Will the Developer Market be Oversaturated in 2025?
Summary
TLDRUncle Steph discusses the current state of the software engineering job market, addressing concerns about oversaturation. He explains that the downturn in hiring is due to tech companies overhiring during the pandemic and now adjusting their workforce. He emphasizes the importance of strong fundamentals, real-world experience, and interpersonal skills for aspiring developers. Steph encourages embracing AI as a tool to enhance productivity rather than seeing it as a threat. The key to standing out is building real projects and continuously learning rather than just completing tutorials.
Takeaways
- 😀 The market is experiencing a downturn in hiring developers due to overhiring during the pandemic.
- 😅 Companies are trimming their workforce because they hired too many developers, especially inexperienced ones.
- 🤓 The current downturn mostly affects bootcamp graduates and self-taught developers who lack real-world experience.
- 💼 Hiring developers is expensive due to the cost of training and getting them up to speed.
- 👍 There is still strong demand for skilled software engineers, and future projections for the market remain positive.
- 🤖 AI is not a threat to developers; it can boost productivity by 10-20%, but it won't replace them.
- 👨💻 Real development work involves more than just writing code; decision-making and multi-tasking are critical.
- 📚 To succeed, aspiring developers should focus on building real projects and mastering fundamentals, rather than relying on tutorials.
- 🚀 Gaining hands-on experience by working on real-world projects, even for free, accelerates learning and career growth.
- 👎 Technologies like WordPress and content management systems had a larger impact on development than AI has had so far.
Q & A
What is the primary reason for the current downturn in software developer hiring?
-The primary reason is that tech companies over-hired during the pandemic out of fear of a talent shortage. Now, they're trimming their workforce and adjusting for reality, which has led to a temporary hiring slowdown.
Why did companies hire so many developers during the pandemic?
-During the pandemic, companies engaged in what some called 'defensive hires,' where they hired developers in large numbers, fearing they wouldn't have access to enough talent in the future.
What type of developers are most affected by the current job market downturn?
-The downturn is mainly affecting developers who lack strong qualifications, such as those from low-quality boot camps or who have only copied projects without real-world experience.
How does the cost of hiring a developer impact employers?
-Hiring a developer is expensive for companies, not just in terms of salary, but also in training new hires to become productive. This is why companies are being more selective now.
What skills, besides coding, are important when hiring developers according to HR managers?
-In addition to coding skills, HR managers highly value interpersonal skills and professionalism, as they are critical for effective collaboration and work in tech environments.
Will AI replace software developers according to Stefan?
-No, Stefan believes AI will not replace developers. While AI can handle certain tasks, like generating boilerplate code, developers are still essential for making key decisions and handling complex problem-solving.
How does AI benefit software developers in their day-to-day work?
-AI can make developers 10-20% more productive by automating repetitive tasks, such as writing queries or boilerplate code, allowing them to focus on more complex aspects of development.
What previous technological changes had a greater impact on development than AI according to Stefan?
-Stefan cites the shift to page-based web development in the late 90s, which increased productivity dramatically, and the introduction of content management systems like WordPress, which revolutionized web design and development.
What is Stefan’s advice for aspiring developers worried about the job market?
-Stefan advises aspiring developers to focus on mastering their fundamentals, work on real projects, and even take on freelance contracts or free projects to gain experience and build a strong portfolio.
Why does Stefan recommend avoiding Ruby?
-Stefan humorously advises avoiding Ruby, but does not provide specific reasons in the transcript. It seems to be a lighthearted comment rather than a serious critique.
Outlines
🤔 The State of the Software Engineering Market
The speaker, Uncle Steph, responds to a question about whether the oversaturation of the software development market is a concern due to the influx of new graduates and self-taught developers. He assures the audience that the demand for software engineers remains strong despite recent hiring slowdowns. This downturn is attributed to companies correcting their over-hiring practices during the pandemic, where they made 'defensive hires.' Companies have since adjusted their hiring strategies, no longer bringing in underqualified developers, such as those who only completed basic online courses. Uncle Steph emphasizes that skilled developers are still in demand, while those with less experience or qualifications are facing tougher job prospects.
🤖 AI in Development: A Tool, Not a Replacement
Uncle Steph discusses the impact of AI on various industries, including software development. He reassures developers that AI is not going to replace them, but rather make them more productive—by up to 20%. He explains that AI can assist with repetitive tasks, like writing queries or generating boilerplate code, but the more complex decision-making involved in development is still beyond AI’s capabilities. He compares AI’s impact to other technological shifts in the past, such as the introduction of page-based web development and content management systems (CMS), which also improved productivity but didn't eliminate jobs. Developers should embrace AI as a productivity tool, not fear it.
