How coronavirus could affect software industry?

[aearm]

Some say after covid-19 more companies will realize their job can be done remotely which will lead to increase the demand for more software engineers. While others say recession is coming and most companies will reduce their IT budget. Do you know how covid19 will affect the software industry?

[shahbaby]

One thing I haven't seen anyone mention is that the longer this goes on, the more it will reduce the credibility of a formal education.

In theory you can move classes online but in practice this usually results in massive cheating.

Another consequence of this might be fewer internships due to a reduced headcount and on going uncertainty during the pandemic.

So while the graduating class of 2020 will have a rough time, if universities continue online for another year, it'll be even harder for the class of 2021.

[samfisher83]

The entire world is shutdown. I don't understand how we can avoid a recession at this point. I think Cash will be king so companies that generate a lot of it like apple, google, fb, msft will be fine. A lot business that don't generate cash are going to be in a lot of trouble. As money dries up funding is going to be harder to come by.

[streetcat1]

On the contorary.

The economy is flooded with cash (3T fiscal injection + 10T form the FED). The FED basically bought most of the outstanding treasuries and injected cash into the system).

So once the virus is over (mainly due to massive testing), there might be inflation, which means that equity will be much pricier (not cheaper) in nominal terms.

I.e. if the economy was heated prior to the virus, it would be 2X heated after the virus.

In addition, there might be a shift of supply chains from china, back into the US, which means more jobs and more software.

However, we first need to get over the virus.

[mattbgates]

A SaaS company in Russia had contacted me just earlier this month and asked me if I'd help them with their marketing efforts and selling points. I had asked them why they were considering hiring me and what they needed. After some discussion, it turns out that that area of Russia has not been affected at all, and so, here they are trying to sell their product to a world that isn't even operating. I told them they could still hire me, but I didn't think that much could be done for March or April. For some parts of the world, they have no idea the severity of how much this has disrupted the economy.

Anyways, what it could mean for future is that we've learned to do a lot of things online. Universities could easily be done entirely online, lowing costs, eliminating buildings, and possibly the college experience, but this is unlikely to happen.

There are going to be people who fear coming out of their homes, thus creating an even bigger market for UberEats, DoorDash, and InstaCart to flourish, especially with older people, and no vaccine.

There is also going to be a demand for new technologies that can handle things like this, as it happened once... to say it could never happen again is just foolish. A military veteran is currently printing non-approved FDA 3D ventilation masks that help protect the face, and he's even sending them out for free, only asking companies to be support him and re-imburse the costs for the products he needs to supply them with. So new technologies will be developed to manage future cases like this.

Information on viruses, particularly corona, and how fast we can get that data out there is also something that might interest new developers. There are a lot of case studies and research going on behind the scenes. While doctors may be busy... R&D around the world is trying to help come up with a vaccine or something that can at least allow our bodies to recognize the virus faster.

While I will not get into any deep political comments about what is going on, the fact is: our governments were severely underprepared for this. 99% of all companies were not prepared for such an event, but it will not only be our government, but corporations to re-think how they might do things, especially in this event. In other words: our entire economy is mostly crashed, but it is still functioning, and many of us are still working, and even ordering food online, so it seems, there are a lot of things tech companies can look at to make the lives of people easier.

You can see tech already popping in: developers are using Google API along with other sources to pinpoint corona virus "hotspots" -- tracing where infected people are, where they have been, where they went, where they are now, etc., all so you can avoid crossing paths, or taking extra precautionary measures before touching things. For example, if you know that 10 people went to the local McDonalds and 3 of them were infected, McDonalds can better sanitize their environment.

Fortunately for all humans: we are very social creatures, even though many of us introverted software engineers could do without socializing.. it doesn't mean we don't like to go out for pizza or a movie every so often, even to a nice restaurant with people. So life is not going to be moved online permanently or anything like that.