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Believe the Occupational Outlook Handbook?
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.
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.
I want to expand on this point. A lot of programmers I know seem to be missing something fundamental here, for reasons that I don't get.
Look, there are two core facts about programming as a career that trump everything else. The first is that not everybody can do it. I'd guess that only 25% of the population (tops) even has the potential to become a useful programmer. There is something about being able to decompose a technical problem into its constituent parts and then generating solutions for each of those parts that is simply beyond the capacity of the vast majority of people. I'm not saying they're stupid--brilliant poets are brilliant regardless of whether they have the capacity to learn C in any meaningful way. I am saying that there is some mental capacity that is not universal, and that people without that capacity are literally untrainable in the craft of creating software.
The second core fact about programming as a career is that software creates its own demand. If you have one system and you write a second system, then in addition to all of the from-scratch systems that you could write, you also have the option of writing a system that integrates the first two. The mere existence of software increases the number of potential projects that exist, and it does so on a super-exponential curve. Most of those possible systems aren't actually useful, so they're never developed, but the number of useful possible systems also is increasing at an accelerating rate.
Now apply these two core facts to the current labor situation. We've created so much demand for software in the Western world through our ever-increasing automation of an ever-increasing number of our activities that we can no longer satisfy the internal demand of our economy for persons able and willing to create software. We've already hired everybody who wants to be a coder and is able to produce usable code, but we still are demanding more and more software from them. In addition to bidding up prices for Western talent (take a look at where 'Software Engineer' falls on the annual salary charts and then cry me a river $100k/year wide) our society is also now hiring up everybody able and willing to write code in other parts of the world (and bidding up their prices, as well). Our own population is insufficient to meet our needs, so now we're skimming the cream of everybody else's crop.
Unfortunately, even India and China don't have an infinite number of citizens who can actually create useful systems. As we send more and more work their way we're pumping the oil field of software talent dry. Not only that, but the better jobs and higher wages relative to their home economies that third-world programmers enjoy reinforce most of these trends. By making more they consume and invest more. This steadily pushes up the demand for middle-class and luxury goods in their home societies. But what does that really mean? That means that they're pushing up the overall demand for software in their home economies (virtuous circle == (more money == more businesses == more technology investment)), which brings us back to where we started. Software creates its own demand, and not everybody can create software.
What happens when the Indians and Chinese are using all of their programmers for their own economies is anybody's guess. The fact that someday they will be seems pretty solid.
All I needed to know in life I learned from
For years I myself pondered what to do with my career, or perhaps lack thereof. I never finished my degree, and I knew that hurt and would continue to hurt for the rest of my life unless I finished it.
I've worked just about every IT job there is since 1997 - starting as a programmer analyst. If I tried to go over the laundry list of languages, OS environments, and software I'm either very familiar with or sometimes even had a hand in developing -- I'd probably forget a dozen or more between them - maybe more. A couple of years ago I gave up on finding stable work - and took up private consulting. Being something of a jack-of-all-trades, I didn't have any problems finding work.
It was not until then that I fully realized what was happening with IT. To me, I had just seen jobs going overseas without realizing the full scope of how it effected IT as an industry.
Being a consultant, you're something of a throw-away employee. No major overhead, no accounting headaches, no benefits to deal with, just cuts it plain and simple - not to mention the best part - they can fire you just because, with no consequences. In reality, that is what the general IT industry has become as a whole. An industry of throw-away employees. One where most employers expect you to know exactly what they need. Specific OS, language, and development environments.
If a company is looking to downsize, IT is almost always the first place they look, and the department hit the hardest.
I made the decision about 5 months ago that I was going back to school, I was going to finish a degree - but it was not going to be a CS degree. The industry, in my opinion, is completely lost. Even on the administration side. Don't get me wrong, there are jobs to be had - but the pay very rarely fits the level of responsibility and knowledge required.
Just weeks before classes started I got a call from a friend who thought he had *the* job lined up for me - as an engineer. Transportation Logistics Engineer, to be more specific. How I manage to always get jobs I have no specific education in is beyond me, but I considered myself saved and I really don't care why. Most of the people at the company stay there for their entire working careers - getting a position there with no degree in the specific field they were seeking had never even crossed my mind.
But, I digress...
I've worked in IT for 10 years. I've seen it all, from being the solo network admin at a small company to being lead developer on projects for some of the largest corporations in the world. I turned away from the industry and I will never look back for anything more than a hobby. Even today, I am still getting calls from people I had consulted with desperate for me to schedule in some time for them - offering weekend and evening work if I would come fix or support key systems they don't want to pay an employee to maintain.
If a friend asked me if they should consider a degree or career in IT, I would not hesitate to warn them of the instability, irregular hours, low pay for skill and responsibility, lack of a future, and in general the bad past experiences I have had. Things like not seeing my son for more than a couple hours a month for the first three years of his life, due to work. Or the many times I found myself not going home or sleeping for days on end. It sounds like a nightmare and people wonder how such things could honestly happen, but there is an entire industry of just that - it's called IT, and I'm proud to say I'm not a part of it anymore.
That's just me, though. Some people like that, I suppose.