Yeah, I've read those things before. But what about the whole "there aren't enough programmers" thing? I've seen a bunch of ads, and also many of the "big guys" from Silicon Valley, all saying that the demand is greater than the supply, and that this will only widen in the future. "100,000 programmer jobs will go unfilled by 2020" I've heard.
A couple of days ago I saw a video of a young developer. The exact same thing you said happened to him. He got a job for 50k but had little to no experience. The company found someone with 3 years experience willing to work for the same 50k, so they let him go. I wonder if you saw the same video?
It seems the best thing right now is to do your own thing, get your own clients. Finding and keeping a job has never seemed more uncertain and precarious.
You have never tried going on your own and developing websites for clients, for example?
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FYI I'm not a coder, so my insights are more general:
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Keep in mind that corporate big wigs have a vested interest in hitting the "we don't have enough programmers" button. Why? Because people like you believe it, go out and learn how to code, and so do
tons of other people, and then you all hit the job market and they can pay you pittance because
now (after they've used their influence) there's
tons of programmers.
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Programming is also a little tricky, I think, because only other programmers can tell if a programmer is any good. It isn't like (say) interviewing to work in sales, where even the HR manager who might not have much exposure to what the sales staff actually does, can make perfect sense of an internal job description. All an HR manager can do in the case of a programmer is take your word for it that you know Java, SQL, Python, or whatever. He can't actually
tell. He doesn't even know what these things are except that they have something to do with software. Point being, the selection process from one company to the next is probably going to be a bit wonky because it's more difficult for the decision makers to all get on the same page.
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The "gig economy" is growing for all industries, and definitely for programmers. But keep in mind that "knowing how to code" is only
one prerequisite for the gig economy for coders (or anyone else for that matter). You are essentially a sole-proprietor, and as someone who has been part of the gig economy (or someone like Matthew, who has coded in it) can tell you, that means you have to market yourself. You have to get along with other people. You have to have good business sense-- you have to know how to communicate with others, how to sell your skills, how to anticipate needs, how to resolve conflict, how to invoice people and make sure you get paid, and so on. You'll be doing way more than "just coding" in the gig economy, you'll be running a business.
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I say all of this not to discourage you or invite cynicism, but to hopefully paint something of a clearer picture of what to expect. Obviously people
are successful as programmers, and people
do make a living in the gig economy. But it isn't going to necessarily just be a matter of going to code boot camp and then getting hired for the first six figure salaried job you apply for. There's gonna be risk and you're going to likely have to climb proverbial ladders.