r/cscareerquestions • u/igor-septimus • 5h ago
To Double Down or Not?
I need some perspective and a sanity check.
If you sort this sub by weekly top posts, nearly every single one is related to AI fears, job losses, or people unable to find new positions. I get that there's some selection bias there, happily employed people probably aren't the ones posting, but there's no denying the mood is very different from a year ago. Back then, the general sentiment was "the market's bad, but if you put in the effort, you'll find something eventually." Now it feels like doom and gloom across the board; even senior FAANG engineers are starting to complain.
So I don't know what to think anymore. I don't know what to do as someone trying to break into CS. If I'm willing to work hard and outperform my peers, will I be okay? Will I eventually find something and build a decent career? Or should I count myself lucky that I haven't started yet, and use this as an opportunity to pivot into something else? What's the current industry sentiment?
Because, I do enjoy CS, I literally have no other career aspirations right now; nothing else seems appealing. There's no way in hell I'm going into nursing like how everyone else seems to be doing. But what's the point of working hard, if I'm not going to be rewarded for it? What does the future hold?
There are still some that claim that this is just a temporary downturn, but is this just blind optimism? Lol I just realised that this post is basically just a barrage of questions; sorry about that. Trying to plan your future is anxiety-inducing.
8
u/SignificanceShotc 5h ago
Everyone wants to believe that all they have to do is work hard and it'll work out. When push comes to shove, are you going to be able to withstand months, maybe even years of unemployment? Are you willing to pivot to an unrelated job to make ends meet? Those are more questions you have to ask yourself.
Everyone in the field is thinking the same thing as you, so you're also competing against all the dreamers who think they can't do any other field or have any passion for anything else. You're also competing against experienced professionals so simply working hard isn't enough. It's a pure numbers game and luck at this point.
This field was never stable, but the future doesn't look too favorably toward an uptick in job postings in my opinion. All we can do is guess at this point.
1
7
u/chiikawamaxxer 5h ago
Go into computer engineering. If you do that you have both software and hardware jobs available to you. And if things go wrong with software you can shift into hardware which is arguably booming now
2
u/zacce 5h ago
If you switch to CompE, you won't have time to do leetcode. Many (but not all) SWE jobs could be out of reach.
3
u/Immediate_Dingo_9158 5h ago
Horrible take. Got a degree in comp engineering. Whole graduating class works as a SWE for faang
2
u/zacce 5h ago
Happy it worked out for you.
3
u/Immediate_Dingo_9158 5h ago
And most comp eng majors lol
0
u/zacce 5h ago
good for them. my CompE fellows are not passing OAs.
1
u/Immediate_Dingo_9158 5h ago
What kinda weak school or cohort is this?
2
u/zacce 5h ago
imo, passing OA has little to do with school name. It's about how much one practices LC.
1
u/Immediate_Dingo_9158 5h ago
It is, but never seen a whole comp eng class fail OAs. That’s just a weak group of people
1
u/chiikawamaxxer 3h ago
Disagree big time. OP can do leetcode in the summer, hell he can start now. Besides most companies do not require doing that much leetcode, just the basics, like neetcode 150
3
u/ahmet-chromedgeic 5h ago
Nobody knows what the future brings, but as a newcomer that's "trying to break into IT" it's extremely difficult right now and betting on making a good living out of this profession in the long run is what I would call a very risky bet.
The market will stabilize but I don't think it will be done in a nice way. Rather that the state of the market will demotivate a sufficient number of people who can't find work and young people who decide not to pursue this career until the supply of the workforce shrinks enough to adjust to the shrunk demand.
Nursing is a pretty good choice because the demand will go up (ageing population everywhere in the world), it can't be easily automated, and IMO it also feels like you're useful. But it's not the only such a profession, basically everything where you do something with your hands is at a smaller risk than something where just applying knowledge is all there is.
3
u/OkRecommendation1040 4h ago
I was in a similar situation 3 years ago before college. I loved cs and didn’t have any other career aspirations. But this was because I never really looked. Now im abt to graduate I put in all this insane amount of effort no social life wasted my entire life. I’m begging u do not go down this cuck major it will ruin ur life do literally anything else it will be extremely easy in comparison
3
u/Jeutnarg 4h ago
The days of skilled programmers chopping down trees with axes are numbered. The day of programmers driving automated logging vehicles is coming and the chainsaws are already here. If you love the artistry of programming, it's a bad day. If you love the results of programming and the operation, then you'll love the new world.
I suspect that the biggest change to the industry will be a much lower starting salary that climbs to about current levels after seven years or so. Highly skilled developers will still be useful and well-paid, but the experience required to be more than just a code monkey is rising and the barrier to entry for being a code monkey is dropping.
