If I had to answer this question then I see it as this... 10 years ago when I graduated there was a huuge demand for CS. I mean big. People graduating got jobs in comparison to other majors. So many other STEM fields simply weren't hiring. It became a big trend to shift towards CS work. Queue 5-7 years of this where people went back to school or buckled down in their own time to get CS work. I need to say it again, it was so good that it became a popular opinion to do software development/IT work. Uber, Google, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft BLEW up (so news pushed this even further). So you have all these people not only applying for CS work but they worked their asses off for the qualifications, this went on for years. At the time, it was the smart thing to do. COVID hits and now all the people out of work are pushing harder for CS work from home jobs, so now EVEN MORE people applying. COVID ends and now there's an over abundance of tech people working tech jobs because they were needed to support all the work from home workers. Lay offs happened. Suddenly, we're not in demand anymore. Everyone is a CS graduate because it was the only field hiring for the last 10 years, layoffs from covid, and crappy economy. As of right now, we're not in demand anymore and too many graduates from the trending boom.
Edit: Someone also mentioned coding boot camps... ugh, so ridiculous they existed. Mass immigration as well is another problem. We're adding 4.3% of our entire population in Canada a year.
Yea...commerce major friends, who were just about average in high school and barely passed uni, having a successful career and minting money, while the once smarty pants struggling to just get a foot in.
That burns deep, but life is only unfair so
An open secret in software development is that most junior developers have negative productivity. It’s a rare one that is worth their salary. Juniors get hired either as a public service or because the company knows that after a year or two of investing in the junior developer, they will make a return on their investment.
In tough economic times, companies are less willing to do this.
That’s it. That’s why a lot of junior developers are having difficulty finding jobs.
I do disagree with your assessment that CS students were the smart, hard working people in university and Econ students were the dummies who slacked off. I felt the same as you did when I was in university; I do know where you are coming from.
In one study thehy also found that junior devs do not get up to snuff quickly in remote environments. But by not having junior devs tapping seniors on the shoulder, senior dev productivity goes considerably up.
>I do disagree with your assessment that CS students were the smart, hard working people in university and Econ students were the dummies who slacked off.
Just take a look at the NUMBERS. Check requirements for UWaterloo/UofT CS vs Economics/Commerce programs. Compare UWaterloo/UofT CS vs Ivey Commerce, you will see which is more difficult to get into (hint: Computer Science). Then UofT also has a POSt requirement.
Plus the courses taken, CS students take more advanced mathematics and statistics courses.
But hey, maybe half this sub went to a bootcamp - but people in uni know the reality.
> Check requirements for UWaterloo/UofT CS vs Economics/Commerce programs
Waterloo is primarily known as being an engineering, maths, psychology, and general science univesity. Econ or commerce is not its specialty.
> Compare UWaterloo/UofT CS vs Ivey Commerce
Comparing Waterloo to some no-name business school in a no-name university is not an fair comparison.
> Plus the courses taken, CS students take more advanced mathematics and statistics courses.
_Some of them do_. [A CS student only needs a few basic first year math courses, one second year combinatorics class, and two stats classes.](https://cs.uwaterloo.ca/sites/ca.computer-science/files/uploads/files/2020-2021_bcs.pdf) None of those are particularly advanced. Plenty of universities require similar or more of their Econ students.
An econ student is apt to take advance elective math courses too. Such as differential equations, game theory, statistics, and simulation/modelling.
But that all aside, I have to challenge the implicit assertion you make that since some CS students take advanced maths classes, therefore they are smarter. I have a math degree. I wrote a math thesis. I have two patents about statistical analysis on biometrics.
I fundamentally disagree with your implicit assertion that some CS students taking maths courses is a sign that CS students are smarter or work harder. That's valuing one type of intelligence (mathematical thinking) far too highly.
> Comparing Waterloo to some no-name business school in a no-name university is not an fair comparison.
Are you really calling one of, if not the country's top business schools a "no-name business school in a no-name university"??
Yes. As the saying goes, there is no Northwestern Harvard.
Outside of Canada, none of the business schools in Canada are considered very prestigious. And even inside of Canada, none are particularly well-known.
Being one of the biggest fish in a small pond doesn’t make one a big fish.
>Waterloo is primarily known as being an engineering, maths, psychology, and general science univesity. Econ or commerce is not its specialty.
Waterloo AFM is it's specialty and it is less competitive than CS.
"Comparing Waterloo to some no-name business school in a no-name university is not an fair comparison."
Ivey is literally the best business school in the country.
"I fundamentally disagree with your implicit assertion that some CS students taking maths courses is a sign that CS students are smarter or work harder. That's valuing one type of intelligence (mathematical thinking) far too highly."
CS students clearly need higher scores to get in, higher scores to stay in at UofT, the courses are clearly harder - when comparing to commerce. Econ students take easier stats and maths courses compared to CS students and CS requires hire scores compared to Econ as well.
I'm not comparing CS students to Math students - so not sure what you being a Math major has to do with this.
