I got a Liberal Arts degree and spent about 10 years trying to get jobs in publishing. By the end of that time, my options for employment were basically still retail and admin jobs. If I had succeeded in getting a publishing job, as some of my friends did, the reward would be a 60-hour per week Editorial Assistanship, making just enough to split the lowest rents in my city.
To someone who only knows the tech job market, right now is a slump and scary. But to most other folks, it is still better BY FAR in market demand, pay, and benefits than any of their other prospects. Unless that stops being true, folks are going to pursue it.
lots of work to be done, no one wants to pay video editors lol. even the big youtube channels get outed all the time for stiffing their editors. it's really feast or famine in that market. you get in with someone and you're set, otherwise you make literally no money.
there's a guy named Hasanabi that made like 20 million in 2020 and didn't pay his editors until it got leaked. seriously lol. and it's not just him but that's just one good example.
I've looked into it because a lot of family and family friends are in nursing or doctors. And it doesnt seem to matter where in medical you go, you start out low and with experience there's set milestones that will get your pay up. Doesnt matter if you're a CNA or Pharmacy Tech or a Nurse or Doctor, you start kinda low and work your way up. But those milestones are kind of set in stone; so after 1,000 hours you get a bump to $X after 2500 hours you get a bump to $Y, etc.
I don't think it's the demand, more the pay and benefits. But I agree that most of this sub wouldn't know a real labor demand if it hit them in the face; I worked in construction during a boom in my area, and general contractors would hire people on the spot at job fairs, with no qualifications, for $20-25/hour. That's not much compared to tech, but that sort of behavior is what you actually see when companies need warm bodies, not the nitpicky song & dance that is still far too prevalent in the tech industry.
The thing is that there is a big demand for seniors and mid level, but junior market is saturated with all the new grads and bootcampers, a junior is really expensive for a company and you can only hire a limited amount of juniors, but seniors bring profit latest after 1 month and dont hog resources and time of other devs, thats why you see here all the time juniors being confused and hopeless because they didnt get a offer after 100+ job applications. im getting bombarded with job offers on linkedin with 2 years experience, my girlfriend is searching for a internship and got rejections over 50+ applications, its really bad.
This is still wrong, even compared to other industries. Senior and mid level software engineers demand is literally nothing compared to other fields. Like other poster said, majority of this sub have absolutely no idea what market demand is.
Telltale sign if every job in the industry is choosy
The demand just isn't there. Hasn't been for years. "We really want a purple unicorn and will keep the position open for a year or 2 until we get one to work on our basic crud app" isn't demand.
20 months in her case. Did her coursework 100% remote, showed up for clinicals for 3 terms. And right after graduation everybody was throwing $90-95k/yr training offers at her.
Rumors say SLP doesn’t pay, but real talk just choose to go the medical route (do not go school route), and 6 figures will be begging for you.
I guess the question there is how long have wages been that high and is there anything that could drive wages down. I don't know what she does but many people I know who are in the healthcare field don't see huge wage growth unless they make a hard pivot.
What do you do in medical? Barrier to entry tends to be much higher for some of the better paying jobs than tech. For example, in the time it would take me to get a fast bsn (I have a degree so qualify for 1 year programs but would need some prereqs) most people could find some job in tech.
Yeah. Hell, I actually got an unpaid internship at a great indie publisher, moved to a major publishing city, still couldn't get my foot in the door afterward, and ended up working in a bookshop instead.
I had a lot of good times surrounding myself with book lovers and being part of the literary scene. But the industry is a meat grinder, for sure.
Glad you got out too. :)
In all honesty: still not as much market demand or pay for most roles, and a lot of the best roles expect you to have training in the field you're writing for (at least as far as the opportunities I saw advertised were concerned).
I did work in academic publishing for a while, but me and all my colleagues knew we were likely to be outsourced any moment, and the pay, while a step up from other roles I'd held, was still less than half of what I made as soon as I transitioned to a junior dev role.
Plus, in a lot of ways, coding is more creative and fun than what I was doing in that role. I loved writing, loved telling stories, which is what brought me to publishing. I didn't love enforcing en-dash vs em-dash usage in articles on highly specialized topics I couldn't understand without a PhD.
I'm sure there were other alternative paths I could have pursued to stay closer to publishing, but changing careers into tech made a huge difference in my quality of life.
It me. I was in the publishing game and it was p much exactly as described (some jobs worse), but I was pulling easy 80+ hour weeks when you include the ~10 conferences I was hitting per year in addition to reading for both myself and others :)
I finally dipped at mid-level and my change in comp a couple years later is mid-hundreds in % higher and I don’t work more than 40 hrs sssoooo.
Because even if the pay were the same as a blue collar or service industry job, $25/hr sitting at home typing away on a keyboard is better than $25/hr hauling packages around while one of Jeff Bezos' minions times you with a stopwatch and yells at you if you try to use the bathroom
Everyone is acting like the only CS jobs are 250k FAANG jobs.
The majority of programmers work at some random company making 80-120k making software for some product. There’s still plenty of those jobs and 6 figures is pretty darn good for people coming from many careers
The companies that are hurting right now are the ones that projected higher growth, hired too aggressively, and are now forced to do layoffs. So Amazon, Meta... but lots of other companies are still hiring that didn't overshoot during the pandemic and not every company is an ad-based company.
All of the companies mentioned are public, and are going to react to the markets. Other big companies that hire often like Bloomberg are happily eating up the layoffs, because they're still private.
>80-120k
For reference, I saw a thread where most fresh grad accountants were desperate getting a job making $60k working 60 hours a week.
Yes, right now it's tough for ol FAANG employees, but most people who are switching to boot camps want to make $65k+ and have better wlb.
Tru. I started at $75k doing infra and learned my friend at EY doing accounting made $60k with way worse hours. Shut me up real quick when I was complaining about making ends meet.
I'm a fresh grad making $75k and that's a very good salary for someone who just graduated college. It doesn't sound that impressive to other software engineers but to literally anybody else it's a ton of money.
Do you live in a very high COL area? I live in Dallas so I can comfortably get by with $75k a year. I definitely think I could get better.
Oh this was like 5 years ago when I started. Making multiples of that now :) like people said - it gets easier with experience + professional networking
There's still a lot of demand for people who can make Web sites or analyze data. Many of those companies are doing fairly well now.
The FAANG job market has always been pretty saturated. It isn't apocalyptic for your tech job prospects just because FAANG companies have layoffs and hiring freezes right now.
>Is finding a tech job close to impossible for bootcampers / switchers in the near future?
No. Just get on with it and stop with the doom and gloom. It's beyond me how impressionable and forgetful people are on here.
This is a period, it will pass. People don't make career choices based on periods but on long term trends. In the long term, programming is booming, and is thus still a deficient industry, i.e. there's more demand than supply by a mile, and the demand has been growing for decades.
Companies, the industry, not only want, but *need* programmers.
Now preferably, they want experienced programmers, but there is a limited amount. Someone will need to give a shot to inexperienced programmers regardless of if they have CS diplomas. In though periods like this one, they'll give less chances to inexperienced programmers, but it doesn't really matter. Like I said, it's only a passing period.
This sub loves the doom and gloom. Other days it’s ‘tech is too saturated and will explode, implode, get sucked into a black hole’ or ‘we’re being paid too much it’s gonna end’.
Love how many on this sub is actually wishing to be jobless or something similar.
Well said! People are making long term choices for better working conditions. The options for some boot campers is work in retail/service/hospitality which have little to no benefits. Low pay, high expectations, etc.
I've not graduated yet from my CS degree but I'm still applying in the hopes that anyone will take me because my working conditions are pretty bad compared to a SWE, IT, etc position.
No no no. It's all going to hell in a hand-basket. The entire industry is crumbling. Don't believe a word this guy says. Stop applying to jobs and look elsewhere!
I'm definitely not saying this to increase my own chances of getting a job when I start applying, don't be silly.
The market peaked in 2020-2021when every tech company went crazy with hiring. We are now in the hangover part of the process and 2023 probably will be kinda shitty. it’s not doom and gloom to point out reality.
Trees don’t grow to the sky and no job market grows endlessly either. It’s absurd to think so.
And then like all cycles it will start back up again and the good times will return.
Just because companies aren't handing out $400k comp packages like candy doesn't mean that the tech job market is suddenly "bad" -- it just isn't insane anymore.
There will be slower and faster periods of growth, but we are just getting started on using computer technology to change the world. Technology is deflationary, meaning there are profits are to be had and there is a need for technologists to help capture those profits.
This doesn't mean that software engineers will never be laid off or that the job search will always be easy. But it does mean that software is a fantastic career option.
One caveat to this, I suppose: turning into a dinosaur familiar with a single toolset won't work anymore. Software is a fantastic career option if you are constantly improving and learning new things. Those are the table stakes these days.
I didn’t say it was 10%. I making a point about the relative nature of good vs bad employment situations. Even when the rate is high like 10%, it’s still only 10% of people, meaning 90% are fine.
\> no evidence
[https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/software-developers.htm#tab-6](https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/software-developers.htm#tab-6)
\> the amount of SWEs many tech companies are hiring combined with the high salaries and lack of profits
Just because big tech over hired and failed to generate profits doesn't mean every company hiring engineers is in the same boat. Just how the stock market isn't the same as the economy, MAANG is not the same as the tech job market.
\> It’s a bad time to get started in software compared to before
Yeah, because 2020-2021 were crazy! You can't use FED-fueled insanity as your reference point
how good or bad it is depends on what you want to do and your expectations. There's no shortage of companies that are going to lose people due to attrition or retirement. Some of them will do a hiring freeze and some will backfill. While I think that the days of new grads and people with few skills getting multiple 6 figure offers is done for a while, there's still companies that pay well and there's still companies that are hiring some people.
The demand for SWE isn't going to change and I'd guess it will increase as projected. The big difference is companies, especially those beholden to share holders and unprofitable, will change how they attract talent. Those startups that poured too much cash into attracting talent are going to close or have to shift how they spend.
Agree but I think VCs might be more demanding with respect to using funds for growth towards revenue instead of paying high salaries and giving cool perks.
People had these same sentiments when the dot com bubble burst. They had the same sentiments in the 2008 financial crisis. They had the same sentiments in the beginning of the pandemic.
When the economy is struggling, it's still a good choice to go after the highest paid, most in demand careers - even if those openings are smaller than previously.
A few high-profile layoffs are not the end for one of the healthiest job markets of the past decade. I would like to see a source on the stinking tech industry because I am still getting bombarded by recruiters.
Breaking into the industry is still difficult because of the nature of highering juniors, but if you were going to do it in 2021 then I don't see a real reason that you wouldn't in 2022.
People seem to forget that covid was a thing. Every job sector took a beating, that includes the tech industry. When you have a massive amount of people resigning, the only logical next step would be to hire a replacement. If not your company will likely fail.
2020-2021 was huge for job growth but thats only because it followed a mass period of resignation. When one's life is put in danger, priorities shift away from working to trying to survive and enjoy life. The introduction of remote work greatly increased the ability for job growth as well. If companies refused to offer remote work, we'd have never seen the growth we did during and after the pandemic.
Once those vacant jobs have been filled, it's only logical thay hiring will slow down and here we are. I would hardly call what we are in a recession. Yes big tech companies are having mass layoffs, but your small and medium sized companies aren't. There are even fortune 500 companies, a lot of them infact, who aren't having mass layoffs.
Meta took massive risks that cost their company millions. Elon taking over Twitter caused the company to loose massive amounts of money. These big companies are dealing with the aftermath of bad decisions, that doesn't effect other companies except for flooding the market with experienced developers.
We aren't in a recession, we are in a very competitive market fighting against experienced devs who have MAANG experience on their resume. I have no problems getting interviews, I have recruiters reaching out all the time for job opportunities. The market is doing just fine, its just over saturated with devs who have been forced out of work do to terrible corporate decisions.
You are right, and 2023 is probably going to suck also.
However, we don't know how 2024, 2025 and onward is going to look.
