This article is about junior developers, but could equally well apply to my IT field, too.

In infrastructure and related, the job market for junior people basically does not exist any longer. It’s been cleaned out. Obliterated. Outsourcing to (mainly) India and automation has made it disappear. Every day, there are fewer and fewer paths up from the swamp of help desk and consulting to senior architect and designer type roles.

If I were starting out in IT today, unless I had a flashy degree from a well-known college, I probably would not make it.

This is actually good for me now. I am senior, competing with far fewer people than I otherwise would be in the market as it was 15 years ago, and my salary increases have by far surpassed inflation for the last 10 years. I have my choice of jobs, generally. But it also means that there is no one younger than 35 on my team, and there probably never will be. There’s simply no one to hire — very few junior people or even mid-level people are available who know even 1/10 as much as anyone on my team, and there is little demand for them.

I have no grand moral conclusions about this. Just reporting what is.