[LRUG] Ghosttown

[George Sheppard]

Does the job market look that bleak? Even for Ruby focused roles there still seems to be opportunity out there. I think it’s going to be hard to justify focusing on one tech stack though when the language things are written in is becoming less relevant. 

In my opinion a lot of the doom and gloom around tech roles crashing since AI ’took off’ is not because of AI but because capital became expensive again. 

Low rates → cheap capital → growth-at-all-costs → lots of open roles
High rates → expensive capital → efficiency + profitability → hiring freezes/layoffs

It seems the dust seems to be settling somewhat however as the number of open roles seems to rising?

> Do we all just need to re-align to be maintainers of the output?

The speed at which the market is moving has accelerated but keeping up to date with modern trends is not a new problem. If you want the most opportunity & to work at the best companies then you need to keep your skills relevant. There is still huge value in understanding how & what you’re building, there is less value in being able to write the syntax that produces the output. Are we now maintainers of the output? I think we are, and still will be for a while*, the drivers of the output. It’s just not by typing out def foo; end anymore. 

* how long? I think we’re safe for a while

George

> On 11 Feb 2026, at 11:10, Michael Pavling via Chat <chat at lists.lrug.org> wrote:
> 
> Well... The jobs market looks pretty bleak, doesn't it?
> 
> There seems to be no entry-level roles now, and the mid/senior roles are few and far between, with hundreds of applicants scrabbling to stand out with their AI tuned CVs :-(
> 
> What's gonna be the case in a couple of years? (Or even at the end of this year)
> Is that it for Ruby jobs now? Is it the end for almost all tech stacks? 😬
> 
> Do we all just need to re-align to be maintainers of the output?
> 
> *sigh* What's everyone's hope for a best outcome?
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