Just heard an interesting podcast featuring Will Larson (lethain). He suggested that tech salaries will go down just like previous generations well paid jobs did.
This is what I got from the transcript:
"One of my controversial views is that I think the highly compensated engineer and engineering leadership world is not necessarily permanent. Our profession is pretty new, and there are a lot of factors that will make it smaller and potentially not as highly compensated as it is today. Doctors and lawyers, for example, are not compensated as well as they were 30 years ago. There are forces that have made these jobs less lucrative and less rewarding in some ways. Technology has had a lot to do with that.
We should all be thoughtful that this is not necessarily the permanent state of the profession. The profession will keep changing, and that's okay. If you look at low-code tools and AI pieces, it's likely that the generation after the next of companies will be much smaller than they are today. The burden of compliance is also increasing, with different privacy laws, accessibility compliance, and financial compliance. While technology is making it easier to run smaller businesses with fewer people, the burden of operating as an internet business is also getting higher.
It's unclear which of these forces will prevail in the next decade. Innovation may happen mostly at larger companies that can afford to pay the cost of compliance and risk management. The interplay and friction between these two ideas is going to be the most interesting thing for the next decade."
This is what I got from the transcript: "One of my controversial views is that I think the highly compensated engineer and engineering leadership world is not necessarily permanent. Our profession is pretty new, and there are a lot of factors that will make it smaller and potentially not as highly compensated as it is today. Doctors and lawyers, for example, are not compensated as well as they were 30 years ago. There are forces that have made these jobs less lucrative and less rewarding in some ways. Technology has had a lot to do with that.
We should all be thoughtful that this is not necessarily the permanent state of the profession. The profession will keep changing, and that's okay. If you look at low-code tools and AI pieces, it's likely that the generation after the next of companies will be much smaller than they are today. The burden of compliance is also increasing, with different privacy laws, accessibility compliance, and financial compliance. While technology is making it easier to run smaller businesses with fewer people, the burden of operating as an internet business is also getting higher.
It's unclear which of these forces will prevail in the next decade. Innovation may happen mostly at larger companies that can afford to pay the cost of compliance and risk management. The interplay and friction between these two ideas is going to be the most interesting thing for the next decade."