That's the thing: they're not scared to be fired. Well, check that. They're scared of the process of being fired and having to face the fact that someone somewhere doesn't think they're the bee's knees and super valuable to humanity.
But they absolutely think they'll be able to waltz into another Big Tech job at another office somewhere. Or failing that, they can be a "project manager" at some well funded startup who might not have a fully automated wine machine or their own chef prepared brunch available for rooftop patio dining, but still will give them gold stars for making presentations that say "We need to engage our customers moar! YAY!"
The problem is they've never seen a recession before, and the one we're on the eve of is looking like it's going to grow into a depression. They don't realize that alphabet (Google) has just announced they plan to slow down hiring (which is a prelude to freezing it then doing mass layoffs), or that Meta (facebook) is about jettison a few thousand competitors into the workforce. They think the unemployment rate will stay at 3.5% while the demand for tech employees will continue to grow. They don't realize that as this SuckFest gets going the first thing that's getting cut is the advertising budget which is bad news if you're in an industry that depends on advertising dollars to fund it.
And those side hustles are about to dry up, too.
And inflation is about to wipe out whatever you've been saving up (assuming you've been saving up).
But I actually have faith in these kids (the Gen Z'ers, not so much the millenials). Even though they haven't really been challenged, I see some natural grit and the drive necessary to make it through this. I think when the game is on, they're going to roll up their sleeves and get to work rather than sitting around crying about they miss the meditation rooms and free doggy daycare at the office.
Good developers and computer scientists and architects sure. What we've been seeing for awhile is near zero interest rates allowing for unprecedented monetary expansion. It gets to a point where locking down all available talent is a good business decision so that you aren't left hurting for it when you need to go looking. But with monetary contraction + shareholder obligations, these companies are going to need to shed the less talented and more tangential talent.
I expect to see non-CS people shed. Probably the less apt coders that haven't gotten around to making each mistake twice.
The solid devs and CS/math/stats people will stay and will probably be compensated better. They can keep a company alive when it consolidates back to its mission. They can lead it out when the boom starts. And with some of the chaff gone, its easier for competitors to see and put offers on the prime talent. So there's that. These businesses know that good devs are like good artists and experienced good ones don't exist in anywhere near the numbers people outside the industry think.
Tech surged during COVID because of financial witchery. FAANG wasn't exactly moving mountains with new innovation and disruptors weren't exactly rising up. The cloud was just much better adopted and shareholders jumped on theme while the federal reserve vomited money into the floor of the markets via Blackrock and the Treasury. Bitter insiders were painting the top companies as being even more zombie than they were in 2019.
I would say that comparing this to covid is a mistake. The lockdowns drove more people online and ultimately drove more money into the tech sector. It looked like tech bucked the trend, but it was basically just benefiting from the downturn in other sectors of the economy.
In a recession, spending goes down across the board, and tech is on shakey ground as a lot of the products and services can be viewed as luxuries... or at least optional. When customers stop paying subscriptions, consuming content, or buying the current pretty device, the money flowing into the sector is going to drop. Companies are going to need to start managing costs, and the only way to do that is by managing payroll and product lines.
Bottom line is those hundreds of thousands of job openings are going to start getting yanked while the number of people who can do them is going to increase.
Those who can't be reassigned or are redundant get pink slipped and re-enter the job market. Eventually some MBA will rediscover "outsourcing", and then someone else will come up with a new word for "topgrading" and write a book on it. More competition for less jobs available.
Meta has already started to turtle down, alphabet as well after a terribad quarterly report a few days ago. About to see it from Twitter big time.
It's not the end of the world. Tech workers are still going to have it easier than others in a lot of cases, but I'd expect the salaries to get a littler lower, the perks to dry up, and the process of finding a job to get harder. Will get worse longer the recession lasts.
And if someone's one of the people who's a "project manager" or "community moderator" that likes to say they are a tech worker... they should either be looking into developing high demand skills or thinking about a lateral career change right about now.
To be fair, a lot of tech employees are non-technical. The small group of talented more senior developers and computer scientists that can analyze and implement are few and far between.
It's more likely they start axing amenities staff. Then marketing and communications people. Then some of the non-computer-science non-math non-statistics doctorates. Also the less performant junior developers. And if they're at that point, hopefully they gut HR and burn policies like the one where white people need to get sign off from a PoC.
