In the age of RSUs, graduating in the middle of a recession is financially incredible IF you managed to get the job before all the hiring freezes AND it is at one of the publicly traded big N companies with good trade volume. Your RSU price is lower, you get more stock units for the same dollar amount at the time of joining in your initial grant (arguably much more important than refreshers).
I have a friend who recently got his MSFT joining RSUs at $130 a few weeks ago.
I’m not sure how serious you are, but that gate-keeping formulation (that another community is “leaking”) is just about the most Reddit-esque thing you could say.
It's advisable to hold your RSUs for at least one year for a favourable tax treatment, so the 33% discount he got is still very good; he's likely not going to sell his RSUs in six months.
He got the offer and decided on his start date way back in August of last year so any luck he happens by is good luck. He could've chosen to be luckier if the stock price goes down further, but I'd say this is pretty lucky as it is already for something he can't control.
Edit: ignore the tax part, I think I'm wrong there.
Yes. RSUs for publicly traded companies are for functionally equivalent to a cash for tax purposes. Not selling them immediately is the same as if your employer had given you a cash bonus and you bought shares of the company with the whole thing.
I'm not sure what tax treatment you're talking about, but I'm guessing you mean converting short-term capital gains into long-term. RSUs are taxed as income based on the price on the vesting date, so if you sell when it vests there's no capital gains and thus no advantage in waiting.
That said, I think Microsoft still does a 1-year cliff, so they won't have anything to sell for a year anyway.
Glad someone else noticed this. We are yet to have a crash from the coronavirus pandemic. You'd need another compound 50% off before I call it a crash.
Indeed, we're currently somewhat above the nadir in 2018 when we were all worried about the effects of 10-25% tariffs on $250 billion of US imports of Chinese products.
I don't know about the rest of you, but I am definitely not feeling as confident in the mid-term, or even long-term outlook as I was then in 2018.
I'm neutral on the market right now, I don't think it's entirely unfairly priced. NASDAQ is in the best shape of the indices because tech companies don't seem hugely affected by all this insanity. Most major investment banks are expecting a huge boom in Q4/Q1 and return to business as usual. COVID new cases are trending downwards across all major economies (except the US, to follow soon) [1]
I'm actually feeling better now than I was in October 2018. Rates are lower, tons of financial stimulus, a waning problem and a warming stock market.
Indeed but as virulent as it is, and with so many people having zero symptoms or mild flulike symptoms, we're all going to get it. The question is whether we get it first, or the vaccine is developed first. Either way, this will sort itself out shortly.
Both social distancing and herd immunity reduce the R factor. Thus nearly everyone may end up with the disease in NYC, but in less dense areas it can stamped out with vastly lower infection rates.
That alone could make the difference between 70% vs 30% of the US population getting even with minimal precautions.
I am hopeful we can suppress this disease before herd immunity develops in cities. But, once that happens they stop acting like dense areas in terms of disease spread.
It’s really a question of regional R factors under various levels of social distancing, population, and herd imminuty.
I have a pet theory that what we're essentially doing is running a huge experiment where we select for the least dangerous strains of the coronavirus. People who get a mild flu or no symptoms at all are less well quarantined and are significantly more likely to pass it on to other people. People who get the worst symptoms are tightly quarantined in hospital, reducing their chances of passing on the worst forms of the virus.
It's probably not true and it isn't really based in any biological knowledge but it kind of makes sense in relation to what I've read about how the Spanish Flu epidemic ended.
That's exactly what happens. Diseases don't "want" to actually kill their hosts; it kills them too. If evolution was selecting for more dangerous variants over time, we'd all be long dead; multicellular life might not even be possible. But it's actually selecting for things that live in the host indefinitely and spread over long periods of time, which leave the host alive in order to do so.
In the long term, the coronavirus will very likely either be entirely eradicated by human action or become just another cold... but first you have to survive to see that long term.
This is also why the worst diseases you see are zoonoses, diseases that spread from other species. They are co-evolved (if you want the term for this, look up "coevolution") with their hosts, then they jump into us and do the things that they "think" will just lightly affect their hosts and let them spread, and we keel over dead because those are the wrong things.
Apparently, due to having its own proofreading mechanism, the virus is very stable genetically. I heard that over all the different strains that have been sequenced worldwide, the maximum difference is just 15 base pairs!
The Spanish flu was selected for extra virulence, because it started during a war and the sickest soldiers were sent back from the front to hospitals. Usually when people get sick, they isolate themselves, so the weakest forms spread.
There's enough social distancing going on in NYC right now to prevent the majority of people from ever getting it. It doesn't seem likely that the social distancing will be let up enough (and subsequently not clamped back down) to the point of allowing most people to get it.
On the surface that seems to be true. NYC has ~8.4 million people minus those who left the city. ~1% of the population has already tested positive (81,803), and compared to yesterday (81,803 - 76,876) = 4,727 people are testing positive per day which would take years before everyone gets it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_N...
More pessimistically, NYC’s CFR is almost 5% while in a growth phase when South Korea’s CFR is 2% after cases peaked when it was 0.6% in the growth phase. This suggests NYC is massively undercounting cases and the actual rate of infection could be something like 5-10x as high, with the virus reaching 50+% of the population in months at it’s current rate of spread.
PS: A more nuanced look taking into account differences in the overall and infected populations could narrow that estimate down. But, it should not be assumed South Korea discovered every case or that each country is counting deaths in the same way.
For sure we're undercounting. I had it and I'm not part of any official count because there's no way to get tested. My cohabiting girlfriend almost certainly had it, but she was entirely asymptomatic. Once you factor in all the asymptomatic people, in addition to all the symptomatic people who didn't end up hospitalized and thus likely couldn't get tested, the multiplier on the confirmed cases could easily be significantly more than 10X.
