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A ‘demoralizing' trend has computer science grads out of work — even minimum wage jobs. Are 6-figure tech careers over?

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Submitted ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨chobeat@lemmy.ml⁩ to ⁨technology@lemmy.world⁩

https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/demoralizing-trend-computer-science-grads-103000049.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cucmVkZGl0LmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAAweR-d7iUxUwwbZCHFKWeW5Z6Oy5yOlMj19X_QhxzWlmc7r1Jqcw1QS4MnvYcg8i1_V5dLKewaCW_7iqVUN_LyVlPYI4XGHTu_R8g3PrN8u1rGEjKJU1CvEmi8fTDdOHjZNU8iZYsxJOghrvAqPAkcA_FMC5f-QSLqPIe0YCeeC

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  • gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    What matters isn’t whether you think that AI can replace you. What matters is whether the CEO thinks that AI can replace you.

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    • JeremyHuntQW12@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Its sort of funny that the IT industry is investing their whole effort in a program that will… …destroy the IT industry ?

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      • devAlot@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        Tbf, it’s not really the IT grunts pouring their heart and soul into this trend. It’s more the top-level execs seeing more $$ in their pockets at EOQ/EOY bonus time by hiring fewer 6-figure employees and relying more on AI hallucinogenic LLMs, while the grunts dabble with it fight with the stupid piece of shit just so they can say “Yeah sure I used X AI program to help speed this up” appease these idiots who believe it’s their saving grace.

        Source: Am dev/grunt dealing with said idiots.

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  • dream_weasel@sh.itjust.works ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Yeah you can’t JUST do CS anymore. Why would you hire a CS grad to do your project when you have to plan it to the end and provide rigid specifications to follow? Instead you can hire an engineer or someone from stat or data analytics that ALSO comes with a boatload of programming (and often software architecting) expertise?

    It only makes sense to hire someone with a CS specialty if the problem your company solves specifically calls for that specialty. That’s is getting increasingly rare in the age of SaaS, containerization, IaaS, etc.

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  • Randomgal@lemmy.ca ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Of course it is. Your employer will replace you with an immigrant or AI as soon as they can, that’s how capitalism works.

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    • moseschrute@lemmy.zip ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      I fully believe they will try and replace us as soon as they can. But as a software engineer, companies are fooling themselves if they think AI can replace good engineers. I work with some extremely talented engineers, and they would laugh at me if I said AI is going to replace them. I think people spend too much time on tech twitter listening to vibe coders. The ceiling for how complex of a project a human can handle compared to AI is at least 10000x higher with a human.

      But I agree if they could replace us they would. And that’s why we band together with the people who are being replaced, because it’s bad for humanity as a whole.

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  • Runaway@lemmy.zip ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Recent data analytics masters degree grad trying to do a career pivot. After almost a year, man does it seem like 2 years ago me made a dumb ass choice

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    • doingthestuff@lemy.lol ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      My brother has a statistics degree in addition to CS. He’s working for a global medical research company processing all of the data generated by their research, and also helps with their billing software, all of the medical samples have to be stored and there are millions of samples that are billed monthly. He makes a little under $200k.

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    • FEIN@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Just curious, what do you want to pivot into?

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      • Runaway@lemmy.zip ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        I’m coming from healthcare and trying to get into some form of data analyst type position.

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  • 4am@lemmy.zip ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Do project managers and vision directors next

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    • Wiz@midwest.social ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Do CEOs.

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      • gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        futurism.com/…/ceos-easily-replaced-with-ai

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    • interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      I’m a visionary director, I have visions like all of the time !

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  • Tollana1234567@lemmy.today ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    CS jobs have been scanrt for the past 10years, biotech similarly have the same issues as well.(biotech research, but not people who for bio>health)

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  • dan69@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I’m sorry no software engineer right out of college should be getting paid 100k plus. You have <1 yr of professional experience. Okay I’ll give your inter/“extern”-ship and land you a whopping 50k - 60k… it is and was overly inflated wages…

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    • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Agreed, but bump the internship up $10-20k for my area. In CS, you should be getting median household income more-or-less for a junior/intern role, and double median income for a senior role, or at least that’s how it works out in my area.

