作者：Sean Goedecke翻译：Harry Wong校对、排版：Cursor IDE
For most of the last decade, being a software engineer has been a lot of fun. Every company offered lots of perks, layoffs and firings were almost unheard of, and in general we were treated as special little geniuses who needed to be pampered so we could work our magic. That's changed in the last two years. The first round of tech layoffs in 2023 came as a shock, but at least companies were falling over themselves to offer generous severance and teary CEO letters regretting the necessity. Two years later, Meta is explicitly branding its layoffs as "these were our lowest performers, good riddance". What the hell happened? What does it mean for us?
在过去十年的大部分时间里，做一名软件工程师是一件非常有趣的事情。每家公司都提供大量福利，裁员和解雇几乎闻所未闻，总的来说，我们被当作需要呵护的特殊小天才，这样我们才能施展魔法。这一切在过去两年里改变了。2023 年第一轮科技裁员令人震惊，但至少公司还在争相提供慷慨的遣散费和 CEO 流着泪的信件，表达裁员的无奈。两年后，Meta 明确将其裁员定性为"这些是我们表现最差的员工，走了也好"。到底发生了什么？这对我们意味着什么？
Why did the vibe shift? | 为什么氛围转变了？
In the 2010s, interest rates were zero or close to zero. Investors could thus borrow a lot of money. Much of that money was spent on tech companies in the hope of outsized returns. Tech companies were thus incentivized to (a) hire like crazy, and (b) do a lot of low-risk high-reward things, even if that ends up wasting money. Tech companies definitely did not have to be profitable. In fact, they didn't even need to make money - they just had to acquire users, or at least hype, to drive up the valuation of the company itself. In that environment, throwing money at their software engineers (in the form of paid trips, in-house chefs, and huge comp packages) was a sensible business decision.
在 2010 年代，利率为零或接近零。因此投资者可以借到大量的钱。这些钱中的很多被投资到科技公司，希望获得超额回报。科技公司因此被激励去：(a) 疯狂招聘，(b) 做很多低风险高回报的事情，即使这最终会浪费钱。科技公司绝对不需要盈利。事实上，它们甚至不需要赚钱——它们只需要获取用户，或者至少是炒作，来推高公司本身的估值。在那种环境下，向软件工程师撒钱（以付费旅行、内部厨师和巨额薪酬包的形式）是一个明智的商业决策。
In 2023, this underlying economic situation reversed: interest rates went up to around 5%. Tech company incentives completely flipped: now it's suddenly important to be profitable, or at least to make lots of money. That means it's not wise for most companies to hire like crazy, or to continue throwing near-unlimited amounts of money at their software engineers.
2023 年，这种潜在的经济形势发生了逆转：利率上升到约 5%。科技公司的激励机制完全翻转：现在突然盈利变得重要，或者至少要赚很多钱。这意味着大多数公司继续疯狂招聘或继续向软件工程师投入近乎无限的资金是不明智的。
I think that's a sufficient explanation for the vibe shift all by itself. What about COVID? It helped, but it wasn't the root cause. Two years (or thereabouts) of people staying inside more meant much more engagement with tech products, which meant much more money flowing into tech companies. Everyone was hiring during COVID. Once that short-term boom finished, companies naturally wanted to get rid of some of those engineers, which is what triggered a lot of the initial layoffs. However, I do think that even without COVID, we'd still be in something like the current situation. Companies were constantly hiring pre-2020 as well.
我认为这本身就足以解释氛围的转变。那么 COVID 呢？它有帮助，但不是根本原因。大约两年时间里，人们更多地待在室内，这意味着与科技产品的互动大大增加，这意味着更多资金流入科技公司。每个人都在 COVID 期间招聘。一旦这种短期繁荣结束，公司自然想要摆脱其中一些工程师，这就是引发许多初期裁员的原因。然而，我确实认为，即使没有 COVID，我们仍然会处于类似目前的状况。公司在 2020 年之前也在不断招聘。
This idea that AI is taking software engineering jobs or contributing to layoffs is - as far as I can tell - currently pure fantasy. I do believe in the power of AI, and I wouldn't be surprised if it takes software jobs at some point in the future, but it's certainly not behind the vibe shift in software engineering right now.
