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0 pointsiExploder3y ago0 comments

its easy to write everything up to negativity, but if you been in the industry for some years and know a few old timers, you may know the job itself is declining in prestige and pay and is currently facing uncertain times....

its not really encouraging when the career you threw your life to may change from ground up into something you may not even enjoy and like (due to AI etc)

lets have at the popular horse analogy; sure people could have always retrained to be "taxi drivers" but what if some of them just enjoyed riding the damn horses and feeding their family at the same time? and did the 20 years of horse riding on the prehistoric CV really translate well when applying for the new fancy taxi driver positions?

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ineedausername3y ago· 1 in thread

Thanks for reply and for sharing your concerns.

I've been a professional since 2016, i know that doesn't make me an old timer but... when were the salaries higher compared to last couple of years?

I agree that prestige tends to decline, is that important though?

About the uncertain times you mention... there are people who think that it's just a phase and it shall pass, and they aren't all newcomers. Also, not everyone views AI as such a game changing force. There is also the case that not much really changes in this industry, I mean we're still writing bash scripts right? Of course you need to keep up to date with latest trends and I understand it could be unpleasant to do so longterm...

iExploderOP3y ago

> I've been a professional since 2016, i know that doesn't make me an old timer but... when were the salaries higher compared to last couple of years?

just for context I'm located in EU and I consider faang type jobs and compensations something that happens in a minuscule of cases in land far far away. if you look at salaries in "ordinary sw jobs" they may not have been higher in the past, but when adjusted for cost of living (and housing) and inflation, they definitely haven't been keeping up with the times

also in the past when engineers were considered "magicians" it was not uncommon to have royalties for authoring, license agreements in place for very simple low hanging fruit type of applications. this is completely opposed to current power dynamics where employers got the hint and redrafted the employment contracts to make sure most engineers are replaceable cogs in a cost centers dishing out lines of text. I'm not complaining, just giving examples about the decrease in the prestige and benefits in the job itself...

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