Slashdot Mirror
Even Programmers Get the Job Search Blues
Andrew Leonard writes "Seems to me that Slashdotters might be interested in Salon's cover story today about the tightening job market for programmers. DISCLAIMER: I edited and assigned this story, so I am not an impartial advocate. But I still think it's pretty good." Andrew's right - it is a good story. Things are changing right now - but I'd still rather be a programmer then most other jobs right now.
It's a fact of life that people get pushed into bankrupcy -- they might lose their job, have a kid unexpectedly, have a spouse die, get injured and miss work, or a thousand other possibilities unrelated to just overextending themselves.
The new bill on just passed by the House puts credit card companies at the front of the line -- right after child support (although that's an amendment, originally child support was second) -- in a bankrupcy. People will lose their homes, their primary modes of transportation, health care, and even *go hungry* because the credit companies will, by law, have to come first; before paying the heating bill, before buying groceries.
These huge credit companies do just fine, and they have existing ways to protect themselves -- credit reports and credit ratings, reposessions, and they *do* get some reimbusement in the case of a bankrupcy. They make huge profits now, and this will just make those profits even bigger and do so at the expense of hurting real live people.
I can't decide if you're a troll, an inexperienced kid whose never known someone fallen on hard times, or just some asshole who thinks that MBNA and Citibank need additional protection at the cost of human misery. Whichever you are, you make me sick.
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Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
no offense mate, but there are MILLIONS of people who code Java, SQL, and HTML. i'm an engineering director and i immediately 86 any resume that doesn't have anything beyond Java, SQL, or HTML. why? because most Java only programmers don't really understand computers all that well, they don't understand memory management, file management, load issues, etc. note, i didn't say ALL. but most. i hire software engineers not java programmers. i hire folks who can code in any language because they understand what's going on. i hire folks that understand computer science theory and software hackery.
my team currently codes in perl, C, java, SQL, HTML, Javascript, i.e. whatever is needed for the tasks at hand.
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in this age of communication i'm just not getting through
As a college student expecting to graduate with a bachelors in computer science this May, I'm rather worried about the tightening job market. Sure, experienced geeks may be able to ride this out, but I'm finding that companies that would previously hire almost anyone are getting really picky now when they recruit at universities. I've had some real difficulties and I'm worried that I may remain unemployed after I graduate.
Any ideas on scaring up more job opportunities?
Meldroc, Waster of Electrons
I love agreeing with flamebait. :-)
I'm fairly late into the computing market. I got a degree and several years of experience in an unrelated science field before drifting into Unix. Now I find that I'm in incredible demand when I go for interviews. Why? Because I've got the maturity and social skills to back my technical skills, and some seriously broad-based troubleshooting skills. When people are looking for "experience," it generally means the experience of successfully dealing with the unexpected, unpredictable, and annoying; AND all under a deadline without ripping the head off of a stupid client.
There are better and younger programmers out there. There are damned few younger programmers who are worth more than entry-level wages, no matter how good their code.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
> Um, how could you go bankrupt and expect to keep your home?
There are two kinds of bankrupcy, speaking generally: in one case, you turn over all of your assets to a trustee (sometimes with an exception made for clothing, sentimental goods, & other items of negligble value -- this depends on the state or local jurisdiction), who thens sells everything off, pays the debts, & turns any cash left over back to you; in the other, you find a trustee who legally shelters you from debt collectors, arranges a payment schedule, & you get to keep your home, your car, yor computer & the other stuff you need to live your life.
Credit companies don't like the second arrangement because it means they usually have to forego much of the interest the creditor owes on the principal. Even if the creditor is injured, loses her or his job in a down economy, or otherwise had to declare bankrupcy due to no fault of her/his own -- & is a responsible borrower.
I guess they'd rather fatten their bottom line, & save the responsible corporate citizen image for commercials.