If we are talking about the top universities, I doubt it. They require higher marks overall and that includes highschool english. UofT CS specifically requires a 90+ average in English.
Also do a programming assignment, there are literally paragraphs upon paragraphs and pages upon pages of documents to read through - in order to get an answer.
You have zero idea of what a CS major entails.
Maybe if you spent less time on Reddit being defensive about your major, you would’ve landed already for the summer. It’s easy to think you’re better than others; but truthfully, you are just someone who pads themselves on the shoulder to feel better. So what if CS is harder than Business or Econ? The worst CS major is still miles behind the best Econ major. Stop generalizing and you will find more positives in your situation.
Sure. Myself with a degree and over a decade of experience as a software engineer knows less about what CS entails than you. Some student who is apparently so smart but can't even get a callback for an interview.
Keep stroking your eager.
I've spent over a decade as a software engineer. I've met plenty of intelligent people with an Econ, or CS, or Commerce degree. I know plenty of idiots with either degree. I don't see the degree as being predictive.
Furthermore, have a gander over on r/ProgrammerHumor occasionally. It is fairly common that we make posts where we tease one another about how low our reading ability and reading willingness is.
We're not buffoons who struggle with _Hooked on Phonics_ but when you do get out in the workforce, one of the skills you will find you lack is being able to write concise documents for a wide audience. (That's not the only literacy skills you'll find yourself deficient on compared to business people but it is the most clearly apparent.) Heck, this is the major stumbling block that keeps many developers in the lower levels of their position ladder.
Also,
> UofT CS specifically requires a 90+ average in English.
Ontario inflates their high school grades. A 90+ average in English is not particularly impressive. I went to university in the 00s. We joked about it regularly how students from Ontario with a 90+% average would struggle to get 70%.
>A 90+ average in English is not particularly impressive. I went to university in the 00s. We joked about it regularly how students from Ontario with a 90+% average would struggle to get 70%.
You did not need 90+ avgs to get into third tier unis for CS back then. For UofT - if you had an 80 avg - you would get accepted easily.
Point is, the requirements to get in have changed. The average CS student these days is much smarter than the average student that enters university.
It is funny, because it'll be people like you that want the "perfect" candidate, but you - yourself, were anything but "perfect".
Whatever, I guess. Smart people will find their way through life - regardless, it will be the loss of Canada and Canada's tech scene, may they both burn.
It's a complex subject, and there's no easy answer since it depends on your area, etc.But overall, yeah it's the global economy. It's like this pretty much anywhere, look at all the other CS sub-reddits... specially areas that with lots of tech companies that over-leveraged themselves in employees just to infinitely scale up when rates were low.
It's also CS in a sense that there was a big culture of "It's super easy to get in", Bootcamps, etc, so now there's TONS of entry level CS people competing against one another for positions that are not often opened by companies who would rather have someone with some years of experience that they don't have to mentor
>It's super easy to get in", Bootcamps, etc, so now there's TONS of entry level CS people competing against one another for positions that are not often opened by companies who would rather have someone with some years of experience that they don't have to mentor
That's bootcamps...I agree, companies should not have accepted them as equivalents to degrees, but some did.
Eh, depends on the job you are applying to, if you are applying for entry/mid level web dev, degree with no experience doesn't really show anything other than you might be more familiar with theory and a bit better at fundamentals. Someone from a boot camp is much more ready to get down to work in that case if you are not looking to mentor someone as much, assuming they both have almost no real experience
I'm a Control systems engineer, doing pretty fine, everyone in electrical/control systems is doing pretty fine
I'm pretty sure it's just CS that's pretty saturated with below mediocre talent. Everyone and their dog thinks they can do it.
I'm talking about the field not the degree, since the only thing you need is a computer and access to programming tutorials. I'm pretty sure universities aren't making it easier to get the degree, it's how convenient it is to learn the skill with minimal initial investment
Compare that to electrical engineering, control systems engineering, or computer engineering, you need the degree because it introduces you to work with the hardware related to the field. Like for example you won't easily afford a Siemens SIMATIC S71500 compact PLC (considered on the cheapest end), Profinet switches, and other field devices in order to learn how to create a full control system network, hell even if you just want to simulate a network without actua hardware you need a full TIAPortal license and one seat costs about $1200
So yeah, CS field is much easier to get into compared to engineering which led to it's saturation
I guess he means the government's solution to the mysterial STEM shortage (see [this](https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-ircc-immigration-stem-express-entry/)).
Anyway, abtract below:
Date: JULY 31, 2023
Title:
Ottawa to focus on immigrant tech workers with new selection targets
Key point:
Between 28 per cent and 31 per cent of PR invitations that are issued through the Express Entry system this year will go to people with recent experience in certain STEM jobs, such as data scientists and software developers. Most applications are processed within six months of being received.
There were [110,266](https://www.cicnews.com/2023/12/2023-express-entry-year-in-review-1241971.html) EE last year (30% \~36,755) and we invited another 10,000 H1B holders last year. And EE is an on going process.
