That was from December of '21. It would be $15.69 now.
Another thread put it at 16.14 an hour.
Not surprised, I just clicked on the first inflation calculator that came up. I think it was the BLS CPI calculator.
And I only did it in dollars from December of '21 until now. Converting back to shillings, either in '21 or Dickensian times, before bringing it forward to today could result in a big difference due to the charging exchange rate between the pound and the dollar.
GODSDAMN YOU BRETTON WOODS
I’m not sure that works. There were 20 shillings to the pound.
So £0.75 a week.
This inflation calculator:
https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-policy/inflation/inflation-calculator
£75 in 1843 is equivalent to £8,310.96
So 15s then is equivalent to £83.11 a week, £4321.72 a year.
40 hour week (which is implied to be too low). ~£2.08 an hour
So if he worked over 40 hours you’re talking a sub £2/hour wage. Around $2.70 in US money.
I suspect the stat relies on converting to dollars before applying inflation as GBP to USD was about 1 to 5 then instead of about 1 to 1.33
It’s fun but I wouldn’t want to denigrate Dickens by saying he got poverty wrong to make a political point.
It’s fun but I wouldn’t want to denigrate Dickens by saying he got poverty wrong to make a political point.
I think they’re actually making the opposite claim- American wages are just that fucked, rather than Dickens being wrong
I think who you’re responding to knows that and is saying while doing the math wrong makes their point better it does Dickens wrong.
I think
Unfortunately you aren’t
While the idea behind AI was that it would automate manual tasks and help workers focus on more value-added activities, some workers fear it will outright replace them — and that’s already happening
Yeah, it already happened to the journalist that would have written this article. I find it a bit funny that the picture caption is just the prompt they used to generate it
First it was funny, then sad…
oh no, that em dash…
I use the em dash constantly, and have done for years, so finding out it’s a big “this was written by AI” indicator makes me sad — I’m not an AI user, I just like the way it looks!
Same. I use it very occasionally for parenthetical phrases because I just think it’s the most appealing way to do so.
If it’s any consolation, it’s heavily biased in the training data for a reason, you’re not alone
Two decades of “just learn to code bro”, will do that to a profession.
The industry has brought in a ton of soulless goons and uninterested/stupid workers for a decade and it’s destroyed the industry.
I’m not saying there aren’t good people, but I have interviewed hundreds of people over 10+ years for jobs in tech, and the quality bar dropped a lot.
This started well before AI. I met people from Apple/Amazon/Google/etc. who functionally could not do their job, contributed nothing to projects, and were highly paid. Only a few big companies were the exception.
I’ve met a ton of people with phds and advanced degrees from prestigious schools that were total crap too.
We shovelled so many people into the system because the jobs sounded amazing and they’d pay stupid prices for a degree. We fully industrialized low performance hiring, so yeah, no surprise packages are dropping.
Plus, I used to get time to teach interns and new grads too. The staff we taught grew into way better workers than the job hoppers with 6 jobs at fancy companies over 3 years who had never completed a real project beyond the shiny prototype.
The last 3-4 years I had been constantly threatened about looming layoffs, and that we needed to meet targets at all costs. I’ve been perennially told “if we’re just heads down and all out until [6 months from now/project completion] it’ll all be good again”. Only for the cycle to repeat again and again and again.
The big tech machine destroyed my mental health and I’m out, and I’m much much happier and healthier. I still work in tech, but I’m incredibly selective about the jobs I take, and I’ll never work in corporate tech again.
Biotech is also awful rn
6 figure jobs are still common, but not at the entry level. The companies that used to offer such thing are taking that money and investing in AI, thinking that they won’t need new blood.
They’re wrong, but that’s what’s happening.
This is bang on.
Yup. We pay six figs (not high six figs, but still double the local median wage) for decent talent. We don’t pay top salaries for our area, but we are about median for a comparable role. The problem is people seem to expect the top roles straight out of college, when they’re really junior level, if they’re competent at all.
Do you hire remotely too or only in-office? Even low six figures is high for me and I have 6 YoE. Joy of living in Europe.
Local, but we might consider remote of the right senior candidate comes along. We have 3 remote devs in a team of 20-ish.
It’s not just grads. I have 1 open senior position, 100 applicants. A good 10% of them with 15+ years of experience have had no job in the last year, or have things like “Amazon fulfillment center” as their most recent job. Shits rough if you find yourself laid off or if the company you’re working for went out of business.
I know a guy with three degrees and decades of experience on a resume littered with well-known companies and astounding projects.
2.5 years out of work.
