On Mon, Dec 5, 2011 at 5:24 PM, Alex Esplin <alex.esplin@gmai...> wrote:

> On Mon, Nov 28, 2011 at 23:13, Dave Smith <dave@thes...> wrote:
> > It's an exciting time to be graduating from college. There does not
> appear to be a recession in the software development job market. When I
> graduated in 2003, I was lucky to get a call back from a prospective
> employer, let alone a job offer.
> >
> > How's it looking nowadays for new grads?
>
> I had to turn interviews down lest I get so far behind in school that
> I not graduate this semester.
>
> I had multiple attractive offers, 30-ish interviews with 6 or 7
> different companies (not counting the ones I turned down), learned a
> lot about the local tech climate, and in January I start in the
> CoreOS/BSD Technologies group at Apple.
>
> The demand/supply ratio is favorable indeed for CS grads with an
> emphasis on systems/low-level software, OS development, etc. I
> understand the demand/supply ratio is not quite as good for business
> app/Java/.Net developers, but happily for me that's not a portion of
> the industry that holds any interest for me.
>

Is the supply/demand ratio really that bad for applications developers? I
know that we all love Unix and as a corollary, we also love systems level
programming. But, the BLS says that Software Engineers that design
applications are experiencing slightly more growth (34% over a decade
instead of 30%) and have more current jobs (514,800 instead of 394,800)
than systems engineers. Both of these things are good from an employee
perspective. More current jobs means that fluctuations in demand will not
affect me as much, which means more stability. Also, it also means it's
easier to find a job in my particular area instead of relocating. More
growth means that there is increasing demand.

One caveat is that systems engineers make about $7000 ($92,000 total) on
average more than applications engineers ($85,000 total). This does seem to
indicate that there is slightly more current demand for systems engineers.
However, I would not be surprised to meet some that would give away the
$7000 a year to have a job developing applications, and be in a larger job
market with more growth. Note, I am a systems engineer at the moment, so I
am not arguing out of a desperate need to feel validated. The more demand
for my position that there is, the better.

I think the most important takeaway from the report is that you don't want
to be a "Computer Programmer", which is going to experience -3% over a
decade and gets paid less than the above two occupations. The BLS says the
following about Computer Programmers:

"Employment of computer programmers is expected to decline
slowly<http://www.bls.gov/oco/oco20016.htm>,
decreasing by 3 percent from 2008 to 2018. Advances in programming
languages and tools, the growing ability of users to write and implement
their own programs, and the offshore outsourcing of programming jobs will
contribute to this decline."

Alex, if by "Business app/Java/.Net developers", you meant "Computer
Programmers", then we are in complete agreement; that area is stagnating.
Stay in school!

My data is taken from http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos303.htm if anyone would
like to look at it.

--David Wilcox

>
> --
> Alex Esplin
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