Tech Sector Isn’t Stable Anymore

The only way to survive the AI job apocalypse is to start a small farm and raise some chickens

In the time of the Dinosaurs (late ’90s), I was in my senior year of high school. I originally wanted to be a child psychologist. As luck would have it, I had psychology and a basic programming class as electives that year.

The psychology class was first, and I realized psychology was more of a speculative art. Maybe there’s more hard data now, but back then… well, I didn’t feel comfortable with how unscientific it felt. I worried I would end up making someone more messed up than helping them.

As for the programming class, I already had my hands on computers for some years—not programming them, but assembling them and setting up the OS. I had a knack for finding the right drivers. Once I started the programming class, I found I was like a duck to water. Except I wasn’t really a duck. And don’t put your computer in water.

Layer on top of that the odd fact that my mother gave me subscriptions to Time magazine and Popular Science, and I was able to extrapolate that in the future:

1. The Chinese would be taking over the world.
2. Tech jobs would be the new blue-collar career.

As I felt very certain about tech jobs becoming the next blue-collar career, I thought I might as well get ahead of the curve.

I am very sad to see both my speculations becoming reality.

Why I Used to Push Tech Degrees

Back when I worked at a community college managing the campus website (and other duties as assigned). Any time I talked to a young person starting their higher education journey I suggested Computer Science for the money and the job security. I quoted the data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics to show it was a solid career choice and I would show them average salary reports.

Even if the person was not interested in tech, I thought, ‘Most people don’t like what they do anyway, so why not at least get paid good money while being miserable?’

The Tech Job Market Imploded

But in the last few years, the headlines have been a horror show:

• New Computer Science grads can’t find jobs.
• There’s a flood of CS degrees clogging the pipeline.
• Layoffs at the big players (Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter—yes, I know it’s X).
• Even the Federal Government laid off remote tech workers.

What a wonderful mix of depressing facts to make a tech employee with hopes of finding work feel like they would be better off digging a hole, jumping in, and covering themselves up. I know I have.

And let’s not forget that AI is now being used to do entry-level coding work. Why would a company hire a human being who needs to be trained when they can just have a senior dev train the AI to do the work of a junior dev? For now, the AI doesn’t need health insurance or to be paid overtime. Can you hear those dollar signs going cha-ching?

But if I follow that line of thinking—AI taking all the entry-level dev work—who will be the next crop of senior devs when today’s seniors retire?

As someone who’s had the luck to work under senior devs and within a larger IT environment, I can see how much that experience shaped my understanding of proper programming and network standards. I’ve worked with junior devs who didn’t have that kind of mentorship, and it showed in the backend security mistakes they made. Not because they were clueless—just because they were navigating blind.

The Framework Rat Race

I have one more thing to bitch about, but this will be the last one.

When I started back in the year 2000, there was HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and for a moment, there was Macromedia Flash.

But now we have frameworks. CSS frameworks, JavaScript frameworks, ecosystems of frameworks. The frameworks make building complex websites easier, they said. But then your app is tied to a framework you didn’t build. That framework gets updated with new features. But that means you need to update your site to incorporate the updated framework. Do you bite the bullet now or later? A bullet will need to be bitten.

Sometimes these frameworks can change wildly from one version to next. Porting to the new version is going to take longer than expected. The bullets need to be bitten.

Did I mention there are several frameworks to choose from? Constantly going in and out of favor. Did you learn the most recent one that’s in vogue so you’re ahead of the curve and can land the currently open jobs?

Or did you end up in a job where the tech stack was simple and you touched only a few frameworks—some of which no one uses now? You may have years of front-end and back-end development experience, but none with the desired framework.

If you take the time to learn a framework now, you’re stuck looking for jobs tied to that one framework, with no real-world experience except for portfolio projects.

But you can’t get experience in said framework unless you can get a job or a client.

The old catch-22.

I’m not preaching that frameworks are bad. Every decision made in app development ties you to something. You get tied to a coding language, the database server, even the server’s operating system.

Somehow the framework issue feels more severe. I’m old enough to have seen my share of frameworks come and go—and it’s only getting worse. It’s cute when you’re young, single or childless, and full of energy. Back then, the shiny new tech toys felt like challenges to crush.

But when you’re older, with responsibilities to others, all these new tools feel like going down the same damn road you’ve gone down a hundred times before. Is this really making development better? Faster? Or just making the ones in charge feel like the cool kids at school?

Ok. Final point to bitch about: looking at job listings and seeing what employers require from applicants. They read like a wishlist for a super-developer rainbow unicorn sparkle ninja assassin.

Anyone who can fulfill all those requirements is better off starting their own business, building an app, and keeping all the profit for themselves.

Which, frankly, might be what all of us “aged-out” tech people should do.

Napping Bird and the Midlife Tech Crisis

I’m just going to go work on the next Flappy Bird game for my age group. I’m going to call it Napping Bird, and the goal is to nap in as many beds as you can without a child or pet waking you up. Don’t steal my idea—I thought of it first.

TL;DR

If you love tech and want to get a computer science degree, I won’t stop you. But don’t pick a degree just for the money. Do whatever floats your boat. We’re all going to be techno peasants anyway.