Ask HN: How many of you are working in tech without a STEM degree?

I am, and I know others that do as well. I think a lot of Gen X are, a few high school dropouts even with highly successful IT careers.

Checkout healthydeveloper.com, I hope it helps. It has a page that lists tech adjacent jobs.

I do have a diploma, but it’s not a STEM university degree. I got a technical pre-university diploma in IT, which included a bunch of software engineering classes. I got quite good at most classes that involved programming things, so I tried my luck at finding a job straight as I graduated and landed one. It’s been a bit over a decade I got out of school now, been working as a tech lead for the last 5.

Also a philosophy grad. Good philosophy programs force you to practice aggressively thinking logically, to the point of teaching symbolic logic which is basically coding.

Worked in SA under hybrid roles including Administration/Infrastructure/Architect, for 10 years, many certifications (CCNA (expired now), and MS related certs for autopilot/MDM) no degree, top of the competency chart according to everyone I've ever worked with even the begrudging co-workers and business leaders.

AI layoffs, and AI ghost jobs came along late 2022 early 2023, and I haven't been able to find a single opportunity for work since. Application to callback conversion changed from around 2-3 in 100 to the same in 1200.

Roughly two years of daily applications submitted, only about 12 callbacks, 5 for pre-interview questioning, the rest were low-ball offers beneath livable wages (i.e. Around 2023, 80% of my professional network was out of work, many took jobs that were beneath their capabilities (architects/SA at helpdesk) and also locked themselves into anti-competitive agreements which have made their lives harder. Today roughly 50% is still out of work, the other 30% is underemployed.

The ghost job/AI fiasco also doesn't just apply to IT, it has affected every single place with an online application process. Even the local jobs for simple things like retail, grocery cashiering, etc. I've talked with a few hiring managers at local places to get the scoop, and they say they are overwhelmed with hiring because of the amount of spam which they cannot differentiate between a true applicant, has reached epic proportions; it translates into extreme cost on their side (just as it does on the applicant side).

So I fell back to other skills I have, and have been self-employed ever since, albeit barely getting by between the odd jobs and welfare to pay for food with the help of family. Inflation, and constant draw without work destroyed the savings I had saved up so far for retirements; that's gone. Inflation isn't keeping pace with welfare benefits/prices so end of the month is always extremely rough where you may go a few days without food if you didn't have a means to buy and preserve ahead of time (at your own expense).

I'm going back to school to retrain, because as it stands, there is no future in IT/White Collar work.

I held on for two years, hoping to see some iota of a recovery, and there has been no recovery, which means it has a long way further to fall. What's worse online platforms are censoring and de-amplifying real stories like mine, which is just absolutely vile.

While I don't hold a STEM degree, I have completed classwork that would meet most of the requirements to get one (i.e. Completed Multivariable Calculus, and have working knowledge of most concepts in Differential Equations/Linear Algebra/Discrete Mathematics).

The world today has become completely disconnected from reality, and when that kind of distortion occurs, you get chaotic whipsaws that continue growing until the positive feedback system ends catastrophically.

The profession has drilled in enough such that I know a thing or two about systems, system properties, and where it all leads.

There are plenty of people who have the skills, competency, and experience to do these types of work but they can't be found because of tortious/vexatious interference of bad actors who have jammed communications beyond the Shannon Limit. At that stage of communications jamming, you get the same behavior as happens in cellular networks with RNA interference. The bad jobs block good jobs from matching up.

Money-printing through debt or money-substitutes has also decoupled the need for business to act to correct destructive behaviors and cyclical dynamics they create. Its all a problem for next quarter, and by the time they realize it needs to be taken care of now and that next quarter was 4 quarters ago, its far too late. Hysteresis trap.

Given the sequential nature of career development pipelines, the progression of AI, I fully expect a complete collapse in white-collar/IT sector to be visible, losing industry knowledge in the next 3 years, and 7 years out possibly becoming lost/inaccessible knowledge/expertise (where you can't find these people no matter how much you pay).

All I wanted to do for retirement was buy a small farm/homestead. That's looking pretty out of reach now given the entire lack of employment opportunity despite overwhelming effort, utilizing every possible option out there.

My experience, competency isn't rewarded at all, in most cases its punished because it doesn't follow the cult of qualification. Sometimes things seem good, but you always wait for the other shoe to drop. There are plenty of STARs out there wanting work who can't find work.

Many would simply go out and start their own business if they could, but financial engineering has ensured most industry have these huge cost moats, where you need to be scaled up to a certain point before you can compete, or there is regulatory preventing entry. The base-costs unscaled are operating at a loss, so its barren ground where nothing can grow.