How I would learn to code in 2024 (a senior-only market)

2024 is shaping up to be a senior-only job market. As a new or less experienced software engineer, how should you go about learning to code to stay competitive?
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⏱ TIMESTAMPS
00:00 Intro
01:16 Why the market is shifting?
03:10 What can you do?
04:12 Experience
06:09 Scope
09:11 Alignment
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[@EngineeringwithUtsav]

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[@hamm8934]

I left this comment on a video of yours from a few years back regarding remote work, before the layoffs really started to kick in. I think time has unfortunately shown that I was onto something, despite yourself and others disagreeing with me in the comments. “I really think remote work is going to devolve into a race to the bottom in the next few years. Positions that used to expect junior experience are going to be saturated even more than they already are because you are no longer completing with people in your region, but the entire country. Mid to senior experience applicants will apply and get the position. Then, businesses will expect mid to senior experience baseline for these positions. What do the junior devs do then? Offer to work for much cheaper. The wage plummets for junior devs, and mid to senior positions are making junior salaries. And then the cycle repeats. Why hire a junior dev for your middle of no where business when you can get a remote senior for the same price? Sometimes arbitrary barriers to entry like location have major upsides (and obviously downsides).” Of course there are many factors at play, but I still think the expanded use of remote work is a major factor. Regardless, great video as always!

[@Knarksafari]

It feels wrong to have the solution be spending every awake hour programming. What other industry has expectations like this? All that to MAYBE get a recruiter consider you and then you have to go through a tedious 14 interviews process. This is completely broken.

[@curruption018]

I got laid off in November of 2023. I have 1.5 yrs experience. There’s not much we can do about no early level engineer positions right now. I have a personal project I’m working on and I’m just staying sharp. BUT they will HAVE TO hire early level engineers again at some point. Now does that take a year? 2-3? I’m unsure. But in the moment they start hiring again, let opportunity meet preparation. Read books, learn new skills and gain depths.

[@szpitor]

Finally someone say this out. The current marker does not looking for entry level developers as before(none). The only thing I do not like when watching influencers trying to sell their courses most of them saying that is all you need become an industry level developer. hahaha

[@Mar444_]

This is pure gold! Thank you for sharing these insights 🙏🏾😄

[@user-yb3lu6gp5g]

Thank you, you are an inspiration. you have answered the curiosity all CS graduates have these days.

[@Bilal-Ali-kassaw]

i really agree with you working on some Ai based give you advantage

[@muhammadzuhairaskari7924]

❤ thanks

[@ercntreras]

Thank you, it is always beneficial to hear the voice of experience.

[@panwar2001]

Learn to code.. wait for interviews until you die.. 😊 and in the mean time businessmen would achieve everything they could / want in life. Coders would either die by work or waiting for some interview call.

[@a.m.4154]

Facts.

[@bc4198]

I mean, yeah, but that has more to do with deciding someone else needs to hire them, that they have no agency in the matter. The "businessmen" find more direct success because the culture is all about going out and getting it, whether that's a networking thing or a startup thing, the whole business worldview is against passively waiting to get hired.

[@jonyboi7056]

What scopes would be the main ones to go into?

[@OBGynKenobi]

But even AI requires a person to prompt it to do something. At least right now.

[@gdhameeja]

When will people understand "atleast right now" are the key words. And its easier and cheaper to ask chatgpt to write the test cases than asking an intern to do it. (That's literally what I did for my first year).

[@tejasvix]

Hey Utsav, great insight, but I am an inexperienced master's student based in Canada and will be graduating next year from Concordia and i am thinking that how come will companies fulfill their desire of a senior engineer when there would be no junior engineers hired in the first place in the future ?

[@EngineeringwithUtsav]

That’s been the conundrum. It’s just mostly cautious behavior. It won’t last forever, eventually they will have to start hiring junior engineers. For now it’s just tricky, companies are being very specific with hiring needs.

[@Dreaminmiles22]

As someone who is currently studying CS in a university. It is very stressful to find time to do personal projects or learn other skills when you already have 80-100 hours of school work every week….

[@gauravtejpal8901]

By the time you get out of university, things will have changed a lot. There will be opportunities that we just can't see right now

[@headlights-go-up]

The idea of scope in this context feels really ambiguous. How narrow or broad? Is focusing mainly on frontend or backend too broad? Is focusing on implementing custom auth too narrow? Etc. Maybe I missed the point entirely lol

[@EngineeringwithUtsav]

Apologies, probably should have been a bit clearer. Scope as in the area your experience is targeted at - not the tech or the stack. For example, your experience is scoped to ML and data pipelines. Your experience is scoped to working with distributed storage systems. Or say you’ve built frameworks for building user interfaces. Can you summarize your experience in one sentence? Hope it makes sense. For the stack, I would recommend full stack, where applicable and possible. Cheers.

[@headlights-go-up]

@@EngineeringwithUtsav Ohhh gotcha! That makes more sense, thank you! Sorry about that lol.