That's the thing: they're not scared to be fired. Well, check that. They're scared of the process of being fired and having to face the fact that someone somewhere doesn't think they're the bee's knees and super valuable to humanity.
But they absolutely think they'll be able to waltz into another Big Tech job at another office somewhere. Or failing that, they can be a "project manager" at some well funded startup who might not have a fully automated wine machine or their own chef prepared brunch available for rooftop patio dining, but still will give them gold stars for making presentations that say "We need to engage our customers moar! YAY!"
The problem is they've never seen a recession before, and the one we're on the eve of is looking like it's going to grow into a depression. They don't realize that alphabet (Google) has just announced they plan to slow down hiring (which is a prelude to freezing it then doing mass layoffs), or that Meta (facebook) is about jettison a few thousand competitors into the workforce. They think the unemployment rate will stay at 3.5% while the demand for tech employees will continue to grow. They don't realize that as this SuckFest gets going the first thing that's getting cut is the advertising budget which is bad news if you're in an industry that depends on advertising dollars to fund it.
And those side hustles are about to dry up, too.
And inflation is about to wipe out whatever you've been saving up (assuming you've been saving up).
But I actually have faith in these kids (the Gen Z'ers, not so much the millenials). Even though they haven't really been challenged, I see some natural grit and the drive necessary to make it through this. I think when the game is on, they're going to roll up their sleeves and get to work rather than sitting around crying about they miss the meditation rooms and free doggy daycare at the office.
Then they're dumb because some.of them will be witnesses and others on trial. Another tech job may have to wait.
Pretty sure if you show up at my door with Twitter on your resume I'm not hiring you.
Good developers and computer scientists and architects sure. What we've been seeing for awhile is near zero interest rates allowing for unprecedented monetary expansion. It gets to a point where locking down all available talent is a good business decision so that you aren't left hurting for it when you need to go looking. But with monetary contraction + shareholder obligations, these companies are going to need to shed the less talented and more tangential talent.
I expect to see non-CS people shed. Probably the less apt coders that haven't gotten around to making each mistake twice.
The solid devs and CS/math/stats people will stay and will probably be compensated better. They can keep a company alive when it consolidates back to its mission. They can lead it out when the boom starts. And with some of the chaff gone, its easier for competitors to see and put offers on the prime talent. So there's that. These businesses know that good devs are like good artists and experienced good ones don't exist in anywhere near the numbers people outside the industry think.
Tech surged during COVID because of financial witchery. FAANG wasn't exactly moving mountains with new innovation and disruptors weren't exactly rising up. The cloud was just much better adopted and shareholders jumped on theme while the federal reserve vomited money into the floor of the markets via Blackrock and the Treasury. Bitter insiders were painting the top companies as being even more zombie than they were in 2019.
I would say that comparing this to covid is a mistake. The lockdowns drove more people online and ultimately drove more money into the tech sector. It looked like tech bucked the trend, but it was basically just benefiting from the downturn in other sectors of the economy.
In a recession, spending goes down across the board, and tech is on shakey ground as a lot of the products and services can be viewed as luxuries... or at least optional. When customers stop paying subscriptions, consuming content, or buying the current pretty device, the money flowing into the sector is going to drop. Companies are going to need to start managing costs, and the only way to do that is by managing payroll and product lines.
Bottom line is those hundreds of thousands of job openings are going to start getting yanked while the number of people who can do them is going to increase. Those who can't be reassigned or are redundant get pink slipped and re-enter the job market. Eventually some MBA will rediscover "outsourcing", and then someone else will come up with a new word for "topgrading" and write a book on it. More competition for less jobs available.
Meta has already started to turtle down, alphabet as well after a terribad quarterly report a few days ago. About to see it from Twitter big time.
It's not the end of the world. Tech workers are still going to have it easier than others in a lot of cases, but I'd expect the salaries to get a littler lower, the perks to dry up, and the process of finding a job to get harder. Will get worse longer the recession lasts.
And if someone's one of the people who's a "project manager" or "community moderator" that likes to say they are a tech worker... they should either be looking into developing high demand skills or thinking about a lateral career change right about now.
To be fair, a lot of tech employees are non-technical. The small group of talented more senior developers and computer scientists that can analyze and implement are few and far between.
It's more likely they start axing amenities staff. Then marketing and communications people. Then some of the non-computer-science non-math non-statistics doctorates. Also the less performant junior developers. And if they're at that point, hopefully they gut HR and burn policies like the one where white people need to get sign off from a PoC.