> if you knew of someone who was trying to learn to code, and better job opportunities was one of their main motivators, would you suggest that they reconsider

> if you knew of someone who was trying to learn to code, and better job opportunities was one of their main motivators, would you suggest that they reconsider based on where the market is headed? Getting that first dev job is hard, and it's probably harder than it used to be, but all that difficulty goes away after you land your first gig. Software is eating the world, and the jobs to produce it aren't going anywhere. While I worked toward my first job, I built websites for clients, spoke at meetups, threw up some projects of my own. By the time I got my first job, I wasn't really a junior anymore. > What would the companies that are still hiring prefer, junior or senior devs? It's not so cut and dry. Juniors are useless without strong seniors to guide them, but a team of all senior+ devs doesn't necessarily translate to faster or better code. My last company didn't have any junior devs at all. Becoming a strong developer takes a long time, but the payoff is absolutely worth it. I was in food service for years, basically a disposable cog, fired from more jobs than most people have even applied for. Now I make money I could never have imagined when I was waiting tables, and I have the security of not being instantly replaceable. I would recommend this career change to anybody, even if it does take a couple of years (which it doesn't have to).