alt Hacker NewsReality is not particularly rosy for new graduates AFAIK. If I lose my job, I wouldn't be super surprised that I might never get a similar job for the rest of my life -- it is not that I do not have the skills, but 1) the amount of time for a laid off SDE to get a new job could reach to years, not months, so I need to do something else to earn $$$, and 2) why are companies going to hire me, who have gap years and are older, but not some fresh graduates who can work 80 hours per week and only demand half of the salary?
And yes I believe this time it's going to be different. I believe that if the economy dumps again, we are really going to see more hot wars. It is different from 2001, and different from 2008. We have kicked the can for almost 20 years and I kudos the policy makers who managed to achieve this.
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> but not some fresh graduates who can work 80 hours per week and only demand half of the salary
Cause garbage in, gets garbage out. With AI models being all the more rage in the coming years, unexperienced hires will prove many times more costly. (10x garbage with agents).
So companies are going to concentrate their worker base even more with experienced folks. They need fewer of them. Yes. But quality matters more than ever.
I really feel bad for the new graduates. For no fault of their own, the bar went up so high. Unless they’re a child prodigy doing some coding projects on the side since the age of 10 - no one will hire them. So how will they ever gain the experience they need?
Maybe, just maybe, we’ll see a reinvention of coding schools - that will now focus on fundamental and industry knowledge - imparted by other veterans, instead of teaching applied skills.
I saw this coming way before AI became a thing around 2016 when I was 42. Software development was becoming a commodity where there were plenty of “good enough” developers where no matter what, it was going to be saturated.
If someone is trying to sell themselves as an undifferentiated developer in 2025 or later, it’s going to be an uphill battle unless you can lean on your network.
At 51, if my only differentiator is I can code, I’ve done something horribly wrong in my life.
Anecdotally, I found software development adjacent roles quickly when I was looking both last year and the year before.
Your competition isn’t new grads. It’s experienced engineers in other countries who will work for half your wage in your own city on an H1B or similar.
>Reality is not particularly rosy for new graduates AFAIK
I looked at the statistics[1], and while you could argue new graduates have seen worse (recent grad unemployment is actually lower than much of the 2010s), you can also see that in contrast to previous periods where new grad unemployment is lower than all worker unemployment, this time around new grad unemployment is actually slightly higher. However if you look at the chart this wasn't a post pandemic phenomena. The gap has been closing since the back half of the 2010s, and doesn't show much of a spike after the release of chatgpt, so "AI" isn't a good explanation either.
[1] https://www.newyorkfed.org/research/college-labor-market
“The rest of my life” is a very long horizon for making predictions. I don’t think I could predict much about politics or the economy two years out.
I have heard that story every few years for the last 30. I know when it is your personal situation things are hard, but your story is nothing new and people recover. Some get back into whatever their degree was, others start a new career and never do. this will happen again.