Any idea why no one is leaving tech?
During the dotcom bust plenty of my coworkers (at various companies) left tech entirely. Law school, dental school, nursing, etc. In total, maybe 40% of the people I ever worked with left. The percentage was substantially higher for certain job roles. e.g. probably closer to 80% for QAs & DBAs. Now, what's interesting about the current downturn is that I have yet to see a single post on Blind from someone leaving tech. Plenty of people complain about how much it sucks being a swe/pm or how hard it is to find a job in tech. And plenty people recommending leaving tech but no one who's actually come out and done it. I also see a lot more hate for tech jobs/companies now than in the previous downturns. So what's going on?. Is it that those who've left never post on Blind again?. Or that jobs in other industries suck more these days?.
I think it’s harder to switch industries nowadays since everyone wants some one that is plug and play. Also in startup land I know a TON of people opting into entrepreneurship
I think there’s probably lots, they just don’t talk about it here. Once you leave tech you’re probably done with Blind. My guess is tech people are more likely to switch careers than for example doctors who have invested so much in their education etc.
Did Blind exist during the dotcom bust?
No it didn’t exist during the dotcom bust. Didn’t the iPhone only come out in 2007?
Golden handcuffs + its not that easy to just change industries on a dime like that
This^
With what money are people supposed to use to leave? All those schools you mention at the beginning of the post cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. That's money that laid off people do not have.
Student loans. Grad school tuition has totally gotten out of hand these days though so maybe switching careers is just unaffordable.
@cj8 it actually has the opposite effect in my experience. People will switch jobs out of necessity (to pay back those loans). It's been studied and I have seen it first hand. It happened to many of my classmates.
I know of a guy who made more money selling magazines subscriptions than he ever did working in tech.
Leaving is just wishful thinking, same people are thinking of going back to India but will never do because they know how good they have it here.
Cause people are balls deep in it and don't know anything better 😌
I don't think we're near dotcom levels of pain yet. Also, tech job TC got absolutely nuts during the pandemic, and the highest paying companies are the ones I think with the most layoffs right now... If you were making 250-500k to work from home, sit at a desk in meetings, and write code, it's going to be a tough sell to go back to school for ten years to operate on brains to get the same money.
100%. People in tech are wayyyyy too locked in on working in cushy, comfortable jobs making absurd TCs to do anything else lol
Schooling is much more expensive nowadays
I see it often on Reddit