Software engineer jobs will be blue collar, $40-$60k a year jobs, by 2030.
The HUGE push from government, and private business, to fill the PERCEIVED lack of engineers, will come to fruition around that time.
Make no mistake about it - there is NOT a lack of skilled engineers right now. There is a disinterest among business to pay higher, and higher salaries.
If you are a SWE right now, save your money, and invest your time into improving YOURSELF. Have a backup plan, because I promise you, the good times are coming to an end sooner than you think.
I disagree, I see people fail learning programming over and over again. Even after three years completing a computer engineering degree, they struggle with how a for loop works, (No this is not a joke in Europe).
Learning to program takes a lot of dedication and focus. Which a lot of people have no interest in, it is just too much work and too difficult. Every student that takes a engineering degree here, have to have a class with introduction to coding. And everyone, except those few who enjoys computer science, says that class was the hardest class to pass by far compared to the rest.
So I believe the opposite will happen. The demand for software developers will grow beyond our imagination.
I just can't share that optimism. I taught myself to code using youtube videos and books. There are 14 year olds on YouTube coding iOS video games in a matter of weeks.
Combine that with the fact that big companies (like Google) release SDKs that make application development trivial, and you've got a recipe for the skill cap lowering along with wages.
Do those apps that 14 year olds work on require an in depth understanding of how threads work? How different hardware components work together at scale? Most people with CS degrees never acquire the skillset to do such work, why should I believe that those who are trained via job training programs will be able to do so. I'd be more afraid of potential retraining of other highly skilled workers who want to switch careers than anything else.
The skillset of building a personal website, or even a website for your small business should be something anyone can do, and will in no way impact the overall salary of software engineers in the future.
Major companies will always need people who understand the computational sciences, as scale and complexity follow some of the same rules as entropy, in that they are always increasing.
Additionally, the reason for high salaries is not a lack of engineers, it is that top companies have decided that it is in their best interest to outbid each other for top talent. In parts of the midwest, where there is less competition, engineers are already paid 50k a year.
>Do those apps that 14 year olds work on require an in depth understanding of how threads work?
I am constantly surprised that when other CS students in my classes have zero idea how anything beyond the particular language we're learning works. Even in higher skill-level classes that require a fair amount of proficiency with the language if you asked what the length of the pointer they just properly used was all you would get is blank stares.
> "how anything beyond the particular language we're learning works. "
and
> "if you asked what the length of the pointer they just properly used was all you would get is blank stares"
So what is it?
It's a computer science program, not learn a dozen language's quirks and implementation detail that you use for a single class to understand some concept.
The new class of programmers that governments and Google want to train up from your average worker will not be as skilled or intelligent as the current generation of programmers. But, there are still opportunities for them in software development. They will take jobs that pay 40-60k a year, while the higher skilled and more intelligent programmers will be architects or leads who command much higher salaries.
Having more code technicans is great. I'd love to have more people to help maintain shit, write documentation, do small bug fixes etc...
There will be a differentiation between Engineers and Coders soon. Hooking up to a few different APIs, doing some JS and HTML does not count as engineering.
I've not only seen the same, I've seen people who actually work as developers who struggle with basic for-loops. I used to get worried when people rang alarm bells about jobs going overseas or there being an influx of developers into the market, but a large portion of the population seems to either just not be able to wrap their head around programming, or just not find it that interesting.
"PERCEIVED lack"? Doesn't the fact that salaries are sky rocketing essentially disprove your point? Why are the salaries getting pushed higher and higher? Because demand for SWEs is outstripping supply.
This to me looks like the same kind of privileged outlook that other professional guilds like the AMA desire. Do you want cheaper healthcare, or doctor compensation to keep going up? Hey, letting nurse practitioners take on some of the load is "flooding the market with n00bs"
This just seems like protectionism by another name.
Yes, the good times for software engineering will come to an end. I'm a software engineer, this will affect me. But the question is, do I have a natural god given right to have a ballooning salary every year, while fighting attempts to increase labor supply that might cut that growth rate?
> Doesn't the fact that salaries are sky rocketing essentially disprove your point?
What's your definition of "skyrocketing"? Outside of, maybe, a dozen high-prestiege companies located in a couple specific areas I don't see salaries skyrocketing. Mine hasn't; not saying I'm not well compensated, just not as overpaid or in demand asbsone people make it sound.
Further, my experience with the aforementioned high prestige companies is that they are picky as hell. That tells me that either there is no shortage of talent for them or they are choosing beggars.
While it may appear that salaries are rising quickly, in reality, for the average tech employee, they have been standing still for quite a while.
In 2003, the average salary in tech was $69,400.
