What happens if high tech workers making six figures are no longer a hot commodity?

[GON]

What happens if high tech workers making six figures are no longer a "hot commodity"?

I have two nephews that live in Phoenix, in their late 20s, that make low six figures per year. Neither has a college education. Both are homeowners in the greater Phoenix area. Both are in the high-tech arena, and work remotely. Both are employed by different firms investigating on-line fraud/ issues. I assume they know what they are doing, yet neither are formally educated in cyber.

What happens to people like my nephews if they are laid off? Maybe cyber-crime professionals are immune- but I recall in the 1980s and 1990s programmers were vulnerable to being laid off. And if people like my nephews are laid off, no advanced education and no other known skillsets- are they still able to earn low six figures?

 

[KGMtech]

They will likely fail to gain equal paying jobs, unless they start educating themselves to be ready for the next wave.

 

[tyman]

They won't be making 6 figures anymore. The nice thing about technology and Covid is that it has pushed security to the forefront of technology. In addition to that, scammers on the rise.

 

[The Critic]

What happens if high tech workers making six figures are no longer a "hot commodity"?

I have two nephews that live in Phoenix, in their late 20s, that make low six figures per year. Neither has a college education. Both are homeowners in the greater Phoenix area. Both are in the high-tech arena, and work remotely. Both are employed by different firms investigating on-line fraud/ issues.

I would say that any "professional" in "high-tech" making low six figures is not in a high-demand role and isn't truly a "professional." They are probably a lower-level clerical worker doing work that can be offshored to a vendor. @PandaBear can probably comment a bit further, but this is the type of white collar "High Tech worker" that is usually the first to go when expenses are tight.

 

[atikovi]

And if people like my nephews are laid off, no advanced education and no other known skillsets- are they still able to earn low six figures?

I never understood how or why people who sit in an air conditioned office all day and sit behind a keyboard make low six figures, while someone laying asphalt or digging trenches in 100°F heat all day make just above minimum wage.

 

[JeffKeryk]

Programmers are in huge demand. There are all kinds of programmers. Low 6 figures may be market for Phoenix; I dunno.
Remember, all products have a lifecycle. Take me for example. Some of my skills are no longer in demand; web based programming is where it's at now.

Your nephews need to understand that high tech is a fast, ever changing world. If they work on a big product like SAP, this is less true, but still.
Keep learning new skills. Financially, I hope they are not spending their money hand over foot like so many in Silicon Valley did in the 80's, 90's and so on. You ain't gonna work forever.

 

[JeffKeryk]

I never understood how or why people who sit in an air conditioned office all day and sit behind a keyboard make low six figures, while someone laying asphalt or digging trenches in 100°F heat all day make just above minimum wage.

Totally agree. It is not how hard you work, or how much you know. It is demand.
I was homeless, did tree work and other labor work. My 1st programming job paid me more than I ever made. By far. Labor taught me to outwork anyone else in the office.
Beyond pay (in an AC office with a lot of sluffers), the real money was in the Golden Handcuffs (aka stock options) for mission critical workers.

In the office so many employees snivel. They don't know how freakin' easy the have it.

 

[PimTac]

They should consider going to college for a degree if they have the means.

 

[PandaBear]

I would say that any "professional" in "high-tech" making low six figures is not in a high-demand role and isn't truly a "professional." They are probably a lower-level clerical worker doing work that can be offshored to a vendor. @PandaBear can probably comment a bit further, but this is the type of white collar "High Tech worker" that is usually the first to go when expenses are tight.

Cost is always location specific. 100K is not a living wage in some areas but a high income elsewhere.

Same for high-tech jobs in 3rd world. If you think you can just pay a top talent in India 30k and expect him to stay around forever, don't. They will eventually find 60k jobs there or 100k in the US in the end.

Don't forget you are paying 100k here instead of 60k there because you need things nearby for timezone or other location-specific reason. Moving jobs to 12 hr timezone away can slow things down a lot, making the net saving negative. People fly for business trip instead of zoom meeting for the same reason.

 

[The Critic]

Cost is always location specific. 100K is not a living wage in some areas but a high income elsewhere.

Well, if we are talking about US cities, Phoenix isn't exactly a low-cost area. For my company there is only a 10-11% wage adjustment factor between Phoenix and San Francisco salaries.

Point is, most low six-figure jobs in tech nowadays are very entry-level roles for low-skilled employees. Definitely not roles where one should be buying a house, IMO.

 

[JMJNet]

They should consider going to college for a degree if they have the means.

Actually, I suggest the certification route.
Faster and cheaper and more applicable.
Which they may already have.

