Software jobs will never be the same
Approximately 240,000 software professionals lost their jobs in 2023. In 2024, this number could be higher.
Yet,
🤞 Demand for software professionals is still at a high
🤞 Innovations and research in Software is scaling new heights
🤞 Most organizations still believe in human ability
🤞 Most organizations still keep ‘fluff’ around to pad the payrolls
According to the following article, software engineering jobs are still in demand
So what is changing?
AI is disrupting everything
With the advent of LLMs, software automation is making most roles redundant. Some roles that will definitely be impacted by AI are
✂️Sales
✂️Customer Service
✂️Legal
✂️Teaching
✂️Finance
✂️Engineering
✂️Human Resources
✂️Software Engineering
Empathy is dead
“The pandemic hit us hard. It changed us. But it didn’t teach us.” — Illbite Einstein
After 2 world wars, several famines, natural disasters and a pandemic, we have learnt nothing.
Our hearts have become harder and our greed has increased exponentially.
If we could place a value on human life it would be in decimals today.
Thus, cutting corners is akin to cutting jobs these days. Executives in swanky corner offices are making decisions that serve the interests of the precious few ‘investors’ but destroying people’s worlds within minutes.
Today, more than ever, the money is greener on the other side. And therefore, you have to choose a side for survival.
Jobs are becoming more specialized
If you are sitting in a cubicle compiling excel sheets of the latest sales reports, you are likely to get downsized.
If you are compiling software metrics from an Agile board, you are likely to be downsized.
If it can be automated, it will be. You can’t play the victim card for being naïve.
And don’t say that nobody told you. The writing is on the wall but you just don’t want to see it.
Layoffs are random for extra anxiousness
This is a post by Diane Hirsh Theriault on LinkedIn
If you read the post, some Layoffs at Google have been seemingly random and thoughtless.
This is a reality across some organizations. Job cuts are becoming a tick in the box and a sure shot way to reduce OpEx and project better outlooks — This is labelled as Re-Strategizing and Restructuring and if your organization has started to bandy these words around in Townhalls, job cuts are coming for you.
Productivity is being mistaken for presence
With Leaders desperately pushing for Return to Office with the following list puerile list of reasons
“It will promote better collaboration and culture building”
“It promotes a conducive environment by allowing better interactions and water cooler conversations”
“It promotes spontaneity. It beings energy and synergy which are essential for ideation.”
Thus, there is massive emphasis on paying peanuts to have people gracing the halls of sterile work environments that provide nothing in the way of compensation for daily commute hell, long working hours and personal life disconnect; Instead promoting a dying culture of interaction that Older executives rely on to get a better sense for what’s going on throughout their organizations.
Thus seat warming is being mistaken for productivity but is in fact a return to form for corporate politics and ego massages.
How can you survive?
I have survived in the software industry for 18 years now. I am not a millionaire and neither am I financially independent (yet).
But what I have today is job satisfaction and the comfort in knowing that I know enough to survive the rat race.
Therefore, I shall shamelessly promote myself and tell you that there are ways to survive. There are signs and patterns that can help you keep your head above water in the roughest of seas and I can tell you what you can do to survive.
So
Follow me Ritesh Shergill
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