Software engineers make a lot of money, at least historically because of supply/demand mechanics. By suddenly and continuously flooding the market with lots and lots of software engineers, you effectively can bring down wages, since if people are unemployed long enough they're likely to take a lower salary.
For sardonic reasons, I prefer "MANNA".
It seems heavenly until the wailing and gnashing of teeth begin.
Of course, this is just when they got caught doing it. Who knows how often it happens where they don't.
I don't know what the overall answer is, but I would say that if you have high demand skills, you can still earn a living.
This Microsoft deal for the large part is not being offered to software engineering orgs.
Really, it feels like we're in a quiet depression.
Besides "sounds cool with shock value online"
A real GDP decline of over 10% year over year for more than 1 year is the biggest signal. Ofc, I noticed the US Federal Government has been cooking the books since at least H. W. Bush (maybe longer) by including tech stock potential gains as part of GDP. Take out tech stocks, the US economy looks like it will to historians.
Even in the modern day, an economic depression is associated with massive unemployment, deflation, reductions in the trifecta of industrial output + consumer spending + international trade, with the final kicker being reduced credit availability. Currently, interest rates are relatively high (historically middling) which has effectively restricted consumer credit, while the national credit rating has fallen.
But at that point, they almost should be laying off engineers, even without playing any such game.
Can’t claim MS is firing citizens and replacing them with H1Bs, if they are leaving voluntarily.