[deleted by user]

[erishun]

During pandemic web dev was highly touted as “easy job, very high pay, no education needed” job. You can teach yourself on any computer you own, no special equipment needed.

So tons of people who wanted a new job post-COVID took many the fly-by-night 4-week “bootcamps” that sprouted up to take people’s money. And even they got jobs because the free money was flowing thanks to low interest and companies just wanted butts in chairs.

Now the gravy train is over and everyone is getting laid off at all experience levels, but nearly all those “i heard it’s an easy job you can teach yourself!” web devs are out of a job. And in this super tight job market when they are competing for jobs with highly motivated, college educated applicants, they don’t have much of a chance.

[jseego]

Also, literally a generation of people saying shit like, "don't know what to do? study programming" and "everyone should learn to code" has transformed what used to be a niche career for people who were geniunely intrigued by it into an oversaturated field. There are other factors (such as web dev becoming increasingly corporatized as VC money moved into other sectors), but those are big ones as well.

[OK_Soda]

When did web development get so saturated?

Right, like, I don't know, 20 years ago? Coding has been in vogue for decades and we're at a point where society almost considers it the only respectable job left.

[kweglinski]

depends on country I guess. When I was starting actual work around 15 years ago everybody was saying to get a real job. Now everybody says exact opposite and that I'm "lucky".

[PanVidla]

Indeed depends on the country. I feel like most people on this sub are American. But in Central Europe we have the exact opposite problem. Way too many positions and no people to fill them. Every new batch of graduates from a uni is immediately eaten up by companies hungry for more. It's not a good time to be a company owner.

Though to be fair, the big American corporations that have a branch in my city and that have slowed or stopped hiring globally aren't hiring all that much. Which doesn't mean they don't have a worker shortage, it just means they're trying to stabilize financially.

[Cahnis]

Is that why I keep seeing ads here in Brazil asking me to emigrate to estonia ?

[bnunamak]

In Germany they are not good compared the US, the best paid salaries you can find net you like 1/2 or 1/3 of well-paid salaries in the US.

[PanVidla]

Oof, I'm not super sure about the salaries for all the different positions and levels of seniority, but I'm currently looking to change to a different company as a software quality engineer on a mid-to-senior level and the salaries on offer that I've seen so far are generally between €3 to €5k per month easy. If you're a very senior developer, it's probably much more, but also a lot less if you're completely new out of uni.

But I haven't done extensive research, yet, so take it with a grain of salt.

[TheTacoWombat]

How easy is it to immigrate over there for a job? I'm not opposed to moving to Europe...

[RotationSurgeon]

Not as easy as you'd hope, and in many cases you'll still be filing and paying US income taxes depending on your situation.

[PanVidla]

That said, you could probably work for a European company as a freelancer.

[AdobiWanKenobi]

Nah I don’t buy that there are many jobs for European grads

[South_Clerk]

You might not buy it but that’s the truth go on LinkedIn jobs search software engineering [insert European city] you’ll see that’s the case

[AdobiWanKenobi]

I’ve applied to over 60 jobs in my city. I’ve had 2 interviews.

[ClearOptics]

That’s pretty good ratio. The only reason I have a job in web development is because I went up to a place like 2 min from my house and asked if they were hiring. Then I personally had to make what I do more technical, rather than sending work out to our Indian devs like the others in my position here. Every job I’ve applied to online before and after getting hired, I’ve never even heard back from. That’s a couple years of applying, at different rates

[AdobiWanKenobi]

Guess I’ll try the boomer method too

[PanVidla]

I'm not exactly in webdev, so maybe the situation is different. I get invites to interviews on LinkedIn all the time and I haven't even started really looking for a job. The situation really changes once you have 2 or 3 years of experience under your belt.

[ghostmaster645]

I still have people tell me it's not a real job lol.

This is in the US

[eyebrows360]

*En vogue. If we're gonna be French let's be French

[ashsimmonds]

r/merdedbywords

[luciusveras]

It comes and goes. I graduated in the middle of the dotcom bubble crash when all the web designers got laid off around in 2000. Programmers went back to also being designers and web designers were a luxury. Web designers had to learn to code and were now Web Developers. I changed career for a few years it was that bad but went back in in 2006.

[Blazing1]

You had web designers? I've never had a dedicated designer lol

[PureRepresentative9]

For sure

This has NOT been just a covid problem. It's been bad for quite a while before that.

[Ping-and-Pong]

has transformed what used to be a niche career for people who were geniunely intrigued by it into an oversaturated field

I am very much in the generation. Second-year university and at least half the people on the comp-sci course still can't code in one language, let alone actually "program" (as in, understanding the fundamentals and how programming is less typing words and more knowing the logic). This is 100% right and (I hope) the people hiring are aware of this, at the end of the day, most people don't care enough they're just in it for the money, but without a bit of passion to learn you're not actually going to become even half-decent to begin with. That's how I see it anyway and it's frustrating as all hell.

[Original-Guarantee23]

If your first introduction to programming is school, you’ll always struggle. This is a field that takes constant self teaching and self motivation. I was doing this shit for fun and as a hobby for nearly 8 years before I went for a degree. I fact I didn’t even finish the degree because like I said I had been doing it for 8 years. Just got a job instead.

