He's worked decades in tech and wrote a book on vibe coding. He predicts 50% of Big Tech engineers will be laid off.

"On " The Pragmatic Engineer" podcast and newsletter, Yegge described an imaginary dial of the percentage of engineering staff a company can lay off, ranging from zero to 100. He said he believes the dial is being set at 50 in the age of AI. "You're going to have to get rid of half of them to make the other half maximally productive," Yegge said. "We're going to lose around half the engineers from big companies, which is scary"."

"There's a capital-to-labor tradeoff happening in tech. Companies are paying vast sums for tokens and enterprise AI licenses, GPUs, and computing capacity. That money needs to come from somewhere - and for some, it could come from labor costs. Yegge pointed to this tradeoff as the reason for his forecast of 50% cuts becoming the norm. Companies will lay off some engineers to help pay for the others to have adequate access to AI, he said."

A forecast predicts that roughly 50% of software engineers at major technology companies will be laid off as AI adoption accelerates. Companies face a capital-to-labor tradeoff as spending on tokens, enterprise AI licenses, GPUs, and compute rises. Firms may reduce headcount to free budget for AI tools that increase remaining engineers' productivity. The shift could surpass pandemic-era layoffs and cause extensive workforce disruption. Opportunities will remain for engineers who pursue inventive roles, join startups, or specialize in AI-enabled development. Some industry observers warn the impact on employment could be much larger than prior cycles.

Read at Business Insider