Geoff
I think I see a trend here. Maybe for them it really would be easier to muzzle the entire internet than to produce p
Someone came out a year or two ago and said "all hail the wonderous Internet." Many companies become overnight succeeses without actually doing much other than contributing to the hype bandwagon. Now everyone has seen these companies for what they are, they are pulling the funding. What was so hot is now back to normal and progressing as it was before it got hyped like mad.
; 2b=b;2=1
I say wait a month or two and let these companies recede from the net. They were never really wanted anyway and they never did much either.
How does this affect employment? Once the companies that were in it for the cash are gone, better jobs will be available as other sectors realize what the Internet can do for them. P2P is opening up new horizons already and there is no telling what will come next. Computers and Networks are still in their infancy. Getting rid of the crap companies is one step closer to maturing the online world.
With better companies doing business online we'll have better job opportinities that are (1) more challenging and (2) more rewarding to the people in the positions. More money? maybe. I think we'll start seeing those level out to average (or moderatly high) income levels - and not the absurd levels they have been in the past.
Or something like that.
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a=b;a^2=ab;a^2-b^2=ab-b^2;(a-b)(a+b)=b(a-b);a+b=b
Price, Quality, Time. Pick none. What, you thought you had a choice?
Call these guys:
http://www.mybizoffice.com/
Although it doesn't talk about it on their website, they provide sponorships for people who find their own jobs. You will have to work as a contractor where MyBizOffice is your employer of record, but doesn't actually provide you with a job, you still have to find it yourself. But, one of the many benefits that mybizoffice provides is that even when you change who you are actually doing work for, you keep the same visa sponorship as well as benefits like health insurance and retirement.
I use them myself, but not for visa sponorship because I don't need it.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
If you're good at what you do, then you don't have to worry about getting fired. If you're good at doing what you do, then you don't have to worry about being rehired. I'm good at what I do, so I'm not worried. It's not like I'm living under the sea.
Tight markets come and go. The fellows in charge decide they want it one way, and tomorrow they'll want it some other way. Yesterday, the craze was growing your workforce as fast as possible: just look at Yahoo and Amazon.com. Today, it's downsizing again. Tomorrow, it'll be back to growing the workforce. It's the circle of life.
If you're worried, then put your mind at ease. That is, if you're one of the few qualified employees. You have to be willing to put in long hours for not a lot of glory, and you have to be quick on your toes. If you want, my company is hiring. Be our guest.
And don't overlook training. Skills are important; they're what separates you from the rest of the pool. Learn that extra language. Study up on that extra system. You never know when you'll need it for the next great job. You never know when you'll run into that next great employer tomorrow. It's a small world after all.
...and that's a good thing.
The technology boom created a massive industry filled with people with little or no programming experience being thrown into large-scale projects. The (predictable) results are just now beginning to be discovered -- witness the recent SlashDot article about e-commerce sites that get price info on the client side.
Unfortunately for a lot of people, a maturing industry makes jobs obsolete pretty fast. HTML skills are no longer in as much demand because software is now available that does a pretty fair job of markup. The "soft" technology industry is being rendered obsolete by maturing technology (e.g., XML for markup)
Hopefully, this will act increase the standards of the programming field.
Not that it doesn't seriously suck to be unemployed, but that's capitalism for you. Ya pays yer money, ya takes yer chances.
/spm
i saw the article yesterday and laughed as i read it.
i mean, the bay area gold rush is over. you're not going to get those $150/hr html consulting gigs anymore. The job market is tight. but not too tight. a quick search on hotjobs.com shows a ton of job openings. and even though craigslist doesn't have hundreds of postings a day in the prgrammer / sysadmin area, they ususally have 4 or 5 new ones every day. i have more friends at companies that are doing well than i have friends who have been layed off, and everyone i know has at least one "backup" job in case their current employer folds. and the people in the article are web designers (of which there are too many period) and asp/vb programmers? give me a break. if you've got a few years of c/c++ experience, you'll land something really quick. the people that are having the worst time are the corporate/middle management folks, who have no tech skills whatsoever, and the "i studied cs in college but i've never done any practical coding before" types.
