You have a great many options right now, but you won’t in the future. Software engineering is one of the most popular college majors on the planet right now. Bootcamps are exploding, people who upskilled from YouTube are actually starting to struggle to find jobs as more and more qualified people flood into the industry. Moreover, the great resignation has been the great application for software engineering and development jobs, with some entry level jobs receiving literally hundreds or thousands of applications. Big tech has been petitioning Congress to loosen H1-B visa restrictions to allow more foreign programmers into the country. Demand is great but the tide is turning.


Your position now is far more tenuous than you think it is. Tech companies are loath to hire developers over 40, and after 50 it’s nearly impossible. If you’re in your mid 30s, you have about 5 years left before job hunting gets a bit trickier and takes more convincing as a company can hire two mid level or three juniors for your salary. Tech salary growth is starting to slow down, and while high, is edging toward stagnation as the trend of “too many jobs, too few programmers” starts to reverse. The writing is on the wall, and unionizing preemptively is going to help protect what you have.