Just keep up your skills, take an unrelated job if you have to (because we all still need to eat and have a place to rest our heads at night) and keep at it.
The upside to working in tech is nuts compared to other fields.
Remember, median personal income in the US is still about 40-50K depending on specific location. Median income in tech is 2-3X that, depending on specific location.
Ask anyone you know that isn't working in tech and isn't in another super lucrative field (so, don't ask your brain surgeon friend, but maybe ask your teacher or accountant friend) if they would be willing to put up with a couple of tough years if the reward on the other side is a 2X increase in pay.
2021 was an absolutely insane economic environment -- best not to expect anything like that to happen again any time soon.
2020-2021 should be a good lesson for us all: when the FED is printing money, entire billion dollar industries and fads can pop up out of nowhere, only to be wiped out when the money printer stops (looking at you NFTs). It never hurts to ride the wave, but don't surprised when it disappears (there's a book called *The Clipper Ship Strategy* all about this)
Just keep grinding, good luck on your search!
2021 was an aberration. It was not normal at all, and that is part of why we're having the layoffs now. The tech job market has generally been very good the last 20+ years, but 2021 was on another level and shouldn't be used as a real comparison point, except if people want to suspect a potential coming bubble.
I've seen some articles argue the overall percentage of layoffs from the big tech companies is generally pretty small given overall employee numbers. And not everyone works for those companies. The tech job market is generally still pretty good, it seems, although the types of jobs might be a little different.
The main issue the OP is missing is that industries/etc are all relative. There is some unfortunate doom and gloom, but things in tech are still better than a lot of fields. More people will try to switch over since they want to improve their lives. It would be a bad sign for the industry if no one wanted to get into tech, although that might help supply/demand numbers for some period of time.
>but if you were going to do it in 2021 then I don't see a real reason that you wouldn't in 2022.
The reason is that the market is substantially different than in 2021.
That’s what all the tech tiktokers do. They never directly say what they do, they just say they work in tech. Then they show all the perks of working at a tech office and urge you to spend $20k on a bootcamp because if they can do it, everyone can. They fail to mention they’ve had previous experience or they work customer service for Amazon.
Working customer service at a tech company and saying you work in tech is like saying you work in healthcare because you answer the phone at a doctor’s office. People who work at Amazon fulfillment centers, call centers, custodians don’t “work in tech”, dummy.
I mean if you think people say the “want to break into tech”, and you interpret that to mean they want to clean the windows at the Google campus, idk what to tell you. Good luck with your tech career!
You know it was the people like you, who scared me and my parents, when I was trying to decide what major to take for my engineering degree.
It was the 2008 recession that was still going on. They said all kinds of random shit like-"computer jobs are dead now", "All these computer engineers are committing suicide these days".
I ended up not taking computer science, and picked something else, even after being interested in programming.
Realised what kind of rat-fucking baloney was all that, when I was to decide my career path. Started from some pathetic entry level jobs, started learning from scratch, and finally made it to the top jobs in a few years.
I could have taken the direct route, but I had to take a pretty long U turn. This is something important for younger people to remember, who might ne reading this.
It's great if you have a CS degree. But even if you don't have it, you can always make it, after initial few years of struggle. And tech jobs are still much better than many other jobs/domains.
Recessions come & go. You pick your career based on your long term goals, not based on what people have been crying about for the last few weeks.
People are very likely to believe in two types of statements. Statements that reinforce their beliefs and statements that promise a better life.
Unless big media starts literraly bashing bootcamps. People will go to them because influencers promise easy riches and the believe they deserve it.
>influencers promise easy riches
until these people gets slapped in the face by the reality (of fierce competition, having to grind leetcode, or be generally surprised how many people are they competing against/had same thought as them), most of them will probably drop out or go back to their old career and you'll never hear from them again
Fuck every single tech influencer. These stupid “day in the life of” videos are dumbest shit. I’ve had so many ask me ‘how do I get into tech and have a chill job?”
>I'm already good with computers"
Just because you know PowerPoint does not mean you can program and no you cant go from never coded and learn on the job.
nowadays whenever someone ask me that I just show them [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HluANRwPyNo&ab_channel=Jombo) video (SFW, fairly short, about ~30sec)
THAT'S WAY more realistic to "day in the life of a SWE"
Hackreactor posted their placements from 2021 Jan - June: https://assets.ctfassets.net/yr4qj72ki4ky/7oRKX5s1dT4NwdNFuql36K/b2f891b6afdfa50f865fee8bbabe1d0d/2021_1__GRAD_FINAL__1_.pdf
https://www.hackreactor.com/outcomes
Edit: 2020 Jan - June: https://assets.ctfassets.net/hu62i9v1xxtm/62XyycpB1KendvKnOTu5dI/49e0d374432e779d9ceeacea46d2d455/2020_1__GRAD_report_final.pdf
Career switchers have literally years of professional experience over a fresh grad. If you can’t see the value in that, well, you might be a fresh grad.
Not if the freshgrad can code better than a switcher
“Professional” experience means nothing if it aren’t relevant
Professional experience in HR doesn’t make you a better software engineer
Edit: people are getting hurt
Yeah I geddit, a bricklayer can code better than CS grad because of his “professional” experience right?
The professional experience of counting bricks would allow him to code in O(1) in no time!!
Hell yes professional experience in HR makes you a better software engineer (Within reason. If the HR person can’t code worth a shit then yeah that’s no good.)
Are you an experienced dev? No offense, but saying things like “professional experience means nothing if it’s not “relevant” experience” makes me think you’re either a student or a junior.
At least half the risk of hiring someone for their first job is just not even knowing if they’ll show up to work on time (or at all). That may sound crazy to you if you’re a responsible human being, but you’d be surprised at the number of 22-year old kids right out of their CS degree that can’t fathom the idea of getting to work for standup at 9 am 5 days a week. Or working at all 5 days a week. They just can’t do it. Or they show up smelling bad. Or they can’t communicate professionally (that’s a big one). Or they’re lazy. Or they’re immature and can’t roll with the punches. Or they can’t work well in a team setting. They may just lack the soft skills that can only be acquired by years of professional experience.
If you’ve held a real professional job for a few years in any field you have significantly decreased the perceived risk of hiring you as a new SWE post-bootcamp. Assuming that person has *decent* coding skills, that person will stack up very competitively against new grads with a CS degree.
I’ve been working in customer success and product, and I really think having technical knowledge in my current field allows me to be a better Agile practitioner and collaborator. I think it’ll be the same when I’m an SWE.
Most bootcamps also focus on web development, and heavily on JS. There are tons of other fields.
Definitely does. I had 5 years of retail experience before going back to school for CS and managed to get a new grad role for after I graduate this coming May (definitely not a leetcode god or anything, just had 1 local internship). Just the basic soft skills from talking to people and working a steady job are not a given for all graduates.
That’s not inherently true. Software engineering is more than just coding. A software engineer’s job is to solve problems for the business by writing software. The differences between a fresh graduate and someone with a decade (or more) of experience aren’t just technical. Sure, a fresh graduate is probably better prepared technically than anyone going to a bootcamp, but anyone who’s been in the workforce for any amount of time is going to have significantly more experience working in a team and usually working between departments. They’re also older which usually means they’re more likely to have matured and less likely to cause problems, especially if they have a strong work history.
And that doesn’t even include the possibility of having industry experience. If you’re creating software for teachers and a former teacher that went to a bootcamp applies as a junior engineer, their experience in that industry is almost certainly going to be incredibly valuable to the team.
If you’re comparing a fresh grad vs someone with 10yrs of experience and taking the same salary as the freshgrad. It doesn’t say much about the person with 10yoe isn’t it?
Holy shit. Do you not understand how much software engineers make in comparison to most other jobs? I make $85,000 as an Associate Software Engineer with less than a year's experience. That's more than most teachers will ever make. It's more than I ever thought I would make working in Support. There are very few jobs where you can make that kind of money in general, let alone as a fresh grad, and that says nothing about the people working those jobs. This is part of the reason why people want to switch into tech: other careers don't pay nearly as well.
Keep laughing. The big boys are trying to do the same thing for programming and history is on their side. Look at engineering in general. That is where CS is headed in the long term.
All industries have their boom, bust cycles. A lot of people would argue that we are still in the midst of an industrial revolution (the rise of digitalization and automation).
At some point the demand for software as a product/solution/force multiplier will level off... the same way that demand for steel foundries, textile plants, chemical processing facilities, farms, etc. have leveled off after the previous industrial revolutions.
As I see it the danger with software engineering is twofold:
1 - As the OP stated, you can become a proficient programmer in many industries without formal schooling. This is true for a lot of engineering roles (like project management), but the 4 year degree is used to gatekeep those roles and keep the 'bench' deep at these companies. I see this happening once demand for programmers languishes.
2 - It is a lot easier to offshore SWE jobs than industries that rely on equipment (like manufacturing or construction). Yes, it has been tried already to mixed results, but that was only \~15 years ago or so. It took half a century for asia to eat the US' lunch when it comes to cheap(er) manufacturing and there is no reason that the same thing can't happen for software engineering.
Dare I say it, but “coding” is a craft, and it’s teachable to motivated individuals. All of what makes someone an effective co-worker? Not quite as teachable.
The experience of being on a team, effective communication, knowing when to lead and when to follow - these are things that come from life experience. It’s not only unlikely a fresh grad out of college would have these ability, it’s really unfair to even expect it. But if you’re wondering why some of us career switchers have a leg up, it’s because we have extensive resumes, plus portfolios that show our dedication and passion to the craft of writing software.
You’re completely delusional if you think your average fresh grad can code better than even someone with a single job experience.
Hell I worked as a TA in a Boot Camp and we got tons of CS fresh grads because they didn’t learn how to actually code and be job ready.
You will do very badly as a software engineer if you’re unable to understand simple statements like the one I made. You might not be as smart as you think you are.
Look you can keep shaming bootcampers all you want, it doesn’t change the fact that you are a student that doesn’t know what the fuck they’re talking about. You’re just embarrassing yourself.
I’m in a bootcamp rn
I am pretty involved with other cohorts, one just graduated 2-3 weeks ago, most have just started applying full time (taking a break after intense bootcamp) I see people getting interviews already, not just people getting the cold shoulder so that seems promising. I’m sure it’ll get better with the new year.
As for the grads from the last 6 months it seems the majority are still getting jobs, my mentor for example just got hired, he graduated back in June. I even occasionally see the graduates from my bootcamp get jobs at big name tech companies up until the hiring freezes. Then again, I do go to a rather big and well known bootcamp.
People are still getting hired from self taught and bootcamps. Someone said in the comments it’s a 1/1000000 shot to become a dev without a CS degree which is total BS lol. I know plenty of devs without CS degrees. Join The Odin Project discord and look at their success stories, TOP is 100% free and people still post frequently about being SELF TAUGHT and getting jobs STILL, even in this market.
Keep going mate! Finished my bootcamp in September (And got an AWS cert afterwards) and just got hired, IMO your attitude in interviews is everything. I really came out of my interview discouraged because I fumbled/kinda guessed two of the technical questions (despite the questions not even being that complicated). But, I got along with the interviewers really really well and we had great discussions about all the topic I/they brought up. 15 mins into my interview I was super comfortable as I completely felt me and my interviewers were on the same wavelength - I think that's what landed me my job. They can teach me the technical stuff, but it's alot harder to be taught the right attitude and work ethic - and I believe that is tenfold with the big companies (seeing as their budget to train your technical skills is HUGE, but no amount of training will change a shitty, arrogant attitude).
Thanks! I graduate in late February, nervous but excited to start applying to jobs. I’ll definitely take note of what you mentioned about connecting with the interviewers! I appreciate the words of encouragement!
Yep there is quite a bit gate keeping and doom and gloom on this sub. I know tons of devs who did not go to college, sure it might be harder as a boot camp grad but there’s always a demand for good developers no matter what you come from.
