Based on this, I suspect it's highly likely the hubris in this comment will not age well.
I snapped off my sunglasses and, trying to contain my annoyance, said, "Guys, I solve problems and create systems."
After a long moment of silence, they looked at each other and nodded in approval. The boss reached out his hand to shake mine. I was hired.
https://media.tenor.com/L0RMEbQrLXwAAAAM/meme-sunglasses.gif
2) No idea. My Indian contractor coworkers never seemed to care. It's the H1Bs that panic during a layoff (understandably).
3) I don't think it will, that's why I get mine while the gettin' is good and hopefully have enough to not worry about the future whenever the FAANGs finally succeed at driving wages into the ground. However, given there are nearly 4 jobs for every engineer currently in the field according to the BLS I'm not worried at all about the next decade. I'll just continue to stack cash and re-evaluate every once in a while.
But > you can throw and rock and find another seat to warm the next day
Ummm, nope, not everyone's resume is pristine or has a portfolio to share. Lots of immensely talented people are at companies far outside Silicon Valley, both the place and the spirit. Not everyone can point to some app or site for public consumption, lots of work is on internal tools or programs or DevOps that no outsider sees or knows about, or is protected by all kinds of non-disclosure and IP restrictions. Some great people have an awful boss who would never provide a recommendation. There's a million reasons why getting a new job can be hard, be grateful that it appears easy from your perspective but recognize many, many extremely capable and talented people aren't in the same situation.
... In the US.
This feels like those addenda where medical trials keep on showing some clinical effect and people in the comments have to add, some clinical effect... in mice.
The US software landscape is shaped by a unique VC landscape that has not been reproduced anywhere else in the world.
If you have lived through the dot com bubble or the 2008 sub-prime crisis you will also be aware that funding can dry up as quickly as it is thrown at you.
At the moment at least in Europe I still see a hot market for contracting roles but for permanent roles it is in no way what you describe of 'find another warm seat the next day'.
You seem to ignore both the trend shifts in factory jobs and software jobs. Factory workers once had exactly the same status as you describe here:
> 99% of these people will be able to take two weeks of free time and find another job for the same (or often better) pay
Also, software engineers (at the big scale) are slowly but steadily loosing the glorious position in the workforce market they once had.
And as fast as companies hire (which people celebrate), companies can quickly layoff too (which we lament).
So just as it is normalized to do fast-hiring, such is the case for fast-layoffs/firings.
Not to sound crass here but it seems like you're fishing for virtue. Hiring and firing are normal. A company of 20,000 firing 20% of it's workforce sounds major but that's the industry. It's normalized because it is normal. The field of software engineering is so fungible 20% of employees losing their job is nearly meaningless in the current job market because you can throw and rock and find another seat to warm the next day. It's not like Ford closing a factory.
In other words, you need to relax and get out of your head a little. This industry is nothing like the factories. When 20% of factory workers lose their jobs everyone rightfully panics because it's not as easy to get another factory job (at least anymore...here in the west). 20% of tech employees getting laid off from a company is a nothingburger. 99% of these people will be able to take two weeks of free time and find another job for the same (or often better) pay. This is the definition of trivial.