[cosmic_quanta]

It's unsettling to read that my software job is entirely dependent on all of this, seemingly unsustainable, work.

[sevensor]

I don’t think it’s unsustainable, it’s just an unpleasant result of supply and demand in the labor market. In Taiwan, TSMC hires PhDs to do this. Maybe there’s a smarter way to run a fab, but labor costs are a tiny fraction of capital costs, and “grind through recent college grads” has worked so far, so why change?