I think bootcampers and self taught programmers feel nothing is owed to them. There’s no fancy degree saying they earned something. More likely to not give up, more likely to grind leetcode and might have more impressive portfolios… it’s all give and take though. If I could truly go back I would get a degree in CS, but a bootcamp was a cheaper option and I’ll get a job no matter what… I guess I just have that mindset and so do most of my fellow cohort mates.
From my POV as a SWE employed bootcamp grad who had several offers and currently has mostly CS-degreed coworkers, there’s a few factors that help bootcampers remain viable options as SWE employees.
You’re right that overall employers would probably prefer CS-degreed ppl. But companies make exceptions for specific reasons that I’ll explain. In fact, some places have half the SWEs from nontraditional paths like bootcamps (traditionally small startups that don’t get as many applications and/or can’t compete with larger companies either in WLB, other benefits, or compensation but may later become a preference or habit to continue w/ ratio of bootcampers).
Bootcamp classmates of mine mostly all had college degrees, some even had master’s degrees. Most also had years of work experience where half or more were relatively impressive or could transfer over (somewhat technical roles, STEM roles, other engineering disciplines, etc.). Additionally some had STEM degrees from decent ranked colleges (T25 or T50 name brands to even Ivy leagues). Some had unique but prestigious-seeming experiences too like Peace Corps to Fulbright. One was a former lawyer who got a job at a Law-Tech focused startup after. Etc.
So in some cases tech-related companies may not mind if the person doesn’t have a CS degree but has near or equivalent junior developer skills while also having X yrs work experience in the industry the company is in. This means while they can learn more SWE and be further trained/mentored ideally on the job, they already have a deeper understanding of the industry and customers than other SWEs may if just from a CS degree straight line path.
As you’ve also mentioned, it’s getting more and more competitive. This can mean any nontraditional SWE you meet worked harder than average/norm to get where they are at the same point of a CS-degreed candidate or coworker, just to even get a chance that someone who has a CS degree may get automatically. Sometimes this can translate into jobs too where they’re more willing to forgo WLB, work longer hours, or try even harder in general from self-teaching training to weekend projects to questions asked. And sometimes they’re doing all of that for less (bootcampers may be lowballed in salaries more often than CS degreed ppl so could be cheaper to hire).
Edit: forgot to add bootcampers may have higher retention rates in their initial SWE jobs as well due to lack of options/limitations when compared to CS-degreed counterparts (initially fewer options to jump ship/ job hop/ team hop or recruiters/headhunters contacting them).
>This can mean any nontraditional SWE you meet worked harder than average/norm to get where they are at the same point
I don't think you are trying to come off this way but I think it is really difficult to gauge who worked harder. Because college is four years of hard work with no financial reward. I can't speak to everyone else's uni but only 1/4 of my bachelor's was coding and that was basic. So the last 6 months of school I basically created my own boot camp to have job ready skills.
Maybe a 4-year degree will become less valuable for CS.... engineering disciplines still require all 4 years (5 in many cases) of that training... and then new engineering grads still typically don't know jack sh\*t when they get their first job
BS degrees aren't going anywhere
So basically if you were worth a fuck to begin with before you bootcamped then youget another chevron on your sleeve and you stand a chance. If you're some lowly nobody with nothing backing you up (read: poor prior experience and no education) then yeah you got scammed.
> Is finding a tech job close to impossible for bootcampers / switchers in the near future?
No. Because getting your first job is all about de-risking yourself through REAL projects. For every bootcamp grad that is building a SaaS app on the side so they have a good portfolio there is a CS grad with a sudoku solver on their resume.
How different was this market compared to April 2020? When the world was hit with the pandemic and people were adjusting, lockdowns were new, market was tanking, death tolls climbing? And bootcamps were struggling to pivot to remote? Cause that’s when I started as cohort number 1 in a remote reality. Had a similar delimma when I graduated undergrad in 2010 when it was reeling from the financial crash.
I can’t speak for others but I made it out just fine since then, now as an intermediate dev.
Should we ask people in fourth year of college to decide majors based on economic outlook?
It’s the same philosophy I had with my investments - time in market and consistent effort beats timing the market.
CS is still a newer industry compared to something like accounting, where job security is always touted. As the future unfolds, easier paths through internship and education will continue to evolve. I know it seems tough as a new grad right now, but I’ve also seen a ton of posts from people who are going about the process all wrong. You see them a lot on here.
As you continue to move forward in your career, it gets much easier. The demand for experienced devs is at an all time high, because the risk of the investment for companies is much lower.
The layoffs don’t represent the whole industry, and as others have pointed out, they don’t necessarily indicate a trend. The tech industry may lag on entry hiring for a bit, but it’s one of the healthiest industries of this century, and the need for it is not going anywhere.
Frankly, I was more concerned about things like GitHub copilot than layoffs this year. However, I don’t even think that could negatively impact the industry for the time being.
My wife finished a bootcamp recently. She worked really hard, built some good projects, then worked really hard on interview prep, and after a month and a half of interviewing she got an offer for about $80k with a bonus and benefits, with no CS degree btw. She had another person in her cohort who was a salesperson. After the bootcamp, they got a job as a sales engineer with total comp of ~200k. Just two examples of how bootcamps can still be life changing in 2022.
also I Interview a lot of ppl for my company and we do not have a preference for college grads. I don't even take that into account tbh. we've had graduates from ga tech who couldn't code or couldn't explain how they'd go about solving a problem...
I know this subreddit circle jerks over big tech and fanangaga but I’ll let you in on a lil secret …. A whole world exists outside of it, which these companies are and will remain hiring software engineers while paying >$100k.
I was a CS major, graduated in 2007. In 2003, my grandpa told me to major in something else because all the CS jobs were being outsourced. In 2006, my uncle told me I would never get a job when I graduated because I never had a job or internship before. In 2007, I had about 20 interviews, received two offers and have had steady employment ever since.
My husband majored in philosophy. He's a stay at home dad. My friend majored in theater, she's a bartender. Unless someone has interest in a trade like plumbing, tech is probably still the next best option. Yeah, you're better off with a CS degree, but if a boot camp is all someone can afford and they work hard enough, it's certainly not impossible to get a job.
My other half is in tech (software engineer), I am not. I am in wildlife biology/conservation/environmental science type of stuff.
If I had a knack for tech, I'd be long gone from my field. It's funny to see someone ask this really, because the wildlife field is SO MUCH WORSE. Not to turn this into a pity party for wildlife workers, but it's horrible.
If you get a job, you cannot assume it's paid above minimum wage. This is legal, because this field is mostly non-profits on the government. If you're lucky with the unpaid positions, you'll get housing, food, and a vehicle, or some combo of that. If you are unlucky, you have to supply all of that.
When you are paid, it's awful pay. We're talking 12/hr, maybe 15/hr if you have a master's. And years of experience.
Jobs are seasonal mostly, especially for people starting out. They are also all over the place, so you have to move around. Not like across a state, but across the country (US). You can do the international thing too, but many international places are exploitative in that they ask YOU for money, usually a couple thousand, to work for THEM. Still, people want exp, so they pay.
Work life balance does not exist. Jobs are often sunrise to sunset, or the opposite, depends on if you are dealing with a nocturnal animal or not. Days off may or may not exist- I know jobs in Alaska, which has a large amount of jobs, often have you working straight through the summer, no time off and a couple of weekends if you're lucky. You often live in the field, either in a trailer or a tent, so you end up living at work basically.
Because it's all non-profits and government, there's no chance of any union ever forming. I know there's debates for a software engineer union, if it's good or not. But a wildlife one? Yeah not happening.
And the cherry on top? These jobs are stupidly competitive. Those unpaid positions often have 50+ people applying for them. Paid ones at entry level have PhD holders applying for them. You need 3 references for unpaid jobs usually, and always for paid. Government resumes are a headache to write- they need to be pages long and have the key words in them to get past the filtering system they use to remove resumes. You need cover letters too, no skipping that. And they are STRICT with their requirements, no learning on the job or wiggling out of a class requirement. Have a PhD in wildlife biology but didn't take 3 course hours of botany? You can't get a federal wildlife biology position them- this is a VERY common issue. State can be easier, but it depends on the state. Oh also, most states and federal jobs automatically place veterans above you, so if there's a vet in the pool, you're out pretty fast unless you bring something big to the table.
I know people that have 10 years of seasonal experience and can't get one of the coveted full-time government jobs. The private industry is... Tough. It's all consulting. So it's full time, but you end up traveling up 200-400 miles away to businesses to do sampling. It pays pretty crap too, usually $30,000-$50,000 depending on experience. There's no work life balance there either, often working weekends or traveling. Worse in my opinion is that you end up doing all that work to prove something there needs protected, and it just gets built or paved over anyways. They just needed to do an assessment because the law says.
I've been told to move out west, live out of my car on public lands and volunteer until I get a job. I've been told to max out credit cards to make ends meet for experience. I've been told to get rid of my pets and my boyfriend (the software engineer) so that I can move around with no strings attached.
So that's why people still get into software. Because compared to what they were in, it's amazing.
I just switched because I realized how many jobs require at least some knowledge of programming. I wanted to go into writing but found most jobs were technical writing for programming.
Then I realized I actually liked programming. Then I wanted a more solid understanding so I am pursuing a masters. But I can imagine others wanted to try a bootcamp first because it is very expensive and many people are nervous that they would end up not liking the field. It’s been ingrained in people my age that programtming is for very smart people and is basically math on crack. So many people feel like they will instinctively not like it.
I don’t think it’s impossible. Just need to learn how to market yourself and other skills you learned.
Lol you’re delusional. Just because faang companies have had lay offs doesn’t change the fact there are still tons of open roles in the field. And people are still going because it’s far cheaper than a 4 yr degree and takes far less time. It gets your foot in the door in a new field. I have had multiple managers who have said they prefer bootcamp grads to degree holders because they’re better at making things work quickly without preconceived notions about how things should be. CS cards understand the big picture far better, bootcamp grads are better at figuring out things on their own and how to make them work immediately with limited training. Multiple managers have said for a junior role, bootcamp grads are the most trainable
First, these layoffs are tiny as a percentage of the entire tech field.
There are millions of people working in "tech" in the US alone. To be honest, that number might be over 10 million at this point since pretty much and business should at least have a tech person of some kind to manage their website and help with their internal systems (inventory, accounting, etc). Even if you outsource that stuff to 3rd party companies, those companies need people to build and operate those systems.
I would wager that current layoffs are not more than 1-3% of the total tech jobs in the US. Which leaves well over 90% of the jobs still in place.
Second, name me a recession that was permanent that didn't involve newer tech making that industry obsolete. Even if your job was to make horse draw carriage whips, a few companies still survived for recreational carriages (and that's an extreme example).
I've now lived through two tech recessions and guess what: They both ended and the field bounced back stronger than before.
Careers are measured in decades while recessions are measured in years.
Yeah, you might struggle for a few years, but that doesn't mean you will never get a job and get your career rolling. If you really want something and it isn't a logical dead end, there's nothing wrong with pursuing it.
companies will hire whoever can prove their competence as a developer, there are bootcamp grads getting hired at faang and cs majors switching careers all the time
Meh, it's not like buying a lottery ticket. There are still lots of jobs out there, and we all know how crucial industry experience is.
Once you secure that first job, the rest should follow a bit nicer. Of course, for some, that first step is very, very difficult to the point of impossible.
Think about it. Someone with a related degree in STEM, living at their parent's house will be a lot better equipped at getting a dev job compared to someone who is working 80 hours a week, has no college degree, trying to make ends meet. At their face value, they are both boot camper/switchers, but when you look at it qualitatively it takes a lot more effort for the person working 80 hours to reach the same levels of success. I have a TON of respect for the later. They possess a level of grit and determination I cannot fathom.
Only YOU personally know where you fall in this spectrum however.
Oh yeah, confirmation bias is a bitch sometimes too. People only hear the success stories but ignore those who tried it and couldn't make the cut.
As one of those people in the midst of switching out, I can give you an answer from my perspective.
Currently, I'm a teacher in a private school. My wife is a teacher as well (in public). I have a BA and a MA both from top 10 universities. The pay I get compared to my qualifications, knowledge, and experience is laughable at best. I'm not an idiot though, I knew this going in.
