It is not AI becuase employees hired in Romania and the US are both expected to be able to know how to use AI, which papers over performance issues in most cases that matter for a business (time to delivery), but I cannot justify hiring a deskilled NCG for $120k in the US.

Edit: cannot reply

> Why are then so many US developers still employed

Becuase unlike the HN hivemind, a large portion of experienced developers in the US have found ways to realistically adopt new technologies where they are relevant.

Reflexively being an AI fanatic or Luddite is stupid, but being a SWE who is able to tin recognize and explain the value of these tools and their limits is extremely valuable.

I can justify paying $300-400k TCs if you are not a code monkey. This means being able to architect, manage upwards, do basic design and program management, hop onto customer calls, and keep upskilling on top of writing and reviewing code.

We are not hiring SWEs to only push code. We hire SWEs in order to translate and implement business requirements into software.

A developer who has a mindset like that is worth their weight in gold, and there are still plenty of these kinds of experienced developers in the US.