Latest news with #softwareengineering
Geek Wire
3 days ago
- Business
- Geek Wire
Latest Microsoft layoffs target engineering, product and legal roles, records show
(GeekWire Photo / Todd Bishop) Software engineers, product managers, technical program managers, product marketers, and legal staff were most impacted by Microsoft's latest round of layoffs. New data from the Washington state Employment Security Department, obtained by GeekWire, reveals how Microsoft is trimming its workforce — and provides a window into how tech companies are looking to streamline headcount amid the AI boom. Microsoft is laying off 305 people in Redmond, Wash., as part of a new round of cuts that follow a separate layoff last month impacting nearly 3% of its global workforce, or about 6,000 employees. Of those 305 positions, software engineering roles were hit hardest, making up about 22% of impacted employees, or 67 workers. Other top affected disciplines include: Product management : 39 employees : 39 employees Technical program management : 35 : 35 Product marketing : 30 : 30 Business program management : 22 : 22 Legal counsel: 22 The data mirrors similar trends in Microsoft's layoff last month, per Bloomberg, citing data from Washington state. It shows that software engineering roles are not immune to the impact from generative AI tools, which are already having a big effect on coding. Speaking at LlamaCon 2025 on April 30, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said that up to 30% of Microsoft's code is now AI-generated. GeekWire Chart; data from Washington state Employment Security Department. Microsoft has not said whether AI efficiencies played a direct role in the recent layoffs. However, the company said, in general, it's seeking to help workers use new technologies to focus on the most meaningful and important tasks. Microsoft has also signaled a move to strip management layers, a strategy also touted by other tech giants including Amazon. The latest cuts in Washington state impacted a mix of individual contributor and management levels. 'IC4' roles, or mid-level individual contributors, were the most affected. On Microsoft's April 30 earnings call, CFO Amy Hood said the company was focused 'on building high-performing teams and increasing our agility by reducing layers with fewer managers.' The new cuts also impacted 22 legal counsel positions and five paralegal roles in Washington state. Legal positions were not impacted in the layoffs last month. The latest round of cuts brings the company's total reported layoffs in its home state to nearly 2,300 in recent weeks. 'We continue to implement organizational changes necessary to best position the company for success in a dynamic marketplace,' the spokesperson said in an emailed statement Monday.
Associated Press
3 days ago
- Business
- Associated Press
DataArt Commits $100 Million to Advance Data and AI Capabilities
NEW YORK, NY, UNITED STATES, June 3, 2025 / / -- DataArt, a global software engineering firm specializing in data, analytics, and AI, today announced a $100 million commitment to strengthen its data and AI capabilities, responding to increased client demand while maintaining its focus on technology-driven business results. 'We are making a deliberate financial commitment to the technologies shaping the future of our clients and our company,' said Eugene Goland, CEO and Founder of DataArt. 'This isn't about changing course — it's about doubling down on the areas we've been building and delivering on for years.' The financial commitment will strengthen DataArt's core data and AI services, which are already key drivers of client demand and revenue growth. Focus areas include: • Data Strategy: Helping clients define roadmaps that transform data into a valuable business asset. • Data Platform Engineering: Building scalable platforms for real-time, trusted data. • Data Value Realization: Delivering measurable results from data initiatives. • Generative AI: Turning advanced AI capabilities into real business solutions through strategic consulting, custom development, and accelerators. • AI-Accelerated Engineering: Injecting AI into every stage of the SDLC to boost speed and improve quality. These services are foundational to enterprise AI adoption, especially in data-intensive sectors where demand is rising sharply. A core part of DataArt's strategy is a pragmatic and thoughtful approach to AI. The company uses AI by default where it drives clear value but remains measured in areas where impact is limited or uncertain. DataArt continuously monitors advancements in third-party tools and models to ensure clients benefit from meaningful innovation — not just trends. Internally, the company is scaling AI adoption across all functions. By the end of 2025, 100% of employees will have access to corporate AI tools, and up to 60% of engineering roles will actively use AI. As part of this strategy, DataArt is actively pursuing AI-driven optimization across the software development lifecycle (SDLC), with significant improvements already emerging in areas such as product management, code generation, and quality engineering — where AI is proving to be a strong accelerator of both speed and precision. These changes are supported by new training programs, updated skill matrices, and practical internal resources to guide responsible AI use. The $100 million commitment also supports hiring senior talent, expanding learning programs via DataArt's proprietary LMS platform, EDU, and advancing R&D through