[baron_harkonnen]

This will play our more like the dotcom burst than the 2008 crisis.

For most younger people here this may come as a shock but tech jobs can disappear, for years.

The job market in 2019 felt a lot like the job market in 1999, people rushing to get upskilled so that they could get into software and make ridiculous money. After the dotcom burst huge number of people left tech, or at least left the world of software development. Salaries also went way down for nearly a decade.

A common comment here on HN with layoffs is "well they're just getting rid of superfluous employees, so this is no big deal". This assumption is both ridiculously callous about real people losing job, it also underestimates how much work is superfluous in SV.

It is very possible that tech will take a serious hit this time, and that the total number of software engineers, data scientists, dev ops people etc will go do... for years. And likewise salaries will also drop (TC automatically does this thanks to the magic of RSUs).

Certainly people will need software and software engineers, just likely not nearly as much as they do now. Once FAANG realizes there's no longer a need to keep talent off the market, expect salaries to take a dive.

[corporateslave5]

People have been calling software engineering wages a bubble for 20 years, and trying to call “the end of tech”. I just don’t see it, highly proficient software engineers are more valuable than ever. The wages are higher than ever. Going forwards, tech is really the only engine of growth in the American economy. Trying to say tech will be under for years is like saying the USA will be in a massive recession for years. I just don’t believe it.

[code4tee]

What’s happening now is very analogous to the 2000 dot.com crash. The economy overall will recover, albeit slowly. However companies are questioning why they need 100 engineers instead of 50. That doesn’t just reverse itself overnight. As the OP said those that weren’t around the last time might find it hard to believe that tech jobs really just disappear for years.

[corporateslave5]

No it’s not. The fed printed so much money and dropped rates so low, there’s a massive excess of capital looking for business opportunities. Monetary policy is what is driving the economy, and it’s making this bubble bigger than ever. You can’t ignore economics and cheap money. We will have ten more we work like companies.

[orky56]

Rates are low now but it will take time for this to get reflected in VC/PE/corporate dollars to invest. The addressable market of consumers/enterprises that are willing to spend money on non-essential products/services is down and will drop further since budgets are being tightened and fat is being cut. The 2008 unicorns that were born out of the last recession had to provide oversized returns to investors based on them addressing needs well beyond what cash-strapped consumers/enterprises were willing to spend on. We're in for a ride.

[corporateslave5]

Not really. You are underestimating the magnitude of money injected into assets.

[empath75]

When you've got 100s of thousands of unemployed talented engineers on the market, you're not going ot be able to sustain $200k salaries for people who know how to write a yaml file for long.

[corporateslave5]

Not when the FED is printing so much money. That money has to go somewhere, and a lot of it ends up funding new startups and new corporate debt.

[g981ms2]

yaml's are sometimes difficult to write.

[bsanr2]

Which is gonna suck for a lot of people in major metros, as those salaries were necessary to keep up with asset inflation post-2008.

Wariness about the future, spiced with a tinge of schadenfreude.

[bsanr2]

I should point out, as I have no attachment to my karma, that the schadenfreude comes from the fact that those inflated asset prices were used to justify and fund gentrification and displacement. If a crash ruins a few of the entities profiting off that, well, chef's kiss.

[thewarrior]

Well guess what those assets won't be able to sustain themselves without those salaries.

[pbourke]

Counterpoints:

- before Coronavirus, there was a shortage of people to work in software (if you believe BLS)

- software employment represents a very small portion of the labor force

- there are many problems that have just happened that will require software to solve

- while there are undoubtedly industries that will be hard hit, there are many software-intensive sectors that will see growth as a result of the crisis (ecommerce for one)

- the world in 1999 was much different. the internet was a curiosity, now it's essential.

- and finally, companies that are looking to implement efficiencies (read: lay people off) turn to .. software

edit, one more:

- many software positions over the past decade+ have been filled by immigrants. Going forward the US is going to be much less friendly to immigration, so competition for jobs will go down for US workers

[decafninja]

Would this be a bad time to be in a job hunt to change companies? Anticipating that there may be a cohort of newly laid off SWEs from prestigious brand-name companies (Uber, Lyft, potentially others) flooding the market?

I'm guessing I, as a lowly, humble, SWE from an investment bank, would be easily looked over in favor of those aforementioned veterans/alumni of highly regarded Silicon Valley companies. Unless if I make a lateral jump to another bank or hedge fund, which I have no desire to do so.

[csmiller]

I’m in a similar situation and am still getting messages from FAANG recruiters. I think you would be fine.

[pthomas551]

You're making a sweeping assertion with zero evidence to back it up.

One obvious counterpoint to this argument is that this recession was not caused by markets realizing that many publicly listed tech companies actually had no market and no path to profitability.

Also, non-tech companies took on a large number of engineers in the late 90s to address Y2K - many of whom got laid off afterwards. Not an issue here.

[justinzollars]

I totally agree with this perspective: salaries will go down, the number of jobs will decrease.