AI 正在夺走软件工程工作或导致裁员的想法——据我所知——目前纯属幻想。我确实相信 AI 的力量，如果它在未来某个时候夺走软件工作，我不会感到惊讶，但它肯定不是目前软件工程氛围转变的原因。
What does that mean for us? | 这对我们意味着什么？
I think a lot of software engineers right now are planting their feet and refusing to change. After ten years of their opinion being consulted on big company decisions, they're trying to hold on to that power. I have respect for anyone who stands up for what they think is right at personal cost. I just want to stress that there is going to be a personal cost to not going along with the vibe shift, particularly for more junior or more vulnerable engineers. As someone who lives in Australia, I feel pretty vulnerable myself.
我认为现在很多软件工程师正在固守立场，拒绝改变。在他们的意见被征询参与重大公司决策十年后，他们试图保持这种权力。我尊重任何以个人代价坚持自己认为正确的事情的人。我只是想强调，不顺应氛围转变将会付出个人代价，特别是对更初级或更脆弱的工程师而言。作为一个生活在澳大利亚的人，我自己也感到相当脆弱。
The biggest thing to internalize is that companies now are actually trying to focus. In 2015, there was a lot of appetite to do everything at the same time: building out new product lines, transitioning from a product to a platform, making significant open-source contributions, working on a top-tier developer experience, and so on. In 2025, most of these initiatives have been abruptly defunded in order to put more resources into a handful of bets that the company executives actually care about.
最重要的是要内化的是：公司现在实际上在试图聚焦。在 2015 年，有很大的意愿同时做所有事情：开发新产品线、从产品转型为平台、做出重要的开源贡献、致力于一流的开发者体验等等。到 2025 年，这些举措中的大多数都被突然取消资金，以便将更多资源投入到公司高管真正关心的少数几个赌注上。
During the 2010s, it was as if companies were their software engineers, and were interested in the same things as their engineers were. A lot of engineers were fooled by this into identifying strongly with their employer. But this was a mirage: in part caused by companies' desire to attract and retain talent, and in part by there being no real pressure on companies to say no to anything. Now the mirage has vanished. Companies are their executive leadership, and their executive leadership are interested in a much smaller set of things.
在 2010 年代，就好像公司就是他们的软件工程师，并且对工程师感兴趣的事情也感兴趣。许多工程师因此被愚弄，与雇主产生了强烈的认同。但这是一个海市蜃楼：部分是因为公司希望吸引和留住人才，部分是因为公司没有真正的压力对任何事情说不。现在海市蜃楼已经消失了。公司就是他们的执行领导层，而他们的执行领导层对一组小得多的事情感兴趣。
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.
如果你是一个热爱开发公司开源库的工程师，明智的做法可能是面对这样一个事实：公司从来没有真正那么在乎它。当利率为零时，这是值得做的，因为大多数事情都值得做。在 5% 的利率下，大多数开源工作达不到那个标准。换句话说，你的利益现在与公司的利益冲突。
It's okay for your interests to conflict with your company's. You get to decide what you care about, and what you're willing to fight for. But when you act in ways that don't further your company's interests, you risk being seen as ineffective or unreliable. In 2025, that makes you vulnerable to being laid off.
你的利益与公司的利益冲突是可以的。你可以决定你关心什么，以及你愿意为什么而战。但是当你的行为方式不能推进公司的利益时，你就有被视为无效或不可靠的风险。在 2025 年，这会让你容易被裁员。
Is there a silver lining? | 有什么好的一面吗？
The good news is that tech companies now live in (or at least a lot closer to) the "real world". It was nice to be pampered, but there was a fundamental ridiculousness about it, even at the time. I know a lot of engineers who found that offputting, including myself. It's why many engineers found the TV show Silicon Valley hard to watch - the satire was too real to laugh at. It was mainly embarrassing.