Innovation Labs. The commitment also supports the continued development of proprietary solutions, including the DataArt Connect AI Platform — a secure, scalable platform for AI automation, productivity, and governance — and dozens of data and AI accelerators already driving value for clients. To support delivery at scale, DataArt is deepening strategic partnerships with AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, Snowflake, and Databricks. The company is also reserving part of the financial commitment for co-innovation with select clients, including support for early-stage R&D and business case development. Additionally, DataArt is evolving its commercial models to reflect compressed timelines and rising value expectations around data and AI. While T&M, fixed-price, and managed services remain core, outcomes-based pricing is expanding where aligned with client goals. Read the position paper, published today alongside this announcement, to learn more about the strategy behind DataArt's $100M commitment. About DataArt DataArt is a global software engineering firm that delivers breakthrough data, analytics, and AI platforms for the world's most demanding organizations. As the partner for progress in the digital age, our world-class teams artfully design and engineer data-driven, cloud-native solutions that generate immediate and enduring business value. We combine global scale, deep technical expertise, and progressive vision with advanced R&D Labs, frameworks, and accelerators to solve our clients' toughest challenges. Since our founding in New York City in 1997, DataArt has grown to bring together 5,000+ experts across 40+ locations in the US, Europe, Latin America, India, and the Middle East, with clients including major global brands like Priceline, Ocado Technology, Legal & General, and Flutter Entertainment. Recognized as a 2023 Newsweek Most Loved Global Workplace and 13 times as an Inc. 5000 Fastest Growing Private Company, we are proud of our reputation as a great place to work and partner with. For more information, please visit Anni Tabagua DataArt email us here Visit us on social media: LinkedIn YouTube Legal Disclaimer: EIN Presswire provides this news content 'as is' without warranty of any kind. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, images, videos, licenses, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information contained in this article. If you have any complaints or copyright issues related to this article, kindly contact the author above.
New York Times
25-05-2025
- Business
- New York Times
At Amazon, Some Coders Say Their Jobs Have Begun to Resemble Warehouse Work
Since at least the industrial revolution, workers have worried that machines would replace them. But when technology transformed auto-making, meatpacking and even secretarial work, the response typically wasn't to slash jobs and reduce the number of workers. It was to 'degrade' the jobs, breaking them into simpler tasks to be performed over and over at a rapid clip. Small shops of skilled mechanics gave way to hundreds of workers spread across an assembly line. The personal secretary gave way to pools of typists and data-entry clerks. The workers 'complained of speed-up, work intensification, and work degradation,' as the labor historian Jason Resnikoff described it. Something similar appears to be happening with artificial intelligence in one of the fields where it has been most widely adopted: coding. As A.I. spreads through the labor force, many white-collar workers have expressed concern that it would lead to mass unemployment. But while joblessness has ticked up and widespread layoffs might eventually come, the more immediate downside for software engineers appears to be a change in the quality of their work. Some say it is becoming more routine, less thoughtful and, crucially, much faster paced. Companies seem to be persuaded that, like assembly lines of old, A.I. can increase productivity. A recent paper by researchers at Microsoft and three universities found that programmers' use of an A.I. coding assistant called Copilot, which proposes snippets of code that they can accept or reject, increased a key measure of output more than 25 percent. At Amazon, which is making big investments in generative A.I., the culture of coding is changing rapidly. In his recent letter to shareholders, Andy Jassy, the chief executive, wrote that generative A.I. was yielding big returns for companies that use it for 'productivity and cost avoidance.' He said working faster was essential because competitors would gain ground if Amazon doesn't give customers what they want 'as quickly as possible' and cited coding as an activity where A.I. would 'change the norms.' Those changing norms have not always been eagerly embraced. Three Amazon engineers said that managers had increasingly pushed them to use A.I. in their work over the past year. The engineers said that the company had raised output goals and had become less forgiving about deadlines. It has even encouraged coders to gin up new A.I. productivity tools at an upcoming hackathon, an internal coding competition. One Amazon engineer said his team was roughly half the size it had been last year, but it was expected to produce roughly the same amount of code by using A.I. Amazon said it conducts regular reviews to make sure teams are adequately staffed and may increase their size if necessary. 