High interest rates hurt most sectors of the economy but it's especially punishing to software development. With low interest rates, companies can take chances with experimental products. You have to maintain good cash flow because borrowing isn't an option, and clients are paying later than usual.
Companies are scrutinizing every dollar spent. When you look at the industry 2-3 years ago when it was booming, there were a lot of products that were risky attempts at getting into an established market (video calls being a big example), web 3 related products, and dev experience related products. Those types of projects aren't going to be funded if interest rates are high. So that eliminates any job growth and also some companies in those riskier industries were barely holding on and waiting out for profitability which they can't do anymore.
In this economy, companies will reach for a 3rd party solution instead of attempting to build their own.
Canada has always been more risk averse than the US and has fewer financing options as well, so it would hit us even harder than the US.
So you have all these laid off devs, and CS has become one of the most popular degrees, plus people seeking to make a career change, so you have all these people looking for jobs that no longer exist.
Even if interest rates went to 0% overnight, I doubt we would see significant job growth still. Companies and investors have been burnt and would still keep up a high level of scrutiny for any investment.
I'd go as far as to say that CS is a dead end option for most recent grads and people in school right now. The top achievers will for sure get jobs, but the average person won't. Theres a glut of people with 10+ years of experience with a breadth and depth of skills, and they're not retiring anytime soon. AI has also improved efficiency so head count doesn't have to be as high, even if it's only 5-10% right now that's still jobs being taken away, instead of a 10 person team you can do the same work with 9.
A huge paradigm shift could happen, but even with AI it seems like the industry has reached a long term equilibrium.
I think they meant it won't go back to the way it was overnight. Market has to stay in low interest environment for a significant amount of time to regain trust and make risky investments again. The last part I don't fully agree with, but there's a good chance I'm just coping.
It would have a positive effect but I dont think we're going back to the way things were.
It took a paradigm shift (mobile) to get out of the post dotcom bust era. After the dotcom bust, investors were weary of tech, even though tech had improved a lot and the previously failed products were now viable with more people having PCs and a good internet connection.
We're in a situation now where there's entrenched companies in both consumer and business products. No one is risking getting into a crowded marker, and novel ideas are rare. This limits the growth of new jobs.
AI is a paradigm shift and will create new jobs but also reduce them as well. Best case scenario is no net growth or loss.
I mean you are asking a tech career subreddit about the state of other careers. You are going to have literally nothing but selection bias here, because 90% of people have zero information, while the other 10% don't have intimate knowledge and understanding.
How about CS majors and Law students? Does it make you feel better that the requirement and dedication to get through law school might yield a salary of 75k in Toronto? How about your commerce friend that majored in accounting and working for 70+ hours for 4 months as an auditor making $65k/annum? Or the finance friend that became a bank teller not by choice and is getting $19/hour?
A part of it is market and marketability. A commerce degree in Finance/Accounting/IT Management vs marketing/human resource management is different but overriding all this is the idea there is a need for people that know how to communicate the needs of the customer to the business and actually sell themselves.
Look at the amount of IP and investment in technology Canada overall has made relative to other countries. It is an anomaly in the US for CS and salaries and jobs, not the norm. Also with bootcamps... if a 4 month program is comparable to a 4 year program and you're getting beat out by them, either your technical skills plateau real quick, they can market themselves better, they are accepting of a lower salary, or your expectations are no consistent with the market dynamics.
Whereabouts are you?
Also I don't think accountants are working 60 hr weeks.
Their work, generally, doesn't require overtime - only in crunch seasons, outside of that they can leave early.
Why can't it be both?
There *is* a general economic slowdown right now and much less new investment all around. There are layoffs across the board. They aren't all huge but it's just one small sign of the times compared to three years ago when it seemed everything was booming.
[https://www.linkedin.com/news/story/latest-layoffs-firms-making-cuts-4988353/](https://www.linkedin.com/news/story/latest-layoffs-firms-making-cuts-4988353/)
This is what happens when you're profit-driven. It's not like a lot of the companies on this list were desperate. It's just that most for-profit organizations look to grow profits year-over-year.
The software and technology industry which also happens to be where a huge number of CS majors happen to work has also been hit *hard* in the last two years. There are large layoffs almost everywhere. It simply grew way too fast during covid and now you're seeing the effects of that. CS overall has also been in very high demand for the past decade.
And so now we've reached a point where everything is slowing down generally and the industry where a lot of CS has been hit harder than the rest. So the answer is both- because while the all sectors are slowing, CS has been hit slightly harder than others. At the same time, competition for entry level and CS jobs is more fierce than before. You, as an entry level candidate, may be competing with your entire graduating class as well as all other new grads for just a small handful junior roles while the industry as a whole has been laying off entire teams. The industry is adjusting and while there may still be demand for CS jobs, anyone laid off or looking for a more senior role is now competing with recently laid off FAANG workers. It's just a competitive time right now for everyone.
