Subj : Re: Software Job Market Myths To : comp.programming,comp.software-eng From : Jussi Jumppanen Date : Thu Jun 30 2005 02:21 am > 1. Any good programmer requires $60,000 to $90,000 per year > or more. If you program for food coupons your require no salary at all. Irrespective of what industry you work in, your salary is never a measure of what you "require", rather it is a measure of what you are worth. The fact that a programmer no longer get $90,000 per year only means that at present programmers are a dime a dozen, and hence next to worthless, hence the drop in salary. It has nothing to do with "require" and everything todo with supply and demand. Take for example the Australia GST law change. This simple change in the law created a great demand for accountants and the resulting shortage of accountants means that these day accountants are in general are better paid that software developers. > 2. Any unemployed engineer must be unemployed for a reason and is > not worth hiring. Unemployed engineers are usually out of work because the buyer can get (thinks they can get) the same skill at the lower price. Why would I employ someone for 40,000 -> 60,000 dollars when I believe I can get the same thing done by a graduate or a code in India for half the price. In reality I may not in fact be able to get the job done a such a discounted price, but in the current climate it certainly does not stop people thinking they can. > Many large software companies are simply not hiring any US > programmers as a policy. Many large clothing companies no longer hire US clothing workers, many large US steal companies are no longer hiring steel works, many large US car manufactures are no longer hiring car makers. The vanishing computer programmer is no different to any these other workers in other industries. The computer programmer is just one of the first white collar professions to going the ranks of the working class. > (Wrong. Any decent, college educated programmer can probably > figure things out quickly, possibly in a matter of minutes. This is rubbish. Computer programming has and always will be a thought process and as such takes many years to master. But the reality is most managers really have very little in the way of an idea when it comes to software development, but they do have a miss-conception that writing software is easy. So for them, the thought that a graduate write the same software as a 10 year veteran is gratifying, since it means reinforces their original miss-conception. IMHO software development is not and will never be "easy" but since the concept of software quality is almost non-existent and since these days any 10 year old can write a software program, it is assumed to be easy. And in a way it is, since it is one of the few industries you can actually get away with selling a defective product. > Most hiring managers fail to appreciate how all engineers have > had to do this constantly in every job they have ever had. Throughout this post you use the words software and engineering as if they are some how related. As an graduate of engineering who has worked in the software industry for over a decade I would say there us very little in the way of engineering when it comes to software development. Engineering is a principle. Take a tried and tested set of rules and procedures and apply them again until they fail. When they fail, find out why, adjust them accordingly and then apply the new rules and procedures. For example engineers dating back to the days of the Roman Age are still using similar principles when it comes to building structures. Compare that to the software industry where ever 5 years there is a "new flavour of the month" approach to writing software. > Things change at light speed in the software development > industry and they always have. Nothing changes but the perception of change. What ever the language, whatever the framework, whatever the operating system it still comes down to a CPU architecture that dates back sixties and you still code with 'if', 'while' and 'for' constructs. > Learning to use a new API, a new tool, a new component, is > simply part of the job. Engineers don't even think of it as > training. It's part of engineering.) The reason this "required training" it is a no-brainer is because in reality nothing does changes. To open a file in C you would use "open" and to open the same file in Win32 use "OpenFile". So what was actually change other than the name of the API? > 5. Salaries listed in "Salary Calculators" at HotJobs or > Information Week reflect the industry and must be used for > starting pay. > (Wrong.) This is correct. Salaries are set by supply and demand and at present supply is high and demand is low. > 8. Software consultants and full-time programmers are too expensive for > smaller "mom & pop" businesses. > (Wrong. Most businesses could realize a huge return on investment. A > programmer need not cost $100/hour.) Wrong. Business will gladly pay 10's of thousands on a lawyer because they need to. A mum and dad will pay thousands on a dentist or a doctor because need to. But these two professions have professional bodies that control supply and demand (ie there are only so many people admitted to the bar, there are only so many people allowed perform operations) and hence the price is artificially high. The software industry is the extreme opposite where the prices are artificially low with the abundance of free software. Why would you pay for something that you can get for free? > Programmers understand software from the inside out. We can > predict what software will do. This must be the reason software of today has so few bugs ;) Jussi Jumppanen Home Page: http://www.zeusedit.com .