Sometimes you just need to break the writer’s slump, and what better way than to air some tech community laundry/gossips. Here are 3 classic struggles that keep popping up, no matter how fast the AI world moves.
Juniors often feel like they’re growing in the shadow of their seniors – those strong, wide-spread banyan trees that block opportunities and stunt their growth. This isn’t just a theory – data shows that nearly 30% of techies with less than 3 years of experience switch jobs, looking for more sunlight and fresh air.
For juniors, the challenge isn’t just the learning curve but finding their voice in a team where the seniors have already taken the best seats. It’s like trying to grow a startup in a market dominated by FAANG.
While seniors are busy debating the best design pattern for a microservice, juniors are trying to get their first pull request merged without being roasted on the code review thread. It’s a constant game of "How many comments will this PR get before it’s finally approved?", "Will anyone mentor me honestly about all corners of the long career ahead?", etc.
Seniors, on the other hand, see juniors as a potential threat – the fresh minds who come in armed with JavaScript, Python, and React and casually throw around terms like LLMs, prompt engineering, hackathons and vector databases. Meanwhile, the seniors are still perfecting the art of Spring Boot and JPA, occasionally grumbling about how Java 8 was the last “real” upgrade.
It’s not just about skills – it’s about mindset. The seniors have survived production outages at 3 AM, managed political office battles, and honestly mentored a generation of developers who now run startups.
Juniors, on the other hand, are still fresh, living out of PG rooms, debugging their code on 15-inch laptops, and pushing code on a 5G hotspot while dodging their roommate’s PUBG screams. They may lack experience, but they have the raw hustle, curiosity, and caffeine tolerance that seniors often lose along the way.
And if you want a real generational gap, just bring up Agile vs. Waterfall in a meeting. The seniors will reminisce about the days when project plans were thicker than the SRS document, while the juniors wonder if they should include Agile Scrum in their LinkedIn profile.
When it comes to cutting costs, management often takes the path of least resistance – reduce headcount. Performance, age, location, experience – all fair game when trimming the payroll. This is the "high-impact, low-cost" strategy that features in every MBA case study.
From the management perspective, it’s all about "optimizing the org chart" and "maximizing shareholder value" – fancy phrases that essentially mean fewer people, more profit. The logic is simple: cutting the bottom 10% might save the company millions without the PR disaster of reducing executive perks.
But employees see it differently. To them, the real savings lie in cutting the fat at the top. After all, the CEO earning 100x the average developer’s salary, VPs flying business class, and middle managers enjoying plush perks attending meetings.
And then there’s the perks debate. Employees argue that cutting free food, and fancy offices in favor of WFH (Work From Home) could save millions. After all, those ping-pong tables and bean bags aren’t exactly mission-critical. And let’s be real – the only people who truly use the office gym are the same ones who have the time for marathon LinkedIn posts.
This is especially stark in India, where C-level executives at top tech firms earn crores per annum, while a fresh developer might make 7-15 LPA. The disparity is not just in the paychecks but also in the power to decide the fate of others.
Outsourcing is a simple idea – move work to a cheaper location and save big. India, with its massive pool of highly skilled engineers, is a top destination for this. In 2024 alone, India’s IT exports were estimated at over $250 billion, with GCCs (Global Capability Centers) in Bangalore, Hyderabad, and Chennai leading the charge.
But this efficiency comes with a human cost. For every American worker laid off, there’s likely a replacement in Bangalore, Manila, or Chengdu doing the same work at a fraction of the cost. It’s the "rob Peter to pay Paul" strategy of the corporate world.
But it’s not a bed of roses for the outsourcers either. They’re often stuck in corporate jungles – the GCCs of India – doing the same work for 3x-5x less pay than their Western counterparts, with fewer perks, less vacation, and the constant contract renewal threats.
And to add to their woes, the entry-level salaries at these GCCs have barely moved in the past 15 years, despite inflation and the rising cost of living. It’s like getting a static variable in a dynamic world.
Plus, they have to sync up at 11 PM for calls with PST time zone clients who think that IST stands for "I’ll Slack Tomorrow."
This post is a simple rant for the slump – not to be taken seriously. There are many more battles in tech, like open source vs. closed source, cloud vs. on-prem, and Windows vs. Mac. I’ll tackle those when the next writer’s block hits. 😉