By 2017, the average salary had risen to $92,081.[1]
While that might seem like a pretty large payrise, after adjusting it for inflation, you come to a clear conclusion that over the last 12 years, salaries have stood basically still. You can point to people getting $120k+ as a first year employee at Google, but salaries like that are massive outliers. Average developer in america earns much less.
Storage and Networking != SWE, and these surveys cover a much wider ground than particular tech hub job markets, and do not adjust for purchasing power parity/cost of living.
> Yes, the good times for software engineering will come to an end. I'm a software engineer, this will affect me. But the question is, do I have a natural god given right to have a ballooning salary every year, while fighting attempts to increase labor supply that might cut that growth rate?
Does our owner class have a natural god-given right to a 6% return on their investment every year, for doing nothing?
They are certainly spending their energy on fighting attempts to spread the economic pie around. We need solidarity, not shaming people for protecting their means to make a living.
I.e. start investing and in 20 years you'll be financially independent. Sounds good to me to be living in the US.
> the guy who makes my morning coffee can't
I talked with a guy once who told me he "can't". He was driving a new car, and the payments, rent, etc., added up to more than his income. I suggested he sell the car, buy a car he can afford to pay cash for, and start investing.
He partially did take my advice. He sold the car, bought one he could pay cash for, and then blew the extra income on some other luxuries. Of course, then he still was in "can't" territory.
My current car I bought used 25 years ago and still drive every day. It costs me practically nothing.
A car is a necessity in most of America for getting around. Most people likely do not have a spare $1000 laying around. And knowing what to invest in is another can of worms in itself.
And depending on who you're talking to, having a spare $1,000 risk on investment is "having money".
> And knowing what to invest in is another can of worms in itself.
For the record; knowing what to invest in is easy: a broad based low cost index fund. The research in "A Random Walk Down Wallstreet" statistically shows that actively choosing specific companies has a less than 50% success rate and often comes with higher fees. For the record, most public libraries have a copy of "A Random Walk" and its conclusions are well shared.
If you're not willing to invest because it's risky, that's fair, but if you're also going to complain that those who do are getting something for nothing, then it isn't so fair.
I wasn't the original commenter, but I don't think when they said "owner class" they meant passive minority shareholders with $200K portfolios or people with some money in their 401Ks.
While some of the richest are certainly entrepreneurs, the largest percentage of Forbes 400 are people who got there with OPM, other people's money, like hedge fund managers. Another chunk are heirs like Waltons or Kochs. Did Waltons get something for nothing without any risk? I would say yes, they did.
Sure. Solidarity to push back against the owner class to take a smaller piece of the pie, so the rest of the workers underneath - whether long-time veterans or recent entrants - may share it. In this, new workers shouldn't be seen as a threat, but an opportunity to create a bigger force to band together against the execs.
I continue to be thoroughly surprised by the people who are accusing me of things like "protectionism".
If you re-read my original post you will notice that I did NOT advocate for artificially restricting worker supply, or any kind of protectionism.
I merely warned that what we're seeing in tech WILL bring an end to the "high" salaries, and that those who wish to maintain their current state, should consider PERSONAL GROWTH and advancing their skillset as a means of protection.
We can debate all day about whether its a "perceived" lack, or a real lack. I whole heartedly disagree that salaries are, as you put it, "sky rocketing", especially when you account for cost of living in the areas where the "skyrocketing" is happening.
And oh, yes, how dare a doctor who spent upwards of $500,000 in medical training, and devoted years to internships, and residency, be worried about a lowered skill cap or regulatory protections (which they counted on) for entering their profession! How dare they!
Please. Of all the examples of protectionism you could have given, you chose perhaps the most acceptable and understandable. Yes, people care about their livelihood and the ability to retain efforts and investments they have made, so would you.
The difference is people saying "I got mine, and I'm going to vote against and oppose any thing that increases opportunities for other people to enter my industry and compete with me."
"Yes, the good times for software engineering will come to an end. I'm a software engineer, this will affect me. But the question is, do I have a natural god given right to have a ballooning salary every year, while fighting attempts to increase labor supply that might cut that growth rate?"
Does your employer have a natural, God given right to cheap labor?
Do I have a right not to have competition from other people in my industry underbidding me? My employer's rights are not the issue, it's whether I have a right to restrain others from entering the market through means like trying to oppose training and educational opportunities.
Are we're talking about a minimum wage for SWEs now? I mean what, specifically, are you suggesting? Employers can't hire people who bid lower?
Salary in the tech industry is a function of demand. Right now, for example, people with expertise in Machine Learning are in high demand. You can graduate with an MS or Phd in machine learning, form a startup with no product whatsoever, and get acqui-hired just because of the insane bidding war going on right now.
When I moved to SV in the 90s, at the height of the dot-com boom, kids fresh out of college were getting insane signing bonuses worth $10k or more. I knew people who would switch jobs every few months, just to collect freebies.
