So, that's how it pancakes down, though, where the toughest squeeze is at the very bottom.
Due to the overall job shortage, you have those who had formerly been classified as mid-level developers, with about 5-ish years of experience ... having to compete for the entry-level jobs, or, rather, the lowest level jobs, since it's not entry anymore. What this means is that there are no more entry-level jobs left. If you can get a developer with 5 years of experience for the same wage as a young man fresh out of college, you'll take the experienced developer every time.
Now, in the past, they might avoid doing that since they realize that developer will be unhappy, even disgruntled, for being underpaid ... and will leave at the first opportunity. But they're becoming more and more confident that no such opportunities will be forthcoming anytime soon.
This same type of pressure hit engineers right before my younger brother graduated with a Mechanical Engineering degree. Bush Sr. had just announced some huge defense budget cuts due to the "Fall of the Iron Curtain", and evaporation of the Cold War. Despite being at the top of his class, he found himself in the same boat, where nobody would even talk to him because there were plenty of engineers with 5 years of experience who were taking the entry-level-wage jobs. He ended up sliding over to IT himself.
So, there's a slower descent in the higher tiers, but it's real nonetheless ... because even if, say, you take on more offshore "talent [sic]" or you start utilizing AI, or whatever ... you still need people who are able to keep the offshore people honest, give them exacting requirements, correct their (many) mistakes and bugs or, in the case of AI ... you have to know how to ask the questions, and how to spot errors, and hot to fix them. So the higher-level types of skills, bordering on software architecture or lead developer, those will slide a little bit more slowly, since you still need them around ... for now. Give it maybe two or three generations, and we'll literally have business people simply dictate business requirements and AI will create the system for them. "I need a system that does this and this and this ..." where all you need are non-technical business analyst types of skills.
Here's the progression I see ...
Next 1-3 years ... acceleration in layoffs among lower-level developers, the coding clerk types that can't think outside of being given exact requirements. with wages dropping most precipitiously in the lower tiers, with true entry-level positions for recent college grads becoming non-existent, and formerly mid-level developes scrambling for the few lowever-level jobs that remain
4 - 7 years out ... lead developers and architects start feeling the cuts since AI has advanced where it can develop, write, and even deploy software systems based on little more than business requirements. Business Analysts with even a tiny bit of tech knowledge (where they basically know what a database is, what a web application is, etc.) will be all that's needed. You might have some highly-skilled technical types keeping an eye on things, troubleshooting stuff when it doesn't work, etc.
At some point there might be a slight "dead cat bounce", where there might be a slight shortage induced due to the fact that fewer and fewer students will go into Computer Science due to the abysmal job prospects, and as some of the veterans begin to retire, that could induce a very short-lived shortage until AI can catch up and fill the gap.
Topic: Job listings of shame (Read 38745 times)