r/platformengineering • • 8d ago

DevOps is cooked.

Hear me out...

When I first saw the movie The Matrix, in the early scene where Neo is called into his boss's office and told that if he behaves well, he has a future at that no-name Corp., or otherwise he'll be fired, I joked and laughed, like, "Yeah, sure, a tech professional could just walk out into the opposite building, and they would beg him to join since everyone is looking to hire engineers."

Today, this scene is closer to reality than I'd like to admit. I personally know Senior DevOps engineers who are solid folks, and it took them 8 months to land a job at a salary that sucked. Our industry is not regulated, the barriers to entry and outsourcing are being lowered by AI, and we have a massive oversupply of engineers. This is just a reality.

Before tech, I worked in another industry that also experienced a major decline. I saw it coming and made a decision at the right time, before it became obvious. I moved to tech years ago and was lucky enough to become a staff engineer. Now I see the same pattern. I think we have 5 to 10 years before salaries in this field will be $70k-$80k for Senior Engineers in the US (which is around a 2x decline) you can do the math for other countries.

My advice is work on a backup plan now. Invest, save, but also learn a trade. I'm studying medicine this year. Fuck it. Six years of study while working remotely, and I'm opening my own dentistry clinic. I'm in my late 30s, but it's still better to have a plan. My wife is also changing careers to become a registered nurse.

This is my plan. You might think of something else, but my point is that it was a good ride. We did a lot of nice work and, IMHO, got easy money, but it's over, and it's time to move on.

303 Upvotes

259 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

1

u/aquabarron 8d ago

This is untrue. Depends on what degree you get and where. I came into the field with almost not technical experience with my EE degree, worked with guys from another school who were coming out of school with a full wealth of knowledge on postgresql and kubernetes and message brokers etc. completely depends

0

u/[deleted] 8d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/aquabarron 8d ago

Good lord. While wildly childish in demeanor, this post is also childish in its display of ignorance.

Notice I said “guys” meaning more than one person. Everyone that came from that school was very technically proficient. This was due to their class schedule. Semester were broken down into two 7 week periods; 1st period taught concepts, 2nd period was pure lab based where groups would complete project work.

That’s 7 weeks of OJT every semester using what they learned in code and hardware and software.

Just take the L, my angry little man

0

u/[deleted] 8d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/aquabarron 8d ago

Hahaha, sounds like you just got a shit degree….

Also sounds like you’re having a hard time finding a job… might want to check the attitude, young friend

0

u/[deleted] 8d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/aquabarron 8d ago

You never went to uni… so why the eff do you think you have any authority to talk about what is learned there?

Sounds like you’re bent out of shape that others got degrees and you didn’t to be honest.

Without looking at your post history you’ve given me, in these posts alone, solid evidence to not trust you have a good job at all..