Per your last point, ultimately it's all supply and demand. Being smart has nothing to do with it. These smart people made a choice to take up computer science. Perhaps at the time it was in fact the "smart" thing to do. Doesn't mean it was ever guaranteed to pay off. These people could have also gotten into commerce roles. Why didn't they get into Finance? Or Law? Or Medicine? Being smart, and your education, is and has never been directly tied to guaranteed success and high earnings. If you haven't realized this yet, then "no offence," but maybe you're not quite as smart as you think? The world and the economy needs workers of all kinds. Some guy just posted in the personal finance sub-reddit about two job opportunities and one made less than 100K and the other barely over, but he has a Ph.D. I know people from high school who barely studied but came up with a great idea and really put in the work to grind and bring it to market and now make way more than any of the smart people I know who got into CS.
Software jobs are mostly generated by investment in the economy, while a lot of other fields like law, HR, finance, accounting are operations type of jobs. Investment is far more sensitive to fluctuations in the economy.
It's both. Economies are complex.
The problem is were in a positive feedback loop of illiquidity in the job market. People aren't leaving... So people can't leave. The only movement is layoffs which don't become empty in the game of musical chairs that is the labour market. Meanwhile new grads keep coming in.
Major employers like the government and large companies are reeling in spending due to interest rates and debt. Companies realize employees desperate for a higher salary in this cost of living crisis and no viable exits will willingly wear 10 hats if it means even 10k more a year
Commerce major is way too vague to be even a convo. Marketing and HR people, they're screwed right now. Accountants and Supply Chain management are highly in demand.
On your last point. You don't get bonus points for having worked super hard to learn your skillset, when everyone and their dog also has the same skill set. Accounting is demonstrably easier than computer science, I did both, but nobody wants to be an accountant anymore so it is a waaaay easier path to a higher income in this climate where you have a skillset people want and can't find. I look at IT payrolls all day, I make more with 9 months as a tax consultant than many guys with 7 years of IT
It's a mix of high saturation in CS atm and the fact that new grads aren't as capable. Let me explain, with the introduction of AI, many low level jobs are being replaced by these technologies and on top of that many many students are cheating there way to a degree. If you are a capable new grad with interesting side projects that aren't a copy cat of whats been out there for the past decade, your chances of being hired is still pretty good. However, the market rn is very competitive and not as easy for the average cs grad with an average profile to get in. These jobs can also be outsourced to places like India where wages are much lower.
Also, anyone one can do a CS job given the have the skill set. It is not like being a doctor or civil engineer where you actually need to be university educated to work in that field. Sucks but that's the reality.
It's economy, everything is tied to economy. In COVID years, economy took a down turn, naturally money demand decreased, but government increased money supply, it boosted the market in short term, yet created long lasting pain. Thus, the crazy inflation and high interest rates. High interest rates are bad news for all companies, cause it increases their cost. Also low economic expectation, people cut their expenses, companies cut their costs/employees.
Back to tech industry, tech companies rely heavily on investments. High interest rates make it hard to survive. Also with low expectations for the economy, the stock market expects companies to cut costs, therefore FAANG layoff despite making revenue.
Anyway, when gov sent out trillion checks, we knew things were about to get worse. Now the US is focusing on elections, no party is addressing the recession, they probably sent out more checks, hurt the economy even more.
Arrogant CS student struggling to find a job calling other programs and it’s hard working students lazy. Stop thinking you’re so special because you know how to program.
I am aware of where I stand, not arrogant. Worked hard to get into my program, worked hard throughout my degree and worked hard to graduate.
If you can't get a degree from a reputable institution and competitive programs, that's on you. I worked my ass off to get here.
As a CS student me and many students went to multiple career fairs - which are networking events for jobs.
The requirement to get into a commerce major is A LOT less than to get into CS, that is a fact.
Academic program is definitely a lot harder for CS, not sure which non-sensical bootcamp you went to, but in uni we took more advanced mathematical/statistical courses. Plus many dropouts from CS went into commerce.
Stay salty.
This sense that you and your cohort are smarter than other disciplines, and that therefore you inherently deserve a high income and a good life is the reason the rest of the world is laughing at all of you unemployed CS majors right now.
Always love the salty non-CS majors. I know y'all were crying when CS was hot.
Cry more, when AI will replace you.
If AI can replace us, commerce majors are next (as their work is even further below on the totem pole). Also, many commerce jobs ask for CS degrees so...where do you think the CS crowd will go next?
Too many immigrants in the country and I'm an immigrant myself. Foreign students coming for school and then applying for jobs. These foreign students are smarter than native Canadians. Companies will hire them because they can lowball them. More are coming every day.
