This piece is more optimistic than reality, imho. As an older worker, without BigTech on my resume or a four year degree, I'll probably never work again in the industry, barring some lightning strike.

Anecdotal, but I just went to PyCon and about 1/3 of the dozens of folks I talked to are looking for work. The "job fair" was everyone playing charades, there are still a hundred people for every position. One said they were hiring 2-6% of applicants. At least the lunch was nice.

Hiring 2-6% of applicants?

That sounds high, not to be dreary, but given how easy it is to spam and roles having thousands of applicants.

There's about 10M in US tech jobs and the forecast for net job adds is +2% in 2026 so the number on a macro level checks out.

Could have been a number to make us feel better, or perhaps post-spam filter.

Young American, whether job seekers on in employment, don't understand that their greatest power is their power to vote, and organizing themselves to use that power properly ability and using it properly is the way of improving the condition of their country and themselves.

The upside: the SV area will have a very tech-savvy homeless population! (if not already... dunno I don't live there)

If we go by history, ambitious elites without a good direction is grounds for a revolution.

Prior revolutions (American, Cultural, French) were all put into action by young, strong, people.

We don't have that anymore. It won't happen. There's no one coming to save us.

Every generation thinks the next is lazy or whatever. It’s universally wrong

I'm not saying anyone is lazy, I'm saying by the numbers the proportion of the population which is young (which did the heavy lifting during the example revolutions) are not there.

I (50 Something AI Specialist) interviewed with 2 startups recently.. both passed -one said I was too qualified.. the other that I was too CTO type.. basically 20 somethings wanted other fellow 20 somethings -despite my AI experience.

I'm working with 3 other startups, but work is contract based, no healthcare and flaky..

Maybe you came off as too far above the grind? People that have recently been in more VPE/director type roles often don’t succeed at returning to IC work (or at least, hiring managers believe this).

sure, it could be the case.. I have been over-analyzing myself lately and realized its just sapping my confidence.

Probably if you have their exact experience requirements and willing to go to an office in San Francisco. Then you need to do the leet code thing and if your lucky get picked from the final candidates and get a low ball offer.

Yes, with wages from 6 years ago.

It beats homelessness, right?

Startups are low pay with lottery tickets. 90% or more will fail. Technically jobs but not the right ones.

They've been all the best ones, in my career; and I have no idea what you mean by "low pay", unless it's merely "not the very tippy-top highest pay". Which is fine: there's more to life than just money.

Startup's have famously traded pay for the "carrot" of outsized returns on equity. The pay always sucks.

Most people do not want to work for subpar pay in the one of the most expensive areas in the US. Especially when you're getting diluted off of the cap table as happens now. You're always ending up behind.

That's before considering people with actual life responsibilities.

This comment seems like 15 years outdated to me. I'm curious what you think "normal" pay and "startup" pay are. Or maybe how early you're drawing the line for defining "startup".

Being in the first handful of non-founder startup employees at some seed stage company is probably not the most lucrative thing, but once companies are post Series A, as far as I can tell they tend to be comp competitive with bigger companies.

Obviously not many companies can compete with Meta or Jane Street for salaries, but that's true whether you're talking about a startup or the majority of the S&P 500 companies.

This is really SDE pay coming back down to earth. You're still making way more than even most white collar jobs at a startup.

First the thing I liked had changed, then they took it away and it wasn't even mine anymore... or however the meme went. Enjoy maybe three remaining years of your career :)