3 ms·

Can you explain about the new grads born with smartphones? I'm not sure what's the implication. I'm soon to graduate and constantly worry about the future of m

Can you explain about the new grads born with smartphones? I'm not sure what's the implication. I'm soon to graduate and constantly worry about the future of my career. I was lucky to get some experience while studying, and I also have something to work on right after graduating, but the future just sounds scary to me.

sublinear 3y ago
Oh no sorry didn't mean to worry you so much. The market will have to adjust to take in this new wave of entry level people. There's still way too much demand for devs for it to be any other way. I meant that in the 2010s we had a ton of tech startups even in the most random places. Every business was wondering if they needed an app or big data service. I didn't even bother with an internship because everyone was hustling to make the next smartphone app or SaaS/IoT product and get that sweet recurring revenue. That meant it was easy to get experience wearing many hats. You'd get exposed to absolutely everything from meetings with the client, web dev, database, embedded, kernel patches, etc. I still had a couple years of school left and had all that on my resume as a fresh grad. This generation is going to take longer to get up to speed with all the crap you end up having to learn in the "real world". To be honest it may not even matter. As things have matured less deep knowledge may be required. It was a different kind of stress back then. Everyone was terrified they weren't good enough and competition was crazy. We thought our jobs were going to be taken by someone from abroad as the gig economy and remote work ramped up. We weren't entirely wrong, but the threat was overblown as communication barriers and time zone issues were realized. I'm in a more senior role now and have accepted my more corporate fate. I can't speak for everyone from my era, but I have no issues building up new hires and I think most of us are grateful and proud to be in our roles. As long as you find a boss who keeps you from slipping into that "long tail of incompetence" it'll be okay. I'd try to not work somewhere that specializes their employees too much when you're still new. That's how they lock you in, pay you jack shit, and ruin your prospects. Every career even outside of tech has that problem of getting pigeonholed because of your resume. Things have just slowed a bit and I will have to remember to not be a cranky old man who constantly whines "back in my day..."

sublinear 3y ago

Oh no sorry didn't mean to worry you so much. The market will have to adjust to take in this new wave of entry level people. There's still way too much demand for devs for it to be any other way. I meant that in the 2010s we had a ton of tech startups even in the most random places. Every business was wondering if they needed an app or big data service. I didn't even bother with an internship because everyone was hustling to make the next smartphone app or SaaS/IoT product and get that sweet recurring revenue. That meant it was easy to get experience wearing many hats. You'd get exposed to absolutely everything from meetings with the client, web dev, database, embedded, kernel patches, etc. I still had a couple years of school left and had all that on my resume as a fresh grad. This generation is going to take longer to get up to speed with all the crap you end up having to learn in the "real world". To be honest it may not even matter. As things have matured less deep knowledge may be required. It was a different kind of stress back then. Everyone was terrified they weren't good enough and competition was crazy. We thought our jobs were going to be taken by someone from abroad as the gig economy and remote work ramped up. We weren't entirely wrong, but the threat was overblown as communication barriers and time zone issues were realized. I'm in a more senior role now and have accepted my more corporate fate. I can't speak for everyone from my era, but I have no issues building up new hires and I think most of us are grateful and proud to be in our roles. As long as you find a boss who keeps you from slipping into that "long tail of incompetence" it'll be okay. I'd try to not work somewhere that specializes their employees too much when you're still new. That's how they lock you in, pay you jack shit, and ruin your prospects. Every career even outside of tech has that problem of getting pigeonholed because of your resume. Things have just slowed a bit and I will have to remember to not be a cranky old man who constantly whines "back in my day..."