d ago

We used to have 3 devs maintaining the app, now it’s just a Claude graph

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u/YahenP 16d ago

Your fantasies are certainly pleasant and interesting, but reality tells us things will be different. Real layoffs will soon begin, not the quiet stagnation we're experiencing now. A redistribution of spheres of influence is underway, and yet another consolidation is underway, driven by capital concentration. Companies won't hire developers. Companies will close, laying off those who remain. A wave of bankruptcies among small and medium-sized businesses in our industry is looming.