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This is what the other side of a hiring blitz looks like. On the ascent, company after company speculatively hired extremely expensive workers - because the sur
by SevenNation 4y ago
This is what the other side of a hiring blitz looks like. On the ascent, company after company speculatively hired extremely expensive workers - because the surface economic signals were misleading people who should have known better. There was so much money to throw at employees that offers were being extended just to keep candidates away from competitors.
This went on so long and with such fury that employees, candidates, and CS students began to view the orgy of overspending as the new normal.
Now a normalization of economic conditions throws the entire thing into reverse. Too many fresh-faced candidates showing up with resume in hand, too many workers on payrolls doing little to nothing for wages 3-10x what they should be, too little revenue to continue business as usual, and a stock market that pulled the rug out from public companies using shares as a form of self-printed currency.
- spaceman_2020 4y agoCS was already a popular bet among incoming college students, but the memory of the manic 2020-21 period have fuelled a vast flight of talent to CS majors, at least in my country. Everyone is convinced that the only way to make any real money fast is to learn how to code. The expectations are absurd - most expect to make doctor-tier salaries right after graduation (source: wife teaches at university). By 2024, the steady drip of fresh CS graduates is going to turn into a flood. An entire generation of teenagers saw the tech boom, the crypto boom, and the SPAC/IPO mani. Its going to color college major choices for years. In short: downward pressure on programmer wages.
- dilyevsky 4y ago> In short: downward pressure on programmer wages. Entry level programmers maybe - lets see how many can actually stick around past first midterm
- nkjnlknlk 4y agoPeople have been making these doomer claims since 00s to my memory and all that has been proven since then is we don't have enough software engineers.
- delecti 4y agoI almost feel like coding is currently what typing was 60 years ago. "Typist" isn't really a job anymore, but stenographer and transcriptionist are. Likewise, I think that coding needs to become something basically everyone can do a tiny bit of, but only a relatively smaller group do as their entire job.
- dilyevsky 4y agoYes my algebra professor used to say same thing almost 20 years ago now
- baq 4y agoalmost anybody can be a coder but software engineering is super freakin' hard - and I only say this because I'm soon wrapping up my second decade of doing it. the amount of things you can't efficiently learn at school is staggering. I see young promising people focusing on 'tech stacks', 'deep learning', etc. hence missing the forest from the trees and think that it simply isn't possible to exit school as a competent software engineer. you have to really try to be one to become one and no school makes you do that. it's you.
- robotnikman 4y agoOn the other hand, it seems like technical proficiency might be going down with newer generations. Many were raised on smartphones and tablets where you just tap something and it does the thing. Devices nowadays abstract a lot of the underlying system away from the users, even to the point where apparently the newer generation struggles with the concept of files and directories.
- supertrope 4y agoUsing a computer as a consumer is an entirely different skill set from making them. Just as most car owners barely know how their machine works besides stepping on an accelerator pedal and occasionally inserting a fuel nozzle. Even before the smartphone revolution brought computing to global masses of all income levels, most users were not makers.
- mountainofdeath 4y agoThis has been happening for at least the second half of the prior decade. I graduated in 2014 and that was the second year EE/CS had a significant uptick in enrollments. When I started in 2010, it was mostly the "runs Linux on the desktop" hacker-types.
- dilyevsky 4y agoI was a freshmen in 2004 it was already widely believed CS career was reliable source of middle class income. Nothing we see here is new
- aksss 4y agoWage inflation, interesting that the whole "fight for $15" thing literally died overnight at some point. But when you're at 40-year high for inflation, rates rise, part of what the Fed is trying to do is raise unemployment. Here you are. https://thehill.com/policy/3658981-why-the-fed-is-pushing-unemployment-higher/ https://thehill.com/policy/3658981-why-the-fed-is-pushing-un...
- relaxing 4y ago> interesting that the whole "fight for $15" thing literally died overnight at some point Not that interesting. With the Senate split 50/50 it only took one Democrat to kill that effort.