Comment by meowzero | Hacker News Reader

Comment by meowzero | Hacker News Reader

I too graduated with a CS degree from a highly ranked technical University.

It was probably the worst time for recent graduate with a CS degree. You hear news of all jobs going to India. Nobody in the US was hiring developers. In fact, they were getting all laid off.

I had to scrape by taking odd jobs here and there. I worked as a short-order cook, made jewelry in a factory, worked at a UPS warehouse, etc. It felt hopeless and felt like I wasted money and time getting a CS degree.

Eventually I joined a tiny web-shop for super low pay. I was underpaid for many years afterwards. In 2006, I joined a "real company" but still was underpaid. I quickly left that company and started making more money elsewhere. I got nervous in 2008 since that recession came right when my career started to get good and stable. But I was safe, and it was smooth sailing.

My story has survivor bias. But it took a lot of hustling, grit, depression, etc. from 2001 to 2007. It can take a long time to get back on your feet, at least in my case.

This is part of the reason we are / were paid so much recently. Hardly any young people went into technology from dot-com until around 12 or so (unless they were passionate about it), precisely because everyone was telling kids that programming was so easily outsourced that you'll never make money at it.

There's a distinct dips in the number of 30-40 year olds in technology. There are plenty of older people, and there are now tons of younger people, but few in between. From age 20 to about 30, I was always the youngest person on my team. Now this is no longer the case, but those who are younger are 10+ years younger.

People today are amazed when I tell them I only made $10/hr in my first programming gig. People who graduated in the 90s were making $40-50k out of school and today it's not uncommon to get 70k+ in the mid-west. The early 00s were a different time.

$15/hr at mine, although if I include freelancing prior to that it's probably closer to $8. It's kind of nice. My floor is so incredibly low that the "scary times" don't look so scary.

CS was a contrarian career bet in the few years after dotcom; you didn't do it if you were listening to the wise old men and wanted a good paying job. Realizing that opportunity -- or, more commonly, doing what you wanted to and not worrying about the $, paid off incredibly well for those who took advantage from between 2004ish and today. I don't think fortunes will change for our cohort; there's still a huge dearth of principal engineers in pretty much every subarea of software engineering.

The enrollment surge also hasn't yet effected CS PhDs, because undergrad enrollment wasn't matched by a corresponding growth in phd enrollment. That might change in the next 5 years.

But the entry level positions seem extraordinarily competitive at the moment; I've never had this many qualified applicants (and that goes for before covid19 as well). The only saving grace is that more and more non-programming positions require some programming skills, and those folks seem to have a hard time recruiting/hiring.

I think it's true. Around 2010 is when CS got hot again.

A few years ago, we interviewed some new graduates. I couldn't believe how smart they were. They seemed a lot smarter than I was when I graduated. Heck, they seemed smarter than me right now. There are definitely a ton of highly qualified, recent grads these days.

I think the main thing we ( as in our generation of late 30's to 40's) have to worry about these days is ageism. We might become obsolete quick if businesses think the new, smart, cheaper kids can replace us aging ones.

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