🚀 Building Real Projects for Real Experience
The speaker advises aspiring developers to focus on mastering the fundamentals and working on real-world projects to gain hands-on experience. He encourages new developers to take on freelance contracts, even doing a few for free to build their portfolios. Uncle Steph stresses that the practical experience gained from actual development work is far more valuable than completing endless tutorials. Mistakes are part of the learning process, and unlike other industries, coding errors can be easily fixed. He suggests that by building real projects, developers will enhance their skills and gain the confidence needed to secure jobs in the field.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Oversaturation of the dev market
💡Defensive hires
💡Bootcamp graduates
💡Interpersonal skills
💡AI in software development
💡Fundamentals
💡Freelance contracts
💡Page-based web development
💡Content Management Systems (CMS)
💡Imposter syndrome
Highlights
The oversaturation of the developer market is primarily due to the post-pandemic hiring frenzy and the large number of self-taught software engineers.
The current downturn in the tech job market is due to companies over-hiring during the pandemic, now realizing they need to trim their workforce.
Many companies hired developers who weren't fully qualified, especially boot camp graduates and those with limited experience, contributing to the current market correction.
Despite the downturn, there is still demand for skilled software engineers, especially those with strong fundamentals and interpersonal skills.
The cost of hiring new talent is high for companies, not only in terms of salary but also in training to make the developers productive.
HR managers emphasize interpersonal skills and professionalism as important factors when hiring developers, in addition to technical ability.
Future market projections are positive for technically skilled individuals, even with the rise of AI in the industry.
AI will not replace developers; instead, it will make them more productive, particularly in tasks like writing queries and boilerplate code.
Software development involves more than just coding; decision-making about libraries, languages, hosting, and features are areas where AI cannot replace human developers.
Technologies like page-based web development (e.g., ASP) in the 90s had a much larger impact on the development landscape than AI currently does.
Content Management Systems (CMS) like WordPress significantly transformed web development, a change that had a greater effect than AI is having now.
The current market adjustment is filtering out underqualified developers, but those with real skills and experience should not worry.
For aspiring developers, learning fundamentals and building real-world projects, even for free, is crucial to improve skills and gain practical experience.
Doing real projects helps developers overcome imposter syndrome and gain confidence in their abilities.
Coding is forgiving compared to other industries; developers can always fix mistakes and learn from them, so it's important to start working on real projects early.
Transcripts
hey guys how you doing uncle Steph here
so I got a question was put to me Stefan
what's your opinion on the
oversaturation of the dev Market due to
yearly graduated software engineers and
self-taught do you think there is still
a demand for software
Engineers good question I hear it all
the time here's the actual answer based
on my understanding of the whole Market
anyway let's just jump into it all right
short answer is don't worry about the
software engineering Market there's not
going to be a shortage what's happening
now and I'm recording
this October 1st wow it's October 1st
2024 so what's happening now is we're
having anecdotally I haven't looked at
the latest data but what we're happening
is a
downturn in the market in terms of
hiring developers because of two things
number one during the pandemic pandemic
excuse me during the lockdowns a lot of
tech companies were just hiring like
crazy they were doing these um what's
the term they used they were doing what
some people would call defensive hires
hiring anybody they could get their
hands on in terms of coding Etc because
they're worried but they wouldn't be
able to get their hands on the talent so
they went through this crazy phase of
hiring like crazy and now the dust has
settled and they realize that they've
over hired and now they're just trimming
the fact they are adjusting for reality
this is normal I've seen this cycle
several times before so another aspect
of this is during this frenzy hiring
phase they were hiring people who
weren't really that competent so a lot
of the uh boot camp graduates a lot of
people who did just a bunch of courses
on udem and then copied the projects and
then presented those in their portfolios
they were so worried about missing out
on Talent they hired all these people so
what's happened is they' they've calmed
down it's like they've gotten gotten off
the sauce they're no longer drunk and
when you're not drunk you don't make
stupid decisions so they
had they had the publicly traded
companies and all the tech companies
they had coder beer goggles on coder
beer goggles they were so desperate and
like a drunk person they said oh that
that that that coder looks amazing when
you're drunk they look amazing and then
the next day you go I was drunk so
that's what's happening right now
they're just sobering up and uh they're
realizing that they hired a bunch of
people who weren't qualified to begin
with and that's why you hear a lot of
people are saying they're not hiring
entrylevel devs anymore they weren't
entry-level devs they were devs in who
were still learning they didn't really
know what they were doing you have to
understand something when you're hiring
uh developers when you're hiring any
Talent really I'm telling you this from
experience it's expensive to bring on
new Talent it costs the employer money
not just in terms of your salary but in
terms of training you up so that you are
productive and I've cited articles and
studies in other videos where the hiring
managers the HR people say the number
two thing they look for when they're
hiring tech people is interpersonal
skills professionalism that sort of
thing uh yeah you got to be trained in
that you got to be trained in that so
this whole downturn that we're seeing if
it's there for it's it's not really
affecting the people who have skill and
talent it's affecting the people who
probably needed a little bit more
training before they got a job in the
first place but if you look at all
future projections in terms of where the
market is going it's just positive for
anybody who's technically inclin even in
the age of
AI anybody who tells you AI is going to
replace coders and all this kind of
stuff they they you can almost be
certain that they're not professional
developers they're not because anybody
