FAANG realizing that they can't make infinite money by expanding into every possible market while paying FAANG salaries for low-scale-CRUD-prototyping roles has a lot to do with this, and that started a bit earlier than the AI wave.

Lots going on right now in the market, but IMO that retreat is the biggest one still.

Many companies were basically on a path of infinite hiring between ~2011 and ~2022 until the rapid COVID-era whiplash really drove home "maybe we've been overhiring" and caused the reaction and slowdown that many had been predicting annually since, oh, 2015.

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sdf2df 21 hours ago | parent [-]

You can't be a manager without anyone to manage.

There's a lot of perverse interests and incentives at play.

	▲	majormajor 20 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Manager gigs at FAANG are pretty rough right now in my network, you can't be a manager when the higher-ups notice your group isn't a big revenue generator and so doesn't justify new hires and bigger org charts, and cutting the middlemen is the easiest way to juice the ROI numbers. If the ICs that now have 1/3 the managerial structure and have to wear more hats don't turn things around, oh well, it's not a critical area anyway, just nuke it. You can be an exec with 10-20% fewer random products/departments in your company, and maybe 40% fewer middle managers in the rest of them. You might even get a nice bonus for cutting all that cost! Bonuses for growth, bonuses for "efficiency" when the macro vibe shifts. Trim sails and carry on.