Posted on 09/11/2010 6:20:42 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Unemployment in the United States is still at a brutal 9.6%, but for software engineers the job market couldn't look much better.
Everyone in tech knows that there is a serious engineering deficit, but apparently no one outside tech knows about it, so new talent isn't flooding in to fill the demand. We've heard from startups like HowAboutWe that have already secured series A funding, and are offering equity, and are still struggling to find good engineers. Paul Dix, a former Google engineer who is launching his own startup, Market.io, tells us he gets multiple job calls per week even though all his public profiles explicitly say not to bother him.
An anecdote to show just how severe this has become: last week, we happened to mention we were working on this story to a junior VC we were meeting with. He promptly opened up his backpack and pulled out a copy of Ruby on Rails for Dummies.
It's difficult to see how the market for programming talent could be so far out of sync with the wider job market. One would expect wages (or, in the case of early-stage startups, equity offers) for programmers to rise, encouraging more people to learn these skills until the demand was met.
Instead, demand for software engineers has soared ever further ahead of supply. Here's why.
Demand
The most obvious cause of increased software developer demand is that the Internet is still rapidly growing; the tech sector accounts for an ever bigger chunk of the economy. Young companies like Google have created thousands of new programming jobs. More recently, Twitter, Facebook, and Zynga have been throwing money at every engineer they can find.
But the problem is especially bad in the startup community, because of the surge in early stage funding.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
Hire one of Obama’s staff.
They’re the smartest people in the world.
Is a “software engineer” so different from a programmer, or systems analyst, or are the educational background for these jobs about the same?
I’m sure it’s nothing a few H1-B visas can’t fix.
I’ve been coding for 25 years and I’ve seen lots of people fail at programming. It’s not something that everyone can do. Not only that, you have to like doing it or you will grow to hate it.
Who wants to go into a field when they know that companies who hire FAVOR those from other countries, not only to come and work here,but to MOVE the jobs out of the country?
Software engineers usually deal in lower level types of code, usually C related languages or Java, that interface more with hardware.
Three engineers for the price of one American Engineer..!
I have similar questions. I am a chemical engineer and a PE, (Professional Engineer) and I am at a loss to see how these people are “engineers”. They are are programmers or system analysts and those are great things. But it seems like a stretch to call them engineers. I know in the PE community, this is an ongoing debate.
A software engineer knows how to put together a design and lead a team of programmers. He learns the business and works with the analysts. Skills like knowing UML and tools like Rational™ are his mainstay. Usually a Software engineer is proficient in at least on or to languages and can code/test the design himself but why?
My BIL does about 18 hours a day, I swear. He makes darn good money and my sister spends it all.
I do my 8 hours and out. Life’s too short.
They should be looking for people with degrees in African American studies, Gender studies, Gay studies, Dance Therapy or Leisure Studies instead of boring stuff like engineering.
/sarcasm off/
Ooops!
I forgot about degrees in Golf Management (Univ. of Birmingham & Florida Gulf Coast Univ.)
Bump
It took 8 months for my son to find a new job after being laid off. And he is a computer engineer...
I will tell you the problem. Interviewers are generally morons. They want each and every little case to be filled, so if say you don’t know a programing language, they don’t say you’ll learn it but try for somebody who exactly know it...
As an individual who has as his title per the company he works for “Software engineer”, I agree with you. They throw engineer onto everything to make it sound more complicated and technical for the people who have no clue what an engineer actually is.
You'd have to do it to understand. Today's "programmers" are 10 times the programmers of olde. Software is engineered instead of merely being "written" like it was 20 years ago. There are a lot of MS and PhDs in the field and frameworks rule the day.
Read the ACM magazine for a sample of software engineering information.
Why bother to learn technical skills when all one has to do is call tehmselves “manager” and get a better job for more pay. It seems companies think “manager” is a career field.
Pay more and competent engineers won’t drift away.
But if the advert requires Ruby, and the resume doesn't specifically list Ruby, forget it. Could I be up to speed in Ruby in a month? Sure, and productive. But I'll never get a chance. Because I don't have Ruby on my resume, and all my experience is "old".
No-one in the business seems to expect competent people to come in and learn new stuff on the fly anymore.
/johnny
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