I’m a senior in high school right now and definitely need to consider what I’m going to do in college and for work.
For a very long time I’ve been into computers, and am a developer with a few big projects under my belt (this is a burner account for privacy). So, my logical choice for a while was to become a software developer professionally.
Nowadays that plan doesn’t look too promising. AI has basically replaced junior developers (with dubious results) and the competition has gotten much fiercer. I’m not even in college yet so I have a good amount of time to potentially pivot to something else before choosing a major.
I’ve got quite a bit of experience with Linux and I manage a home server, but that probably doesn’t differentiate me much. I’m honestly interested in most things computer related, but don’t know of any specific fields to seek out. If it’s so hard for fresh CS graduates to get jobs, why would any other option be different?
I have a controversial take and a very bold guess: CS principle will be more important than ever when you graduate college.
- CS enrollment is way down especially in the U.S. because of AI scare.
- Old programmers are mostly retired during the AI hype period
Both of these mean that the supply of programers will be way down when you graduate.
- AI have been slopping out code that might break within couple years. We have seen many service degrade, but not much critical failure yet, these could come later.
- Most open source project has began to ban pure LLM contributions. Even Rust disallow LLM-generated code with very minor exceptions. Likely company are going to do the same
- People who go to a simple coding bootcamp will not be competitive when LLM is in the picture, nobody need a programmer to “make the button bigger” anymore.
All these said, the demand for “good programmer” likely will not go down. If you study hard, do side projects, and build connection during college, you will likely be at a huge advantage after 3 or 4 years.
Of course, there will also be risks, i.e. that LLMs actually wipe out all programming jobs, which it is unlikely, but also not impossible.
Linus Torvalds was just quoted in another article I read, “Al is the new compiler, not the new programmer”
Got a link to the article?
am a developer with a few big projects under my belt
I’ve got quite a bit of experience with Linux and I manage a home server, but that probably doesn’t differentiate me much
It 100% does if you target small companies. Think 5-30 man shows where ‘IT department’ is a luxurious dream. In that company you wear many hats and having IT/devops experience as a programmer is a big deal. You will instantly be one of the most experienced people in the small company when wearing the IT hat.
If it’s so hard for fresh CS graduates to get jobs, why would any other option be different?
As you are already in the workforce, stay in it. After having a job for the last year (?) and the option of what to do with the next four years of your life. You can either have 5 years of experience, or you can have 1 year of experience.
Notice how I didn’t mention your degree? A degree is a minor point after you get your first job.
Just wanna add, this “IT in a small company” can be the nicest environment. I was lucky to land one like this some years ago. (company went under since, in part due to AI)
Worth noting, this will happen to you a lot. Even the good small companies (almost especially the good small companies) are going to fold. A lot. I’ve been in the IT service industry for 25 years and easily 80%+ will fail within 5 years. Unless you’re in a particularly high demand market, the pay isn’t great (not terrible, but people have a very unrealistic expectation for how much your generalist IT guy makes), and you definitely don’t want to be an independent contractor because you WILL end up spending more time trying to collect payment than fixing computers (or the majority of your profit paying someone else to do it).
It’s a lot less security than most trades in most regions, but you can still strike it lucky every once in a while. Just make sure you make hay while the sun shines, because it isn’t going to last, and dry patches are frequent in most markets.
The AI wave is creating a huge amount of tech debt
There’s going to be a huge surge of hiring humans to untangle and fix the spaghetti code in coming years.
No there won’t. Not for a generation at least. The AI momentum will take decades to unravel before anyone even thinks about going back and fixing all the broken code.
The world isn’t monolithic. Some companies will take decades. Some companies have already realized the harm and have started fixing now
I wouldn’t hang a lifetime career on it. Unless you have a guaranteed job out of the gate, it’s a fool’s gamble.
Dude, there’s a limit to how much issues you can put a blind sight and pretend are not there or that the next LLM will fix them. At some point companies will start getting hacked and they’ll have to take action, and that will not take decades.
I think you underestimate how long these people can stay irrational. And just how entirely by the balls they have the system trapped. They already think of themselves as gods. They’re a level of delusional that would have them in a straight jacket if they didn’t have so much goddamn money. They don’t see the people that work for them as even animals, they’re barely tools. The scale and the scope of solidarity that it would take to pop their fantasy bubble has never been achieved in human history. They have engineered a world that makes raising that kind of trust and unity a generational struggle as difficult as bringing down Soviet Russia was last century. I hope to live to see the day their empire crumbles, but I’m not holding my breath.
It’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better and the losses they’ll take from security breaches will be insignificant compared to the profit they extract from their monopolies.
IT is a shitshow generally. But it pays kinda well and it still needs humans to do the actual work. The other fields are probably a bit less of a shitshow, but given that the whole planet is kinda a shitshow nowadays, might kick you out (or in the balls) even harder. So… just choose the wig and makeup that suit you better, clown up, and join us in one show or another.
