Doctorow is an expert at stirring the pot. However, I disagree with the overall premise of his piece. He frames most of his thesis on how FAANG companies tight

Doctorow is an expert at stirring the pot. However, I disagree with the overall premise of his piece. He frames most of his thesis on how FAANG companies tightened the screws since their "college campus" era during their scrappier days. While he isn't wrong about these workplaces having become less surreal over the years, these actions are a consequence of going public and becoming huge megacorps. Microsoft, Oracle, Adobe, IBM and many others went through the exact same thing. Tale as old as time. Furthermore, SWEs are, by and large, still paid multiples over the median _before_ considering hours worked, and they still get excellent benefits that other professions that leverage "vocational awe" wouldn't even dream of providing. Heck, SWEs/SREs have the benefit of (theoretically) being able to choose whether to work fully remote or not and have a high chance of getting highly paid either way. To wit, there was a thread on Blind the other day wherein someone at a non-FAANG was asking if chasing money meant anything anymore after clearing their first million USD. This is _despite_ bigwigs like Benioff boasting about freezing all software engineering hires now that generative AI is "good enough" (which I don't think they actually did?). There is NO OTHER INDUSTRY wherein "normies" that didn't go to highly-regarded school for years and years on end have a realistic shot at this kind of compensation. Software is still a high-skilled, highly-niche profession. Generative AI "simplifies" writing software, but that's only 20-40% of the job, IMO. As long as that remains true, and as long as margins on software remain astronomical, demand will remain high and SWE/SWE-adjacent professionals will continue to be paid well.