TLDR: high interest rates, inflation, politics and ai will push our salaries down relative to inflation, and unions are a solution. SDEs are not prepare for the reckoning that is yet to happen. To be transparent here are some of the factors that will push sde labor cost low for us: 1) AI baby! I don’t think AI will replace any of us soon but it will make us more productive. Employers will increasingly hire less, and if they do they will be less skilled, thanks to the increase productivity of workers. It’s been proven that AI is a help for those in the lower skill distribution and less so for those in the higher end. 2) High interest rates! High evaluations for startups are and will keep crashing . This means that the high demand we’ve experienced for the past 10+ years will cool down. And this will translate into lower offers. These high rate will also have an impact on publicly traded companies making them less attractive compared to government debt. Some publicly traded companies will also have a hard time servicing their own debt. 3) Inflation is back. As we decouple from China, a lot of manufacturing will be moved to the US, this in turn will make organized low skill labor have more importance. Take a look at UPS salaries and UAW strike. This year tech companies didnt have raises but unions did. This trend will continue in the decades to come. 4) Politics. Trump force a conflict with China by putting tariffs on their goods. Biden has kept this up and brought farther fiscal spending to the table. Its now in the both parties interest to increase unions size and the two parties will fight for them. The US in the verge of civil war mainly due to decreasing standard of living for those in the noncollege educated section of the workforce. This trend will mean revert raising inflation with it. Furthermore, populists like Vivek have a view that increasing the talent pool for SDEs roles through lax educated immigration is good for companies, but the reality is that it will increase the supply of labor making those in the field less in demand. These past 10years have been great for us but the next 10years look deeply different to what we have seen. Post 2000s bubble is not the right analogy here due to structural and cultural factors. A move away from market drive/trickle down economy is underway. Tech has benefited from these Regan style policies. It has opened a door for many bright immigrants to come in. It has been an opportunity for those of us who wanted to move away from poverty. However, the party is over and we need to change our culture or we will be forced to so. It’s hard to change our ways more when we have benefited from the status quo. Please challenge me. Maybe i’ve missed something and i hope i’m wrong.
You don’t need a Union OP, you need to realize coding is more of an advanced trade than a viable career. Also AI is not going to take your jobs away, it will create more jobs than it replaces, just like computers or the internet did.
1) how does not needing a union relate to a “advance trade”? 2) I agree AI will create more jobs. Its just that we might not need deep programmers knowledge for it. Youtube didn’t create more programming jobs, but it created thousands of influencers.
You will still need that knowledge. AI will not take jobs it will just automate some tedious routine low hanging fruit aspect, freeing you up to do more valuable things.
Alright go create one. 👍🏻
5) protect jobs from being taken away by ppl from other countries. Hire citizens only and first
I can see us taking pay cuts for the altruism of free open immigration for those with the education
lol no, I join union to raise my pay, not taking pay cut
Do unions provide a way for performance based pay instead of number of years?
we can do whatever we want. It should follow a democratic process so if the majority wants that we should do it that way.
I’m sure there is a way to do that within a union. A union Can advocate for standards and practices that are reflective of higher payer without taking into yoe.
Look at Labor Notes for resources, and check out NYT Tech workers union for ideas. It’s not a bad idea, and definitely something to investigate.
People who think ai can replace tech jobs in the next 10 years don’t understand ai. It will take a full rebuild of a system from the ground up to be ai manageable. You can’t just incorporate ai into existing infra to develop new features.
I don’t think we will be automated. Just more productive. If you haven’t used copilot you are missing out. From auditing software to adding features, the engineering development will become streamlined. ChatGPT can already generate really good code and I’m sure Copilot team is working on making a great product. Google is probably working is something as or more kick ass. This will translate into less developers per product, and thus less demand for developers. Support, devops, communications and even product design are about to get disrupted.
Microsoft you're completely correct However SWEs will never unionized properly because their egos are far too large and empathy far too low If you have the heart in you to do so, do political organizing and help other unions. Join a socialist party/org if you're into that Help others if you can't help your own
In tech it will likely never happen, except for small niche companies or portions of a big company. And even Big Tech knows it. You can blame outsourcing. Congress has made it impossible for US Tech to unionize and they keep making it worse. the H1B fraud alone shows how abusive the system has become. American tech workers are so easy to replace, big tech ceo's don't even try to hide it anymore. There are some US tech companies that have more foreign workers than they do American workers.
I keep seeing Microsoft folks post about unions. Y’all should unionize!
Is there even a software guild?
do not think so