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>> The CEO’s job is to make as much profit as possible. Higher salaries mean less profit. It’s just how the game works. I find this to be too simplified. The C

>> The CEO’s job is to make as much profit as possible. Higher salaries mean less profit. It’s just how the game works. I find this to be too simplified. The CEO's job is far beyond salaries alone. >> Even if we enter some new dotcom bubble and a good chunk of our startup ecosystem dies off, demand for tech is spreading across all industries, businesses everywhere are digitizing their operations and these systems will need to be maintained somehow. We're not in a bubble. We are in the information era, and cloud computing is helping drive this. The demand for programmers will go away when the human population saturates on robots and AI. We've barely scratched the surface. The only other possible downturn I can think of is a social reaction to reject technology, and enter another type of 'dark age'.

e40 5y ago
Just saw an article earlier about google lowering salaries in some state.
brailsafe 5y ago
What about when everyone becomes a programmer (now) and starts a race to the bottom?
- adamredwoods 5y ago
  I don't think everyone will want to become a developer, and it's not a job just anyone wants to jump into. Compare this profession to say, the legal industry (the first example I could think of), where being a good lawyer/barrister is a high-paying profession. The law career may have a saturation point and regionally limited, but it still exists and pays well in certain situations. I could see entry-level developer job salaries drop, but rise rapidly with experience. That would be my first indicator of a market correction.
- polski-g 5y ago
  Not everyone has the cognitive ability to become a programmer.
  - brailsafe 5y ago
    You don't need to be a genius to be a programmer. Yes, some people aren't capable of it, but there's a lot of middle ground. Being capable of being a programmer is more about disposition imo than intellect. I've had at least 2 people I don't regularly talk to ask me about getting into it as a career switch, and I say that it's fine, but more miserable than you'd expect.
- ozim 5y ago
  I don't see it happening because I mostly see business people who don't even want to compete with me. They just don't care about the same things I do care about. I see people don't even care to spend 30mins on learning how to use their computer in a better way that would save them hours of clicking.
ravenstine 5y ago
> We're not in a bubble. We are in the information era, and cloud computing is helping drive this. We're not necessarily in a bubble, but perhaps there's some foam? There will be a plethora of programmer jobs for some times go come, but we've also gone quite a while without a meaningful market adjustment, if you will. A point may come where global politics force the industry to be far more regulated than it currently is, and the days of being a self-taught coder with no degree and a poor understanding of security may come to an end. Maybe that doesn't happen, but if it does, I see lots of jobs disappearing and evolving into new ones, and a fraction of people in software deciding it's not worth it anymore. The world has only just started to truly realize how we effectively control information, and if the sentiment towards Silicon Valley gets worse then there may be more calls for regulation and new regulatory bodies; in which case jobs may open up within that new bureaucracy. That hypothesis is irrelevant if the industry was operating at a moderate pace. There's a lot of money still coming from somewhere, and backpressure can create a wave that pushes revenue back in the opposite direction, if even briefly.
- e4e78a06 5y ago
  > There will be a plethora of programmer jobs for some times go come, but we've also gone quite a while without a meaningful market adjustment, if you will We just went through a massive market adjustment. COVID forced a lot of layoffs and hiring freezes in March 2020 (even in tech) and all the COVID-boom stocks like Zoom, Peloton, etc. have all crashed 50%+. Valuations in private funding are being cut as we speak due to interest rate changes. But salaries for senior engineers have only gone up. > self-taught coder with no degree and a poor understanding of security may come to an end This was never a common outcome in the first place, despite what blogs and bootcamps might have you believe.
mountainriver 5y ago
Exactly, this is real progress, we are automating whole swaths of our business sector and it’s making us way more productive and profitable
akkartik 5y ago
Yeah, it's an idiotic, 1-dimensional proposition in a game of n-dimensional chess. Tech employees are competition for a company's profit after all the other companies trying to commoditize their complements (https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/06/12/strategy-letter-v https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/06/12/strategy-letter-v). Starting with AWS. Treating programmers as cost centers was precisely what hindered the previous generation of companies in competing with tech. There may well come a time when a company can compete for gross margins without competing for tech employees. But it'll require a case more rigorous than this blog post.

e40 5y ago

Just saw an article earlier about google lowering salaries in some state.

brailsafe 5y ago

What about when everyone becomes a programmer (now) and starts a race to the bottom?

adamredwoods 5y ago
I don't think everyone will want to become a developer, and it's not a job just anyone wants to jump into. Compare this profession to say, the legal industry (the first example I could think of), where being a good lawyer/barrister is a high-paying profession. The law career may have a saturation point and regionally limited, but it still exists and pays well in certain situations. I could see entry-level developer job salaries drop, but rise rapidly with experience. That would be my first indicator of a market correction.
polski-g 5y ago
Not everyone has the cognitive ability to become a programmer.
- brailsafe 5y ago
  You don't need to be a genius to be a programmer. Yes, some people aren't capable of it, but there's a lot of middle ground. Being capable of being a programmer is more about disposition imo than intellect. I've had at least 2 people I don't regularly talk to ask me about getting into it as a career switch, and I say that it's fine, but more miserable than you'd expect.
ozim 5y ago
I don't see it happening because I mostly see business people who don't even want to compete with me. They just don't care about the same things I do care about. I see people don't even care to spend 30mins on learning how to use their computer in a better way that would save them hours of clicking.

ravenstine 5y ago

> We're not in a bubble. We are in the information era, and cloud computing is helping drive this. We're not necessarily in a bubble, but perhaps there's some foam? There will be a plethora of programmer jobs for some times go come, but we've also gone quite a while without a meaningful market adjustment, if you will. A point may come where global politics force the industry to be far more regulated than it currently is, and the days of being a self-taught coder with no degree and a poor understanding of security may come to an end. Maybe that doesn't happen, but if it does, I see lots of jobs disappearing and evolving into new ones, and a fraction of people in software deciding it's not worth it anymore. The world has only just started to truly realize how we effectively control information, and if the sentiment towards Silicon Valley gets worse then there may be more calls for regulation and new regulatory bodies; in which case jobs may open up within that new bureaucracy. That hypothesis is irrelevant if the industry was operating at a moderate pace. There's a lot of money still coming from somewhere, and backpressure can create a wave that pushes revenue back in the opposite direction, if even briefly.

e4e78a06 5y ago
> There will be a plethora of programmer jobs for some times go come, but we've also gone quite a while without a meaningful market adjustment, if you will We just went through a massive market adjustment. COVID forced a lot of layoffs and hiring freezes in March 2020 (even in tech) and all the COVID-boom stocks like Zoom, Peloton, etc. have all crashed 50%+. Valuations in private funding are being cut as we speak due to interest rate changes. But salaries for senior engineers have only gone up. > self-taught coder with no degree and a poor understanding of security may come to an end This was never a common outcome in the first place, despite what blogs and bootcamps might have you believe.

mountainriver 5y ago

Exactly, this is real progress, we are automating whole swaths of our business sector and it’s making us way more productive and profitable

akkartik 5y ago

Yeah, it's an idiotic, 1-dimensional proposition in a game of n-dimensional chess. Tech employees are competition for a company's profit after all the other companies trying to commoditize their complements (https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/06/12/strategy-letter-v https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/06/12/strategy-letter-v). Starting with AWS. Treating programmers as cost centers was precisely what hindered the previous generation of companies in competing with tech. There may well come a time when a company can compete for gross margins without competing for tech employees. But it'll require a case more rigorous than this blog post.