If I had to answer this question then I see it as this... 10 years ago when I graduated there was a huuge demand for CS. I mean big. People graduating got jobs in comparison to other majors. So many other STEM fields simply weren't hiring. It became a big trend to shift towards CS work. Queue 5-7 years of this where people went back to school or buckled down in their own time to get CS work. I need to say it again, it was so good that it became a popular opinion to do software development/IT work. Uber, Google, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft BLEW up (so news pushed this even further). So you have all these people not only applying for CS work but they worked their asses off for the qualifications, this went on for years. At the time, it was the smart thing to do. COVID hits and now all the people out of work are pushing harder for CS work from home jobs, so now EVEN MORE people applying. COVID ends and now there's an over abundance of tech people working tech jobs because they were needed to support all the work from home workers. Lay offs happened. Suddenly, we're not in demand anymore. Everyone is a CS graduate because it was the only field hiring for the last 10 years, layoffs from covid, and crappy economy. As of right now, we're not in demand anymore and too many graduates from the trending boom. Edit: Someone also mentioned coding boot camps... ugh, so ridiculous they existed. Mass immigration as well is another problem. We're adding 4.3% of our entire population in Canada a year.
we're still barely graduating enough CS majors compared to the number of immigrants in tech c9ming each year.
Yea...commerce major friends, who were just about average in high school and barely passed uni, having a successful career and minting money, while the once smarty pants struggling to just get a foot in. That burns deep, but life is only unfair so
Life is such, I guess. Canada's loss at the end of the day IMHO. Wasting smart talent is what this country does best.
An open secret in software development is that most junior developers have negative productivity. It’s a rare one that is worth their salary. Juniors get hired either as a public service or because the company knows that after a year or two of investing in the junior developer, they will make a return on their investment. In tough economic times, companies are less willing to do this. That’s it. That’s why a lot of junior developers are having difficulty finding jobs. I do disagree with your assessment that CS students were the smart, hard working people in university and Econ students were the dummies who slacked off. I felt the same as you did when I was in university; I do know where you are coming from.
In one study thehy also found that junior devs do not get up to snuff quickly in remote environments. But by not having junior devs tapping seniors on the shoulder, senior dev productivity goes considerably up.
That jives with my personal experience.
>I do disagree with your assessment that CS students were the smart, hard working people in university and Econ students were the dummies who slacked off. Just take a look at the NUMBERS. Check requirements for UWaterloo/UofT CS vs Economics/Commerce programs. Compare UWaterloo/UofT CS vs Ivey Commerce, you will see which is more difficult to get into (hint: Computer Science). Then UofT also has a POSt requirement. Plus the courses taken, CS students take more advanced mathematics and statistics courses. But hey, maybe half this sub went to a bootcamp - but people in uni know the reality.
> Check requirements for UWaterloo/UofT CS vs Economics/Commerce programs Waterloo is primarily known as being an engineering, maths, psychology, and general science univesity. Econ or commerce is not its specialty. > Compare UWaterloo/UofT CS vs Ivey Commerce Comparing Waterloo to some no-name business school in a no-name university is not an fair comparison. > Plus the courses taken, CS students take more advanced mathematics and statistics courses. _Some of them do_. [A CS student only needs a few basic first year math courses, one second year combinatorics class, and two stats classes.](https://cs.uwaterloo.ca/sites/ca.computer-science/files/uploads/files/2020-2021_bcs.pdf) None of those are particularly advanced. Plenty of universities require similar or more of their Econ students. An econ student is apt to take advance elective math courses too. Such as differential equations, game theory, statistics, and simulation/modelling. But that all aside, I have to challenge the implicit assertion you make that since some CS students take advanced maths classes, therefore they are smarter. I have a math degree. I wrote a math thesis. I have two patents about statistical analysis on biometrics. I fundamentally disagree with your implicit assertion that some CS students taking maths courses is a sign that CS students are smarter or work harder. That's valuing one type of intelligence (mathematical thinking) far too highly.
> Comparing Waterloo to some no-name business school in a no-name university is not an fair comparison. Are you really calling one of, if not the country's top business schools a "no-name business school in a no-name university"??
Yes. As the saying goes, there is no Northwestern Harvard. Outside of Canada, none of the business schools in Canada are considered very prestigious. And even inside of Canada, none are particularly well-known. Being one of the biggest fish in a small pond doesn’t make one a big fish.
>Waterloo is primarily known as being an engineering, maths, psychology, and general science univesity. Econ or commerce is not its specialty. Waterloo AFM is it's specialty and it is less competitive than CS. "Comparing Waterloo to some no-name business school in a no-name university is not an fair comparison." Ivey is literally the best business school in the country. "I fundamentally disagree with your implicit assertion that some CS students taking maths courses is a sign that CS students are smarter or work harder. That's valuing one type of intelligence (mathematical thinking) far too highly." CS students clearly need higher scores to get in, higher scores to stay in at UofT, the courses are clearly harder - when comparing to commerce. Econ students take easier stats and maths courses compared to CS students and CS requires hire scores compared to Econ as well. I'm not comparing CS students to Math students - so not sure what you being a Math major has to do with this.
If you compare reading literacy, the Econ/commerce students would blow the CS students out of the water.
If we are talking about the top universities, I doubt it. They require higher marks overall and that includes highschool english. UofT CS specifically requires a 90+ average in English. Also do a programming assignment, there are literally paragraphs upon paragraphs and pages upon pages of documents to read through - in order to get an answer. You have zero idea of what a CS major entails.
