State of the Market

[wettowel]

Someone already has:

https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerH...e_programmers/

this is pure gold. Next time I get rejected I will send them that!

[andromedan]

Ive been looking for the past 6 months, had an interview recently for an outside IR35 role for a large company which I failed. On what? On the basis of my lack of experience with Kubernetes. I don’t even know what the thing is!

The role was for a lead FE guy. And they desperately need one because their website is not responsive AT ALL. Like, it only works on desktop and it does so poorly.

But hey, who am I to tell them that. Kubernetes FTW! I hope they find their Kubernetes guy and he fixes their website.

I'm sure knowing Kubernetes is the one-stop solution to all your frontend problems. Jokes aside, that shows how an unregulated market works. And even in the London or the UK market, you can see how many different expectations companies have for the same job title or position.

I get that we are not bum in the seats and we are expected to bring more on the table, and it is what it is, but you can't be upscaling like crazy until you die because every company asks any technology under the wind, and frankly if you are a man one army you can open your own startup.


My post might sound like I'm a loser complaining, but sometimes we need to have a reality check. However, when I see similar posts from other developers on Twitter, followed by comments like 'skills issue,' underneath them from other devs it can make me question my career choices.

[SchumiStars]

I'm a highly qualified, Oxbridge grad living in London. I am SC and more than capable of working with C#, Java, SQL, Kafa, React, Typescript and most languages including EPIServer.

Number of phone calls this week from agencies, less than 5. Number of applications per day 100+

Lucky for me, I like going to the gym, cycling and running so have plenty of time for hobbies.

I would suggest anyone facing a difficult market, like me, find something to do with your time. I have recently applied to a local college to study a new language just to keep the grey matter ticking over.

[agentzero]

I'm a highly qualified, Oxbridge grad living in London.
<snip>

Why do you think whatever you did 10, 20, 30, 40 years ago matters?

When I interview people like you, who drop in the Oxbridge-Cambridge reference, I continue to stare straight in to your eyes and wonder what's really going in there that makes you think whatever you done at university an era ago matters.

Pure entitlement.

[andromedan]

I'm a highly qualified, Oxbridge grad living in London. I am SC and more than capable of working with C#, Java, SQL, Kafa, React, Typescript and most languages including EPIServer.

Number of phone calls this week from agencies, less than 5. Number of applications per day 100+

Lucky for me, I like going to the gym, cycling and running so have plenty of time for hobbies.

I would suggest anyone facing a difficult market, like me, find something to do with your time. I have recently applied to a local college to study a new language just to keep the grey matter ticking over.

I would assume the SC market will be better. May I ask how long it usually takes you to find a contract?

[Fraidycat]

Why do you think whatever you did 10, 20, 30, 40 years ago matters?

The fundamentals of computing don't change much.
In the first week of my computing degree in 1990 we learnt functional programming.
It wasn't until 2015 that i first used that stuff in real a job.
We also spent a few months learning algorithms and data structures so it was nice to have a grounding in that as well, i still get asked how to implement a HashMap even this year in an interview. Something i learnt over 30 years ago.

[jamesbrown]

Why do you think whatever you did 10, 20, 30, 40 years ago matters?

When I interview people like you, who drop in the Oxbridge-Cambridge reference, I continue to stare straight in to your eyes and wonder what's really going in there that makes you think whatever you done at university an era ago matters.

Pure entitlement.

Alternative take: what you did decades ago is a point on a timeline that indicates aptitude overall, so definitely not irrelevant. Sure, it’s more directly relevant in the years immediately after graduation, but that in turn puts your career on a trajectory. Aptitude doesn’t simply disappear and, like it or not, a top degree from a top university still opens doors. The idea that it’s “entitlement” to provide this context says more about you than the poster. A mediocre career built on a mediocre degree, perhaps.

[tsmith]

Ha yes spot on. I was in early too. Actually pre internet as a dev Asymetrix Toolbox and Macromedia Director late 1990s

I would summarise software in 90%+ of places in 20 years - building skyscrapers with spaghetti. Its actually a very weird industry. Not like any other I can think of.

Closest thing Ive ever seen outside of digital is that RAAC concrete scandal.

"Reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC) is a lightweight material that was used mostly in flat roofing, but also in floors and walls, between the 1950s and 1990s.

It is a cheaper alternative to standard concrete, is quicker to produce and easier to install.

It is aerated, or "bubbly", like an Aero chocolate bar.

But it is less durable and has a lifespan of around 30 years.

Its structural behaviour differs significantly from traditional reinforced concrete."

I heard a stat once -that after 4 years its cheaper to rebuild a piece of software than try to maintain it. But who rebuilds their software every 4 years? Nobody. So in effect you will be almost guaranteed to be working on a 'legacy' platform.

A digital building built with digital RAAC that needs bulldozing but wont be - your job is to try and add more floors without it collapsing.

Best practise is virtually non existent. This is one of the best talks on software by Jason Fried founder of 37 Signals

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V60eFB3l3Ho

"Version 1 is good, Version 3 or 4 might be the best ever version, but after that software quickly devolves and turns into this (points to Homer Simpsons car)".

Good software looks like a museum. Bad software looks like a warehouse. Ive never seen a metaphorical museum in 25 years. Plenty of warehouses though.

