Believe the Occupational Outlook Handbook? 518
concerned00 writes "In their latest Occupational Outlook Handbook, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics says that employment of software engineers and system analysts is expected to increase 'much faster than the average' through 2014 (here, and here). In contrast, employment of programmers is expected to increase 'more slowly than the average,' with outsourcing given as one of the major reasons why (here). However, from the stories I read from American programmers on the Net, the profession is lost. Is the government wrong, or lying, then, when it implies that software engineers and system analysts can expect to have a good future? As an American, am I a fool if I decide to undertake this for a living?" Read more for details of concerned00's analysis.
The difference between a "software engineer" and a "programmer" seems somewhat dubious to me, although from the Web pages in question apparently the software engineer is involved in requirements gathering, analysis, and design, whereas the programmer usually is not. According to the Web page for programmers, "[t]he consolidation and centralization of systems and applications, developments in packaged software, advances in programming languages and tools, and the growing ability of users to design, write, and implement more of their own programs mean that more of the programming functions can be transferred from programmers to other types of information workers, such as computer software engineers." (?)
The page for software engineers says: "Computer software engineers are projected to be one of the fastest-growing occupations from 2004 to 2014." Reasons given: the increasing complexity of computer systems, the need to "adopt and integrate new technologies," "the expanding integration of Internet technologies and the explosive growth in electronic commerce," the increasing reliance on "hand-held computers and wireless networks," and concerns about security. Yet: "As with other information technology jobs, employment growth of computer software engineers may be tempered somewhat as more software development is contracted out abroad. Firms may look to cut costs by shifting operations to lower wage foreign countries with highly educated workers who have strong technical skills. At the same time, jobs in software engineering are less prone to being sent abroad compared with jobs in other computer specialties, because the occupation requires innovation and intense research and development." (?)
On the other hand, to hear the personal anecdotes of many (American) programmers on the Internet, the profession is lost and anyone in college majoring in computer science or software engineering must be either naive or insane. According to them, you have to be a genius programmer if you expect to compete successfully for the slim pickings that are left, there is no job security at all, and the best most can realistically hope for these days is a job at Home Depot. Furthermore, even if you could get work, you wouldn't want it: the deadlines are impossible, the bosses are naive, petty-minded, and perversely self-serving, and the technology changes so fast that if you allow yourself to slip behind you might as well kiss your career good-bye.
Re:You can't get there from here. (Score:3, Informative)
They HAVE been replacing them....
...just not with US workers...
Paranoid, much? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Because India will be our shithole forever (Score:1, Informative)
Re:My Experiences (Score:3, Informative)
As of 2002, the average salary for teachers nationwide was about $44,600 not counting benefits. http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/_nypost_teacher_pay_myth.htm [manhattan-institute.org]
Quoting the article:
According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the average public elementary school teacher in the United States earns about $30.75 an hour. The average hourly pay of other public-service employees - such as firefighters ($17.91) or police officers ($22.64) - pales in comparison.
Indeed, teachers' hourly rate exceeds even those in professions that require far more training and expertise. Compare the schoolteacher's $30.75 to the average biologist's $28.07 an hour - or the mechanical engineer's $29.76 or the chemist's $30.68.
Whose hourly pay is competitive with that of teachers? Computer scientists ($32.86), dentists ($35.51) and even nuclear engineers ($36.16).
Note, too, that these hourly figures exclude benefits, such as health coverage and retirement accounts, which are typically more generous for government employees, such as teachers, than for private-sector workers.
Re:You can't get there from here. (Score:2, Informative)
What you had in the first part of this decade was a cash crunch among companies, and it was fashionable to try to show the shareholders that you were doing something about it by firing US engineers and moving the jobs to China or India.
But what you find out about India or China is that people there are just like people over here: There's a few great programmers, and a lot of crappy ones. And when you factor in the cost of having multiple sites, training people, high turnover, etc, you find out that the promised cost savings just isn't there.. BUT, you also find out that, hey, there's some good coders over there, too, that are worth employing. Right now, I'm working in the US as a software engineer at a major telecom with offices in the US and India and all over the rest of the world, and what has settled out is this: India and China are not going to consume all the programming jobs and destroy programming in the US. They are, however, a source of talent and here to stay.
In the long run, my project (a popular cellular wireless technology) has people working on it in several locations in the US and India, and I'll tell you what: when it comes crunch time at the end of a release, it *still* doesn't feel like we have enough staff. Our layoffs have been finished for a few years now, and we're not adding staff like we were at the height of the bubble, but neither are we laying off like we were at the end of the bubble either. I'm gainfully employed, and so are all my geek programmer friends.
Offshoring as a way to find new talent and staff projects that need staffing is here to stay.
Offshoring as a way to save major money and as the end of all programming jobs in the US (or whatever high-cost of living region you want to subsitute) is a myth propagated by consulting firms as a way to capitalize on the stupidity of the bean-counters.
If you love programming, and you're good at it, get a CS degree and become a software engineer. You will find a job. And if you can't, you can alway go buy a cheap machine and start a company in your garage, and wait to get bought by Google or Microsoft.
Nail on the head. (Score:2, Informative)
Believe it or not, there is a drastic shortage of qualified game programmers in some parts of the country right now. Oh, there are plenty of people applying for those jobs, but most of them simply lack the skills. It's tragic.
Re:My Experiences (Score:4, Informative)
If I had an interview in X days and I didn't know Y which may be on it then I'd spend all my time making sure I knew enough of Y. I literally did that for my current job after I did badly during a phone interview, I told them I was rusty and that I won't be in X days and I made sure I wasn't.
If I was looking for a programming job and I actually enjoyed programming enough then I'd be coding as much OSS in it as possible. High profile OSS aimed at solving problems that I perceive as being important but not tackled. I'd contribute heavily to well organize and well known projects. I'd learn and understand not just the languages that are "hot" but the methodologies behind how actual programmers program.
Anyway if you love programming then you program. If the first thing that comes to your head when you see a new problem with no visible solution isn't "well I can code something to do that" then you really don't love programming. I've written two FF extensions and modified a number of others because there was a need for them and no one else wrote them yet.