The Broken Senior-Only Job Market 

Gentleman's agreement 🫡 You know what to do

I can’t do this anymore. I have so much passion for this field and I hate it being killed by recruiters that feel like they’re robotically programmed asking the same redundant questions that’s answered already on my resume.

This video is really valuable to me as I've been on a corporate job for half a year, but don't nearly learn as much as with personal projects

I worked for a startup. They refused to share equity (on paper, but promised us they would if we were ever acquired.. we were a "family", after all!) and then sold the software we built for eight figures. None of us saw a dime of it. I would never do it again without some proof of equity set in stone.. but it was one of my first jobs out of college and I was naive enough to believe them.

AI wont replace engineers or even junior engineers. It will replace people that stagnate and do not learn how to use it. I could not be happier for the advent of AI assisted coding. I was always a slow coder. Now I get to focus on my strengths: Solving hard technical problems (which A.I can never do in full scope), system design, software engineering, collaborating etc etc

Hi Jason, I've watched all of your videos and I appreciate the useful non-generic you provide. Please keep making more videos!

You want to become a senior in one stack, and not a mid at multiple stacks. Good point

It's a provocative video to be sure, but I have over 40+ years of development skill and knowledge. I can code for Linux, Windows, macOS, iOS, iPadOS, and virtually everything else. I know more languages than I can list, seeing as I pretty well stopped keeping track when the number got north of 50 or 60, I forget. I never had any problem finding a new job until I turned 50. What used to take days now takes MONTHS. So as to your thesis, that it's a senior-only job market, my experience surely says otherwise.

You brought me so much peace about my future. This video was extremely insightful as someone who's new to coding. I loved your vibe, you earned a subscriber.

Hey Jason! Thanks for the insightful video. I'm in my first year at Waterloo studying soft eng and it has been really tough finding a co-op especially when ur in ur first year. I feel like ur video made me really think about how i can excel in specific skills to improve my chances of future jobs/internships. Thanks as always

Your videos are both motivating and knowledgeable. Keep your head down, work on projects people want, even if it's just yourself. Simple but impactful. Please make more videos and you deserve more views per video!

This is a surprisingly good video. Especially the script kiddie comparison. I’ve been saying that AI is great but could really enable this problem and many won’t know the fundamentals, relying on AI to generate the solution.. Thanks for sharing man

Deep knowledge takes years, and will be obsolete in a few years. You need just-in-time skills for specific projects.

Never seen you before, but this video was excellent. Actually solid advice, good humor, great editing, and I legit thought you were sponsored by ozempic haha. Sort of confirms what I've been thinking for some time now. Very happy for the push to keep going in this direction.

As a senior dev... I found this really insightful and valuable. I really agree with your analogy on the candy vs broccoli balance. As someone who's gone too hard in both categories at different times in my career... finding a good balance of both is hard to do but really really important.

"Build something that people could actually use", love it. That is how I found your channel. I need to learn how to code, your channel has a ton of valuable information. I have patented something that is "something people could actually use" and just need to build it myself or get some help seems to be more the path after seeing your videos : ). I have used this patented idea in the workplace and have increased my productivity by 65% and out preformed my counter parts. Thank you for your guidance and videos. I am now a subscriber.

Ever since I started self studying ML, my minds been running with a crazy amount of startup ideas. Your video was just the inspiration needed. I think it's time my ideas take a leap into reality. Thanks, mate :)

First off, I just wanted to say how much I've been enjoying your videos - they've been incredibly helpful in my journey as a fresher in software development. However, one challenge that I, along with other newcomers in the field, often face is figuring out how to effectively manage our time. We're constantly juggling between learning new concepts, brushing up on coding skills, diving into math fundamentals, and even squeezing in internships. Given your experience, I was wondering if you could share some insights and tips on how you personally manage your time in this dynamic environment. It would be immensely valuable to hear about your approach and any strategies you've found particularly effective.

Very interesting perspective - AI has been a very topical conversation at my company and while I don't know how to code, you make me wonder why I shouldn't look towards start ups where I can transfer my solution development background into a more profitable/opportunity rich role. Thanks for posting as always!

I recognized you from the time I matched with you for a mentorship program (16weeksofinternship). I regret not going through with it. But I am glad to have found your channel!! I am one of those junior devs who got laid off last year and it's been a tough market but I am hopeful my hard work will pay off. I am not sure I am ready to pursue a startup yet but thinking of doing a part time masters to learn more about AI. Looking forward to more of your videos!