who knows anything about writing code in
development that the coding part of it
the actual writing of the code the
boilerplate code which thei can do and I
encourage you to use it to do that it's
just a part of the process it's just a
part of the process you know
especially in uh small SMB Small
mediumsized Business Development where
as a developer as a coder
you're going to be wearing many hats so
one day you may be working on the front
end and you may be doing some python
scripting to automate a server uh then
another day you may be installing a
WordPress uh install Etc and so on it
just your work is all over the place and
so again all this type of decision
making has to be done what libraries to
choose what languages to choose uh what
hosting company do I use this hosting do
I have to go to VPS or do I do I need
something like Azure which you probably
don't or shared hosting just enough uh
what are your requirements okay uh what
do you need what features do you want
these are all things that AI cannot do
AI can assist you but cannot replace so
I'm just to end this aside with regards
to AI don't worry about it embrace it
use it learn to use it I have seen in
the past
technologies that had a far greater
impact in terms of development that AI
has to date and I don't see AI having
for a long time the reason you hear
about AI so much is because it it
affects many
Industries in a Marginal Way so in
aggregate it's pretty powerful so what
do I mean by that well you see AI
affecting copywriters affecting uh
robotics it's affecting uh accounting
it's affecting software development it's
affecting uh video production it's
affecting all kinds of
Industries but they're not replacing
anybody yet maybe copywriters to a
certain extent
um there may be a few Industries here
and there that might be re where people
will be replaced or be great reduction
in number of people required I'm not too
concerned about that especially when it
comes to software development I
say that AI is now making you 10 to 20%
more productive as a software
development as a software developer 10
to 20% more productive depending on the
type of specialization that you do so I
would be using AI to write my queries
cuz those can be a pain in a butt but an
AI to maybe do the boilet plate code for
some layouts but we've had templates for
years as I said I've seen other
technologies that predate AI but had a
far far far far greater impact than AI
uh number one page based web development
paradigm shift this is something
happened in the mid to late 90s they
went from Cod Centric front end design
to page based we're talking ASP classic
ASP jsps Etc this is a total
change and it was a big game changer in
terms of developer prod productivity I
was one of the first in the world to
adopt ASP was now called ASP classic and
I've told this story before I took a an
early social media app that another
company spent over a year building with
the traditional way of doing things
Pearl CGI based development which was
cold Centric I won't get into the
details because this is old news it's
history anyway ASP this new paradigm
page based Paradigm what Microsoft
invented by the way was so productive
that I was able to
rebuild this social media platform which
was pretty uh pretty comprehensive the
previous company took over a year to
build their
prototype I was able to build it from
scratch using ASP technology in 30 days
and not because I was a great programmer
it's just because the page based
Paradigm replacing the old Paradigm was
literally made me a thousand times more
productive 10 times more productive
right well more than that actually it
took them a year it took me 30 days now
of course it's easier to copy and
reproduce an app but still you see how
hyperproductive that was another example
I like to site is WordPress before
WordPress all the magazine sites were
done with
HTML maybe with uh client side includes
with apps like
Dreamweaver um with PHP or JSP type of
includes includes to reproduce like
consistent items across the site but it
was manual essentially so incomes the
content Management Systems I remember
them coming in in '95 96 and I remember
at the time all the HTML web designers
all the web designers I was going to say
HTML nerds but all the web designers at
the time were freaking out that's the
end of web design and development with
content management
system they were wrong it just changed
the game it shifted uh what we did and
how we did it and I welcome all these
changes and I will say that
the move from static site development
magazine type or information site
development to using content Management
Systems like a WordPress or Drupal or
juman or several others that was a much
much bigger change to the web
development uh landscape an AI has been
or AI will be for foreseeable future so
to conclude yes right now there might be
a reduction of jobs because they're just
cleaning house as I said and uh they're
not hiring people from Bad boot camps or
from uh you know people who just learn
on their own with no guidance and uh
udemy courses and stuff as just normal
so what you have to do if you're
learning this stuff is I always tell
people the same thing over and over
again like in my my own mentoring
program learn your fundamentals well
start building real sites for people
start taking on freelance contracts even
do two or two to three for free to get
your hands dirty because when you build
an actual project your understanding of
development will just Skyrocket it will
just to the Moon it will just go like
you'll be amazed how much more you're
going to learn so yeah problem is a lot
of people have imposter syndrome a lot
of people are nervous about jumping into
the market the great thing about coding
by the way unlike other Industries like
the print industry if you make a mistake
eh no big deal you fix it that's why we
have IOS whatever we got 14 now. 10456
whatever it is all those points those
are sub versions of the software why do
you have that colder mistakes developer
error so don't sweat making bugs in uh
your coding that's why you take on
little projects for free nobody's
heavily invested but you're learning a
lot and uh you're going to that's how
you're going to build your resume that's
how you're going to get a job not by
doing endless tutorials I could put out
all kinds of tutorials and sell them but
that's not good for you I have my base
stuff that I I teach the fundamentals
and you head out there and you start
building the real thing just like a
boxer a fighter m per fighter and or a
boxer how do they get good they get in
the ring they fight all right I'm unle
Stef I hope you found this video useful
if you don't like my video give me two
thumbs down not one but give me two show
me how much you hate me if you think my
hair is too long give me two thumbs down
and last piece of advice just avoid Ruby
just avoid Ruby
[Music]
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