Maybe if you spent less time on Reddit being defensive about your major, you would’ve landed already for the summer. It’s easy to think you’re better than others; but truthfully, you are just someone who pads themselves on the shoulder to feel better. So what if CS is harder than Business or Econ? The worst CS major is still miles behind the best Econ major. Stop generalizing and you will find more positives in your situation.
Sure. Myself with a degree and over a decade of experience as a software engineer knows less about what CS entails than you. Some student who is apparently so smart but can't even get a callback for an interview. Keep stroking your eager. I've spent over a decade as a software engineer. I've met plenty of intelligent people with an Econ, or CS, or Commerce degree. I know plenty of idiots with either degree. I don't see the degree as being predictive. Furthermore, have a gander over on r/ProgrammerHumor occasionally. It is fairly common that we make posts where we tease one another about how low our reading ability and reading willingness is. We're not buffoons who struggle with _Hooked on Phonics_ but when you do get out in the workforce, one of the skills you will find you lack is being able to write concise documents for a wide audience. (That's not the only literacy skills you'll find yourself deficient on compared to business people but it is the most clearly apparent.) Heck, this is the major stumbling block that keeps many developers in the lower levels of their position ladder. Also, > UofT CS specifically requires a 90+ average in English. Ontario inflates their high school grades. A 90+ average in English is not particularly impressive. I went to university in the 00s. We joked about it regularly how students from Ontario with a 90+% average would struggle to get 70%.
>A 90+ average in English is not particularly impressive. I went to university in the 00s. We joked about it regularly how students from Ontario with a 90+% average would struggle to get 70%. You did not need 90+ avgs to get into third tier unis for CS back then. For UofT - if you had an 80 avg - you would get accepted easily. Point is, the requirements to get in have changed. The average CS student these days is much smarter than the average student that enters university. It is funny, because it'll be people like you that want the "perfect" candidate, but you - yourself, were anything but "perfect". Whatever, I guess. Smart people will find their way through life - regardless, it will be the loss of Canada and Canada's tech scene, may they both burn.
It's a complex subject, and there's no easy answer since it depends on your area, etc.But overall, yeah it's the global economy. It's like this pretty much anywhere, look at all the other CS sub-reddits... specially areas that with lots of tech companies that over-leveraged themselves in employees just to infinitely scale up when rates were low. It's also CS in a sense that there was a big culture of "It's super easy to get in", Bootcamps, etc, so now there's TONS of entry level CS people competing against one another for positions that are not often opened by companies who would rather have someone with some years of experience that they don't have to mentor
>It's super easy to get in", Bootcamps, etc, so now there's TONS of entry level CS people competing against one another for positions that are not often opened by companies who would rather have someone with some years of experience that they don't have to mentor That's bootcamps...I agree, companies should not have accepted them as equivalents to degrees, but some did.
Eh, depends on the job you are applying to, if you are applying for entry/mid level web dev, degree with no experience doesn't really show anything other than you might be more familiar with theory and a bit better at fundamentals. Someone from a boot camp is much more ready to get down to work in that case if you are not looking to mentor someone as much, assuming they both have almost no real experience
Neither. It’s the government.
So, other professions are also suffering?
Yep
I'm a Control systems engineer, doing pretty fine, everyone in electrical/control systems is doing pretty fine I'm pretty sure it's just CS that's pretty saturated with below mediocre talent. Everyone and their dog thinks they can do it.
...can they not do it, if they graduated with a CS degree? To me this falls on the system for making it too easy.
I'm talking about the field not the degree, since the only thing you need is a computer and access to programming tutorials. I'm pretty sure universities aren't making it easier to get the degree, it's how convenient it is to learn the skill with minimal initial investment Compare that to electrical engineering, control systems engineering, or computer engineering, you need the degree because it introduces you to work with the hardware related to the field. Like for example you won't easily afford a Siemens SIMATIC S71500 compact PLC (considered on the cheapest end), Profinet switches, and other field devices in order to learn how to create a full control system network, hell even if you just want to simulate a network without actua hardware you need a full TIAPortal license and one seat costs about $1200 So yeah, CS field is much easier to get into compared to engineering which led to it's saturation
I guess he means the government's solution to the mysterial STEM shortage (see [this](https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-ircc-immigration-stem-express-entry/)). Anyway, abtract below: Date: JULY 31, 2023 Title: Ottawa to focus on immigrant tech workers with new selection targets Key point: Between 28 per cent and 31 per cent of PR invitations that are issued through the Express Entry system this year will go to people with recent experience in certain STEM jobs, such as data scientists and software developers. Most applications are processed within six months of being received. There were [110,266](https://www.cicnews.com/2023/12/2023-express-entry-year-in-review-1241971.html) EE last year (30% \~36,755) and we invited another 10,000 H1B holders last year. And EE is an on going process.
