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Tech jobs remain a good bet despite mass layoffs in Silicon Valley

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Re: Tech jobs remain a good bet despite mass layoffs in Silicon Valley

#81

Post by evilduck »

giantg2 wrote: post #75
evilduck wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Relative to other fields. Compare it to wanting to switch careers into the military, plumbing, captaining a boat, or becoming a doctor or lawyer or civil engineer after the age of 40. Technology has no age limits, educational requirements, no government enforced credentials or inspections required, no apprenticeship or residency requirements, no significant union presence, no commonality for time in title, no profess…

Yeah, and it's still not easy, especially if you're talking about being in the higher income levels. It's also not enough to just enjoy learning and growing to get you there.

Ok? You can play the victim all you want but entry into tech is by every measure easier than comparably compensated career fields.

Re: Tech jobs remain a good bet despite mass layoffs in Silicon Valley

#82

Post by evilduck »

hgsgm wrote: post #74
evilduck wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Relative to other fields. Compare it to wanting to switch careers into the military, plumbing, captaining a boat, or becoming a doctor or lawyer or civil engineer after the age of 40. Technology has no age limits, educational requirements, no government enforced credentials or inspections required, no apprenticeship or residency requirements, no significant union presence, no commonality for time in title, no profess…

Real estate agency is also easy to get into, and can pay a lot. that doesn't make the median agent high-income

Real estate has licensing requirements, a national association you kinda need to participate in (MLS) and tons of regulatory requirements. I can't just wake up tomorrow and sell real estate.

Re: Tech jobs remain a good bet despite mass layoffs in Silicon Valley

#83

Post by giantg2 »

seattle_spring wrote: post #78
giantg2 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Easily" my ass. "The industry favors eager people who are hungry to continually learn and grow. While there can be short term bumps in the road, those that fit these characteristics have and will continue to do extremely well." That wasn't my experience. The people you describe making so much money are statistical outliers who got lucky. I'd love to live in whatever bubble you do. All I'd have to do to make stupid l…

The only people I’ve seen who have major troubles are people who don’t actually like to program, or who have very staunch/stagnant attitudes. Do you fit into either of those buckets by chance?

"who don’t actually like to program, or who have very staunch/stagnant attitudes."

Were those in the comment? Seems these would be more than just enjoying learning and growing.

I might be getting there now. That wasn't the case in the past. Office politics and poor management ruined me early in my career. I'm just a burnt out low performer now. I have seen many others who also fall into the category of enjoying learning and growing (and higher performing than I was) who are not making $150k. Remeber, the national median dev salary is about $110k. So most devs by definition are making substantially less than the numbers claimed. I guarantee many of them also enjoy learning and growing.

Re: Tech jobs remain a good bet despite mass layoffs in Silicon Valley

#84

Post by giantg2 »

evilduck wrote: post #81
giantg2 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, and it's still not easy, especially if you're talking about being in the higher income levels. It's also not enough to just enjoy learning and growing to get you there.

Ok? You can play the victim all you want but entry into tech is by every measure easier than comparably compensated career fields.

And that's not what's being discussed here.

What we are discusing is the distorted view in the original comment. The original comment was comparing the top earners of one field to the median earners for another. It would be better to compare the medians. For example median dev salary is about $110k. Median physician salary is about $205k. So no, these are not comparably paying jobs. And one does not "easily" earn more than a physician simply by enjoying learning.

Re: Tech jobs remain a good bet despite mass layoffs in Silicon Valley

#85

Post by majewsky »

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #72
rippercushions wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ChatGPT 4 developer demo showcased literally all three of those. https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/how-to-watch-first-d...

According to HN, technology never improves. The first version of something is always the way it will ever be. OpenAI hasn't improved at all from GPT-3 to GPT-4, and all the billions flowing into this field will cause zero improvements in the next 30 years. This place needs to change its name to LudditeNews.

The main concern of the luddites was not "technology = bad" like most popular caricatures of them, but that their livelihood was obliterated by the first wave of factory owners taking all the profits that were previously shared with the workers for themselves. Really they were pushing in the same direction as those who today are calling for machine taxes or UBI.

Re: Tech jobs remain a good bet despite mass layoffs in Silicon Valley

#86

Post by giantg2 »

evilduck wrote: post #82
hgsgm wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Real estate agency is also easy to get into, and can pay a lot. that doesn't make the median agent high-income

Real estate has licensing requirements, a national association you kinda need to participate in (MLS) and tons of regulatory requirements. I can't just wake up tomorrow and sell real estate.

The real estate exam is way easier than any IT interview. The MLS is a minor fee for access to the listing service. Tech has tons of regulatory requirements, some segments more than others. Most of the requirements for real estate are in the standard template already. Anything more difficult, and an agent will refer you to see a real estate attorney (much higher barrier to entry).