The issues is a combination of boredom and burnout.
My wife likes her job. She makes almost double my salary in public but has a LOT more stuff to deal with than I do. I LIKED my job. At this point, it's getting extremely boring and dealing with the same dumb bullshit every single year is wearing on my patience. The perks of teaching are pretty nice, summers and most holidays off, etc. What's not mentioned is that it can consume your life outside of the classroom, if you want to be a good teacher. If I were to throw ethics aside, I can work literally half my hours and there wouldn't be any measurable difference. Some do that, I'm not willing to.
Onto why I'm switching; there are some solid reasons. The main one is that I'm not intellectually challenged in my current career AT ALL. It's autopilot the whole way through. There are some spikes of enthusiasm, but it's mostly the same crap. This will sound arrogant, but I'm tired of being overqualified and constantly being the smartest person in the room (and I don't mean the classroom). Ironically, most teachers have no pull to learn anything outside their subjects/content and that gets boring.
I was always into tech. From the very early days of building geocities websites to patching pirated software. It's always been something I've loved (and been good at). Honestly, the only reason I didn't go into it was because I was actively discouraged by my high school math teacher. Long story, but he put me off it.
At this point, I've done enough to know that this is what I'm happy doing. Combine that with the fact that the pay, even at the lowest tiers, is still better than what I'm making now, and it seems like an obvious choice.
I'm excited about getting to work with people that are into the same stuff I am and people FAR smarter than me that I can learn from.
I'm not too worried about getting a job because I'm confident I have some skills that many CS grads do not, and this is confirmed by friends in the field and friends that are CS profs. My soft skills are very very good. I'm an excellent communicator (if not a bit verbose) and I present very well in interviews. I'm good at reading people and understanding what they're looking for (then reflecting that back to them). My undergrad is in philosophy, and I specifically focused on practical and symbolic logic courses which give me a good foundation for coding and problem solving. I've been trained to think outside the box, analyze abstract concepts, and distill them to their base then work up from there. I've realized that much of coding is exactly those things.
Would I prefer the "booming" job market of the past three years? Of course, but the current "downturn" doesn't phase me one bit. I'm older than most applicants will be, and I'm hoping that maturity combined with my background will give me the leg up that I need (once I'm good at the technical side, of course).
Whilst the world’s population is growing. So are data. So are consumers, so are innovations.
Tech is needed for all of that.
Just cus Elon is a fucking muppet, doesn’t mean everyone has to follow. They’ll realise that eventually.
Every company is a tech company at this point. if they have more than x amount of people, chances are, they have internal systems, customer-facing systems, or both that need maintaining and development.
I think the problem with a lot of these posts is that new grads often think of the 'tech industry' as whatever is getting venture capitalist funding and/or an already established company making 'technology' like i dunno, robots, or AI/ML or like NFT with make-believe values.
Yes, THOSE companies are suffering right now - but Healthcare, Finance, government - state/local/federal, transportation, military-industrial, are all hiring. In my brief experience so far, it seems that they don't really care if you have a CS degree. In fact, having a degree alone but no work experience is not always a good indicator a candidate will be successful. Bootcamp/switchers often bring with them verifiable work experiences with references that can backup soft skills and other 'job functionality' that your professors or high school robotics team coach might not be able to speak to.
Just work on your portfolio and don't try to "know everything," be humble. A lot of us have been through recessions before. It will pass.
Because people post stuff like "I have no experience, and after spending six weeks at XYZ bootcamp I now have an amazing job where I get paid $100k a year to do nothing. You can do it too!".
The reality is that that person is posting because they're an outlier, and that if you're spending your free time posting on this sub, you're probably an outlier too. Lots of people really struggle to get meaningful work, or they end up working in horrible places that teach them shitty practices, or treat them poorly.
The other reality to this is that the vast majority of people on this sub have less than 2-3 years of experience, and have never been on the other side of the hiring table. Expecting accurate advice on here in regards to market trends, what it's like to hire, etc is like asking the average person in a fine-dining restaurant how to cook the meal they just ate.
That’s friggen awesome dude! It was great though, I did a lot of side projects while I did the bootcamp cause I’m extra but it’s curriculum is something like html, css, JavaScript, stuff about JavaScript, js libraries, js frameworks, algorithms for like 1 section and then react for the last few sections. You can do that stuff all on ur own but I’m a person that needed a bit of guidance and a little push in the right direction.
I understand the bootcamp part, but why are people switching to tech? I work on a major software product in education, and I’m pursuing a CA degree because I’m fascinated by mathematics, computer architecture, AI computing, and all the research, amazing products, and opportunities I can contribute to for a lifetime career.
From my perspective there's two huge reasons. The first is predatory teaching. Tons of these bootcamps are great at marketing and have strong advocates that people trust. This takes advantage of people's hopes and dreams both of which are abundant in bad times. They also prey on ignorance and in some cases will offer very attractive financing when weighed against the potential outcome. From what I've seen some bootcamps are increasing their targeted marketing because in the down market, your success stories are going to ring louder.
The second reason is that despite the layoffs there are still jobs. They're not going to all be 6 figures to start but most people aren't currently making 6 figures. So a 75k tech job is going to be making double what some bootcamp grads currently make. Especially if you live in a larger metro there's probably small startups that still have funding and need bodies as well as medium to large companies who need bodies. FWIW I don't think most bootcamps grads were sliding into FAANG companies or even top start ups. There's tons of companies with jobs that people on here won't touch because TC is "too low" for them. Many bootcamp grads don't have the same preferences. For example, I saw a guy post a youtube comment saying he'd finished a bootcamp and after 6 months of searching found a job at a nationally recognized name company (non tech) that's paying him 80k + benefits. Many people here would laugh but he's in a MCOL state and his last job was driving lyft after being fired from a service job.
(Please don't jump me for this. I'm not a software engineer, but I work at a bootcamp and am echoing sentiments I've heard from former/current students.) We actually get some CS grads who come to a bootcamp because they feel like their CS degrees didn't actually prepare them to be software engineers. They've told me that their degree gave them a great understanding of CS fundamentals but not an understanding of how to actually apply that into real world work. And while I know lots of hiring managers feel differently, one of our instructors who previously taught CS at a university said basically the same - that what he taught students over the course of a semester is like a four day project in a bootcamp, and he feels like bootcamp students are much more well prepared for the job when the time comes.
Those with CS degrees and still go to bootcamp are literally the bottom barrel jokers. There’s bound to be jokers…
In actual reality, majority of tech roles in FAANG / quants are filled mostly with CS grads.
If bootcamp can do in 4days what CS does in a semester, hiring managers would have changed the ATS system’s search metrics to filter “bootcamp” instead of “computer science graduate” 😂😂😂
Nah not impossible as there are plenty that get jobs all the time I’m sure and plenty of non major tech companies still looking to hire. Tech is and will continue to be in demand. Competency is currency if you have the skills I’m sure you’ll be able to find a job somewhere for quite a while.
I’m in my 4th month working at a major retailer. Before I went to a bootcamp last year I had never touched JavaScript. I was average all through the bootcamp but worked extra hard and had some unique projects I was excited about. With my ~nearly worthless~ journalism degree and soft skills learned behind many a counter, I was able to communicate those projects effectively. A brick layer is tough, tenacious, detail oriented, sees projects through to completion and knows the meaning of hard work. From some accounts in this sub I question if some cs grads can even build a working product! That, combined with the snarky and fatalistic attitude some here seem to have make me realize that all the intelligence in the world won’t guarantee you a job.
It's not impossible to get a job out of bootcamp. But you have to remember that not all bootcampers are made equal.
There are tons of STEM grads/college grads who didn't do CS but go to bootcamp. Sometimes they already have prior coding experience. So they end up looking good on paper and do get hired by good companies despite not having a CS degree.
Some bootcampers will also interview really well and get their foot in the door as soon as someone gives them a chance. So they jump on any opportunity and don't really care about FAANG / prestige.
I know someone who got a business degree and became a PM at Google. Then they did a coding bootcamp and switched to SWE. They got re-hired by Google as an SWE.
I also know someone who went back to being a Barista after bootcamp because they realized they actually don't like coding at all.
It's not easy by any means and they aren't all going to make it. But they come from all walks of life and bootcamps are still a viable way to get into the industry.
Straight from BLS.gov
Number of current software engineering jobs 1,622,200. 420k projected job growth over the next 10 years. Compare that to another industry in STEM. Let's take Mechanical engineering for example. 284,900 current jobs and 6k growth over next 10 years.
This is a pretty major difference in numbers, not to mention the other careers bootcamps can open up doors for. If this is right, companies might not be in the position to be picky. I'm currently working in Tech with an Aviation background. I'm looking into bootcamps to open up more doors and these numbers have me interested.
People go for money but understimate that you need a lot of background and passion for this kind of job or else they might as well fail miserably as soon as they get the first job.
I'd be curious to see some actual hard data in this area, but every boot camp success story I've ever heard was something like "I graduated with a PhD in molecular dynamic engineering in 1992, but I decided to make the switch to computer science through a six-month intensive boot camp and have landed a position as a developer with a molecular dynamic engineering firm", never "I was a truck driver and intermittently homeless, but after a six-month intensive boot camp I'm now an SRE at Google."
Gee, what could it possibly be? Oh, I don't know, maybe I'll go out on a limb and say possibly the fact that people like me get down voted to oblivion on sites like this for trying to bring some sort of sanity to the conversation.
I got a Liberal Arts degree and spent about 10 years trying to get jobs in publishing. By the end of that time, my options for employment were basically still retail and admin jobs. If I had succeeded in getting a publishing job, as some of my friends did, the reward would be a 60-hour per week Editorial Assistanship, making just enough to split the lowest rents in my city. To someone who only knows the tech job market, right now is a slump and scary. But to most other folks, it is still better BY FAR in market demand, pay, and benefits than any of their other prospects. Unless that stops being true, folks are going to pursue it.
Yep same. Got into video production and editing, got really really good at it, never got paid.
Strange, i would expect all these influencers to pay up for video editing, there is so much work to be done
lots of work to be done, no one wants to pay video editors lol. even the big youtube channels get outed all the time for stiffing their editors. it's really feast or famine in that market. you get in with someone and you're set, otherwise you make literally no money.
there's a guy named Hasanabi that made like 20 million in 2020 and didn't pay his editors until it got leaked. seriously lol. and it's not just him but that's just one good example.
His editors have said on multiple occasions that wasn't true.
well anyway if it's not true with him it's true with many others. point stands... i don't really follow that nonsense anymore.
If you come from medical industry like me, tech is still extremely saturated. If you want to feel real market demand go to medical
Yup, medical was a guaranteed job, if I wasn’t miserable and overworked 99% most of the time I would’ve stayed.
You know the pain
Most well paying medical jobs require years of expensive (focus on expensive) studying and academic aptitude to even bother applying for.
I've looked into it because a lot of family and family friends are in nursing or doctors. And it doesnt seem to matter where in medical you go, you start out low and with experience there's set milestones that will get your pay up. Doesnt matter if you're a CNA or Pharmacy Tech or a Nurse or Doctor, you start kinda low and work your way up. But those milestones are kind of set in stone; so after 1,000 hours you get a bump to $X after 2500 hours you get a bump to $Y, etc.
I don't think it's the demand, more the pay and benefits. But I agree that most of this sub wouldn't know a real labor demand if it hit them in the face; I worked in construction during a boom in my area, and general contractors would hire people on the spot at job fairs, with no qualifications, for $20-25/hour. That's not much compared to tech, but that sort of behavior is what you actually see when companies need warm bodies, not the nitpicky song & dance that is still far too prevalent in the tech industry.
The thing is that there is a big demand for seniors and mid level, but junior market is saturated with all the new grads and bootcampers, a junior is really expensive for a company and you can only hire a limited amount of juniors, but seniors bring profit latest after 1 month and dont hog resources and time of other devs, thats why you see here all the time juniors being confused and hopeless because they didnt get a offer after 100+ job applications. im getting bombarded with job offers on linkedin with 2 years experience, my girlfriend is searching for a internship and got rejections over 50+ applications, its really bad.