Perhaps it is different elsewhere, but here, tech workers are very highly privileged. Seeing people complain about a desk job that pays $100k+, weeks vacation, great healthcare and benefits, flexible working hours, compared to the utter suffering that's happening in the working class across this country just looks tone deaf to me.
Before we worry about the poor suffering tech workers, in their gentrified neighborhoods, in swanky cafes, facing stagnating nominal wages, how bout we consider the masses of people who missed out on the tech-utopia for the upper 10%, people who would like to move up the value chain, and have a right to compete for your job.
My mother worked as a cashier at Safeway before she died. Comparing my hourly wage as a SWE to hers is kind of obscene, and for the people I grew up with, seeing tech-bros complain about their current threatened position has got to look like people completely ignorant of how much privilege they have.
>Why are the salaries getting pushed higher and higher?
Because Bay Area cost of living is getting pushed higher and higher. The median programmer already has roommates, a 2-hour roundtrip commute, and no hope of family-sized housing or (gasp) ownership; if standard of living falls any further, we'll all go do something else.
Obviously many people have it worse, but we have alternatives.
The amount of programmers needed is rising across the globe. Every country is going to try to retain its IT talent. In a cut-throat globally competitive world you can't afford to be the country that lets its best minds leave to greener pastures.
Also, programming isn't the sort of job where you can fake your way through. If new people are trained up to enter the field they'll need to skills to match. As a relative share to population size the number of people studying computer science has been falling, not rising. These bootcamps and training programs are trying to bridge the skills gap, and so far have not succeeded. If anything there's going to be a skills glut, with a corresponding rise in pay.
Sure, employers always try to minimize pay. IT is not special, this is the case for all industries. Labor price is set through supply and demand, and programmer's wages are no different. Can you give a single example of an industry that used to have high wages but now has low wages? It would be exceedingly unlikely for IT to behave unlike every other industry.
> Also, programming isn't the sort of job where you can fake your way through.
Not sure why you think programming would be special in that regard. In a lot of companies, you will be able to keep your badly done job for a really long time as long as you have a good bond with your higher-ups. This goes for programming the same as sales or any other profession.
Yep. You need to move often enough to stay ahead of the technical debt you run up as you string your spaghetti code together. Or transition into a role where you talk about code much more than read or write it.
I'll believe there's a shortage or urgent demand when I notice a change in hiring standards and practices, and recruiting methods. As a former hiring person, yeah, it's kind of a pain in the ass to have to interview a lot of people before you find one who's any good. But if there was a genuine shortage + this alleged urgent demand, I have to believe that something about the tired, inefficient, and false-positive-allergic process would change in a newsworthy way.
The solution to lower wages created by more workers isn't to clamp down on the supply. The solution is to unionize and to ensure that labor has leverage through collective bargaining. Trying to play gatekeeper against bringing in more workers seems as wrongheaded as arguing against building more homes in a housing crisis.
Sure. 19th century unions in the U.S. were often racist and or nativist, seeing non-WASPs workers as a threat. But surely a unions formed by 21st century tech workers with over a century of historical wisdom and the modern day spirit of innovation should be able to do better, no?
I sincerely cannot tell if you're being sarcastic or not. The first order of business of any tech union will be to stall the H1-B program and then follow that up with strict gatekeeping rules. Just read HN, a supposedly enlightened class of programmers. It's all short term protectionism from people insecure of their ability.
1. it seems to be more complex than that. i mean, if you look at, say, the SEIU's position on immigration, it does not oppose additional immigration to the US. if anything, the SEIU has taken a pro-immigration position: http://seiu.org/cards/solutions-for-immigration-reform-expla...
2. protectionism from people insecure of their ability describes both tech workers and tech companies. Google, Facebook, Apple et al have increased their political presence in recent years with additional lobbyists. corporations love an unfair playing field as much as anyone.
i partially agree. e.g. public sector labor unions in Los Angeles have succeeded at maintaining high wages and great benefits for themselves.
but when you say the solution "isn't to clamp down on the supply" i lose the thread of your argument.
clamping down on the supply is exactly what a public sector union does. union work rules and other union-favorable city regulations exclude or limit non-union workers who might otherwise be hired to carry out various city functions.
working for the city or the department of water and power can be a very good deal for the worker, but city residents pay more in taxes and see less service as a result. merely unionizing the labor force helps some people but hurts others.
indeed, a case can be made that, because police officers are so highly paid and benefitted, they are scarce. and because they are scarce, there's more property crime, and murder, than there would be otherwise. it seems quite plausible that some city residents pay a very high price because of this public sector unionization.
in politics, this leads to a strategy wherein city residents who live in "electorally unimportant" areas (i.e. poor areas with lower voter turnout) receive lower levels of government service than city residents in areas that vote a lot.
here's an example: in LA a large number of electrical power poles are at end of life and need replacement. but the city is slowed by union rules in efforts to contract this work out to take advantage of the labor force at large:
One key obstacle, officials say, is the contract with DWP’s largest union, IBEW Local 18. The agreement requires that managers negotiate with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers before hiring contractors. Initially, the department is supposed to attempt to fill any internal vacant positions, Howard said. The contract also obligates managers to offer IBEW workers overtime to fill some of the need.
