2024 Job Market Observations

Products are converging. Categories like search, interfaces, and AI are wide open, but the required capital and talent to compete are unattainable for any entity that isn’t very well resourced. Compliance alone is becoming a prohibiting factor. Compliance jobs may be important, but it’s hard to tell how much of this work will be handled by turnkey solutions over the coming years.

There isn’t as much of a need to have these big teams building complex products, at least in IT. Most things can get handled by smaller, faster groups. I’ve seen 1 programmer and a lawyer build an entire organization that can at least enter the market. But managing that product? Tough.

Highly skilled and aligned teams are being preferred more than ever. If you can’t operate well in that type of environment, it may make you less competitive.

People are tired of the “move fast and break things” model. Both in companies that got indicted for fraud like FTX and companies that rebuilt whole industries but have no clear path to sustainable operations, like Uber.

People want to show up. They want to be challenged. However, no one wants to tolerate an oppressive existence under out-of-touch management. So… all of these factors are relevant.