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Very worried. The BLS edited their stats, projecting the number of software engineers will decrease by 11% in the next ten years: https://www.bls.gov/ooh/compu

Very worried. The BLS edited their stats, projecting the number of software engineers will decrease by 11% in the next ten years: https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/computer-programmers.htm https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/... This is a pretty drastic change from their earlier prediction (often cited all over the internet) that the number of software engineers will increase by more than 30% in the next 10 years. It's not the full replacement of software engineers I'm worried about, so much as the steep reduction in the number of jobs and the labor/wage pressure that will make this job pay a fraction of what it's paying now, and make everyone's livelihoods more precarious in the next 10 to 15 years. Karpathy already stated in 2017 that "Gradient Descent writes better code than you", when he wrote about "Software 2.0" as feeding data to neural networks: https://karpathy.medium.com/software-2-0-a64152b37c35 https://karpathy.medium.com/software-2-0-a64152b37c35 Nvidia's CEO, Jensen Huang, seemed to have confirmed that point this week in persuading parents not to encourage their kids to learn to code. Today, this YT video by a dev named Will Iverson about how software engineering jobs are not coming back made me really anxious, and start to worry about making backup career plans in case I need to transition in my late thirties / early forties. (That sounds sooo hard...I'm a recently laid off mid-level full stack engineer of seven years, but I wonder if it would be better to transition now while I'm younger. Why wait 10 to 15 years to become increasingly obsolete or more stressed of becoming laid off? How can I support a family like that? Or make any plans into the future that might impact other people I'm responsible for?) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JX5ZO19hiE&t=3s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JX5ZO19hiE&t=3s I don't think the industry will ever really be the same again. But I'm sure a lot of us will adapt. Some of us won't, and will probably have to switch careers. I always thought I could at least make it to retirement in this profession, by continually learning a few new skills each year as new tech frameworks emerge but the fundamentals stay the same -- now I'm not so sure. If you think I'm wrong, can you please help me not be anxious? Older devs, how have you managed to ride out all the changes in the industry over the last few decades? Does this wave of AI innovations feel different than earlier boom-bust cycles like the DotCom Bubble, or more of the same? What advice would you give to junior or mid-level software engineers, or college grads trying to break into the industry right now, who have been failing completely at getting a foot in the door in the last 12 months, when they would have been considered good hires just two or three years before?

findingMeaning 3y ago
On the same boat! Thus, asked people on how to create value in this new world. Quite scared of people not giving any chances rather than AI replacing us. Kinda weird because it feels like the competitor is AI rather than other humans. People trust it more and winning trust is quite hard.
throwaway22001 3y ago
> If you think I'm wrong, can you please help me not be anxious? You are not wrong, but I think that there are other reasons behind the slump in software development jobs which are 1. How expensive it is to hire a software developer in EU and the US when compared to the other parts of the world. The cost of maintaining a software engineering team now bites into a company's budget more than previous years because of section 174 in the US. Earlier, companies with potential could seek investors in case they need capital to grow, but most investors are picky about where they invest in because of points 2, 3 and 4. 2. High interest rates. 3. 2024 is considered to be a geopolitically volatile year, due to the ongoing global conflicts as well the elections that are going to happen across multiple countries (REF: https://www.statista.com/chart/31604/countries-where-a-national-election-is-was-held-in-2024/ https://www.statista.com/chart/31604/countries-where-a-natio...). When governments change there are going to be changes in focus of the entire economy, for example, it's quite hard to guess the stance of a Republican led USA on the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. 4. The fear of more regional conflicts breaking out around the world. This might spook a lot more countries into investing more into defensive technologies and in fact, one of the startup ideas of 2024 from YC was for defense technologies. 5. Nvidia is a company that started out as a GPU manufacturer and is currently riding a very huge wave of speculation around the future capabilities of "AI". And to investors with money, it seems safer to invest in it. > What advice would you give to junior or mid-level software engineers, or college grads trying to break into the industry right now, who have been failing completely at getting a foot in the door in the last 12 months, when they would have been considered good hires just two or three years before? I also only have similar experience as you have right now (~9 years) so I cannot give any specific advice on this. I would recommend applying to all jobs that even remotely fit their profile and in the meantime to attend conferences or meetups so as to network better. 90% of the time the resumes that is sent is being screened by a Recruiter or by an automated system. However if you already have someone inside a company willing to refer you, you will have an easier time getting to skip this filter.

findingMeaning 3y ago

On the same boat! Thus, asked people on how to create value in this new world. Quite scared of people not giving any chances rather than AI replacing us. Kinda weird because it feels like the competitor is AI rather than other humans. People trust it more and winning trust is quite hard.

throwaway22001 3y ago

> If you think I'm wrong, can you please help me not be anxious? You are not wrong, but I think that there are other reasons behind the slump in software development jobs which are 1. How expensive it is to hire a software developer in EU and the US when compared to the other parts of the world. The cost of maintaining a software engineering team now bites into a company's budget more than previous years because of section 174 in the US. Earlier, companies with potential could seek investors in case they need capital to grow, but most investors are picky about where they invest in because of points 2, 3 and 4. 2. High interest rates. 3. 2024 is considered to be a geopolitically volatile year, due to the ongoing global conflicts as well the elections that are going to happen across multiple countries (REF: https://www.statista.com/chart/31604/countries-where-a-national-election-is-was-held-in-2024/ https://www.statista.com/chart/31604/countries-where-a-natio...). When governments change there are going to be changes in focus of the entire economy, for example, it's quite hard to guess the stance of a Republican led USA on the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. 4. The fear of more regional conflicts breaking out around the world. This might spook a lot more countries into investing more into defensive technologies and in fact, one of the startup ideas of 2024 from YC was for defense technologies. 5. Nvidia is a company that started out as a GPU manufacturer and is currently riding a very huge wave of speculation around the future capabilities of "AI". And to investors with money, it seems safer to invest in it. > What advice would you give to junior or mid-level software engineers, or college grads trying to break into the industry right now, who have been failing completely at getting a foot in the door in the last 12 months, when they would have been considered good hires just two or three years before? I also only have similar experience as you have right now (~9 years) so I cannot give any specific advice on this. I would recommend applying to all jobs that even remotely fit their profile and in the meantime to attend conferences or meetups so as to network better. 90% of the time the resumes that is sent is being screened by a Recruiter or by an automated system. However if you already have someone inside a company willing to refer you, you will have an easier time getting to skip this filter.