IBEW business manager Brian D’Arcy declined to be interviewed for this story.
Unions? How has that worked for every other craft industry in the US?
Forgive my crass reply, but, I have only seen unions become weaker and weaker in the U.S. And even when they were "strong" they didn't protect labor interests against increases in labor supply. Globalization has wrecked a number of industries, which unions were powerless against. The strongest card in the hand of any laborer is their scarcity.
Also, nobody (including myself) is advocating for "playing gatekeeper". I merely made a post warning people of what's coming. If you look closely my advice was to the individual - invest in yourself. Don't count on unions, or governments playing gatekeeper, to protect your current salary.
Doctors, actors, pro athletes. There are many types of guilds and professional associations beyond unions.
Furthermore, if tech is about disrupting everything, including the nature of work itself (through on-demand) and even the nature of human relations itself (through social media), then surely some attempt could be made to better labor relations by inventing a better type of union. It's especially rich to hear "no, it can't happen, it's always failed in the past" comments wrt labor unions come from workers who work in an industry that's supposedly all about innovation.
I wasn't trying to attack you for your original comment, in any case. You actually offer good advice. But my general sentiment is that we shouldn't try to restrict the labor market- it seems as wrongheaded as trying to fight gentrification by limiting house construction just because some of those units will be luxury condos instead of affordable housing- and that lowered wages could be fought by the presence of a tech union that protects tech workers.
>software engineer jobs will be blue collar, $40-$60k a year jobs, by 2030.
There have always been 'blue collar' engineering jobs. When I started in the tech industry I was making $13 an hour writing HTML and a bit of SQL here and there.
There are probably tens of thousands of "Software Engineers" putting together PHP sites, doing front end JS work at an entry level, hacking together some minor software customizations. I think you're right, this will become more prevalent. The world needs a lot more engineers to do this kind of work.
>There is a disinterest among business to pay higher, and higher salaries.
Evidence points to the contrary, salaries have skyrocketed in the last ten years... have you been paying attention?
Agreed. I'll add that it is also worth noting current job openings don't mean "potential job openings". There is entire things we might not even be considering as a society simply because there is not enough people to consider it. I think this is the case in tech. So much of our society is lagging behind what current technical capability allows. I still have to fax paper forms sometimes. Why? The potential employment might be 10x, maybe even 100x what it is now. Just to keep entire industries even remotely up to date.
> There have always been 'blue collar' engineering jobs.
I think the industry is overdue for consolidating on some language around the various kinds of software jobs. Nurses, doctors, surgeons, anesthesiologists, PAs, medical technicians, orderlies, general practitioners, obstetricians, pediatricians, pharmacists, etc. could all be "medical engineers". But broadly understood names for the different roles clarify expectations for each.
>Software engineer jobs will be blue collar, $40-$60k a year jobs, by 2030.
I'd be fine with that. $60k is a solid living. 1/4th of a pretty nice house. In Wisconsin.
I'd take that salary today - in Wisconsin. But I'm not sure you could even get your own room for that in the Bay Area, where they'll inevitably require you to be to earn it.
I don't think you're wrong; I could see certain kinds of engineering jobs becoming more blue collar. But at the risk of sounding pretentious, there's a bit of an intelligence restriction on certain kinds of engineering work. There will probably always be more of a demand than supply for people who are really good and useful.
Software engineer jobs will never be blue collar because it's not a blue collar job. Sure, anyone can make a tic tac toe go, but that's different from software engineering. A good software engineer can effectively do the work of several mediocre ones by making decisions that would benefit the company in the long run.
Personally, I think you are wrong. If you are an average engineer, you should be very afraid. But if you are exceptional, you will see your comp shoot through the roof in the coming years.
Average developer here, and I am scared. I'm worried that programming is going to have a similar winner-take-everything compensation scheme not unlike music or art, where only the very best make any money at all.
I'm going to warn everyone of what's coming.
Software engineer jobs will be blue collar, $40-$60k a year jobs, by 2030.
The HUGE push from government, and private business, to fill the PERCEIVED lack of engineers, will come to fruition around that time.
Make no mistake about it - there is NOT a lack of skilled engineers right now. There is a disinterest among business to pay higher, and higher salaries.
If you are a SWE right now, save your money, and invest your time into improving YOURSELF. Have a backup plan, because I promise you, the good times are coming to an end sooner than you think.