'We'll continue to adapt how we incorporate Gen A.I. into our processes,' Brad Glasser, an Amazon spokesman, said. Other tech companies are moving in the same direction. In a memo to employees in April, the chief executive of Shopify, a company that helps entrepreneurs build and manage e-commerce websites, announced that 'A.I. usage is now a baseline expectation' and that the company would 'add A.I. usage questions' to performance reviews. Google recently told employees it would soon hold a companywide hackathon in which one category would be creating A.I. tools that could 'enhance their overall daily productivity,' according to an internal announcement. Winning teams will receive $10,000. A Google spokesman noted that more than 30 percent of the company's code is now suggested by A.I. and accepted by developers. The shift has not been all negative for workers. At Amazon and other companies, managers argue that A.I. can relieve employees of tedious tasks and enable them to perform more interesting work. Mr. Jassy wrote last year that the company had saved 'the equivalent of 4,500 developer-years' by using A.I. to do the thankless work of upgrading old software. Eliminating such tedious work may benefit a subset of accomplished programmers, said Lawrence Katz, a labor economist at Harvard University who has tracked research on the subject closely. But for inexperienced programmers, the result of introducing A.I. can resemble the shift from artisanal work to factory work in the 19th and 20th centuries. 'Things look like a speed-up for knowledge workers,' Dr. Katz said, describing preliminary evidence from ongoing research. 'There is a sense that the employer can pile on more stuff.' Bystanders in Their Own Jobs The automation of coding has special resonance for Amazon engineers, who have watched their blue-collar counterparts undergo a similar transition. For years, many workers at Amazon warehouses walked miles each day to track down inventory. But over the past decade, Amazon has increasingly relied on so-called robotics warehouses, where pickers stand in one spot and pull inventory off shelves delivered to them by lawn-mower-like robots, no walking necessary. The robots generally haven't displaced humans; Amazon said it has hired hundreds of thousands of warehouse workers since their introduction, while creating many new skilled roles. But the robots have increased the number of items each worker can pick to hundreds from dozens an hour. Some workers complain that the robots have also made the job hyper-repetitive and physically taxing. Amazon says it provides regular breaks and cites positive feedback from workers about its cutting edge robots. The Amazon engineers said this transition was on their minds as the company urged them to rely more on A.I. They said that, while doing so was technically optional, they had little choice if they wanted to keep up with their output goals, which affect their performance reviews. The expectations have sped up rapidly. One engineer said that building a feature for the website used to take a few weeks; now it must frequently be done within a few days. He said this is possible only by using A.I. to help automate the coding and by cutting down on meetings with colleagues to solicit feedback and explore alternative ideas. (A second engineer said her efficiency gains from using A.I. were more modest; different teams use the tools more or less intensively.) The new approach to coding at many companies has, in effect, eliminated much of the time the developer spends reflecting on his or her work. 'It used to be that you had a lot of slack because you were doing a complicated project — it would maybe take a month, maybe take two months, and no one could monitor it,' Dr. Katz said. 'Now, you have the whole thing monitored, and it can be done quickly.' As at Microsoft, many Amazon engineers use an A.I. assistant that suggests lines of code. But the company has more recently rolled out A.I. tools that can generate large portions of a program on its own. One engineer called the tools 'scarily good.' The engineers said many colleagues have been reluctant to use these new tools because they require a lot of double-checking and because the engineers want to have more control. 'It's more fun to write code than to read code,' said Simon Willison, an A.I. fan who is a longtime programmer and blogger, channeling the objections of other programmers. 'If you're told you have to do a code review, it's never a fun part of the job. When you're working with these tools, it's most of the job.' This shift from writing to reading code can make engineers feel as if they are bystanders in their own jobs. The Amazon engineers said that managers have encouraged them to use A.I. to help write one-page memos proposing a solution to a software problem and that the artificial intelligence can now generate a rough draft from scattered thoughts. They also use A.I. to test the software features they build, a tedious job that nonetheless has forced them to think deeply about their coding. One said that automating these functions could deprive junior engineers of the know-how they need to get promoted. Amazon said that collaboration and experimentation remain critical and that it considers A.I. a tool for augmenting rather than replacing engineers' expertise. It said it makes the requirements for promotions clear to employees. Harper Reed, another longtime programmer and blogger who was the chief technology officer of former President Barack Obama's re-election campaign, agreed that career advancement for engineers could be an issue in an A.I. world. But he cautioned against being overly precious about the value of deeply understanding one's code, which is no longer necessary to ensure that it works. 