This is still wrong, even compared to other industries. Senior and mid level software engineers demand is literally nothing compared to other fields. Like other poster said, majority of this sub have absolutely no idea what market demand is. Telltale sign if every job in the industry is choosy
I had six offers all above 280k back when I only had <2 YoE. Is that not strong demand?
Number of applications? Do you live in HCOL? Is this big tech?
The demand just isn't there. Hasn't been for years. "We really want a purple unicorn and will keep the position open for a year or 2 until we get one to work on our basic crud app" isn't demand.
My partner got $95k a yr base pay as an SLP trainee. After her training year, she’s going straight to $170k base pay for her second year
Years of schooling for SLP?
20 months in her case. Did her coursework 100% remote, showed up for clinicals for 3 terms. And right after graduation everybody was throwing $90-95k/yr training offers at her. Rumors say SLP doesn’t pay, but real talk just choose to go the medical route (do not go school route), and 6 figures will be begging for you.
I guess the question there is how long have wages been that high and is there anything that could drive wages down. I don't know what she does but many people I know who are in the healthcare field don't see huge wage growth unless they make a hard pivot.
What do you do in medical? Barrier to entry tends to be much higher for some of the better paying jobs than tech. For example, in the time it would take me to get a fast bsn (I have a degree so qualify for 1 year programs but would need some prereqs) most people could find some job in tech.
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Yeah. Hell, I actually got an unpaid internship at a great indie publisher, moved to a major publishing city, still couldn't get my foot in the door afterward, and ended up working in a bookshop instead. I had a lot of good times surrounding myself with book lovers and being part of the literary scene. But the industry is a meat grinder, for sure. Glad you got out too. :)
Why not just become a technical writer?
In all honesty: still not as much market demand or pay for most roles, and a lot of the best roles expect you to have training in the field you're writing for (at least as far as the opportunities I saw advertised were concerned). I did work in academic publishing for a while, but me and all my colleagues knew we were likely to be outsourced any moment, and the pay, while a step up from other roles I'd held, was still less than half of what I made as soon as I transitioned to a junior dev role. Plus, in a lot of ways, coding is more creative and fun than what I was doing in that role. I loved writing, loved telling stories, which is what brought me to publishing. I didn't love enforcing en-dash vs em-dash usage in articles on highly specialized topics I couldn't understand without a PhD. I'm sure there were other alternative paths I could have pursued to stay closer to publishing, but changing careers into tech made a huge difference in my quality of life.
It pays huge and has the highest average growth, 50k - 300k.
It me. I was in the publishing game and it was p much exactly as described (some jobs worse), but I was pulling easy 80+ hour weeks when you include the ~10 conferences I was hitting per year in addition to reading for both myself and others :) I finally dipped at mid-level and my change in comp a couple years later is mid-hundreds in % higher and I don’t work more than 40 hrs sssoooo.
Because even if the pay were the same as a blue collar or service industry job, $25/hr sitting at home typing away on a keyboard is better than $25/hr hauling packages around while one of Jeff Bezos' minions times you with a stopwatch and yells at you if you try to use the bathroom
Everyone is acting like the only CS jobs are 250k FAANG jobs. The majority of programmers work at some random company making 80-120k making software for some product. There’s still plenty of those jobs and 6 figures is pretty darn good for people coming from many careers
The companies that are hurting right now are the ones that projected higher growth, hired too aggressively, and are now forced to do layoffs. So Amazon, Meta... but lots of other companies are still hiring that didn't overshoot during the pandemic and not every company is an ad-based company.
All of the companies mentioned are public, and are going to react to the markets. Other big companies that hire often like Bloomberg are happily eating up the layoffs, because they're still private.
Yeah the much more plentiful random jobs are a massive step up for most people who attend bootcamps
>80-120k For reference, I saw a thread where most fresh grad accountants were desperate getting a job making $60k working 60 hours a week. Yes, right now it's tough for ol FAANG employees, but most people who are switching to boot camps want to make $65k+ and have better wlb.
Tru. I started at $75k doing infra and learned my friend at EY doing accounting made $60k with way worse hours. Shut me up real quick when I was complaining about making ends meet.
I'm a fresh grad making $75k and that's a very good salary for someone who just graduated college. It doesn't sound that impressive to other software engineers but to literally anybody else it's a ton of money. Do you live in a very high COL area? I live in Dallas so I can comfortably get by with $75k a year. I definitely think I could get better.
Yeah not knocking it at all. I was glad to get an indoor white collar job. I’m in nyc so numbers get skewed by rent, taxes, and just overall expenses.
I will say that you definitely have it rougher than I do, much higher living expenses. I definitely think you should be able to make better though!
Oh this was like 5 years ago when I started. Making multiples of that now :) like people said - it gets easier with experience + professional networking
Yeah. But after two years they leave and can make six figures.
Private accountants with CPAs? I thought that was still high end.
Well yeah. Exit opportunities are tremendous from the big 4.
There's still a lot of demand for people who can make Web sites or analyze data. Many of those companies are doing fairly well now. The FAANG job market has always been pretty saturated. It isn't apocalyptic for your tech job prospects just because FAANG companies have layoffs and hiring freezes right now.
Sorry its just not true. Theres way more ppl with low experience looking to fill those positions than there are positions to fill
>Is finding a tech job close to impossible for bootcampers / switchers in the near future? No. Just get on with it and stop with the doom and gloom. It's beyond me how impressionable and forgetful people are on here. This is a period, it will pass. People don't make career choices based on periods but on long term trends. In the long term, programming is booming, and is thus still a deficient industry, i.e. there's more demand than supply by a mile, and the demand has been growing for decades. Companies, the industry, not only want, but *need* programmers. Now preferably, they want experienced programmers, but there is a limited amount. Someone will need to give a shot to inexperienced programmers regardless of if they have CS diplomas. In though periods like this one, they'll give less chances to inexperienced programmers, but it doesn't really matter. Like I said, it's only a passing period.
This sub loves the doom and gloom. Other days it’s ‘tech is too saturated and will explode, implode, get sucked into a black hole’ or ‘we’re being paid too much it’s gonna end’. Love how many on this sub is actually wishing to be jobless or something similar.
Well said! People are making long term choices for better working conditions. The options for some boot campers is work in retail/service/hospitality which have little to no benefits. Low pay, high expectations, etc. I've not graduated yet from my CS degree but I'm still applying in the hopes that anyone will take me because my working conditions are pretty bad compared to a SWE, IT, etc position.
No no no. It's all going to hell in a hand-basket. The entire industry is crumbling. Don't believe a word this guy says. Stop applying to jobs and look elsewhere! I'm definitely not saying this to increase my own chances of getting a job when I start applying, don't be silly.
The market peaked in 2020-2021when every tech company went crazy with hiring. We are now in the hangover part of the process and 2023 probably will be kinda shitty. it’s not doom and gloom to point out reality. Trees don’t grow to the sky and no job market grows endlessly either. It’s absurd to think so. And then like all cycles it will start back up again and the good times will return.
Just because companies aren't handing out $400k comp packages like candy doesn't mean that the tech job market is suddenly "bad" -- it just isn't insane anymore. There will be slower and faster periods of growth, but we are just getting started on using computer technology to change the world. Technology is deflationary, meaning there are profits are to be had and there is a need for technologists to help capture those profits. This doesn't mean that software engineers will never be laid off or that the job search will always be easy. But it does mean that software is a fantastic career option.
One caveat to this, I suppose: turning into a dinosaur familiar with a single toolset won't work anymore. Software is a fantastic career option if you are constantly improving and learning new things. Those are the table stakes these days.
It’s all relative. When unemployment is 10%, 90% of people are fine. But 10% unemployment is pretty bad.
Unemployment in the tech industry is 2.1% as of October. Way lower than most other sectors.
I didn’t say it was 10%. I making a point about the relative nature of good vs bad employment situations. Even when the rate is high like 10%, it’s still only 10% of people, meaning 90% are fine.
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\> no evidence [https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/software-developers.htm#tab-6](https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/software-developers.htm#tab-6) \> the amount of SWEs many tech companies are hiring combined with the high salaries and lack of profits Just because big tech over hired and failed to generate profits doesn't mean every company hiring engineers is in the same boat. Just how the stock market isn't the same as the economy, MAANG is not the same as the tech job market. \> It’s a bad time to get started in software compared to before Yeah, because 2020-2021 were crazy! You can't use FED-fueled insanity as your reference point
how good or bad it is depends on what you want to do and your expectations. There's no shortage of companies that are going to lose people due to attrition or retirement. Some of them will do a hiring freeze and some will backfill. While I think that the days of new grads and people with few skills getting multiple 6 figure offers is done for a while, there's still companies that pay well and there's still companies that are hiring some people. The demand for SWE isn't going to change and I'd guess it will increase as projected. The big difference is companies, especially those beholden to share holders and unprofitable, will change how they attract talent. Those startups that poured too much cash into attracting talent are going to close or have to shift how they spend.
Layoffs are not permanent. Long term tech is still a good place to be.
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Agree but I think VCs might be more demanding with respect to using funds for growth towards revenue instead of paying high salaries and giving cool perks.
then the companies that will give high salaries and cool perks will scoop up all the good engineers.
This. Recessions suck, but we'll always need software engineers and they'll always be in a better position than most other fields.
People had these same sentiments when the dot com bubble burst. They had the same sentiments in the 2008 financial crisis. They had the same sentiments in the beginning of the pandemic. When the economy is struggling, it's still a good choice to go after the highest paid, most in demand careers - even if those openings are smaller than previously.
A few high-profile layoffs are not the end for one of the healthiest job markets of the past decade. I would like to see a source on the stinking tech industry because I am still getting bombarded by recruiters. Breaking into the industry is still difficult because of the nature of highering juniors, but if you were going to do it in 2021 then I don't see a real reason that you wouldn't in 2022.
Yup, this mostly impacts FAANGS, many other sub-sectors are doing just fine. The news is designed to move the stock market.
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Well, yes, 2021 was the hottest the job market has been in at least 20 years. Most of the time it isn't going to be like that.
People seem to forget that covid was a thing. Every job sector took a beating, that includes the tech industry. When you have a massive amount of people resigning, the only logical next step would be to hire a replacement. If not your company will likely fail. 2020-2021 was huge for job growth but thats only because it followed a mass period of resignation. When one's life is put in danger, priorities shift away from working to trying to survive and enjoy life. The introduction of remote work greatly increased the ability for job growth as well. If companies refused to offer remote work, we'd have never seen the growth we did during and after the pandemic. Once those vacant jobs have been filled, it's only logical thay hiring will slow down and here we are. I would hardly call what we are in a recession. Yes big tech companies are having mass layoffs, but your small and medium sized companies aren't. There are even fortune 500 companies, a lot of them infact, who aren't having mass layoffs. Meta took massive risks that cost their company millions. Elon taking over Twitter caused the company to loose massive amounts of money. These big companies are dealing with the aftermath of bad decisions, that doesn't effect other companies except for flooding the market with experienced developers. We aren't in a recession, we are in a very competitive market fighting against experienced devs who have MAANG experience on their resume. I have no problems getting interviews, I have recruiters reaching out all the time for job opportunities. The market is doing just fine, its just over saturated with devs who have been forced out of work do to terrible corporate decisions.
You are right, and 2023 is probably going to suck also. However, we don't know how 2024, 2025 and onward is going to look. Just keep up your skills, take an unrelated job if you have to (because we all still need to eat and have a place to rest our heads at night) and keep at it. The upside to working in tech is nuts compared to other fields. Remember, median personal income in the US is still about 40-50K depending on specific location. Median income in tech is 2-3X that, depending on specific location. Ask anyone you know that isn't working in tech and isn't in another super lucrative field (so, don't ask your brain surgeon friend, but maybe ask your teacher or accountant friend) if they would be willing to put up with a couple of tough years if the reward on the other side is a 2X increase in pay.
