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April 12, 2006
Top Jobs
From an entry on CNN Money today, a listing of the top 10 jobs. At number is Software Engineer:
1. Software Engineer Why it's great Software engineers are needed in virtually every part of the economy, making this one of the fastest-growing job titles in the U.S. Even so, it's not for everybody.Designing, developing and testing computer programs requires some pretty advanced math skills and creative problem-solving ability. If you've got them, though, you can work and live where you want: Telecommuting is quickly becoming widespread.
The profession skews young -- the up-all-night-coding thing gets tired -- but consulting and management positions aren't hard to come by once you're experienced.
What's cool Cutting-edge projects, like designing a new video game or tweaking that military laser. Extra cash from freelance gigs. Plus, nothing says cool like great prospects.
What's not Jobs at the biggest companies tend to be less creative (think Neo, pre-Matrix). Outsourcing is a worry. Eyestrain and back, hand and wrist problems are common.
Top-paying job Release engineers, who are responsible for the final version of any software product, earn six figures.
Education Bachelor's degree, but moving up the ladder often requires a master's.
I'm kind of confused on this one. First off they have the what's cool and what's not cool down pretty good. I don't hide my dislike of my position within Chipzilla, an organization that typically views software as an after thought (as opposed to someone like Apple who views software as essential... it's made for some interesting teleconferences).
What I don't understand is commenting on telecommuting. Out of all my friends, only one (Brian) has the ability to work from whereever he'd like to. Even in my current state of searching, no employers seem to enjoy this idea. I've heard lots about this great option, but I've yet to see it offered.
I'm also not sure where they got their salary data from. Unless living in California (which I guess is a number large enough to sway the standard), most companies don't offer salaries anywhere near that. Possibly I'm not the greatest negotiator. Possibly I'm just applying for the wrong jobs. Or possibly I just suck. In any of the cases, just show me where the distributions are!
Oh well... we'll always have out-sourcing...
Posted by Dan at April 12, 2006 03:37 PM