Future of Phoenix job market

[KurtAZ]

Originally Posted by Valley Native

I don't work directly in technology, although I did some tech support for a brief time at my company many years ago, and I deal with people in the tech field quite often. Not all of them are nerdy & introverted, but I have found the majority of them are exactly that ... regardless if it was 15 years ago or today. I'm not really faulting them for the way they are, but my main complaint is how difficult it can be to communicate with them because they're so tech oriented. Different mindsets at work.

I don't know...maybe developers (some are down right weird) but the Engineers I work with are into mountain biking, road rally and a couple are into sailing. Not a lot of talk about mainstream sports but many conversations about F1, Nitro Rally, downhill single track, hot stocks, crypto/blockchain and family stuff.

20 years ago it was movies and video games and which message board you were on (like this one). FB was largely shunned when it came out as "dumbed down message boards for the masses". I think the biggest thing is "Techies" tend to gravitate towards things that not everyone is into. Now even today, people who self describe as "Technocrats" may still exhibit the behaviors you have observed but, again, mostly developers.

[Alandros]

Originally Posted by Valley Native

I don't work directly in technology, although I did some tech support for a brief time at my company many years ago, and I deal with people in the tech field quite often. Not all of them are nerdy & introverted, but I have found the majority of them are exactly that ... regardless if it was 15 years ago or today. I'm not really faulting them for the way they are, but my main complaint is how difficult it can be to communicate with them because they're so tech oriented. Different mindsets at work.

Maybe it's different at different places (or different tech segments) but at all the game/game tech related companies I've worked (I came up as a Software Engineer myself and many of them include serious software engineers) at had a pretty big mix. In fact in the company I worked at in downtown San Francisco I was one of the only people not into sports. Every season nearly every other person was talking about whatever sport, especially football and baseball (our office was across the street from the SF Giants stadium when they were winning big so that was a big topic too). Most were into music, some of the most extroverted people I've ever known. There was a one off that fit the stereotype but they were quite rare. Most of these were programmers.

Lots of social events and activities. Company paid whiskey socials, pub crawling, lots of people formed groups that went and did physical activities like rafting, paddle boarding, running, bicycling. Really big into going out to restaurants in groups etc.

When talking personal topics/interests you would find far more conversations around sports, movies, tv shows, and music than phone apps or even games. I was actually probably the biggest gamer and one of the only really big gamer in most of the environments I've been in, that being game and game tech development too. Honestly in the last 10 years or so I've felt the general public contains people more into gaming and phone apps than actual developers. There are exceptions of course.

The other aspect to keep in mind is a tech company also includes people that aren't programmers. Customer Support, QA, Marketing, Designer, Art, Production, Management, etc. So circling back to tech companies in the Valley a lot of them might have more of those people than programmers.

[Valley Native]

Originally Posted by Alandros

Maybe it's different at different places (or different tech segments) but at all the game/game tech related companies I've worked (I came up as a Software Engineer myself and many of them include serious software engineers) at had a pretty big mix. In fact in the company I worked at in downtown San Francisco I was one of the only people not into sports. Every season nearly every other person was talking about whatever sport, especially football and baseball (our office was across the street from the SF Giants stadium when they were winning big so that was a big topic too). Most were into music, some of the most extroverted people I've ever known. There was a one off that fit the stereotype but they were quite rare. Most of these were programmers.

Lots of social events and activities. Company paid whiskey socials, pub crawling, lots of people formed groups that went and did physical activities like rafting, paddle boarding, running, bicycling. Really big into going out to restaurants in groups etc.

When talking personal topics/interests you would find far more conversations around sports, movies, tv shows, and music than phone apps or even games. I was actually probably the biggest gamer and one of the only really big gamer in most of the environments I've been in, that being game and game tech development too. Honestly in the last 10 years or so I've felt the general public contains people more into gaming and phone apps than actual developers. There are exceptions of course.

The other aspect to keep in mind is a tech company also includes people that aren't programmers. Customer Support, QA, Marketing, Designer, Art, Production, Management, etc. So circling back to tech companies in the Valley a lot of them might have more of those people than programmers.

It goes beyond their general interests. Many "techies" exhibit a desire to force things like automation and working from home on the general populace. Granted, there are positives to both automation and having a home based office, but they shouldn't be mandated, nor should they be across the board. It's nearly impossible to have automation and/or WFH in certain lines of business.

In a lot of ways, it goes back to what I said about them being generally introverted & having tunnel vision. Just because THEY might prefer being socially distant, tech oriented, and having a home based office makes them wonder why everybody else doesn't follow along. Again, everybody is different, and some people may not be able to have a WFH system due to technology limitations (no high speed or WiFi in the area, and there are still plenty of glitches in the software). I know just from my own experience, there have been numerous issues with systems freezing, timing out, or shutting down completely without notice. These things alone need to be severely reduced (preferably eliminated completely) before it could ever serve & benefit the majority of the population.