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Right now engineering demand is far outstripping supply. If the tides shift and big tech starts tightening their belt, leetcode practitioners will start compet

Right now engineering demand is far outstripping supply. If the tides shift and big tech starts tightening their belt, leetcode practitioners will start competing 100 engineers for 10 positions at big tech, and that's when salaries get pushed down. Most books and blogs on professional growth say to have some sort of talent or skill that makes an organization need you. That way, you aren't fungible and have leverage. Right now my "skill" that I demonstrate is leetcode and the only leverage I have is that big tech needs more engineers and have to bid against each other for my fungible work. The moment tides shift, myself and every other leetcode practitioner are basically fucked. When will this happen? Ask a fortune teller.

Jensson 5y ago
There is a finite supply of STEM minded people, the extreme salaries in programming has already shifted many of those to programming. The job climate today is basically the same as 10 years ago, the interviews looks the same, the salaries are a bit higher but around the same etc. So as far as I know this is the stable point where the people staying in other STEM jobs prefer those jobs over the money, and you wont attract more of those unless you pay even more than companies do now.
- zenithd 5y ago
  I think this is probably spot-on. Anyone who has taught introductory CS courses at an average public college/university (so, not a huge R1 state flagship) can tell you that getting into programming is not easy. Plenty of students who I would describe as "smart enough" have an incredibly hard time learning how to program. The bar is a lot higher than most people here seem to believe.
leetcrew 5y ago
> If the tides shift and big tech starts tightening their belt, leetcode practitioners will start competing 100 engineers for 10 positions at big tech, and that's when salaries get pushed down. it's already like this just for positions at random software companies paying $80-120k. the percentage of applicants to google that end up getting offers is estimated to be in the low single digits (if not below 1%). and frankly, I suspect big tech companies already hire more engineers than they "need", just to deny them to rising competition. I don't think you're wrong about the moment that the tides shift, but it seems we are still quite far from that.

Jensson 5y ago

There is a finite supply of STEM minded people, the extreme salaries in programming has already shifted many of those to programming. The job climate today is basically the same as 10 years ago, the interviews looks the same, the salaries are a bit higher but around the same etc. So as far as I know this is the stable point where the people staying in other STEM jobs prefer those jobs over the money, and you wont attract more of those unless you pay even more than companies do now.

zenithd 5y ago
I think this is probably spot-on. Anyone who has taught introductory CS courses at an average public college/university (so, not a huge R1 state flagship) can tell you that getting into programming is not easy. Plenty of students who I would describe as "smart enough" have an incredibly hard time learning how to program. The bar is a lot higher than most people here seem to believe.

leetcrew 5y ago

> If the tides shift and big tech starts tightening their belt, leetcode practitioners will start competing 100 engineers for 10 positions at big tech, and that's when salaries get pushed down. it's already like this just for positions at random software companies paying $80-120k. the percentage of applicants to google that end up getting offers is estimated to be in the low single digits (if not below 1%). and frankly, I suspect big tech companies already hire more engineers than they "need", just to deny them to rising competition. I don't think you're wrong about the moment that the tides shift, but it seems we are still quite far from that.