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Software Engineers Remain Top US Job
D H NG writes "In a study by Careercast.com, software engineers retain their position as having the top jobs in 2012. The #1 and #2 positions remain the same from last year. One surprise entry was human resources manager in the #3 position. The worst job was lumberjack, beating out last year's roustabout."
I don't know about that worst job. I mean, I'm a lumberjack and I'm OK.
The article specifically mentions being a software engineer at a startup or startup like environment is a great job to have, because you get to sit in cafes with your macbook air all day.
As a software engineer at a startup, I understand that sentiment. I do have a lot of flexibility. I can work from anywhere, come in at any time, leave at any time. The work I do is fun, and considering that there the management hierarchy is essentially flat, I get to make important customer facing decisions AND implement them.
There is a big downside to this. There is a very high risk when you work into startups. You could be rolling in success one month, and the next month you could be forced to shutdown. TFA and most comments on startups looking inside out, don't often write about the stress that comes with this kind of risk. And you know what? We have a lot of fun, but we have plenty of 60 hour weeks too, when shit hits the fan.
Wonderful, now I got the Monty Pythons song stuck in my head for the rest of the day.
I started programming in High School thirty years ago and yes it was GW-Basic but it was programming. There is such a high demand for developers that companies are starting to hire junior developers with two years experience in .Net and C#. We need to start offering programming as an elective in all US schools, even it it is just html, javascript and css as a starter.
You start teaching High School freshman using Microsofts Express software, by their Junior year they will be interning at Fortune 500 companies and very likely will start working at graduation. Depending on their abilities and especially if they are a natural programmer, there is no limit on what they can make.
This should also be true for any other language currently being used in the business world.
"How do you know if you've never tried it?"
"Software Engineer" can mean so many different things. It could be heaven. It could be hell.
I've seen so many clucterf***s in software development that I called BS, but here's their definition of Software Engineer -
Researches, designs, develops and maintains software systems along with hardware development for medical, scientific, and industrial purposes.
Guess that's different. It's quite narrow. Maybe the rating is actually accurate for that niche. But the rest of the industry? Not a chance.
That's what a real SE does. The rest? Well, they're either called Programmers or Code Monkeys, and they tend to be people who don't care about what it really takes to produce programs for the long term and that solve real people's problems. The SE might have some CM underlings, or might not: depends on the organization where he/she is working and the nature of the project. (Remember, "industrial purposes" can have quite a wide interpretation.)
"Little does he know, but there is no 'I' in 'Idiot'!"
This is just a PR stunt from some careers website. I wouldn't get overexcited about it.
[FUCK BETA]