--BlueLines "The cost of living hasn't affected it's popularity." -anonymous
It's not that bad, actually. If you know C/C++, or have decent Unix admin skills, you can get a job in about 2 days in New England.
It does mean that you can't read "Learn VB in 24 hours" and expect to be making 150k tommorow. I do build and release work, as I love pain a great deal, so I know *I'm* never going to be out of work for too long...
What it boils down to in the end is the same thing it always has; make some contacts in the industry, don't screw up your first job TOO badly, and you're probably ok.
I still laugh at a person who interviewed for a junior programmer slot at one of my old companies (this was during the dot-com frenzy) with about a year of VB and a 6 week C++ class, claiming they needed 100k to even consider the offer. Those kind of people are out of work these days, and thank the gods for that. I just wish the welfare system had a "maximum hubris" limit...
But again, technology isn't going anywhere, so if you actually have "The skills to pay the bills", you don't have anything to worry about.
You know, it's people like you that keep me from putting my birthdate (or my graduation date) on my resume. Yes, I'm under twenty-five. I also work for a bit under market for my skill set, and, guess what, I have no kids, no family, I'm still young enough and healthy enough that I can work a few 80 hour weeks (okay, not the whole year of 80 hour weeks I worked two years ago, but I still do pretty good). You're sick of whiny 20 somethings? I'm sick of being told that I'm 'too young' for a job I do as well as most others, and better than some. I'm sick of adults who raised the current generation to be the way they are, including the minority of slackers, and then bitch and whine and complain about them now -- and act as if no one under the age of 30 has a lick of responsibility. I'm sick of finding that some of the people who will hire me will get pissed because I won't go out with their sons, or are shocked that I"m offended when they tell me that I'm the 'wrong color' to live in a particular neighborhood. Or think I'm overreacting because I don't like it when my boss calls me 'dear' and pats me on the ass. Not all people over 30 are like this, just like not all people under 25 are slackers who want respect and money without responsibility. But people like you give older adults a bad name.
>If PacMan had affected us as kids we'd be running
> around in dark rooms, munching pills and
> listening to electronic music
You know, that makes my life make a lot more sense.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I don't care if I've got a P4 1.4 GHz machine or a 486DX 66 sitting on my desk
:-)
You will, when it's 10pm on the day before the deadline and you're waiting for something to compile...
Cheers,
Tim
It's official. Most of you are morons.
"...and computer programming has become progressivley easier over the years."
Wrong, totally wrong. I've been programming since 1980 (FORTRAN, punch cards, yeah, I'm an old fart aren't I?)
Programs today are far more complex than they ever have been, and that trend will continue. Anyone who thinks that programmers need fewer skills and less experience than they did is living in la-la land.
The end result id natural language programming. You literally tell the computer what you want it to do, and its amazing compiler will produce perfect code.
This is a LOOOOOONG way off, if it ever happens. Natural language isn't good enough to precisely express many problems. (That's why mathematicians and scientists have their own languages!) There are way too many ambiguities.
And even if it does come about, the skills programmers use (primarily thinking logically about a problem) will still be necessary for more advanced uses of computers. Programmers of some sort will always be in demand.
In many ways, I think programming these days is a lot like graphic design in the late '80s, early '90s. Graphic designers were freaked out when commoners got Macs and started putting their LaserWriters to use building fliers, magazines, and so on.
But the designers soon realized that no set of digital tools could replicate the trained eye, the native skill of a good designer. The same is true of programming. Look at the tools out there that supposedly automate web site development. They're a joke - they hamstring you and don't let you do anything out of the box at all.
For the same reason the average Microsoft Publisher-using John Q. Public isn't going to usurp a trained designer who uses Illustrator and knows how to squeeze the most out of it, no connect-the-dots programming tool will force skilled programmers out of their jobs.