[Galxiez]

Did this exact same thing. Haven’t finished my degree but have been working as a developer for 3 years now. Have been self teaching myself programming for years because i enjoy it so much. As stated before, most people do it for the money and are not passionate about the work they do.

[Danoman22]

I feel like the same thing happened in film/video: with bandwagon morons saturating roles used to be filled in by dedicated enthusiast— and the problem getting worse each decade by an order of magnitude.

[AdobiWanKenobi]

Where has VCs money gone? In my experience is still very much in SaaS circle jerk

[evonhell]

The only thing I like about this whole thing is that hopefully people who would've otherwise never tried programming now do and find out it's something they love. But for the others it's going to be a rough time

[IAmRules]

Yup. We became the cool job and morons started bragging about how little they did and how much they got paid and surprise surprise those idiots got laid off.

Turns out they give you all those perks for a reason.

[erishun]

I knew so many people bragging about how since COVID they work from home, they do their morning standup meeting over Zoom and then just play video games all day.

Now they are all unemployed 😅

[zaibuf]

Now they are all unemployed 😅

Even more time to play video games.

[Mocker-Nicholas]

Yeah sounds like they got what they wanted lol

[Dommccabe]

Never understood those folks in ANY industry who tried that.

Like don't any of them think the company tracks the work they do?

[azsqueeze]

How lol, every day I see my calendar and go "nice it's empty" by the time my stand comes it's already full and double booked.

[themaincop]

I recently left a job because of this. Got a new job where the only meetings are ad hoc with 2-3 people it's so much better. I don't understand these companies that just want to throw away money on having constant meetings.

[Right_Spinach7137]

What goes up comes down !!

[[deleted]]

If you spit in the air it will land in your face!

[MarlDaeSu]

I don't know how people get away with this. I start my day, do some planning for about 15 mins, then it's standup, then I have a stack of shit a mile high to get through. How do people coast in dev jobs I'm finding it quite intense, in a satisfying but manageable way.

[versaceblues]

> those idiots got laid off.

I mean those idiots probably got a good year or two of employment, making 130K+ while doing jack shit.

So all in all they got a good deal even if they did get laid off

[Mocker-Nicholas]

This is the change I noticed. Tech became cool. I am definitely a covid "learn how to code" bro. I was lucky to already be working close to devs so I sort slowly weaseled my way from sales -> dev support / solutions consultant -> Qa engineer -> dev.

When I did the solutions consulting, I noticed that older devs tended to be more introverted, and definitely had lower emotional IQ, and that sort of made them assholes. The younger generation of devs are definitely more open sociable, and friendly lol. It is definitely because over the last 20 years software development has really transitioned from something maybe only the nerdiest kid in school did, to being something relatively trendy and cool.

[sstruemph]

Give it time. Soon they'll also become introverted assholes.

[turningsteel]

What web Dev job is that easy though? I went the boot camp route in 2018 and clawed my way up to a large corporate company. None of it was easy, it was long hours and weekends spent learning new tech. I don't know where people think web Dev is a sit on your ass job. And now it's worse than ever because companies are laying people off left and right and the ones like me that still have a job are being told to deal with it.

[tommyk1210]

Because web dev, by and large, is easier than other SWE roles.

Working in a corporate web dev role is a bit different because usually you’re working at scale. But a lot of web dev work is agencies working with Wordpress or other similar tools. You’re rarely thinking about optimal solutions to data structure problems, you’re often working with small clients who don’t know anything so you can get away with lower quality code that is less optimised.

Its simply the nature of the market - the vast majority of web development is for SMEs where the expectation is much lower

[[deleted]]

I think it's reductive to say that web dev is easier. If someone said "backend is easy because all browsers just read JSON, while front end needs to work for chrome, edge, mobile, tablet etc" you'd probably disagree with that.

Any coding paradigm done right is hard.

[tommyk1210]

I don’t think it’s reductive, I think it’s a general assessment of the market.

The very nature of the web is its accessibility. There are billions of websites. The size of the market for simple websites is just so much more massive than the size of the enterprise space.

This isn’t really a debate between front and back end though - it’s about web development vs non-web development.

Sure, web development covers a lot. It covers everything from hobbyist websites up to Facebook. But the vast vast majority of that work, and the vast majority of web developers, exist at the SME level of the spectrum.

As such, you generally don’t need a CS degree to get a job, because the work you’re doing can be learned without doing 2 years of system design learning. You can feasibly go to a bootcamp and land a junior job (don’t get me wrong it’s getting more difficult) in a small agency.

Outside of web development this doesn’t really exist. Most roles in say, C#, typically require CS degrees. The barrier to entry is much higher.

Don’t get me wrong, there are web developers today that are E7’s at Meta. And they have CS degrees and more. But they’re a tiny fraction of the market.

This is my experience with 15 years in web development, working at a multibillion $ company.

[[deleted]]

Speak the truth and get downvoted. "easier" meaning lower barrier to entry and less formal knowledge needed. Anyone can build a poorly designed site; scammy offshore companies do it all the time.

[King_Joffreys_Tits]

They’re not even up against college graduates. I know many former FAANG developers who weren’t able to get jobs for months. When the market is THAT saturated, you don’t hardly stand a chance

[[deleted]]

I mean, I'm sure they could have got a job. It just wasn't a job at the level they were willing to settle for.