Pessimistically it seems that something like up to 10% of the city's population got it by the time that almost everything shut down, and now that almost everything is shut down, the spread has been vastly, vastly curtailed, as we see from new hospital admissions figures (which don't suffer from the same kinds of underreporting bias).
Death counts are a less unreliable indicator. Current death counts in NYC- over 7,000 using both the health department counts before Apr 5 plus the FDNY counts, tho even that still has to be an undercount- indicate that at minimum around the time of lockdown (Mar 22) at least 300,000 were "infected"- at a 2% CFR and MTTD of 15 days- but more likely closer to 700,000 or 800,000. That's 3 weeks ago.
With known new death counts currently in the mid to high hundreds, that adds tens of thousands of infections 2-3 weeks ago.
My take is- we are already today at over 1M infections in NYC. And we have a grim fork ahead- either we see a steep drop in death counts, or we see a steady or gradual decline.
A steep drop from lockdown means lockdown works, but also means we still have another few million in susceptible population as things start to open up.
If we only see a gradual or steady decline, COVID more quickly becomes the largest cause of death in NYC for 2020, and we know that lockdown doesnt work well enough to keep from progressing through the population, but we also know we have much less of a susceptible population remaining.
Well, if he had joined two weeks prior, his RSU price would've been $190, so he basically got 33% more RSUs. It's basically luck but I'm happy for him.
Anecdotally I'm still getting lots of recruiter spam from these types of companies on Linkedin and my current company that offers a good deal of RSU's is still hiring. It's not everywhere but in this particular recession and within those offers already offering lots of high value RSU's I suspect hiring is not slowing by a ton.
Recruitment spamming isn't useful for accessing hiring rate. Recruiters are always building their database of who is out there and gathering information.
I mean building your database via "I'd like to connect" message is one thing, getting specific job descriptions + being asked to start the recruitment process is a bit farther than that. I'm getting about the same ratio of type so far the past month. I'm not saying it's 1 to 1 but these companies are at least still actively hiring, and I have no reason to doubt that based on my company doing the same.
Gathering information is the recruitment process. It's just used to filter the good candidates out of bad candidates. The process is further used to get a valuation of what each candidate is willing or desiring to be paid and this is the main reason recruiters will always be working. I'm still being spammed as well and where the recruitment process is part of the spam. I work in academia which I enjoy and I'm not looking to leave my job but I do think the actual hiring will slow somewhat down. Too early to predict how much in all areas of engineering but I assume in a few months we will see.
Are companies lowering the equity value of their offers currently? They might do that if they believe the stock will recover by 20-30% in 6 months, but I'm not on the job market so I don't know if companies are actually doing this.
I graduated in 2009; what you say is true. We appear to be experiencing major crises pretty much every 7-8 years now. Remember that just after the dotcom crash, there was the collapse of Enron, MCI Worldcom, Nortel Networks and others. These had a ripple effect across financial markets and devastated communities that relied on the jobs and spending those companies generated.
I graduated from university at the exact moment the dot com bust occurred, and the job market went from fizzing to non-existent in the space of a few weeks.
I ended up working at a local charity, and then entering into a business incubator but for a couple of years I had no money to speak of. If I felt rich, I'd have McDonalds for lunch.
On the other hand, I was living in a cool part of town with a group of people who I still keep in touch with - those days were the best in some ways.
So yes, it does get better, but people's expectations will need some major adjustments. I do firmly believe that it's a good opportunity to set yourself up for when the recovery occurs.
Not to mention that the coming downturn is likely to depress wages for most jobs, including developers. Debt isn't an issue if you can afford to maintain it, and most people with student debt thought they would be entering a highly lucrative market. That might turn out to be wrong for the next decade.
This is an opportunity for businesses to reduce wages for new hires because people will just be thankful they've got a job.
I imagine people from well off, but not wealthy, families who won't or can't assist in paying for their education come out with more because theres basically no aid available for them.
My college had a 30k/year tuition. 4 years of that comes out to 120k. Your figure assumes >70% of costs are paid without debt. 30k/year is common now for an undergraduate degree from a state school with dorm.
What they estimated was that at a given moment, I would spend an average amount of an hour of money on a university's budget. This means I would actually have to budget an average of $60,000 a year to pay for it.
That's $60,000 if you count out fees on each member of their state.
1. 30k/year is REALLY high for tuition. Most state flagships -- which are some of the best universities in the entire world -- aren't that expensive. UIUC, definitely one of the best CS departments in the world, has tuition that's about half that per year [1]. And that's a top-tier state flagship research university; a bit of an overkill for any but the most ambitious (phd or md or jd or elite co.)-bound students. The regional campuses, which do an excellent job at preparing you for typical entry level industry gigs in most fields, have tuition closer to $10k/year [2]. If you want a "normal" life -- decent salary in exchange for a 40 hour work week, in a relatively normal stress environment, and without attending a top-tier graduate program -- don't go to a top-tier state flagship.
2. Most private universities do have sticker prices in that range, but a) why go non-elite private (e.g., mid-low tier liberal arts colleges) since they're usually not even as good as comparable public schools, and b) almost no one actually pays the sticker price at private universities. The average discount factor at private universities is around 50% [3].
3. It's definitely possible to make >$10K each year while doing university full time. Even very conservative estimates -- state minimum wage and only working summers/weekends with no overtime -- put the number north of $8K [4].
4. Living at home is often an option (not always, but the percentage of people who can't live at home and also don't qualify for need-based aid has to be pretty small).
5. Four years is an upper bound, not a requirement! College-ready students can and should transfer credits from high school AP, IB, or college credit courses; one of those three options is available in the vast majority of US high schools. Students who are not college-ready should start off at community college, which, again, brings the price down substantially.
So, for example, if you:
* go to your local branch campus of a state university like SIU-E or UMSL,
* live at home,
* work a minimum wage job for 40 hours over the summer and on the most weekends during the school year [4], and
* come in with sophomore standing OR do you first year at community college
then you can graduate with a very modest amount of debt (less than a used car, or possibly none at all). Cutting any one of those assumptions still keeps you well below $100K and possibly much lower than even $30K.
