It’s time to look back and look forward. The recent spate of layoffs has prompted us to rethink how we plan for our future. “No one wants programmers at 35” and “No one wants iOS developers”.

Is it winter?

The discovery after somebody statistics, past year end somebody says is winter, just a menstruation view.

There are also strong said, I think “winter” is the weak speech, I still very easy to find a job ah.

I think both of the above logic are faulty:

I used to punch you in the chest, and you said it hurt. Now I hit your chest with a hammer and you say ouch!! It didn’t hurt much when you said it hurt, and it doesn’t hurt now.

As for “cold winter” because you’re not strong enough logic there’s an old saying that “it’s easy to stand up and talk.” By this logic, winter can only be called in the North and South Poles, unless everyone is cold?

I think the recruitment data can be the most intuitive embodiment of the current market. According to 100 offers, Android programmers received 40% fewer interviews per person in 2018 than they did in 2017, and iOS programmers 57% fewer.

From “scarcity” to “excess” to?

When an industry is on the rise, skilled people are scarce in the market. You can’t wait two years to hire experienced people to start projects. As a result, there will be a large influx of entry-level workers and the feedback from the recruitment market will be slow. There is a constant influx of new people, and the number of new people behind is also increasing (the efficiency of our training institutions is really unspeakable). When supply and demand really reach the equilibrium point, the recruitment of upstream training people do not know, but still continue to produce. So at some point there was a huge surplus of new players in the market. This was the cause of the popular “nO one wants iOS anymore.”

He is part of a wave of people who can’t find a development job and are looking for a chance to change the course of their lives with a few months of hard work and tens of thousands of yuan a month. “Impetuous” is a very good word for that period. It also shows that the programmer is really not a complete threshold of the profession. There was definitely a lot of new people who couldn’t find a job and went elsewhere, but it didn’t really affect the people who really wanted to do programming. It was still easy to stand out among the motley crowd, so while there were complaints from people who couldn’t find jobs on the forum, there was a “happy” atmosphere in the community.

It wasn’t long before a slew of copycat startups went out of business, and their programmers, of course, lost their jobs. So “iOS” development is no longer needed and there is a spread scene. But still, if a programmer doesn’t give up the pursuit of technology, he can quickly find another job. But people who are lucky enough to find a well-paid job will be eliminated from the market. Dead people don’t talk, we don’t see much on the Internet that I switched careers from iOS development, but it didn’t happen. It’s the career changers who don’t say it online, or they say they don’t get into our community. We don’t see it, but it’s actually happening. A cool calculation shows that each wave eliminated at least tens of thousands of people.

There may not be another “spring”

So what happens now? Smartphone shipments in the first half of 2018 fell by about 10 percent year-on-year. Mobile Internet penetration has been permeated, the number of users in the mobile market is close to saturation. An even more important sign: For the first time, the iPhone isn’t selling. Although everyone said apple was going to die since The death of Steve Jobs, apple’s market value reached one trillion after another. However, as the price of XS rose again, this time it really did not sell. And revenues in China are down by half!!

There have been no new unicorns on the mobile web in the past few years. There might have been a variety of “sharing” apps, but they’ve all clearly failed. Instead, a large number of peer-to-peer transactions failed. Capital is profit-driven, and losses can be accepted in the early stage of the market because there is a possibility of profit in the later stage. Now the industry pattern has been determined, a company can not make money is not to make money.

So you end up getting laid off, and you may have good technical skills, but you may not be able to find a suitable replacement. In the past, as new companies appeared, new jobs were created. Now that there are fewer new companies in the market, there are fewer pits. The better seat you want is already occupied and will not be filled until someone drops out.

Let me quantify this feeling: there are only 4 pages of iOS posts for 25-50 K in Hangzhou now. Subtract out some companies that are just hanging placeholders, and you can actually invest in about 30 positions. These positions according to your personal preference to choose some companies for interview, and then you through the company’s interview, finally your choice is actually very limited. You should also consider that over time, the number of people who meet the requirements for technical expertise will increase, but the number of jobs will not increase as the market grows.

