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What unemployment? Nothing like that in United States of Software
- pavel_lishin 15y agoA demand for workers is not the same thing as no unemployment. Plenty of people out there with outdated skillsets.
- BadassFractal 15y agoLuckily for folks with outdated skillsets, you can learn and practice almost anything in software these days for free from the net. Back in the day you might have had to go back to school, now it's a matter of buckling down and brushing up on your Rails.
- simonw 15y agoYou need an incredibly high level of computer literacy first though.
- pavel_lishin 15y agoI don't think we're talking about people who have never programmed before; we're talking about maybe COBOL and Fortran experts, or people who write low-level C but can only find Python and Ruby jobs.
- ootachi 15y agoAre we really at the point where engineers can't find jobs because they only know C++ instead of Python and Ruby web stacks? This is a bit concerning, if so.
- pavel_lishin 15y agoThat was just an example I pulled out of my a^Hhat.
- bartonfink 15y agoIt happens. I used to work with a guy whose expertise was Java GUI development and who knew NOTHING about web stacks at all. He's been looking for work, and kept getting told that it was a big problem that he didn't know anything about web development. Someone even told him in an interview that he was getting dangerously close to the "point of no return" where his skills were so stale that he'd be unemployable anywhere else. I spent a lot of late nights helping him come up to speed because he's not a bad guy. Even though he probably should have been doing this himself, the fact of the matter is that he chose poorly and now knows a lot about something that is growing less and less valuable every day. You can say that he's not an "engineer" but that's really just the No True Scotsman fallacy talking. It's really hard to compete on the job market when hiring managers just cut out huge swathes of your knowledge a priori, and the fact that happens is what concerns me.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- stevenwei 15y agoTrue, but the best engineers are the ones that can adapt to new skillsets quickly. For example, I'm willing to bet that 99% of the most successful iOS developers had not written a line of Objective-C until 3 years ago. Apple simply provided an opportunity and they embraced it, learning the skills they need to adapt.
- jholman 15y agoWeb stack replacing "Java GUI" is no big surprise, and totally dissimilar to the great-grandparent comment that implied that there might be a shortage of low-level C jobs. Python and Ruby have not eaten C/C++'s lunch, as far as I know (well, maybe snacked on it a bit). OSes, browsers, games, embedded... still seems to be lots of call for C/C++. Java GUI was never in that class, so it's not at all surprising to see it obsolesce.
- tl 15y agoIt varies based on location. The unrealistic "we require 5 years experience in a technology that's 3 years old" HR people still exit. Even more common is N years of desktop app programming experience counting as 0 years of web programming experience (regardless of platform).
- astrec 15y agoNo, and COBOL and Fortran experts are being handed blank cheques if they truly are expert (and sometimes even if they're not... how fast can you read? ;))
- cgopalan 15y agoI hope not. I have worked quite a bit on Python/Django but I am considering diving into C++ due my recent exposure of the wonderful world of graphics programming (not game development but simulation and visualization).
- msbarnett 15y agoNobody is going to penalize you for being the Django guy who can also hack complex C++ and knows his way around OpenGL/DirectX. Far from it, you'll look like a guy with a truly broad skill-set who can handle damn near anything. The guys who are having trouble are the guys who decided that the knowledge they needed for their 9-5 C job was "good enough" so they stopped learning. That's what kills careers.
- rdouble 15y agoStopping learning is an issue, but employment reality is more complicated. In much of the country the guy who can hack both Django, C++ and OpenGL is unemployable, and the guy who turned his brain off after getting his MCSE can easily find a job. For instance, this is a pretty typical snapshot of who's hiring in my part of the country: http://cl.ly/2T01382O3v3L3a1x1n2r http://cl.ly/2T01382O3v3L3a1x1n2r
- msbarnett 15y agoIndividual locales can have particular niche demands or simply end up as technical backwaters where employability depends entirely on your familiarity with, say VB 6. That's mostly, I think, an argument for moving out of technical backwaters if you're in a technical career. If you let yourself be limited to skills that are more valuable in Minneapolis than the major tech hubs, you're eventually going to be stuck with skills that aren't even valuable in Minneapolis, as the "hot" tech hub technologies become mainstream and finally migrate there way out to the backwaters.
