When big tech says engineers are “in demand” they mean “we can make money off them.” There could be 10 jobs worldwide, as long as companies can make money from

When big tech says engineers are “in demand” they mean “we can make money off them.” There could be 10 jobs worldwide, as long as companies can make money from those 10 people, they will say they are in demand. Rather than think demand equates to quantity of jobs, it’s better to think of it in terms of cost. The more engineers competing for the 10 jobs, the lower their cost to the company and the higher the demand. Lower salaries mean more money can be made by employing them. “In demand” means the exact opposite of what most people think. And by telling people the demand is high, it increases the supply further lowering costs for the companies and thereby increasing the demand. Engineers could organize and form guilds or unions, like lawyers and doctors have. But that would decrease the demand because it would increase costs. Tl;dr software engineers don’t grok labor economics. VC do.