No matter how far the technology advances, you have to be able to think a certain way in order to effectively program a computer. Sure, every Tom, Dick and Harry will someday be able to program their home to detect intruders, fire up the oven, and monitor the baby, but by then professional programmers will be busy making software that tells nanites how to scrub out a cancer patient's body.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Languages like Visual Basic, decidedly more "high-level," have failed to catch on for serious development. The reason, of course, is that "natural language compilers" will always fail as long as a computer can't intelligently optimize code itself. No computer today can do this, and I think it's a long, long way off.
Software engineering will never be a "blue-collar" environment, and certainly not because of natural language compilers. The invention of the printing press didn't turn every man into an author, and VB doesn't turn PHBs into engineers.
Ian Samuel
Great article -- thanks for the pointer.
In the 1970s, engineers were the same hot property that programmers were last year. During the grinding 1970s recession, times got very tough for them. Many of them lost their homes. Nobody but engineers could afford the payments, and there wasn't much work for engineers. Many of them ended up simply defaulting on their debts, walking away from houses where they owed more (sometimes a lot more) than what they could sell the house for.
It is no coincidence that the big financial companies are pushing through the bankruptcy legislation now. Their stories of abuse are foolish, but people are buying it. ("bankruptcy frauds" now joins "deadbeat dads" and "welfare moms" in the Archive for Scary Stories About Bad People and How We Shouldn't Let Those Bastards Get Away With It.)
They are not pushing through this legislation because of existing abuses. It is because the lenders have been irresponsible and want to make sure that We the People pay for their mistakes. It's a good step along the path back to debtor's prisons. (And if that doesn't scare you, go study your history books. See: "American Revolution, Causes Of.")
If you are a techie, don't set yourself up to rely on the extraordinary incomes of the last few years. Some of us will do fine and will continue to make good money, but many of us will not. Really good performers will always tend to do well -- but there are a lot of marginal people that have been brought into the industry by the 'gold rush' and it's going to take quite awhile to weed them out. Eventually they will go back to jobs which fit their talent levels better, but that's a ways off yet. There will probably be four or five years of tech oversupply.
Could be longer if industry keeps whining about the H1-Bs (aka indentured servants. See: "American Revolution, Causes Of.")
Me and my engineering buddies were laughing our asses off over this article. I like the 36 year old "programmer" who listed his skills as c, java, xml, cgi, js, fortran, basic. That sentence is like a giant red flag
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Agreed. Jack of all trades, master of none
36 years old and only making 110k a year?
You'd be surprised at how many good system programmers over 40 make less than $100k a year. It depends on what part of the country too. $100k isn't that high a figure in California but it is in North Carolina.
By 36, a programmer should have his shit together in a big way or he should be in management.
Perhaps, assuming this person started at age 23. Suppose someone starts at age 36 and gets 5 years of solid systems programming. They might be promotable to senior level developer but probably not a manager unless they were in there previous career say as a mechanical engineer. Arguably, they should at least have their shit together in a fairly substantial pile.
We've all been waiting for the other shoe to drop so we could laugh at these poseurs.
I understand the resentment toward html editors using M$ playtoys calling themselves programmers but I wouldn't be so smug. I've worked through the last 3 major recessions. This one came on alot faster than the others. The layoff news stories are coming at a much more rapid clip this time. The trend looks very ugly.
Regardless what your race is, using the "N" word is ill advised, particularly in mixed company.
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
Also, it has seemed like that sort of thing (web programming) is something almost anyone can pick up on their own or in a one or two year program. The demand as the article said, is still out there for engineers, thing 4-5 years for a bachelors. With that much training you're more marketable.
Getting a job on little or no degree (diploma's included) seem to me as a starting point. Get the job, get working, save money, get a bachelor's in something, otherwise you're expendable.
But that's just my humble inexperienced position. Two more years and real world hear I come, then I get to learn how wrong I really am about everything :)
--- I used to moderate, then I read the -1 articles and decided having to filter through them was not worth it.
While the responses are somewhat cold, they do carry a valid message. Despite the ominous headlines here and on Salon's original article, the people they are talking about (if you read the article very carefully) aren't hardcore programmers, they are more like sysadmins with some level of web-ish scripting skills.