- rmc 15y agoNo, there is still a lot of C & C++ jobs out there. However COBOL might be another matter...
- hacknut13 15y agoBut that's their point. When you have people with no jobs, that counts for the unemployment. But even I know how difficult it is to find people to hire for our company as I do HR for a technology firm. There is a high demand, just shortage of people to fill the positions.
- maxxxxx 15y agoI see an increasing unwillingness of companies to train people who don't have EXACTLY the right skillset. This used be different in the 90s.
- neworbit 15y agoMy experience differs - I think it was in fact the rule of thumb in the 90s... until the dotcom gold rush got sufficiently out of hand that hiring people and training them became the only reasonable solution.
- arethuza 15y agoWhich, as far as I can see, has led to a vicious circle where developers will often refuse/bitch/complain about working on something that doesn't increase their immediate employability prospects. Not to mention CVs that quite often have a half a page or so of solid acronyms to increase the chances of being found by simplistic recruiting company search engines.
- pagekalisedown 15y agoI agree. I think the logic is: "if we train them, they'll go find better paying jobs, and besides, as soon as this project is done, everyone will be laid off anyway." So everyone only wants to hire exact fit.
- simcop2387 15y agoThis can also be a function of density of capable talent where you are. I know in my area it can take a while to get a technology position (took me 8 months) due to there being very intense competition. However I did receive more than one offer to an area that I could not afford to relocate to due to other issues (mostly taxes). It seems like there are some great disparities in where the talent is and where the jobs are. The solution would seem to be for someone (people or the company) to move or to find a way for people to be able to work from a larger area around the business.
- geebee 15y agoTo become a software developer (especially the kind with a CS related degree), you need: -A highly analytical mindset -The ability to handle tough math -The ability to read dense material and process it quickly -The mindset to persevere, test, investigate, and find obscure problems in complex systems -The ability to see a project through to its finish -The ability to explain complex logic and design, verbally and in writing It also helps immensely to have - The ability to work well in a team, and good general social skills (the notion that this isn't important in software development is a silly myth, it's incredibly important) - The ability to complete lengthy and difficult academic programs, without veering off into less demanding majors that give you more time to party. - A family or other benefactor that can fund and support you through these academic programs (I knew a dude who tried to major in CS while working 25hrs a week in retail. Extraordinary people can do this, but it's very difficult to carry physics, math, cs, and a humanities elective under these circumstances. Many smart people fail even when school is their only "job"). It makes absolutely no sense to compare a person like this to the national average. The general unemployment rate has nothing to do with the unemployment rate for people like this. So is the unemployment rate actually low for software developers, or is it simply low for all people with the traits listed above, regardless of field? You could reasonably argue that jobs go begging in software largely because the field is not competitive with the other professions/trades that people with these traits have available to them.
- pavel_lishin 15y agoI don't think that math is universally necessary - it's actually rare that I need to sit down and write equations and think about something mathematically. (Unless I'm a genius who does it in his head, and trust me, I'm not.) And a 25-hour-a-week job doesn't seem that overwhelming. I think I worked 20 hours a week with a 30 minute commute each way - unless you're having a truly difficult time with the core concepts, a 15 hour course load and a 25 hour work load isn't much harder than starting any new job.
- onemoreact 15y agoMathematical literacy is more than just writing down complex equations. for (a = 0; a < n; a++) { for (b = 0; b < n; b++) { do_something(a,b); }} How many times is do_something called? If you can say n^2 in under 15 seconds you are now better at math than the average American.
- maxxxxx 15y agoIn Germany there is the word "Schweinezyklus". Pig cycle. It's mostly prevalent in engineering. It works like this: 1. Companies complain about not having enough qualified engineers 2. Everybody gets told to get into engineering in college 3. Boom crashes. Companies lay off engineers. The new engineering graduates don't get hired and are unemployed 4. Everybody flees engineering 5. Back to step 1. I think we are at the end of step 1 and 2. -
- namdnay 15y agoI'd go further and say this is a big problem for any supply-demand system where there is significant latency. Farming, Degrees etc. Wave effects seem inevitable in this case
- cperciva 15y agoI don't think this quite captures the situation. Companies aren't complaining about a lack of credentialed developers; they're complaining about a lack of competent developers. In 2000 there were far more people graduating with computing degrees than in 1995; but the average quality was far far lower. The people who suddenly found that they couldn't get jobs when the dot-com bubble burst? Most of them didn't belong in the industry in the first place.