[@funnybusinessallday]

I am about to graduate high school, i suck at math but I will pursue a Information systems major or technology information major, no cs because of the advanced level of math. I believe I can get my degree if I really put my mind to it which I will. Im just concerned about landing a job or an internship in the near feature because of all this pollution. any advice, tips and should I pursue IT or should I consider another major because I am also interested in other things.

[@bc4198]

There's no more of a guarantee of a job from any other field, so I say just study whatever interests you. That will massively impact whether you finish or not, and your quality of life, no matter what career you might land in. The great thing about computer-based tech is that no one can stop you from it! Wanna learn, practice, build - or even sell - something based on software? Go for it! Hardware of any kind can be more challenging, since you can't just get or make things for "free", but it's not like being a physical world engineer, or something with licenses... Heck, you can become a dev easier than you can become a hair stylist.

[@Dom-zy1qy]

The math isn't hard, people are just dramatic. It's way easier to learn math when it's sufficiently motivated with real problems.

[@LifeWithRilla]

I think the idea that the industry is bias toward experience and only wanting to hire Senior engineers is really only true at large size or FANG companies. I’m still coming across medium and small companies which have hired entry level talent. I think if they want an easier time getting work they should tamper their expectations and aim for medium to small size companies. Otherwise, great advice still.

[@EngineeringwithUtsav]

Yes, there will always be jobs here and there because every company has different needs. I’m highlighting the general shift that we are seeing. In any case, I believe this is temporary cautiousness and will eventually go back to normal. That being said, we may never see that scale of hiring junior engineers that we saw late 2020-2021.

[@LifeWithRilla]

@@EngineeringwithUtsav We will never know. But, there are circumstances where hiring can return to that level of hiring again. But, it's mostly federal reserve actions related. I think we're keeping rates higher for longer and if something breaks in the economy and it forces the fed to slash interest rates and stimulate again then we can see hiring return to that previous trend as companies get fattened up with funny money once again. But, what impact it would have I'm not entirely sure. Because the circumstance that lead to that sort of hiring spree was that the consumer also had additional money to spend. If companies are the only side receiving stimulus it could just go to corporate buy back and have little to no impact in hiring. But, yes I think generally there companies are aiming for more efficiency and they want more productivity out of each employee so naturally they're aiming for Senior level talent. I think AI is over hyped and mostly an efficiency tool but each employee isn't becoming more productive. I think there is a cap in human productivity that won't increase without a lot of automation. So, I don't see there being a need for less humans. So, a slow steady recovery and need for more engineers at least until we have Quantum AI and heavy automated processes will still mean more humans are needed to do more work. I agree generally. There are still lots of places for juniors and enough roles though according to the data it is a tight labor force but enough room for everyone currently looking. I see your point though and agree.

[@a.m.4154]

You are wrong.

[@LifeWithRilla]

@@a.m.4154 We will see about that

[@YouTubeHallMonitor]

This is 100% true. If you're only goal is to land a fully remote, high paying role with all the bells and whistles fresh out of school, good luck. If you use conventional wisdom from just a few years ago, you'll get up every morning to shower, drive to that local office, work a set shift, accept meh pay and meh benefits, but gain plenty of experience.

[@ariosetiawan173]

I have experience of Frontend Especially in React more than 5 years, but in previous job i have no develop nextjs experience for production, or it can called never had experience with nextjs, and now market in mostly use nextjs, what should i do beside create production scale of portfolio with nextjs?

[@EngineeringwithUtsav]

Since you have so much front end experience, you could work on a few projects in nextjs. Then market for experience with the front end, instead of highlighting just your experience with React.

[@kazmi401]

I have only 5 months of Experince in React and I got a job. Don't just stick with react. learn some Backend as Well it will open your mind as a developer. when i learned react. i build some projects but i was completely blind, 'WTF is going on behind the scene'. As i learned Node.js /Express.js my eyes opened. Start with the Node.js/Express.js then you can stick with it or learn something cool like GO/Django etc etc. Companies hire those frontend devs with some backend skill as well to interact smoothly with backend devs.

[@sandeeptanjore1253]

With so much of AI, unemployment and mass layoffs, companies focus only on $$$ (for which they will do anything), it makes so much sense these days to remain single and not have children. If everything is automated and the need for human is not felt why even have children. What will they do if there are no jobs?

[@todddelozier8172]

Around 11:11... I have come across recruiters who will flat out tell you that outside job experience does not count... I hate these people, I wish they would go away.

[@sandeeptanjore1253]

Utsav - your 21,120 hours makes you qualify for dual pilot license 🙂

[@EngineeringwithUtsav]

😂

[@justcurious1940]

It's over, don't even try.

[@RAaaa777]

Ww3 is coming, don't eat

[@headlights-go-up]

@@RAaaa777 the sun will soon swallow the earth, don't breathe

[@b.rith44]

Yea ​@@RAaaa777

[@justcurious1940]

​@@RAaaa777 Ww3 ?

[@RAaaa777]

@@justcurious1940 world war 3, its coming so eating and sleeping is not worth it