My pet theory is that it used to be something hard and for the young and innovative, but was eventually commoditized. My aunt was one of the IT pioneers in the

My pet theory is that it used to be something hard and for the young and innovative, but was eventually commoditized. My aunt was one of the IT pioneers in the late 80s in Poland(her first task was to figure out how to put together her work machine - fun stuff), and was only laid off in 2010 - two years before retirement - due to stuff unrelated to her performance. I think currently it boils down to us being expensive resources - I was told repeatedly at my current workplace that we (the team) are "a cost", so we should focus on delivering instead of ensuring quality, which is kind of ironic given that I know we're pushing code which simply doesn't work so we aren't actually delivering. Bottom line is that we're expensive and that causes anxiety among the decision makers, who in turn transfer that anxiety onto us. This is my best guess anyway.