'It would be crazy if in an auto factory people were measuring to make sure every angle is correct,' he said, since machines now do the work. 'It's not as important as when it was group of ten people pounding out the metal.' And just as the proliferation of factories abroad has made it cheap and easy for entrepreneurs to manufacture physical products, the rise of A.I. is likely to democratize software-making, lowering the cost of building new apps. 'If you're a prototyper, this is a gift from heaven,' Mr. Willison said. 'You can knock something out that illustrates the idea.' The Dreaded Speed Up Amid their frustration, many Amazon engineers have joined a group called Amazon Employees for Climate Justice, which is pressuring the company to reduce its carbon footprint and has become a clearinghouse for workers' anxieties about other issues, like return-to-office mandates. (Amazon said it is working to reduce carbon emissions from its data centers; the climate justice group is pushing it to provide more information on how.) The group's organizers say they are in touch with several hundred Amazon employees on a regular basis and that the workers increasingly discuss the stress of using A.I. on the job, in addition to the effect that the technology has on the climate. The complaints have centered around 'what their careers are going to look like,' said Eliza Pan, a former Amazon employee who is a spokeswoman for the group. 'And not just their careers, but the quality of the work.' While there is no rush to form a union for coders at Amazon, such a move would not be unheard-of. When workers at General Motors went on strike in 1936 to demand recognition of their union, the United Automobile Workers, it was the dreaded speed up that spurred them on. The typical worker felt 'that he was not free, as perhaps he had been on some previous job, to set the pace of his work,' the historian Sidney Fine wrote, 'and to determine the manner in which it was to be performed.'
Irish Times
25-05-2025
- Business
- Irish Times
‘We're an Irish-Canadian-French household. I'm finally getting some return on my Leaving Cert French'
Ruairí Doyle had no intention of moving from Ireland again after a three-year spell working for Google in London. With a background in software engineering and digital media, he felt ready to settle back in Ireland when the opportunity came up to establish the Dublin office of Press Reader in 2017. The Canadian-headquartered firm, which provides readers with digital access to a wide variety of international publications, quickly promoted the Rathnew native, bringing him to Vancouver two years later and subsequently appointing him chief executive in 2022. Press Reader is a 25-year-old privately owned business, headquartered in the Canadian city with operations in the Philippines and Dublin. It employs more than 460 people worldwide. It provides digital aggregation of many of the world's leading newspapers and magazines, ebooks and, shortly, audio books from more than 120 different countries in 60 languages, with clients including libraries, hotels, corporate and private customers, airlines and cruise ships, among others. READ MORE [ Why has Vancouver become so attractive for Irish immigrants? Opens in new window ] Meeting his Quebec-born wife, Kim, has sealed the deal on living and working in Canada, and the couple are now happily raising their two sons and enjoying the outdoor lifestyle in the thriving west-coast port city in British Columbia. 'It's an Irish-Canadian-French household – the kids are bilingual. And I'm finally getting some return on that higher level Leaving Cert French I was pushed towards. 'It can be challenging at times, with me being from Ireland and Kim being from Quebec. We don't have the support network of grandparents around. We do our best to instil a bit of Ireland and a bit of Quebec into the boys. We have hurleys and sliotars in the garden and maple syrup and cretons in the fridge.' The couple share a love of the outdoors, including snowboarding, kayaking, paddleboarding and camping, activities that are well catered for in the area. Doyle says he and his wife miss the cultural side of life they would have known growing up. Quebec and the east of Canada is much more established and familiar, with influences from French and Irish settlers, among others. There is a rich indigenous culture in the British Columbia region, however, which he says they are becoming increasingly appreciative of as they live there. We make friends with other parents and then, all of a sudden, they are shipping out as it is so expensive, so it can be quite a transient place Vancouver has a population of 662,000 – with the highest population density in Canada at more than 5,700 inhabitants per square kilometre – and its hinterland swells this figure to more than three million. There's a big tech scene in the region, with Seattle, home of Microsoft and Boeing, just over two hours away. There's a strong tech presence in Vancouver itself, with Google, Apple, Microsoft, Salesforce, Meta and Amazon, among others, having operations in the area. There is also as a strong start-up community. It's no surprise, then, that the city is a magnet for young migrant professionals. 