This is the guy who should be fixing slopper code and he’s working volunteers and startups so his resume isn’t toxic from an Uber or Amazon gig.
This has why I’m happy to work in public service. It’s very stable but the salaries aren’t as high.
Didn’t something like 150k employees and contractors get DOGE’d and the admin is targeting 300k by the end of year?
I was doing contract work related to environmental research that relied on grant money and all that dried up.
I’m not talking federal government, which you can’t break into unless you’re ex military anyway. I am referring to state, county, city government or a university.
Did I apply to your position as that sounds like me. Just passed the one year point.
I’ve been out of tech work for near as long as I have career experience.
Each day feels another nail in the coffin of those 6 years of education.
I don’t regret my education. My major wanted to get out of LAS the way engineering did and im so glad it was an LAS degree as I feel it is a much better foundation.
LAS?
On the flipside, we had a senior position open for something like 2 years before we finally got someone we’re happy with. We fired two before we found someone would would actually do work and not cuss out our external partners.
We’re still having trouble hiring mid-levels. Most of the candidates are surprised when we ask them questions about React when the job position clearly states it’s for React, and they’re also surprised when we ask them to write a few lines of code in an interview (nothing crazy, should take a competent dev 5-10 min, and a nervous one 15, so we allocate 20 min). I don’t think our expectations are unreasonable, here’s how we delineate between tiers:
- junior - needs help from a mentor to deliver feature work
- mid-level - needs direction on larger features, but can deliver independently
- senior - manages larger features, consults w/ architect on high-level design considerations
But all the senior applicants are mid-level at best, mid-level applicants are recent college grads, and junior applicants just finished a coding bootcamp and think they’re hot stuff because they built a rails app by following step-by-step instructions.
We’re not a flashy tech company, we manufacture niche products for a niche field, and our software does simulations and reports. It’s a complicated product, and we’re totally willing to train people, we just want people who can demonstrate that they can ask proper questions and translate that into easy to understand code. The interview questions aren’t hard, but they are intentionally incomplete because we’re not testing coding ability but instead the ability to recognize vagueness and ask clarifying questions (i.e. ask before you assume).
We’re not anyone’s top pick, but we do have a lot of interesting problems to solve and people tend to really like it here. So the candidates we tend to get are desperate people who aren’t getting bites at the flashier companies, which often means they’re not all that competent. During COVID, we’d get maybe 5 applicants for a role after it has been open for a month, and now we’re getting 200-300 in the first few days of the position being open. A lot of those applicants are incompetent and I’m surprised they were offered their previous role, but there are some diamonds in the rough.
I feel you on a lot of that. Big FAANG and Covid lockdowns changed the landscape hard in the favor of the inexperienced. In late 2020, I had a junior position to fill with a 90k salary. The guy that has accepted called me back a few days later to inform me Disney+ just offered him 220k. I couldn’t even be mad he was taking their offer after he had already accepted mine. I’m sure a lot of that resulted in incompetent people with higher paying jobs and titles than they deserved. Note that it’s setting the other way, well, no one can afford to take a pay cut, so they’re of course applying to jobs they don’t qualify for. My current role clearly says PHP, but I’ve dumped maybe 10% of the candidates already for not even having the term PHP on their resume.
We’re Python on the BE and we don’t really care if they have it on their resume because it’s not hard to learn (that’s why we picked it) and our problems are more complex than just building some CRUD here and there, so we’re willing to teach the right candidate.
So when we do interviews, we let them pick whatever language they want. We’re not testing language knowledge afterall, we’re simply testing logic competence. Can you design a system that will scale when requirements change? That’s what we want to know.
meanwhile the average for a brazillian with 20+ years of experience is something between 15k and 30k
if you can’t get a good jr with 90k it’s a choice
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Maybe if people hadn’t pushed everyone in the entire fucking world into my field we wouldn’t have this problem
Do you mean to tell me it wasn’t a quick get-rich scheme and people who aren’t interested in the field will have issues after doing math puzzles 8 hours a day in front of a monitor before going home to do more on github?
But the rich non-programmer guy told me so!
Maybe if the field hadn’t pushed everyone else out of business…
Skill issue /s
Yea bro that’s what they do. See you making a living wage, then flood the labor pool. Welcome back to the barrel Mon crab
So old man time. In the early nineties things did not look great. Almost any college degree was not bringing in a salary one could like think about having a family with. Then came the late nineties and dot com and tech jobs were like the only thing that paid to possibly have what was, in many peoples mind, the typical middle class life. You know own your own home thing eventually. Since then its been tech or bust and now tech is bust and there is no go to field for people to run to.
