It seems like you could replace tech workers with any other profession that sounds like a good career choice.
Can literally everyone (or even the majority) learn to code? Do they want to learn to code? In my experience, the answer to both questions is no.
WTF! There's no cool 3D graphics and hacking while we listen to techno music?!? This is a bunch of dudes typing all day after going to a couple of stand-ups and messaging on Slack and clearing out bugs on JIRA. This sucks. I'm out =P
EDIT: No offense to anyone... I meant the universal dude, of all orientations, genders and creeds.
I agree with this 100%. I think most people could learn to do our job, they just don't want to.
People frequently tell me they'd like to change careers and they've been eying the software field. I explain that it's one of the best lateral jumps to make as we have all of the resources necessary to learn available freely online. I then suggest they spend one evening a week programming a video game or building a website -- some kind of self directed project. More than half of the time the person I'm telling completely zones out and loses interest. "Hm, maybe..."
Obviously it’s not for everyone, but it’s also not reserved for a select few who have had a life-long passion for messing with computers.
Look at the medical profession where there are tiers of expertise / earnings. Not everyone can be a neurosurgeon, obviously. But many people can make good livings. And the profession attracts many people for that reason alone.
> It seems like you could replace tech workers with any other profession that sounds like a good career choice.
Yes, that is exactly what is happening.
In my country at least, the number of students that are permitted to study medicine each year is strictly limited.
Similarly, in law to get a decent job one has to complete a pupillage which can be extremely hard to get and is often based on family connections etc.
Finance can also be quite classist/nepotistic.
So compared to these other top professions, software engineering is more meritocratic and accessible.
Its not hard finishing college, that's why people with a high school education can do it.
Having a high school education doesn't tell you how smart the person is. Maybe they would easily finish college if they tried?
https://www.statista.com/statistics/792074/india-internet-pe...
2009: 5%
2020: 50%
2019: 48.48%. The year before that, 38.02%. In fact it's been around 34-35% since 2016, which was 6 years ago. No change in the amount of outsourcing so far!
Having internet access is not going to magically turn everyone into software developers, and even if it did, all the other challenges of outsourcing wouldn't disappear.
1. Venture capital is making major investments in India, Europe, Latin America, and Asia. At a scale never before seen.
2. Offices will never happen again. Now employees could be in Antarctica for all you're concerned -- as long as they're on a relatively friendly time zone with the rest of their team, it'll work.
This time is different.
Furthermore, India and much of Europe (especially eastern Europe) are definitely not friendly time zones for collaboration with colleagues in North America.
It's really not different this time.
Mostly anecdotal evidence follows.
At my company,
- Most teams have two or more remote ICs
- A large percentage of teams have the majority of their ICs in a different location than their manager.
- A large percentage of ICs are now no longer near an office (or in the same state as an office)
- Offices are still ghost towns
They're not going to pull a magic wand and make all of us go back. Cat's out of the bag. They couldn't afford to fire these folks, either.
> Also, people are dreaming if they think Silicon Valley companies will continue to pay Silicon Valley salaries to workers in other locations, even if remote work continues to be broadly accepted.
I've received near-SF wages in Atlanta for eight years. Before the market pullback, my total comp was $500k a year. It's still ridiculously good.
> Furthermore, India and much of Europe (especially eastern Europe) are definitely not friendly time zones for collaboration with colleagues in North America.
We're building out offices there.
I've had meetings with Europe, Australia, and Japan this year. A first.
If your company won't, new capital funding new startups will take advantage of those workers and bring them into the fold.
And surely some of that funding would be going to local tech companies in those areas, and not simply branches of North American multinationals. All of these regions have their own businesses too, you know. Not everyone is raring to work remotely for Silicon Valley.
Employers also care what laws they have to deal with regarding employment and what they have to do in terms of benefits and stuff. Employees in multiple states is difficult enough, having to deal with employees in several countries is a significant burden that many employers would prefer not to deal with, or can't afford to. That hasn't changed.
Over the years, I've worked with developers from Germany, Denmark, Russia, Canada, India, Brazil, and even that most bizarre of alien cultures, DC-area government contractors. Even if we can all speak the same language (albeit with different accents), different cultures have markedly different assumptions and understandings and ways of communicating and working and different values. That can be quite difficult for management to deal with. That hasn't changed.
When you add up all the language, cultural, legal, timezone, foreign exchange, and other barriers, what really has suddenly changed? Not much. Most companies will still prefer employees that fit in as much as possible and don't cause lots of extra work for the company or cause them to lose sales with potential big customers (because of the cross-jurisdiction legal stuff).
I think that's the challenge.
Understanding computational thinking isn't very useful if you waste your afternoons fighting against crap like encoding, Windows paths, line endings, networking, setting up PostgreSQL correctly...
In reality, we will likely see some aspects of software development become less well compensated, while other aspects will continue to be rare and highly valued.
So you were not completely wrong.