by halamadrid on 2/15/26, 3:18 AM
I pay $20 for OpenAI and codex makes me incredibly productive. With very careful prompts aimed at tiny tasks, I can review, fix and get a lot of things done.
I’ll happily pay up to $2k/month for it if I was left with no choice, but I don’t think it will ever get that expensive since you can run models locally and it could have the same result.
That being said, my outputs are similarish in the big picture. When I get something done, I typically don’t have the energy to keep going to get it to 2x or 3x because the cognitive load is about the same.
However I get a lot of time freed up which is amazing because I’m able to play golf 3-4 times a week which would have been impossible without AI.
Productive? Yes. Time saved? Yes. Overall outputs? Similar.
by chasd00 on 2/15/26, 2:02 AM
Some stats are trickling out in my company. Code heavy consulting projects show about 18% efficiency gains but I have problems with that number because no one has been able to tell me how it was calculated. Story points actual vs estimated is probably how it was done but that’s nonsensical because we all know how subjective estimates and even actuals are. It’s probably impossible to get a real number that doesn’t have significant “well I feel about x% more efficient…”
by layer8 on 2/14/26, 10:20 PM
The title is a bit misleading. Reading the article, the argument seems to be that entry-level applicants (are expected to) have the highest AI literacy, so they want them to drive AI adoption.
by thaway123123 on 2/13/26, 1:54 AM
Is this for their in-house development or for their consulting services?
Because the latter would still be indicative of AI hurting entry level hiring since it may signal that other firms are not really willing to hire a full time entry level employee whose job may be obsoleted by AI, and paying for a consultant from IBM may be a lower risk alternative in case AI doesn't pan out.
by javafox on 2/15/26, 10:04 PM
I had the chance to try a IBM internal AI. It was a normal chat interface where one could select models up to Sonnet 4.5. I have not seen anything agentic. So there is that.
by mathattack on 2/14/26, 5:02 AM
by boondongle on 2/15/26, 12:50 AM
No - it's that they fired their vets in high cost areas and kept them in low cost areas.
A large number of vets can now choose to reapply for their old job (or similar job) at a fraction of the price with their pension/benefits reduced and the vets in low cost centers now become the SMEs. In many places in the company they were not taken seriously due to both internal politics, but also quite a bit of performative "output" that either didn't do anything or had to be redone.
Nothing to do with AI - everything to do with Arvind Krishna. One of the reasons the market loves him, but the tech community doesn't necessarily take IBM seriously.
by sqircles on 2/14/26, 10:21 PM
IBM has cut ~8,000 jobs in the past year or so.
Sounds like business as usual to me, with a little sensationalization.
by slopinthebag on 2/15/26, 12:31 AM
You know when someone is singing the praises about AI and they get asked "if you're so much more productive with AI, what have you built with it"? Well I think a bunch of companies are asking this same question to their employees and realising that the productivity gains they are betting on were overhyped.
LLM's can be a very useful tool and will probably lead to measurable productivity increases in the future, at their current state they are not capable of replacing most knowledge workers. Remember, even computers as a whole didn't measurably impact the economy for years after their adoption. The real world is a messy place and hard to predict!
by 1970-01-01 on 2/15/26, 4:04 PM
IBM is one of those companies that measures success by complexity. Meaning if it's complicated, they make money with consultants. If it's simple, they bundle it with other complex solutions that require consulting.
by toomuchtodo on 2/12/26, 9:37 PM
by victor9000 on 2/15/26, 1:24 AM
Yes, junior candidates lacking the knowledge and wisdom to redirect an LLM, that's who will unlock the mythical AI productivity.
by sinuhe69 on 2/15/26, 8:52 AM
The article said they called for triple junior hire but cut 1000 jobs a month later, “so the number of jobs stay roughly the same”.
Certainly they didn’t mean 1000 junior positions were cut. So what they really want to say is that they cut senior positions as a way of saving cost/make profit in the age of AI? Totally contrary to what other companies believe? Sounds quite insane to me!
by awesome_dude on 2/12/26, 11:07 PM
> In the HR department, entry-level staffers now spend time intervening when HR chatbots fall short, correcting output and talking to managers as needed, rather than fielding every question themselves.
The job is essentially changing from "You have to know what to say, and say it" to "make sure the AI says what you know to be right"
by jerlam on 2/14/26, 12:28 AM
by jghn on 2/15/26, 3:46 AM
Brings a new angle on the old joke: "Actually, Indians"
by Nextgrid on 2/14/26, 9:23 PM
Bold move.
