IBM tripling entry-level jobs after finding the limits of AI adoption
85 points
22 hours ago
| 12 comments
| fortune.com
| HN
thaway123123
1 day ago
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Is this for their in-house development or for their consulting services?

Because the latter would still be indicative of AI hurting entry level hiring since it may signal that other firms are not really willing to hire a full time entry level employee whose job may be obsoleted by AI, and paying for a consultant from IBM may be a lower risk alternative in case AI doesn't pan out.

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raw_anon_1111
1 hour ago
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And if it is for consulting, I doubt very serious they will based in the US. You can’t be priced competitive hiring an entry level consultant in the US and no company is willing to pay the bill rate for US based entry level consultants unless their email address is @amazon.com or @google.com.

Source: current (full time) staff consultant at a third party cloud consulting firm and former consultant (full time) at Amazon.

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xenospn
1 hour ago
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Why would Amazon bring on a full-time consultant instead of just hiring you?
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Insanity
13 minutes ago
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My partner is also a consultant and one client was Google. I’m also confused about the exact reason why they didn’t just hire someone.
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altcunn
18 minutes ago
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Interesting signal from IBM. The "AI will replace all junior devs" narrative never accounted for the fact that you still need humans who understand the business domain, can ask the right questions, and can catch when the AI is confidently wrong. Turns out institutional knowledge doesn't just materialize from a model — you need people learning on the job to build it.
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mathattack
17 hours ago
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Interesting given the current age discrimination lawsuit:

https://www.cohenmilstein.com/case-study/ibm-age-discriminat...

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notepad0x90
17 hours ago
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Another one? What is it with IBM, they must really save lots of money in a way no one else has figured out by firing people at 50yo. This is like the 3rd or 4th one i've heard from them.
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toomuchtodo
2 days ago
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alienbaby
53 minutes ago
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"software engineers will spend less time on routine coding—and more on interacting with customers"

Ahh, what could possibly go wrong!

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Insanity
11 minutes ago
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Customer interaction has imo always been one of the most important parts in good engineering organizations. Delegating that to Product Managers adds unnecessary friction.
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Nextgrid
43 minutes ago
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Why is that bad? You write better code when you actually understand the business domain and the requirement. It's much easier to understand it when you get it direct from the source than filtered down through dozens of product managers and JIRA tickets.
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Insanity
10 minutes ago
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Not sure why this is being downvoted. It’s spot on imo. Engineers who don’t want to understand the domain and the customers won’t be as effective in an engineering organization as those who do.

It always baffles me when someone wants to only think about the code as if it exists in a vacuum. (Although for junior engineers it’s a bit more acceptable than for senior engineers).

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secondcoming
40 minutes ago
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Programmers have an unfortunate tendancy to be too honest!
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optimalsolver
46 minutes ago
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jerlam
21 hours ago
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Probably not on the IBM jobs site yet, where the number of entry level jobs is low compared to the size of the company (~250k):

https://www.ibm.com/careers/search?field_keyword_18[0]=Entry...

Total: 240

United States: 25

India: 29

Canada: 15

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google234123
18 hours ago
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Aren't those general jobs opening. Like junior swe only needs a single generic posting for all positions
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xhkkffbf
19 minutes ago
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Perhaps I'm being cynical, but could they be leaving out some detail? Perhaps they're replacing even more older workers with entry level workers than before? Maybe the AI makes the entry level workers just as good-- and much cheaper.
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Nextgrid
56 minutes ago
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Bold move.

Not because it's wrong, but because it risks initiating the collapse of the AI bubble and the whole "AI is gonna replace all skilled work, any day now, just give us another billion".

Seems like IBM can no longer wait for that day.

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int0x29
26 minutes ago
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Is IBM invested big in LLMs? I don't get the impression they have much to lose there.
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bayindirh
20 minutes ago
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Their CEO already said what he's thinking about all the spending [0].

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46124324

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platevoltage
38 minutes ago
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Good. Nobody needs to rip that bandaid off. Might as well be IBM.
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brianwawok
53 minutes ago
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I mean it’s IBM. On average, 70% of their decisions are bad ones. Not sure I’d pay a single bit of attention to what they do.
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bayindirh
23 minutes ago
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Yeah, they are only 114 years old. How they can have the knowledge to stay afloat in trying times like this?
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Nextgrid
41 minutes ago
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To a non-technical individual IBM is still seen as a reputable brand (their consulting business would've been bankrupt long ago otherwise) and they will absolutely pay attention.
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westurner
1 day ago
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Tripling entry-level hiring is a good plan.

> Some executives and economists argue that younger workers are a better investment for companies in the midst of technological upheaval.

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verdverm
1 day ago
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IBM, in the midst of a tech upheaval? They are so dysfunctional, it's the core of why I left
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awesome_dude
1 day ago
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> In the HR department, entry-level staffers now spend time intervening when HR chatbots fall short, correcting output and talking to managers as needed, rather than fielding every question themselves.

The job is essentially changing from "You have to know what to say, and say it" to "make sure the AI says what you know to be right"

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faragon
1 day ago
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With the workforce may happen like with DRAM and NAND flash memories: unexpected demand in one side leaving without enough offer in other sides.
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joe_mamba
12 minutes ago
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Doubt it. Unless we go through another decade of ZIRP combined with inventing new hyped technologies that lack specialists, and discovering new untapped markets, there's not gonna be any massive demand spike of labor in tech that can't be met.

The "learn to code" saga has run its course. Coder is the new factory worker job where I live.

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ChrisArchitect
15 hours ago
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dang
1 hour ago
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Thanks - we-ve merged that thread hither.
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