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    • dan69@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Okay I should’ve added regional based, like major cities should add above, and against inflation. Like obviously after the first year you can make more dependent on ones performance, bonus etc… I’m just saying like you enter with a lesser salary, and get more. Or you just hop around till you get a better salary with more experience

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    • No_Eponym@lemmy.ca ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Cool story grandpa. Or maybe you’re just underpaid? Try adjusting for inflation. $50k doesn’t cut it for starting salaries anymore, and a chocolate bar now costs more than a quarter.

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    • xthexder@l.sw0.com ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      $60k a year is not enough to live comfortably in most of the cities with tech hubs. Rent alone would be 60+% of your paycheck, plus utilities and a car to get to work, you might be going hungry.

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    • fodor@lemmy.zip ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      That’s absurd. Many other jobs should pay that much too.Take it from the billionaires.

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      • Psythik@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        Exactly. Fucking mcdonald’s should be a 6 figure job.

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    • sobchak@programming.dev ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      If their work brings in > 100k in revenue then they should.

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      • GreenKnight23@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        you’re ignoring the $2,000,000 in training costs from sr devs and mistakes.

        if you want to get serious about cost effectiveness, Jr devs should pay to work at a job.

        keep in mind, you fuck up a steak at a cooking job you’re out the cost of the meal + time.

        you fuck up a DB after a schema change you’re out thousands if not millions of dollars in outages, SLAs, and sales.

        still want to use revenue as a compensation performance metric?

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    • FiskFisk33@startrek.website ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      “six figure career” might refer to a career in which you get there eventually.

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  • Taldan@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    While the idea behind AI was that it would automate manual tasks and help workers focus on more value-added activities, some workers fear it will outright replace them — and that’s already happening

    Yeah, it already happened to the journalist that would have written this article. I find it a bit funny that the picture caption is just the prompt they used to generate it

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    • python@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      oh no, that em dash…

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      • shoe@feddit.uk ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        I use the em dash constantly, and have done for years, so finding out it’s a big “this was written by AI” indicator makes me sad — I’m not an AI user, I just like the way it looks!

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    • Brumefey@sh.itjust.works ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      First it was funny, then sad…

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  • Feathercrown@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Maybe if people hadn’t pushed everyone in the entire fucking world into my field we wouldn’t have this problem

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    • TronBronson@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Yea bro that’s what they do. See you making a living wage, then flood the labor pool. Welcome back to the barrel Mon crab

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    • Blackmist@feddit.uk ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Maybe if the field hadn’t pushed everyone else out of business…

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      • Feathercrown@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        Skill issue /s

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    • Jankatarch@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Do you mean to tell me it wasn’t a quick get-rich scheme and people who aren’t interested in the field will have issues after doing math puzzles 8 hours a day in front of a monitor before going home to do more on github?

      But the rich non-programmer guy told me so!

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  • Deflated0ne@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    If your job can be automated. Your job will be automated. Even if the work it produces is hot runny shit.

    They would rather pump out pure garbage than pay an honest wage for honest work. It doesn’t even have to work. They’ll just put an arbitration clause in the EULA. Then sit back and count their money.

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    • gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      That’s not how companies work. The CEO has a fiduciary duty to maximize company gains, so they have to invest in AI, because it’s more profitable. They don’t even have a choice, if they want to keep their job.

      The current crisis has nothing to do with the individual decisions of a single CEO. It’s a legal issue, i.e. CEOs could only act differently if there was a significant and serious change in the way that the law requires them to operate. Which, all things considered, is unreasonable in this case.

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      • Deflated0ne@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        They wouldn’t act differently. Watch 1 hour of CNBC. Those people only technically qualify as human.

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  • qaz@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Does anyone from Europe recognize this? Because it isn’t what I’m seeing.

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    • Evotech@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Europe has a much more stable job market, stricter rules for hiring / firing.