Not because it's wrong, but because it risks initiating the collapse of the AI bubble and the whole "AI is gonna replace all skilled work, any day now, just give us another billion".
Seems like IBM can no longer wait for that day.
by westurner on 2/12/26, 11:17 PM
Tripling entry-level hiring is a good plan.
> Some executives and economists argue that younger workers are a better investment for companies in the midst of technological upheaval.
by aussieguy1234 on 2/14/26, 10:55 PM
by nomilk on 2/14/26, 10:39 PM
The title could be dead wrong; the tripling of junior jobs might not be due to the limits of AI, but because of AI increasing the productivity of juniors to that of a mid or senior (or at least 2-3x-ing the output of juniors), thus making hiring juniors an appealing prospect to increase the company's output relative to competitors who aren't hiring in response to AI tech improvements. Hope this is the case and hope it happens across broadly across the economy. While the gutter press fear mongers of job losses, if AI makes the average employee much more useful (even if its via newly created roles), it's conceivable there's a jobs/salaries boom, including among those who 'lose their job' and move into a new one!
by faragon on 2/13/26, 8:47 AM
With the workforce may happen like with DRAM and NAND flash memories: unexpected demand in one side leaving without enough offer in other sides.
by lijok on 2/15/26, 2:19 AM
When you read the comments here just remember there are people using ChatGPT to write code.
by ahmeni on 2/14/26, 11:57 PM
Huh, weird, another "technological marvel" whose primary effect just seems to be devaluing labour.
by small_model on 2/14/26, 10:46 PM
They hire juniors, give them Claude Code and some specs and save a mid/senior devs salary. I believe coding is over for SWE's by end of 2027, but will take time to diffuse though the economy hence still need some cheap labour for a few years, given the H1-B ban this is one way without offshoring.
by lexicalmathical on 2/15/26, 6:00 AM
We are witnessing the Secularization of Code.
by xhkkffbf on 2/14/26, 10:00 PM
Perhaps I'm being cynical, but could they be leaving out some detail? Perhaps they're replacing even more older workers with entry level workers than before? Maybe the AI makes the entry level workers just as good-- and much cheaper.
by ectospheno on 2/15/26, 4:15 AM
IBM has practiced ageism for decades with the same playbook. AI is just the latest excuse. Fire a wide enough swath so it isn’t all old employees and then only hire entry level positions. Often within the same year. Repeat.
by Jang-woo on 2/15/26, 4:49 AM
AI is not removing entry-level roles — it’s exposing where judgment boundaries actually exist.
by fud101 on 2/15/26, 12:47 AM
I always though the usual 'they only hire seniors now' was a questionable take. If anything, all you need is a semi warm blooded human to hit retry until the agents get something functional. It's more likely tech will transform into an industry of lowly paid juniors imho, if it hasn't already started. Senior level skill is more replacable, not just because it's cheaper to hire juniors augmented with mostly AI but because they are more adaptable to the new dystopia since they never experienced anything else. They are less likely to get hung up on some code not being 'best practice' or 'efficient' or even 'correct'. They will just want to get the app working regardless of what goes in the sausage, etc.
by ulfw on 2/15/26, 4:19 AM
What does tripling actually mean in this context?
E.g. If you cut hiring from say 1,000 a year to 10 and now are 'tripling' it to 30 then that's still a nothingburger.
by heliumtera on 2/15/26, 12:23 AM
Nooooo how dare you!!!
AGI is coming and engineers are obsolete!
Think about the economy and the AI children
by iamleppert on 2/15/26, 12:51 AM
An AI model has no drive or desire, or embodiment for that matter. Simply put, they don't exist in the real world and don't have the requirements or urgency to do anything unless prompted by a human, because, you know, survival under capitalism. Until they have to survive and compete like the rest of us and face the same pressures, they are going to be forever be relegated as mere tools.
by vb-8448 on 2/14/26, 11:31 PM
It must be refactored: IBM is hopping that juniors(less paid) with AI can be sold as seniors.
by ChrisArchitect on 2/14/26, 6:34 AM
by alienbaby on 2/14/26, 9:27 PM
"software engineers will spend less time on routine coding—and more on interacting with customers"
Ahh, what could possibly go wrong!