'It could be compared to Melbourne with a great lifestyle combined with good career choices but there's also a healthy mix of established types with more credit in the bank.' The downside of this popularity is a housing crisis not dissimilar to that being experienced now in Dublin and many other European cities. Vancouver has consistently ranked among the most expensive cities in the world, with median house prices more than nine times median household incomes, according to one study. The average rent for a two-bedroom apartment is $3,480 Canadian dollars (€2,224). 'It's a hard city from an affordability point of view. We make friends with other parents and then, all of a sudden, they are shipping out as it is so expensive to get on the property ladder, so it can be quite a transient place. 'The challenge with Vancouver is physical. It's an attractive place to live with a limited supply of land and building. It's bounded by mountains, the sea, and the border with the US. Within 25 minutes you can be on the top of a ski hill; within two hours you can be in Whistler, one of the world's best ski destinations, so it attracts everyone who wants to dip into that lifestyle and that pushes up the property prices for everybody else.' Canada has found itself in the eye of an economic storm since the re-election of Donald Trump, and Doyle acknowledges the widespread concern about the economy now, with a lot of uncertainty about how a US-Canadian trade war will play out in the months and years ahead. 'We are starting to see the impact of tariffs on certain industries, not so much here, but in the east, in Quebec and Ontario, among steel workers and the automobile industry. People are feeling a strong sense of uncertainty, however, and businesses are preparing contingency plans for what might come.'
Entrepreneur
22-05-2025
- Business
- Entrepreneur
77% of Engineering Leaders Identify AI Integration in Apps as a Major Challenge: Gartner
You're reading Entrepreneur India, an international franchise of Entrepreneur Media. 77 per cent of engineering leaders identify building artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities into applications to improve features and functionality as a significant or moderate pain point, according to a survey by research firm Gartner, Inc. The survey also found that the use of AI tools to augment software engineering workflows was the second largest pain point, with 71 per cent of engineering leaders considering it significant or moderate. "With CEOs identifying AI as the technology that will most impact their industry, interest in offerings like AI agents is driving the most momentum," said Jim Scheibmeir, VP Analyst at Gartner. "Even with business leaders focusing more on this technology and despite the growing hype, execution is not easy." Both emerging vendors and established hyperscalers have developed and continue to enhance their platforms to alleviate the pain points experienced by enterprises. Many dozens of emerging and established vendors are operating and innovating in this market. Gartner estimates the current market size of the AI application development platforms market to be USD 5.2 billion. "Engineering leaders should opt for AI application development platforms or those with the best ecosystem, rather than a combination of disparate vendors, large language models (LLMs) and AI services," said Scheibmeir. "This approach enables scaling, reuse and consistency in an area of technology and software engineering that is still very novel." Currently, AI agents are acting as a learning peer to software engineers, enabling them to focus on complex as well as creative aspects of software engineering. This is leading to more people entering the engineering role without having the traditional computer science background. "Bringing in team members from outside of science, technology and math fields, such as design, psychology and the arts, can introduce fresh perspectives and creative problem-solving approaches," said Nitish Tyagi, Principal Analyst at Gartner. "This diversity can also lead to more innovative solutions and a richer, more inclusive user experience." Gartner predicts that GenAI will enable 40 per cent of software team members to come from non-traditional software engineering or technical educational backgrounds by 2028, up from 20 per cent today. AI won't be able to replace all software engineering tasks and, at least in the near term, organizations will need to focus on reviewing the output from AI-augmented tools. This leads to the requirement of hiring engineers with strong foundational skills, such as logic building and developing algorithms. People from nontechnical backgrounds, such as design, arts and philosophy, will provide new creative ways to solve logical problems using AI. "The future will be dominated by composable or fusion product teams that consist of software engineers, UX designers, product managers and even data scientists coming from both technical and nontechnical educational backgrounds," said Tyagi. Hiring the right candidates that have GenAI skills will become crucial regardless of their educational background. To achieve this, organizations are quickly moving toward a skill-based hiring approach rather than relying on pure resumes and educational background. They utilize skill assessment and interview platforms to assess the right candidates. Additionally, they can use AI techniques and skills data to design tailored learning paths for both new and existing employees. The survey also found that 38 per cent of respondents said that using AI for learning a new skill is the most effective technique.
