In my thirties

The Busty Boom of Big Tech

Yet another wave of creeping insecurity hits me as I turn 30 years old. 8 years in industry, mostly working for technology-adjacent, for-profit, corporations, I am finding myself feeling defeated in my position as a software developer.

I entered this career track in a golden period, I think. In an economy recently recovered from the great recession, wall street investment in technology companies booming, companies multiplying with an overwhelmingly young and inexperienced workforce. The big companies were eager to hire you, a young, moldable, hard-working engineer, fresh out of college. And they would pay you handsomely for it. They offered us paid internship programs with fast tracks to hire, a cornucopia of new grad ammenities from free lunches, happy hours, to free online courses, to lavish office spaces.

A lot of us felt imposter syndrome in those times. How did we deserve all this, having just graduated with hardly any industry work experience? But for the most part, I didn’t have time, or the need, to ask myself these questions. I accepted that I’d hit the jackpot, this was how things were, how they might stay. However the truth is that the industry was just young and immature, and would eventually experience the same boom and bust cycle that every industry goes through, eventually. But now more than ever I am feeling the ripples of change, whether it be an anecdotal, localized or an industry-wide issue is hard to say, but for me its hard to imagine going back to the way things were. Companies are feeling the fire of global economics factors, inflation, interests rates, a growing workforce; and its changing the culture and the experience, and I find myself needing to answer the question of how I want to move forward.

And so my questions are:

where is big tech on this boom bust timeline?
how will it change our jobs going forward?
why is the job becoming so much more 'sucky'?
is it worth a career change, or do I just suck it up?

I’ll take a moment to recognize my priviledge in this situation, on paper my work has been extremely cushy up until this point. I get a steady, sizeable income, in a relatively low stress, remote work environment. My problem shadows in comparison to other professions, who for years have dealt with demanding expectations for low compensation, with increased instability. I dont mean to complain, only to make observations.

Overall big tech is definitely still booming, namely with biotech and AI companies keeping the numbers high, however the economic landscape on which it operates has changed entirely. Unlike before, nowadays the industry is dealing with:

ultra high interest rates
over educated, over saturated, global workforce
a monopolized market
weakening industry brand
high inflation, and a general wariness towards the future

These economic/social factors have completely changed my working environment overnight. Hired at my current company in 2021, after a surge of success during Covid, I enjoyed a flexible work schedule, almost lackadaisical project timelines, and easy going relationships with coworkers. Things were good. My company profits off of user generosity in the form of tips on the website. Their success in inextricably tied to the economy, to the disposable income of the average Joe. Like many tech companies, in 2022-2023 I survived multiple rounds of layoffs, reorgs, and executive churn. Inflation and rising costs of living caused the company to take a hit, which led to the layoffs in November 2022. However I’m positive there was a component of a desire general ‘restructuring’ that many companies took part in and disguised as layoffs.

The fallout from the layoffs is where it gets interesting. Executives at many of the big tech companies, used the layoffs as permission to make long delayed structural changes within their organizations. In my case the first round of layoffs trickled into more c-suite personnel changes, who then instituted additional “micro/targeted layoffs”. These same new executives then began a wave a Latin American hiring, bringing in cheaper labor from Argentina; ironically asking us to hire the people who will eventually replace us. Generally tech has become so saturated with educated engineers from all over the world, it seems the incentives to retain domestic hires is waining in many cases. I see my company preparing for a sort of remission period of low growth and stability. We call it “keeping the lights on”. Cutting costs in case of an economic downturn, and squeezing the most out of every dollar spent. My relationships with product, management, and executives has been stressed, each relationship feeling more charged with anxiety and an expectation to go above and beyond the call of duty. My coworkers and I feel more eyes than ever watching us, our leaders looking for any reason to downsize or cuts costs.

Additionally the business strategy has become so charged with concern for profitibility. Every discussion and angle of decision-making aimed at squeezing more dollars out of the customer. We now make products that inflate statistics in the short-term, not profits in the long-term. Of course at a for-profit company this is going to be a necessary trade-off, but the way its being approached is with little regard to the customers needs and most decisions are made to make a good impressions to executives at the quarterly business review meetings.

I am curious if my experience is similar at other tech companies across the country, but I get the sense that a trend has formed, to different degrees of intensity. If you’ve made it this far into the blog, and work in technology, let me know if you’ve had a similar experience.

So do I dislike the techology industry now, work in general, or I am just being lazy?

With all these things changing, my attitude towards work naturally, has soured. Not that it was all that high in the first place. There are so many other things that tire me about sitting in front of a screen coding all day. But I tried to remedy things by working at a company with social impact, making helpful products, so on and so forth. But so far each experience has been belittled by a mixture corporate red tape, beauraucracy, micro-management, poor leadership, or some form cut-throat capitalism hurting the customer or the employee. I cant help but wonder if I’d be better off with a change in career, or if I’ll run into the same struggles working a different type of job at any corporation.

I’ll admit I’ve been spoiled, being birthed into the working world in a time of general prosperity, my expectation of what it means to work is different from that of other generations, of other industries. In many ways I need to grow up and accept the society we’ve created; which might mean working harder and for less. In other ways I detest this notion and only would like to rebel against it, which might mean living a less conventional lifestyle and making big sacrifices.

Western industry asks you to commit yourself to your craft, it incentivizes you to remain there, and it makes it relatively difficult to pivot if and when the desire to do so arises. For me it seems like every fews years or so, I get the urge to uproot myself through a job change, a physical move, shifting of friends, hobbies, habits. But the fearfulness and/or difficulty in making a big changes tends to win out. What I do know is that things here are changing, and so I am feeling forced into a position where I need to decide to change with it, or to hedge my bets elsewhere.