The End of Software Engineers
...and a lot of other jobs
The first symptoms that something was up was the realization that I had been earning the same money for the last decade. I used to feel rich.
With no raise, 10% inflation over 10 years means your income buys 50% as much as it used to. And if you didn’t know - the measurement for inflation excludes a lot of things we actually buy and need.
Local Distortions - Interest Rates
I believe it all started with Interest Rates going towards 0% to encourage growth. This in turn caused all software companies to borrow to expand.
Within the Big Tech world, companies were competing to hire the best developers so nothing was left for the competition.
This lavish lifestyle of benefits caught the public’s attention. YouTubers chronicled their days with relaxed starts to the day, endless coffee breaks, free bananas and free laundry services.
This hyper attractive lifestyle of seemingly doing little work and reaping the rewards drew a lot of interest and applications. Generations of youth have been setting their sights on getting into the field due to all these influencers.
Local Distortions - DEI
Along with the ridiculous pools of cash Big Tech companies have, there is a force of DEI driving change. Suddenly the best “man” for the job disappeared and now sexual preference and skin color put you to the top of the list.
Swarms of people looking for a fast track into a lucrative career emerged.
Interestingly enough - since the new Administration took place, the DEI button in LinkedIn mysteriously disappeared.
Global Distortions - H-1B Visas
Outside of local talent flocking from those back breaking blue collard jobs to the perk filled tech bro lifestyle -
International visas are a thing, drawing international candidates in from around the world.
So to add fuel to the fire you now have a Global influx of candidates.
Recent conversation have been around specifically biasing the choice to just Indians. Because they “work harder for less money”.
Global Distortions - AI
Now layer into the mix, AI. This is the biggest threat of all. AI is an absolute monster for ability. It can do everything very well. And any current pain points will soon to be ironed out.
Check out these two recent interviews that I saw with great thinkers and business builders.
The Writing is on the Wall
If you work in Software - I believe you need to take action right away and either move up the corporate ladder into a decision maker or hyper-specialize in an in-demand sub set of technology.
I would expect that decision makers would be one of the last professions to be replaced by AI.
Stay observant and agile.
I'll share with you an interesting insight with a recent experience I had that you might appreciate.
A few years ago, I was hired by a large company to replace a software professional who, officially, was "retiring."
In truth, this person was just as frustrated as you were with the same problems you described in this article.
To put it bluntly, their wages were stagnant, they were under-appreciated, they were being forced to do work that was both critical to the business but also deeply unsatisfying. The company had, as you described, opted to flood the environment with foreign tech workers (many producing sub-standard, low quality work) and trying to convince people like the aforementioned retiree that "they were easily replaceable."
The reality was that this person was so critical to the business that their forthcoming retirement would prove to be devastating to the entire company.
I was hired on shortly after that person retired and inherited a huge mess, not of that person's making, but by the mismanagement of the "decision makers" at that company.
In essence, I had been hired to be the fall guy for strategic blunders by this companies management (all DEI hires, I might add) and realizing this, I opted to just quit and find a new job (one where our paths crossed) before everything started to collapse.
Interestingly, I recently discovered that losing that person was so catastrophic to that company's strategic objectives they brought them back out from retirement. That was the only way that company could avoid the catastrophe their managers, directors, and executives created through obviously faulty decision making processes.
I wouldn't be surprised if that person negotiated a 200% wage increase given how desperate the company was and just how important that person was to the company's critical strategic objectives.
I share this to highlight that sometimes, the best thing you can do in a toxic, chaotic industry is simply "retire" and wait and see how badly things get for the management that didn't understand you, didn't appreciate you, and treated you as an expendable, easily replacable commodity when in fact you were fundamentally critical to their success.
While I agree with the premise and your observations, I partially disagree with the belief about needing to climb the corporate dominance hierarchy, particularly because of your last point related to AI.
Traditional decision makers may be the last ones replaced by AI because they hold title and influence, but market disruptions by the next generation of AI engineers will simply mean the systems they hold title and influence over will become obsolete rapidly.
Think of it from the perspective of what happened to the horse drawn carriage industry when internal combustion engine powered automobiles became mainstream. If you were a decision maker with a horse drawn carriage company, it meant nothing because your industry collapsed when the Ford assembly line started cranking out cars at a comparable cost to carriages.
The same is more true today in the software industry.
Personally, I think it's utterly pointless to "climb the ladder" since the ladder is propped up against a wall of a building that's on fire.
Getting away from the building and planning to build newer, better buildings (with AI at it's foundation) is the better move.
The best part is building that building instead of scrambling to get into the dumpster fire of the traditional corporate ladder, you can take the elevator to the top floor, instead of scrambling to fight all the H-1B foreign workers up the ladder at the same time you are (who have none of the expectations for the high standard of life you both expect and deserve).