Is it Worth Learning Programming in 2024-2025?

This article represents the author's personal opinion.

Is it Worth Learning Programming in 2024-2025? Will you be able to find a job, will the profession be in demand in the future, and what is the real likelihood that all developers will switch to other fields?

The number of new developers grows every year. Being a developer is being glorified. Social networks and advertisements for programming courses tell us that being a programmer is a highly sought-after profession. You can earn $100,000 a year after 12 months of learning from scratch. Plus, you can work remotely and travel the world at the same time. You can write code somewhere on the beach, enjoying your smoothie, and get paid $100,000 a year - all after 12 months of training. Everyone wants the same.

But how realistic are these salaries? On talent.com, the average figure for "How much does a frontend developer earn in the USA?" is $110,006 per year. It looks like a figure from course advertising.

On Glassdoor, the average salary for a frontend Developer in the USA is $107,954 per year. But will you earn that much as a beginner? No, look at the lower end of the salary range on Glassdoor - most likely, that will be your salary.

We've looked at salaries, but what about the demand for the programmer profession and competition?

The number of new developers grows every year. Nowadays, almost everyone is learning programming: mom, dad, grandma - everyone is excited about this direction. Competition for a novice programmer is very high, and getting a job after a year of learning may not be easy.

Meanwhile, startups are closing or simply laying off employees. IT giants are mass layoffs, including Google, Twitter, Microsoft, Amazon, and others. Check out the layoff statistics on the layoffs.fyi website.

What do you think? Is this related to the overall trend in the IT market?

Is it realistic to become a sought-after programmer and find a job after a year of training in current conditions? And if you do find one, will you earn a high salary?

Remote work means that not only you can work remotely, but programmers from other countries can as well. Startups may hire programmers from other countries who will cost not $50,000-100,000 a year, but $24,000 or less. For example, a novice developer from Russia can earn 50,000 rubles a month, which is $550 a month or $6,600 a year at the current exchange rate.

Let's remember about AI. The pace of artificial intelligence technology development is high.

But can they write programs today and replace programmers?

AI can write programs, but not yet well enough. At the moment, programmers have not been replaced by AI. But since this is an article about learning programming, let's consider a beginner programmer. Can he learn to program better than AI at the moment? But what if AI gets even better at programming this year?

Watch the Mendix and AWS demonstration at the CES 2024 exhibition. Siemens CEO talks about AWS, Mendix, and generative artificial intelligence at the CES 2024 exhibition. Watch the video

"Generative artificial intelligence and large language models allow you to talk to your machines in natural language as if they were humans," said Roland Busch, CEO of Siemens AG.

In general, Mendix is a Low-code platform. Low-code is a method of application development that transforms coding from text to visual. It makes development more accessible to users without technical knowledge. And Mendix is not the only Low-code platform. There are also No-code platforms. (Guess what this method of application development is?)

Even now, non-programmers can create applications. There are enough tools for that.

With the trend towards being able to describe what you want in AI and get a ready-made program from it, beginning developers will not be in demand in the job market.

Here's an interview with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang at the World Government Summit. Watch the video

This interview also leads to the fact that in the future, it will be enough to describe in AI text what kind of application you want to get, and it will create the application you desired.

What do you think, how soon will AI replace developers? Is it worth studying programming and becoming a programmer in such conditions? It's up to you. For example, I plan to learn PHP in 2024.