I was an dropout studying Economics who made the transition into data science / data analysis fairly smoothly. I'd recommend doing so. Many programmers are jealous of quantitative analysts' salaries inside tech companies.

EDIT: I guess I should add I really did not care for the work and stopped after 2-3 years to start my own company. I do a lot of the same work today, but as the Founder, I obviously control the company and my workload.

I think it's worth noting that there's a lot more to it than just the money. Sure, data scientists make more than I do as an engineer, but I would feel absolutely fucking miserable doing the job of a data scientist every day.

In fact, I was :) Check my bio.

But if the OP is really distraught about making money in tech, they will find their economics background of use.

Reminds me of a controversy at my University. They were advertising a new English professor position, starting salary $37k. They also had an opening for an economics professor position starting salary $85k.

My economics professor addressed the reason for the difference in class very simply. He noted there were over 350 applicants for the English prof position. Only 3 people applied for the economics position.

So if anything, $37k was too high for English and $85k was not nearly enough for econ.

I'm a software engineer and I wrestled with this for a long time too. It seemed bizarre that we should be getting paid what we do and I had an intense experience of being an imposter. Eventually it clicked with me that the work I'm doing directly affects millions of people on a daily basis, or it affects a smaller number of people in a big way that's unique and hard to reproduce. Viewed from that angle, it makes a lot more sense I think.

That's a nice justification. But it doesn't really have much affect on your salary. It's simply that there is a lot of demand for software engineers of a certain skill level and not a ton of supply.

The moment your same exact job can be replaced by a worker willing to do it for less is the moment salaries start to fall.

What originally led you to believe that an economics degree would result in well-paying jobs?

Seems ironic to me that the study of wealth production, consumption, and transfer wouldn't lead to making money.

Doesn't seem ironic to me. It's easier to be the play by play guy/sports analyst than to get into the field/cage/arena/whatever and make something happen.

If economists actually understood the economy, they wouldn’t be economists, they’d be billionaires.

I have a degree in Econ and its worked out wonderfully. It's really YMMV

Your not the only one. MBA majors have it just as hard if not harder.

For the majority of professional jobs out there, there's a vast oversupply of labor, and thus the unemployment rate for professionals is much higher than the overall unemployment rate would suggest.

Software engineering is one of the few areas where there some semblance of balance between supply and demand. But, this too will eventually go away. There's nothing that's stopping the supply of Software engineers from growing. Indeed, the Stack overflow surveys suggest there's a huge wave of junior SEs joining the industry. I predict in 15 years, SEs will be in such high oversupply that they will no longer have an advantage in the market place.

I understand and support your frustration, but what exactly makes it unfair? The two have little in common. Computer engineers aren't taking your jobs.

Maybe this will cheer you up: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/20/business/liberal-arts-ste...

A feel-good piece at best, misleading at worst.

I pretty much agree but there is this line "By age 40, the average salary of all male college graduates was $111,870, and social science and history majors earned $131,154 — an average that is lifted, in part, by high-paying jobs in management, business and law." So the GP's prospects are probably better than they look to them right now.

If you really set your mind to it (and you've got the right capabilities), you should still be able to roll into a software engineering job. There's plenty of online resources available to teach yourself software development. There are plenty of companies willing to take on junior developers. Build up a small portfolio of software on Github for potential employers to see and you should be able to get a start as software developer.

Of course you likely won't have great pay from the start, but keep doing work for a few years and keep improving your skills and you should be fine.

I've been very fortunate to grow up in Seattle, one of the fastest growing cities in the US.

My friends have geology and psychology degrees working in technology companies making $130 - $180k/year as non-developers.

Geology? What does that person do in a tech company?

Business development, it turns out a degree isn't very important in succeeding in a technology company.

Why be jealous when you could just learn software engineering? I also majored in econ, and now work as a sort of hybrid SDE/Data scientist. I mean it's not easy to learn, but it's better than being bitter.

my degree is in economics and 8 years ago I taught myself iOS Engineering and since then I've been a professional software engineer.

Don't let your degree stop you from doing what you want, the resources are all there.

My degree is in Econ and I work as a software engineer.

> I studied economics because I wanted a job that pays well

How did you ever make that connection? Have economists ever been paid well?

Why do you think it seems a bit unfair?

I too studied economics. My company has benefited from that knowledge gained

Check out Lambda School

Unfair? There is no unfair in the real world. You made a bad investment and are now reaping the results of your poor judgement. It’s perfectly fair. You want to make money? Stop blaming the world for not giving you what you want and learn how to give the world what it wants. Computer engineers are paid well because they develop systems that can turn $1 into $2. You could learn a lot from that.