 

[JeffKeryk]

They should consider going to college for a degree if they have the means.

Spot on. Get that degree. It opens doors, and one's earning ceiling is much higher.
At San Jose State, they offer a Business Degree in Management of High Tech Companies.
It fit very well with Computer Science and Econ minors.
I got mine at 40. Kinda took the long way around...

 

[javacontour]

I'm on a bridge call right now, and if many of these folks are getting paid 6 figures, their employer is getting ripped off.
IP routing and addressing as well as DNS has been around for 40ish years. These folks haven't got it down yet.
There were going to have me drive 300 miles to swap a Cisco switch when the user was trying to log in as the wrong user. Then, instead of using an IP address, they were only using a hostname.
No one thought to check if the switch was accessible by IP address and the correct host name.

It's painful listening to these calls sometimes.
But at least I'm not getting up a 0-dark:thirty tomorrow to drive 300 miles to swap a switch.
I've spent the past hour telling the customer to turn off spanning tree for a switch with a single connection and no tagged traffic.
I'm about to lose what is left of my hair

 

[MNgopher]

I never understood how or why people who sit in an air conditioned office all day and sit behind a keyboard make low six figures, while someone laying asphalt or digging trenches in 100°F heat all day make just above minimum wage.

I always wonder why people assume people laying asphalt and general laborers don't get paid well. They certainly do here - way, way above minimum wage, and work a ton of overtime hours in the "construction" season, and get the winter off. And a general laborer on a prevailing wage job here starts at $37 an hour.

 

[twouvakind]

This.

 

[jeepman3071]

It really depends on what they do. Chances are if they make six figures their jobs are somewhat valuable, otherwise they would be paid less. Programming is different because it is a bit like manufacturing, in that companies just look to get the end result (the software product) for as cheap as possible, which is why many of the programming jobs went overseas since it can be done cheaper there remotely.

Cyber security is not the same, and also anything dealing with sensitive data, as there are laws around how and where the data is handled.

 

[CKN]

Low six figures in Phoenix isn't rolling in the dough. They are making that because it's what the market will bear. Sometimes we under estimate those who have less than a 4 year degree. I could list pages and pages of those (some very well known) who are now millionaires and then some without college degrees.

May be easy to criticize those who bought a house in Phoenix even a few years ago and are now sitting ON A TON OF EQUITY.

 

[jeepman3071]

I always wonder why people assume people laying asphalt and general laborers don't get paid well. They certainly do here - way, way above minimum wage, and work a ton of overtime hours in the "construction" season, and get the winter off. And a general laborer on a prevailing wage job here starts at $37 an hour.

You can make a lot of money doing physical jobs, the problem is when you get to be 50 years old you can no longer do them. I have several family members who worked construction, and while they made a lot of money they are basically disabled because of the toll years of physical labor took on their bodies.

 

[javacontour]

I'm on a bridge call right now, and if many of these folks are getting paid 6 figures, their employer is getting ripped off.
IP routing and addressing as well as DNS has been around for 40ish years. These folks haven't got it down yet.
There were going to have me drive 300 miles to swap a Cisco switch when the user was trying to log in as the wrong user. Then, instead of using an IP address, they were only using a hostname.
No one thought to check if the switch was accessible by IP address and the correct host name.

It's painful listening to these calls sometimes.
But at least I'm not getting up a 0-dark:thirty tomorrow to drive 300 miles to swap a switch.
I've spent the past hour telling the customer to turn off spanning tree for a switch with a single connection and no tagged traffic.
I'm about to lose what is left of my hair

FWIW, they finally turned off spanning tree on Vlan 1, and look, it works.
I suspect they did that before to make it work, but forgot to save the running-config to the startup-config

Not sure why someone set the port up as a Network port to begin with as it's the only uplink for a management network.
Not sure why I was the first to recognize BPDU guard messages from the upstream switch either. Seems their network admin should have recognized that right away and asked why STP was coming in over that link.
But I'm just a field engineer (who happened to teach networking back in the day) so what do I know, LOL.
I see all manner of employers who are not getting their money's worth.

 

[SC Maintenance]

Its no different than any other profession. Programmers need to learn new systems and languages, pilots train on new airplanes, even home builders learn how to use new materials and construction methods and keep up with codes. Teachers are required to have a minimum number of training hours and have to recertify occasionally or loose their credential to teach that particular topic.

College degrees are seldom really needed for most jobs, but when jobs get tight and you get 100 resumes for one position, its one of the first things used to weed people out. Its what I did when I was a hiring manager - college degree or military service, or maybe a ton of years in the industry, preferably without to much job hopping.