Nothing will meaningfully improve until the rich fear for their lives
A ‘demoralizing' trend has computer science grads out of work — even minimum wage jobs. Are 6-figure tech careers over?
Submitted 5 hours ago by chobeat@lemmy.ml to technology@lemmy.world
Comments
SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world 24 minutes ago
W3dd1e@lemmy.zip 20 minutes 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.
invertedspear@lemmy.zip 1 hour 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.
corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 3 minutes ago
I know a guy with three degrees and decades of experience on a resume littered with well-known companies and astounding projects.
2.5 years out of work.
This is the guy who should be fixing slopper code and he’s working volunteers and startups so his resume isn’t toxic from an Uber or Amazon gig.
HubertManne@piefed.social 1 hour ago
Did I apply to your position as that sounds like me. Just passed the one year point.
qarbone@lemmy.world 43 minutes ago
I’ve been out of tech work for near as long as I have career experience.
Each day feels another nail in the coffin of those 6 years of education.
inclementimmigrant@lemmy.world 24 minutes ago
Hey look, it’s the late 90’ and early 2000’s again.
Same crap that was talked about after the .com bust.
HubertManne@piefed.social 1 hour 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.
pineapplelover@lemmy.dbzer0.com 20 minutes ago
I honestly think this is a lie because it’s because people are mainly going for SWE or Game Dev. But literally everything else in the computer bubble is still doing fine
HubertManne@piefed.social 7 minutes ago
I find the jobs are super picky. Had one with a laundry list except for one job scheduling software and I had experience in the one they wanted but the feedback I got back was that the other one was real important even though I had the other and everything else. So I had experience with job scheduling software in general. including one they used. but not the other. and in that laundry list is software way more complicated than job scheduling. Through most of my career having about half of what they wanted was fine and they got that picking up the rest was not going to be a big deal for anyone who had experience in the field.
absentbird@lemmy.world 14 minutes ago
To some extent, yeah. I work in web development and there’s no shortage of opportunities for someone good at reactive front end development and JSON APIs. But I think there is a shortage of grads who have the necessary skills.
I’ve been trying to grow my business, and it’s frankly depressing how many people graduate with computer science degrees without learning the basics of the field, the volume of vibe coders is too damn high.
ZombiFrancis@sh.itjust.works 31 minutes ago
Homeowning and paying a mortgage, especially now, is the single most important thing maintaining my quality of life.
A neighbor recently sold and it is now a rental. Paying that rent would effectively raise my housing costs about $20k a year.
It’s almost exactly the same house and lot. It’s insane.
HubertManne@piefed.social 10 minutes ago
Is it fixed? although interest rates are likely to go down so even a non fixed is helpful currently.
calliope@retrolemmy.com 4 hours 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.
empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 hours ago
Its more than that; companies also continuously propagate the message of “shortage of workers” while continuing to raise the requirements for entry level positions more and more. It reaches a point where “entry level” is not attainable for most fresh grads to get experience, and keeps their starting wages (and continuing wages) very well depressed due to the high supply.
Its a very targeted campaign to make sure educated workers don’t get too many ideas of independence in their heads.
panda_abyss@lemmy.ca 2 hours ago
I knew of a company that listed an internal tool as a job requirement so they could claim a skill shortage and hire foreign workers. They coached them to put that tool on their resume.
SupraMario@lemmy.world 3 hours ago
It’s a bit more nuanced than that. A lot of college grads I’ve interviewed come out expecting to be senior level when they don’t even have a basic foundation of IT. Don’t expect to get paid 6 figures right out of college when you have 0 experience and can’t even provide basic answers to questions that help desk people know. Colleges have lied to them that we(the IT industry) needs them and that they’re special. Show me you have the foundation before telling me how the industry works.