An easy way to look at this is how many real estate agents could be devs vs how many devs could be agents...

Re: Tech jobs remain a good bet despite mass layoffs in Silicon Valley

#87

Post by blagie »

nytesky wrote: post #35
JCM9 wrote: post #17

Tech is a rare industry where you can easily pivot into it later in your career, start at an entry level position, work your way very high up the ladder and get paid very well along the way. I know folks without a college degree that started as tech support reps who worked their way up to senior roles in big tech that make multiples more than most physicians I know or others that had to go down a rigid path to get to…

Does that apply to older workers?

No. Everyone I've met who learned how to program after e.g. age 40, they had a hard time.

There's a certain mental agility which comes with youth which makes for good coders. I haven't met anyone who learned to program late who had the same. Over time, it gets replaced with depth, maturity, and experience, so people who start in tech do okay older. However, people who come in late have neither of those. Everyone I've seen try to make the hop late-career felt clumsy at programming, and at the same time, inexperienced.

It wasn't a failure due to age discrimination, although goodness knows that exists too. It was a failure due to simply not being able to become any good.

This isn't to say it's not worth doing, especially for people with a different prior skill set. An experienced teacher who learns just a little bit of programming can become awesome at ed-tech. An experienced biologist who learns a little bit of biology can do product work or manage a team of programmers for a biotech. Virtually any discipline with a little bit of programming becomes an awesome combo.

Re: Tech jobs remain a good bet despite mass layoffs in Silicon Valley

#88

Post by evilduck »

giantg2 wrote: post #86
evilduck wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Real estate has licensing requirements, a national association you kinda need to participate in (MLS) and tons of regulatory requirements. I can't just wake up tomorrow and sell real estate.

The real estate exam is way easier than any IT interview. The MLS is a minor fee for access to the listing service. Tech has tons of regulatory requirements, some segments more than others. Most of the requirements for real estate are in the standard template already. Anything more difficult, and an agent will refer you to see a real estate attorney (much higher barrier to entry). An easy way to look at this is how m…

But those are all hurdles you must jump even if the skill required to do so is low. My dog groomer can fiddle with writing Excel formulas and then decide that tomorrow she wants to apply for an entry level software role, write a convincing resume and bullshit the right mix of interviewers well enough and literally nothing would stop her from making it through the application process or beginning an entry level job and turning that into a career if she was successful in the role. There is no standard or required process or governing body or common association or union or group to say who has what it takes to be a dev.

Tech can also have tons of regulatory requirements for the product or business but almost none exist for the employees themselves in the majority of jobs. You can hire a whole team of convicted felons that have never written a line of code into your software department, hand out the associate software engineer title to them and still pass most compliance, regulatory and audit requirements. It would probably be a dumb decision but nothing will stop me from calling them software developers and paying them as such and these roles are common (even if they don't pay entry level FAANG wages, they certainly pay living wages).

That doesn't make writing software easy, and doing nothing to set yourself up for success is going to lead to failure, stalling and washing out most of the time, but it's effectively a walk-on playing field of meritocracy in most cases.

Re: Tech jobs remain a good bet despite mass layoffs in Silicon Valley

#89

Post by evilduck »

giantg2 wrote: post #84
evilduck wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok? You can play the victim all you want but entry into tech is by every measure easier than comparably compensated career fields.

And that's not what's being discussed here. What we are discusing is the distorted view in the original comment. The original comment was comparing the top earners of one field to the median earners for another. It would be better to compare the medians. For example median dev salary is about $110k. Median physician salary is about $205k. So no, these are not comparably paying jobs. And one does not "easily" earn mor…

I have an employee right now with Bachelor of Art in Music whose career in music fizzled out making $190k today in software outside of SV. That's it. That's his software credentials. A physician lost far more money in life getting their degree and spends about that gap in pay in malpractice insurance and professional attire required to work in a hospital, and generally works more hours at a higher stress level.

Your bitterness is completely blinding you.

Re: Tech jobs remain a good bet despite mass layoffs in Silicon Valley

#90

Post by aio2 »

evilduck wrote: post #89
giantg2 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that's not what's being discussed here. What we are discusing is the distorted view in the original comment. The original comment was comparing the top earners of one field to the median earners for another. It would be better to compare the medians. For example median dev salary is about $110k. Median physician salary is about $205k. So no, these are not comparably paying jobs. And one does not "easily" earn mor…

I have an employee right now with Bachelor of Art in Music whose career in music fizzled out making $190k today in software outside of SV. That's it. That's his software credentials. A physician lost far more money in life getting their degree and spends about that gap in pay in malpractice insurance and professional attire required to work in a hospital, and generally works more hours at a higher stress level. Your…

Yall need to calm your asses. It's just a comparison to other job
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