thanks for your insightful post, especially re: economic analysis of the job market. I disagree with parts of your analysis though + I don't follow your conclusion. This is not to deny folks' anxiety and frustration. but things are exciting on the other side (I'm biased here as someone hiring)...

To your observation, there can be a disconnect between what PhDs learn and what the field requires (at least in my subfield which is maybe too Product-y for you?) I wonder if this is a root cause of late-stage PhD anxiety. though also I feel that anxiety is normal; I felt it too 3Y ago.

are being hired to keep the lights on or just to produce incremental/stable improvements. Firms must always stay innovating in this environment. PhDs can be great at this kind of work. A PhD is no longer required though - there are meaningful ways for more folks to contribute. I think this is good!

I think the crux here is that process standardization != the end of creative/fun/disruptive research. The beautify of software is low variable capital. It's easier to maintain a website than a factory. Plus because of standardization, there's a lot of competition. So it's not like researchers...

thanks for your insightful post, especially re: economic analysis of the job market. I disagree with parts of your analysis though + I don't follow your conclusion. This is not to deny folks' anxiety and frustration. but things are exciting on the other side (I'm biased here as someone hiring)...

Flying out to Vancouver now for NeurIPS- lmk if you want to chat! (Not sure how to turn on DMs in Bluesky but you can also reply publicly, email me, or use the other microblog website :))