好消息是，科技公司现在生活在（或者至少更接近）"现实世界"中。被宠着很好，但即使在当时，这也有一种根本的荒谬性。我认识很多工程师觉得这令人反感，包括我自己。这就是为什么许多工程师发现电视剧《硅谷》难以观看——讽刺太真实了，无法发笑。这主要是令人尴尬的。
If I had to choose, I'd definitely choose to return to the job market of the 2010s, so I can be paid more to work less and have more job security. I'm not an idiot. But the silver lining to actually having to ship is that you're no longer living in a dream. If you're realistic about how things work, the job of software engineering becomes much easier to understand:
如果必须选择，我肯定会选择回到 2010 年代的就业市场，这样我可以拿更高的薪水做更少的工作，并有更多的工作保障。我不是傻子。但实际上必须交付的好处是，你不再生活在梦中。如果你对事情的运作方式很现实，软件工程的工作就变得容易理解得多：
- 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
- 为公司提供价值会得到奖励
- 不为公司提供价值会受到惩罚
- "对公司的价值"意味着推进公司高管的明确计划
It's not much of a mission statement! Certainly nothing on "making the world a better place". But it has the comforting solidity of the truth. The good thing about the music finally stopping is that you don't have to worry about when it's going to stop.
这不是什么了不起的使命宣言！当然与"让世界变得更美好"无关。但它有真理的令人安慰的坚实性。音乐终于停止的好处是，你不必担心它什么时候会停止。---
Hacker News 热门讨论 | Top Discussions on Hacker News
本文在 Hacker News 上获得了 185 点赞和 252 条评论。以下是一些最具代表性的讨论观点。
💬 关于激励机制错位 | On Misaligned Incentives
Nextgrid (最高票评论 | Top Comment):
During ZIRP the incentives for employees were completely disconnected from the underlying business, leading to entire careers being built around and rewarded for the wrong outcomes. People have built entire careers while completely missing/ignoring why they're doing the job and how their work is supposed to fit and contribute to the overall business - because in a lot of cases there was never a viable business to begin with, and the founders themselves were playing the "career startup founder" card and enjoying the mismatched incentives set up by a distorted funding market.
在 ZIRP 时期，员工激励与实际业务完全脱节，导致整个职业生涯都是围绕错误的成果建立和获得奖励的。人们在建立整个职业生涯时完全忽略了为什么要做这份工作，以及他们的工作应该如何融入并贡献于整体业务——因为在很多情况下，从一开始就没有可行的商业模式，创始人自己也在扮演"职业创业者"的角色，享受着扭曲的融资市场所设定的错配激励。
Now we're seeing a readjustment as the "free money" is gone and companies realign the incentives to actually make a profit on all that manpower. The good times for the career software engineer - the kind that aces LeetCode, optimizes for career growth and collects the right buzzwords on their resume has indeed come to an end, but there's still plenty of good times to be had if you are a career problem solver.
现在我们看到了调整——"免费的钱"已经消失，公司重新调整激励机制以真正从所有人力中获得利润。对于那种精通 LeetCode、优化职业发展路径、在简历上收集正确关键词的职业软件工程师来说，好时光确实已经结束了，但如果你是一个职业问题解决者，仍然有很多好时光可以享受。
💬 关于薪酬现实 | On Compensation Reality
fancyfredbot responds:
Can I offer a contrarian point of view? Tech is still a great place to work. Pay is still excellent in comparison to most professions. We have exciting and innovative new technology with AI which still offer all sorts of opportunities for disruption. The tooling we have now is amazing, a lot of the drudgery of writing boilerplate code can be delegated to LLMs.
我能提供一个相反的观点吗？科技行业仍然是一个很好的工作场所。与大多数职业相比，薪酬仍然很出色。我们有令人兴奋和创新的 AI 新技术，仍然提供各种颠覆性的机会。我们现在拥有的工具很棒，大量编写样板代码的苦差事可以委托给 LLM。
I also recognise that being laid off really sucks and that recent job losses are definitely not a good time. I'm not arguing otherwise. I just think that being a software engineer with a job is still pretty good.
我也认识到被裁员真的很糟糕，最近的失业肯定不是好时光。我并不是在反驳这一点。我只是认为，作为一个有工作的软件工程师仍然很不错。
💬 关于行业周期 | On Industry Cycles
Mc91:
I have been working in IT for over 30 years. What is happening is not new. Late 1999 was a very go-go time, early 2022 was a very go-go time. Alternatively, things were dead in 1991, in 2001, in 2009. Things were briefly dead in some ways for some people in spring/summer 2020 when Covid hit.
