But more importantly, these are the "halcyon" days of finding tech work, and they are fleeting. There is absolutely no guarantee the job market will look this promising in a few years. Things seemed to be on an endless upward trajectory in the 90s and then it all came crashing down.
If you're gambling on the fact that tech work will always be in extremely high demand, then you have a combination of risk appetite and optimism that makes for a founder.
As someone who worked through the period of the tech industry during the dotcom fallout, lots of stuff people take for granted today was non-existent: You had much less autonomy over the technical aspects of the objectives you were trying to achieve. Mandated tools, crappy underpowered computers, bureaucracy, over project dependencies, process-heavy SDLCs weren't just the norm, but widely viewed as the proper way to build software. It was all a reaction to what was seen as the "inmates running the asylum" during the dotcom boom. It basically took a bunch of promising startups in the mid-aughts to start cleaning people's clocks and become juggernauts to get the broader industry to reverse course. It also became a lot cheaper to do a tech startup.
Basically, understand that a lot of what is enjoyable today about working in tech is a side-effect of supply-and-demand; they HAVE to avoid developer-hostile actions because we're difficult to hire and expensive to employ. Once that's no longer the case, the screws are going to tighten. Just look at China's 9-9-6 work policies and companies using chat tools to spy on their employees to keep them working as a point of reference.
> As an engineer you don't make those decisions, you just implement them.
I'd like to think we have enough integrity as a profession to fall back on an Eichmann-adjacent justification.
It the job market for developers only came crashing down if you didn’t have the skillset needed and/or were looking for a job at one of the $cool_unprofitable_startups. There was plenty of demand for your regular old corporate developers. The company I was working for didn’t even blink during the dot com bust. We were a boring old profitable company that did bill processors. I’ve been in the industry for 20 years and have never found it difficult to find a job.
I haven't found this to be the case at all. I know many people who jump companies every 3 years or so, make more money each time they change, get to work on a variety of projects that interest them, and are well respected by their peers regardless of what company they are with due to the work they have done and continue to do. It is relatively common advice that you are generally able to advance faster by moving between companies and negotiating for better pay and titles rather than trying to get promoted frequently while staying with the same company. If you decide to take a position where you will be doing dull, dead end work with "dumb" people that is your own fault.
Just as a counterexample, my job changes early in my career netted me raises of sometimes 50% but each subsequent one increased less on a percentage basis. My last job change (now have 20 years experience) was +0%, and I give even odds that it will turn negative soon as I get older.
EDIT: changed "ringer" to "wringer".
Sorry for being annoying and pedantic :-(
Ringer[1] 1. a person or thing that encircles, rings, etc. 2. a quoit or horseshoe so thrown as to encircle the peg. 3. the throw itself. 4. Also ring·ers. Also called ring taw. Marbles . a game in which players place marbles in a cross marked in the center of a circle, the object being to knock as many marbles as possible outside the circle by using another marble shooter. 5. Australian . a highly skilled sheep shearer.
But wouldn't it be excellent if these things were true?
If a company screws something up, I can just switch jobs and move to another company. If the government screws up, there is little I can do.
See: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/08/finlands-government-resigns-...
"Financial constraints are colliding with the healthcare costs imposed by Finland’s fast-aging population. But cutting those costs is a major political obstacle in a Nordic country that historically has provided an extensive -- and expensive -- healthcare system."
As a fellow tech worker who have been through the wringer many times, I can confirm this is absolutely true.
What happens when you can't take care of yourself? What happens when a series of unfortunate events interfere with your ability to dig those holes? Who then will be responsible for you?
You mentioned you have a problem with socialism, have you experienced and lived in socialism? I haven't and have no actual experience of what is good or bad about it. Do you have any concrete examples of why socialism is bad?
These things are not diametrically opposed.
A union doesn't imply anything other than collective bargaining. Maybe having a union would prevent things like Disney firing a bunch of full time employees after they retrain contractor replacements. This type of nonsense is driving down wages for the entire middle class of workers.
I feel that is a very myopic attitude. Engineers and tech workers generally are in the best position to present options that can inform business decisions. In order to identify a good option it helps to have a lot of options. Disregarding the positive input that any employee can have on how a company operates is incredibly stupid.
1. assessment training and rank. my sister is in a union and has been train and qualified for specific kinds of work. she does this work for many clients and the chance that they are getting the skills they need and she has those skills are very high. she can also call in others from the union if needed and the union handles negotiations of changed whatever.
2. unions handles her seniority. she can work for several different companies a year, but time off and other benefits come from time in union not those companies.
There is a lot of other things about her union I do not like, but my biggest problems in tech are finding or developing the right talent (including my own) and constant loss of seniority (pto, retirement, and other benefits). I lost a lot of both early in my career because I didn't negotiate well.
If a union existed that helped protect my interests, develop my talents, and match my skills with work I would join it. If they were good at training/vetting their members (apprentice, journeyman, whatever) in whatever skill set they learned that would benefit both employee and employer. Might help with imposter syndrome. Might help both sides with many issues if done right.
Don't you want more out of the roles in your career? I want to work at a place that wants my best self, ideas, opinions and all. I don't want my only career options to be a paid typist or an entrepreneur.
As tech workers, we are uniquely positioned within society: we have privileged knowledge of how the most powerful systems and products of the age function and we are incredibly close to the control surfaces of the major pillars of the economy. We are in demand, paid well, and generally well-educated. We have the ability to make a difference in the world in ways that very few people do. This is why organization is important.
They're in a union
As a recent graduate (last 5 years), I can't agree with most works desire to unionize for one reason: demand for your skills.
When I was looking for my second tech job, I turned on that switch in my LinkedIn that lets recruiters contact me. I was immediately inundated with 10-20 messages a day from recruiters asking if I could speak with them about <Role with my expertice>. For me this was the most insane luxury in the workplace, instead of having to go out and look for jobs, those jobs were coming to me and knocking on my door.
What I took from that is tech workers have an incredible choice in where they can go work because their skills are highly in-demand. So why unionize? Don't like where you work? Flip a switch and suddenly you have 10-20 offers a day from other companies looking to hire someone with your skillset. Yes, you have to spend time combing through the messages, on the phone with recruiters and going to interviews but at the end of the day with that level of attention to your skillset, you can basically decide where you want to work. Company A seems great but the culture is toxic, ok great let's see what company B has to offer. Company B has a good culture but their data collection practices you don't agree with, ok let's see what company C has to offer. Company C has a great culture and doesn't do the things you consider unethical with data collection, bam we have a winner.
Also on the topic of general democracy in the workplace regarding decisions. As an engineer you don't make those decisions, you just implement them. Don't like the decisions, go somewhere else. Want more/total control over decision making? Start your own company.