Plus, some of those assumptions are conservative. E.g., for most of that time you should be able to make substantially more than minimum wage by taking internships, tutoring ($20/hr+ is typically a "low" rate), etc. Scholarships and fellowships are typically available as well.
College is far too expensive in the USA, but you really have to be a huge outlier to graduate from undergrad with $100K in debt. And it's still possible in many parts of the country to graduate with "used car" worth of debt or even no debt at all.
Part of our "college affordability" problem is real, but part of the problem is a "buying luxury goods with a credit card" problem. Attending one of the best universities in the world and living in their dorms and staying for four full years and not working full time over the summers + weekends during the school year... that's the most expensive option possible. There are plenty of much less expensive options for most college students in the US.
> 1. 30k/year is REALLY high for tuition. Most state flagships -- which are some of the best universities in the entire world -- aren't that expensive.
So what? Prestigious schools are notoriously egalitarian toward the students. If you get accepted to Cal Tech, you are guaranteed to be subsidized. Nobody "can't afford" to go to Cal Tech, but there are people who don't test well enough.
> 2. Most private universities do have sticker prices in that range, but a) why go non-elite private
Because most people aren't even average collegiate level intelligence.
> 3. It's definitely possible to make >$10K each year while doing university full time.
Not sure what this is supposed to say, but surviving is hard out there. Especially around any school (public or private). Most people in massive debt, try to work it off.
This whole post seems a little holier than thou. Least of which is the perspective that people could (or would) attend "best universities", which is more than a little presumptuous. This debt hole is so common it appears in US media from TV (eg Grey's Anatomy, Devs, etc) to the newest films.
So, people are choosing to go to expensive universities that don't subsidize their tuition. It's a choice, and there are much cheaper options for most of the country.
If you're paying $30K in tuition and planning on a "normal" career path, then you're paying way too much.
> This whole post seems a little holier than thou
Well, if sound financial advice is perceived as a personal attack, then we're never going to solve this problem.
People whose parents can support them by allowing them to live at home for free during college can graduate with almost no debt by attending a cheap institution, working while going to school, and getting a head start in high school or community college. And most people whose parents cannot allow them to live at home will qualify for state and federal grants.
This country does have affordable college options for most people. The problem is that most people who go to college choose the more expensive options (state flagships and non-elite private universities) even though their local state university branch campuses are capable of providing a perfectly adequate education at a third of the price.
More importantly, the only way we'll reduce the debt burden on undergraduates is by providing more subsidy to state branch campuses. That will only work, however, if people choose to go to those state branch campuses. There's just no world where the taxpayer subsidizes a big chunk of room&board&tuition at research institutions for the majority of college students. For the top ~5% of students by merit, sure. But that model just doesn't make any sense when there are far cheaper options.
> eg Grey's Anatomy
Medical debt is an entirely separate issue. Intertwining it with the undergraduate debt issue confuses things -- the solution to med school debt will be different from the solution to undergrad debt.
The people with 100k in student loans (non graduate degrees) were probably not on path towards financial greatness anyway. I can't imagine looking at all of the available schools in the world and choosing one that costs over 25k a year. If it wasn't student debt it'd be some other form
Also, housing costs are astronomical. There is no splitting a cool spot with some roommates in the cool part of town, anymore. These days, if you work in tech and feel rich eating McDonald's, your commute is at least 2 hours.
I graduated in 2002. It was devastating to my life and set my career back about a decade. Because I am from Appalachia, that only compounded the problem.
It took me 2 years to find a 'real' job as tech support with a starting salary of 28k/year. It wasnt until 5 years after graduation did I find a job I was really happy with as a DBA at a University making 40k/year.
I was still stuck, because here you have this east coaster from a no name university and their career hasn't grown much, not worth a phone screen. Things didn't really change for me until I got my masters at an Ivy league.
I was finally worth of a phone screen and risk flying to the west coast for an on-site. After that I have done really well as a data scientist for a top 5 tech, but it was not easy.
Given that I graduated in 2002, if someone finds out that I am not making TC 400k and worth millions, something must be really wrong with me.
If I made 100k out of college like many in tech do now, I would have been retired by now. At this rate, it will be about 15 years before I can retire - thats how far graduating during the wrong time set me back.
Will better days be ahead? yes. Did people graduating now end up winning a really shitty lottery? oh god yes, though probably not as bad as 2002.
Of all my friends from back in the early 2000's, we've all pretty much had the same life arc.
Some people got jobs as lawyers, some at banks, some were in a band, some were social workers, and then there was me - no fancy job, no money, and just a crappy car and a very friendly cat.
20 years later, we live all around the world but the circumstances are largely similar. A job which is ok, a house, kids - nothing much to complain about really.
One of the biggest learnings I've had is that people make decisions (some of which I wouldn't personally agree with), but we all end up in mostly the same place.
People who are going to struggle for the next year or two will be fine, but the future and the path they take might be a bit different to what they expected.
I thought so too - if you're solidly upper middle class, then you'll usually stay solid upper middle class.
The author went to Loyola Uni, a private US uni, which according to this site at least is 50% more expensive than the national average non-profit uni [1], indicating a well-off background. Wealth begets wealth in form of connections, which is what the author shortly refers to:
>I do know someone who works at Loyola, whose husband works at a real estate company. They need a database programmer.
So yeah, if you're 'outside' these groups/classes, chances are you may not make it.
> The author went to Loyola Uni, a private US uni, which according to this site at least is 50% more expensive than the national average non-profit uni [1], indicating a well-off background
Your conclusion isn't necessarily wrong, but many private universites offer fairly good financial aid packages for students whose families wouldn't otherwise be able to afford it. At the university I went to, there were definitely a lot of upper middle class students, but plenty who weren't as well; one of my good friends there actually didn't end up having to pay any tuition due to his family having fairly limited income (his father was a part time construction worker, and his mother couldn't work due to health issues). That's not to say that there weren't other advantages for students who came from more connected backgrounds, but attending a private university with a high cost isn't necessarily limited to only those from higher-income families.