This is a really solid take. I started my first job as a SWE last year as a self taught dev but that only lasted 8 months til I got laid off. I work as a data analyst now though and I love it. Skills in programming can really carry over to a lot of different tech jobs.

Very well said. It's also great advice for many other fields: learn something really well

Spot on. Learning C++ & you will be able to do almost any programming. C# similar results, but cuts out some hassle & easier to learn.

Excellent post. I just got laid off from a middle level position from a software company in Bangkok and it seems everywhere is looking for Senior Devs, so it's a little catch 22. Been thinking hard of doing my own thing but then the visa situation comes into play, but you've got to go and risk it as without the risk, you don't know if you will succeed at that goal or not.

Good points! Great content! Well done!

Wow so true! I am a freelancer for 16 years and 30+ yeas of experience and I literally had only just landed a project at my old customer! Everybody says the need "good people" but nobody seems to want to actually hire and pay for them. It's really a werid market. Even during the 2008 crash it was easier to find jobs, they just paid less.

Thank you for a very informative video! ❤

Amazing. Thank you so much.

I remember a certain someone telling me the exact same thing at a certain point in my life. Now, watching this at this certain point, hits quite hard.

Thanks mate, saved me from depression fueled procrastination loop.

Great video Jason, thanks for sharing. I got into tech with the idea of building my product - a startup, but did not take time to learn the fundamentals (broccoli) Now I know I need to learn the basics which will be helpful in my startup

Hey, A vid on how you started your startup (i.e) the entire procedure and how you implemented your idea would be great.

This is a really valuable video

this channel is underrated wtf

Macro economic pressure is also a big part of the layoffs. Higher interest rates mean that all companies avoid big expenditures and risky R&D, lower cash flow and the need to cut expenditure.

The "deeper" knowledge you are referring to is precisely what is missing from the current crop of LLM (Large Language Model) services that are coding assistants. Therefore, these LLM's absolutely do eliminate a lot of the lower level coding jobs that could be accinokusged by gluing together copied code. (Note, I still don't like that phenomenon because younger entry level coders need jobs!). However, it does elevate and empower the senior experienced coders with "deeper knowledge" because they know how to use the LLM to write more code faster and most importantly, know when the LLM generated coder is wrong, and generated code is frequently very wrong with the amount of problems found in the generated code code growing exponentially with the complexity of the coding task. God help us all though if/when they do move from the current "pattern regurgitation" phase the LLM's currently are in, to true automated reasoning with preferential autonomous agency. Then we are all screwed, senior dev or not.

I've already subscribed back when you were geeked up about being a Microsoft all star and made the great condensed computer science video. It was inspiring, but from my post-military experience going from aircraft instrument and automatic flight control systems (avionics) to college IT and a bootcamp, aerospace was a better career by far if you want to make sure you have one for a long duration and acquire a pension. I had "deep knowledge" of avionics and a few people were mad that I was retiring because some of that knowledge would be lost. But, I never hid my knowledge from others so they should have learned everything I knew, especially at my last duty station where I served for 8 years. There's maximum service lengths by rank, and retirement was mandatory for me at 20 years of service. So if someone doesn't like it, they can tell it to the Pentagon. The point is though, that yes, deep knowledge is priceless in any field, whether it's software, electronics, carpentry or plumbing. But in IT, which suffers from feeling it's an exceptional industry (it's just another industry), it's a constant game of playing "Simon Says" until you slip up and get fired. So politics are paramount over deep knowledge. Maybe someone wants that "poodle life" of jumping through endless hoops, but I'm glad that through good and bad I stayed on active duty until I retired with a pension at 44 years of age, which is 6 years higher than the norm of 38. As for everyone who thought they're too brilliant to put up with organization X, keep on grinding, but just know that statistically only 30% of new businesses are still in business 10 years after they start. So after 9 nine years, 7 out of 10 of these techpreneur poodles will jump through pmnelast hoop and land on a false carpet that falls into a pit of alligators. The bird in hand is worth two in the bushes and no startup will ever outperform the S&P 500 over time. You can literally work anywhere, be frugal and finish wealthy. Most other career approaches are a fool's errand. Just saying.

Very enlightening

Good video bro. I subscribed.

Even as a senior it's hard af

This is one thing I say all the time, now that LLM's are more accessible, an average joe can create a decent competitor for a small margin of the price. It is actually very empowering.