QuarterSwede@lemmy.world 3 hours ago
It doesn’t help that conpanies lie on their requirements in job postings. Even entry level retail jobs are asking for 2-3 years of retail experience. That’s just insulting to those with retail experience and an impossible “entry level” requirement. Leads people to just ignore any requirements.
homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 2 hours ago
It’s not just that. HR departments (who, let’s be honest, were never exactly super-clear on what tech roles are or do because they’re busy with everything else) have been infected by AI to the point that no one can just see a job and apply for it unless they rearrange everything in the resume to match the job posting verbiage exactly.
Everyone who makes it past that hurdle are sorted lowest-to-highest salary requirements. Oh you have seventeen years experience? Fuck you. Everyone after that is sorted by age/race/ whatever. It’s the perfect system for fucking up tech hiring.
Unless you rebrand everything you do as AI. Then you’ll get 100 million dollars from Zuckabug. (It used to be “cloud” but that was a long time ago now). So the tech manager who knows what they’re looking for gets a bunch of applications from newbies who talk like AI is everything and they don’t want that.
It’s super fucked.
Melvin_Ferd@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
How much is it that these companies don’t want to train. I have a time believing your job is so advanced and technical you couldn’t find someone qualified at any point.
frezik@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 hours ago
Training people up would be a great idea when you have the attitude that you’re going to keep working there for 30 years. Those old “company man” jobs are all but gone. If you stay at a job 5 years, people start to wonder if there’s something wrong with you. That’s just starting to be enough time for training to be worth the investment.
If tech was unionized, and the union had the attitude that they are basically a trade guild that will build up your skills, that would change things.
the_wise_wolf@feddit.org 4 hours ago
In my experience there is a huge gap between those that are smart and enthusiastic and those that are just average. I consider myself part of the former group and I can’t blame coworkers for just doing their job and go home. But it means the gap just widens.
Essence_of_Meh@lemmy.world 3 hours ago
(…) I never once worked anywhere that there was a glut of jobs and “not enough bodies” to fill them.
I have. My first job wasn’t the worst at this but it happened to some extent. My last company had such a huge disparity between work and employees that every single one of their IT projects (dunno about the rest) was in constant state of delays, hotfixing and putting out fires. Things were so bad people were moved between projects on daily basis and at one point management decided to throw everyone in the department (including folks who just joined the company and newbies with little to no programming experience) to triage one of them.
That’s not to mention poaching team members from projects they promised more bodies to (only informing the client about the latter decision) and many other issues. They absolutely needed more people but the way the company is run does little to help with that.
The worst party? They’re still growing as a company while their burnout rate stays unchanged. So yeah, it’s a thing.
Plebcouncilman@sh.itjust.works 5 hours ago
Two decades of “just learn to code bro”, will do that to a profession.
breakfastburrito@sh.itjust.works 1 minute ago
Biotech is also awful rn
panda_abyss@lemmy.ca 2 hours ago
The industry has brought in a ton of soulless goons and uninterested/stupid workers for a decade and it’s destroyed the industry.
I’m not saying there aren’t good people, but I have interviewed hundreds of people over 10+ years for jobs in tech, and the quality bar dropped a lot.
This started well before AI. I met people from Apple/Amazon/Google/etc. who functionally could not do their job, contributed nothing to projects, and were highly paid. Only a few big companies were the exception.
I’ve met a ton of people with phds and advanced degrees from prestigious schools that were total crap too.
We shovelled so many people into the system because the jobs sounded amazing and they’d pay stupid prices for a degree. We fully industrialized low performance hiring, so yeah, no surprise packages are dropping.
Plus, I used to get time to teach interns and new grads too. The staff we taught grew into way better workers than the job hoppers with 6 jobs at fancy companies over 3 years who had never implied a real project beyond the shiny prototype.
The last 3-4 years I had been constantly threatened about looming layoffs, and that we needed to meet targets at all costs. I’ve been perennially told “if we’re just heads down and all out until [6 months from now/project completion] it’ll all be good again”. Only for the cycle to repeat again and again and again.
