Getting Laid Off in Tech: The Myth of Upper Middle Class Security
&gt;  Fewer and fewer careers offer a stable path to the financial and personal security that underwrote the Baby Boomers’ “American Dream.” Technology is the one career that has an optimistic future, isn’t beholden by regulation and credential inflation, and actually attempts to create some sort of meritocracy, and so, those that are fortunate enough to be in it want to preserve the one island of paradise left.<p>This really resonated with me, for a number of reasons.  Primarily, it&#x27;s because I am hyper aware of how delicate this &quot;tech boom&quot; really is.  The good times will end, and I believe they will end sooner than most believe.  I was layed off once before because the company I worked for outsourced their entire engineering department.  That was a quick lesson for me early in my career that you are EASILY replaced.  There are people in India, China, the Ukraine, you name it... who will do your job for half the cost.<p>There is an enormous, GLOBAL, influx of software engineers that is rapidly diluting the worker pool and is quickly reducing the implicit bargaining power that we&#x27;ve enjoyed for the last 10 years.  Big &quot;thanks&quot; to all the initiatives by well meaning, but naïve, individuals and organizations who want to &quot;spread the wealth&quot; without realizing that the wealth is already spread very thin, and is being spread thinner, and thinner, every day by mechanisms outside of our control (cost of living, housing, taxes, etc.).<p>I am trying my best to save, but somehow the cost of merely existing seems to increase month over month.  I don&#x27;t have kids, can&#x27;t afford them.  I don&#x27;t have a car payment, I bought a junker.  I have minimized my expenses down to the bare necessity and even then coming up with the down payment for a home is going to take years.  At my age, my parents were already on to their second home.  My wife has enormous student loans that cripple her ability to save so even our dual income seems weak in this environment.<p>So what can you do?  I&#x27;m starting a business in my after-hours and weekends, desperately trying to establish a source of low-overhead income.  I&#x27;m specializing within my field, attempting to learn new skills in a niché programming field that can&#x27;t be easily learned by bootcamps and YouTube videos.  Above all, I&#x27;m remembering that right now things are good.  This is the calm before the storm.