So old man time. In the early nineties things did not look great. Almost any college degree was not bringing in a salary one could like think about having a family with. Then came the late nineties and dot com and tech jobs were like the only thing that paid to possibly have what was, in many peoples mind, the typical middle class life. You know own your own home thing eventually. Since then its been tech or bust and now tech is bust and there is no go to field for people to run to.
Have you done the math on it though? Yeah, a mortgage stays constant, but to get a mortgage, you need a down payment, closing costs, and whatever you’re paying your real estate agent. And then there’s maintenance costs, utilities (most purchasable homes are larger than what you’d otherwise rent), probably extra costs to get around, etc.
If you instead took that down-payment and additional costs and invested it in a diversified stock portfolio, how would they compare?
I’m in a similar boat where my mortgage is now less than half of what rent would be, but my house is growing in value far slower than stocks. Here’s a nerdy video discussing rent vs buy, and the result is that it’s more of a wash than most people assume. This is extra true if you properly account for repair costs (i.e. if you DIY, what’s the value of your time?). The decision to rent vs buy is far less consequential in terms of long-term financial impact than most people assume.
I honestly think this is a lie because it’s because people are mainly going for SWE or Game Dev. But literally everything else in the computer bubble is still doing fine
To some extent, yeah. I work in web development and there’s no shortage of opportunities for someone good at reactive front end development and JSON APIs. But I think there is a shortage of grads who have the necessary skills.
I’ve been trying to grow my business, and it’s frankly depressing how many people graduate with computer science degrees without learning the basics of the field, the volume of vibe coders is too damn high.
This was a problem before AI as well. I’ve been in so many interviews where someone w/ a CS degree can’t deliver solutions to even basic problems. I’ll ask them foundational CS theory, and they can only answer if I don’t expect them to apply it. It’s like they studied for the test instead of actually learning the material. Now w/ AI, they can’t even answer those gimme theory questions, much less apply them.
I used to look for github profiles as a “nice to have,” but it’s becoming more and more of a requirement now, because I just can’t trust someone to actually know how to write code unless they’ve contributed to a larger FOSS project or built something themselves. I can usually tell when they’ve vibe-coded something, so I can disregard most of the nonsense applicants. Unfortunately, this makes it harder for people w/o copious time to get interviews, which sucks (I’ve been there).
I find the jobs are super picky. Had one with a laundry list except for one job scheduling software and I had experience in the one they wanted but the feedback I got back was that the other one was real important even though I had the other and everything else. So I had experience with job scheduling software in general. including one they used. but not the other. and in that laundry list is software way more complicated than job scheduling. Through most of my career having about half of what they wanted was fine and they got that picking up the rest was not going to be a big deal for anyone who had experience in the field.
So old man time. In the early nineties things did not look great. Almost any college degree was not bringing in a salary one could like think about having a family with. Then came the late nineties and dot com and tech jobs were like the only thing that paid to possibly have what was, in many peoples mind, the typical middle class life. You know own your own home thing eventually. Since then its been tech or bust and now tech is bust and there is no go to field for people to run to.
Homeowning and paying a mortgage, especially now, is the single most important thing maintaining my quality of life.
A neighbor recently sold and it is now a rental. Paying that rent would effectively raise my housing costs about $20k a year.
It’s almost exactly the same house and lot. It’s insane.
Have you done the math on it though? Yeah, a mortgage stays constant, but to get a mortgage, you need a down payment, closing costs, and whatever you’re paying your real estate agent. And then there’s maintenance costs, utilities (most purchasable homes are larger than what you’d otherwise rent), probably extra costs to get around, etc.
If you instead took that down-payment and additional costs and invested it in a diversified stock portfolio, how would they compare?
I’m in a similar boat where my mortgage is now less than half of what rent would be, but my house is growing in value far slower than stocks. Here’s a nerdy video discussing rent vs buy, and the result is that it’s more of a wash than most people assume. This is extra true if you properly account for repair costs (i.e. if you DIY, what’s the value of your time?). The decision to rent vs buy is far less consequential in terms of long-term financial impact than most people assume.
Is it fixed? although interest rates are likely to go down so even a non fixed is helpful currently.
I honestly think this is a lie because it’s because people are mainly going for SWE or Game Dev. But literally everything else in the computer bubble is still doing fine
To some extent, yeah. I work in web development and there’s no shortage of opportunities for someone good at reactive front end development and JSON APIs. But I think there is a shortage of grads who have the necessary skills.
I’ve been trying to grow my business, and it’s frankly depressing how many people graduate with computer science degrees without learning the basics of the field, the volume of vibe coders is too damn high.
This was a problem before AI as well. I’ve been in so many interviews where someone w/ a CS degree can’t deliver solutions to even basic problems. I’ll ask them foundational CS theory, and they can only answer if I don’t expect them to apply it. It’s like they studied for the test instead of actually learning the material. Now w/ AI, they can’t even answer those gimme theory questions, much less apply them.
I used to look for github profiles as a “nice to have,” but it’s becoming more and more of a requirement now, because I just can’t trust someone to actually know how to write code unless they’ve contributed to a larger FOSS project or built something themselves. I can usually tell when they’ve vibe-coded something, so I can disregard most of the nonsense applicants. Unfortunately, this makes it harder for people w/o copious time to get interviews, which sucks (I’ve been there).
I find the jobs are super picky. Had one with a laundry list except for one job scheduling software and I had experience in the one they wanted but the feedback I got back was that the other one was real important even though I had the other and everything else. So I had experience with job scheduling software in general. including one they used. but not the other. and in that laundry list is software way more complicated than job scheduling. Through most of my career having about half of what they wanted was fine and they got that picking up the rest was not going to be a big deal for anyone who had experience in the field.
Tech is kind of all based around SWE though. What are these other roles you are referring to?
what runs the software?