Maybe I'm behind the times, but isn't Big Tech known as one of the best employers on the planet? I thought most of the tech workers were in the industry because the work is light, the conditions pretty relaxed compared to most jobs and the pay was high. Especially for an industry where anyone anywhere can just get involved and become a great coder.

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eikenberry 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

You are behind the times... Big Tech lost that luster more than a decade ago when they turned into your standard cookie-cutter enterprise types.

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slg 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Whether the average Big Tech job is better than the average job overall has no real relationship to whether Big Tech workers are being exploited. I think we can simply look at the number of billionaires that Big Tech has created as evidence that even those workers making relatively high salaries are being underpaid compared to the value they are actually creating.

	▲	wilg 14 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		The obvious rebuttal to that framing would be that if those workers are not able to create that value on their own (such as by starting their own business or bringing their expertise to a firm with more favorable terms) then they aren't actually contributing that outsized value, the company itself is. And if they are able to do so but choose not to, then they are not being exploited.
	▲	scottyah 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Or because the logistics behind scaling are much much much easier than any physical product.

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dyauspitr 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I don’t know where you’re getting the work is light part. It’s long hours and incredibly stressful work. You’ll probably never hit this level of stress in years of trades work.

	▲	benmusch 2 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		it's pretty team/org dependent. on the aggregate i suspect big tech works pretty light hours compared to other jobs in the same pay scale
	▲	trollbridge an hour ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		I would invite you to come experience the trades for a bit, particularly in senior positions.
	▲	mikebenfield 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		Having worked at two big tech companies, I’d say one was the most laid-back, stress free environment I’ve ever worked in, and the other was pretty middle of the road.
	▲	s1artibartfast 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		It is obviously a range. Most of my personal firends work a couple hours a day and get pampered.

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ori_b 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Yes, why do you think there's so much emphasis on automating it from the management folks? It's more profitable if you don't have to treat your employees well.

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roenxi 2 hours ago | parent [-]

> Yes, why do you think there's so much emphasis on automating it from the management folks?

... and are we pretending that automating tasks is some strange new idea that has just appeared? Software engineers have always wanted to automate everything. The advice has been "automate it!" for the last 30, 40 years.

It is different that the steamroller is heading for our own domain this time, but really. The industry isn't doing anything new or out of character. Of course management were going to automate software engineering at the first opportunity. Any software engineer would. One of the things I've discovered since Claude crossed 1,500 on CodeArena is I don't even like writing code. Waste of time, writing good-enough code is a machines job.

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ori_b 2 hours ago | parent [-]

> ... and are we pretending that automating tasks is some strange new idea that has just appeared?

Of course not. Paying people has always been undesirable for the people paying. Software has been an exceptionally cushy job for an exceptionally long time, so people are exceptionally excited to pay less.

Since the act of typing has never been the bulk of a software engineer's time -- the act of understanding has been -- the way that AI speeds up development is by allowing the shortcutting of understanding. The understanding of details is what has historically made software engineers expensive and difficult to replace. Any idiot can type fast, but typing fast doesn't someone a software engineer. The excitement is about automating the understanding of problems, because understanding is expensive.

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ldng an hour ago | parent [-]

Except it does not work ex-nihilo and the bubble busrt is going to be painful

	▲	ori_b 35 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		It doesn't have to; it just has to be good enough for any idiot to operate it, and get good enough results.