Now... while it sucks that people are losing their jobs, I think the point other people are trying to make is that for 'real' programmers (I'm sure to get flamed for this, but oh well) -- those who know (or can easily learn) many different languages (including at least a few that would be considered 'system' level and not all high level scripting) -- things are still peachy. There's not nearly the gloom and doom hanging over us that these articles suggest.
I get cold called by recruiters who somehow have seen my resume from 1+ years ago multiple times a week, and I'm not even looking for a job (and I'm not bragging, I'm sure this is par for the course for all similiar experienced programmer types).
Agreed.
:)
As a lab assistant in my college days (back shortly pre-'Internet Time', in 93) I had the dubious honour of hand holding first year students through basic pascal programming assignments. You could tell from day one who was going to make it. The way you did it was say, "OK, tell me, in english how you would accomplish this task..." and outline an analouge of the program they were required to write. The ones who would score A eventually would describe the process in detail using words like "while" and "for" natually. The ones who would score Bs eventually would describe it in fuzzier language, but still get the point across. When you got to the C level, the answers would get closer to "I would just sort them."
In every case I can remember my predictions bore out. I cannot imagine a natural language that would cope well with "Just sort them." as a program.
What it will do is allow people who may have poor rote memories and other LDs but have solidly logical minds (there are lots of them out there) play in the same field as programmers (I've since moved to Sys/Network admin/Team leader/manager jobs myself). More power to them. I still seriously doubt that there will be no demand for people who know lower level languages. I mean there's still a demand for good assembly language programmers, especially since they are usually the best C,C++ programmers since they understand the basics so well.
--
Remove the rocks to send email
On the whole, I find that I prefer Slashdot posts to twitter ones because I don't get limited to 140 chars before
"HTML engineer" was the biggest myth of the last two years. Suddenly, if you had the attention span to read a book on HTML, you could get an $80k+ job inside the engineering department no problem. Here in san francisco, that was absolutely because there were hundreds of hopefully ecommerce shops run by MBA's with 0 technical knowledge. They would pile on the "engineers", who often with little experience would flounder... none of these companies were working very efficiently. Fast forward a year, and yeah, it's a lot harder to get that kind of job. People won't kiss your ass for having read a book and having designed your own homepage. You don't get a six figure signing bonus for knowing how to place images in tables. I know it's been said before, but good riddence. San Francisco had been torn apart by new money. $3000/mo 500 sq ft. flats. Overheard party circuit conversations about feeling sorry for the poor people "but honestly what do they expect". More mercedes benz automobiles than hondas. Honestly, you couldn't have lived in the bay area for the last three years and not been overwhelmed by it, even if you were part of the problem. I think what the salon article meant to say was "Tech Job Hunting returns to normal: Tough but fair". It may mean that with 2 years of experience you'll be struggling to sell yourself to a potential client. It may mean that what you got used to as a standard of living wasn't real. But as for a programmer with real experience and modern skills, there is most certainly work out there. I am both an engineering consultant and a staff member in an engineering consulting firm. While there is no doubt that demand has waned, My own services have stayed very much in demand and pricing hasn't dropped much from my peak of $250-$300/hr. I have found that those that we worked with with at least five years of coding are similarly in demand. We have also had some success placing other, but these rates have dropped significantly. At one point we were able to charge $110-$125 for QA, $125-$150 for design and $150-$200 for mid level programmers. These rates are now more like $40-$50 for QA, $50-$60 for design and $60-$90 for contract programming. I actually think $120k/year + overtime for doing HTML design is DAMN GOOD PAY. It'll just take a while before folks can swallow the bitter pill they have been handed. But when they do, they'll do just fine. Perhaps they won't be eatingf lunch at aqua anymore. Sleeper
Damn. I've been watching too many Disney flicks with my kids:
Coincidence? Or Vast Media Conspiracy?
