I was planning on going back to school to study data science, but everyone online is making it out like the tech field is dead and people are getting laid off and now you need eight year experience just to get an entry level gig. Worried I missed the boat on being able to get a good job in the field, should I just accept I'm stuck in retail?
Hi, so I'm in my last year of a CS degree, I worked in a few tech jobs before I went back to school, and I have a job offer for when I graduate. But I'm also a zoomer at the start of my career, so take this with a grain of salt.
I don't think that tech jobs are disappearing, but maybe they're becoming more like you're average Bachelor's degree job. The way I think about it is that you have the top range of PMC jobs, that take many years of education, lots of support, and maybe a little intelligence to get. Stuff like, doctor, lawyer, professor. Then, there's like the B tier of PMC jobs. Stuff like generic office, lower level teacher, nurse, average engineer. Sometimes, a B tier field gets really in demand due to our inherently unstable economy. That's been tech for the last decade. You could get some basic programming skills at like a bootcamp, and then get a 6 figure job at a venture-capital filled bubble company. Now it's is more like the average office job. You need some education to get started, and your pay won't be that exceptional, but its still a solid middle class lifestyle.
The last thing I want to do is discourage you. I totally think you should go get a CS degree! But, data science is one of the harder difficult choices for tech subfield because you need to know both the computer stuff and the statistic stuff at the same time. Usually, you need a master's degree, and the field is changing really fast. There are a lot of other little tech areas tho. Embedded development, web development, cyber security, sysadmin/cloud guy, SRE, are all not going anywhere.
Also, definitely be careful about taking what "everyone online" says about tech seriously. Sites like
or 🟧 are full of 1st year CS majors, guys who listen to 97 hours of Joe Rogan a week, and immigrants who are terrified of losing their visas. There are literally like a million people out there who work boring normie tech jobs for standard midsize companies writing Java, or fixing AD, or configuring GCP or something, and going home to their families after a normal day at the office. They didn't lose their jobs during the dotcom bubble, and they won't lose their jobs now. I hope this will be me!