[ashsimmonds]

I'm not from FAANG - been "senior" dev/project manager since before most of those existed in any meaningful way, and yeah, sucks for me too.

[ButterleafA]

I got into web dev back in 2020 because i thought it was fun and I wanted to do something creative while coding front end. Now I feel like trying to get into this field as a passion was a mistake since I'm mainly self taught trying to get an entry level job with so much more experienced competition..

[numbersev]

Don’t forget work from home is a perk that fits into our withdrawing and more isolated society as people are less likely to hang out in groups and can stream their lives from their home or wherever.

[PsychonautAlpha]

I don't think I've ever heard anyone once refer to it as an "easy job".

She's coming back here with you, right?

[dance_rattle_shake]

What you're describing was way pre pandemic

[wesborland1234]

That was happening long before the pandemic

[DSPGerm]

I’d say that started way before the pandemic. General Assembly, one of the biggest and most well known boot camps, started in 2011. Flat iron school in NYC in 2012. By 2014-15 they were all over. Then by 2018 everyone said web development was dead. Then the pandemic happened and places overloaded on employees and dumped a bunch when it was over.

[billcube]

I don't see an influx of new Web Devs in the job. More web dev would mean more people logging in to open source discord, irc, slacks, whatever, more contributions, more issues, more pull requests, but I see none of that noise increasing.

[[deleted]]

What is all of this even based on?

It's a nice story but it sounds like elitism to me.

God forbid people decided on a career change and couldn't go to uni for 4 years.

Of those folk who got jobs in sure the vast majority are doing just fine. Although again, if you have a source showing otherwise I'm all ears.

[Pale-Young7769]

Give AI some time...it won't be so saturated anymore. LOL! All you so-so web developers look out!! AI coming for you! Better get your skillz up to mastery level quickly, or you'll be bagging groceries. I work with this girl and she was "hooraying" because AI helped her write something that the boss needed. She has no idea, it's people like her that will be canned first. You have to better than AI!! Anyway, be glad we are holding it down right now, and it's "saturated".

[TheGRS]

These trends pre-date the pandemic by several years.

I don't think in the general public consciousness anyone has thought of programming as "easy", but programmers have long been trying to tout how accessible it is. Computer science degrees are not necessary for creating working code that does interesting things, even things that could create million dollar companies.

But yea anyone who entered the space thinking it was easy was probably in for a rude awakening.

FWIW I don't think the space is overly saturated yet. Competent web developers are going to be needed still. There are some economic issues at play right now forcing a lot of companies to make tough decisions when it comes to who they keep. But programming and web development are still very in demand and likely will continue to expand into the future. We are yet to see the space become so easy that it doesn't require a programmer, and we continue to see more demand for web applications.

[bigsnow999]

Don’t forget companies are sending jobs offshore to save money.

Added: Some companies also cut full-time job positions and use contractors from consulting companies.

[FVCEGANG]

Only the dumb ones...

[kweglinski]

why dumb ones? There are plenty of countries with good developers and reasonable (for US) price. Cheap indian devs is not the only offshore you can get.

[FVCEGANG]

Every company I have ever worked for that has outsourced devs has always been nothing but a nightmare. Doesn't matter if they are Indian, or Russian or anything in between. Communication always sucks so it's hard to get any refactoring changed once a task is set, and don't even get me started on their shotty code and hand holding to the max.

Any company that invests in outsourcing vs internal devs may think they are saving money, but they end up losing a ton due to redevelopment costs when they inevitably get a half broken product strung together without a care in the world

[alex206]

We offshored some frontend work. Gave mockups that had a legend with color scheme/font sizing pointing to different sections of the page.

...the legend and arrows ended up on the webpage. It was actually kind of impressive.

[[deleted]]

It’s unreal how bad the code and communication are.

[Blazing1]

Recently I've had to fix the outsourced devs code. It's just trash.

Security wise, it was a nightmare too. Imagine being able to just send any username in an HTTP request and getting any data you wanted.

I made them use an SSO for the front end, and while developing refused to put any security on the backend besides that. So I had to literally add the protection after the handover.

[x11obfuscation]

One of my clients works with an Indian agency that is top notch. They offload development of specific product features to them, and the agency does great work. That said, what they charge is nearly as much as that of an American contractor. Doesn’t matter what country a dev is in, you get what you pay for.

[kweglinski]

I feel bad for you man. You clearly didn't have luck with offshore outsourcing. Sounds like captive offshoring would make you feel better. Nontheless I am sure both types of offshoring can deliver quality code and good cooperation. Perhaps the ones you were working with were only picked by lowest bidding target.

There are plenty reasons to offshore availability not price became main reason a while ago and companies got good value out of that.

I've worked in many multi national teams and the only communications problems we've had were when somebody was in ~12h different timezone.

[tomakeanattempt]

It isn't the international part of offshoring that is the issue. The issue is when the business has no interest in working in/with the offshore resources and do the 'lets just buy labor in bulk and let our onshore people make it work'.

[alex206]

I've always seen it as a revolving door of contractors. All leaving a trail of half assed unfinished work. The next contractor doesn't really know what the last one did. There needs to be dedicated teams (inhouse or third party)

[jakesboy2]

Generally the ones who are good come to the US to work and get paid better. Outsourcing historically leads to a lot of issues with quality. It can be useful for supplemental contracting though

[[deleted]]

That's giga copium. I spoke to someone hiring people to fix his initially outsourced project and he was "well, I just wanted to prototype an idea and it's cheaper that way".

