Hello everyone, I am May, a programming street trickster.
Ergou was laid off. He had been in the company for almost ten years. He wanted to stay, but the boss let him go.
I'm as confused as he is.
He graduated in 1985. He started a project from 0 to over 10 million DAU in his work. He has also participated in the development of core modules of top products. He has rich theoretical foundation and practical experience.
Is this an improper technical backbone?
Can programmers work for a lifetime?
To judge whether the career of a programmer can last a lifetime, I personally think that it mainly depends on three aspects:
Barriers to entry
The threshold of entry refers to whether it is difficult to enter this industry, and whether it takes a lot of resources to form a talent .
At first glance, programmers have a high threshold, need a smart mind, and need to learn a lot of ever-changing knowledge, but his threshold is the lowest.
That's right, the lowest one.
Think about the slogan of the year: Thousands of troops turn to programmers!
Being able to turn thousands of troops and horses means that you can turn, and it means that the threshold is not high. Otherwise, why don't thousands of troops turn to doctors, why don't thousands of troops turn to pilots?
Some people may say that programmers have an intellectual threshold, and those who are a little bit dull can't move their minds at all.
But that is also the intellectual threshold, not the professional threshold. You don't need to look at your major to become a programmer.
Although "computer" is the corresponding major for programmers, in fact, most programmers do not have a background in computer science, and even many great programmers have never been to college at all.
In addition, being a programmer does not require you to invest too many resources. As long as your logical ability is up to standard, your English level is sufficient, and you have a little self-study ability, you can switch to a programmer after spending a few months on self-study.
Because there are too many tutorials for programmers on the Internet!
Not only are there a lot of sand sculpture training classes, but also free tutorials in various professional languages, and there are even people who will teach you and feed you food.
Easy access to professional knowledge is also a manifestation of low barriers to entry .
Another point is that the level of a programmer's ability can be fully reflected by his own efforts .
People only recognize your programming level, just post your code and project. As long as your code is well written, no one cares about your appearance, background, clothing, and conversation. He is very fair.
Unlike the financial industry, although it is not limited to majors, you can learn everything, but the effect of your own efforts is far less useful than that of your parents. If you were born with this thing, there is a high probability that you will not have it in this life.
Unlike doctors, they must be from related majors in relevant schools, and must be accepted by corresponding hospitals. Cultivating a doctor requires all kinds of expensive equipment loss, burned brain cells, unlucky mice, bloody materials from patients, and so on.
Not like a pilot, the training cost is extremely high, and the value of the pilot himself even exceeds the weight of gold.
This principle applies to any profession, or even any individual:
The more resources you consume, the higher your threshold will be, the more irreplaceable you will be, and the more you will lose if the company fires you, the more valuable you will be .
Is there always rigid demand in the industry
The demand in the programmer market is extremely unstable , and the demand curve can be described as a swing, with ghosts and ghosts coming and going.
There is a truth that the salaries of programmers at the beginning are not high, and the salaries of traditional IT and software and hardware engineers are not high either.
Then the Internet wave came, and a large number of unicorn companies emerged. There are a large number of market and job development, various concepts burn money to empower, and all kinds of energy.
The more demand comes one after another, and the supply of programmers as a group fails to keep up, the remuneration will rise steadily.
After more than ten years of calling for thousands of troops to turn to programmers, the supply has kept up, but the demand is not so much.
There are only a few companies left in various fields in the wave, swaying in the wind, and the core business has not grown so much.
Many new departments and new projects that rely on burning money have been cut off, and even the maintenance of old projects does not require so many people.
A large number of people are unemployed, and at the same time, there is an influx of newcomers, and the supply is seriously out of balance.
In the past few years, not to mention the wrong ones, even the programmers who are the right ones have not been able to enter the industry smoothly.
Whether it is a high-efficiency industry
Whether it is high efficiency depends on whether there are efficient individuals or technological reforms that allow one person to do the work of a dozen or twenty people, or even hundreds of people, and kill a large number of jobs.
One doctor cannot treat ten patients at the same time;
One pilot cannot fly ten planes at the same time;
But in your field of programmers, there are really great masters who can be used by one hundred people.
Moreover, in this industry, there is an open source game. As long as you have a good idea and tell it online, a group of people will soon come to help you improve and iterate the version.
Not only can you learn, but it can even be directly used as productivity, as a ctrl+CV master, to help you work hard quickly.
Sometimes you don't even need to work too hard, and you can quickly increase your productivity by being good at using search engines.
It is also because of this that the rapid increase in the cost performance of a newcomer wipes out the old man.
Excessively high efficiency makes the entire industry develop like a fly, iterate like a fly, share knowledge like a fly, help more newcomers flood in like a fly, generate more and more efficient gameplays like a fly, and generate more Many techniques and tools...
It also eliminates the number of posts and numbers in this field like flying.
Then the company found out that if a project is cut off, ordinary people can still operate, and they can even be replaced with low-wage newcomers, as long as there are old people watching important positions.
summary
Even so, programmers are still one of the best industries at the moment , and his starting salary is much higher than other professions.
In my opinion, it is very happy to be able to earn what other professions earn in thirty to forty years in ten or twenty years.
I think the saying that programmers can't work for a lifetime, the problem is not all in the industry, but in the thinking of programmers.
Many programmers don't realize that they are actually taking advantage of their careers, and have the illusion that they can always use higher income than other industries, so they develop a spending habit of spending the rest of their lives together.
In essence, this is the root cause of many people's crisis .
Whether you are already a programmer or are considering entering this industry, remember:
In the early stage, you must make more money and save money, don’t develop the habit of high consumption, eat as much resources as possible , increase your uniqueness, and transform yourself from a part that can be seen everywhere into a high-value part that is not so easy to find substitutes.