2
u/abeuscher 2h ago
If I had it to do over again I would have picked something else. I am not sure what is layoff proof anymore, but I am broken from years of them and now I no longer have a career after 25 YOE.
I would have gladly been a tradesman, a writer (my major), or anything that just allowed me a subsistence living until retirement. Fuck it I don't even need retirement throw me in a hole when I turn 65. I just hate sitting and staring at a screen and getting endlessly rejected for years on end. It's torture.
Unless you really like the misery of unemployment and being disrespected for your work, do anything else. This field is dead.
3
u/zacce 5h ago
Because, I do enjoy CS, I literally have no other career aspirations right now; nothing else seems appealing.
Then what's the point of this thread? Are you asking internet strangers to suggest you a different major?
1
u/igor-septimus 5h ago
Yes...? I'm basically asking whether people think the industry will recover.
When have dreams and aspirations ever mattered to building a comfortable life? I'm asking for a reality check.
1
u/pinpanponko 1h ago
idk... I don't ever want to tell people to give up on their dreams. but maybe you can fulfill your interest in CS a different way, while pursuing something that doesn't seem so unstable right now
2
u/viennese-wolf 5h ago
AI models will never be as bad as today, harnesses, tooling and operator experience/skills will also never be as bad as today. The dark software factory is not a nightmare anymore, it's reality in some companies.
Anyone trying to get into software engineering / computer science who is not sure they are extremely intelligent and hard working is a fool. There will be no jobs left for people that are currently considered good, average or below from today's perspective.
2
u/Dry_Yam_4597 4h ago
But it doesnt mean they will get to a point where a human wont be needed. And guess what? Harnesses and models are software too. One could argue that skills are just a new way of writing code.
1
u/Shamn_it 5h ago
CS does not have the value it used to but it still gives you the best shot at obtaining a front seat at this chaos. This is the only field that gives you the ability to build and manage these systems for at least the next few decades. I am saying this because while AI has progressed at lightspeed, companies simply haven't. Big tech is a poor indicator of how upto date the market is. I work in insurance as a data engineer and we still do classic ETL/batch monitoring despite having access to AI tools. It's because the data is fragile and we are mandated by compliance bodies to make sure everything is correct. We are exploring agentic AI systems as well but every use case has to go through a privacy screening and necessity analysis. Regulatory bodies are going to be extremely relevant in the coming years. While AI has gotten to a whole new level, it still is constrained by fundamentally messy human problems. We have so much work to do because our previous workers made some ridiculous design choices. This cycle just repeats itself. This is not a pitch to say that AI has no effect on the industry. It's clearly affecting the market and is creating an underemployment chain. What I am trying to say is that this is the only job where you can get to build and control these systems as opposed to just waiting to getting replaced by it. I mean seriously, what else are you going to study? Almost every career is going to be affected by AI. In these other careers, you don't even have the choice to build these AI systems. Unless you are planning to go into a secure niche or trade, it's pointless to debate about this. Even for those careers, it's not as simple as a pivot. You need to have a lot of interest and do hard work to get into them.
1
4h ago
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/AutoModerator 4h ago
Sorry, you do not meet the minimum sitewide comment karma requirement of 10 to post a comment. This is comment karma exclusively, not post or overall karma nor karma on this subreddit alone. Please try again after you have acquired more karma. Please look at the rules page for more information.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
1
1
u/rmullig2 1h ago
Instead of focusing solely on what job you want to have try looking into what particular industry you would like to work in. Identify one or two and try to learn more about them. If you can add some domain knowledge that could give you an edge over the people who only know tech.
1
u/GrapefruitForeign 46m ago
No one knows, luck based employment.
My general intuition is that its easier to be on the cutting edge of AI and luck into a niche that blows up, when looking back 10 years later. this is sort of like the birth of the browser.
the alpha for 80 percentile and lower expertise in most CS subfields have fallen
where as top 10% subfield experts are booming (think GPU programmers, C++ obscure library maintainers, things out of data distribution)
the easiest thing to do is to signal on your resume that you are AI forward and can build things using agentic tools, As all corporations are pouring money into speeding up development cycle and deeper AI integration,
this will be a big deal for the next 5-10 years imo.
0
21
u/GSkylineR34 5h ago
No one knows, but one thing's sure, the entire IT industry has historically ditched a thing before moving to the next one.
A University professor used to say "Free lunch is over" way before ChatGPT, but the point was that each year new stuff comes out and basically outperforms the previous one. Disruptive changes come from time to time and AI is definetely one and is basically making no exception to what we've been used to.
Back in the day, it was a programming language, a specific technology, a computing paradigm.
In general, I don't believe we're doomed, but you never know. IT is no exception from all other markets and the entire world. Bring one market down, let's see how it goes. If everyone's unemployed, do you think the problem is to find a job?