So Long to Tech's Dream Job: It’s the shut up and grind era, tech workers said, as Apple, Google, Meta and other giants age into large bureaucracies.

Submitted ⁨⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨FenrirIII@lemmy.world⁩ to ⁨technology@lemmy.world⁩

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/04/technology/tech-jobs-silicon-valley-changes.html?unlocked_article_code=1.bk8.9ZYc._9kFAKGXK-zx

cross-posted from: lemmy.world/post/34411807

While many of them still provide free food and pay well, they have little compunction cutting jobs, ordering mandatory office attendance and clamping down on employee debate. […] “Tech could still be best in terms of free lunch and a high salary,” Ms. Grey said, but “the level of fear has gone way up.”

Along the way, the companies became less tolerant of employee outspokenness. Bosses reasserted themselves after workers protested issues including sexual harassment in the workplace. With the job market flooded with qualified engineers, it became easier to replace those who criticized. “This is a business, and not a place to act in a way that disrupts co-workers or makes them feel unsafe, to attempt to use the company as a personal platform, or to fight over disruptive issues or debate politics,” Sundar Pichai, Google’s chief executive, said in a blog post last year.

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Thedogdrinkscoffee@lemmy.ca ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Time to unionize.

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- goferking0@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Too many dudes who think their special and irreplaceable sadly.
  
  if we unionize I may not get raises!
  
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  - tau@infosec.pub ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Employees are more threatened by the prospect of offshoring and H-1B replacement labor than by their egos. Unlike cops or plumbers who can’t be easily replaced by remote teams abroad, tech workers face the real risk of being replaced. Strong unions exist across many industries precisely because workers naturally form them to protect their interests and to preserve their way of life.
    
    The ‘tech bro’ mentality is no different from ego in any other profession. Unionization isn’t about eliminating individual personalities, but about collective worker protection.
    
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- HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  They’ll just move the office to Austin.
  
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turkalino@lemmy.yachts ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
I’ve been a software engineer for almost 10 years now and lately, I’ve been giving a lot of thought to doing something else. I went into the field because coding and computing in general are genuine passions of mine but I find it difficult to be the code mill I’m expected to be, especially when getting work done quickly is prioritized over getting it done correctly. I also feel like most of the coworkers I’ve had over the years don’t have any genuine interest or intrinsic motivation, and are just in it because it pays well - which I don’t fault them for, especially in the current economy, but they’re much more likely to put up with being treated like shit.

I just don’t know what else I would do. Teaching high school CS seems fun but I’m pretty sure making that transition would take a couple years, since I gotta get a teaching degree and be a student teacher and all that, and I’m not sure I have the patience for that

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- themaninblack@lemmy.world ⁨38⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago
  You’ve nailed it. 15 years of experience here.
  
  Scrum messed everything up too - lots of less-technical people needed jobs in software and that’s where they tend to slot in.
  
  The kids don’t seem to think one level of hierarchy higher than the context they’re in a lot of the time. Not much appreciation for holism and design patterns (your mileage with the latter can vary of course).
  
  Elegance is down and writing your own shitty code instead of using decent opinionated frameworks is up.
  
  If I’m frustrated I write code outside of work.
  
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- jubilationtcornpone@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  
  I find it difficult to be the code mill I’m expected to be, especially when getting work done quickly is prioritized over getting it done correctly.
  
  Same. Half the time the code base is an indicipherable, spaghetti filled dumpster fire. More often than that, the business plan is either non existent or just plain idiotic. Management can’t even answer basic questions like, “who is going to pay for this?” The last three projects I worked on were DOA because there was no clear path to profitability. This was at large, well established corporations.
  
  I’m still trying to figure out how it’s possible to graduate with an MBA without understanding the inherent need for revenue to exceed expenses.
  
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- panda_abyss@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Those soulless people who have no live off the craft drive me nuts, and a lot got in the field like 2017-2023 when everyone was trying to grow headcount as fast as possible.
  
  Those people drive me mad.
  
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- Rooskie91@discuss.online ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  I think you can teach at community college without a teaching degree. You might need a master’s though.
  
  I have a CS degree but started out in nuclear power, then that got me into automation and robotics. There’s way more of that take your time to do it right atmosphere, and these jobs are all over hiding in unexpected places. I guess nobody wants to turn on an expensive machine just to have it eat itself because of a software bug lol.
  
