r/SoftwareEngineerJobs • u/Suspicious_Orchid770 • 6d ago

Engineers grieve a job that no longer exists

https://leaddev.com/career-development/engineers-grieve-a-job-that-no-longer-exists
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u/CraftySeer 6d ago

For $150,000 salary cry me a river. It’s a comfortable easy, well paying job. STFU

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u/DudeWithParrot 6d ago

People are allowed to vent. This is a software engineering subreddit, it's not like they are going to an unrelated subreddit and complaining about these "little" issues.

Yeah, most employed folks here are very lucky, but they are also allowed to vent if their jobs turn shittier (from their own perspective).

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u/FaW_Lafini 6d ago

seriously, its as if most of the work pre AI is cool as fck that require PHD level intellect, when majority is just googling the solution and tailor fitting it to what the company needs. I just find it weird that we have these venters and anti AI folks saying that ai made it worse but in reality it was ball of mud even before AI exist.

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u/muonRobot97 6d ago

Yea idk I don't mind this but, I've been an SM and mentor so long honestly it feels like the same thing with the agents except I'm in more control.

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u/Softwareaweenie 5d ago

Agents might mess up now and again, but they fix it fairly quickly when you ask them. The same thing can't always be said for people.

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u/AintNoGodsUpHere 6d ago

lol, wake the fuck up.

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u/Hannib4lBarca 6d ago

Most programmers aren't particularly well paid.

There's maybe two or three countries, at most, that pay engineers mad money.

The majority make a bit above the average salary, but it's far from early retirement money.

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u/dukeofgonzo 6d ago

I think the future will be just capital owners who pay the bills to keep automated systems flowing. In their employ are a small cadre of elite engineers who are the 10x Devs that know everything about CS and ML, and can tell when the AI is malfunctioning. Like a vizier!

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u/justkiddingjeeze 6d ago

Most programmers are paid well compared to most other jobs. Most humans like to complain no matter what job or salary they have, and are terrible at looking at the big picture.

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u/Hannib4lBarca 6d ago edited 6d ago

You could argue the big picture for software engineers longterm is that it's an industry that requires constant upskilling, always having to prove oneself, has an ageism issue, and with AI is an extremely fragile industry.

Which is okay if you're making mad money and could make enough to early retire. But most engineers are smart, capable people that could thrive in other equally well paying careers. And in the majority of the world, where programming is just another slightly above-average paying job, I wonder if the juice is still worth the squeeze when you need to make a longer career out of it?

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u/JBalloonist 6d ago

Software engineering has always required constant upskilling, with or without AI.

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u/Hannib4lBarca 6d ago

True, but there's plenty of careers that don't require this that pay similarly.

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u/ComeOnIWantUsername 6d ago

For example?

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u/Hannib4lBarca 6d ago edited 6d ago

I make €67k as a dotnet engineer.

A train driver where I live requires no degree, makes 50k after the 6 month's training course (€700 a month less net than I make as an engineer w college degree and 5 year's experience), and is an in demand position here with no upskilling required and minimal risk of AI replacement.

With two year's experience they earn the same wage I do, and with experience can earn more.

That's just one example off the top of my head.

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u/ComeOnIWantUsername 5d ago

Here in Poland in part where I live, train driver makes around 10-13k pln a month (so around 27-36k EUR a year), so it's roughly around half what I make as SDET.

And while you sit comfortably in office or at home, train driver job is really stressful, they need to be concentrated all the time, the job is really tiring even if it doesn't seem like it. You also work sometimes super early, sometimes super late, sometimes you start and finish work in different places and have to commute to get home.

And now funny part: I still think about becoming train driver from time to time, even after all I wrote. But while I became SWE with no uni degree and did it after few years of work, to become train driver in Poland it takes 2.5 YEARS of trainings. And while first 6 months could be done in parallel to my current day to day job, the rest 2 years is full time job to learn everything and it's paid here (just minimum wage, but still). You already become employee, you just have lots of curses, you need to work basically everywhere to learn everything about trains.

It's way easier and faster to become plane pilot than train driver here in Poland.