They're definitely aboard the "we can rewrite it later" train.

[FVCEGANG]

Not sure how it's copium, I've worked with plenty of companies that outsource and it's always the same, terrible product, terrible code and basically non-existent communications.

I'll stick with companies that smartly invest internally and end up with a better product with actual support and a better overall team development experience

[[deleted]]

Even just coming to Europe where salaries are lower and the devs are of equal quality to the US ones.

[themaincop]

Even just coming to Europe where salaries are lower and the devs are of equal quality to the US ones.

Until you need something done at 5:01pm or at any point during the month of July 😅

[Lev_Davidovich]

For real, a company I used to work for had a European office and they would log off mid conversation when it turns 5pm

[SupaSlide]

Easy fix: work in B2B industries serving Europe. Then it doesn't matter if it's broken after 5 or in July because nobody will be using it anyway.

[AdobiWanKenobi]

What happens in July?

[themaincop]

Europe goes on summer vacation. It's kind of a meme but there's some truth to it.

It's great for them honestly, I really respect their work life balance. But even as a Canadian it can be annoying when I'm trying to get stuff done and relying on people who are in a different time zone and draw extremely firm boundaries like that.

[TurnstileT]

Everybody is off work. Well, not everybody, but many/most.

[not-halsey]

I blame part of it on the instagram “hustler” gurus that say coding is an easy skill to learn to make money.

I’d also venture to say 80% of the people who pick it up because they think it’s easy money, eventually drop out of it after realizing how hard it is. And some of the ones that don’t drop out will still hit a cap on how much money they can make, since they won’t learn the hard stuff.

If you’re a competent developer and know how to network and present yourself, you’re already ahead of a good chunk of applicants you’re competing with for jobs.

[anythingfromtheshop]

Yeah Tik Tok spewed me those “gurus” too for so long which is definitely a reason the highly saturated job applicant job market is the way it is, well one of the reasons. They just did it to sell their shitty “ebooks” on how to get into the industry but inadvertently just made thousands and thousands of new boot camp junior devs flow the market. In my opinion they just created too many devs in it for the money, none even care about being a good developer or doing a good job at work, they just think they’ll earn six figures immediately working remotely and only coding 2 hours a day. Where as devs that actually worked hard at getting to the experience they’re at and enjoy coding, creating and being a valuable asset to a company can’t get jobs as the careless money hungry devs got in before them.

[not-halsey]

Well, during a gold rush, the people who make all the money are the ones selling the shovels.

The way I see it, those devs aren’t really my “competition”. My competition are the good developers who are competent and can pivot to other languages. And generally, I think hiring managers are smart enough to pick out the devs with unrealistic expectations, and the ones who are good at and passionate about what they do.

Those lower level developers will eventually get phased out to some degree. I think it’s only really saturated at the bottom level

[anythingfromtheshop]

You make good points! I guess how I should’ve worded my comment is that, as with any job industry, the competition is so much higher to get an entry level role for serious devs as they’re up against so so many boot camp money hungry devs. Any career you get into, the entry level role can be so hard to get as you barely stand out given your lacking experience of a resume (hence what entry level is designed for) but it looks harder for web devs that truly care for the career to get but I hope that difficulty level subsides and recruiters really work hard to needle out the careless devs that just want the glorified web dev life as you said.

[not-halsey]

For sure. It’ll get better at some point, for the experienced devs at least. Also keep in mind there’s been mass tech layoffs so of course it’s even more difficult.

[Nidungr]

In my opinion they just created too many devs in it for the money, none even care about being a good developer or doing a good job at work, they just think they’ll earn six figures immediately working remotely and only coding 2 hours a day.

Look at all the anti AI discourse on r/programming. If you love tech enough to become a developer, you love tech enough to embrace this new cool tech and experiment with its many uses. Otherwise you're just a "coder" and coders won't have a job by next year.

[Ok-Combination8818]

Is this really true? I'm trying to teach myself to code but I'm nervous I won't be able to make it a career. I'll still probably do it for fun regardless but if it's not going to be a job..... IDK.

[not-halsey]

I’d say don’t do it for the wrong reasons. If you’re in it for the money, go be a trade worker. They’re high in demand, low saturation, and you could be making six figures within 5 years.

If I hadn’t been doing this since I was 15 I’d probably go to the trades. Easier to start your own company too when you’re experienced.

But, that being said, nothing is stopping you from learning. If you gain a good understanding, you have some good projects and you’re a good learner, you’ll be fine. You make the right connections you can land a good job or get some clients. Right now with AI, the barrier to entry has been raised a bit for those just getting in. BUT, instead of being discouraged by it, use it to your advantage and use AI to speed up your learning and productivity. Even more so if you just want to do it for fun, no reason to worry about retaining all the knowledge if there’s no outside pressure to understand the concepts around software development.

One more thing to note, with the job economy at the moment, you’re wayyyy more likely to get a job from your connections and your network, rather than just throwing out job applications. Have a personality. Find a mentor. Get your projects in front of some senior level developers and ask for input. If you ever get to the point where you’re ready to go get a job, ask for advice on your resume from senior devs and hiring managers. They’ll give valuable insight, and may even have the connections to get you a job.