- maxxxxx 15y agoI knew plenty of people who were top-notch developers who didn't find jobs back then.
- akeefer 15y agoI finished undergrad in 2002, and no one was hiring then, even for Stanford CS grads. No one wanted people fresh out of school because there were so many unemployed engineers with 5+ years of experience that there was no incentive to take someone straight out of school.
- jeffdavis 15y agoAnything with delayed results will have cycles. You express cynicism, but there's no great evil behind it. Predicting the number and type of people that should study engineering today for work ten years from now is no easy task. It will always be a little bit wrong. And at least you end up with educated people and the fruits of engineering work. The alternative is giving up: "I might as well not learn anything very useful, because there might be a period in the future where it's not so useful for a while."
- qaexl 15y agoI'm observing some people trying to break into technology. Yes, there are online tools available. Yes, many of them are free. One of the complaints I hear is that the target platform you choose moves so fast. Generalized, it means software -- the technology and the economy -- runs at a higher tempo. In order to step into the stream, you have to first match the new tempo. I suspect that the rest of the economy stays in a slump because they are out-of-phase tempo-wise with software technology ... or that the tools that drive up the tempo of innovation in software has not made it out to the mainstream yet. (And even if it did, it will leave people behind simply because there are people who will refuse to impedance match).
- vondur 15y agoI'm sure if the economy continues its downward spiral, these software jobs will evaporate just like many of the others.
- pagekalisedown 15y agoThat reminds me of how people use to think that games were recession-proof before 2008 or so. Then the numbers came in. Quite a reality check when your sales drop by a third in a very short amount of time. All the big publishers took note.
- pnathan 15y agoDepends on the industry it services. I expect the Angry Birds/Farmville -style software shops to collapse at some point. However, shops that turn out embedded system components & other infrastructural support will keep chugging along.
- rdouble 15y agoIt's pretty region and skill specific. If you live somewhere outside of about 4 or 5 locations in the USA, getting a programming job can be hard. Also, skills that are hot in a place like NYC or Silicon Valley are often next to useless in other areas. (learning this the hard way)
- achille 15y agoWould you mind expanding on your last sentence. What was your personal experience? I'm guessing you have Rails/NoSQL experience while the jobs at your current market tend to be Java/Oracle type?
- rdouble 15y agoYes, that is pretty much exactly what I meant.
- mahyarm 15y agoIt's ok to move, many will pay for relocation!
- patio11 15y agoDon’t mention this in the software industry especially startups, the situation is almost the complete opposite with demand for qualified engineers more than twice the supply. At the price startups are willing to pay, naturally. I imagine demand exceeds supply for doctors willing to work for $30k + equity + copious free beer, too. I know a lot of people feel that $80k or $120k for developers is quite generous. It may well be generous, but if you can't hire someone for it, it is by definition below market. You know all those articles we've read about structural change? Here's another structural change: the market clearing price for engineers may soon durably transition to that of e.g. management consultants or lawyers rather than that of e.g. HR clerks or marketing directors.
- Locke1689 15y agoI hope so, but the problem I see is that new grads (I include myself here) are willing to work for 80k, while it's not that much of a stretch to say that the best graduates will be almost as productive in a few years as they will be in 7 or 8 years. That doesn't, however, automatically mean a commensurate salary increase, so developer salaries are kept perpetually lower than they should be. How can employers and employees adapt to this bifurcated market?
- tptacek 15y agoIn 1994, when I first entered the job market, $80k/year was a ridiculous number, reserved for people with unattainable-sounding skills like "PowerBuilder". Point being: look at the trend line, not the spot price. New grads today will accept $80k. Five years from now, if the market retains this level of heat, will they continue to do so?