This page is a collection on software engineering industry trends that The Pragmatic Engineer reported on, well before mainstream media outlets picked up on these. Read more of these trends here, such as the State of the tech market in 2023 or an RTO wave in late 2022.
Cloud development environments surging in popularity
- First covered this trend in Cloud development environments (27 June 2023)
- 2 months later, Gartner included cloud development environments in their 2023 Gartner hype cycle (23 Aug 2023)
On cutting back on cloud costs & vendor spend
- First reported this trend in Are tech companies aggressively cutting back on vendor spend? (21 Feb 2023).
- 8 weeks later, the Wall Street Journal confirmed the trend in Corporate technology under new scrutiny amid recession fears (28 Apr 2023, paywall)
On Apple enforcing it's return to office (RTO) policy
- First shared this exclusive in The Scoop #37 (2 Feb 2023)
- 7 weeks later: Business Insider, Apple Insider, and 9to5 Mac published the same story.
On Apple going against the job cuts tide
- First analyzed this trend in Apple: the only Big Tech giant going against the Job cuts tide (26 Jan 2023)
- 2 weeks later, Bloomberg ran a similar analysis: Apple avoids job cuts because it didn’t overhire like Google and Amazon (10 Feb 2023, paywall)
On the Big Tech hiring slowdown
- First reported this trend in The Big Tech hiring slowdown is here and it will hurt (27 Oct 2022)
- 4 weeks later, The New York Times reported on the same trend: Computer science students face a shrinking Big Tech job market (6 Dec 2022, paywall)
On the very hot 2021 job market
- First analyzed this trend in The perfect storm causing an insane tech hiring market ( 14 Sep 2021)
- 6 months later, The New York Times came to the same conclusion in Tech companies face a fresh crisis: hiring (16 Feb 2022, paywall)
On something fishy happening at events tech company Pollen
- First reported on events tech Pollen in May 2022, commenting on poorly executed layoffs. On 22 June 2022, on an engineering Town Hall, answering the question on what he thought of this article, the CEO of the company, Callum-Negus Fancey responded: "I do find like there's a real lack of accountability, no checks, and balances with this kind of investigative journalism. You know, it's not like [BBC] Panorama and things that are done properly and where it's broadcast. It's a very small organization. They chose to take a very one-sided view."
- Published a deepdive on many alarming details on how the company went bankrupt – and how there could be something fishy happening with a $3.2M double charge in May 2022 with no postmortem – in September 2022, in Inside Pollen’s Collapse: “$200M Raised” but Staff Unpaid - Exclusive
- Worked with the BBC who then produced the documentary Crashed: $800M Festival Fail in June 2023. The documentary re-confirmed several parts of my reporting (and all parts of the original reporting has stood the test of time). The CEO got his wish, in the end to be covered by BBC – with a little help from me as well.
Analysis pieces that correctly predicted future events
On Lyft to potentially see job cuts
- First analyzed this in The Scoop #43: is Lyft in trouble? (30 March 2023)
- A month later, Lyft announced 26% cuts across the board.
Analysis that turned out to be incorrect
I cannot predict the future and am sometimes wrong about how events will unfold. I reflect on when this happens.
For example, throughout 2022 I regularly reported how both my analysis and details from software engineers at Meta pointed to layoffs being a low likelihood (e.g. Meta's historic growth challenge in October 2022). Meta did layoffs in November 2022, which I reflected on here.