Homeowning and paying a mortgage, especially now, is the single most important thing maintaining my quality of life.
A neighbor recently sold and it is now a rental. Paying that rent would effectively raise my housing costs about $20k a year.
It’s almost exactly the same house and lot. It’s insane.
Have you done the math on it though? Yeah, a mortgage stays constant, but to get a mortgage, you need a down payment, closing costs, and whatever you’re paying your real estate agent. And then there’s maintenance costs, utilities (most purchasable homes are larger than what you’d otherwise rent), probably extra costs to get around, etc.
If you instead took that down-payment and additional costs and invested it in a diversified stock portfolio, how would they compare?
I’m in a similar boat where my mortgage is now less than half of what rent would be, but my house is growing in value far slower than stocks. Here’s a nerdy video discussing rent vs buy, and the result is that it’s more of a wash than most people assume. This is extra true if you properly account for repair costs (i.e. if you DIY, what’s the value of your time?). The decision to rent vs buy is far less consequential in terms of long-term financial impact than most people assume.
I did the math. I bought in 2019 and all those costs and expenses were nothing compared to ballooning rent. My monthly housing expenses went down across the board. The equivalent cost of rent since purchasing dwarfs closing costs and even all the maintenance that’s gone into the place. Rent (in America) is calculated to cover all possible homeownership costs so I’m paying for the new fridge or hot water heater one way or another.
Plus I haven’t had to move legislative districts since.
If we use some rules of thumb, it gets closer:
- closing costs - 3-6% of purchase price
- maintenance costs - 1% of current value
Take the down payment and closing costs as an initial investment, the repair costs and any difference in initial mortgage payment vs rent as regular investments, and adjust maintenance and rent (and the difference between mortgage and rent) for inflation. Run those numbers to estimate total wealth after a given period (both house appreciation and investments) and you should end up with pretty similar numbers. I’m ahead on mine as well, but only by ~10% after about 15 years, and my area had really rapid rent growth.
I think it’s an interesting exercise that may not be applicable to everyone since it doesn’t take into account the discipline needed to invest the difference.
That’s also looking at just pure numbers.
I was forced to move every year I was a tenant. I hated it. And the fees and expenses of moving weren’t insignificant, not to mention the time. Some places I lived I never unpacked.
But now I have kids. Things like school districts matter.
Stability matters beyond the strict dollar amount sometimes, if not most times.
Sure, there are tons of intangibles that go into it. I’m just saying that people shouldn’t buy because that’s the only way to get ahead, they should buy because that’s the lifestyle they want.
Yeah but you’re arguing that to someone who already said they did buy. You can make that point but you’re directing at the person you’re responding to, who has already said they own a house. You are going to strain your shoulder.
I bought my own house and the price of owning a house is nothing compared to the price of renting.
Anyone who tries to argue otherwise is a moron who genuinely does not know what they’re talking about.
Is it fixed? although interest rates are likely to go down so even a non fixed is helpful currently.
Yep. It’s the only real option in my opinion. My spouse’s student loans weren’t fixed and they’d fluctuate so much in payments and started accruing balance randomly. Our homeownership allowed us to leverage another fixed loan to pay off her variable loans. Now it’s just a steady small payment for 15 years.
I honestly think this is a lie because it’s because people are mainly going for SWE or Game Dev. But literally everything else in the computer bubble is still doing fine
To some extent, yeah. I work in web development and there’s no shortage of opportunities for someone good at reactive front end development and JSON APIs. But I think there is a shortage of grads who have the necessary skills.
I’ve been trying to grow my business, and it’s frankly depressing how many people graduate with computer science degrees without learning the basics of the field, the volume of vibe coders is too damn high.
This was a problem before AI as well. I’ve been in so many interviews where someone w/ a CS degree can’t deliver solutions to even basic problems. I’ll ask them foundational CS theory, and they can only answer if I don’t expect them to apply it. It’s like they studied for the test instead of actually learning the material. Now w/ AI, they can’t even answer those gimme theory questions, much less apply them.
I used to look for github profiles as a “nice to have,” but it’s becoming more and more of a requirement now, because I just can’t trust someone to actually know how to write code unless they’ve contributed to a larger FOSS project or built something themselves. I can usually tell when they’ve vibe-coded something, so I can disregard most of the nonsense applicants. Unfortunately, this makes it harder for people w/o copious time to get interviews, which sucks (I’ve been there).
