Is there still a place in IT?

Some time ago, during one of my recruitment interviews I was asked:

At first glance, this may seem like quite a paradox. But let's take a closer look at this problem and try to break it down into its constituent parts.

The image below has become a recent favorite of mine because it does a great job of showing how selectively information can be considered and how an opinion can change with a change in perspective. Does this meme tell the truth? Absolutely. Currently in the IT world there is already quite a large group of programmers, whether they come from universities, programming schools, bootcamps, or self-taught. So it might seem that the market is saturated and there is no more room for new people. However, what we won't find out is that behind this shelf of toys there are 3 times bigger bunch of children (customers/companies) who want to acquire those Buzz Astral (programmers).

According to the Europers Commission in 2020, there is a shortage of 50,000 programmers in Poland. In the entire European Union it is estimated that there are as many as 600 thousand vacancies. A report by Microsoft from the same year predicts one million IT specialists to be missing in Poland and as many as 149 million worldwide over the next few years..

Looking at this data, you might get the impression that we should already, at this point, quit our jobs and ask for our due 15k for just even being willing to consider taking a job 😀 But before we do that, it's worth noting one very important thing - the estimated share of junior positions in this entire list is about 16%. That is, only (or as much as!) 1 out of 6 sought-after people is a person who is at the beginning of their activities in the industry.

Of course, predictions never take into account extreme, subversive situations like a pandemic. COVID-19 changed the world forever by causing a huge acceleration in the digitalization of society. Suddenly, it became clear that most activities that were once impossible to do online are quite easy to arrange. The changes have not spared the IT market either. Before the pandemic, working from home was possible, but it was done more occasionally, when the need arose. In a survey of the IT 2020 community. Bulldogjob indicates that only 8.1% of respondents had the opportunity to work 100% remotely. Currently, such a system of work is preferred by about 90% of professionals and the vast majority of them declare that they will resign if they do not have such an opportunity.

The chance to collaborate with others from anywhere on earth made countries/borders secondary. Companies from the United States or United Kingdom could start recruiting employees from other countries, because the status quo of having to meet in the office ceased to exist. Such a change had an impact on salaries, and consequently on the structure of employment of people both in Poland and abroad. Of course, these opportunities were and are most available to people with the most experience, i.e. seniors and the most talented mid-levels, but the greater the lack of these people on the Polish market, the more room for juniors.

How then do you carve out a piece of that pie for yourself? After all, it is still estimated that a few dozen resumes fall into place per intern/junior ad.