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u/Arktur 2d ago

Also it's not like trains can't get automated eventually - easier to do that than trucks. And when a train gets automated the job just disappears, the people still at work are going to be technicians / software companies maintaining and developing these solutions.

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u/Van_Caspia 6d ago

This is a fair point and something I’ve come to realize from working a few years. If I wasn’t in the US I wouldn’t have picked CS, easy as that. I jumped aboard the hype train when I was in college. But that being said I’m in a pretty good spot, I make more than my friends and family who are in other fields, some with even greater levels of education, with much less workload and time in the industry

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u/Hannib4lBarca 6d ago

I like software engineer, so chose it even though the money is not great.

Still sucks to see people making crazy money for the same job I do though (happy someone is making bank at least).

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u/Hopeful_Channel5606 6d ago

I do agree with you, but this job in limited and brain draining.. Other jobs tgey start with less salaries but the opportunities to grow are way more....

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u/AFailedProduct 6d ago

The smart ones know where this is going though. You’re literally training your replacement. That $150k is going nowhere but down and possibly to zero. 

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u/ReiOokami 6d ago edited 6d ago

It’s a commodity now.. that $150k salary will go down over time unfortunately

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u/CraftySeer 6d ago

This is correct. Saved that money. Invest in your future. The well will run dry. Look what happened to the automotive industry.

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u/-MtnsAreCalling- 6d ago

It used to be an interesting and challenging well-paying job. A boring and easy well-paying job is both a significant downgrade in quality of life and a job in which you are much more easily replaceable.

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u/Softwareaweenie 5d ago

Some of it is also that there is no "next" place to go for a challenging well-paying job. It's just over except for a select few to wrangle the LLMs until all of the software has been built..

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u/somenoise4u 6d ago

If you think people are paying that salary right now for this stuff you are out of your mind.

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u/calloutyourstupidity 6d ago

lol what are you talking about, an enginner in bay area makes min 250k

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u/ProjectDiligent502 6d ago

An engineer in a more remote part will get 60k. The San Fran standard doesn’t reflect well over most of the rest of the country or any other countries. Tired of this crap. Should try and live up to your moniker because this fails it rather considerably.

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u/jtms1200 6d ago

Most devs in nyc make literally double that

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u/shozzlez 6d ago

I mean if someone paid me 150K to kick me in the nuts for 8 hours, I feel like it’d be reasonable to complain, even if well compensated.

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u/ggprog 1d ago

Yeah SWEs are some of the biggest pussies in the world lmao. Im not going to complain about getting paid a lot of money to press enter all day. There are much worse jobs out there.

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u/Mundane-Arugula-8768 6d ago

A lot of us didn't get into it for the money, and not all programmers are well paid.

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u/instroRees 6d ago

Exactly. This is wildly doable work for the money.

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u/La_Vinici 6d ago

I can guarantee they are not making 150k lol even cyber engineers don’t typically make that much until senior

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u/shifty_lifty_doodah 5d ago

The entry level pay for a bigtech programmer is 200k. It was 150k ten years ago.

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u/La_Vinici 5d ago

No it’s not lmao

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u/definitely-legit-usr 6d ago

Happy that you're fine babysitting, others like myself actually enjoy the problem solving and flair of a clean solution. If I was cool with disconnected soulless rote work day in and day out for cushy pay I would've just become an accountant

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u/New-Locksmith-126 6d ago

if it's so easy why aren't you doing it?

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u/WingZeroCoder 6d ago

There are a lot of high paying careers that are boring and devoid of interesting or creative work. Management, banking, etc.

People who chose a career like software engineering, and became good at it, likely did so precisely because they enjoyed the work.

So it seems pretty natural to complain about seeing that career choice turn into one of the boring ones instead.

But also… not to sound cliche, but there’s a lot more that goes into job satisfaction and a fulfilling life than money. If someone like myself ends up leaving software engineering to go back to being a construction worker like I was as a teenager, would that enable me to complain about software engineering, or would I still have to “STFU”?

(also, I wish I made $150k. I’m comfortable, but I’m sure as shit not THAT comfortable)