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    • Arkthos@pawb.social ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      I haven’t been actively job searching lately, but based on the recruiters cold contacting me about job offers I’d say no, I don’t recognize this at all.

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    • ramielrowe@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      This is because there isn’t a job shortage. It’s offshoring. The company I (thankfully willingly) left 2 years ago has shifted all of their software hiring to Europe. And since I left has had multiple US focused layoffs. All while the Euro listings keep popping up. And I get it, the cost of living is much lower and the skill set is equivalent. So yea, get your bank. But, this is companies exploiting Europe/Asia, rather than it being something Europe/Asia is immune to.

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    • Brumefey@sh.itjust.works ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      It took one year to find a replacement for a colleague who left the company. He was a senior in his field.

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  • biotin7@sopuli.xyz ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Maybe we should start with kicking out the non-nerds ??

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    • chobeat@lemmy.ml ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      nerds are often egotistical, selfish and individualistic. Let’s kick them out and unionize instead

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      • ratten@lemmings.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        I couldn’t disagree more.

        You’re referring to the analysts, executives, and marketers instead of most nerds.

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      • biotin7@sopuli.xyz ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        & it’s earned. They have the passion for it

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  • stoly@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Ultimately the problem is an over saturated market and universities letting their programs grow too large.

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    • ratten@lemmings.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Wrong on both fronts.

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    • minorkeys@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      The ultimate problem is greed and an uncontrolled lust for power.

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    • SinAdjetivos@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      No, the problem is greedy corporations.

      There is an active need for many developers, think of every time you’ve used terrible software, every time a program crashed or you found yourself manually doing something and thought “there should be a tool for this”, every bad search and broken social media site.

      Hell, we’re supposed to be in the middle of an “AI boom” and someone has to actually implement all those pie in the sky “automate away everyone’s jobs”. While AI can, debatably, write the code for that it still takes a person to design, architect, implement, test and validate those systems.

      No. The entire technical foundation on which “computer science” is built is crumbling due to lack of maintenance and funding and desperately needs people to fix it, however corporations are doing their what they do best; devaluing, destroying, and parasitizing their surroundings.

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      • Hawk@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        Just like AI can write code, it can also design, architect, implement and test…badly

        No manager cares about validation. Today’s mindset seems to be “ship now, fix later”

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  • W3dd1e@lemmy.zip ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I don’t like my job so I went back to school for tech. Not for the salary, but because I genuinely enjoy it. After 8 months of applying, I got 1 phone interview.

    The job I hate went fully remote around that time and I just gave up entirely. I’ll just keep doing a job I hate but at least I can work at home.

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  • inclementimmigrant@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Hey look, it’s the late 90’ and early 2000’s again.

    Same crap that was talked about after the .com bust.

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    • stoly@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      This was the start of my career. Then 2008. Then now. There’s never been a good time.

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      • ShaggySnacks@lemmy.myserv.one ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        This once in a life time recessions seem to happen quite frequently.

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  • SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Nothing will meaningfully improve until the rich fear for their lives

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    • gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      i would argue that it’s not so much the rich that are at fault here, but the politicians who are unwilling to implement taxes on the rich.

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  • AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Image

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    • Ross_audio@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      I’m not sure that works. There were 20 shillings to the pound.

      So £0.75 a week.

      This inflation calculator:

      www.bankofengland.co.uk/…/inflation-calculator

      £75 in 1843 is equivalent to £8,310.96

      So 15s then is equivalent to £83.11 a week, £4321.72 a year.

      40 hour week (which is implied to be too low). ~£2.08 an hour

      So if he worked over 40 hours you’re talking a sub £2/hour wage. Around $2.70 in US money.

      I suspect the stat relies on converting to dollars before applying inflation as GBP to USD was about 1 to 5 then instead of about 1 to 1.33

      It’s fun but I wouldn’t want to denigrate Dickens by saying he got poverty wrong to make a political point.

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      • finalarbiter@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        It’s fun but I wouldn’t want to denigrate Dickens by saying he got poverty wrong to make a political point.

