On: Getting Laid Off in Tech: The Myth of Upper Middle Class Security

[jeffreyrogers]

Tech has a natural moat in that only a small portion of the population is smart and driven enough to do well in it, so I expect decent paying jobs for the foreseeable future. And while some of high profile startups might have unviable business models, most of the established companies actually have pretty good metrics, so I don't seem them as being in danger of going out of business unless some legislation comes along that completely undermines their ability to do business.

Obviously it's still smart to save and plan for a period of unemployment though.

[ForHackernews → jeffreyrogers]

There's a lot of people on this rock. Even if only a "small portion of the population" can do the work, that means there are tens of millions (literally) around the world who could do your job as well or better than you.

You are the lucky beneficiary of restrictive immigration and employment policies.

[21 → ForHackernews]

There are places with less restrictive immigration (Europe) and salaries are still very high.

The supply of decent programmers is just not enough to cover demand.

[ElysianEagle → 21]

It's my understanding that all the countries in Europe where salaries for software engineers are high, have rather strict immigration policies.

[21 → ElysianEagle]

1. Other EU citizens can basically move around freely, from poor paying countries (Eastern Europe) to good paying ones.

2. Even for non-EU citizens, it's way way easier to get a software job (the company can get a visa for you). There is no H1B style cap. If you get an offer, you get the visa & job. True, for the first few years the visa might be tied to the job, but this just means that you need to have a new offer before leaving the previous job.

[xxpor → 21]

Salaries are not high in Europe compared to the US.

[redundo_twa → 21]

> salaries are still very high

Much less so than in the US, though. To be honest I think that's more an effect of different cultural values ("novelty" and "bootstrapping" here are not as celebrated as in the US), but there is definitely a difference.

[LifeLiverTransp → jeffreyrogers]

Tech also has the benefit of the networking effect- turning once a giant appears, a whole economy sector into a black hole for any other startup.

So one company can stagnate a whole sector- basically killing off any innovation for the duration of its existance. No innovation - no coders really needed.

[jeffreyrogers → LifeLiverTransp]

Maybe, but my bet is most software engineers, etc. are employed at non-tech companies. The work might not be as interesting, but they aren't all going away anytime soon.