Goodbye, $165,000 tech jobs, student coders seek work at Chipotle

Since the early 2010s, a parade of billionaires, tech executives and even US presidents has urged young people to learn coding, arguing that the tech skills would help bolster students’ job prospects as well as the economy. Tech companies promised computer science graduates high salaries and all manner of perks.

“Typically their starting salary is more than $100,000,” plus $15,000 hiring bonuses and stock grants worth $50,000, Brad Smith, a top Microsoft executive, said in 2012 as he kicked off a company campaign to get more high schools to teach computing.