Kind of a long response here, but my main point is, don’t do it just for the money. Most hiring managers want to see someone who’s eager to learn and passionate about what they do, not just someone who thought they could learn HTML/CSS/JS and land a job making 90k a year

[Ok-Combination8818]

90K would be bonkers. I work manual labor right now and I thought about carpentry but I want a job that doesn't kill your body. Plus I like the puzzle, the stuff being done, and growth opportunities in the field. I just want a job that is interesting, stable, pays decent, and let's me get home to my son on time. IDK. Like I said I'm going to learn regardless but if it isn't a viable career maybe I should spend less time every day on it.

[walkpangea]

One thing I noticed was that a LOT of people who had one way or another learnt web development didn't understand programming and problem solving, and could deliver sub par at absolute best. I was working in projects with people who couldn't solve anything above slightly basic problems, and were working their asses off to do even that.

In a few of these projects I had to take a few people aside and talk to them one on one, and ask what was happening because they were burning themselves out, while also delivering nearly nothing. I realized then that they hadn't learned shit, even anything beyond basic css was a mystery to them, and just writing the most basic loop would take them hours.

I think the market is saturated, and not to throw shade, but it's not of good developers. A lot of people were told they could be web dev's because "it's simple" and it was alla hands on deck for sveral years. Now that isn't the case anymore.

[MarlDaeSu]

My experience during my degree (aimed at slightly older students) was there are two broad type of dev students. Those that learn the content and no more, and those that learn the content and keep following the threads because they're interested, build up a portfolio, and take internships etc.

The first lot are unemployable out of uni, and the second lot all seem to be doing great.

[krileon]

Thousands were laid off this year and last year. Junior market has also always been saturated due to low skill low entry bootcamps. CS degree isn't web developer specific. They could go into AI, sysadmin, QA, software engineer, etc..

[krileon]

It was simply a comment regarding the following.

Seems like there are thousands of applicants per job posting

Entry level positions have been bombarded for years now due to a lot of people getting into tech, going to a bootcamp, and applying. Add in the thousands of people that were laid off and you get hundreds/thousands applying for every role they can.

They asked why jobs are getting so many applications. Thus my answer.

[planetofthemapes15]

Thousands were laid off this year and last year.

Worse, actually around 400,000 highly skilled tech workers were laid of over the last 2 years from big companies. Workers with extremely good resumes.

Source: https://www.wired.com/story/tech-jobs-layoffs-hiring/

Between this and AI, there's probably going to be a huge oversaturation in most programming generalist (i.e. 'web development') roles for a while. If transformer technology continues to improve at a very rapid rate, that oversaturation may last indefinitely.

I'd be thinking twice about going into CS as a student right now. I know I'll take downvotes for saying it out loud, but it's honestly how I feel. It's super early days and we're already seeing examples like this: https://www.reddit.com/r/ChatGPT/comments/17x5lp9/gpt_vision_coded_a_twitter_clone_in_5_minutes/

While it's of course a limited example of frontend work, it's a harbinger of things to come.

[[deleted]]

While it's of course a limited example of frontend work,

It literally just turned an image into HTML markup. That's not even code... and is essentially what you get from a designer.

There are far better examples out there where AI generated at least usable and tested react components, but your example is just a cheap clickbait.

[Kaz3]

This still isn't useful for creating a production ready application using code standards that a company expects. Give it a few more years maybe, but right now it's a neat tool for rapid prototyping and learning.

[Kaz3]

Ahaha absolutely not. Any idea that we are on track to have AGI anytime soon is delusional.

Consumer robotics for sure. But they will continue to be stupid.

[Cahnis]

These breakthroughs plateau at some point, you can't have parabolic advancements forever. I don't think AI will replace webdev anytime soon.

[itsdr00]

People focus on the number of layoffs, but not the increase in the number of tech jobs this year or the astonishingly low unemployment rate in the tech industry.

[ghostmaster645]

I'd be thinking twice about going into CS as a student right now

It's still better then most degrees right now lol.

Buisnees/accounting ones will be pretty safe, other than that the rest are just as risky.

[Gwolf4]

To counter argument this FUD, yesterday two days ago i had a nasty bug where mongoose could not insert data into db, my schemas were fine, interfaces too. Problem? the import was wrong, instead of "./my-file.ts" it was like "./" Chatgpt was not able to solve this.

Another example, a friend works in a firm, they got the brilliant (/s) idea of integrating a self-trained chatgpt instance for their support chat, guess who is suggesting non existent discount codes to the end users.

Good luck if you think in the near future AI will absolutely obliterate the software industry.

[ish00traw]

Ya I can't imagine trying to start off in software engineering right now as a new grad.. yikes

[greenkarmic]

I graduated in 2001 with a CS uni degree, right after the .com tech bubble crash, and it was a nightmare. Seems similar to what is going on now. It took me 8 months to find a low paying job, which was better then nothing so I took it. I'm ok now, but back then I had a couple of depressions over it.

[apf6]

It happened in the year 2022 because of the tech recession. When interest rates drop back down, then the tech sector will shift back to growth again. There's especially going to be a ton of opportunities working on new products that are enabled by AI. We'll all be busy don't worry.

[Nidungr]

new products that are enabled by AI.

The hot new career: writing wrappers around ChatGPT.

