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This has been contemplated for many years and the price has gone almost nowhere but up. In the early to mid 2000's it was thought that most work would go to muc

This has been contemplated for many years and the price has gone almost nowhere but up. In the early to mid 2000's it was thought that most work would go to much cheaper India, and put highly compensated on shore workers out of jobs. It was tried to some extent, and failed. Then it was thought that lots of people would then fill the demand by going to university for CS and other related fields and saturate the market. That didn't happen either. It has been known for a long time that CS is one of the most valuable majors as far as salary and still the percentage of bachelor's degrees awarded has stayed between 2-4% Not saying that this is the only way to get into the field but it is the most traditional way and indicative of the supply coming in. Consider that some of the most valuable companies in the world did not exist 25 years ago, and now they do making real non bubble money where their biggest assets are software developers. This isn't the dot-com boom. The attrition rates in CS programs are very high and even then not everyone that receives formal educations ends up being a decent developer. Factory workers made good wages in the mid 20th century due to companies making lots of money on an industrial boom. We now have a technological boom, and unlike factory work the barrier to entry is much higher. So I don't see why it can't continue. Sure the 3-400k salaries are high but they are at top firms that are selective and competing for a finite pool of talented workers in very expensive areas.

leoc 8y ago
CS has been through a couple of salary busts in the US previously though, no? One in the '80s when all the then-new CS programs started to release graduates into the market, then another after the dot-com bubble; or have I been misinformed?
- sbov 8y ago
  I graduated from a no-name college shortly after the dotcom bubble burst and it was still easy for me to find a job paying $60k/year, which was plenty to live off as a single person in the SF bay area at the time.
  - leoc 8y ago
    Okay, but that doesn't seem to contradict the conventional wisdom that the hiring maket was significantly better there (from the developer's POV) a year or two earlier.
- duderific 8y ago
  The dot com bubble caused a salary bust because so many companies that were employing lots of people went out of business. This put a glut of programmers on the market with nowhere to work, which predictably pushed salary levels down. This is nothing like the current environment, where there is a consistent demand for programming talent which outstrips the supply, and the industry as a whole is far more stable. Of course, a global economic slowdown could put a damper on salary growth, but it will not be a salary "bust" like what happened after the dot com bubble.
  - leoc 8y ago
    I'm certainly not claiming that the future will necessarily resemble the past. But GP was making an argument from the past, so in that context we should certainly at least try to get the past right as much as possible. (And there was (I am told http://philip.greenspun.com/research/tr1408/lessons-learned.html http://philip.greenspun.com/research/tr1408/lessons-learned.... ) the '80s, where the salary slump was driven by increased supply rather than a collapse in demand.)
  - empath75 8y ago
    If the current tech bubble bursts, it’s going to absolutely wreck amazon, fb and google—the three companies that actually gain most of the benefit from all these tech companies blowing their funding on ads and AWS spend. Those are the companies driving up salaries — once that rollercoast ride stops I imagine that there are going to be mass layoffs and salary readjustments for years afterwards.
    - duderific 8y ago
      What is the current tech bubble, exactly? Those companies you mentioned have absolutely massive revenues and profits, and plenty of non-tech people and companies are responsible for those revenues and profits. This was not the case in the earlier bubble (lots of overvalued companies with little or no revenues). What seems more likely is that the little startups will get crushed as VC funding dries up.
      - 8y ago
- ychen306 8y ago
  I wouldn't label the dot-com bubble as a CS bubble.

leoc 8y ago

CS has been through a couple of salary busts in the US previously though, no? One in the '80s when all the then-new CS programs started to release graduates into the market, then another after the dot-com bubble; or have I been misinformed?

sbov 8y ago
I graduated from a no-name college shortly after the dotcom bubble burst and it was still easy for me to find a job paying $60k/year, which was plenty to live off as a single person in the SF bay area at the time.
- leoc 8y ago
  Okay, but that doesn't seem to contradict the conventional wisdom that the hiring maket was significantly better there (from the developer's POV) a year or two earlier.
duderific 8y ago
The dot com bubble caused a salary bust because so many companies that were employing lots of people went out of business. This put a glut of programmers on the market with nowhere to work, which predictably pushed salary levels down. This is nothing like the current environment, where there is a consistent demand for programming talent which outstrips the supply, and the industry as a whole is far more stable. Of course, a global economic slowdown could put a damper on salary growth, but it will not be a salary "bust" like what happened after the dot com bubble.
- leoc 8y ago
  I'm certainly not claiming that the future will necessarily resemble the past. But GP was making an argument from the past, so in that context we should certainly at least try to get the past right as much as possible. (And there was (I am told http://philip.greenspun.com/research/tr1408/lessons-learned.html http://philip.greenspun.com/research/tr1408/lessons-learned.... ) the '80s, where the salary slump was driven by increased supply rather than a collapse in demand.)
- empath75 8y ago
  If the current tech bubble bursts, it’s going to absolutely wreck amazon, fb and google—the three companies that actually gain most of the benefit from all these tech companies blowing their funding on ads and AWS spend. Those are the companies driving up salaries — once that rollercoast ride stops I imagine that there are going to be mass layoffs and salary readjustments for years afterwards.
  - duderific 8y ago
    What is the current tech bubble, exactly? Those companies you mentioned have absolutely massive revenues and profits, and plenty of non-tech people and companies are responsible for those revenues and profits. This was not the case in the earlier bubble (lots of overvalued companies with little or no revenues). What seems more likely is that the little startups will get crushed as VC funding dries up.
    - 8y ago
ychen306 8y ago
I wouldn't label the dot-com bubble as a CS bubble.