The looming threat to the average programmer.
Let’s face it. Unless you are talented enough for Google to hire you, you are probably limited to developing APIs, websites, or customizing an ERP-like business system.
If toiling day after day, adding mundane features to boring systems isn’t enough for you, you have the added task of keeping up with the frameworks and tools that will evolve with or without you. It is easy to only focus on what you are working on without building new skills. But, should you do that, it will be much harder to find work when your job is rendered obsolete.
Chasing skills to remain economically viable is just the beginning of the trap. Coding tends to pay significantly higher than most jobs, making a move to a project management position or management position is often lateral in compensation.
It may be only a short while after switching jobs that the newness wears off, and that nice pay raise doesn’t feel like enough money to you anymore.
Should you decide that switching companies will make you happy, most other software development jobs are similar or even worse. It may be only a short while after switching jobs that the newness wears off, and that nice pay raise doesn’t feel like enough money to you anymore. Now you’ve exacerbated the situation.
Once you have switched jobs, yielding a nice salary increase, you will likely not find another job with the same pay level. You’ve probably grown accustomed to a comfortable lifestyle that requires a higher level of income.
You’ve acquired a mortgage, or perhaps an expensive apartment in your dream neighborhood. Maybe you’ve bought a nice car and wracked up a few credit cards. Now your 30% debt-to-income ratio is thousands of dollars higher than most of your fellow Americans’. Or maybe you married someone who grew accustomed to the perks of an above-average earning spouse.
Now your 30% debt-to-income ratio is thousands of dollars higher than most of your fellow Americans’.
You could start snowballing your debt payments, save a little money and take a different job with a lower salary. Would you be happy starting all over? You could continue business as usual, but would you keep up with the cultish trends of the trade enough to maintain the status quo?
If you do manage to skill up with your remaining time after long hours and tight deadlines, how long will it be before the powerful monopolies of the tech industry replace you (or at least most of you)? What happens when they figure out AI can do 80% of the heavy lifting?
Writing a program used to mean that you created something to change the world or at least a little piece of it. How long will the magic last while making the same tedious API calls or adding a new field to a web form? How long before your days in your home office run together and building another Raspberry Pi gadget isn’t satisfying?
How long before your days in your home office run together and building another Raspberry Pi gadget isn’t satisfying?
For billions of impoverished people finally connected to the interwebs, coding is the ticket to a good life, possibly even a “green card.” For many American computer science majors, it’s a fast track to a prison disguised as a passion.
There are a few simple yet elusive ways to prevent being trapped. But you can figure them out on your own, you problem solver, you!
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