I worry about my future as a programmer/techie. Are the good times over?
If you're panicked, you need to take a hard look at our industry and realize how insane our industry was for the past few years. My company isn't even one of the FAANGs and we were paying interns 6 figures. I know people in other industries who have over a decade of experience who are paid less than the FAANGs pay entry level hires. That's not normal and that's not sustainable.
Salaries will depress a bit, but SWEs will likely still make far above average. If you're worried about jobs, just look at the stock market. Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Google, and Meta are all in the top 6 biggest companies in the US (by market cap). Those companies aren't going anywhere and they have a massive amount of code to maintain. Developers aren't going anywhere anytime soon.
The dot com bubble and the great recession were both way worse than what we are experiencing, but tech continued to grow.
Responding to your points, first, inflation calculators exist. 100k today is a little over 75k 10 years ago. Coincidentally, that's exactly how much I was making in 2014 living in a HCOL city, so I'm well aware exactly how far that goes. I definitely had money to save up for a house, but it still would have taken years of budgeting for me to get a down payment together for a starter home. Similar to 100k now, it was more than I needed to live a decent day to day life, but I still needed to plan for longer term financial goals.
Second, the average US salary is something like 55k. Even today a 100k salary would put your salary in the top 25% for US workers. I know plenty of junior developers with 1-2 years of experience making a good bit more than that. Even the low end of developer salaries puts you well above what most people in the US make. Obviously where you live matters, but in pretty much every region most non-tech employees will make less than your average developer at the same level of experience.
Tech (in the US) pays very well and I don't any other industry pays better compared to the amount of work needed to get your foot in the door. We've had it very, very good for a long time and even if things cool off a little bit, we're still going to have it far better than most. All this makes me think of is "When you're accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression"
> Top 25% among agriculture workers in Kansas?
Top 25 across all us workers
> The newgrad earning those 100k will have to live sonewhere in Northern California, where rent alone will claw 25k back for a crappy apartment
Yes, I know. I lived as a new grad making 75k in a major city (Los Angeles, not bay area though). Rent is expensive and will likely take 1/3 of your paycheck or more. It's been like that for years though and that's not something that's changed recently. It also doesn't negate the fact that our industry still pays far better than most.
> food expenses another 25k
The fuck are you eating? If you're spending 2k a month on food you don't get to complain about money. I hate cooking and love good food and regularly spend $1500 a month on dining, but I'm well aware that if I needed to I could drop that by $1000. Spending $2k a month on food is choice you're making.
> save for a 200k downpayment and 7.5k/month (is this the current rate?) mortgage payment.
Who is saving 200k for a down payment? The days of 20% down are long gone and pretty much everyone gets PMI. Especially for your first home you can cut that in half.
Also, why are you as a new grad buying a million dollar home? Where did you get this idea that a new grad's salary should allow you to purchase a long term home in a major city without making some financial trade offs? That has never been the case. Your expectations are completely disconnected from reality and you're comparing your situation to a reality that never existed.
You can either wait until you're further along in your career and your salary is higher to buy, buy something cheaper (don't say this isn't possible, I know for a fact it is in), or move to an area with a lower cost of living.
I've been in tech for decades and make now what would be an entry level salary at a tech giant or VC funded startup. Why? Because I work in the education sector and didn't hop jobs during the pandemic.
This stuff has to level off. Everything is really distorted due to the money printing and the tech hiring bonanza during the pandemic days. People can't expect to go to a boot camp and then immediately make as much as doctors and lawyers who trained for years, it is totally unsustainable.
BUT I think we're looking at a downward trend in the amount of value a new CS grad can provide to most businesses (besides maybe bargain-basement body shop type operations like CapGemini and friends). I think (IOW no data to support this, but I'd be interested in seeing it if anyone has some) this trend has been ongoing for a while now but was kind of papered over by overhiring (some say "talent hoarding") caused by low interest rates.
This is all speculation of course, but I think things will be harder for a new CS grad today -- at least for a while -- but it will still probably be a fulfilling, not-impoverishing career if you can get started.
Unfortunately, I think the ship has sailed on nontraditional entrants to the tech job market (folks like me who never got a CS degree at all).
Established professionals are probably in a pretty good spot and, with a pipeline issue (fewer young people able to enter the field), their value may even increase.
If tech could survive the dot-com bubble, it can survive higher interest and inflation.
"enjoy the party, but dance close to the door"
Lots of people hate working in tech.