Ask HN: In 2024, is SWE a sustainable career? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: In 2024, is SWE a sustainable career?

#61

Post by runamok » Wed, Oct 09, 2024, 8:10 PM UTC

Kon-Peki wrote: post #15

SWE has always been in a boom and bust cycle. Sometimes they love you and pay accordingly, sometimes they hate you and look for any reason to possibly get rid of you. Some of the best advice I've ever received from senior engineers was to live below your means and to have a high savings rate. You don't have to go to the FIRE extreme and definitely shouldn't make yourself miserable. What would I do about LLMs? I'd liv…

Hope for the best, prepare for the worst. I am in my late 40s and based on the ageism I saw in SV theorized the gravy train would come once I hit 50ish unless I went into management. Based on my performance compared to peers I feel relatively secure but more importantly I live well within my means and save and invest a good portion of my net income.

Re: Ask HN: In 2024, is SWE a sustainable career?

#62

Post by trashface » Thu, Oct 10, 2024, 4:15 AM UTC

throwaway123198 wrote: post #44

trashface wrote: post #9

I'm probably more negative on this than average since I'm already x-tech and long term unemployed (middle aged) but my take is it was never a sustainable career for _most_ people. A minority get lucky, or are otherwise able to signal the right qualities to retain steady employment. Even if you do manage to make it as an IC all the way into your forties, you're going to run into the pervasive age discrimination, which…

What are you considering right now as a plan b?

I have no plan. I'm not actually good at anything else, and TBH I wasn't great at software. So I'd need to retrain for something. I have always been a stingy spender so I have enough money to go for 10 years, perhaps significantly longer if there is no crisis.

Re: Ask HN: In 2024, is SWE a sustainable career?

#63

Post by trashface » Thu, Oct 10, 2024, 4:25 AM UTC

tuna74 wrote: post #20

trashface wrote: post #9

I'm probably more negative on this than average since I'm already x-tech and long term unemployed (middle aged) but my take is it was never a sustainable career for _most_ people. A minority get lucky, or are otherwise able to signal the right qualities to retain steady employment. Even if you do manage to make it as an IC all the way into your forties, you're going to run into the pervasive age discrimination, which…

"Even if you do manage to make it as an IC all the way into your forties, you're going to run into the pervasive age discrimination, which is only getting worse." Is this really the case? With the demographics of today, where can employers find all these young SWEs to replace the older SWEs?

IMO they don't replace them 1 to 1. They will eliminate jobs over time, or, hold employment steady as population increases, therefore its a shrinking industry. Anyway I understand we are still producing 100K CS grads a year in the US alone, so they aren't going to going to run out of young people any time soon.