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As a manager I’d probably advice against picking programming unless you love it. In our educational system the increase in short-length programming classes at a

As a manager I’d probably advice against picking programming unless you love it. In our educational system the increase in short-length programming classes at academy level has exploded and I doubt the market will keep up. Really great comp science or engineering students won’t ever have a problem, but I fully expect the short-length, autodidact or mediocre students to be entering a saturated market within the next five years.

make3 9y ago
do you have any quantified evidence of this or is it just a gut feeling
- eksemplar 9y ago
  Well, it’s anecdotal from experience and my network. 10 years ago we would get 1-5 applications for a programming job, and most would frankly be underqualified. The last position I put up for a regular .net, jboss and sharepoint position had over 300 applicants, several vastly overqualified. I work in the public sector, so it’s not exactly because we offer what most developers consider “dream positions” and we certainly don’t offer a good salary.
  - computator 9y ago
    > The last position I put up ... had over 300 applicants, several vastly overqualified. Interesting how this contrasts with the widely-held perception that there is a programmer shortage.
    - randomdata 9y ago
      Is that really the perception in 2018? If we go back to the early 2010s, I would agree. That the message was spread frequently back then. I really haven't heard it recently. And it makes sense that the market over the last 5+ years should have started to close the gap. That is plenty of time to allow people to become able in development.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
  - thesmallestcat 9y ago
    Few if any of the 300 applicants were overqualified for that garbage opportunity. Can you describe on how they were overqualified? List a bunch of certs and techs? Good programmers aren't fighting over scraps for underpaid government positions working with JBOSS, they get snapped up immediately when they hit the market. Five years to saturation? Yea right. Readers who just deleted emacs in despair should keep in mind that parent is hiring for Danish government position, not exactly the hotbed of software development or skills demand.
    - jnbiche 9y ago
      While I can't speak to the GP's experiences, I'm guessing you're in SV (most likely), NYC, Chicago, RTP, or Austin based on your remarks on how quickly developers get snatched up. However, those of us living outside that handful of cities have a totally different experience, regardless of how good we are or how much experience we have. There just are far, far fewer jobs outside that handful of American cities. And many of us are unable to just up and move due to a personal situation (sick relative, illness, spouse's job, etc.). It's just worth bearing in mind that your experience as a developer is somewhat the exception in the US, not the rule. At best, it's a 50/50 split between devs in the cities I mentioned above and the rest of us.
      - thesmallestcat 9y ago
        I've had similar experience finding on-site work in a healthy market as I have as a remote worker. I don't think parent's advice is sound, claiming that software eng. is a dead-end path for most, with a five year fuse. Clearly if you're not excellent or willing to move to a city with jobs in your industry, you're going to be in for a rough time. Not specific to software eng.
        deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
alixander 9y ago
That point hasn’t been hit yet. Discouraging people from learning programming because you anticipate that point to come soon is unfortunate coming from a manager of programmers. Regardless of job opportunities, which I disagree with but is beside the point, being able to program increasingly allows people to create value and bring ideas to existence.
gaius 9y ago
As a manager I’d probably advice against picking programming unless you love it. That is the dirty little secret of our industry. You need to do your day job AND on your own time, keep your skills up to date, and/or work on open source and/or write a blog or something. There was a post on there the other day on how keeping up to date with k8s is a full-time job in and of itself, well you need to do that - and a bunch of others - in your free time, in the full knowledge that what's hot today might turn out to be worthless in a year or two. People on the outside, even those aspiring to get in, I don't think fully realize the commitment of those making the headline salaries in this field. Just as you won't make it as a banker unless you LOVE making deals, so much that you'd even do it for free...
- collyw 9y ago
  Yes, the occasional expectation that you should have a blog to make you a decent developer annoys me. I am pretty poor at writing and don't have a lot to say that I want to broadcast to the world. Answering Stak Overflow questions suits me better as a way of demonstrating that I know something.
  - gaius 9y ago
    a way of demonstrating that I know something It's the expectation that you need to demonstrate it at all, is the problem. How many lawyers sue people for fun so they can blog about it, how many doctors do surgery at home and stream "live cutting"? We have created a treadmill that we can't step off
    - Consultant32452 9y ago
      I think this is largely a myth. I don't have any of my work in a public space. In my area I'm in the top 5% of the salary range. Maybe this is more prominent in silicon valley? I've personally never even been asked for any kind of portfolio.
    - intro-b 9y ago
      to be fair, the bimodality in the population of lawyers/doctors is an "are you in or out" system that comes from the generally outdated and arduous graduate credentials for these careers administered by bureaucratic boards. medical school, law school, and so on, are all extremely costly investments of time and capital for a shot at attaining that professional certification, and there's generally little recourse if you continually fail. "software developer," as a label, doesn't signal that kind of credentialing (although something like advanced degree might), so our labor to differentiate ourselves goes elsewhere. i don't want to imply that this isn't a problem for our profession, but the amount of "wow we software engineers have it so difficult" sentiment in this thread seems high
dagw 9y ago
As a manager I’d probably advice against picking programming unless you love it. I would definitely advice people to learn programming, but not necessarily to aim to become programmers.
laichzeit0 9y ago
Programming for the sake of programming gets boring after a few years. At least for me, this was the case. There is only so far you can go with it as a pure discipline. Once you've mastered design patterns, higher order functions, etc. you end up with writing "just another" app, service, CRUD thing, etc. What I found really interesting was going one step further and using programming to solve "higher order" problems, such as data science or artificial intelligence related problems. I'm not talking about implementing something in Tensorflow. That again is just programming. I'm talking about implementing something in Tensorflow to solve a specific problem and seeing the result of that. The programming part is beside the point, it is a means to an end. I think you really need to dig deep and ask yourself why you are writing code at all. The act of writing software itself is not that intellectually stimulating once you've mastered it well enough. It is just one layer of abstraction. Think about what is the next layer of abstraction you can build on top of your programming layer.
- ryanianian 9y ago
  This sounds like natural career progression (and also perhaps why some get bored doing the same thing for so long). You want to move up the lever of impact. For many this means applying their experience to a growing field (e.g. lots of interest in AI/etc recently) or helping other developers be more productive and not have to solve the same problems they did (e.g. growing k8s, cloud, ci tooling, new languages, etc.)
toddan 9y ago
This is my opinion as well. Many people still believe that programming equals a unique and high paying job. It is not ut is quite boring and you have to be the guy that always says yes and deliver no matter what, much like a factory worker.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
cvsh 9y ago
>I fully expect the short-length, autodidact or mediocre students to be entering a saturated market within the next five years. That cuts against every labor demand projection. Frankly, even mediocre programming jobs are a great option for most people. The lower mode is still much more than most entry-level jobs pay.
wetpaws 9y ago
This is what I heard about 10 years ago, and advise I got is to go into engineering because programmers would be "just another over-saturated marked like lawyers". I'm glad I did not treat it seriously.

