| >all of the applications coming from people thinking it's an easy meal ticket Because it is an easy meal ticket. Why are we pretending it's not? This is the only profession in the world where you can make decent money from the comfort of your home, via self study and without any high level education. Look at the other well paying professions, bankers, management consulting, doctors, lawyers, engineers, etc. how long they need to spend in university and how much money their studies cost, before they can get their first wage. Meanwhile someone who's been coding for fun since childhood can get a decent wage starting 18th birthday, without a degree and without going into debt. In my developing country that just moved to developed status, SW jobs were a big contributor in lifting young generations of ambitious youngsters out of poverty saving them from having to emigrate or do backbreaking work for peanuts. The career has some downsides but it has the lowest bar for a skilled profession ever. |
Well, at least for me it wasn't. I went to university to study CS (in Europe, so I didn't get a debt). It was hard (like any other Science/Engineering career I imagine). Then finding a job was relatively normal and the pay was normal as well. It was only after I got years of experience that it started to get better (e.g., home office, better salary, etc.), but it didn't come for free either (it happens that I like CS a lot, and I can afford to spend some part of my free time reading tech books... so that helps when it comes to salary as well).
I don't think it's an "easy meal ticket". Hell, I don't think anything in this world is an easy meal ticket (unless your parents are rich ofc).