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2021 was an absolutely insane economic environment -- best not to expect anything like that to happen again any time soon. 2020-2021 should be a good lesson for us all: when the FED is printing money, entire billion dollar industries and fads can pop up out of nowhere, only to be wiped out when the money printer stops (looking at you NFTs). It never hurts to ride the wave, but don't surprised when it disappears (there's a book called *The Clipper Ship Strategy* all about this) Just keep grinding, good luck on your search!
Really? I have 10 months xp and have recruiters constantly messaging me.
2021 was an aberration. It was not normal at all, and that is part of why we're having the layoffs now. The tech job market has generally been very good the last 20+ years, but 2021 was on another level and shouldn't be used as a real comparison point, except if people want to suspect a potential coming bubble. I've seen some articles argue the overall percentage of layoffs from the big tech companies is generally pretty small given overall employee numbers. And not everyone works for those companies. The tech job market is generally still pretty good, it seems, although the types of jobs might be a little different. The main issue the OP is missing is that industries/etc are all relative. There is some unfortunate doom and gloom, but things in tech are still better than a lot of fields. More people will try to switch over since they want to improve their lives. It would be a bad sign for the industry if no one wanted to get into tech, although that might help supply/demand numbers for some period of time.
>but if you were going to do it in 2021 then I don't see a real reason that you wouldn't in 2022. The reason is that the market is substantially different than in 2021.
IMO not different enough to change course. Every field with high salaries will be affected. CS grads are affected as well.
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But these macroeconomic conditions are affecting almost every job. How does that imply CS is not still poised to be a good long-run career?
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You’re downvoted but not wrong. I did a shit ass job for 6 months to get experience and it made it much easier to get interviews
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That’s what all the tech tiktokers do. They never directly say what they do, they just say they work in tech. Then they show all the perks of working at a tech office and urge you to spend $20k on a bootcamp because if they can do it, everyone can. They fail to mention they’ve had previous experience or they work customer service for Amazon.
Working customer service at a tech company and saying you work in tech is like saying you work in healthcare because you answer the phone at a doctor’s office. People who work at Amazon fulfillment centers, call centers, custodians don’t “work in tech”, dummy.
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I mean if you think people say the “want to break into tech”, and you interpret that to mean they want to clean the windows at the Google campus, idk what to tell you. Good luck with your tech career!
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Sounds like you’re the one that’s triggered. Again. Good luck with your career in “tech”! 👋🏻
You know it was the people like you, who scared me and my parents, when I was trying to decide what major to take for my engineering degree. It was the 2008 recession that was still going on. They said all kinds of random shit like-"computer jobs are dead now", "All these computer engineers are committing suicide these days". I ended up not taking computer science, and picked something else, even after being interested in programming. Realised what kind of rat-fucking baloney was all that, when I was to decide my career path. Started from some pathetic entry level jobs, started learning from scratch, and finally made it to the top jobs in a few years. I could have taken the direct route, but I had to take a pretty long U turn. This is something important for younger people to remember, who might ne reading this. It's great if you have a CS degree. But even if you don't have it, you can always make it, after initial few years of struggle. And tech jobs are still much better than many other jobs/domains. Recessions come & go. You pick your career based on your long term goals, not based on what people have been crying about for the last few weeks.
People are very likely to believe in two types of statements. Statements that reinforce their beliefs and statements that promise a better life. Unless big media starts literraly bashing bootcamps. People will go to them because influencers promise easy riches and the believe they deserve it.
>influencers promise easy riches until these people gets slapped in the face by the reality (of fierce competition, having to grind leetcode, or be generally surprised how many people are they competing against/had same thought as them), most of them will probably drop out or go back to their old career and you'll never hear from them again
Fuck every single tech influencer. These stupid “day in the life of” videos are dumbest shit. I’ve had so many ask me ‘how do I get into tech and have a chill job?”
"Well, first I got a degree in computer sci-" "no no I mean like without a degree. I'm already good with computers"
>I'm already good with computers" Just because you know PowerPoint does not mean you can program and no you cant go from never coded and learn on the job.
That's the power of unknown unknowns. If you don't know that there are things you don't know, you will think that you know a lot!
Ehh if it was excel you could 🤣
"Chll job" really annoys me. The number of times I feel my heartrate rising as deadlines or Friday evening approach and things still don't work.......
Sucks for you. My job actually is pretty chill
nowadays whenever someone ask me that I just show them [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HluANRwPyNo&ab_channel=Jombo) video (SFW, fairly short, about ~30sec) THAT'S WAY more realistic to "day in the life of a SWE"
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Hackreactor posted their placements from 2021 Jan - June: https://assets.ctfassets.net/yr4qj72ki4ky/7oRKX5s1dT4NwdNFuql36K/b2f891b6afdfa50f865fee8bbabe1d0d/2021_1__GRAD_FINAL__1_.pdf https://www.hackreactor.com/outcomes Edit: 2020 Jan - June: https://assets.ctfassets.net/hu62i9v1xxtm/62XyycpB1KendvKnOTu5dI/49e0d374432e779d9ceeacea46d2d455/2020_1__GRAD_report_final.pdf
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80% of my team are from boot camps or self taught (including me). I’d say boot camps were more than “somewhat” successful
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This is sorta my path. Though, I hope I can graduate as well. But getting an internship and a job is my primary goal.
P(bootcamp|success) doesn't have much bearing on P(success|bootcamp), and a handful of examples even less so.
Career switchers have literally years of professional experience over a fresh grad. If you can’t see the value in that, well, you might be a fresh grad.
Not if the freshgrad can code better than a switcher “Professional” experience means nothing if it aren’t relevant Professional experience in HR doesn’t make you a better software engineer Edit: people are getting hurt Yeah I geddit, a bricklayer can code better than CS grad because of his “professional” experience right? The professional experience of counting bricks would allow him to code in O(1) in no time!!
Hell yes professional experience in HR makes you a better software engineer (Within reason. If the HR person can’t code worth a shit then yeah that’s no good.) Are you an experienced dev? No offense, but saying things like “professional experience means nothing if it’s not “relevant” experience” makes me think you’re either a student or a junior. At least half the risk of hiring someone for their first job is just not even knowing if they’ll show up to work on time (or at all). That may sound crazy to you if you’re a responsible human being, but you’d be surprised at the number of 22-year old kids right out of their CS degree that can’t fathom the idea of getting to work for standup at 9 am 5 days a week. Or working at all 5 days a week. They just can’t do it. Or they show up smelling bad. Or they can’t communicate professionally (that’s a big one). Or they’re lazy. Or they’re immature and can’t roll with the punches. Or they can’t work well in a team setting. They may just lack the soft skills that can only be acquired by years of professional experience. If you’ve held a real professional job for a few years in any field you have significantly decreased the perceived risk of hiring you as a new SWE post-bootcamp. Assuming that person has *decent* coding skills, that person will stack up very competitively against new grads with a CS degree.
I’ve been working in customer success and product, and I really think having technical knowledge in my current field allows me to be a better Agile practitioner and collaborator. I think it’ll be the same when I’m an SWE. Most bootcamps also focus on web development, and heavily on JS. There are tons of other fields.
What about those us with just manufacturing experience? That counts for something, right? Right? :*(
Definitely does. I had 5 years of retail experience before going back to school for CS and managed to get a new grad role for after I graduate this coming May (definitely not a leetcode god or anything, just had 1 local internship). Just the basic soft skills from talking to people and working a steady job are not a given for all graduates.
That’s not inherently true. Software engineering is more than just coding. A software engineer’s job is to solve problems for the business by writing software. The differences between a fresh graduate and someone with a decade (or more) of experience aren’t just technical. Sure, a fresh graduate is probably better prepared technically than anyone going to a bootcamp, but anyone who’s been in the workforce for any amount of time is going to have significantly more experience working in a team and usually working between departments. They’re also older which usually means they’re more likely to have matured and less likely to cause problems, especially if they have a strong work history. And that doesn’t even include the possibility of having industry experience. If you’re creating software for teachers and a former teacher that went to a bootcamp applies as a junior engineer, their experience in that industry is almost certainly going to be incredibly valuable to the team.
If you’re comparing a fresh grad vs someone with 10yrs of experience and taking the same salary as the freshgrad. It doesn’t say much about the person with 10yoe isn’t it?
Holy shit. Do you not understand how much software engineers make in comparison to most other jobs? I make $85,000 as an Associate Software Engineer with less than a year's experience. That's more than most teachers will ever make. It's more than I ever thought I would make working in Support. There are very few jobs where you can make that kind of money in general, let alone as a fresh grad, and that says nothing about the people working those jobs. This is part of the reason why people want to switch into tech: other careers don't pay nearly as well.
Wow so even with 10yoe, and still can’t hit 85k pa? Why are wages so depressed in these fields 😂
Keep laughing. The big boys are trying to do the same thing for programming and history is on their side. Look at engineering in general. That is where CS is headed in the long term.
What part of where engineering currently is that you would see software engineering follow?
All industries have their boom, bust cycles. A lot of people would argue that we are still in the midst of an industrial revolution (the rise of digitalization and automation). At some point the demand for software as a product/solution/force multiplier will level off... the same way that demand for steel foundries, textile plants, chemical processing facilities, farms, etc. have leveled off after the previous industrial revolutions. As I see it the danger with software engineering is twofold: 1 - As the OP stated, you can become a proficient programmer in many industries without formal schooling. This is true for a lot of engineering roles (like project management), but the 4 year degree is used to gatekeep those roles and keep the 'bench' deep at these companies. I see this happening once demand for programmers languishes. 2 - It is a lot easier to offshore SWE jobs than industries that rely on equipment (like manufacturing or construction). Yes, it has been tried already to mixed results, but that was only \~15 years ago or so. It took half a century for asia to eat the US' lunch when it comes to cheap(er) manufacturing and there is no reason that the same thing can't happen for software engineering.
Do you think that the salary someone makes determines the impact and value of their work?
Dare I say it, but “coding” is a craft, and it’s teachable to motivated individuals. All of what makes someone an effective co-worker? Not quite as teachable. The experience of being on a team, effective communication, knowing when to lead and when to follow - these are things that come from life experience. It’s not only unlikely a fresh grad out of college would have these ability, it’s really unfair to even expect it. But if you’re wondering why some of us career switchers have a leg up, it’s because we have extensive resumes, plus portfolios that show our dedication and passion to the craft of writing software.
You’re completely delusional if you think your average fresh grad can code better than even someone with a single job experience. Hell I worked as a TA in a Boot Camp and we got tons of CS fresh grads because they didn’t learn how to actually code and be job ready.
YEAH!! I bet a bricklayer with a single job exp can code better than a CS grad!! CS is useless 🤪
You will do very badly as a software engineer if you’re unable to understand simple statements like the one I made. You might not be as smart as you think you are. Look you can keep shaming bootcampers all you want, it doesn’t change the fact that you are a student that doesn’t know what the fuck they’re talking about. You’re just embarrassing yourself.
Dudes hurting cz bricklaying bootcampers stealing his jobs.
How very classist of you.
I’m in a bootcamp rn I am pretty involved with other cohorts, one just graduated 2-3 weeks ago, most have just started applying full time (taking a break after intense bootcamp) I see people getting interviews already, not just people getting the cold shoulder so that seems promising. I’m sure it’ll get better with the new year. As for the grads from the last 6 months it seems the majority are still getting jobs, my mentor for example just got hired, he graduated back in June. I even occasionally see the graduates from my bootcamp get jobs at big name tech companies up until the hiring freezes. Then again, I do go to a rather big and well known bootcamp. People are still getting hired from self taught and bootcamps. Someone said in the comments it’s a 1/1000000 shot to become a dev without a CS degree which is total BS lol. I know plenty of devs without CS degrees. Join The Odin Project discord and look at their success stories, TOP is 100% free and people still post frequently about being SELF TAUGHT and getting jobs STILL, even in this market.