I feel you, A few months ago I hated my job and was looking to move somewhere else but now I feel ok about it. I'm still working and I get to work from home now. Things are ok.
I'm perfectly happy at my job at a very small established company. Unbelievable freedom, no mandatory overtime, everybody is on a first name basis with the CEO, no stress, no "PIP"s, no worries about my equity going down the toilet, and I got my own office.
My total compensation might be half of what I could get at large corps but I don't need to live in a city (lower rent and housing prices, fresher air) and money isn't everything. I can commute the short way to the office via bike which takes off even more time I spend at work.
It's likely to be dotcom level+ for all industries. At this point, casual and low level employees have been laid off, businesses are conserving cash and negotiating with their lenders.
This is not a financial recession, its a completely different beast. We are in uncharted waters of a connected global economy being affected globally by the pandemic.
The unemployment numbers are at least 10 million in the last 2 months for the US. Similar proportional numbers are applicable in all economies.
This is likely to continue for the next 6 months and is likely to have recurring volatility as areas relax or increase social distancing to protect life and maintain the health system.
Assuming best case of a vaccine being available for general use this time next year, it will take 3-6 months to roll out before things are back to "normal". So that's not until Q3 2021 at best.
In the meantime, we can hopefully have palliative and curative treatments for those infected and, with luck, the virus doesn't mutate sufficiently to cause lack of immunity to those who have survived infection.
We're about to test out MMT vs current supply side vs (neo-)Kensyian macroeconomics. World trade was already affected by the stupid and misguided US instigated tariff barriers.
In addition, we have to deal with the existing US mal-administration and the volatility of an election with all of the ridiculous nature of the way US states conduct their election process.
The idea is that the economic effects will have ripples. Google depends on advertising dollars right? Do you think Disney is spending the same cash advertising Disney hotels right now?
It's a ripple effect. Movie theaters, bars, golf courses, gymborees, concert venues, wedding planners, travel agents, hair dressers, massage parlors, party supply stores, wedding dress stores, SAT prep centers go out of business first.
Then, home remodel contractors, flooring supply depots, life coaches, car dealerships, finacial advisors, nanny's, and more.
Then, advertising collapses slaying Google and Facebook.
And, finally, as the whole house of cards comes crashing down, people cancel Netflix.
I was in the same situation as OP. I got "lucky" in getting a job in operations analysis instead of software development due to my poor GPA. A lot of my friends had their much higher offers delayed or rescinded while I kept my not-so-glamorous job at a Fortune 500.
I would say that 100% of my friends recovered and most have better career trajectories than I. You will make it through this. One bit of advice: don't be overly picky. Opportunity seems to favor those who do instead of sit on the sideline.
We all worry now.
But I think someone with 10-20 years experience will be better off than someone with 5 months experience...it's better to fire all juniors and leave out a few seniors from a software engineering perspective. juniors are a long term investment and often cause more trouble than provide value.
I don't disagree with the logic. But a bit... wet blanket, no? I’m having a good laugh imagining the motivational oomph that's lost when adding the caps below.
"To all the young programmers worrying about the uncertain job market, I promise things will get better FOR SOME OF YOU."
That’s what life is. There are no happy endings or do overs. It is only the raw truth of your circumstances. You can either look at that truth head on, or avert your eyes.
Of course you will. Some jobs are more prone to periodic layoffs than others. STEM jobs are pretty safe compared to the people who work 9-5 in retail (the people who are actually suffering right now).
This brings back so many memories. I graduated with a Comp Sci degree from a well-regarded university. I had friends who graduated a year earlier return to school for a different degree because there was just nothing available with a degree in CS. So demoralizing.
I graduated a year later and took a job making a little over minimum wage. At that time, the most influential executives at my workplaces said software engineering in America was dead, to be replaced by cheaper outsourced Indians, and then other countries once they became too expensive. It set the course of my career. I am in tech but not a Software Engineer. Had I graduated a year later, I am sure I would be a Software Engineer today.
The fear and feeling of instability in this industry never left me.
I'm pushing 40, graduated high school in 2000. I heard a lot of the same "wisdom." For some reason I just really wanted to be a software developer so I stuck with it even though the dot com bubble was in full catastrophe mode. I'm glad I did, but I can't claim magic wisdom. I don't know how kids are supposed to get good life/career advice. I surely didn't.
Perhaps the only thing I can reasonably suggest is that people create a "skill stack" instead of a skill. I'm a good coder, but coding is probably among my least economically valuable skills. My most valuable skill, by far, is communication. I can explain technical things to non-technical people and do so in a way that doesn't make them feel dumb. Part of the key there is I know they're not dumb. That wins you a lot of favors. My second most valuable skill is having a basic understanding of economics/business, how incentives work, how business decisions are made, etc. This helps me anticipate the needs of others at work and help solve their real problems which they may not even see clearly themselves.
If the stats offer any credibility... I work from home full time and have for nearly a decade. I've got 2 concurrent contracts going on right now. I'm expecting to make >$300k this year. I live in a 2nd tier city with a low cost of living, you've heard of it but it's not NY/LA/etc. I've never even applied to a FAANG type place.
i started my work life as a developer in 2001/2002, right after the internet bubble burst. If you're in comp science with a real college degree, you really don't have anything to worry about in the middle / long term.
People are actually using tech even more now than before, it means priority will change towards using more tech people, not less. As soon as the lockdown stops and economy start again you'll be fine.
The trouble is for short term finance, especially if you have a student loan to repay. Depending on which country you live in, government will probably provide some support. In the meantime save as much money as you can on daily spendings if you're in that situation.
What kind of job do you do? You sound like me, with the exception that I'm at the start of my career and am getting rejected everywhere the past year.
