A lot of people will disagree with me on this one. I’ve been a software engineer for 35 years now. I’ve worked at everything from tiny companies where I’m the only dev, to startups, to massive corporations with countless employees. And I’ve never seen anything like what’s happening now.

There are four factors:

  • H1-Bullshit. Never before have so many H1-B visas been allowed. And the number is only going up. For the uninitiated they’re work visas that cap the amount the dev can legally be paid and chain them to their job so they can’t quit. They’re horribly exploitative and bring down everyone’s paycheck.

  • The software already built is good enough. Organizations already have either decade+ old software solutions in place or third party vendors that provide those solutions. There will always be bug fixes and maintenance but nobody is building new software from scratch anymore. The stuff that already exists is good enough at what it does that it isn’t worth the investment to make something new. That means fewer devs are needed for writing that software.

  • Destruction of the public sector. A LOT of unemployed and experienced devs are about to be looking for jobs. If you have less than 10 years of experience be prepared for finding a job to become nearly impossible. Even if the next administration takes a different approach it will take many years to undo just the damage that’s already been done.

  • AI. I actually don’t think AI on it’s own will be terribly destructive to the industry. It’s a tool that will make devs more efficient and cause a slight drop in openings. But combined with everything else it’s just one more factor hurting the industry.

When people ask me how to get into software development I tell them not to bother. I encourage you to consider it as well. The golden age of IT careers is over.

  • Scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.techEnglish
    7·
    5 days ago

    I think this is the most accurate take. I’m not at the “don’t go into the field” take, but Amazon and Microsoft have been pumping boot camp devs into the market for a decade now promising high paying jobs just so they could do this, flood the market with juniors and pay them peanuts .

    So juniors and intermediates are everywhere, the market has been flooded. Also anyone who has written a few lines of python thinks they’re a full stack engineer now and label their resume as such, so exactly what you said, the hiring market is flooded with spam.

    My company rejects so many people on the first screen who have great resumes but then can’t write more than the basic for loops or if statements on the page.

    Also AI is becoming a crutch for people. You will not get AI in interviews people. You need to know how to do it yourself. I don’t care if you use it for work, but when you’re interviewing I’m hiring an engineer, not a prompt writer.

    So, the trick is proving you’re above the hordes of shit developers, and that’s going to mean learning new stacks, pushing yourself harder, and probably doing some real networking. (For those reading who may be looking soon)

    The 2010s and covid told people that anyone can code. Well, here it is, the market flooded. Now it’s “anyone can code, why should we hire YOU.” And you better have an answer for it.