There is a kernel of truth in this article. Consider this:
1. Wages are dictated by supply and demand.
2. Software has no formal entry requirements, anyone who can demonstrate competence can get hired as a software engineer.
3. The same set of traits make someone good at software development and other branches of STEM.
4. An increasing, if not already majority, of young STEM graduates are also more than familiar with software development. Many do it as part of their non-tech day-to-day jobs. They may not be able to start working as a software dev on Monday, but given a relatively short amount of time (a couple of months) to prepare, they can switch to software just fine.
5. Pay for software jobs is multiple times higher than other SEM jobs.
I do not see this situation as steady. Here is my speculation: If the wage gap persists, more and more STEM graduates would seek careers in software. This will increase the supply of labour in software and decrease it in the rest of STEM, until the wage gaps closes or at least shrinks significantly. At this point, the new wages for all STEM would be lower than current tech salaries but higher than current SEM salaries. Since the number of tech graduates is much lower than the number of all other graduates, the equilibrium point would be closer to current SEM salaries than current tech salaries.*
* Note: I don't know the statistics, but I presume that universities take roughly the same number of students in each STEM major. So a university may have approximately 100 graduates per year in each of software, mechanical engineering, civil engineering, ..., biology, physics, ... If for every 100 software graduates, there are 900 SEM graduates, and if only 10% of each SEM major's graduates decide to seek work in software, supply of labour in each SEM category would decrease by 10%, but for software it will increase by 90%. The effect on software salaries would thus be more steep. I acknowledge that this is a very simplified model, but I think it effectively demonstrates my point.
Anecdotally so not worth much, but I keep telling all of my acquaintances in SEM, law and other paths who struggle with making ends meet to try their hand at programming, even if it is not their preferred vocation, and so far none would get past very basics introductory tutorials without giving up, if ever giving it a chance at all.
I feel there is something similar to how many people get traumatized about Math in high and middle school that scares them into even believing they could learn about CS. But it's just what I've personally seen.
My experience is the opposite of yours. Could it be possibly a function of age? Because a significant number of young engineering graduates I know have gone into software development jobs.
The problem is "STEM" is a very vague category and has huge numbers of people in it with skills that are no more transferable to programming than an artist or historian would have.
For instance a lot of STEM is biology, medicine, etc. Such people generally want to work on something at least vaguely people related, or at least in team-based academic settings. Working with logical machines all day, mostly on your own, is not their idea of a good time and their preferred working environment is worth a large salary drop to them.
Likewise classical/civil engineering doesn't teach any programming skills, normally.
The places where you do get crossover tends to be maths and physics, i.e. fields where you're frequently manipulating abstract symbols, where you're often needing to write simple programs to do your main job and so learn on the side, and which involves long stretches of concentrated, isolated thought. But not many people are studying maths and physics, and there's been a lot of bleed for a long time there. It isn't going to result in any major shifts.
My experience has been different. Do you remember this highly upvoted comment on Ask HN: CS, still a good career in 3-5 years?:
> CS isn't a career. CS is part of all careers... [0]
It is true. It is also not novel. Students of different fields have been learning software on the side during their studies, some as a backup plan, some in order to make themselves more hireable in their primary field. Employers have started requesting some software development knowledge from new hires.
Graduate school of any STEM topic usually includes a non-significant amount of programming. I am a mechanical engineer, working in a very mechanical field, yet my colleagues and I spend a fair bit of time crafting and improving programs of various lengths and difficulties to help us do our mechanical calculations.
Some people go to STEM because they love their particular field of study; many do because they are pragmatic and STEM is a pragmatic field. They will have no qualms switching from civil engineering to tech if it means they will get paid 3 times as much. Many have, many more certainly will. Out of my graduating class, from those whom I have kept touch with, the number of people working in tech is just slightly lower than the number of people working as mechanical engineers.
The pay is a combination of difficulty hiring, value added to the enterprise by the work, shortage of engineers, and market rates.
Civil engineers make a lot less since there are so many of them, yet they are still crucial for expensive projects. You only need a few to make a $30 million bridge, where with programmers you need more design and we aren't such a mature field. If programmers worked with purely physical items (well, some of them do), then the salaries would be a smaller percentage of the total.
1. Wages are dictated by supply and demand.
2. Software has no formal entry requirements, anyone who can demonstrate competence can get hired as a software engineer.
3. The same set of traits make someone good at software development and other branches of STEM.
4. An increasing, if not already majority, of young STEM graduates are also more than familiar with software development. Many do it as part of their non-tech day-to-day jobs. They may not be able to start working as a software dev on Monday, but given a relatively short amount of time (a couple of months) to prepare, they can switch to software just fine.
5. Pay for software jobs is multiple times higher than other SEM jobs.
I do not see this situation as steady. Here is my speculation: If the wage gap persists, more and more STEM graduates would seek careers in software. This will increase the supply of labour in software and decrease it in the rest of STEM, until the wage gaps closes or at least shrinks significantly. At this point, the new wages for all STEM would be lower than current tech salaries but higher than current SEM salaries. Since the number of tech graduates is much lower than the number of all other graduates, the equilibrium point would be closer to current SEM salaries than current tech salaries.*
* Note: I don't know the statistics, but I presume that universities take roughly the same number of students in each STEM major. So a university may have approximately 100 graduates per year in each of software, mechanical engineering, civil engineering, ..., biology, physics, ... If for every 100 software graduates, there are 900 SEM graduates, and if only 10% of each SEM major's graduates decide to seek work in software, supply of labour in each SEM category would decrease by 10%, but for software it will increase by 90%. The effect on software salaries would thus be more steep. I acknowledge that this is a very simplified model, but I think it effectively demonstrates my point.