I've been a coding bootcamp instructor and was praised by students for my communication. My friends are mostly entrepreneurs, consultants and business people and I talk quite a bit about business with them and my coding skills relatively to that are alright.
I don't really have a specialty. The last 3 years I've been doing Identity and Access Management. Before that I've done everything from physical security systems, insurance, enterprise web development, truck dispatching, point of sale... all over the place really.
I'm aware of how awful this is going to sound, but I'm totally unfamiliar with the process of applying to tons of places and getting rejected. When I'm short work I call up a gig company like TekSystems and most places I interview I get an offer. I am not particular about the kind of work I do, so if someone meets my $ requirement, I usually accept the first offer I get. It was always like that, even in the early days before I had a resume/experience. I wish I had some wisdom to offer in that regard, but I got nothing. I'm not particularly charismatic or anything. In fact, I'm a bit on the spectrum. I'm smart, but not crazy smart, about 120 iq if that's a thing that concerns people. I'm also a college dropout.
To add a minor expansion on the "skill stack" concept, I'd introduce the phrase "think like a ____." The thing I spend the most time with mentoring is teaching people who to think like a programmer. You'd think that would come with the degrees, but it really doesn't. Regarding your skill stack and spending time around consultants/entrepreneurs, do you think you can think like an entrepreneur? A person can know a lot of history facts, but not know how to think like a historian. This is a really important threshold to get past in the building of a skill stack. Think about something you're really good at and think about what it means to think like one of those. Maybe you're a gamer. Do you understand what it means to "think like a gamer?"
Hey I am a bit younger than you but have a very similar resume of working contracts, never applying to FAANGs and reaching out to people/networks when I am looking for work. I definitely feel like I'm doing well but it would be great to speak to someone else who has succeeded at this sort of "alternative" career path. Is there a way I can reach you to ask for some specific advice? Or would you contact me? ritchiea at gmail dot com
I'm someone who's started the traditional career path and doesn't like it. I've halfheartedly started a consulting firm, and I'm spending time shifting my focus to that. I'd also love to chat with you.
thomas dot spader at gmail dot com, if you'd like to
I get that you're unaware of it. I was as well. I freelanced for a bit. For whatever reason that actually was easier to get. But then I tried to play it safe, and got into a year long apply-rejection cycle.
maybe try entry level project management jobs. i have a business and computer science degree, always more inclined towards the business side rather than technical or coding, and project management is perfect for that, plus it pays well.
> I don't know how kids are supposed to get good life/career advice.
They need a good support structure at home, at school, and they need successful people in their lives. I think most kids are lucky to have 2 of those, let alone all three. Hell, even kids with all three end up majoring in something useless, or dropping out of school, or worse.
Slightly tangential, but why is the major so important in the US for hiring? If I want to join some generic grad scheme (e.g. Proctor and Gamble, an accountancy firm) do I need to have done a business or economics major?
In the UK the requirement for a graduate role is usually just any degree unless you’re applying for something specific. Possibly this is because UK degrees are more specialised. I also suspect that for most graduate business jobs your academic knowledge isn’t very important.
It just strikes me as a better way of allowing people to study what they want rather than requiring an endless stream of drones.
> At that time, the most influential executives at my workplaces said software engineering in America was dead, to be replaced by cheaper outsourced Indians, and then other countries once they became too expensive.
I remember my first software internship, in 2003. Two weeks into the job, the company's VP came into our office for a little pep talk (the project was way behind schedule). The gist of the talk was that in India there are programmers who are 4x cheaper than us (I was in Poland), so we must be 4x as productive as them. In hindsight, it seemed that the VP was part of the same groupthink as everybody else... Now, I know to not treat such sexy extrapolations that the business people are excited about too seriously. In 2020, they are things like data-driven organizations, AI, autonomous vehicles, perhaps "Industry 4.0"? (I don't know anything about the last part).
I was part of the dotcom crash. I went to community college which made things more difficult than university grads. Many people left the field in my year. Not really sure how many programmers are left in the group today either.
After living in java throughout school I managed to get a minimum wage 6 month contract in php and never looked back transforming that into 6 more months and fighting out a 2500 month wage for my last 3 month contract with them.
The interview for that was tough. In the end it was myself and another person from university who spoke in more advanced terms. The final piece was a take home assignment and I did it quickly and the other person couldn't so I got the job. After I got the role I would see the candidate she would come in and have lunch with the a co-founder she connected with during the interview process. When she found out she didn't get the role she cried in the middle of the room for so long, very uncomfortable. There was always a bit of hate from that co-founder after, you could tell the co-founders were fighting (they were a couple founder team). My advice know your stuff and when you get the call give it your all even if it looks/seems impossible.. I applied to so many jobs before I got even that interview.
The tech situation in y2k vs today is incredibly different which makes them somewhat hard to compare. E-commerce was minuscule, telemedicine didn’t exist, social media wasn’t a thing as we know it today, ridesharing didn’t exist, cloud computing wasn’t a thing. It seems highly unlikely that we will regress to a state where such services are not required.
The dot com burst was way worse than today. One reason is that back then the industry was 10% of what it is today, or even less. The other reason is that social distancing is creating the need to start selling online for a lot of small brick and mortar shops. Most of web development companies I know are overwhelmed by the demand in the last weeks. So we might be one of the few industries that benefits from all this mess.
The dot com bust was awesome for me, although it was the first time I had ever been fired from a job. I internalized blame for a while but then my girlfriend, who had been laid off before me, was like fuck it let's have fun in NYC and collect funemployment. We saw so much culture and had so much fun. Then that buttlock Bin Laden had to ruin it all.
I like this kind of articles. I graduated during the 2008 crash and thrived as a programmer. It is probably because i spent most of my youth on IRC learning about all sorts of topics, mostly web related, while others waited for knowledge to be handed down by professors. If you are passionate you are likely to gain deep knowledge about your topic of interest. Deep knowledge makes you highly desirable for most employers. Anyone sitting out there anxious about what may be, now is the time to sink deep into your domain and become better at it.
