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Tech is the Most Lucrative Career: LinkedIn Study (axios.com)
An anonymous reader shares an article: LinkedIn's 2017 U.S. State of Salary report is out, and tech is on top as the most lucrative career. Computer science majors are paid the most, with a median salary of $92,300. Software and IT services is the highest paid industry, with a median total compensation of $104,700.
Right through my high school and university days, I heard the exact same story. It's actually why I switched from my goal of science leading either to research or medicine and went for a career in tech.
I graduated from a top tier school in May 2000 with a computer science major and electrical engineering minor. In my last year, I was actively recruited, I got flown across the US for interviews with companies everyone here has heard of. I went to one company's 1999 Christmas party including a private concert by an A-list music group everyone here has heard of; they invited a number of seniors in my class as part of their recruitment effort.
I chose a job that started me just over $60,000 plus stock options which was at the upper end of average for 2000 and had huge potential to take me into 6 figures within a few years. Factoring in my minor, I was writing the firmware for a set top internet appliance (hey it was 2000). A few months after I started the job, the original dotcom bubble burst and I actually only had the job 18 months...not even long enough to cover the cost of my degree.
This was 2001 it was almost impossible to find tech jobs at the time, after about 3 years of unemployment I gave up and took a job at much lower pay where most of my coworkers don't have any degree at all. So, 4 years working my ass off for a degree which cost me over $100k while the arts students working in the coffee shop were out partying and making fun of us for working so hard. All to work 18 months in the industry. Most of my friends from school had been laid off by 2002 and never worked in tech again. The last one lost his job 2 years ago and has been out of work since. So 40 years old, no job, no prospects to ever work in his field again.
Now before you say I'm just an unfortunate case...how many 20-something IT workers do you see? Now how many 50-somethings? Where do you think the rest of us are? You hear stories about companies begging mainframe workers to come out of retirement, again bull shit, that friend who's been out of work has been doing mainframe work for the past 15 years, there is no work in the field.
tl;dr - A tech career is a curse I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. Getting a computer science degree from a top tier school is the worst mistake I made in my life.