Jason Frueh

@gregisenberg This is because of section 174 of the tax code. Look it up.

This chart is nuts. Software developer jobs down 70% from peak. People will blame the end of free money. But something way more interesting is happening. The middle class engineer is dying. And it's dying because they're not needed anymore. One good dev with Github Copilot ships what entire teams did five years ago. Microsoft just reported the highest revenue per employee in history. The "entry-level engineer" doesn't exist anymore. Instead, we have product builders who happen to code. Armed with AI, they ship entire products in days. Meanwhile, the truly elite engineers are making more money than ever. And they've shifted to working mostly on frontier tech. I mean the stuff that's really hard. AGI at OpenAI. Designing rockets at SpaceX. Self-driving car tech at Tesla. Product builders are becoming solopreneurs and creators Frontier engineers are making hedge fund money In 2025, "software engineer" doesn't mean what it meant in 2020. And that's what this chart really shows. The middle is gone. The top is elite status. And everyone else is becoming a builder.

@PatrickFIanagan Thank you for the clarity! Makes sense....well as much as any of this can I guess.

@jfrueh A couple examples: updating the login flow on your website is SRE (because it's software development) but it's probably not R&D. Developing a novel and more efficient compression algorithm is both.

Since all software development is now considered R&D per #section174, why do we have to pay thousands of $$$ to tax pros to qualify & document the R&D tax credit? IRS already says we are doing R&D, how could we not get the credit? What am I missing? @PatrickFIanagan

@zetalyrae Section 174 of the tax code. How people are unaware of this yet is almost unbelievable.

Re: tech jobs drying up, has anyone tried to figure out, quantitatively, how much to attribute to: 1. Interest rates 2. Glut of early-career SWEs 3. AI

@Austen ...and please, a fix before 2026!

Hey Trump/Vance/Elon, Now that we have R sweep + confirmation that Trump will be in office, can we make sure to fix section 174 of the tax code? Amortizing software development costs makes zero sense, and is quietly crushing tech in the US.

@PatrickFIanagan We are literally living in 🤡 world with these guys.

The Senator who killed the bipartisan tax deal to allow tech businesses to *deduct payroll* thinks we should lower the corporate tax rate to 15% from 21%. Just the dumbest priorities.

@catalinmpit Section 174 effect plus the end of free money. Repeal Section 174 and jobs start coming back.

@MikeCrapo The @SenateGOP just alienated every small business owner who is aware of section 174. Incredibly disheartening... It still feels like theft.

In an effort to score political points, Democrats held a show vote on a tax bill they knew lacked support for passage. If they were serious about helping small businesses and working families, they would have worked with Senate Republicans in earnest. finance.senate.gov/ranking-member…

@AndrewDesiderio @SenateGOP should support this instead of looking incompetent & out of touch to the general public. Do something positive and pass this bill that already had overwhelming house support - it helps a lot of different groups immensely.

Just asked Sen. Crapo about this. He called it a stunt & said he’s still a no. Crapo has been holding R’s together on this. “I assume this is because they want to create a record and make an argument that Republicans won’t support this, and then use that in the election.”

@PaulDMendoza @ben_guggenheim @RepMarshall I don't care who did it or why. Congress has had since 2017 to fix what was likely never intended to be a real 'pay for'. There is huge bipartisan support but they just continue to play games. Disappointed in our elected officials yet again.

Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kans.) was initially big on the Wyden-Smith tax bill. Now he believes it’s dead. “We’ve decided that if we wait when we [have] the Senate majority, that we will have a better chance of getting a little bit better bill through the finish line.”

@EricMGarcia Section 174. Absolutely crippling to small tech & engineering companies.

What is one niche policy issue that few people understand but that will get you hopping mad and on a tangent for an hour?

@johnrushx This is the effect of section 174. Look it up if you are unfamiliar. Took effect in Jan 2022.

Very sad ending for Software Developers. I kept saying this for 6 years. In 10 years, 90% of them won't get their former pay grades (inflation-adjusted). The solution: Become an Indie Maker ASAP. Even if you fail, you'll earn soft skills to be hirable by corporations later.

@GayBearRes @yzilber AI isn't destroying software development jobs. I haven't heard of many companies not hiring dev's because of AI - in fact, I think it's the opposite. Companies need dev's to build around & leverage AI in their products right now. This is 100% section 174!

is it AI?

@chamath Fixing section 174 by passing hr7024 would be a good start. I hope we see @SenateGOP and @SenateDems vote soon so we know where they stand.

We need to get our priorities straight. China is absolutely destroying us in discovering the future.

@GroundRuleSEV2 @Carnage4Life This is why.

@Carnage4Life The fact that the tax code was changed to cause software engineer salaries to depreciate over 5 years instead of being written off immediately definitely didn't help

@5cottFive @Carnage4Life This.

@Carnage4Life Section 174

@RonWyden @MigrationBrew Is this bill ever going to get voted on in the senate? I keep hearing there are enough votes to pass it...

Thanks to @MigrationBrew & all the Oregon small businesses iwho joined today in Portland to add their voices urging Senate Republicans to support my bipartisan tax bill ASAP. These brewers, tech startups & construction companies can grow & generate jobs w/the bill’s R&D benefits.

Looks better! It's a really nice improvement. Have you ever looked into how Crello, now @VistaCreate, did this? They use quill.js on top of Konva. If you inspect the network panel you can see the data structure they are sending back to the server. Just not sure how they are drawing that exact pixel perfect rendering. We are working on this now and hope to some solution.

Fixing rich text rendering for Polotno editor. Before and After.

@cady_stanton Well then @SenSchumer, let's get this on the floor!

At a National Tax Association event this AM, Wyden says W&M Chair Jason Smith "spoke the truth out loud" yesterday when he said the Senate has the votes to pass the tax bill. "I think we're going to be in a position to get a vote on this ... I believe we have the votes."