> Deep knowledge makes you highly desirable for most employers. Anyone sitting out there anxious about what may be, now is the time to sink deep into your domain and become better at it.
Is this not more risky during a recession, when you're niche may not be very desirable in the economic climate?
321 comments
[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 239 ms ] threadI have a friend who recently got his MSFT joining RSUs at $130 a few weeks ago.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_Child
https://massasoit.instructure.com/courses/346438/pages/video...
Also a great recipe for shark repellent, that she made for the CIA.
https://www.cia.gov/news-information/featured-story-archive/...
And she showed how to bone a chicken Saturday Night Live:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSxv6IGBgFQ
He got the offer and decided on his start date way back in August of last year so any luck he happens by is good luck. He could've chosen to be luckier if the stock price goes down further, but I'd say this is pretty lucky as it is already for something he can't control.
Edit: ignore the tax part, I think I'm wrong there.
That said, I think Microsoft still does a 1-year cliff, so they won't have anything to sell for a year anyway.
I don't know about the rest of you, but I am definitely not feeling as confident in the mid-term, or even long-term outlook as I was then in 2018.
I'm actually feeling better now than I was in October 2018. Rates are lower, tons of financial stimulus, a waning problem and a warming stock market.
[1] https://aatishb.com/covidtrends/
That alone could make the difference between 70% vs 30% of the US population getting even with minimal precautions.
It’s really a question of regional R factors under various levels of social distancing, population, and herd imminuty.
It's probably not true and it isn't really based in any biological knowledge but it kind of makes sense in relation to what I've read about how the Spanish Flu epidemic ended.
In the long term, the coronavirus will very likely either be entirely eradicated by human action or become just another cold... but first you have to survive to see that long term.
This is also why the worst diseases you see are zoonoses, diseases that spread from other species. They are co-evolved (if you want the term for this, look up "coevolution") with their hosts, then they jump into us and do the things that they "think" will just lightly affect their hosts and let them spread, and we keel over dead because those are the wrong things.
More pessimistically, NYC’s CFR is almost 5% while in a growth phase when South Korea’s CFR is 2% after cases peaked when it was 0.6% in the growth phase. This suggests NYC is massively undercounting cases and the actual rate of infection could be something like 5-10x as high, with the virus reaching 50+% of the population in months at it’s current rate of spread.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_S...
PS: A more nuanced look taking into account differences in the overall and infected populations could narrow that estimate down. But, it should not be assumed South Korea discovered every case or that each country is counting deaths in the same way.
Pessimistically it seems that something like up to 10% of the city's population got it by the time that almost everything shut down, and now that almost everything is shut down, the spread has been vastly, vastly curtailed, as we see from new hospital admissions figures (which don't suffer from the same kinds of underreporting bias).
Death counts are a less unreliable indicator. Current death counts in NYC- over 7,000 using both the health department counts before Apr 5 plus the FDNY counts, tho even that still has to be an undercount- indicate that at minimum around the time of lockdown (Mar 22) at least 300,000 were "infected"- at a 2% CFR and MTTD of 15 days- but more likely closer to 700,000 or 800,000. That's 3 weeks ago.
With known new death counts currently in the mid to high hundreds, that adds tens of thousands of infections 2-3 weeks ago.
My take is- we are already today at over 1M infections in NYC. And we have a grim fork ahead- either we see a steep drop in death counts, or we see a steady or gradual decline.
A steep drop from lockdown means lockdown works, but also means we still have another few million in susceptible population as things start to open up.
If we only see a gradual or steady decline, COVID more quickly becomes the largest cause of death in NYC for 2020, and we know that lockdown doesnt work well enough to keep from progressing through the population, but we also know we have much less of a susceptible population remaining.
(FYI I bought MSFT stock for half that, back in 2017.)
I ended up working at a local charity, and then entering into a business incubator but for a couple of years I had no money to speak of. If I felt rich, I'd have McDonalds for lunch.
On the other hand, I was living in a cool part of town with a group of people who I still keep in touch with - those days were the best in some ways.
So yes, it does get better, but people's expectations will need some major adjustments. I do firmly believe that it's a good opportunity to set yourself up for when the recovery occurs.
This is an opportunity for businesses to reduce wages for new hires because people will just be thankful they've got a job.
What they estimated was that at a given moment, I would spend an average amount of an hour of money on a university's budget. This means I would actually have to budget an average of $60,000 a year to pay for it.
That's $60,000 if you count out fees on each member of their state.
2. Most private universities do have sticker prices in that range, but a) why go non-elite private (e.g., mid-low tier liberal arts colleges) since they're usually not even as good as comparable public schools, and b) almost no one actually pays the sticker price at private universities. The average discount factor at private universities is around 50% [3].
3. It's definitely possible to make >$10K each year while doing university full time. Even very conservative estimates -- state minimum wage and only working summers/weekends with no overtime -- put the number north of $8K [4].
4. Living at home is often an option (not always, but the percentage of people who can't live at home and also don't qualify for need-based aid has to be pretty small).
5. Four years is an upper bound, not a requirement! College-ready students can and should transfer credits from high school AP, IB, or college credit courses; one of those three options is available in the vast majority of US high schools. Students who are not college-ready should start off at community college, which, again, brings the price down substantially.
So, for example, if you:
* go to your local branch campus of a state university like SIU-E or UMSL,
* live at home,
* work a minimum wage job for 40 hours over the summer and on the most weekends during the school year [4], and
* come in with sophomore standing OR do you first year at community college
then you can graduate with a very modest amount of debt (less than a used car, or possibly none at all). Cutting any one of those assumptions still keeps you well below $100K and possibly much lower than even $30K.