Theres a Tech Lead youtube video. Basically said IT people have lost their rockstar status and will be destined to be a commodity the same as a typical tradesperson. Ironically Plumbers are charging more per hour than my peak ever contract earnings.

https://www.computerworld.com/articl...fice-jobs.html

“If IBM is pausing 7,800 jobs that AI could do, it would be a good move for the company, as I wouldn’t think it was a good strategy to hire positions that could have been easily done by AI and automation in the first place,” said Lily Phan, research director at IDC.

But then take SAAS for example. Huge projected growth in revenues. But who is classified as a SAAS? Is Amazon.com (its obviously ecom but its actually a marketplace platform of 3rd party sellers apart from Amazons own brand stuff) and AWS is a misture of IAAS, PAAS and SAAS but classified as SAAS in these figures?

How will this revenue be distributed and How many jobs will this create?

The global software as a service (SaaS) market size is projected to hit around USD 1,016.44 billion by 2032 from USD 276.11 billion in 2022

I can chime in, as a front-end developer.

I've been doing this since early 2004, and I remember the days of Macromedia Dreamweaver and Flash. That's how old I am.

And while progress and learning is a part of the trade and I accept that, the job ads are completely detached from reality and anybody who thinks a person can master all of those things at once is delusional.

My primary experience is front-end development, with a very strong understanding of HTML, CSS cascade, accessibility and UX.

I've used pretty much every framework out there, starting with jQuery, Prototype, Mootools (remember those?), then Angular 1, Knockout.js, Backbone, finally React and Vue.

Same for the CSS realm - I am one of the very few dinosaurs that actually *understand* how CSS works, but I also appreciate the beauty of CSS-in-JS and CSS frameworks, so yes, I've worked with Skeleton, Bulma, Bootstrap, Foundation, styled components, CSS modules, LESS, SASS, SCSS, PostCSS, Tailwind, Tailwind frameworks (Flowbite, Daisy UI) etc.

Back in 2004 there was no such thing as front-end or back-end - everything was "full-stack". That is, I had to write PHP and SQL code to save something to the database. But those days are gone, and with the amount of free and commercial open-source headless software, there is no need to do that, unless you're working as a part of a team DEVELOPING one of those products.

These days, if I want to do a full-stack, I'm going to use Next.js or Nuxt with a headless CMS for CRUD and perhaps Prisma for something more tailored, but the truth is, I don't know much about security, database optimisation, or infrastructure management. And anyone expecting me to master these areas is hallucinating.

Sure, I can write an API in Node, express or Next.js, which reads and writes to the DB, I can also put together a cohesive app from the myriad of open-source modules, and it won't even fall apart, but would I consider myself a full-stack cloud engineer (is that the correct term?)?. No way. There are too many things that can go wrong and too many things to master. I strive to deliver quality - and I am very good at what I do, and I don't want to compromise my quality output by dabbling a bit in everything.

I would also personally NEVER hire such jack of all trades, because I know that corners would have to be cut. If the guy were more back-end leaning, he'd probably write me a good API, but what about UI? Can he do accessibility? Does he really truly understand how to make a responsive website? Such that actually works flawlessly across all the devices? Or do they have enough attention to detail and creative flair to ensure that everything is pixel perfect and spacing is even across the app? What about state management? Is he going to just dump an entire JSON response into the state? Or how about the other way around - the UI-focused JS guy - how is he going handle authentication or database management? Is it going to be efficient? Not to mention the infrastructure.

I never wanted to manage Linux machines, I never had any interest in infrastructure or strongly typed languages. I adopted TDD, TypeScript, etc., and am quite proficient at them, but truth be told all those new tools are just tools and mastering them is difficult, mostly due to the cognitive overload and lack of time.

And virtually ALL of the projects I've been a part of - and mind you, those were some of the larger household names in the UK - sucked! Despite having 90% test coverage, bugs were slipping into production through the QA, fonts were missing, elements were misaligned or obscured, menus didn't work, console was full of errors, you name it. What's the point of asking for all those NASA engineering skills, if your team can't deliver a simple button component?

First things first, technology is just a tool, a means to an end. As a business owner, I would go mad, trying to launch a product ASAP only to find out that the $$$ is spent on writing more unit tests or hiring AWS "managers". Of course, writing good quality software and following best practices is important, but above all, software should be RELEASED and USED. If I'm spending more time fiddling with the AWS configuration or fighting TypeScript compiler than releasing software, I am not going to make money. I can't believe businesses don't understand it.

Call me bitter, but this is very frustrating.

The market is dead, the unicorn developers don't exist, and those who say they've mastered it all, are blatantly lying.
The companies don't know who they're looking for, recruitment agents are clueless and can't even read my CV.
And above all, it's really devastating, that after pouring my heart into this and learning all those years, gathering experience and being a part of the biggest delivery teams my skillset is worthless and I am struggling to find a job. It's heartbreaking, especially considering that the job is very mentally draining. I've invested 20 years in web software development and all of a sudden, my skills are no longer relevant. Imagine if this happened to a carpenter or a floor fitter.

[Fraidycat]

I would summarise software in 90%+ of places in 20 years - building skyscrapers with spaghetti. Its actually a very weird industry. Not like any other I can think of.

Software is virtual, you cant touch it so it never wears out like stuff in the real world. This allows the builders of software to get away with very shoddy work.

[Snooky]

Why do you think whatever you did 10, 20, 30, 40 years ago matters?

Plenty of companies insist on a Computing / STEM degree for IT dev roles, so I suggest that what you did 10, 20, 30, 40 years ago definitely can matter. Whether the degree you attained 30+ years ago, if any, has any bearing at all on your ability to do the work, is another issue entirely. Yet still they ask for it.