Software Developer Tops List of U.S. News & World Report's Annual Best Jobs Rankings (usatoday.com)

According to U.S. News and World Report's annual best jobs rankings, software developer is the top pick for the new year. "The publication's Best Jobs of 2019 list takes seven factors into account, including median salary, employment rate and stress level," reports USA Today. "The median salary for a software developer is $101,790, and the unemployment rate is 1.9 percent, according to the most recent data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics." From the report: Though software developers have neither the highest median salary nor lowest unemployment rate on the U.S. News Best Jobs of 2019 list, the position's projected increase in demand -- roughly 30 percent between 2016 and 2026 -- and average stress levels helped it land the top spot, said Rebecca Koenig, careers reporter at U.S. News and World Report. "Unlike some other jobs that do pretty well on the list, which are very demanding, software developer tends not to be a really stressful profession," Koenig said. Here are the Top 10, in order:

1. Software Developer
2. Statistician
3. Physician assistant
4. Dentist
5. (tie) Orthodontist
6. (tie) Nurse anesthetist
7. Nurse practitioner
8. Pediatrician
9. (tie) Obstetrician and gynecologist
9. (tie) Oral and maxillofacial surgeon
9. (tie) Prosthodontist
9. (tie) Physician

Comments

my surprise

[zlives]

to find "Statistician" at #2, clear the Statistician at US news are gaming the "study" for this "report"

Re:software developer tends not to be a stressful.

[Tablizer]

Well, many of the others listed are medical-related. Those professions often have to deal with life-threatening emergencies, people in severe pain/duress, etc. For most software dev jobs, nobody gets injured, dies, nor puked on no matter how bad you or your colleagues screw up.

The big problem with software development is it has no direct future. If you don't move into management-esque positions, your career will plateau early. It can be decent money, don't get me wrong, but it's a poor ticket to a bigger and better future.

"Old" developers are typically not very welcomed. The reasons are a long and winding topic, and there are exceptions, but the bottom line is the software biz is not kind to "age".

Re:software developer tends not to be a stressful.

[swillden]

The big problem with software development is it has no direct future. If you don't move into management-esque positions, your career will plateau early. It can be decent money, don't get me wrong, but it's a poor ticket to a bigger and better future.

"Old" developers are typically not very welcomed. The reasons are a long and winding topic, and there are exceptions, but the bottom line is the software biz is not kind to "age".

At what point does this age problem kick in? I'm 50 and not seeing it. I have coworkers in their 60s and they're not seeing it. Heck, I know one guy in his early 70s who just likes to work and doesn't want to retire. He's independently wealthy at this point, having been through a couple of successful startups, so he tends to work for a year or two (at a premium salary, given his incredible depth and breadth of experience) and then take a year off.

From what I can see, software development is about as close to a pure merit-based industry as I've seen. If you can write good code, nobody much cares what you look like, how you dress (well, clothing is generally mandatory), the color of your hair, etc.

The one issue I have seen is that software devs who have accumulated only one or two years of experience in 20 years of work, meaning they've spent the whole time doing the same things over and over again, find it hard to get a job because they want to be paid like a 20-year veteran, but aren't any more effective than someone a couple years out of school.