CS career. cut cost layoffs to hire cheaper employees?

Career Opportunities & Internships
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<p>I am thinking about pursuing a cs major. Don't know too much about the field & is trying to gather as much information as possible.</p>

<p>I have a friend that is a biomedical engineer bs major who is doing database maintenance for an insurance company and getting his masters in CS MS(database/security and is graduating this may). He told me he really dislikes his job right now because the company laid off the higher level people to cut cost and now he is given their tasks. And what he is basically doing is just maintaining stuff. </p>

<p>He told me that its difficult for computer majors to reach a six figure salary because when its about to happen, the company will lay you off and hire new computer graduates for a cheaper price. I asked him, isn't the company worried about losing experienced programmers? He said the companies mentality is that a less experienced cs person can do the same amount of work. The people handling the operation of the companies are usually not computer people so they think in terms of cutting cost and place less emphasis on how quality effects the operation of the company. They just work the remaining employees like workhorses to get the job done.</p>

<p>I was wondering how accurate is what my friend said. The below article link states: "While midlevel technical staff continues to face layoffs because of a tough economy and outsourcing, new computer science graduates are in high demand in 2010, states Computer World. "</p>

<p>Careers</a> for Computer Science Graduates | eHow.com</p>

<p>Is the midlevel technical staff the higher level CS employees that get laid off? </p>

<p>Why</a> Is It That Companies Would Rather Hire Unexperienced And Cheaper Young People, That Usually Quit Before The Years Up - Find Answers to this Question</p>

<p>Or is it because my friend currently only have a biomedical engineering BS (not a true CS major) with no previous work experience so the field for his first job has a different mentality from other CS job fields that experience is the most important consideration?</p>

<p>Do companies prefer fresh blood in the CS field because of the belief that they are more up to date in the technology (since new developments in languages happen so rapidly) and as a result the jobs have high turnover rates (layoffs)? </p>

<p>my friend further said that software engineer is just meaningless title. In the end everyone is a programmer that is writing software (although in my head i disagree because a software engineer is engineering a piece of software and isn't maintaining stuff). I read computer programmer's job outlook is decline of 4% in the next couple of years. But the rest of the computer field will grow and isn't outsourced like computer programmers. it is said that Computer science graduates can expect to garner technology careers across a variety of industries. But aren't most of these careers still programming (operation maintenance) and can be outsourced? Isn't the high level software development jobs like microsoft (where companies might not want to leak their technology to offshore), etc very few and only for the best of the best.</p>

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<p>I’ll tell you what… the outlook is still better than most people who majored in a social science.</p>

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<p>There is some truth to the idea of working at innovative tech companies, particularly where managers are former engineers. A West Coast tech company will probably provide a more enjoyable experience for an engineer than say, working in IT at Morgan Stanley. Incidentally, most innovative work isn’t done at places like Microsoft. It is done at smaller companies, which are in turn acquired by places like Microsoft. </p>

<p>Realistically, comp sci (perhaps coupled with a finance or math minor) is one of the few degrees that is a good investment. </p>

<p>Your concerns are overblown. Most people who talk about outsourcing are clueless and are rarely software engineers themselves.</p>

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<p>The guys who do the grunt coding may be outsourced to India or Asia, but the people who make the plans and manage them will stay here. CS is not just doing computer maintenance, the interesting stuff is deciding on what the format of your system is going to be, how to integrate new features, when to pull the plug on old programs. You are looking at a very small portion of the overall career arena. Heck, even farm tractors are using GPS interfaces to control fertilizing and track yields; someone needs to plan all that and manage it.</p>