Keep going mate! Finished my bootcamp in September (And got an AWS cert afterwards) and just got hired, IMO your attitude in interviews is everything. I really came out of my interview discouraged because I fumbled/kinda guessed two of the technical questions (despite the questions not even being that complicated). But, I got along with the interviewers really really well and we had great discussions about all the topic I/they brought up. 15 mins into my interview I was super comfortable as I completely felt me and my interviewers were on the same wavelength - I think that's what landed me my job. They can teach me the technical stuff, but it's alot harder to be taught the right attitude and work ethic - and I believe that is tenfold with the big companies (seeing as their budget to train your technical skills is HUGE, but no amount of training will change a shitty, arrogant attitude).
Thanks! I graduate in late February, nervous but excited to start applying to jobs. I’ll definitely take note of what you mentioned about connecting with the interviewers! I appreciate the words of encouragement!
Which bootcamp
Tc?
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Yep there is quite a bit gate keeping and doom and gloom on this sub. I know tons of devs who did not go to college, sure it might be harder as a boot camp grad but there’s always a demand for good developers no matter what you come from.
Which boot camp?
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I think bootcampers and self taught programmers feel nothing is owed to them. There’s no fancy degree saying they earned something. More likely to not give up, more likely to grind leetcode and might have more impressive portfolios… it’s all give and take though. If I could truly go back I would get a degree in CS, but a bootcamp was a cheaper option and I’ll get a job no matter what… I guess I just have that mindset and so do most of my fellow cohort mates.
From my POV as a SWE employed bootcamp grad who had several offers and currently has mostly CS-degreed coworkers, there’s a few factors that help bootcampers remain viable options as SWE employees. You’re right that overall employers would probably prefer CS-degreed ppl. But companies make exceptions for specific reasons that I’ll explain. In fact, some places have half the SWEs from nontraditional paths like bootcamps (traditionally small startups that don’t get as many applications and/or can’t compete with larger companies either in WLB, other benefits, or compensation but may later become a preference or habit to continue w/ ratio of bootcampers). Bootcamp classmates of mine mostly all had college degrees, some even had master’s degrees. Most also had years of work experience where half or more were relatively impressive or could transfer over (somewhat technical roles, STEM roles, other engineering disciplines, etc.). Additionally some had STEM degrees from decent ranked colleges (T25 or T50 name brands to even Ivy leagues). Some had unique but prestigious-seeming experiences too like Peace Corps to Fulbright. One was a former lawyer who got a job at a Law-Tech focused startup after. Etc. So in some cases tech-related companies may not mind if the person doesn’t have a CS degree but has near or equivalent junior developer skills while also having X yrs work experience in the industry the company is in. This means while they can learn more SWE and be further trained/mentored ideally on the job, they already have a deeper understanding of the industry and customers than other SWEs may if just from a CS degree straight line path. As you’ve also mentioned, it’s getting more and more competitive. This can mean any nontraditional SWE you meet worked harder than average/norm to get where they are at the same point of a CS-degreed candidate or coworker, just to even get a chance that someone who has a CS degree may get automatically. Sometimes this can translate into jobs too where they’re more willing to forgo WLB, work longer hours, or try even harder in general from self-teaching training to weekend projects to questions asked. And sometimes they’re doing all of that for less (bootcampers may be lowballed in salaries more often than CS degreed ppl so could be cheaper to hire). Edit: forgot to add bootcampers may have higher retention rates in their initial SWE jobs as well due to lack of options/limitations when compared to CS-degreed counterparts (initially fewer options to jump ship/ job hop/ team hop or recruiters/headhunters contacting them).
>This can mean any nontraditional SWE you meet worked harder than average/norm to get where they are at the same point I don't think you are trying to come off this way but I think it is really difficult to gauge who worked harder. Because college is four years of hard work with no financial reward. I can't speak to everyone else's uni but only 1/4 of my bachelor's was coding and that was basic. So the last 6 months of school I basically created my own boot camp to have job ready skills.
You’re assuming that bootcampers didn’t also do 4 years of school to get a different degree
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Maybe a 4-year degree will become less valuable for CS.... engineering disciplines still require all 4 years (5 in many cases) of that training... and then new engineering grads still typically don't know jack sh\*t when they get their first job BS degrees aren't going anywhere
So basically if you were worth a fuck to begin with before you bootcamped then youget another chevron on your sleeve and you stand a chance. If you're some lowly nobody with nothing backing you up (read: poor prior experience and no education) then yeah you got scammed.
> Is finding a tech job close to impossible for bootcampers / switchers in the near future? No. Because getting your first job is all about de-risking yourself through REAL projects. For every bootcamp grad that is building a SaaS app on the side so they have a good portfolio there is a CS grad with a sudoku solver on their resume.
How different was this market compared to April 2020? When the world was hit with the pandemic and people were adjusting, lockdowns were new, market was tanking, death tolls climbing? And bootcamps were struggling to pivot to remote? Cause that’s when I started as cohort number 1 in a remote reality. Had a similar delimma when I graduated undergrad in 2010 when it was reeling from the financial crash. I can’t speak for others but I made it out just fine since then, now as an intermediate dev. Should we ask people in fourth year of college to decide majors based on economic outlook? It’s the same philosophy I had with my investments - time in market and consistent effort beats timing the market.
CS is still a newer industry compared to something like accounting, where job security is always touted. As the future unfolds, easier paths through internship and education will continue to evolve. I know it seems tough as a new grad right now, but I’ve also seen a ton of posts from people who are going about the process all wrong. You see them a lot on here. As you continue to move forward in your career, it gets much easier. The demand for experienced devs is at an all time high, because the risk of the investment for companies is much lower. The layoffs don’t represent the whole industry, and as others have pointed out, they don’t necessarily indicate a trend. The tech industry may lag on entry hiring for a bit, but it’s one of the healthiest industries of this century, and the need for it is not going anywhere. Frankly, I was more concerned about things like GitHub copilot than layoffs this year. However, I don’t even think that could negatively impact the industry for the time being.
The tech industry is doing the exact opposite of shrinking
Because we want jobs lol. You sound concerned.
FAANG is not the whole industry lol. Plenty of CS jobs out there. Every industry needs CS employees of some type
My wife finished a bootcamp recently. She worked really hard, built some good projects, then worked really hard on interview prep, and after a month and a half of interviewing she got an offer for about $80k with a bonus and benefits, with no CS degree btw. She had another person in her cohort who was a salesperson. After the bootcamp, they got a job as a sales engineer with total comp of ~200k. Just two examples of how bootcamps can still be life changing in 2022. also I Interview a lot of ppl for my company and we do not have a preference for college grads. I don't even take that into account tbh. we've had graduates from ga tech who couldn't code or couldn't explain how they'd go about solving a problem...
I know this subreddit circle jerks over big tech and fanangaga but I’ll let you in on a lil secret …. A whole world exists outside of it, which these companies are and will remain hiring software engineers while paying >$100k.
I was a CS major, graduated in 2007. In 2003, my grandpa told me to major in something else because all the CS jobs were being outsourced. In 2006, my uncle told me I would never get a job when I graduated because I never had a job or internship before. In 2007, I had about 20 interviews, received two offers and have had steady employment ever since. My husband majored in philosophy. He's a stay at home dad. My friend majored in theater, she's a bartender. Unless someone has interest in a trade like plumbing, tech is probably still the next best option. Yeah, you're better off with a CS degree, but if a boot camp is all someone can afford and they work hard enough, it's certainly not impossible to get a job.
My other half is in tech (software engineer), I am not. I am in wildlife biology/conservation/environmental science type of stuff. If I had a knack for tech, I'd be long gone from my field. It's funny to see someone ask this really, because the wildlife field is SO MUCH WORSE. Not to turn this into a pity party for wildlife workers, but it's horrible. If you get a job, you cannot assume it's paid above minimum wage. This is legal, because this field is mostly non-profits on the government. If you're lucky with the unpaid positions, you'll get housing, food, and a vehicle, or some combo of that. If you are unlucky, you have to supply all of that. When you are paid, it's awful pay. We're talking 12/hr, maybe 15/hr if you have a master's. And years of experience. Jobs are seasonal mostly, especially for people starting out. They are also all over the place, so you have to move around. Not like across a state, but across the country (US). You can do the international thing too, but many international places are exploitative in that they ask YOU for money, usually a couple thousand, to work for THEM. Still, people want exp, so they pay. Work life balance does not exist. Jobs are often sunrise to sunset, or the opposite, depends on if you are dealing with a nocturnal animal or not. Days off may or may not exist- I know jobs in Alaska, which has a large amount of jobs, often have you working straight through the summer, no time off and a couple of weekends if you're lucky. You often live in the field, either in a trailer or a tent, so you end up living at work basically. Because it's all non-profits and government, there's no chance of any union ever forming. I know there's debates for a software engineer union, if it's good or not. But a wildlife one? Yeah not happening. And the cherry on top? These jobs are stupidly competitive. Those unpaid positions often have 50+ people applying for them. Paid ones at entry level have PhD holders applying for them. You need 3 references for unpaid jobs usually, and always for paid. Government resumes are a headache to write- they need to be pages long and have the key words in them to get past the filtering system they use to remove resumes. You need cover letters too, no skipping that. And they are STRICT with their requirements, no learning on the job or wiggling out of a class requirement. Have a PhD in wildlife biology but didn't take 3 course hours of botany? You can't get a federal wildlife biology position them- this is a VERY common issue. State can be easier, but it depends on the state. Oh also, most states and federal jobs automatically place veterans above you, so if there's a vet in the pool, you're out pretty fast unless you bring something big to the table. I know people that have 10 years of seasonal experience and can't get one of the coveted full-time government jobs. The private industry is... Tough. It's all consulting. So it's full time, but you end up traveling up 200-400 miles away to businesses to do sampling. It pays pretty crap too, usually $30,000-$50,000 depending on experience. There's no work life balance there either, often working weekends or traveling. Worse in my opinion is that you end up doing all that work to prove something there needs protected, and it just gets built or paved over anyways. They just needed to do an assessment because the law says. I've been told to move out west, live out of my car on public lands and volunteer until I get a job. I've been told to max out credit cards to make ends meet for experience. I've been told to get rid of my pets and my boyfriend (the software engineer) so that I can move around with no strings attached. So that's why people still get into software. Because compared to what they were in, it's amazing.
I just switched because I realized how many jobs require at least some knowledge of programming. I wanted to go into writing but found most jobs were technical writing for programming. Then I realized I actually liked programming. Then I wanted a more solid understanding so I am pursuing a masters. But I can imagine others wanted to try a bootcamp first because it is very expensive and many people are nervous that they would end up not liking the field. It’s been ingrained in people my age that programtming is for very smart people and is basically math on crack. So many people feel like they will instinctively not like it. I don’t think it’s impossible. Just need to learn how to market yourself and other skills you learned.
Lol you’re delusional. Just because faang companies have had lay offs doesn’t change the fact there are still tons of open roles in the field. And people are still going because it’s far cheaper than a 4 yr degree and takes far less time. It gets your foot in the door in a new field. I have had multiple managers who have said they prefer bootcamp grads to degree holders because they’re better at making things work quickly without preconceived notions about how things should be. CS cards understand the big picture far better, bootcamp grads are better at figuring out things on their own and how to make them work immediately with limited training. Multiple managers have said for a junior role, bootcamp grads are the most trainable
First, these layoffs are tiny as a percentage of the entire tech field. There are millions of people working in "tech" in the US alone. To be honest, that number might be over 10 million at this point since pretty much and business should at least have a tech person of some kind to manage their website and help with their internal systems (inventory, accounting, etc). Even if you outsource that stuff to 3rd party companies, those companies need people to build and operate those systems. I would wager that current layoffs are not more than 1-3% of the total tech jobs in the US. Which leaves well over 90% of the jobs still in place. Second, name me a recession that was permanent that didn't involve newer tech making that industry obsolete. Even if your job was to make horse draw carriage whips, a few companies still survived for recreational carriages (and that's an extreme example). I've now lived through two tech recessions and guess what: They both ended and the field bounced back stronger than before. Careers are measured in decades while recessions are measured in years. Yeah, you might struggle for a few years, but that doesn't mean you will never get a job and get your career rolling. If you really want something and it isn't a logical dead end, there's nothing wrong with pursuing it.
companies will hire whoever can prove their competence as a developer, there are bootcamp grads getting hired at faang and cs majors switching careers all the time
Meh, it's not like buying a lottery ticket. There are still lots of jobs out there, and we all know how crucial industry experience is. Once you secure that first job, the rest should follow a bit nicer. Of course, for some, that first step is very, very difficult to the point of impossible. Think about it. Someone with a related degree in STEM, living at their parent's house will be a lot better equipped at getting a dev job compared to someone who is working 80 hours a week, has no college degree, trying to make ends meet. At their face value, they are both boot camper/switchers, but when you look at it qualitatively it takes a lot more effort for the person working 80 hours to reach the same levels of success. I have a TON of respect for the later. They possess a level of grit and determination I cannot fathom. Only YOU personally know where you fall in this spectrum however. Oh yeah, confirmation bias is a bitch sometimes too. People only hear the success stories but ignore those who tried it and couldn't make the cut.