I find the jobs are super picky. Had one with a laundry list except for one job scheduling software and I had experience in the one they wanted but the feedback I got back was that the other one was real important even though I had the other and everything else. So I had experience with job scheduling software in general. including one they used. but not the other. and in that laundry list is software way more complicated than job scheduling. Through most of my career having about half of what they wanted was fine and they got that picking up the rest was not going to be a big deal for anyone who had experience in the field.
Tech is kind of all based around SWE though. What are these other roles you are referring to?
The government should give the people jobs, or money if it fails to provide meaningful jobs.
this gets me about the bs work reqs. They should give you a place to go to meet the req then (lets be clear the req itself is stupid) if you can’t find a job. It literally makes no sense. Can’t find a job so I need help. Can’t help unless you work a job ???
(lets be clear the req itself is stupid)
if the government requires that you work when you get help, i guess the proper response is to open a business and employ yourself as a mattress tester - test mattresses’ sleep quality for 8 hours a day or night. It’s a job, it provides no value to society, but it’s a job. Work requirement fulfilled.
The secret of the CS and IT job is that it has always been the Neuveaux Blue Collar job.
For every IT exec and formerly-technical middle-management douchebag making really good money, there are 2 to 10 actually technical resources making “okay” money relative to their skill and the insane hours and scenarios they are expected to work.
Oh and let’s not forget they’re constantly trying to outsource as much of that support and engineering talent as possible.
And that is why we need unions in tech. Tech is a cost center for most companies. It’s a space to beat down as much as possible to get margins up, just the same as the guys working on the line making the thing.
I am in tech, I am in a union. Its fucking great!
Its so nice. Mine just got me a raise this year.
Nothing will meaningfully improve until the rich fear for their lives
i would argue that it’s not so much the rich that are at fault here, but the politicians who are unwilling to implement taxes on the rich.
If your job can be automated. Your job will be automated. Even if the work it produces is hot runny shit.
They would rather pump out pure garbage than pay an honest wage for honest work. It doesn’t even have to work. They’ll just put an arbitration clause in the EULA. Then sit back and count their money.
That’s not how companies work. The CEO has a fiduciary duty to maximize company gains, so they have to invest in AI, because it’s more profitable. They don’t even have a choice, if they want to keep their job.
The current crisis has nothing to do with the individual decisions of a single CEO. It’s a legal issue, i.e. CEOs could only act differently if there was a significant and serious change in the way that the law requires them to operate. Which, all things considered, is unreasonable in this case.
They wouldn’t act differently. Watch 1 hour of CNBC. Those people only technically qualify as human.
Tech is much more than programming / software
What matters isn’t whether you think that AI can replace you. What matters is whether the CEO thinks that AI can replace you.
Its sort of funny that the IT industry is investing their whole effort into a program that will… …destroy the IT industry ?
Tbf, it’s not really the IT grunts pouring their heart and soul into this trend. It’s more the top-level execs seeing more $$ in their pockets at EOQ/EOY bonus time by hiring fewer 6-figure employees and relying more on
AIhallucinogenic LLMs, while the gruntsdabble with itfight with the stupid piece of shit just so they cansay “Yeah sure I used X AI program to help speed this up”appease these idiots who believe it’s their saving grace.Source: Am dev/grunt dealing with said idiots. Opinion likely biased, take with grain of salt.
Relevant Doctorow post: The enshittification of tech jobs (27 Apr 2025)
Does anyone from Europe recognize this? Because it isn’t what I’m seeing.
It took one year to find a replacement for a colleague who left the company. He was a senior in his field.
This is because there isn’t a job shortage. It’s offshoring. The company I (thankfully willingly) left 2 years ago has shifted all of their software hiring to Europe. And since I left has had multiple US focused layoffs. All while the Euro listings keep popping up. And I get it, the cost of living is much lower and the skill set is equivalent. So yea, get your bank. But, this is companies exploiting Europe/Asia, rather than it being something Europe/Asia is immune to.
Europe has a much more stable job market, stricter rules for hiring / firing.
Says / asks an article
in a media spin-off created by a big fintech company, which has been funded by, among others, Peter Thielby a big digital finance publisher / SaaS and advertising company with a history of not disclosing their investors, probably laying off people and heavily investing in AI themselves.Yes, the tech sector is in a harsh condition, but we will go on. Don’t let the AI hype / lay off waves for an overhired tech workforce from covid break your minds. There will be a need for smart people building and maintaining ecosystems, as long as a rising tech oligarchy won’t gatekeep us all out, which should be the headline here.
Edit: I can’t find a link between the fintech wise and the publisher wise. I still don’t like this type of sensationalist headlines as all technology gets allegedly obsoleted every other year.