Plus, some of those assumptions are conservative. E.g., for most of that time you should be able to make substantially more than minimum wage by taking internships, tutoring ($20/hr+ is typically a "low" rate), etc. Scholarships and fellowships are typically available as well.
College is far too expensive in the USA, but you really have to be a huge outlier to graduate from undergrad with $100K in debt. And it's still possible in many parts of the country to graduate with "used car" worth of debt or even no debt at all.
Part of our "college affordability" problem is real, but part of the problem is a "buying luxury goods with a credit card" problem. Attending one of the best universities in the world and living in their dorms and staying for four full years and not working full time over the summers + weekends during the school year... that's the most expensive option possible. There are plenty of much less expensive options for most college students in the US.
[1] https://admissions.illinois.edu/invest/tuition
[2] https://www.siue.edu/paying-for-college/tuition-and-fees/und...
[3] Supermancho ↗ > 1. 30k/year is REALLY high for tuition. Most state flagships -- which are some of the best universities in the entire world -- aren't that expensive. throwawayjava ↗ > So what?
So what? Prestigious schools are notoriously egalitarian toward the students. If you get accepted to Cal Tech, you are guaranteed to be subsidized. Nobody "can't afford" to go to Cal Tech, but there are people who don't test well enough.
> 2. Most private universities do have sticker prices in that range, but a) why go non-elite private
Because most people aren't even average collegiate level intelligence.
> 3. It's definitely possible to make >$10K each year while doing university full time.
Not sure what this is supposed to say, but surviving is hard out there. Especially around any school (public or private). Most people in massive debt, try to work it off.
This whole post seems a little holier than thou. Least of which is the perspective that people could (or would) attend "best universities", which is more than a little presumptuous. This debt hole is so common it appears in US media from TV (eg Grey's Anatomy, Devs, etc) to the newest films.
So, people are choosing to go to expensive universities that don't subsidize their tuition. It's a choice, and there are much cheaper options for most of the country.
If you're paying $30K in tuition and planning on a "normal" career path, then you're paying way too much.
> This whole post seems a little holier than thou
Well, if sound financial advice is perceived as a personal attack, then we're never going to solve this problem.
People whose parents can support them by allowing them to live at home for free during college can graduate with almost no debt by attending a cheap institution, working while going to school, and getting a head start in high school or community college. And most people whose parents cannot allow them to live at home will qualify for state and federal grants.
This country does have affordable college options for most people. The problem is that most people who go to college choose the more expensive options (state flagships and non-elite private universities) even though their local state university branch campuses are capable of providing a perfectly adequate education at a third of the price.
More importantly, the only way we'll reduce the debt burden on undergraduates is by providing more subsidy to state branch campuses. That will only work, however, if people choose to go to those state branch campuses. There's just no world where the taxpayer subsidizes a big chunk of room&board&tuition at research institutions for the majority of college students. For the top ~5% of students by merit, sure. But that model just doesn't make any sense when there are far cheaper options.
> eg Grey's Anatomy
Medical debt is an entirely separate issue. Intertwining it with the undergraduate debt issue confuses things -- the solution to med school debt will be different from the solution to undergrad debt.
It took me 2 years to find a 'real' job as tech support with a starting salary of 28k/year. It wasnt until 5 years after graduation did I find a job I was really happy with as a DBA at a University making 40k/year.
I was still stuck, because here you have this east coaster from a no name university and their career hasn't grown much, not worth a phone screen. Things didn't really change for me until I got my masters at an Ivy league.
I was finally worth of a phone screen and risk flying to the west coast for an on-site. After that I have done really well as a data scientist for a top 5 tech, but it was not easy.
Given that I graduated in 2002, if someone finds out that I am not making TC 400k and worth millions, something must be really wrong with me.
If I made 100k out of college like many in tech do now, I would have been retired by now. At this rate, it will be about 15 years before I can retire - thats how far graduating during the wrong time set me back.
Will better days be ahead? yes. Did people graduating now end up winning a really shitty lottery? oh god yes, though probably not as bad as 2002.
20 years later, we live all around the world but the circumstances are largely similar. A job which is ok, a house, kids - nothing much to complain about really.
One of the biggest learnings I've had is that people make decisions (some of which I wouldn't personally agree with), but we all end up in mostly the same place.
People who are going to struggle for the next year or two will be fine, but the future and the path they take might be a bit different to what they expected.
>I do know someone who works at Loyola, whose husband works at a real estate company. They need a database programmer.
So yeah, if you're 'outside' these groups/classes, chances are you may not make it.
[1]https://www.collegecalc.org/colleges/illinois/loyola-univers...
Your conclusion isn't necessarily wrong, but many private universites offer fairly good financial aid packages for students whose families wouldn't otherwise be able to afford it. At the university I went to, there were definitely a lot of upper middle class students, but plenty who weren't as well; one of my good friends there actually didn't end up having to pay any tuition due to his family having fairly limited income (his father was a part time construction worker, and his mother couldn't work due to health issues). That's not to say that there weren't other advantages for students who came from more connected backgrounds, but attending a private university with a high cost isn't necessarily limited to only those from higher-income families.
My total compensation might be half of what I could get at large corps but I don't need to live in a city (lower rent and housing prices, fresher air) and money isn't everything. I can commute the short way to the office via bike which takes off even more time I spend at work.
Working at small companies can be really good.
That plan is definitely getting shelved for now.
This is not a financial recession, its a completely different beast. We are in uncharted waters of a connected global economy being affected globally by the pandemic.
The unemployment numbers are at least 10 million in the last 2 months for the US. Similar proportional numbers are applicable in all economies.
This is likely to continue for the next 6 months and is likely to have recurring volatility as areas relax or increase social distancing to protect life and maintain the health system.
Assuming best case of a vaccine being available for general use this time next year, it will take 3-6 months to roll out before things are back to "normal". So that's not until Q3 2021 at best.