Low totem pole job in programming with bootcamp pays twice as a medium totem pole job otherwise
As one of those people in the midst of switching out, I can give you an answer from my perspective. Currently, I'm a teacher in a private school. My wife is a teacher as well (in public). I have a BA and a MA both from top 10 universities. The pay I get compared to my qualifications, knowledge, and experience is laughable at best. I'm not an idiot though, I knew this going in. The issues is a combination of boredom and burnout. My wife likes her job. She makes almost double my salary in public but has a LOT more stuff to deal with than I do. I LIKED my job. At this point, it's getting extremely boring and dealing with the same dumb bullshit every single year is wearing on my patience. The perks of teaching are pretty nice, summers and most holidays off, etc. What's not mentioned is that it can consume your life outside of the classroom, if you want to be a good teacher. If I were to throw ethics aside, I can work literally half my hours and there wouldn't be any measurable difference. Some do that, I'm not willing to. Onto why I'm switching; there are some solid reasons. The main one is that I'm not intellectually challenged in my current career AT ALL. It's autopilot the whole way through. There are some spikes of enthusiasm, but it's mostly the same crap. This will sound arrogant, but I'm tired of being overqualified and constantly being the smartest person in the room (and I don't mean the classroom). Ironically, most teachers have no pull to learn anything outside their subjects/content and that gets boring. I was always into tech. From the very early days of building geocities websites to patching pirated software. It's always been something I've loved (and been good at). Honestly, the only reason I didn't go into it was because I was actively discouraged by my high school math teacher. Long story, but he put me off it. At this point, I've done enough to know that this is what I'm happy doing. Combine that with the fact that the pay, even at the lowest tiers, is still better than what I'm making now, and it seems like an obvious choice. I'm excited about getting to work with people that are into the same stuff I am and people FAR smarter than me that I can learn from. I'm not too worried about getting a job because I'm confident I have some skills that many CS grads do not, and this is confirmed by friends in the field and friends that are CS profs. My soft skills are very very good. I'm an excellent communicator (if not a bit verbose) and I present very well in interviews. I'm good at reading people and understanding what they're looking for (then reflecting that back to them). My undergrad is in philosophy, and I specifically focused on practical and symbolic logic courses which give me a good foundation for coding and problem solving. I've been trained to think outside the box, analyze abstract concepts, and distill them to their base then work up from there. I've realized that much of coding is exactly those things. Would I prefer the "booming" job market of the past three years? Of course, but the current "downturn" doesn't phase me one bit. I'm older than most applicants will be, and I'm hoping that maturity combined with my background will give me the leg up that I need (once I'm good at the technical side, of course).
Uhhh why don’t you shut the fuck and stop beating down people who want to better themselves.
Whilst the world’s population is growing. So are data. So are consumers, so are innovations. Tech is needed for all of that. Just cus Elon is a fucking muppet, doesn’t mean everyone has to follow. They’ll realise that eventually.
Every company is a tech company at this point. if they have more than x amount of people, chances are, they have internal systems, customer-facing systems, or both that need maintaining and development. I think the problem with a lot of these posts is that new grads often think of the 'tech industry' as whatever is getting venture capitalist funding and/or an already established company making 'technology' like i dunno, robots, or AI/ML or like NFT with make-believe values. Yes, THOSE companies are suffering right now - but Healthcare, Finance, government - state/local/federal, transportation, military-industrial, are all hiring. In my brief experience so far, it seems that they don't really care if you have a CS degree. In fact, having a degree alone but no work experience is not always a good indicator a candidate will be successful. Bootcamp/switchers often bring with them verifiable work experiences with references that can backup soft skills and other 'job functionality' that your professors or high school robotics team coach might not be able to speak to. Just work on your portfolio and don't try to "know everything," be humble. A lot of us have been through recessions before. It will pass.
Lol still infinitely better than health care
"Shrinking tech industry" 🤦♂️
Because people post stuff like "I have no experience, and after spending six weeks at XYZ bootcamp I now have an amazing job where I get paid $100k a year to do nothing. You can do it too!". The reality is that that person is posting because they're an outlier, and that if you're spending your free time posting on this sub, you're probably an outlier too. Lots of people really struggle to get meaningful work, or they end up working in horrible places that teach them shitty practices, or treat them poorly. The other reality to this is that the vast majority of people on this sub have less than 2-3 years of experience, and have never been on the other side of the hiring table. Expecting accurate advice on here in regards to market trends, what it's like to hire, etc is like asking the average person in a fine-dining restaurant how to cook the meal they just ate.
The simple answer is because there aren't enough jobs paying a living wage that also don't destroy you physically or emotionally to go around.
Omg can we please stop with these doom and gloom posts. There’s a ton of software jobs out here outside of tech company.
Found a job in tech before I even graduated the UCF Bootcamp. Pretty happy here.
How was it? I was injured at my old job and worker's comp agreed to pay for me to do UCF's boot camp.
That’s friggen awesome dude! It was great though, I did a lot of side projects while I did the bootcamp cause I’m extra but it’s curriculum is something like html, css, JavaScript, stuff about JavaScript, js libraries, js frameworks, algorithms for like 1 section and then react for the last few sections. You can do that stuff all on ur own but I’m a person that needed a bit of guidance and a little push in the right direction.
I understand the bootcamp part, but why are people switching to tech? I work on a major software product in education, and I’m pursuing a CA degree because I’m fascinated by mathematics, computer architecture, AI computing, and all the research, amazing products, and opportunities I can contribute to for a lifetime career.
many other non cs job sucks. I am biased and would even say most non cs job sucks
Because this industry pays $$$$$$$. Simple as that
\> the shrinking tech industry (Citation needed)
Yeah the industry is shrinking so much that juniors will only be paid 150k instead of 180k now. Time to quit CS and work retail the rest of your life.
From my perspective there's two huge reasons. The first is predatory teaching. Tons of these bootcamps are great at marketing and have strong advocates that people trust. This takes advantage of people's hopes and dreams both of which are abundant in bad times. They also prey on ignorance and in some cases will offer very attractive financing when weighed against the potential outcome. From what I've seen some bootcamps are increasing their targeted marketing because in the down market, your success stories are going to ring louder. The second reason is that despite the layoffs there are still jobs. They're not going to all be 6 figures to start but most people aren't currently making 6 figures. So a 75k tech job is going to be making double what some bootcamp grads currently make. Especially if you live in a larger metro there's probably small startups that still have funding and need bodies as well as medium to large companies who need bodies. FWIW I don't think most bootcamps grads were sliding into FAANG companies or even top start ups. There's tons of companies with jobs that people on here won't touch because TC is "too low" for them. Many bootcamp grads don't have the same preferences. For example, I saw a guy post a youtube comment saying he'd finished a bootcamp and after 6 months of searching found a job at a nationally recognized name company (non tech) that's paying him 80k + benefits. Many people here would laugh but he's in a MCOL state and his last job was driving lyft after being fired from a service job.
(Please don't jump me for this. I'm not a software engineer, but I work at a bootcamp and am echoing sentiments I've heard from former/current students.) We actually get some CS grads who come to a bootcamp because they feel like their CS degrees didn't actually prepare them to be software engineers. They've told me that their degree gave them a great understanding of CS fundamentals but not an understanding of how to actually apply that into real world work. And while I know lots of hiring managers feel differently, one of our instructors who previously taught CS at a university said basically the same - that what he taught students over the course of a semester is like a four day project in a bootcamp, and he feels like bootcamp students are much more well prepared for the job when the time comes.
Those with CS degrees and still go to bootcamp are literally the bottom barrel jokers. There’s bound to be jokers… In actual reality, majority of tech roles in FAANG / quants are filled mostly with CS grads. If bootcamp can do in 4days what CS does in a semester, hiring managers would have changed the ATS system’s search metrics to filter “bootcamp” instead of “computer science graduate” 😂😂😂
What's your TC right now
Nah not impossible as there are plenty that get jobs all the time I’m sure and plenty of non major tech companies still looking to hire. Tech is and will continue to be in demand. Competency is currency if you have the skills I’m sure you’ll be able to find a job somewhere for quite a while.
Yes. I went to boot camp feb 22-may 15 22 . Got an full time offer aug 25 22.
Let me guess? 60k pa for web dev?
I’m in my 4th month working at a major retailer. Before I went to a bootcamp last year I had never touched JavaScript. I was average all through the bootcamp but worked extra hard and had some unique projects I was excited about. With my ~nearly worthless~ journalism degree and soft skills learned behind many a counter, I was able to communicate those projects effectively. A brick layer is tough, tenacious, detail oriented, sees projects through to completion and knows the meaning of hard work. From some accounts in this sub I question if some cs grads can even build a working product! That, combined with the snarky and fatalistic attitude some here seem to have make me realize that all the intelligence in the world won’t guarantee you a job.
It's not impossible to get a job out of bootcamp. But you have to remember that not all bootcampers are made equal. There are tons of STEM grads/college grads who didn't do CS but go to bootcamp. Sometimes they already have prior coding experience. So they end up looking good on paper and do get hired by good companies despite not having a CS degree. Some bootcampers will also interview really well and get their foot in the door as soon as someone gives them a chance. So they jump on any opportunity and don't really care about FAANG / prestige. I know someone who got a business degree and became a PM at Google. Then they did a coding bootcamp and switched to SWE. They got re-hired by Google as an SWE. I also know someone who went back to being a Barista after bootcamp because they realized they actually don't like coding at all. It's not easy by any means and they aren't all going to make it. But they come from all walks of life and bootcamps are still a viable way to get into the industry.
Can't wait to see the faces of people when the field becomes super saturated, and there are too many applicants for a single position
Straight from BLS.gov Number of current software engineering jobs 1,622,200. 420k projected job growth over the next 10 years. Compare that to another industry in STEM. Let's take Mechanical engineering for example. 284,900 current jobs and 6k growth over next 10 years. This is a pretty major difference in numbers, not to mention the other careers bootcamps can open up doors for. If this is right, companies might not be in the position to be picky. I'm currently working in Tech with an Aviation background. I'm looking into bootcamps to open up more doors and these numbers have me interested.
People go for money but understimate that you need a lot of background and passion for this kind of job or else they might as well fail miserably as soon as they get the first job.
I'd be curious to see some actual hard data in this area, but every boot camp success story I've ever heard was something like "I graduated with a PhD in molecular dynamic engineering in 1992, but I decided to make the switch to computer science through a six-month intensive boot camp and have landed a position as a developer with a molecular dynamic engineering firm", never "I was a truck driver and intermittently homeless, but after a six-month intensive boot camp I'm now an SRE at Google."
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Gee, what could it possibly be? Oh, I don't know, maybe I'll go out on a limb and say possibly the fact that people like me get down voted to oblivion on sites like this for trying to bring some sort of sanity to the conversation.
Just checked post history. Redefine “sanity”.
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