tl;dr

Quality !== Quantity 

Tim Mensch, User-10383704227223524916, and Bryan Williams all hit the nail on the head, identifying a talent gap. This gap is also the genesis of the talent wars on the coasts of America (Silicon Valley/Seattle/New York), which has spread across the entire world.

Diving deeper…

Geographic Imbalance

In 2017, I did a study about this for my city. It was really more of a warning signal about the talent gap problem (which is still relevant today). The results are available at The Tech Talent Landscape in Austin, TX. Austin has been experiencing insane growth in the tech sector. Every major tech titan has a presence here, plus a bunch of the prominent venture capital firms have moved here. For the few who don’t, they usually have remote workers here. The city continually attracts well known developers from all parts of the world. The combination of all of this has been a people magnet… everyone and their mother flocking here. It’s truly, truly rapid growth… and there is still a shortage of the right tech talent for business needs. I speak with many new employers when they move to Austin, and most are shocked upon realizing the experience gap is so big.

Narrow Scope

Another good example of the gap is Github. 90% of global usage is only for the top 10% of projects. In other words, most of the world only uses 10% of the resources Github has available. A fraction of the global development community produces that software.

Most “developers” are people who understand the community and are able to string software together. There are far fewer people creating software. It’s kind of like a puzzle…. there are lots of people who can put a puzzle together. Give them the pieces and the big picture, they’ll put it together. There are only a few who can visualize the bigger picture AND make the pieces. There is a shortage of makers. More times than not, makers evolve from coders, which takes time.

A Word of Caution

Due to the high quantity of new folks in the field, it is going to be quite competitive in years to come. It’s already competitive amongst Junior developers vying for entry level jobs. Supply will gradually grow as all of these new folks gain experience. As more supply is available, it will settle employer demand, cooling the market. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t get into software if you want to, it just means the landscape will change and you’ll need to adapt. That is, after all, part of the job.