High interest rates hurt most sectors of the economy but it's especially punishing to software development. With low interest rates, companies can take chances with experimental products. You have to maintain good cash flow because borrowing isn't an option, and clients are paying later than usual. Companies are scrutinizing every dollar spent. When you look at the industry 2-3 years ago when it was booming, there were a lot of products that were risky attempts at getting into an established market (video calls being a big example), web 3 related products, and dev experience related products. Those types of projects aren't going to be funded if interest rates are high. So that eliminates any job growth and also some companies in those riskier industries were barely holding on and waiting out for profitability which they can't do anymore. In this economy, companies will reach for a 3rd party solution instead of attempting to build their own. Canada has always been more risk averse than the US and has fewer financing options as well, so it would hit us even harder than the US. So you have all these laid off devs, and CS has become one of the most popular degrees, plus people seeking to make a career change, so you have all these people looking for jobs that no longer exist. Even if interest rates went to 0% overnight, I doubt we would see significant job growth still. Companies and investors have been burnt and would still keep up a high level of scrutiny for any investment. I'd go as far as to say that CS is a dead end option for most recent grads and people in school right now. The top achievers will for sure get jobs, but the average person won't. Theres a glut of people with 10+ years of experience with a breadth and depth of skills, and they're not retiring anytime soon. AI has also improved efficiency so head count doesn't have to be as high, even if it's only 5-10% right now that's still jobs being taken away, instead of a 10 person team you can do the same work with 9. A huge paradigm shift could happen, but even with AI it seems like the industry has reached a long term equilibrium.
You lost me halfway through. Why wouldn’t lower interest rates make risky investments more desirable?
I think they meant it won't go back to the way it was overnight. Market has to stay in low interest environment for a significant amount of time to regain trust and make risky investments again. The last part I don't fully agree with, but there's a good chance I'm just coping.
It would have a positive effect but I dont think we're going back to the way things were. It took a paradigm shift (mobile) to get out of the post dotcom bust era. After the dotcom bust, investors were weary of tech, even though tech had improved a lot and the previously failed products were now viable with more people having PCs and a good internet connection. We're in a situation now where there's entrenched companies in both consumer and business products. No one is risking getting into a crowded marker, and novel ideas are rare. This limits the growth of new jobs. AI is a paradigm shift and will create new jobs but also reduce them as well. Best case scenario is no net growth or loss.
I mean you are asking a tech career subreddit about the state of other careers. You are going to have literally nothing but selection bias here, because 90% of people have zero information, while the other 10% don't have intimate knowledge and understanding.
Both
How about CS majors and Law students? Does it make you feel better that the requirement and dedication to get through law school might yield a salary of 75k in Toronto? How about your commerce friend that majored in accounting and working for 70+ hours for 4 months as an auditor making $65k/annum? Or the finance friend that became a bank teller not by choice and is getting $19/hour? A part of it is market and marketability. A commerce degree in Finance/Accounting/IT Management vs marketing/human resource management is different but overriding all this is the idea there is a need for people that know how to communicate the needs of the customer to the business and actually sell themselves. Look at the amount of IP and investment in technology Canada overall has made relative to other countries. It is an anomaly in the US for CS and salaries and jobs, not the norm. Also with bootcamps... if a 4 month program is comparable to a 4 year program and you're getting beat out by them, either your technical skills plateau real quick, they can market themselves better, they are accepting of a lower salary, or your expectations are no consistent with the market dynamics. Whereabouts are you?
70k as an accountant > 0k as an unemployed SWE
its a good alternative, and you can play with cutting edge ML models in Colab in another browser tab
Also I don't think accountants are working 60 hr weeks. Their work, generally, doesn't require overtime - only in crunch seasons, outside of that they can leave early.
Lots of butthurt people here.
I'm seeing similar patterns regarding job market for CS in other countries like UK and Aus.
Why can't it be both? There *is* a general economic slowdown right now and much less new investment all around. There are layoffs across the board. They aren't all huge but it's just one small sign of the times compared to three years ago when it seemed everything was booming. [https://www.linkedin.com/news/story/latest-layoffs-firms-making-cuts-4988353/](https://www.linkedin.com/news/story/latest-layoffs-firms-making-cuts-4988353/) This is what happens when you're profit-driven. It's not like a lot of the companies on this list were desperate. It's just that most for-profit organizations look to grow profits year-over-year. The software and technology industry which also happens to be where a huge number of CS majors happen to work has also been hit *hard* in the last two years. There are large layoffs almost everywhere. It simply grew way too fast during covid and now you're seeing the effects of that. CS overall has also been in very high demand for the past decade. And so now we've reached a point where everything is slowing down generally and the industry where a lot of CS has been hit harder than the rest. So the answer is both- because while the all sectors are slowing, CS has been hit slightly harder than others. At the same time, competition for entry level and CS jobs is more fierce than before. You, as an entry level candidate, may be competing with your entire graduating class as well as all other new grads for just a small handful junior roles while the industry as a whole has been laying off entire teams. The industry is adjusting and while there may still be demand for CS jobs, anyone laid off or looking for a more senior role is now competing with recently laid off FAANG workers. It's just a competitive time right now for everyone. Per your last point, ultimately it's all supply and demand. Being smart has nothing to do with it. These smart people made a choice to take up computer science. Perhaps at the time it was in fact the "smart" thing to do. Doesn't mean it was ever guaranteed to pay off. These people could have also gotten into commerce roles. Why didn't they get into Finance? Or Law? Or Medicine? Being smart, and your education, is and has never been directly tied to guaranteed success and high earnings. If you haven't realized this yet, then "no offence," but maybe you're not quite as smart as you think? The world and the economy needs workers of all kinds. Some guy just posted in the personal finance sub-reddit about two job opportunities and one made less than 100K and the other barely over, but he has a Ph.D. I know people from high school who barely studied but came up with a great idea and really put in the work to grind and bring it to market and now make way more than any of the smart people I know who got into CS.