The meta is job experience > skills > certifications > education
Typically, if you look for computer related job, they ask for comp sci or some equivalent degree + relevant experience + skills. If you’re going for SWE or Game Dev, you’re majorly fucked. I’m in IT but I started a couple years ago but I do occasionally look at job listings nowadays and I can tell it’s competitive. I got multiple friends in comp sci and comp eng having tough times
Can confirm, the one place that actually cared that I went to school for programming was my first job, because they got to write off part of my salary on their taxes.
Every job after that just looked at skills, vibes (they call it “culture fit”), and references.
Yeah vibes are a huge part
and i know 2 people before and early never found a cs related job. think they are doing something adjacent. i also looked at pots from other forums, platforms same issue no jobs. i know someone who graduated recently try to be a game dev, no jobs there too.
Don’t know where you live or what country, but if you look for a government job you might be able to use your degree there.
Way too many comments for me to see if it’s been said already, but have you looked into cybersecurity, networking, and identity management? They’re all in the same realm and seem less prone to ai hype layoffs and such.
Granted it’s been 30-something years since I graduated with my CS degree, but my experience might be helpful. My first job out of college ended up being in tech support for a software company, and I used that to eventually move into software development. During my 2 years in tech support I learned what I could about the source code for the companies product, and built relationships with members of the engineering team. It got to the point where I could carry on conversations with some of the software developers to identify potential causes of bugs that customers were running into.
Because of the relationships I made with the software engineers they eventually recognized my skills and one of the managers eventually helped me transition from tech support into a software developer position.
ISP Network Engineer might be something.
It is my current feeling that the blend of physical work to install devices, with the mental work of planning, configuring, documenting, is kind of protecting the field.
Although maybe we are a bit special in my workplace because we don’t have a separation between planners, NOC, and field team. It’s all just the twelve of us, doing bits of everything. Maybe in the big ISPs things are circling the LLM drain as well.
Whatever you do, don’t be evil.
My suggestion? If you’re really clever, find a good trade shop that’s willing to work with you through an apprenticeship and stay as far as you can from CS for the foreseeable future. Don’t give up on learning how to code, but don’t sink a ton of money into certifications or degrees; stay a hobbyist and enthusiast, don’t make it a career. Some day those skills may be invaluable, but it’s absolutely not worth the money today. You want to be rich in 40 years? Be the only one left who knows how to fix machine generated spaghetti code. You want to eat tomorrow, learn to swing a hammer, bend conduit, or some other kind of skilled labour.
Side note: Make sure whatever trade you’re going into, you have someone who is going to guarantee you a spot to get your apprenticeship BEFORE you go to school. If you go straight into school, you will likely spend a lot of money on a trade you never get your journeyman ticket in.
Most people with a degree don’t do a job directlly related to their degree, and most people I know who work in an IT or CS related field aren’t university-educated. Go to uni because you want to learn and are interested in your field, not with the express goal of a career. If you wouldn’t go to uni if you knew you’d end up doing something else as a career, then that degree probably isn’t the choice for you, because it sounds like you’re not interested in the education itself, just the job resulting from it.
Well, the IT job market can change very quickly, so it is very difficult to predict what the job market will look like when you enter it in around 6 years (I assume that’s how long it will also take in the US to get a Bachelor + Master?). It could be that in 6 years the AI bubble has popped and dumb managers will realize that AI can’t replace every Software Developer.
I’d say go ahead and study CS, and if you can’t find a job as a Software Developer, you can then look in neighboring IT fields, such as System Administrator, where you (for example) have to administrate Linux servers, and since you say you already have experience with this, it should give you an advantage in applications.
Genuinely, not being snarky, get a union trade job instead. Carpentry, welding, whatever. Not as fun probably but the stability is there.
Tech is such a shit show today in general; there are for sure still good jobs out there but having worked in tech for a couple of decades I feel qualified to say that building a career in tech is needlessly risky. Layoffs come fast, promotions come slow, and stability is nowhere to be found. I have spent most of my career across multiple companies constantly afraid that I might not have a job tomorrow… and I am both good at my job and well liked.
One time I lost my job because all of a sudden investors pulled out and nearly the entire company got laid off. Got an email Thursday afternoon telling everyone not to come in Friday because they don’t have a job anymore. There are countless stories out there like this.
Don’t do welding, or pipe fitting. Speaking from the counsel of family whose profession was this (and they were one of the best, truly). In their own words they’d never advise anyone to go into that these days.
To do things over, as much as they loved it, they said they’d probably join the sparkies. Electrician or lineman.
Meanwhile hvac trade is a wash with really terrible people, the most conservative trade, low union, and highly variable in competency.
Good to know
