Before 2022

The fun of being an engineer

The priority was to ensure engineers are looked after, and consulted for decisions.

Related: Programming is fun

A spike of new engineers

Because it was so fun, it brought a new wave of engineers.

Business priorities

The priority was to acquire users, not make money.

Your priorities vs the company's priorities:

If you were an engineer who loved working on your company’s open-source libraries, it’s probably sensible to confront the fact that the company never really cared about it that much. When interest rates were zero, it was worth doing because most things were worth doing. At 5% interest rates, most open-source work doesn’t meet that bar. In other words, your interests now conflict with your company’s interests.

Relationships with companies

This hits home.
We used to wonder if a company was a "tech-first" company.

What happened in 2022

ZIRP - Zero Interest Rate Policy

After 2022

Summary from Blog - The good times in tech are over:

• • Providing value to the company gets you rewarded
• • Not providing value to the company gets you punished
• • “Value to the company” means furthering the explicit plans of your company’s executives

Lots of candidates

Your interests vs the company's interests

Definitely felt that one.

New focus of companies

Profitable: making money is now important.

Impact of AI

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Duplicate? Changes in the software industry