Great video ❤

I've been programming for more than 5 years. I've been trying to change my job for about 6 months, and I haven't gotten one interview since. I used to get interviews every month, I don't know what's going on in the world anymore. I'm glad that I have a job though, I would lose my mind if I didn't

Your video is Sooo helpful for me😭

thank you !

VERY interesting take. At the opposite extreme, SQL has been paying my bills for 30 years. I will never be replaced by an AI or outsourced worker. Why? Because rather than add more tech skills with diminishing returns I got myself business qualifications. It may be fun to cut code in a comfort bubble, but the REAL value add , as you hint in the video, is to transcend from writing code to providing a business service.

this guy's advice to people who can't get a job is... to start a startup LOL blind leading the blind. 3.5 years at a rest and vest tech giant and he's giving advice

Become a master of one and not a jack of all trades! Great advice.

Hi Jason! This video was very well done which is no surprise (holds the same standards as your rest). I'm sorry in advance but I'm gonna go on a bit of a rant. I'm currently doing my Bachelor's in computer science. I am expected to be done in 2 years but I maybe take a leap year which mean s that it could be 3 years until I'm done. To be honest I'm feeling pretty depressed lately and do not feel motivated in school when I see the tech layoffs etc. Sure, there is always hope in these kinds of videos but I feel like the future is only going to be AI. I don't feel like I want to take my masters in AI, I'm more into Computer Security. Am I f*cked if I don't major in AI? I just feel frickin' lost at the moment.

Nah Bro it doesn't work to learn just one thing really well. The skills and requirements for a job these days are insane. Usually ask way too many skills and the list includes (networking, windows, linux, kubernetes, docker, AWS, Azure, Google stuff, NIST, ISO 27001, splunk, wireshark, nmap, vulnerabiltiy management, risk management, project management, ethical hacking) to name a few. Every single of those topics could be a single job and requires a lot of time, resources, money and experience to get "keep knowledge" on them.

Annual Net income is not directly related to headcount. If you have a finished product you could be making a lot of money, but you don't need a million people working on it. Because most of the work it's already done. Sure you can always iterate. But you don't need the same amount of resources to iterate as when the product it's starting. So in a market with aversion to risk, trash startups get less capital and companies like facebook and such get more cash. Regardless of their needs of headcount.

Love how everyone who first suggests the gentleman's agreement is the one who benefits most.

A lot of the organisations you looked at the change in headcount for are already starting mass recruitment again after the layoffs. e.g. Meta

You got a sub!

As someone at it for 25 years, my conclusion is that the quality of software efforts have declined greatly overall. The Senior-Only issue is due to the larger issue that most people in management know less about what they are doing than before, so they are making short-term decisions because the long-term is just over their heads.

You are a good video essayist. I can’t tell you how many times a YTer starts reading their reference material word-for-word (I.e. right to repair guy Louis Rossman) insulting the intelligence of their audience. You, on the other hand, present the source, highlight your talking point and interpret it in your own words. Refreshing! Engaging!

Having previous experience from somewhere is how you can start something like that, without job experience starting a start up is not going to be as easy. It is possible, but not as easy. Considering that over 90% of startups fail, there needs to be a clear plan how to fail without hurting yourself.

I subscribed, as we agreed

If a company is only looking for seniors, its a major red flag they aren't doing well and layoffs are soon.

That's not the dunning kruger effect, but that alone doesn't necessitate invalidating it.

:) what a great video

So...I need to make candied broccoli...got it

Gentle Agreement 👍

Obviously failed corporate leadership is the main culprit here, but I also think part of the problem is the weird over-saturation of CS programs. People who didn't care about computers or programming studied it just because they heard about the high-paying jobs and it was an easy way to start a career. They would do the bare minimum to get into a job, but there was never any passion. I think those people will struggle now, because if you don't want to program alone in your room for no money just because it's fun, you're not going to get a job.

Fortune 500 company employee here: Senior only when hiring outside the company. Most junior positions are available and posted internally. Other cool facts: We hire college students, We train and upskill employees, We invest in our people, we don't compete with technology companies, we partner with them. Hope that helps.

