Tech industry is imploding, there is no need whatsoever to push women (or men) into a career in tech that has very limited opportunities at the moment.
However, SW dev is still a tough career, requiring constantly learning the new things in your free time if you want to stay employable, that's not to be understated, especially considering the ageism in this racket, and how quickly things become obsolete compared to other credentialed professions where you're basically set for life once you get that piece of paper and not have to go through rounds of hazing interviews and take homes every time you want to switch jobs. It's not for everyone.
- We've stabilized web front ends
- Mobile application development has stabilized
- Architecture patterns are well-known and there are plenty of (now legacy) products with which to implement them
- Ditto with integration patterns and APIs
- We finally have security figured out (OAuth) and I now have the means to identify and authenticate a person who's not even in my own repo
- We have tools such as Copilot taking the grunt work out of coding - leaving developers to work only with the most interesting bits
- I could go on with lots of stuff that has now matured
I feel like it's easier than ever to develop software, and like I said, the pace of change is rapidly diminishing. I think software development has finally become a mature practice. Admittedly, that takes some of the fun out of it, but we knew that day was coming anyway, right?
It's also inversely proportional more difficult to get hired nowadays in those fields though.
Back then when (for example) mobile dev was just getting started you could get hired with absolutely zero experience since nobody had any experience, but now there's a laundry list of requirement even for junior positions which are few compared to senior positions and the strict requires there in terms of experience.
Good for those who already had 10 past years of experience and learned the necessary background knowledge, bad for those entering now when the bar has been raised.
Now that things have settled down and have been standardized, there's a set of things that all developers are expected to know. It was easier to "wing it" back when that wasn't the case. People used to evaluate you based off your aptitude and ability to learn new things and stay abreast with the industry, nowadays those skills aren't so valuable as is someone who knows how to do the work and get things done on time.
I agree that there are a lot more solved problems, but I find it much more complicated to develop software now than in the past. You used the example of web front ends, but how large is that toolchain? How many different steps and tools do you need to be familiar with to take a project from concept to end user?
I think the problem now is a pedagogical problem. I don't think we need nearly as many computer scientists as we do people who are practiced in the craft. We need more tradesmen than experts, more blacksmiths than metallurgists, so-to-speak. But I don't think the typical "software bootcamp" is a good trade school. We need some kind of trade school and apprenticeship solution where after a couple of years you're a solid developer with real-world experience.
Personally, I think we are due for some collapse of the fundamentals.
- Crypto/ML startups built on promises
- Companies built on the latest buzzword (LLM startups will have their Judgement Day by 2027 latest)
- Companies giving crazy high salaries to inexperienced people straight out of bootcamps
- Companies spending crazy money on "perks" such as free food and in-office entertainment
- Companies paying big bonuses to all tech employees
- Companies overhiring so that the competition remains understaffed
Money is not free anymore. Everyone is looking where the pennies go. Companies have behaved like your average Amazon customer and have filled their companies with subscriptions they don't really need (see overhired employees, perks, high salaries). Belt tightening is the mood.
If you enjoy software engineering and are willing to take a job in some place that's not SV, NYC, Austin, Seattle, etc. you can still find jobs that will allow an above-average salary and comfortable living. It's just not going to be at FAANG or Evil Omnicorp LLC.
But is there an objective time series measure somewhere?