In the meantime, we can hopefully have palliative and curative treatments for those infected and, with luck, the virus doesn't mutate sufficiently to cause lack of immunity to those who have survived infection.
We're about to test out MMT vs current supply side vs (neo-)Kensyian macroeconomics. World trade was already affected by the stupid and misguided US instigated tariff barriers.
In addition, we have to deal with the existing US mal-administration and the volatility of an election with all of the ridiculous nature of the way US states conduct their election process.
It's a ripple effect. Movie theaters, bars, golf courses, gymborees, concert venues, wedding planners, travel agents, hair dressers, massage parlors, party supply stores, wedding dress stores, SAT prep centers go out of business first.
Then, home remodel contractors, flooring supply depots, life coaches, car dealerships, finacial advisors, nanny's, and more.
Then, advertising collapses slaying Google and Facebook.
And, finally, as the whole house of cards comes crashing down, people cancel Netflix.
I would say that 100% of my friends recovered and most have better career trajectories than I. You will make it through this. One bit of advice: don't be overly picky. Opportunity seems to favor those who do instead of sit on the sideline.
https://www.fxnetworks.com/shows/devs
"To all the young programmers worrying about the uncertain job market, I promise things will get better FOR SOME OF YOU."
I graduated a year later and took a job making a little over minimum wage. At that time, the most influential executives at my workplaces said software engineering in America was dead, to be replaced by cheaper outsourced Indians, and then other countries once they became too expensive. It set the course of my career. I am in tech but not a Software Engineer. Had I graduated a year later, I am sure I would be a Software Engineer today.
The fear and feeling of instability in this industry never left me.
Perhaps the only thing I can reasonably suggest is that people create a "skill stack" instead of a skill. I'm a good coder, but coding is probably among my least economically valuable skills. My most valuable skill, by far, is communication. I can explain technical things to non-technical people and do so in a way that doesn't make them feel dumb. Part of the key there is I know they're not dumb. That wins you a lot of favors. My second most valuable skill is having a basic understanding of economics/business, how incentives work, how business decisions are made, etc. This helps me anticipate the needs of others at work and help solve their real problems which they may not even see clearly themselves.
If the stats offer any credibility... I work from home full time and have for nearly a decade. I've got 2 concurrent contracts going on right now. I'm expecting to make >$300k this year. I live in a 2nd tier city with a low cost of living, you've heard of it but it's not NY/LA/etc. I've never even applied to a FAANG type place.
People are actually using tech even more now than before, it means priority will change towards using more tech people, not less. As soon as the lockdown stops and economy start again you'll be fine.
The trouble is for short term finance, especially if you have a student loan to repay. Depending on which country you live in, government will probably provide some support. In the meantime save as much money as you can on daily spendings if you're in that situation.
I've been a coding bootcamp instructor and was praised by students for my communication. My friends are mostly entrepreneurs, consultants and business people and I talk quite a bit about business with them and my coding skills relatively to that are alright.
I'm aware of how awful this is going to sound, but I'm totally unfamiliar with the process of applying to tons of places and getting rejected. When I'm short work I call up a gig company like TekSystems and most places I interview I get an offer. I am not particular about the kind of work I do, so if someone meets my $ requirement, I usually accept the first offer I get. It was always like that, even in the early days before I had a resume/experience. I wish I had some wisdom to offer in that regard, but I got nothing. I'm not particularly charismatic or anything. In fact, I'm a bit on the spectrum. I'm smart, but not crazy smart, about 120 iq if that's a thing that concerns people. I'm also a college dropout.
To add a minor expansion on the "skill stack" concept, I'd introduce the phrase "think like a ____." The thing I spend the most time with mentoring is teaching people who to think like a programmer. You'd think that would come with the degrees, but it really doesn't. Regarding your skill stack and spending time around consultants/entrepreneurs, do you think you can think like an entrepreneur? A person can know a lot of history facts, but not know how to think like a historian. This is a really important threshold to get past in the building of a skill stack. Think about something you're really good at and think about what it means to think like one of those. Maybe you're a gamer. Do you understand what it means to "think like a gamer?"
thomas dot spader at gmail dot com, if you'd like to
They need a good support structure at home, at school, and they need successful people in their lives. I think most kids are lucky to have 2 of those, let alone all three. Hell, even kids with all three end up majoring in something useless, or dropping out of school, or worse.
In the UK the requirement for a graduate role is usually just any degree unless you’re applying for something specific. Possibly this is because UK degrees are more specialised. I also suspect that for most graduate business jobs your academic knowledge isn’t very important.
It just strikes me as a better way of allowing people to study what they want rather than requiring an endless stream of drones.
I remember my first software internship, in 2003. Two weeks into the job, the company's VP came into our office for a little pep talk (the project was way behind schedule). The gist of the talk was that in India there are programmers who are 4x cheaper than us (I was in Poland), so we must be 4x as productive as them. In hindsight, it seemed that the VP was part of the same groupthink as everybody else... Now, I know to not treat such sexy extrapolations that the business people are excited about too seriously. In 2020, they are things like data-driven organizations, AI, autonomous vehicles, perhaps "Industry 4.0"? (I don't know anything about the last part).
After living in java throughout school I managed to get a minimum wage 6 month contract in php and never looked back transforming that into 6 more months and fighting out a 2500 month wage for my last 3 month contract with them.
The interview for that was tough. In the end it was myself and another person from university who spoke in more advanced terms. The final piece was a take home assignment and I did it quickly and the other person couldn't so I got the job. After I got the role I would see the candidate she would come in and have lunch with the a co-founder she connected with during the interview process. When she found out she didn't get the role she cried in the middle of the room for so long, very uncomfortable. There was always a bit of hate from that co-founder after, you could tell the co-founders were fighting (they were a couple founder team). My advice know your stuff and when you get the call give it your all even if it looks/seems impossible.. I applied to so many jobs before I got even that interview.
Is this not more risky during a recession, when you're niche may not be very desirable in the economic climate?