How tech workers are adapting to AI's impact on job market
After more than 20 years of working for major tech companies as a user-experience designer (UX) – from LinkedIn to Amazon to Google – Tim Sparks is now drawing up a new playbook.
He is an AI casualty, one of the many people now in the midst of a major career pivot, not by choice.
"Everybody became a designer and an engineer and a product manager overnight," he said. "There aren't a lot of opportunities where someone like myself can just go make the next move. There are thousands of me on the job market."
And even if he did land a job, would it last?
"It's not only put folks like myself, kind of like, questioning if we're needed," he said. "It's also cloud software engineers. Do I need a really need a software engineer?"
So, he is betting on himself instead. Sparks is building his own agency, called Kestrel, where he helps small businesses learn how to integrate AI into their workflows.
"Once I've come to a consensus of what I want to do, I'll ask my agents to actually implement that," he said.
But he, too, has had to change his workflow. He now drives Uber as a way to help bridge the gap. In between rides, he'll make calls for his AI agency.
"The intent is not to drive for Uber long-term, but it helps to keep the lights on," he said. "Hustlers are going to hustle."
Former EDD Director and Counsel at Duane Morris LLP Michael Bernick says that while tech layoffs continue to happen, data indicates people can't directly point the finger at AI.
"What EDD is doing in terms of tracking unemployment claims, studies by other commissions that are already up and going – in fact, there is a lot of activity as you might imagine in this space in terms of AI job tracking – so far, the findings have been relatively minimal," he said. "The main impact so far has been neither job creation or destruction, it's been the augmentation of existing jobs."
Bernick asserts the volatility stems from a mix of structural changes in the tech world, AI adoption, and tech companies still pulling back from over-hiring during the pandemic.
"The speed by which AI has been taken up by employers across sectors, I think, has surprised all of us," Bernick said. "We've had some high-profile layoffs from Meta and other firms that have referenced AI. How much they've really been due to AI's impact on the jobs, and how much it's been a matter of savings to invest in AI, is questionable among at least a number of these firms. But in terms of the total number of jobs impacted, so far, it's been very, very small."
Peter Purcell left the traditional tech world by choice.
"I have led marketing teams at technology startups for about the last 12 years," he said.
He saw an opportunity to build a way for AI to eliminate busy work, but not at the cost of eliminating humans. So, he created a tool called Poplar: an AI-powered content engine that helps people online create high-quality thought leadership posts.
"Poplar enables every human being to have a social media management expert in their pocket at all times," he said. "Poplar learns how you talk authentically and how you write and makes it very easy to create content that is in your voice and in your domain expertise that is totally individual to you and never generic."
Purcell is optimistic about how humans and AI will be able to work in tandem moving into the future.
"Like with any new movement or massive change in the way humanity operates, there will be many speedbumps," he said. "It's already enabling an unprecedented level of efficiency, and it's going to make the world more productive and it's going to make the economy bigger."
Like most people right now, Sparks is learning a lot as he moves into this new venture.
"If you would have asked me two months ago while I was still employed, are you ready to go build an agency? I probably would have said no," he said. "Being forced into the fire and having to really figure it out? It's not so bad."
At this point, he thinks forging his own path is a better plan than going back to the corporate world.
