A lot of people will disagree with me on this one. I’ve been a software engineer for 35 years now. I’ve worked at everything from tiny companies where I’m the only dev, to startups, to massive corporations with countless employees. And I’ve never seen anything like what’s happening now.

There are four factors:

  • H1-Bullshit. Never before have so many H1-B visas been allowed. And the number is only going up. For the uninitiated they’re work visas that cap the amount the dev can legally be paid and chain them to their job so they can’t quit. They’re horribly exploitative and bring down everyone’s paycheck.

  • The software already built is good enough. Organizations already have either decade+ old software solutions in place or third party vendors that provide those solutions. There will always be bug fixes and maintenance but nobody is building new software from scratch anymore. The stuff that already exists is good enough at what it does that it isn’t worth the investment to make something new. That means fewer devs are needed for writing that software.

  • Destruction of the public sector. A LOT of unemployed and experienced devs are about to be looking for jobs. If you have less than 10 years of experience be prepared for finding a job to become nearly impossible. Even if the next administration takes a different approach it will take many years to undo just the damage that’s already been done.

  • AI. I actually don’t think AI on it’s own will be terribly destructive to the industry. It’s a tool that will make devs more efficient and cause a slight drop in openings. But combined with everything else it’s just one more factor hurting the industry.

When people ask me how to get into software development I tell them not to bother. I encourage you to consider it as well. The golden age of IT careers is over.

    • Magister@lemmy.world
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      5 days ago

      Yes, I’m in Canada and a software programmer for 25 years, and yes it’s not the golden age anymore, but we don’t have those H1B visa problem here. It also really depends of your field, if it’s frontend web/javascript it’s harder to find. If you are backend or embedded linux etc, it’s better I think.

      Some fields like FPGA is highly looked for too.

      • HobbitFoot @thelemmy.club
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        5 days ago

        From what I’ve seen, US programmer salaries are a lot higher than other countries. What we could be seeing is American programming salaries going more in line with the international market.

        • iegod@lemm.ee
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          4 days ago

          Yep. Saw a remote job posting for either USA or Canada and the Canadian rate was half the US one. Same role.

      • troed@fedia.io
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        5 days ago

        25+ years here too, Sweden. Agree that I’ve heard frontend and mobile apps isn’t what it was a few years ago but backend, embedded and cybersec is constantly hiring.