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Comment by dccoolgai | Hacker News Reader

I'm really happy to see this and that this field has a positive effect on people's life. That's really the top line takeaway for me: But as someone who's been through more than one of these "market cycles" in tech, I have a fear (based in reality/experience) that when people start viewing Software Engineering as a gateway to a "good life" it usually means we're at an inflection point where things (at least in the U.S.) are about to get a lot worse.

We're already seeing this with FAANG layoffs. I'd like to believe "it's different this time" but I don't have anything I can point to as a logical basis for that belief. And it really scares me.

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There might be a downcycle but I don't see how it couldn't be very different than any previous cycle. The depth to which software has penetrated business processes seems much more deep than even 20 years ago.

You can't eat software. You can't wear it or build a house with it. You could maybe make any of those things "more efficient" but you can't _replace_ them with software. So there's some "theoretical limit" to the value you can create with it. My fear is that we have overshot that line by a wide margin, and the market is getting wise to it.

You can't eat any kind of service. There's not really a theoretical limit to the value that can be created with software. You could even create software that powers robotics & machinery which generates food (https://www.deere.co.uk/en/agriculture/future-of-farming/) or housing (https://www.iconbuild.com/).

That's exactly my point, though: software doesn't really "power" any if those things. They are powered by solar/gas/etc. And the robotics that do the actual agriculture tasks are created in a factory. The value software brings has a hard upper bound related to those things.

They are created in a factory that itself is powered by automation and robotics, that enables teams of hundreds to do the work that would formerly take tens of thousands.

As far as energy goes, software also helps to optimize oil exploration, and software is clearly involved in optimizing solar efficiency and production of solar cells. It's also involved in nuclear facilities, power distribution networks, charging stations, grid management systems, etc.

The limits of software haven't even begun to be tapped yet.

>You can't eat any kind of service.

But it's possible to be in the vast network of services that people can not eat very well without.

You can listen to it (music), you can look at it (art), you can entertain people with it (video games), you can inform others with it (media).

These aren’t the base level on Maslow’s pyramid of needs (food water shelter), but software can solve/facilitate the solving of higher level problems of human existence.

Software was played a role in automating all those things, and will continue to do so.

Well I mean if society collapses it won't be worth much, but as long as that doesn't happen making things "more efficient" is critical to supporting a planet with 8 billion people.

Sure software is not generally essential. But on the other hand, do we really need more stuff?

You can't eat plumbing either -- this point is nonsense.

But every "Jim and sons" plumbing company doesn't get half a billion dollars in VC funding. I didn't say "software has no value" but it's certainly overestimated, especially against other services like plumbing.

What are you talking about most companies just experienced record-making profits!!! Are we not getting raises?!?! /sarcasm

I've see things getting worse for a lot of people for a while. I think we just like to pretend it's all good in white-collar land because of the heavy stigma of being poor. We need to unionize. Many 'poorer' and 'less-skilled' workers have already realized this(e.g. nurses strike, teachers strike and recent vote by railroad union to strike).

"The top 1% owned a record 32.3% of the nation's wealth as of the end of 2021, data show. The share of wealth held by the bottom 90% of Americans, likewise, has declined slightly since before the pandemic, from 30.5% to 30.2%.Apr 1, 2022"

Software has been a good paying career for as long as it’s existed.

There may have been occasional downturns, but less than most other professions. And compensation has grown much faster than most other fields.

> when people start viewing Software Engineering as a gateway to a "good life" it usually means we're at an inflection point where things (at least in the U.S.) are about to get a lot worse.

This has already happened in India, and competition to get into top tier tech companies is insane.

Remote work means that now you are competing with people from all around the world, some of them living in places with very permissive labor laws, which means that wages around where you live will go down.

Timezones really matter more than location. I think we’ll see people move to low CoL areas before mass offshoring.

So much organisational friction is from people who don't want to destroy work/life balance with early/late meetings.

We'll see. The idea that Indians will replace us all has yet to pan out. But the increasing prevalence of remote may be the tipping point.

Decades ago when offshoring started, the best available technology were crappy VoIP phones and expensive videoconference technology.

Now any low tier laptop with zoom will give you a proper videoconferencing experience, infrastructure is all cloud based, there are 10x more fiber cables connecting the planet, there are lots of well documented open source projects for almost everything, and for learning there is youtube and MOOCs.

Also, foreign schools are getting better, and many alumni of offshored companies are now founders. The silicon valley model of financing is being replicated abroad too.

Believe me when I tell you: the castle walls are falling apart and soon wages will go down.

People that got comfortable writing average CRUD applications are about to be stomped by a massive stampede.

Right now there is shortage of qualified software engineers in India and many companies are finding it harder to hire in India.

Also the cost in India is also increasing and running your operations remote is not simple.

And we have hopes of greater growth in domestic demand...

I dream of the day when the student in cs for the money will reject the faangs of today during poor races, and instead join a home grown startup.

Same arguments in the late 90s and early 2000s.

After which software salaries continued to rise dramatically.

Indians have already taken a lot of tech jobs. Amazon,Microsoft,Adobe, Atlassain, Salesforce,Goldman Sachs, Google all have dev centers in India. And not to forget people of Indian descent are literally everywhere there is tech.

You have a site like https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/ (of Indian origin) full of leaked interviews.

Take for example: https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/visa-inc-interview-experience-...

Now employers face a difficult situation: do you want your interview to be published on the Internet? should you design a unique interview for each candidate? should you enforce interview NDAs?

And tech salaries in the US continued to rise in spite of that.

Definitely. Watching the tech layoffs this year has been rough.

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