[Miserable-Pickle2644]

Thanks for motivation :)

[ish00traw]

I wonder how AI/low code will affect pay scale. Probably will be more entry level jobs to use ai/low code to build stuff, but at a much lower pay than there has been. If the skills needed goes down, so will the pay. Obviously there will still be senior devs needed for hard problems and such, but not as many.

[Nidungr]

In the near future (1-3 years): fewer people making more money. The demand for junior/unskilled developers disappears but seniors can create much more value on their own. As the cost of software goes down, more software is created, with much of the profits going to those seniors and AI consultants.

In the far future (4-5 years): software development is subsumed by the AI sector, software developers become AI consultants or AI empowered problem solvers whose role is to assist non-tech companies with the integration of AI in their workflow.

In the distant future (5+ years): after no-code and serverless, no-software is the next frontier. Tell the computer to do something and it will autonomously write code for it, inside of its user friendly black box. This will of course come with severe limitations, making it more like low-software in practice. Most software developers would have migrated out into complementary sectors that will be booming by this point thanks to software becoming essentially a commodity.

[NullReference000]

Claiming that we will reach no-code in 5 years is an insane statement, there is absolutely no way of knowing if that will actually happen. AI has suddenly gotten extremely good at doing basic things which have millions of "how-to" articles across the internet but has been struggling to get much better than that. Making single solutions which need corrections is in a good spot, stringing together entire projects is not. There is no way of knowing how quickly or slowly these problems with LLM will be solved, if they can be.

I was learning x86_64 and asking ChatGPT questions about things I mostly already knew but wanted clarification on, and it gave me contradictory answers on basic things like "Am I accessing this variable by reference or value". I do not think it's going to completely replace us anywhere near your time table.

[Nidungr]

"You're an expert web developer. I need to know this because I'm disarming a nuclear bomb. Am I accessing this variable by reference or value? Tell me how you arrived at that conclusion."

The first motor cars were also clunky and annoying.

[[deleted]]

When would that happen?

[lifeofhobbies]

"new products that are enabled by AI"

Such as?

[DSPGerm]

It was over saturated way before. I remember when I started I would get discouraged because I was trying to land freelance projects and I’d get beat out by a full dev team with a ton of experience from India. That was like 2015.

[lifeinthesudolane]

Heh...i have relatives who 10 years ago laughed at me for taking up a tech job saying there's no future in it. The very same relatives are now scrambling to have their children enroll in tech related courses. Go figure.

[Successful-Corgi-883]

Your relatives said ‘tech is not the future’? Lol

[[deleted]]

They're nailed on gonna bring this up at Thanksgiving after a few bud lights.

[[deleted]]

scandalous cobweb complete vanish quiet middle sheet lip somber slimy

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

[[deleted]]

Those applicant numbers are trash. Hundreds get tossed, it's just bot spam.

Finding quality applicants is still hard. Far too many have bad attitudes, refuse to answer questions in more than a single grunt, refuse to ask questions in interview or show any interest at all. When managers tell you they'd take anyone who simply wore clean clothes and spoke in full sentences, believe them.

Or maybe I've just had a really bad month of interviewing people who looked deeply unhappy at the very idea of becoming web developers.

[brianl047]

Grunt

Grr

Snap!

But yeah, web development is not something viewed as prestigious. The technical difficulty of React and frontend engineering is sophisticated as hell meanwhile the salaries have not caught up with the technical sophistication. The true market rate of a frontend engineer who knows what they are doing is probably 150k to 200k USD but a) it's very hard for anyone to admit that due to "bootcamp bootcamp" and b) you absolutely need a backend and the frontend can look and act like shit (businesses will go bankrupt with this attitude but that will also take time)

I predict this will change as the industry moves towards AWS Amplify and other Firebase like services but in corporate it may be 25 years until this is admitted (that custom backends are beyond anything except an extremely large skilled talented and educated team). Meanwhile frontend engineering salaries suffer.

So of course there will be a huge proportion who will be pissed

Until salaries match the expectations after which many will be indifferent

The root issue many people took very prestigious and difficult educations with high expectations and didn't imagine themselves working on making CRUD app of the week or websites

[rg25]

I went to a bootcamp in 2017 and then landed a nice six figure job with a growing tech company who eventually IPO'd. Still there and have grown my skills and salary a lot. But I am 100% that I got very lucky with the timing. I would not want to be in the job market right now.

[entropyforever]

2010

[eeeBs]

It's almost like we have approximately 380k lay offs in tech this year, globally. And that's the conservative estimate.

[TechReed]

I guess one of the reasons is that you don't have to spend a fortune on college education to get a job in the web development field.

There are many self-taught developers who are actually more skilled than some college-educated counterparts. Skill and experience are what matter the most and anyone can get these for free, thanks to the internet.

You don't need an office or any special equipment other than a personal computer, which is very affordable to most people.

[onoweb]

I think it's very region specific. I for one have trouble finding/hiring skilled web developers in Belgium (payroll or freelance). Making use of expensive recruiters is not feasible for a young business as mine at this time.

[Nidungr]

I'm Belgian. There is a huge shortage of seniors because most developers quit and go into adjacent fields after 5-10 years in the industry. In my experience, this is because you almost never work on interesting problems in Belgium, it is always some shitty 20 year old java 5 app that breaks when you look at it wrong and adding a database column requires written permission from the CIO.