make3 9y ago

do you have any quantified evidence of this or is it just a gut feeling

eksemplar 9y ago
Well, it’s anecdotal from experience and my network. 10 years ago we would get 1-5 applications for a programming job, and most would frankly be underqualified. The last position I put up for a regular .net, jboss and sharepoint position had over 300 applicants, several vastly overqualified. I work in the public sector, so it’s not exactly because we offer what most developers consider “dream positions” and we certainly don’t offer a good salary.
- computator 9y ago
  > The last position I put up ... had over 300 applicants, several vastly overqualified. Interesting how this contrasts with the widely-held perception that there is a programmer shortage.
  - randomdata 9y ago
    Is that really the perception in 2018? If we go back to the early 2010s, I would agree. That the message was spread frequently back then. I really haven't heard it recently. And it makes sense that the market over the last 5+ years should have started to close the gap. That is plenty of time to allow people to become able in development.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- thesmallestcat 9y ago
  Few if any of the 300 applicants were overqualified for that garbage opportunity. Can you describe on how they were overqualified? List a bunch of certs and techs? Good programmers aren't fighting over scraps for underpaid government positions working with JBOSS, they get snapped up immediately when they hit the market. Five years to saturation? Yea right. Readers who just deleted emacs in despair should keep in mind that parent is hiring for Danish government position, not exactly the hotbed of software development or skills demand.
  - jnbiche 9y ago
    While I can't speak to the GP's experiences, I'm guessing you're in SV (most likely), NYC, Chicago, RTP, or Austin based on your remarks on how quickly developers get snatched up. However, those of us living outside that handful of cities have a totally different experience, regardless of how good we are or how much experience we have. There just are far, far fewer jobs outside that handful of American cities. And many of us are unable to just up and move due to a personal situation (sick relative, illness, spouse's job, etc.). It's just worth bearing in mind that your experience as a developer is somewhat the exception in the US, not the rule. At best, it's a 50/50 split between devs in the cities I mentioned above and the rest of us.
    - thesmallestcat 9y ago
      I've had similar experience finding on-site work in a healthy market as I have as a remote worker. I don't think parent's advice is sound, claiming that software eng. is a dead-end path for most, with a five year fuse. Clearly if you're not excellent or willing to move to a city with jobs in your industry, you're going to be in for a rough time. Not specific to software eng.
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]

alixander 9y ago

That point hasn’t been hit yet. Discouraging people from learning programming because you anticipate that point to come soon is unfortunate coming from a manager of programmers. Regardless of job opportunities, which I disagree with but is beside the point, being able to program increasingly allows people to create value and bring ideas to existence.