I think the future is probably what desktop software looks like today. Computers are still being sold, and there is a market for desktop software development. But you’ll notice that over the past few years, there are just a few apps that have been used. How many amazing desktop apps are released every year? It’s just that the fundamentals of mobile development are a little bigger than desktop development.

Another village

Fortune-tellers often say that you will have a big disaster in a few years, but you can now spend 998 to ask him to do a magic act, which can help you through the disaster. I think the same goes for most iOS development: after a few years you’ll have an active or passive exit. As I said before, because of the saturation of the market if you continue to do nothing the probability of finding a satisfactory job is not very high. Here are a few of my thoughts.

Hard turning

Cross-platform technology to watch: Flutter

Based on the existing professional, and then to seize some other people’s chassis to make the cake is an effective idea. That’s why people at all ends of the spectrum want cross-platform capabilities as they reach a stable stage.

JS is a simple script language, and there are ready-made JS engines on each platform. The upper layer uses JS to describe the logic, and each end provides native capabilities to the JS engine, which is a quite feasible cross-platform scheme. This is now the dominant application layer cross-platform technology model. However, years after the release of RN, people realized the fundamental weakness of this model: 1. JS as a dynamic scripting language has inherent performance defects. 2. The JS engine has different implementations at each end. If the JS engine at the bottom is buggy, there is no way to avoid the framework at the top, and even debugging is very difficult.

So the next alternative framework should be a static language that compiles programs into binaries, with engines at each end having strong control. This is the technical architecture that Flutter uses. Another reason to be bullish about Flutter is that It is in Google’s interest. If Flutter is to succeed, Google will need to provide perfect support on all sides. This is no small task. It takes years of continuous investment, and if you don’t get the benefit of the technology then it won’t last long. Google needs a development environment that they can control for Fuchsia.

In contrast to Apple, Swift can be used to develop apps for iOS as well as macOS based on AppKit. UIKit is based on the UI framework provided by iOS. Now, in order to unify iOS and desktop development experience, Apple will launch UIKit for MAC in the future. This allows you to develop applications for both platforms using the same UI framework and language. This is also possible for Google, based on the idea that Flutter could be a UI framework for mobile as well as for Fuchsia in the future.

Flutter is more promising and capable than JS engine based frameworks. I recommend that you pay more attention to the technological development of Flutter as it may be a useful skill point in the future.

The whole stack

The full stack here refers to not what what will be a little paper paste full stack, is a special multi – fine kind.

Analogies two roles in a musical performance:

  • One-man band. When playing songs, one person handles multiple instruments simultaneously.
  • A composer of symphonies. You need to know the characteristics of each instrument, and then write a score for each instrument

We’re not looking for a one-man band, we’re not looking for a project where I write the back end and I write the front end. It’s more demanding, understanding how stacks connect, and being able to solve systemic problems. Instead of limiting yourself to a small niche.

Fusion machine learning

In 2018, machine learning finally passed its conceptual apex. Facts are the only criterion to test truth. Technology can’t just be left on paper. Although machine learning is not a panacea as advertised, there is no denying that machine learning has high application value in some fields.

The current use scenario of machine learning must be combined with a specific domain, because there is no universal ai model. It must be that someone in a business realizes that there is a problem that machine learning can solve better, and uses some machine learning framework to solve the problem. It’s a bottom-up model, not a top-down model. Therefore, after doing well in their own business areas, they can pay more attention to how to combine machine learning technology into existing businesses.

There are scenarios where machine learning models are bound to run on mobile devices, whether based on CoreML or TensorFlowLite. In the future, when machine learning becomes the core selling point of an app, knowing something about the technology will definitely help.

conclusion

The advice above is not to make a decision about what action to take right now. It’s just a primer on what you might do if iOS is bad in a few years. So plan your future while you still have time.

  • IOS Tech History: 2018