Despite What They Say, You’re Not Guaranteed a Job by Learning to Code
Even if you go to university.
When I graduated with a technical diploma in software engineering two years ago, I didn’t have an ice cube’s chance in hell of getting a job.
Perhaps it was because I graduated into a recession, or perhaps because I was trying to get a job in a province that was doing everything to bring big tech to the province except actually bringing big tech to the province.
Either way, I was a young, trained developer who had earned the equivalent of a four-year software engineering degree in only two years. Getting a job should have been relatively easy. Except it wasn’t.
My case wasn’t unique either. Talking to other individuals in the same situation from elsewhere in the world — some who had similar qualifications, others who had a four-year degree, and others who had gone to coding boot camps/taught themselves to code — it seemed like we were all entering into an economy that supported only the well-established and over-qualified.
9/10 job ads were asking for people with 4+ years of experience to fill junior positions.
9/10 job ads were asking for a full laundry list of technologies that the candidate would have needed years of experience to become proficient in — these job ads were looking for “unicorns”, people proficient in front-end, back-end, and database application.
9/10 job ads were asking for candidates that specifically had a four-year degree, something that was rarely needed to fulfill the job requirements.
So you might be saying: so what? Pull up your bootstraps, start upskilling, and get your own experience so you can apply for those jobs.
The problem with that: you can get as much experience as you want, building your own projects, teaching yourself new languages, and participating in hackathons, but at the end of the day, if you don’t have a degree, employers won’t look at you twice. Having a degree is singly the most often required item on the wishlist of a company looking to hire a computer science or software engineering grad.
While Google has a reputation for not hiring individuals based on their qualifications but instead hiring them based on their abilities, most companies don’t have that same mentality. So no matter how amazing a programmer you are, if you don’t have a piece of paper that costs you $100,000 to get, they’ll likely tell you not to get hit by the door on the way out.
One thing I noticed, in particular, is that the government of my province complained about not having enough programmers graduating from institutions to fill roles in tech companies. Instead, the government pledged funds to import talent from around the world. Let’s just cut to the chase — all of that is bullshit. Between the two major cities in my province alone, there are software engineering and computer science programs at two major tech institutions and two major universities that would yield enough graduates to fill most roles in tech companies around the province. There is not a lack of young, ambitious talent out there. However, because of the firm belief of the government that we don’t exist, this pool of talent has to leave to find work, either heading west or east to join economies that believe in tech and are willing to hire — get this — new graduates to fill junior positions. Shocking, I know.
Of my grad class, we all took separate routes. Many that were amazing programmers before they even arrived at university got jobs right out of the gate. Many returned to university to complete degrees or other professional designations. Many are still working minimum wage jobs, not in their field, despite being talented programmers.
For myself, it meant returning to university to get a degree in a completely different field that was more open to hiring university graduates for junior positions or internships.
But why is this the case? Why are so many computer science and software engineering graduates left out in the cold despite reports that there will be shortages of millions of software developers? Apparently, this isn’t just a problem in Canada.
According to a study conducted by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), Microsoft issued a report in 2012 that distorted the future reality of computing-related occupations. Microsoft’s report stated that there would be a shortage of 1.2 million developers needing to fill computing related-positions that required at least a bachelor’s degree between 2010 and 2020. Microsoft continued on to say that in the United States, 40,000 Americans graduate with bachelor’s degrees in computer science each year, leaving many of the projected future jobs unfilled.
As part of its analysis, Microsoft blamed the United States educational system for not encouraging enough individuals to enter into STEM disciplines (the one part of the report that I do agree with). Because of this, Microsoft suggested that Congress make more nonimmigrant guest worker visas available so that employers could hire foreign computer science graduates to fill empty positions.
During its examination of Microsoft’s report, the EPI found several flaws in the study:
- Microsoft incorrectly assumed that only individuals with bachelor’s degrees would be able to fill computing-related professions. In reality, at the time, the EPI study found that between one quarter and one-half of people employed in the computing sciences actually had a computer science degree.
- Evidence suggests that there is no shortage of people in computing-related professions when looking at wage trend data. The data suggests that between 2000 and 2011, the average hourly wage for a worker holding at least a bachelor’s degree rose less than half a percent per year. If there was a shortage of developers, there would be sharp wage increases.
- Finally, with Microsoft suggesting that additional green cards and visas should be made available to entice talented foreign developers to work in the United States, Microsoft would essentially increase unemployment rates in computing-related occupations. This would keep wages low, something desirable for Microsoft and other big tech companies.
The EPI further outlined how Microsoft screwed up their study, explaining how data from the Occupational Information Network highlights that “47 percent of web developers do not have a four-year college degree let along a degree in CS, and 41 percent of computer systems analysts do not have a four-year college degree”. People who enter computing-based fields often come from a variety of educational backgrounds, so it’s inaccurate and illogical for Microsoft to support its claim of a shortage of developers having a computing-related bachelor’s degree. It’s important to remember that tech giants like Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg joined the software industry without any degree at all.
The study concludes by summarizing how in reality, there is not and will not be a shortage of developers. Unemployment rates of computing professionals remain among the lowest of any industry in the United States, regardless of how the economy is doing. The EPI summarizes their study quite eloquently, stating that “the nation would be better served if Microsoft filled its 3,400 job openings “for researchers, developers, and engineers” by hiring and retraining some of the 141,000 unemployed workers in computing fields who are actively looking for work around the country”.
To extrapolate the data provided by the EPI, very few places around the world have software developer shortages. Yes, there are exceptions, and some areas may need to bring in external talent. However, as a general rule, there are jobs out there, and there are developers out there to fill those jobs. There just seems to be a disconnect between the developers actually landing those jobs.
So where does that leave us? At present, thanks to a real dumpster fire of a year, an uphill battle needs to be fought against governments who believe importing talent is the answer to filling developer positions, HR managers who have no clue what they’re doing when hiring programmers (who needs 10 years of JavaScript experience for a junior position anyways?), and companies and universities who over-inflate our self-worth by telling us that there’s a developer shortage and that learning to code will guarantee us jobs.
My advice? If you love to code, persevere, but do so with eyes wide open.
Don’t expect to deserve a job after learning to write your first “Hello World”. Don’t expect that learning to code will guarantee you a job.
But maybe, just maybe, with the right amount of luck, ingenuity, and talent, you might just get your shot in the big leagues.
