The ideal is to encourage developers to start their own small businesses and support each other by being customers. That, and when you find success/profitability, don't sell to a big tech nightmare or PE—just run the business.
The "machine" is a natural side-effect of mega corporations and creating unions will just encourage more creativity around stealing your soul or getting rid of your entirely.
Correct. Devs need to stop believing that business acumen is some special skill they can't develop. It's not magic. Your CEO isn't a better human than you despite what LinkedIn tells you.
> Are you advocating for everyone to create their own SaaS here or what?
End of the day, most engineers need to join employers. We can’t have 10M+ different SaaS out there and each engineer develops their own personal brand of it. That’s not how software scales.
Create your own SaaS or consult/freelance. Or if it's too stressful or not lucrative enough, start another type of small business. The "big business with lots of employees" thing is a relatively new phenomenon. Most people used to be solo operators or part of a family business.
And if you prefer, employers who need engineers aren't going away. They're being temporarily deluded into thinking that they can get rid of their teams due to the AI hype, but I expect that to change as "vibe coded" software starts to fall apart.
Certainly, but it's far more rewarding than being grist for the mill. You can spend your entire life doing less-hard work, only to wake up at 80 and have nothing to show for it but a bank account that you can't take with you.
Building your own thing is a rough go (13 years deep myself), but hell if I don't wake up most days with a shit eating grin on my face.
> Certainly, but it's far more rewarding than being grist for the mill.
Depends on your goals and your personality.
When I list the things I want to achieve in my life, working for myself drastically reduces the likelihood of achieving those things - unless my own business makes enough money for me to retire in a few years (extremely unlikely).
> You can spend your entire life doing less-hard work, only to wake up at 80 and have nothing to show for it but a bank account that you can't take with you.
Amusingly enough, I feel it's even more acute when you work for yourself:
"You can spend your entire life working hard for yourself, only to wake up at 80 and have nothing to show for it but a (tiny) bank account that you wouldn't want to take with you."
At least when you work for someone else (at about 40 hours a week), there's room for hobbies.
I recall a friend of mine - a local inventor (he had a PhD and kept building things, trying to make products out of them, etc). In his mid 50's, he had invented a lot, but his only success was that the business didn't go under. He qualified for food stamps, and hadn't taken a vacation in over a decade. He never had time for a meaningful relationship. He cut his losses and took a regular job. He misses doing deep technical work, but he's much happier.
Smart guy. I knew younger people who worked for him - did more fun technical stuff than I've ever done for a job. They took the lesson to heart and got regular jobs eventually, as well.
Out of curiosity, was he doing work on the side to fund his inventions/research?
I see a lot of entrepreneurs get stuck in the "I have to go all in on this thing I'm not certain will work" vs. "I can do freelance/contract gigs on the side to fund my work and still have a decent standard of living until I prove out my idea(s)."
You're right that it comes down to goals and personality, but if you're in a position where you think a union is going to help save you, you may be better off working on your own thing.
I don't know if he had side work when he started, but by the time I knew him, he didn't. He made enough money to stay afloat and have some (cheap, but smart) employees. By that point he had no time for side gigs.
The "machine" is a natural side-effect of mega corporations and creating unions will just encourage more creativity around stealing your soul or getting rid of your entirely.