Hacker News Reader

>The vast majority of role or career changes do not involve going back to college.

That was possible pre-2022 during the famous developer labor shortage. In the current market, companies expect seniority/experience in that specific stack they use for that, no more career changers.

They either take you as a senior/expert to contribute from day one, or as a young and cheap newgrad/junior out of uni they expect to train on the job, but no more in-betweeners switching careers as they're not as experienced as the seniors on the market, nor are they as cheap and malleable as newgrads/juniors.

Sure, in theory every developer can learn at home to do anything new related, but in the current job market, companies expect X-years of proven on the job experience with their stack, no more bootcampers, and no more self-taught-at-home types. The entry bar has risen significantly. At least where I live.

Like I just saw on linkeidn a job posting from a large bank that was an hour old and it already had 100 applications, which probably means most applications are now AI botted, meaning yours will get lost in the noise and getting a call back for an actual interview is like rolling a dice.

Not saying it's impossible to change(I did a couple of times), just that's it's much more difficult than in the good times, and will most likely also come with a paycut.

To make matters even worse, if you do apply to these jobs the only thing you get back in return is your data being sold to even scummier organizations. I always use single-purpose emails for everything, so I know where things source from. Imagine my shock when a week or two after applying for jobs I started getting a steady stream of Super Intelligence emails offering to spruce up my resume, or to source leads for me, or some other sketchy service.

Everything is commercialized now. Even the discard pile of resumes can be sold for pennies. A job application isn't a job application anymore: it's a desperation signal alerting predators to come extract some value.

I guess where I'm coming from is that I currently am trying to change careers. Everything I'm finding is either a 50% pay cut or is simply unwilling to consider anyone without 5-10 years of experience in that particular industry. Since I've already built a life here I can't really just move and a 50% pay cut isn't enough to live anywhere near a comfortable life; particularly since I have medical expenses that aren't covered by insurance.

> I have friends in highly bureaucratic roles who care about their jobs and do it well, but their work is amazing simple and easy. It requires nothing more than being a responsible adult who can show up to the office and get things done. These jobs are everywhere and I don't think they're going to disappear.

I think these jobs are actually the most likely to be replaced by AI. They have resisted automation to date because there's too much fuzz in the inputs/outputs to make it feasible to computerize. LLMs solve exactly that problem.

Except for the part where they have absolutely no idea what the world is or how it works. They are good at software and math because of RLVR, but they can’t run a business.