        I think they’re actually making the opposite claim- American wages are just that fucked, rather than Dickens being wrong

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    • whotookkarl@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      JibJab hot dog sign says ‘we wear the chains we forge in life’, a quote from Jacob Marley in A Christmas Carol, the first of four ghosts to visit Scrooge

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  • HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Probably.

    1. One of the two major employers of programmers, tech companies, have significantly curtailed future development of their products as the cost/benefit ratio isn’t worth it. That isn’t projected to change in the near future.

    2. Companies that have full WFH are no longer constrained by office location in hunting for talent. A Bay Area programmer now has to compete with someone in Tulsa or Mexico City, which have far lower costs of living.

    3. AI slop will probably get good enough to do basic tasks. So, companies who only need a little programming talent may be able to get by on shitty AI code instead of hiring a second or third developer.

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  • HubertManne@piefed.social ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    So old man time. In the early nineties things did not look great. Almost any college degree was not bringing in a salary one could like think about having a family with. Then came the late nineties and dot com and tech jobs were like the only thing that paid to possibly have what was, in many peoples mind, the typical middle class life. You know own your own home thing eventually. Since then its been tech or bust and now tech is bust and there is no go to field for people to run to.

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  • altphoto@lemmy.today ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Nuclier scientits invented the biggest fire. Computer scientits invented the biggest program. Biologists invented the worse virus.

    Mechanical engineers made it all possible. Now they’re trying to invent the biggest thing yet. Probably with a nail on it!

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  • invertedspear@lemmy.zip ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    It’s not just grads. I have 1 open senior position, 100 applicants. A good 10% of them with 15+ years of experience have had no job in the last year, or have things like “Amazon fulfillment center” as their most recent job. Shits rough if you find yourself laid off or if the company you’re working for went out of business.

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  • peoplebeproblems@midwest.social ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    No. ::: spoliler spoiler They would like it to be. We’re really expensive because they can’t do it. As soon as all shit hits the fan guess who starts earning more. :::

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  • Novocirab@feddit.org ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Relevant Doctorow post: The enshittification of tech jobs (27 Apr 2025)

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  • HootinNHollerin@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Tech is much more than programming / software

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  • beirdobaggins@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    The guy says he couldn’t get a job at McDonalds due to lack of exerience.

    Thats your problem dude. I can’t imagine a company hiring someone for a six figure job who has zero work exerience.

    Get a helpdesk job for little while while you keep applying.

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  • DrFistington@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    That depends. Do people still want to use technology? If that’s the case, then 6 figure tech careers aren’t over

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  • mctoasterson@reddthat.com ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    The secret of the CS and IT job is that it has always been the Neuveaux Blue Collar job.

    For every IT exec and formerly-technical middle-management douchebag making really good money, there are 2 to 10 actually technical resources making “okay” money relative to their skill and the insane hours and scenarios they are expected to work.

    Oh and let’s not forget they’re constantly trying to outsource as much of that support and engineering talent as possible.

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  • ReCursing@feddit.uk ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I graduated in 2002, just as the dot com bubble burst. Similar scary headlines abounded then. I’m not employed in it, but I don’t recall the tech sector disappearing and us all going to live in caves. Maybe I missed it?

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  • wewbull@feddit.uk ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    6 figure jobs are still common, but not at the entry level. The companies that used to offer such thing are taking that money and investing in AI, thinking that they won’t need new blood.

    They’re wrong, but that’s what’s happening.

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  • calliope@retrolemmy.com ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    The first sentence of the article shows the problem.

    For years, we heard about the tech talent shortage — that there were a glut of jobs and not enough bodies to fill them.

    I worked in tech for a long time, at a bunch of different companies, and I never once worked anywhere that there was a glut of jobs and “not enough bodies” to fill them.

    The problem wasn’t ever “bodies,” which people have always misunderstood. It’s qualified workers.

    The people going into these careers includes a large number of people who want the money but aren’t qualified do what we’re looking for.

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