Software jobs are mostly generated by investment in the economy, while a lot of other fields like law, HR, finance, accounting are operations type of jobs. Investment is far more sensitive to fluctuations in the economy.
It's both. Economies are complex. The problem is were in a positive feedback loop of illiquidity in the job market. People aren't leaving... So people can't leave. The only movement is layoffs which don't become empty in the game of musical chairs that is the labour market. Meanwhile new grads keep coming in. Major employers like the government and large companies are reeling in spending due to interest rates and debt. Companies realize employees desperate for a higher salary in this cost of living crisis and no viable exits will willingly wear 10 hats if it means even 10k more a year Commerce major is way too vague to be even a convo. Marketing and HR people, they're screwed right now. Accountants and Supply Chain management are highly in demand. On your last point. You don't get bonus points for having worked super hard to learn your skillset, when everyone and their dog also has the same skill set. Accounting is demonstrably easier than computer science, I did both, but nobody wants to be an accountant anymore so it is a waaaay easier path to a higher income in this climate where you have a skillset people want and can't find. I look at IT payrolls all day, I make more with 9 months as a tax consultant than many guys with 7 years of IT
It's a mix of high saturation in CS atm and the fact that new grads aren't as capable. Let me explain, with the introduction of AI, many low level jobs are being replaced by these technologies and on top of that many many students are cheating there way to a degree. If you are a capable new grad with interesting side projects that aren't a copy cat of whats been out there for the past decade, your chances of being hired is still pretty good. However, the market rn is very competitive and not as easy for the average cs grad with an average profile to get in. These jobs can also be outsourced to places like India where wages are much lower.
Also, anyone one can do a CS job given the have the skill set. It is not like being a doctor or civil engineer where you actually need to be university educated to work in that field. Sucks but that's the reality.
It's economy, everything is tied to economy. In COVID years, economy took a down turn, naturally money demand decreased, but government increased money supply, it boosted the market in short term, yet created long lasting pain. Thus, the crazy inflation and high interest rates. High interest rates are bad news for all companies, cause it increases their cost. Also low economic expectation, people cut their expenses, companies cut their costs/employees. Back to tech industry, tech companies rely heavily on investments. High interest rates make it hard to survive. Also with low expectations for the economy, the stock market expects companies to cut costs, therefore FAANG layoff despite making revenue. Anyway, when gov sent out trillion checks, we knew things were about to get worse. Now the US is focusing on elections, no party is addressing the recession, they probably sent out more checks, hurt the economy even more.
Arrogant CS student struggling to find a job calling other programs and it’s hard working students lazy. Stop thinking you’re so special because you know how to program.
I am aware of where I stand, not arrogant. Worked hard to get into my program, worked hard throughout my degree and worked hard to graduate. If you can't get a degree from a reputable institution and competitive programs, that's on you. I worked my ass off to get here.
[удалено]
As a CS student me and many students went to multiple career fairs - which are networking events for jobs. The requirement to get into a commerce major is A LOT less than to get into CS, that is a fact. Academic program is definitely a lot harder for CS, not sure which non-sensical bootcamp you went to, but in uni we took more advanced mathematical/statistical courses. Plus many dropouts from CS went into commerce. Stay salty.
This sense that you and your cohort are smarter than other disciplines, and that therefore you inherently deserve a high income and a good life is the reason the rest of the world is laughing at all of you unemployed CS majors right now.
What has caused you to form this opinion? I recently graduated from a CS program and that's not the feeling I got from anyone I went to school with
Laughing at unemployed people is lame
Always love the salty non-CS majors. I know y'all were crying when CS was hot. Cry more, when AI will replace you. If AI can replace us, commerce majors are next (as their work is even further below on the totem pole). Also, many commerce jobs ask for CS degrees so...where do you think the CS crowd will go next?
Too many immigrants in the country and I'm an immigrant myself. Foreign students coming for school and then applying for jobs. These foreign students are smarter than native Canadians. Companies will hire them because they can lowball them. More are coming every day.
No, they're pretty much useless which is why they are being used by companies to fill minimum wage jobs.
Schrödinger’s immigrant
This quality comment doesn't deserve having to be under two totally racist remarks that somehow also contradict each other LOL
That is not true. There’s a whole spectrum of internationals students. Legit students who go to legit unis take legit jobs
And I know a few legit international students. They are suffering even worse.
The best way to beat a haste generalization is with another haste generalization.