I am bullish for software developers. Since 2001 I have not been fired or laid off. I have been able to get a job within 4 weeks the whole time. (Probably 1 week if not fussy and just need money). Software is still eating the world, it just might have a bit of constipation during this period.

Developers can save companies money - handy in a recession. Developers can sell their skills globally (that has negatives too though...). And if a software company is still running it needs developers to fix the bugs, support the system.

I sure hope so because I'm out here reading Stroustrup and CLRS to start a career at 30. But it really seems like there's a glut of tech companies with investment capital paying people 300k to make apps for stuff that's trivial. Juicero tier stuff, all over the place. I worry it will collapse and SWE is gonna be your run of the mill 45k job from then on.

>> But it really seems like there's a glut of tech companies with investment capital paying people 300k to make apps for stuff that's trivial.

I work for one of the largest health care companies in the world. In the US, there are only three or four major health care companies and they're all massive. My company has repeatedly said its too big to move as fast as smaller startups who are coming in and disrupting one niche of the entire market.

For example, we have something like 4-5 different billing systems, none of which are able to talk to each other. They're monolithic, they're 10 years past what you would consider "legacy" software. So in comes all these companies building billing apps for health care companies. My company? We can't compete, so we're constantly buying other companies, and integrating their tech into our company.

Today in Health Care, startups with good ideas and good products? They're not lasting and are being bought up at a record pace. My company? Bought 15 companies last quarter, we're on pace to buy more this quarter. So instead of creating and building this tech in-house? They're just buying up these smaller startups and using their technology instead.

My advice? Build a decent product/app/platform for a niche area in Health Care and you'd be surprised how fast one of these companies will be knocking on your door.

If I have no involvement or experience in Health Care, how do I identify a niche where such a product will be helpful?

I'd take one of these issues and start doing some research.

https://www.medifind.com/news/post/problems-us-healthcare-sy...

Then start researching that particular topic. Take something like Healthcare Billing, and all the issues with it:

https://www.collaboratemd.com/blog/the-top-10-challenges-ass...

Then you take one of those issues and see if you can find a problem worth fixing. Develop a program or application around solving that particular problem. I'd also start looking at attending healthcare conferences and focusing on that issue and going to see what industry people are complaining about and see if you can get more insight from them. Start networking with people at the conferences.

It wouldn't take long to get an inside track through networking and research to find a niche where you can build something that will really get a companies attention.

I don't think so.. good software engineers are still somewhat rare and you need good ones to not blow up your code base once it reaches a certain size/complexity. Any high school kid can make a website, but if you want your app to grow for 3 or more years, it has to be built well-ish.

Good devs are only really needed by good companies. Majority of companies are not FAANG. Everyone else will take whatever trash they can find and those companies will probably pursue downward pricing pressure.

You could apply for jobs in businesses that are not affected by economic vagaries, or government jobs, or jobs at counter-cyclical businesses like debt collection.

Then don't work for juicero