I've been following many threads on Reddit (and one on HN) about people getting fired already. As there is no indication this trend will be reversed any time soon, I get the feeling that a) lots of industries have already been hit hard and b) things may get progressively worse in the following months.
It worries me that, as a huge percentage of the web runs on ads, if lots of industries get into trouble, the ad space will inevitably suffer as well. The cascading effect of that will most probably affect in a very obvious way every company I've worked for, layoffs will oversaturated the market and my current skillset will be insufficient to give me any competitive advantage.
There will be a lot of layoffs. The question is, what kind of jobs are they? Are these experienced developers with multiple languages and platforms under their belt, or one-trick ponies that came from a bootcamp?
You're right - ad-driven web properties won't do well. There is tons of code written every day that does actual revenue-generating work, however. It's not sexy work, it's not VC-funded work, and that's okay.
During the dot-com bust I had no problems with work. My longest contract was for a hospital, writing software to help nurses schedule and track patient visits. This was tangible work, with a tangible benefit. It wasn't a nebulous business model.
> Are these experienced developers with multiple languages and platforms under their belt, or one-trick ponies that came from a bootcamp?
During the last recession, many of those that were let go were the "expensive" experienced developers that could command higher salaries than new hires.
I know several experienced developers that lost their jobs last week.
It worries me that, as a huge percentage of the web runs on ads, if lots of industries get into trouble, the ad space will inevitably suffer as well. The cascading effect of that will most probably affect in a very obvious way every company I've worked for, layoffs will oversaturated the market and my current skillset will be insufficient to give me any competitive advantage.