The big tech machine destroyed my mental health and I’m out, and I’m much much happier and healthier. I still work in tech, but I’m incredibly selective about the jobs I take, and I’ll never work in corporate tech again.
HootinNHollerin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 hours ago
Tech is much more than programming / software
wewbull@feddit.uk 4 hours 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.
neukenindekeuken@sh.itjust.works 3 hours ago
This is bang on.
peoplebeproblems@midwest.social 2 hours 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. :::
Telorand@reddthat.com 41 minutes ago
As soon as all shit hits the fan guess who starts earning more.
A tech farm in <insert developing country> who will vibe code a patch for half the cost? (h/j)
HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club 1 hour ago
Probably.
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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.
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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.
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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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Novocirab@feddit.org 3 hours ago
Relevant Doctorow post: The enshittification of tech jobs (27 Apr 2025)
mctoasterson@reddthat.com 4 hours 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.
CompactFlax@discuss.tchncs.de 3 hours ago
And that is why we need unions in tech. Tech is a cost center for most companies. It’s a space to beat down as much as possible to get margins up, just the same as the guys working on the line making the thing.
thisbenzingring@lemmy.sdf.org 2 hours ago
I am in tech, I am in a union. Its fucking great!
passepartout@feddit.org 5 hours ago
Says / asks an article published in a media spin-off created by a big fintech company, which has been funded by, among others, Peter Thiel.
Yes, the tech sector is in a harsh condition, but we will go on. Don’t let the AI hype / lay off waves for an overhired tech workforce from covid break your minds. There will be a need for smart people building and maintaining ecosystems, as long as a rising tech oligarchy won’t gatekeep us all out, which should be the headline here.
JoMiran@lemmy.ml 5 hours ago
No, but yes too.
ReCursing@feddit.uk 4 hours 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?
inclementimmigrant@lemmy.world 16 minutes ago
Same, 2001 comp sci grad, and these are the same things I heard back then, still in tech and honestly theres been many boom and bust cycles I’ve lived through in this industry.
Tech and software aren’t going anywhere, anytime soon but there will be a salary correction just like back then.
frezik@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 hours ago
The problem this time around is that companies think junior developers can be replaced with AI. This is delusion. Some think they can replace senior developers with AI. This is LSD heroic dose delusion.
These delusions will work themselves out in a few years, after a very painful burst bubble, but right now it means junior developers aren’t getting hired. In 10 years, there will be a shortage of senior developers because all the missing juniors now will translate into missing seniors then.
ReCursing@feddit.uk 2 hours ago
Yeah the same thing happened with the dot com bubble.They didn’t try to replace junior developers with ai, they just gave them pool tables in lieu of having any plan at all! When I graduated there were very few jobs in programming at all, and those that were were flooded by people with a lot more experience than a new graduate.We’ll get through it this time too
radix@lemmy.world 1 hour ago
I graduated in 2001 in a tech-adjacent field, and my first job was as a security guard making barely over minimum wage. Things get bad. Things get better.
altphoto@lemmy.today 1 hour 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!
beirdobaggins@lemmy.world 3 hours 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.
mereo@piefed.ca 3 hours ago
I believe the problem is that people feel entitled to a job with a six-figure salary just because they paid for an expensive college education. College has this air of excellence.
But then, reality sets in. Knowledge is nice, of course, but practical experience is key. You need to know how to act in the real world.
HubertManne@piefed.social 1 hour ago
This sorta cracks me up. If your monthly expenses are 6k a month you might be able to be just in the black if you make just under six figures. Look at rents anywhere that can be described as in or around any city and remember recent grads have no savings and student loans on top of other expenses. Throwing around six figures as a large number in 2015 meant something, in 2025 its laughable.
DrFistington@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
That depends. Do people still want to use technology? If that’s the case, then 6 figure tech careers aren’t over
AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world 54 minutes ago
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