我在 IT 行业工作了 30 多年。现在发生的事情并不新鲜。1999 年末是一个非常繁荣的时期，2022 年初也是一个非常繁荣的时期。相反，1991 年、2001 年、2009 年情况都很糟糕。2020 年春夏 Covid 爆发时，对某些人来说情况在某些方面也暂时很糟糕。
Unless society is entering some major transformative period like the 1930s, these shifts of the business cycle will keep happening. While the general tech market has been stagnant since November 2022, Nvidia stock has gone up 800%, as it has gone from the 15th most valuable company in the world to the 2nd, behind Apple.
除非社会进入像 1930 年代那样的重大变革时期，否则这些商业周期的转变将继续发生。虽然自 2022 年 11 月以来整体科技市场一直停滞不前，但 Nvidia 的股票上涨了 800%，从世界第 15 大最有价值的公司变成了第 2 大，仅次于苹果。
💬 关于个人经历 | On Personal Experience
I'm an engineer at a large tech company. I am by all means considered a successful engineer. I am actively looking for a way to exit the field, and am assuming that in a few years my career options will be vastly diminished. I am worried about ageism, and can already feel it in my early 30s.
我是一家大型科技公司的工程师。从各方面来说，我都被认为是一个成功的工程师。我正在积极寻找退出这个领域的方法，并假设几年后我的职业选择将大大减少。我担心年龄歧视，在 30 岁出头就已经能感受到它了。
A friend of mine, with a STEM PhD, and 8+ years of experience between Amazon and Google was laid off, is struggling to find a job paying over 200k, they were making 500k previously. Obviously 150-200k is still decent money, but it really doesn't go far in major metro areas, and for someone with such a premium resume, is a bellwether of what's to come.
我的一个朋友拥有 STEM 博士学位，在亚马逊和谷歌有 8 年以上的经验，被裁员后，很难找到年薪超过 20 万美元的工作，而他们之前的薪水是 50 万美元。显然 15-20 万美元仍然是不错的钱，但在主要大都市地区真的走不了多远，对于拥有如此优质简历的人来说，这是未来趋势的风向标。
💬 关于真正的价值 | On Real Value
The most successful phases of my career have involved putting the customer absolutely first and looking at the money as a causal event based upon a job well done. I've never looked at a direct deposit into my bank account and felt the kind of rush of happiness I get when I see a customer reply that an issue is resolved to their satisfaction.
我职业生涯中最成功的阶段都涉及将客户绝对放在首位，并将金钱视为基于出色工作的因果事件。我从未看着银行账户的直接存款并感受到那种看到客户回复问题已圆满解决时的幸福感。
名词解析
- ZIRP (Zero Interest Rate Policy)：零利率政策。Central banks set interest rates at or near 0% to stimulate economic growth. 中央银行将利率设定在零或接近零的水平以刺激经济增长的政策。
- Vibe shift：氛围转变。A noticeable change in the general mood, culture, or expectations within an industry or community. 行业或社区内整体情绪、文化或期望的显著变化。
- Comp package：薪酬包。The total compensation offered to an employee, including salary, bonuses, stock options, and benefits. 提供给员工的总薪酬，包括工资、奖金、股票期权和福利。
- Severance：遣散费。Payment and benefits given to employees when they are laid off or terminated. 员工被裁员或解雇时获得的款项和福利。
- Perks：福利待遇。Additional benefits or privileges provided by employers beyond basic salary. 雇主在基本工资之外提供的额外福利或特权。
- Layoff：裁员。Termination of employment due to business reasons rather than employee performance. 因业务原因而非员工表现导致的雇佣关系终止。
- Executive leadership：高管领导层。The top-level management team responsible for strategic decisions in a company. 负责公司战略决策的高层管理团队。
- Open-source：开源。Software whose source code is made freely available for anyone to use, modify, and distribute. 源代码免费向所有人开放，可以使用、修改和分发的软件。
- Interest rate：利率。The percentage charged by a lender for borrowing money, or paid by a bank on savings. 贷款人借钱收取的百分比，或银行为储蓄支付的百分比。
- Valuation：估值。The process of determining the current worth of a company or asset. 确定公司或资产当前价值的过程。
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