Jonathan Blow was right about the crash of 'tech' jobs?

Jonathan Blow talks about how his prediction of the coming collapse of tech jobs seems to be coming true.

[ChadAV]

It's crazy how tech went from "dream job" to "tech is dead" in like 5 years. 12 years ago it was MYTHICAL to become a SWE. Now it's like I gotta learn all this crap just to make as much as an ok car salesman? You want me to be constantly learning on my own time and my own dime so I can make 55 - 70k? I have to learn a JS framework every 3 months to remain "relevant"? Bro I'm just gonna go sell phones at Best Buy.

[cbunix]

I worked in technology for 40 years, employees being in the job market driver's seat never lasts long.

[hyperTorless]

It's glaring to anyone who is honest enough to see it.
Twitter has *thousands* of employees. How did Twitter evolve in 15 years? It almost didn't. In fact it got progressively worse and slower to use. It's crazy and cannot go on forever.
In comparison, Valve has 450 employees (which, John will argue, is probably still too much hehe).

[mikeydubs_tv]

From what I have read is there are millions of tech jobs unfulfilled.
These companies are laying off excess project managers, and devs that make like 400k a year.
Those devs won’t be competing with kids out of college.
Plus not every company is FANG. Tons of local businesses, banks, fintech etc.
it may not be as dire as you think.
But who the hell knows in the end

[ilyabykov]

Jonathan helped me to gain enough bravery to give up on learning web dev, just because I'm afraid I won't be able to get hired, and devote all my time to data science and gamedev, something I'm passionate about, even though it might be harder to find employment, I think it'll be worth it instead of doing what you hate for money.

[johnc]

Personally I'd love to see other jobs require more technical ability, than more pure-tech jobs

[starogre]

a lot of people need web developers. they just cant afford them. many businesses could benefit from updates in their tech

[hyperTorless]

3:30 Can someone tell me which podcast he is referring to? I can't hear the name well.

[burrybondz]

however it goes with cs, it would be better than me continuing with my linguistics degree.

[blindalienproductions]

I literally started my own gamedev project two years ago after going on furlough from my start up job after the lockdowns went in to effect. Still working on it. No money taken from anyone yet, been completely self funded thus far.

[TOracle]

The problem is that these companies have gotten too big and powerful. They can do whatever they want, even when it's dumb and wrong, they still win. The people need to take their power back.

[EverRusting]

People laughing at Elon for firing half of Twitter.
And the backlashes of his actions are pushing it towards bankruptcy, directly or indirectly.
But I have no doubt in my mind most of the Twitter staff actually do no work.
You can't have 7000 people working on an internet forum with no features other than tweeting.
And these people get paid a lot like 250k a year by doing absolutely no work.
Not hating on those people since it's "blame the game not the player" kind of situation.
No one should reject an opportunity like that and there is no reason to not do so.

[jonsmith]

The model of building tech companies based on (speculative investment funding) is not the only one. Companies can organicly grow from micro and scale up over a longer time. This means sustainable incremental profits of which a percentage is reinvested into innovation and scaling up.

[anykeyh]

That's a vision centered on big US tech. Yes, it finally matured and there is no more eldorado. Yes, junior developer might soon not expect getting 120k annual salary on first job. But if you focus on the world instead of the microcosm of silicon valley, you will realize that 50% of companies are still using basic document/excel for most of their processes. There is still plenty of room for developers to automate. Those companies are not doing it because of the cost, or lack of SaaS solution for their specific case.
As developers start to flow looking for job, overall cost will decrease leading to new open positions.
Of course it means developers entry salary will get lower, but a 3x, 5x or 10x developer will still have a great career with great income. I'm zero worried for those who graduate in CS degree for at least 10 years, even with AI raising.

[shaurz]

It will be amazing to watch all the schemes enabled by a zero interest rate environment for over a decade unravel in a spectacular fashion.

[handmadegamesdev]

I've been working as a programmer since 2015. Not very long. But I've worked at a few different levels of difficulty -- websites, web apps, blockchain, and now games -- and I can't help but dwell on this to consider how best to prepare for my future.

I think the following is true for those working in web:

- It isn't easy to earn those 6-figure salaries so many "web-dev" teachers like to talk about.
- It's important to have produced work that can be easily reviewed by others (e.g. hiring managers).
- Web-devs are a dime a dozen, so it's important to work towards becoming a self-sufficient freelancer / contractor, or even build your own products.
- Your typical web-dev learning PHP, JS, Python, etc. isn't as knowledgeable as someone programming for systems or games, so web-devs should strive to fill those gaps and level up.

Jon makes a point of saying that the skills of an experienced game / game engine programmer will always be in demand; whereas, frontend / backend web-dev generalists will have a tough time. I have spent any free moment I have trying to escape the limits of my web-dev knowledge, so I know this to be true.

[orlovskyconsulting]

As IT consultant i say, most companies driven by profit, technology is the tool not the goal. Startups looking always for product delivery. Big
companies they look at shares price. Middle companies they look for the long term contracts. We are reaching the point in software, where we have software almost for everything, market saturation and with it comes the need to manage old code base better than it was before. As result you need you dont need so much developers, you need big data analyst more to predict future market demands. Finally people should learn new stuff constantly.

[DoYouEvenRift]

I wanna know more about this "time to service a dude"

[jarnathan-snow]

Overall, tech industry is just suffering a bit of the real world after a decade of being in a bubble. It's normal, not the end of the world. Also most of the things in life operate as a pendulum, or cycles, however you want to see it. We will see a big wave in a few years when AI hits heavily.

[cariyaputta]

It's over. I'm applying too much I might be in their blacklist or something. The current ratio is 2000:1 (2000 applications, 1 callback).