[vanuatu]

its not obvious to me that salaries go down, my hunch was that salaries go up but the bar is higher. Software becoming easier to produce (still hard to verify and make useful fwiw) raises the ambitions of software projects, and we don't seem to be close to the ceiling of demand for software systems

[himata4113]

There's a limit to what the demandXsupply curve can absorb. It really depends if there's twice as many developers or 10 times more. I think we have enough software development jobs to where we can absorb productivity doubling rather easily, not so sure about anything beyond that.

[vanuatu]

True on the demand/supply curve

I think due to how leveraged software is, the top % of software developers are more desired (and compensated) than ever, and the bottom % will have difficulty finding a role, and there are structural barriers to entering that top % (intelligence, location, etc). Companies have infinite demand for the cream of the crop talent

[himata4113]

I can actually back this up, most job offers I get actually come from people I happened to work with that never get a public job listing and are only obtainable via being highly regarded by others. I was told that my friend in their department where the role opened up got an email about a senior position and to reply if they have a recommendation.

However, software development is funny in a way where you don't need a job in order to be successful. I've never worked at a company and I'm pretty up there on the ladder, but I am not quite sure what will happen in next few years when ever possible thing that can be made in software is already explored to the fullest especially with singular developers launching 3 to 7 projects a month.