gaius 9y ago

As a manager I’d probably advice against picking programming unless you love it. That is the dirty little secret of our industry. You need to do your day job AND on your own time, keep your skills up to date, and/or work on open source and/or write a blog or something. There was a post on there the other day on how keeping up to date with k8s is a full-time job in and of itself, well you need to do that - and a bunch of others - in your free time, in the full knowledge that what's hot today might turn out to be worthless in a year or two. People on the outside, even those aspiring to get in, I don't think fully realize the commitment of those making the headline salaries in this field. Just as you won't make it as a banker unless you LOVE making deals, so much that you'd even do it for free...

collyw 9y ago
Yes, the occasional expectation that you should have a blog to make you a decent developer annoys me. I am pretty poor at writing and don't have a lot to say that I want to broadcast to the world. Answering Stak Overflow questions suits me better as a way of demonstrating that I know something.
- gaius 9y ago
  a way of demonstrating that I know something It's the expectation that you need to demonstrate it at all, is the problem. How many lawyers sue people for fun so they can blog about it, how many doctors do surgery at home and stream "live cutting"? We have created a treadmill that we can't step off
  - Consultant32452 9y ago
    I think this is largely a myth. I don't have any of my work in a public space. In my area I'm in the top 5% of the salary range. Maybe this is more prominent in silicon valley? I've personally never even been asked for any kind of portfolio.
  - intro-b 9y ago
    to be fair, the bimodality in the population of lawyers/doctors is an "are you in or out" system that comes from the generally outdated and arduous graduate credentials for these careers administered by bureaucratic boards. medical school, law school, and so on, are all extremely costly investments of time and capital for a shot at attaining that professional certification, and there's generally little recourse if you continually fail. "software developer," as a label, doesn't signal that kind of credentialing (although something like advanced degree might), so our labor to differentiate ourselves goes elsewhere. i don't want to imply that this isn't a problem for our profession, but the amount of "wow we software engineers have it so difficult" sentiment in this thread seems high

dagw 9y ago

As a manager I’d probably advice against picking programming unless you love it. I would definitely advice people to learn programming, but not necessarily to aim to become programmers.

laichzeit0 9y ago

Programming for the sake of programming gets boring after a few years. At least for me, this was the case. There is only so far you can go with it as a pure discipline. Once you've mastered design patterns, higher order functions, etc. you end up with writing "just another" app, service, CRUD thing, etc. What I found really interesting was going one step further and using programming to solve "higher order" problems, such as data science or artificial intelligence related problems. I'm not talking about implementing something in Tensorflow. That again is just programming. I'm talking about implementing something in Tensorflow to solve a specific problem and seeing the result of that. The programming part is beside the point, it is a means to an end. I think you really need to dig deep and ask yourself why you are writing code at all. The act of writing software itself is not that intellectually stimulating once you've mastered it well enough. It is just one layer of abstraction. Think about what is the next layer of abstraction you can build on top of your programming layer.

ryanianian 9y ago
This sounds like natural career progression (and also perhaps why some get bored doing the same thing for so long). You want to move up the lever of impact. For many this means applying their experience to a growing field (e.g. lots of interest in AI/etc recently) or helping other developers be more productive and not have to solve the same problems they did (e.g. growing k8s, cloud, ci tooling, new languages, etc.)

toddan 9y ago

This is my opinion as well. Many people still believe that programming equals a unique and high paying job. It is not ut is quite boring and you have to be the guy that always says yes and deliver no matter what, much like a factory worker.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

cvsh 9y ago

>I fully expect the short-length, autodidact or mediocre students to be entering a saturated market within the next five years. That cuts against every labor demand projection. Frankly, even mediocre programming jobs are a great option for most people. The lower mode is still much more than most entry-level jobs pay.

wetpaws 9y ago

This is what I heard about 10 years ago, and advise I got is to go into engineering because programmers would be "just another over-saturated marked like lawyers". I'm glad I did not treat it seriously.