I dunno about a bubble, implying it will pop in some catastrophic way.
But will market forces correct the above average salary? I think so.
More young students than ever are learning to code, which is naturally going to increase the labor pool. The supply of software engineers is going to go up in the next 10-20 years (as will the demand, though! But I still think supply will outpace). This seems like it would mostly affect new hires, as some 15 year veteran is going to have valuable experience that (most) companies will always be willing to pay for.
It feels like finance to me. People who got there early made a killing. Then salaries, while still pretty high, fell considerably as everyone rushed there to get rich.
As a counterpoint to the author's comment on doctors (maybe not lawyers, still plenty of law students in the pipeline). It does appear that the number of people going after medical degrees is decreasing, so I would predict their salaries to jump considerably in the next 20 years.
And last, and a totally aside point, I have exactly one friend who skipped college and over the last 12 years worked his way up the electricians union and now runs his own small business doing residential electrical work. He's making more than most of our social circle. He doesn't know many people his age doing this type of work either, so as the old guard retires, he's going to charge whatever he wants.
The amount of people who study CS or can learn on their own is surprisingly limited. You won't get a job just by knowing how to write some if statements.
By contrast, there are load of history majors in finance. There's plenty of ways to act like you understand it. Plenty of bullshitters. Also the role of luck makes some of them seem smarter than they actually are.
Engineers who can't code will be uncovered sooner or later. It's hard to know beforehand at an interview, but it's a lot easier to discover with that person present for a few weeks.
> More young students than ever are learning to code
More young students than ever are being taught the utmost basics. But is it true that more people than ever are pursuing it in the sense of seeking professional mastery over the craft? A proxy for this might be population-relative CS program enrollment and graduation rates. It would also be interesting to know how this is scaling compared to the overall volume of programming labor demanded, which is surely growing as well.
UW is #6 nationally for software engineering and #60 overall... rankings are imprecise, but that might have something to do with it. Top students from all over the country compete for a small number of spots at top 10 schools.
I remember when I was there, the CS classes were for
NERDS and now here we are, everyone wants in.
When was that? I went to school in 2002 and CS at the time was already well past the “just for nerds” phase - I would guess that happened some time in the late 90s.
Lawyers have been around for a while, there doesn't seem to be a shortage of them, and the average salary is still relatively high. However the distribution of starting salaries has trended towards being bimodal (https://www.nalp.org/salarydistrib).
I could imagine the same thing happening for programmers over time, if it hasn't already.
I believe some states will let you simply take the bar exam and start practicing.
Of course, one would probably get started by clerking or working into a paralegal position, both of which would require independent study and coursework.
Sometimes people just need a cheap lawyer to take a look at a simple will or divorce papers, etc.
No one will let you take the bar exam and start practicing. California will accept four years clerking under the direction of a lawyer and passing the Baby Bar for eligibility to sit the Bar Exam. There are other states with similar programmes but I think they all demand at least one year of law school.
> California State Bar Law Office Study Program
The California State Bar Law Office Study Program allows California residents to become California attorneys without graduating from college or law school, assuming they meet basic pre-legal educational requirements.[19] (If the candidate has no college degree, he or she may take and pass the College Level Examination Program (CLEP).) The Bar candidate must study under a judge or lawyer for four years and must also pass the Baby Bar within three administrations after first becoming eligible to take the examination. They are then eligible to take the California Bar Examination.
I believe Washington is the only state that allows this anymore. Even then, you still need to be an understudy before you are allowed to take the Bar in Washington.
I'd counsel caution in relying on those charts because, inter alia, they're self-reported salaries and the very nature of the report excludes unemployed bar members.
Lawyers are specialists in negotiation, mediation, organizational procedures, persuasion, analysis of edge-cases of language and rule sets, evaluating the motives and thoughts of other humans and predicting their actions in ambiguous contexts, and quickly consuming and producing textual information under high pressure.
That seems like a pretty impressive toolbox that has broad applications across great swaths of human endeavor.
As it stands, many of my lawyer friends have contributed far more to humanity's greater good than I think any of my fellow techies have.
Having a legal background opens up a lot of opportunities in government-related areas. These simply aren't as easily available to other professions. If you'd like to hold a position of power, doing law is probably the best bet.
Total med school enrollment is constrained by the number of residencies and supposedly the AMA. Meanwhile, the numbers of grads for other health professionals (Nurse Practitioners and Physician Assistants) that can fill some of the same roles as doctors has skyrocketed.
But will market forces correct the above average salary? I think so.
More young students than ever are learning to code, which is naturally going to increase the labor pool. The supply of software engineers is going to go up in the next 10-20 years (as will the demand, though! But I still think supply will outpace). This seems like it would mostly affect new hires, as some 15 year veteran is going to have valuable experience that (most) companies will always be willing to pay for.
It feels like finance to me. People who got there early made a killing. Then salaries, while still pretty high, fell considerably as everyone rushed there to get rich.
As a counterpoint to the author's comment on doctors (maybe not lawyers, still plenty of law students in the pipeline). It does appear that the number of people going after medical degrees is decreasing, so I would predict their salaries to jump considerably in the next 20 years.
And last, and a totally aside point, I have exactly one friend who skipped college and over the last 12 years worked his way up the electricians union and now runs his own small business doing residential electrical work. He's making more than most of our social circle. He doesn't know many people his age doing this type of work either, so as the old guard retires, he's going to charge whatever he wants.