MacOS, Windows, BeOS, GNOME, KDE: they're all just Xerox copies
OTOH, I don't buy the magic self-programming computer. This sort of prognostication is much like the now-laughable predictions in the early 1950's by an MIT professor that "I think that within five years we will have computers that can think."
That is, the problem of "programming" the computer via natural language is so vast as to be nearly equivalent to the (now somewhat discredited) goal of "classic" AI to put a brain in a box (or rather, create a non-embodied AI). Why? Because "natural language" lacks precision and information. Anyone who's had to reconcile marketing "requirements" with engineering reality will realize the incredible disjoint here. In its most general form, you are creating a programmer AI who:
No, I believe that highly skilled humans will always remain a part of the "programming" process even in the distant future (unless/until the very notion of "human" itself is challenged, ala some Brin short stories in Otherness.) As knowledge and technology improve, the capabilities of end-users will increase... as will the capabilities of the highly skilled software creators. Such "programmers" will be empowered by ever more sophisticated knowledge of software architecture, HCI, algorithmics, and lessons of history... along with some powerful software tools. But in the end, it will be humans using tools to craft things that have value to the human experience.
So let me get this straight: This guy is getting paid ~$60k/year, and all he can do is complain that he's not being paid an over-inflated $110k/year?
Oh, wait: he has to put a little effort into finding a job, now. It might take him a whole week of trying to get in touch with potential employers to find a job. Boo fucking hoo.
And what kind of idiot leeches Salon's office equipment because they want to "avoid a trip to Kinko's"? Didn't he just come off two years of $100/hour contracts and $100/year salaries? What an ass.
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
this is why i work in marketing: there's always a need for more bullshitters!
- j
Wansu wrote:
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> 36 years old and only making 110k a year?
You'd be surprised at how many good system programmers over 40 make less than $100k a year. It depends on what part of the country too. $100k isn't that high a figure in California but it is in North Carolina.
Indeed, since cost of living differs a lot. The Salary Calculator shows that a $110K salary in San Jose is the equivalent of a mere $67K in Durham, whereas a $110K job in Durham would have to become a whopping $170K job in San Jose to meet the same quality of life.
And a lot of people living in North Carolina would probably argue that you couldn't pay them twice that because the quality of life measured in non-dollar terms is much higher there. Never underestimate the nontangibles, like a nice home, more time with family, and so forth.
Another factor to consider is that with a slightly lower salary, often, comes a considerably greater sense of job security. If you're just earning for yourself, hey, go for the gold. But if you have a family, you prefer the steady work, the health insurance, the 401(k) that come with a settled job. Those, too, can be worth a lot more than their simple dollar value.
Anyway, I'm opposed to any snot snidely and snarkily commenting on 36-year-olds who "don't have their shit together", whatever that means. Not everybody follows the same path, and what should matter is how applicable your particular technical skills are. I couldn't stand helping end-users once I got past 30, so I boosted my skills. But this industry is full of round pegs and square holes [cubicles]. If he hasn't learned that by now
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lake effect weblog
{Network engineer in Chicago--looking for work!}
I was the best programmer in my university (acording to performance in contests). I am also a good mathematician. I am very flexible, can learn a new programming language in one week and I speak three languages.
I spent a year working in the USA and then my company ran out of money. I have been looking for another job for six weeks now, and I haven't had any interviews yet. I am getting tired and I am probably coming back to Europe.
What I see in the requirements of job openings is:
- Object Oriented Stuff.
- Experience with Sybase.
- Lots of experience with C++.
- Lots of experience with Perl.
- 5 years IT experience.
- SORRY, NO SPONSORSHIP.
If what they are really looking for is good programmers, they are asking for all the wrong things. Why do they need experience specifically with Sybase? Doesn't it use SQL? Why is everybody mad about object oriented crap? What if you are not a U.S. Citizen?
Since 1993, I've made a master level checkers program and a master level chess program in my spare time. But they don't consider that programming experience.
As I said before, I will probably come back to Europe. I thought this country was good at attracting great brains, but that was some time ago.