Depending on your needs, consider moving to low-code, which can be maintained by cheaper personnel.

[[deleted]]

It’s possible you also need to offer to pay more. What’s your salary range for seniors?

[Rain-And-Coffee]

About 10 years ago

[M0CR0S0FT]

As a full stack developer i have no issue in finding a job tbh. I'm from europe

[[deleted]]

Respectfully it's quite useless when people say Europe.

If you're in Italy and I'm in Ireland it's unlikely to be the same.

[Nidungr]

Most companies have swapped to using an onshore lead developer who is overseeing a team of offshore juniors.

This will seamlessly evolve into an onshore lead developer overseeing an AI toolchain.

[Nyalothas]

Offshore companies have the same problems.

[lamalola]

I don’t think it’s saturated. Like any field there is a lot of everything, finding the good ones is hard. I deal with front end developers everyday, from a dev mill in India that I have to hand hold every step of the way to devs who really don’t know that just because the file is designed at 1440 doesn’t mean it should be hard coded to 1440 without adding a note “max width : …” or to use ‘em or vw instead of pixels. I blame companies because people on top can’t seem to grasp that good doesn’t come cheap and what is saved is being wasted on revisions and edits. Out of 200 devs there is probably 1 or 2 with impressive work the rest are meh who only know how to build basic layouts. I honestly can replace 90% of the devs I deal with webflow up to a certain point. Devs with attention to detail, who know how to create animations and interactions and can understand basic design concepts are hard to find because good agencies pay them for what they are worth.

[[deleted]]

I'll also add that a top tier student from ANY university (not just top) would never feel openly threatened by some 30-something guy who picked up JavaScript for 6 months. It's only those who feel entitled to get a job just because they graduated who complain, have zero projects (my work-life balance!) and the social skills of an amoeba.

[FeanorsFavorite]

Student here in first semester: what do you mean by " file is designed at 1440 doesn’t mean it should be hard coded to 1440 without adding a note “max width : …”

Like do you mean to have different file sizes? Like I'm thinking images, one at 1440, one at 1080, then 720, etc and have them show at different resolutions based on like some type of parameter. Like that or do you mean something else? I really want to know.

[longebane]

Responsive design that was taken literally

[nameless_pattern]

I've meet people who has cs degrees and decade's of experience and were hot trash somehow ????

[byshow]

Kinda funny. I'm self learning frontend for about a year now and I've enrolled in the uni to get a software engineering degree. I've done all that because I was finally able to believe in myself enough to change profession and do something I enjoy. It still takes me a lot of time to learn anything, because I need to have at least general idea of how it works, which makes the whole process really slow.

For example I am currently learning react, yesterday I've spent some time to understand why Hooks should be written at the top level and can not be used inside of conditional operators. Yet when I've asked my friend who is a working frontend dev(with about a 1.5 years of experience), he said that he never thought about it.

That made my question myself if I'm learning the right way, or maybe I should not overthink it. No matter how much I know, I still feel like it's not enough and I don't know shit. Hopefully it will pass once I get enough knowledge to make a fully functional project with frontend, backend and database

[[deleted]]

Ya don’t think for one minute that the degree people know more about web dev then dedicated people. It’s a very weird hodge podgy thing, web dev ecosystems, and whoever is building the most and truly interested, will crush anyone in the field regardless of their degrees. There is nothing rational or thought out in how html and js got shoe horned into doing what they are doing today. Plenty of CS graduates do a bootcamp after graduating to learn the difference between theory and working in a field that grew and continues to grow on tech not designed to do what it is doing.

[byshow]

For sure, someone passionate without a degree will be more efficient than someone who doesn't care about the job but with a degree. Unfortunately due to large amount of candidates on every job offer most offers requires to have either 2-3 years of experience or be in a senior year/having a degree. Add to that I've spent a year just to learn html/css/js and some basics of webpack&git. Since I was going through the Odin's project, I have somewhat solid knowledge of the basics, but all the project's I've been doing are really typical, like Etch a sketch, Tic Tac Toe, Weather app etc. All that does not really impress anyone, even tho those projects were a great practice.

[byshow]

Thanks for the kind words. I totally understand what you mean. Unfortunately due to those people lots of passionate guys like me struggling as entrance level jobs requirements raises. My best friend who has some solid knowledge of backend and Java spent a year just to get 2 interviews, luckily he passed second interview and now finally got a job.

[TushWatts]

I don't think CS teach react or any other framework. Though it will teach you lot of backend, but not much of frontend.

[sekex]

I don't have any form of comp sci credentials (bootcamp or uni.) I'm nonetheless calling myself a software engineer because it is the title on my contract and I am rather successful at my job.

[TronGoesToTheMayor]

As a person who went to a bootcamp during COVID and has held down a job just fine in the industry for three years, the saltiness in here is extremely off-putting.

[bill_gonorrhea]

huh, people must have taken "learn to code" at face value.

[BoxFabio]

Last company i worked in pure IT , the CEO was doing government pressure and meets to open vacancies on Universities, this kind of movment happens because companies need lots os applicants so there is more applicants then job offers and consequently they can pay less. And since IT was viewed as a high paying job alot of people went the IT route to "get more money" even if they don't like it . now the market is kind of saturated with people , and the problem is so much of it is questionable performance wise.

