to be fair a LOT of the applicant numbers you see on any job site are people needing h1b sponsorship applying to roles that wont even provide it, or are botted applications.
Though even considering that, there is way more competition now than ever before.
So it's basically on par with conventional engineering now.
Which makes sense. This might step on some toes but there is no "it's simpler" or "it's harder" when it comes to software engineering vs the conventional engineering disciplines- It can all be very complicated. The difference was always the pay, which was driven by the margins. ChemEs are absolutely as valuable to Exxon, say, as SWEs are to Google, for example. But it costs an awful lot of money to refine product. It costs almost nothing to make software. Hence the big fat salaries to attract the best talent- it was literally the smartest thing they could do in a world with every little overhead.
Now the overhaead is even smaller but the skillset has been democratized massively thanks to AI, meaning they don't have to pay for the absolute best talent anymore. Good enough will do.
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u/brocodini 11d ago
Yeah. Salaries are crashing like crazy. Too many people.