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- resipsaloquitur@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  I imagine you mean well, but teaching is a profession — not a hobby you dabble in when the honeymoon with your career is over.
  
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- Damage@feddit.it ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Industrial automation is always looking. Don’t underestimate the satisfaction of watching your code produce something tangible in front of your eyes.
  
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  - ExcessShiv@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago
    Just be prepared to integrate with 40 year old equipment and add new features in to a PLC that should have been decommissioned a decade ago and the program is a mangled Frankenstein piece of shit made by 50 different people, many with no real understanding of programming or how to structure things…oh, and various “temporary” hacks upon hacks to keep production running with minimal downtime.
    
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- kinsnik@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  i am in a similar position. i have started to give serious thought to the idea of moving back home (to a country with a much lower cost of living than the US), and live from savings while i figure out what i want to do the rest of my life.
  
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- frongt@lemmy.zip ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  What kind of company do you work at? I try to aim for big enough to pay well and give good benefits, but has small enough teams that we own the whole product, start to finish. If you’re working at a software development company, maybe try a company that does something else, but still needs developers?
  
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- stoly@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  This is where I got the hell out of the industry. I now manage IT for a major university and love it. It doesn’t pay as well but it has great benefits, is pandemic-proof, and allows me to work with a lot of excited and motivated students. When I help them get through their studies with confidence, it means the world to me.
  
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atticus88th@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
I’m kind of LMAO because of course those places have turned into that. Look who runs them and look at the execs running it. These are not college grads literally living there and need to unwind while at work.

A lot of software companies especially the new ones who want young talent are running exactly the same as startups were 20 years ago just a lot more flashy and newer toys.

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- stoly@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  I worked for one of those 20 year startups. It was awful. Basically there was no drive, no vision. The entire place was a lot of faff and only existed to give bonuses to leadership. All of the interesting and motivated employees moved on long ago leaving only the mediocre types who play political games and favorites. I needed A job and took it when offered, but took the next job as soon as I could get out. I watched many others cycle through, some a lot faster than I did (I was waiting for a specific position to open).
  
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- onion_dude@feddit.uk ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  I wonder if it’s inevitable that anywhere with enough humans working together will reach this point eventually?
  
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  - Devmapall@lemmy.zip ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    When money and power are funneled to the few then yes. Something more cooperative or democratic probably wouldn’t have the same intensity of the problem.
    
    I think it’s only inevitable because of how our society is structured.
    
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  - stoly@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    No, not really. Where I work now is fantastic and we have great leadership. The moment your original visionary leader leaves and someone with an MBA gets in their place, it all goes to shit. This is LITERALLY what happened to Google and to Apple. Both super dynamic companies with great culture who were then gutted to generate shareholder value.
    
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  - panda_abyss@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    From what I’ve seen it starts with a few people who abuse the niceties, or the first downturn, or both, and suddenly they’ve got an excuse to strip it all back.
    
    It’s always one or the other that starts it. You have an office game console and someone brings their kids who spill pop on it or they take the games home. You get that guy who takes a box of snacks home and the CEO complains for like 2 years about it. You get someone who orders pay per view on a business trip. Etc.
    
    Once you get to like 300 employees this threshold starts getting reliably exceeded.
    
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tdawg@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Idk why people think this is news. It’s been an open thing for years now

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inclementimmigrant@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
What?

This has always been the case for decades and not even close to a new thing.

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vane@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Rat race culture.

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stoly@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
I posted a similar comment in another post of this article.

The elite 1% students who spent their lives pursuing this are getting exactly what they asked for. They sold their souls for a big paycheck and assumed that it was everyone else’s careers that were volatile. They’d have done better to work for a non-profit where at least they could say that they are making the world a better place.

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- FenrirIII@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  It must be nice living in your imaginary world where everything is black and white.
  
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  - stoly@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago
    Every year I tell my CS/CE/Info students that the market is saturated and that jobs are hard to find. I then tell them that they have to figure what motivates them: a paycheck or service. I then suggest that public service is generally stable while private enterprise can be volatile. I finish by telling them that they have to decide what among this fits them best.
    
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- cabron_offsets@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  The elite 1% students are going to be the ones fixing shit when AI breaks everything, because they’re the ones who spent countless hours learning math and algorithms and shit.
  
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  - Sprocketfree@sh.itjust.works ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Meh I was a B student and run circles around my coworkers. Lots of people in this industry that aren’t actual nerds.
    
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