State of the Market

[rocktronAMP]

I said back in the day, 25 years ago, that open source was going to eventually devalue/commoditise our work.

And the final nail in the coffin, AI has been trained on all that open source code as well.

Facebook are doing the same thing with AI at the moment, facebook is spending billions on AI for their own websites/apps, but then making those models open source just to devalue/commoditise the work Google and Microsoft and OpenAI are doing.

So what we would do without the excellent Linux operating system?
How about the GNU Software Foundation? (I know that Richard Stallman was/is a jerk, but respect is due)
How about Guido von Rossum and Python programming language?
How about Bjarne Stroustrup and C++ programming language?
How about James Gosling and Java programming language?

The thing about open source is who has power and control of the repository and politics with the committers.
There are open source repositories where nobody commits anything for years and years.
There are open source repositories where everybody is supremely excited minute by minute (Rust, I am looking at you)
Then there open source repositories where the hey day has come and the thrill has definitely gone.
Open source needs buy-in from human beings, not artificial intelligence, and it is rather akin to songwriting and singers/vocalists.
We remember songs, because how they make us feel and the context around the first time we ever hear the song at a certain space-time in our own wonderful corner of the universe.
No machine can feel. Only, we can feel (sorry Dolphins, dogs and cats; you know what I mean).

Anyone and any organisation can publish open source software with the appropriate license MIT, GNU or Creative Commons,
but how do we know if any of the code is good enough or great?
Open source also requires interest and attention, which mandates an ecosystem and hopefully a graceful and supportive community.
Too often though, we find toxic communities, zealots into whatever thing, be it Scala and ZIO, JavaScript framework of the Zeitgeist, or C# and even AWS cloud.
I surmise that an AI trained in a toxic codebase, might produce some weird answers for less atuned at programming.
So I keenly await the magically AI that replicates "Linus Torwald" curses at some poor Junior / Graduate programmer's tulipty Pull Request.

Just today, Microsoft have a launched a laptop with hardware AI. I wonder what my penetration testing friends have to say about this announcement, notwithstanding the potential spyware and personal identifiable information (PPI) risks to do with it. Just because it is Microsoft does not make it/them a trusted advisor.

Oh yes now just this morning OpenAI and Sky and HER and Scarlett Johansson.

I think James's point is that some of us *( including me)* should become Dick Whittington (and his cat again). Get the handkerchief knapsack, the cheese bun packed lunch, and the wooden stick and go out and find the fortune, through networking and talking with real people at conferences and meet-ups (instead of relying on just Microsoft AI). Find the things that are just on the periphery of the mainstream. And just maybe, we are in the right place at the right time to catch the new wave ahead of the rest of the herd. Because there, always, is a new wave.

[jamesbrown]

People are allowed their views and they may not concur with yours…you ain’t the thought police …

Oh, the ironing!

[jamesbrown]

Not only immigrants do work for less money, look at people who graduated 3-5yrs ago, they will often work for super low wages just to have a job, why aren't they being blamed? what about all those contractors who will work for any rate after 12-18months of not working simply because they've maxed out all the credit cards, burned through their war chest and can't afford their mortgage payments? not blaming them?

Current job market is really tough and that's a fact, there's jack tulip positions and trillions of people looking, so wages have dropped and will drop, agents will try silly rates on etc.

Indeed, it's easy to find someone to blame. People who work inside IR35 etc. etc. The current market is certainly tough, especially for generic skillsets. It will probably improve after the GE and interest rate reductions, but generic skills are biddable and that isn't going to improve.

[jamesbrown]

I think James's point is that some of us *( including me) should become Dick Whittington (and his cat again). Get knapsack and the wooden stick and go out and find the fortune, through networking and talking with real people at conferences and meetup (instead of relying on just Microsoft AI). Find the thing that just on the periphery of the mainstream. And just maybe, we are in the right place at the right time to catch the new wave ahead of the rest of the herd. Because there is always a new wave.

Exactly that, as best you can. IMHO, that is what contracting is all about, trying to position yourself not just for the next gig, but the next sequence of gigs. Or, more simply, get a plan of some kind, even if it isn't contracting. I appreciate it's easy to bumble along and miss the big picture when there are bills to pay, but the direction of travel has been clear for some time now.

[eek]

Indeed, it's easy to find someone to blame. People who work inside IR35 etc. etc. The current market is certainly tough, especially for generic skillsets. It will probably improve after the GE and interest rate reductions, but generic skills are biddable and that isn't going to improve.

Given that I'm currently vaguely job hunting - the only issue I've got with IR35 is working out how much I can pull out of the limited company given that if I go inside the tax of dividends is grotty if you go over a £50,000 income let alone £100,000..

but I see no problem taking an inside IR35 role if the work is remote and they don't expect much or any travel...

All the roles I'm seeing are outside ones paying about 20% less than the inside ones usually do..

[jamesbrown]

but I see no problem taking an inside IR35 role if the work is remote and they don't expect much or any travel...

Neither do I, FWIW. Fill yer boots with inside IR35 work if the numbers stack up.

[SussexSeagull]

A lot being discussed here so:

Offshoring/Immigration: There is quite literally nothing we can do about offshoring. Go back a few years and it was all the rage but then clients realised that cheap isn't always best and it retreated a bit. However the offshorers learnt their lesson and, in the main, improved and it is the done thing again. I can only speak for myself as a tester but the government allowed themselves to be pressured by industry and issued too many visas to Indian contractors who have hung around since and now can stay. Again, not a criticism of them as they did it by the book.

The difference with the EU pre-Brexit is that, language barriers aside, we could go and work there which was certainly feasible for the Western European countries. It's unlikely any of us will work in India.

AI: I heard a phrase used in a session on leaflet writing with AI that is probably partly true with coding 'AI beats the blank page'. I am no coder but I am sure it can give you a very good starting place that needs editing. Even my meagre and out of date coding knowledge is aware that code being automatically generated before a human has a go at it is hardly a new thing.

I keep coming back to this but while technical skills are invaluable, in my experience clients want a safe pair of hands who have been there and done it. We sometimes forget this and the fact we are native English epeakers with shared cultural and professional reference points to the people who decide if we get a contract or not. If they want one person or a small team it makes sense to get in someone who requires minimal management as there are few economies of scale offshoring.

[Bluenose]

I would suggest taking (some) of it outside to general.

State of the market May 2024 Edition - tulipe.

[Snooky]

Offshoring/Immigration:
</snip>
the government allowed themselves to be pressured by industry and issued too many visas to Indian contractors who have hung around since and now can stay

This isn't offshoring which, I agree with others, we can do little about. This is onshoring, where temporary migrant workers can afford to significantly undercut resident workers due to the short term nature of their stay in the country. We definitely can do something about that by not issuing visas unless the relevant skills can't be found in the resident population at a genuine prevailing local market rate and by being far more stringent on checking all aspects of the worker's skills, how they're engaged, paid, taxed etc., and policing how companies try to find the skills they need from the resident workforce. But that doesn't benefit large corporates or political party donations, so political will is weak and it's never really happened.

I have absolutely no problem with people who've come here completely legally and chosen to make our country their home; they'll bring their skills, new ideas, new blood, raise families, pay taxes and hopefully help our economy thrive. As I mentioned before, the only issue is how many citizens can the UK reasonably accommodate?

[edison]

Lots of people have the talent to do a PhD.

That is why there are so many unemployed PhDs out there.

I was referring to people with the talent to do a PhD in AI/ML not PhDs in general.

From what I can see, those jobs pay a lot of money. I doubt many people with such a qualification are unemployed.