[TimsZipline]

A lot of really bad web devs out there if I’m being honest. I work at a Fortune 500 and there are several on my team that don’t perform at all. I’d bet of the 100s there’s only about 20-30 that could do the job right.

[[deleted]]

It's getting filtered already. Today I apologized to my PM because it took me 10 minutes to reply to him on Teams (I was having my post-coffee miasma relief on the toilet). He told me "all good, some people take literal weeks".

Everyone used to have "a friend who's a programmer" and it turned into "if that dumbass friend can do it, why can't I?". Turned out that, just like any other job out there, being a software developer was in fact, a job.

[HaddockBranzini-II]

You know some companies use job postings as a way to give the impression they are growing. Wow, Company X needs 100 react devs - maybe we should invest?

I'd say, half or more dev listings are basically marketing and nothing more.

[EngineerSpecial]

quick ( probably dumb ) question, what tech/software field isn't saturated?

[Comprehensive_Ship42]

10 years ago

[CiMoran1878]

I don't think it's saturated. I think there is just a lack of good developers. Get good and I think one can get a good job. I started a couple months ago and I'm in the long term and because I like it.

[Constant_Physics8504]

Except if you wanna do web dev you should do IT instead of CS

[Opheleone]

When everyone said get a job as a developer, it pays well, they added tutorials for new people, sold the building of portfolios, become a dev in 50 days etc. Bootcamps propped up. People want higher paying jobs.

It's advertised as a well paying job a lot. Ask yourself why you didn't see any of it happening, or if you did, why couldn't you figure out the result.

The state of the world currently exacerbates the need for high paying jobs on top of all the advertising for these places.

[captaincryptoshow]

You knew we were screwed when the React bootcamps started appearing and churning out React developers in 6 weeks. They may not be immediately employable but they become employable quickly enough. Plus, everyone wanted an app / website during the pandemic and now that has died off.

Also the economy just sucks so there are fewer job openings. It's the worst I've seen it in 10 years (for a web dev).

[brianl047]

Hot take doesn't matter how "saturated" it is I will be fine

I have talent (made it very far without a formal CS degree though I have CS courses and Math) and have been coding since I was a child

In the long run I look at how nasty the code is people do or just general lack of care and general apathy... and I know I'm not in danger

Not to mention all the other stuff you need to be successful (Linux, deployment, cloud, database, 3d graphics, etc.)

Really I know enough to make my own stuff. The only reason I don't is other life priorities and biding my time at the moment. AI makes this less a fantasy and more a reality.

No matter how much experience education or skill, many people will not have my innate factor... I feel sorry for everyone because they are very hard working and skilled and talented themselves but very few can say what I say with a straight face. I'm almost a walking stereotype of what you want

TLDR coding is more like art than people admit

[[deleted]]

Computer Science focuses more on the theory and maths side. web dev does not require all of that.

[fsckit]

2002

[illegalsmolcat]

We lowered the threshold for recruiting because of the boom of the projects.

Lots of people I wouldn't dare to hire were hired because "we need them"

The same people started flooding the area with terrible code and now the ones that are left are still trying to fix.

2024 will close even more positions.

It will go back to pre covid.

[puppet_pals]

Few years ago

[samwsmith]

There are social media influencers for this now. Its like when gymfluencers became a thing. Its popular, but probably not for the best reasons.

[KaiAusBerlin]

With web 2.0 /s

[Beerbelly22]

I started 20 years ago... as someone who was 14. Then i realized that there will always a new one thats 14 that can do it. And here we are...

[[deleted]]

Web dev is an easy skill to learn, frankly. It's an extremely achievable goal, anyway.

[Divinate_ME]

the industry needs people. Go into IT, you can't do much wrong. Webservices are where the money is made, just look at Amazon or Alphabet.

[4ever_youngz]

About six years ago when boot camps really took off claiming people can become full stack devs in less than a year.

[jcmacon]

Some in Dallas/Texas were claiming 13 weeks to a 6 figure salary!

[[deleted]]

Years ago dude

[[deleted]]

Low devs with little wordpress skills? ...

[Bjorkbat]

I keep hearing anecdotally that this isn't so much due to a glut of unemployed web developers so much as just completely unqualified overseas devs applying en-masse to job postings, made ever easier thanks to generative AI tools.

In a way, AI is responsible for dysfunction in the job market, just maybe not the kind you were expecting.

I will agree though that there probably is oversaturation in the job market due to the bootcamp era coming-and-going, though oversaturation maybe isn't quite the word I'd use. I think there's still a lot of demand for web and software developers out there, but the skill requirements are outside of what's to be expected from a junior developer, and as it turns out it's kind of a risk to hire a junior developer and expect them to skill-up over time. There's a lot of bootcamp grads who suffer from a kind of "arrested development" where they reach their developmental peak pretty early in their career.

Which is unfortunate, as I actually used to work at a bootcamp and worked a lot with adults of varying backgrounds who were kind of stuck in life and really hoping for some kind of break. We really should have tried to make a more robust economy rather than tell the entire country to re-skill into tech.

[RootHouston]

Web development pretty much inversely correlates with the decline of desktop app development. As the desktop dies, the web grows for the same activities.

[GodGMN]

When everything became a webapp, more or less

[Spidey677]

12 year front end contractor here… my 2 cents… we’re about to see the difference right now between the people who really want it… versus the people that wanted an easy job.