Ah… the dunning kruger broccoli effect… we meet again

Exactly: junior devs now will have hard time (low salaries, if any) because of high interest rates, modern semi-automatic coding tools (ChatGPT, low code, modern frameworks, cloud). But for seniors actually little changed, they'll still be in high demand, and ChatGPT won't replace them anytime soon. A huge problem might be in let's say 20 years, when many seniors will retire and there'll be nobody to replace them. Maybe ChatGPT will be very good then, but who knows, AI actually develops veeery slowly. 1st experiments with neural networks have been made in '50s, and only recently, >60 years after initial research, AI became actually useful for few tasks (image recognition and generation, ChatGPT for simpler text generation), but is still terrible at most jobs (including those done by senior devs). Maybe it'll take another 60 years of waiting for the next big leap.

3:43 I though I would hear, "FBI! OPEN UP!"

3:45 * Theprimeagen knocks the Door *

My deep knowledge is I deeply despise all corporations

> Learn one thing, and learn it well that's what I was saying for the past 9 years. > Learn fundamentals aaaaaaand that's a huge hint on what to learn next. it's MATH. There's no thing more fundamental and important than math. It is indeed a good time to create a startup, that's for sure, but if you didn't learn fundamentals - you will find it incredibly difficult to compete with those who did. Idea is worthless if you can't implement it, and it's rather difficult to work with AI properly without math knowledge. Those who seem like they do - they're the modern script kiddies, they don't understand the tech they use, they simply use it because someone taught them to do it like this. That's a good thing though - it makes my competitors extremely dumb lmao. One of my competitors spent a year and hired 20 guys to implement the idea, they've lost ~1M USD despite having a ton of customers - just to be outdone by me and my shiny new algorithms in a few weeks :D That's why math is important, kids!

Long story short, stop jumping in to frameworks and libraries if you aren't able to build complex projects using the fundamentals. Remember "Practice makes perfect!".

Where can I find the link to the first graphic on the bottom left that shows company, headcount, and revenue growth? Writing a report and it would help big time

Net income does not tell you how much they spent to get that income. If you have 1 USD net income in year 1 with 0 in expenses and in year 2 you have 2 USD net income with 1 trillion USD in expenses. Then you might have layoffs as well while having rising net income. So you can still grow while your margins are being squeezed all the way down to 1 employee.

I know people who are "know it all" those are really very harsh when we ask them something and make fun of beginners as well, humbleness 0 empathy 0

Should I get a degree in cs or just be self-taught?

Oh! The sobriety!

Gentlemen's agreement 🤝

Nice

How often do you meet older people in the industry who are jealous of your success and wisdom? I wasn’t at your level in either department, but it was a problem for me. I guess I focused on it too much

Gentleman’s agreement

The Brocolli kid is so cute 🥰

03:13 Back when Jason was on a bulk

When you can hire 3 guys for the salary of one in SEA region, it is called BUSINESS, don't hate the Game, hate the market.....

If your solution is for everyone to become a tech entrepreneur, then we're in trouble. Plenty of people don't have the innate skills needed to become entrepreneurs and most businesses fail. There should be jobs available for people who just want to put in their 8 hours, come home, and not have to think about work until the next day.

Please make a video about how you maintain your cheekbones and jawline.

I'm actually thinking about going into nursing - Tech seems doomed thanks to A.I.

I need a developer job without experience

Unless you’re “too old” like my dad who is 59 and as soon as the in-person interview happens he never hears from them again.

You cant have a tech utopia if you dont have the power grid to keep you running 😂

Ai will create 1 job while replacing 10

I finally escaped the dread phase I’m 31

Wait, wait. Elon might have brought operating costs down but he has also killed revenue. He cut not only fat but vital staff.

What is "deep knowledg" and where to apply it?

i honored the gentlemen's agreement a long time back

Nonsense. You just walk right into the mill, find the super and say "I'm a Union Man!". Retire after some good years.

You said everything share similar common ground, then tell me how K8s rate to python.

Which Language did you learned first? I wanna start my Programming journey so if you tell this it would be good :)

So you don’t think an employment paradigm that refuses to let people develop deep knowledge in the workplace is inherently unsustainable? Really? No amount of techno jargon or boosterism about startups makes this any less stupid. This sector needs to unionize yesterday.

Learn everything except RUST *ANGRY CRAB NOISES* In all seriousness, if you want to write robust software that has great compile time guarantees give RUST a try, it has a steep learning curve but knowing a little bit of RUST so that you can write some hyper optimzed code in such a way that it mathmatically cannot crash during Run time is a very valuable skill to have, when working in larger enterprises. For a small indie game dev or something RUST is very unlikely the correct choice, same with a basic webstack, but RUST does have its uses.