Coinbase lays off 1100 employees

Instead of thinking, "I work for company A or B or C at the rate of, say, $X per year or $Y/hour." it's better to think, "There's a demand for my skills at the rate of, say, $X per year or $Y/hour. Currently, is it worthwhile for me to receive my compensation working for company A or B or C?"

Please don't misconstrue this as cynical advice. It's not. I'm not suggesting one see himself merely as a mercenary. However, I'm suggesting that one should be realistic about working, particularly, if one is a full-time employee.

Generally, full-time employees tend to become complacent about their jobs more readily than contractors do about their clients. Most new contractors don’t have many clients; therefore, they tend to worry about losing their existing client or clients. By contrast, most experienced contractors have had the unpleasant, and often shocking experience of a good-paying client who had been offering plenty of steady work, suddenly no longer being a good-paying client offering plenty of steady work

For anyone who primarily works remotely (which subsumes, and seems to consist primarily of, those who work at least primarily work from home) it's much less difficult than it used to be (for those who formerly needed to commute to work in an office) to switch from one job to another. But that’s a double-edged sword.

Currently, the real challenge (related to earning a living as an employee or contractor) for many remote so-called “knowledge workers”, including engineers, is this: assuming peace and widespread international commerce tend to prevail (as opposed to say, war and autarky), then remote work will almost certainly tend to increase the rate at which employers and clients move jobs and contracting opportunities for so-called “knowledge work” to so-called "offshore" countries where wages/rates are much lower than, say, the US and EU.

The current hot market for engineers in the US tends to obscure the likelihood that "the party will soon be over" (by which I mean in the next 5 to 10 years) for many engineers in the US in terms of their total compensation.

Any engineer in the US, EU, or other country with a high cost of living and high wages needs to ask himself something like, “Why doesn't my employer or client hire and/or contract an engineer in, say, Brazil or Ukraine for 1/2 or 1/3 or even 1/4 of my current total compensation?”

The answer to that question isn’t difficult for a person with average intelligence to arrive at if they are looking at the question objectively.

The difficult part is this: being willing to honestly ask that question in the first place. Outside of areas with government protection (such as military projects which require engineers to possess security clearances) engineering compensation in places such as the US and EU is extremely vulnerable to foreign competition.

Unless war and autarky become prevalent, then, almost certainly a painful reckoning is coming within the next 5 to 10 years for engineers in places such as the US and EU.

Some engineers plainly see it coming. Yet they seem to be a minority (at least here on Hacker News). The “non-silent majority” (see Richard Nixon’s famous speech about the silent majority) of engineers on Hacker News who live in places like the US and EU seem to be merrily working away under the implicit assumption that the good times will continue to roll on, and on.

Obviously, if the clothes on your back can be produced in, say, China or India, then surely the software your current employer or client needs can be written in, say, Romania or Turkey.

Your compensation need not always go up, it can drop… precipitously. This is not a doom and gloom prophecy. This is obvious to anyone willing to objectively consider the situation.