<p>"Homer that information is 4 years old. "</p>
<p>So what? You think the entire profession has drastically changed since 2006? If anything, things are worse now since that piece was written before the recession.</p>
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Please read your history textbook before doubting my point again. Statistics aren’t useful in this sort of debate anymore. They are all bias.
By the way, think more critically. Read between the lines.</p>
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From where does the bias arise?</p>
<p>@Homer, I think I found a great job for you. It’s being a career counselor. You seem to know so much and are so full of yourself.</p>
<p>I am going to keep working on my BSCS. Because I am making great money as a part-time(20 hours a week) software developer(making over $35K a year and I get to work from home). Once I finish my BS I will be making over $70K a year.</p>
<p>One thing…My pay includes bonuses.</p>
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All he does is pulling the number, but he refuses to discuss the numbers within the right context. Furthermore, statistics are used as a reference, and in order to use them you have to go through the entire context, point by point.</p>
<p>Hi:</p>
<p>I’m a mom who has two boys. The younger one is interested in Computers/games/engineering and so I was curious to read this thread. CS: Do you mind telling me what sort of casual game co. you work for? Sounds neat. Also, where are you studying for your BS? What made you decide to study Computer Science? My son is still a few more years away from applying to schools, and as he goes thru h.s., maybe he can narrow down his interests a bit…he thinks he wants mechanical engineering but I know nothing re: software engineering…or game design or development…anything you can tell me about that field, I would appreciate! Thanks! :)</p>
<p>I have worked on some of the games on site like Big Fish Games, iWin, and others. </p>
<p>I am not going to give out the name of the company I am working for, or the name of the college I am at. </p>
<p>But I am working on my BSCS in Kentucky. I picked CS because I love the theory and the math.</p>
<p>Thanks for the info. No problem about sharing specific info…we are in the Northeast, so I’m sure when the time comes we can narrow down plenty of choices. Thanks CS, and good luck to you!</p>
<p>Using my personal anecdotal evidence, it seems that the demand for programmers is still strong despite the recession.</p>
<p>All of my friends who are good programmers (remember, good) all have jobs fresh out of college. Friends of mine already in industry actually ask me if there are good programmers I know who I can refer. I’m unable to because all the good ones already have jobs.</p>
<p>What’s your own field, Kyt?</p>
<p>I majored ECE now working in the software field.</p>
<p>“All of my friends who are good programmers (remember, good) all have jobs fresh out of college.”</p>
<p>That’s not surprising since companies recruit for recent grads for those jobs liek crazy. But the problem lies in how many keep those programing jobs 10 or 15 years down the raod. About 10 years ago, the CEO of Intel stated “The half-life of an engineer, software, hardware engineer is only a few years.”</p>
<p>I found the following data quite interesting. It’s from 1998 and I know your going to say “But that data is 12 years old.” But unless things have drastically changed, which I see no evidence of, it should not be dismissed:</p>
<p><a href=“mnforsustain.org - This website is for sale! - mnforsustain Resources and Information.”>mnforsustain.org - This website is for sale! - mnforsustain Resources and Information.;
<p>Again, I am NOT doubting the job opportunities for recent grad programmers. The problem often lies in what happens when those 22 year old programmers hit their 30s and 40.</p>
<p>Silicon Valley’s dark secret: It’s all about age </p>
<p>The harsh reality is that in the tech world, companies prefer to hire young, inexperienced, engineers.</p>
<p>And engineering is an “up or out” profession: you either move up the ladder or face unemployment. This is not something that tech executives publicly admit, because they fear being sued for age discrimination, but everyone knows that this is the way things are. Why would any company hire a computer programmer with the wrong skills for a salary of $150,000, when it can hire a fresh graduate—with no skills—for around $60,000? Even if it spends a month training the younger worker, the company is still far ahead. </p>
<p>[Silicon</a> Valley?s dark secret: It?s all about age The Berkeley Blog](<a href=“http://blogs.berkeley.edu/2010/08/31/silicon-valley’s-dark-secret-it’s-all-about-age/]Silicon”>http://blogs.berkeley.edu/2010/08/31/silicon-valley’s-dark-secret-it’s-all-about-age/)</p>
<p>Homer28, here is the fatal problem with you using the Berkeley blog to back your point:</p>
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</p>
<p>This guy makes the point that the people who are being ousted by ageism are being let go because their skills don’t match the needs of the company and the company can then go get fresh talent with no experience for much cheaper. On the other hand, if the older programmers maintained a little breadth, they likely wouldn’t have such a problem here.</p>
<p>Just ask the Irish. If you spend all your time farming potatoes and then a plague hits the potato crop, you starve. If you diversify, you live anyway. The same goes for most jobs. If you specialize yourself into a tiny niche, as soon as the need is gone, you can’t get into another area.</p>
<p>He isn’t arguing that programming is a dead end career for everyone after 10 years. He is arguing that you are screwed if you don’t diversify your skill set or move onto an area that can’t be filled for cheaper. Many people do just that.</p>
<p>@Homer,</p>
<p>I will have by BSCS in less then one year. But I am learning new things all the time…right now I am programming in C++ on the PC and Mac, I am doing Obj-C for the iphone, Java for the android phones, ASP.net for web applications. </p>
<p>To keep a job in software development you have to be learning new things all the time…most developers will not do this.</p>
<p>I see programming languages(C++,C#,Jave,Objective-C) and, SDK/API(.net, JDK, DirectX, openGL) as tools only. If you can learn the basic theories of CS,the basics of designing software, and how to solve problems you should have no problems finding work.</p>
<p>The fact is that anyone who wants to work in software development. Will have to be able to learn new programming languages, and new SDKs all the time.</p>
<p>“This guy makes the point that the people who are being ousted by ageism are being let go because their skills don’t match the needs of the company…”</p>
<p>Well, I read the Berkely blog multiple times and I think that the professor is arguing that COST is the main factor in why older employees get dumped. Even if the older employee is up to date on every new technology, it still does not change the fact that recent grads are much cheaper to employ. </p>
<p>Take the current case of Brian Reid, who is currently suing Google for age discrimination. The guy was a professor at Carneige Mellon before going to Google, so I don’t think that one can argue hs skills were out of date. He was fired since Google claimed he was not a “cultural fit” (which we all know is code word for young). He was also called “‘slow,’’ ‘‘fuzzy,’’ ‘‘sluggish,’’ ‘‘lethargic,’’ ‘‘obsolete,’’ and ''too old to matter.” </p>
<p>[Fuddy-duddy</a> fights back - The Boston Globe](<a href=“http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2010/08/10/fuddy_duddy_fights_back/]Fuddy-duddy”>http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2010/08/10/fuddy_duddy_fights_back/)</p>
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</p>
<p>You aren’t taking into account the added value of having someone with the correct skills AND experience.</p>
<p>You also aren’t taking into account that if the older person has the required skills and gets fired in favor of a younger person, that older person could file a lawsuit. Companies use the fact that older programmers don’t have the required skills as an excuse to get rid of them without being in the wrong (legally speaking). They need that excuse though. If an older person is up to date and has all the required competencies, the company doesn’t have that excuse, and the lawsuit is going to cost a lot more than the salary most of the time.</p>
<p>“You also aren’t taking into account that if the older person has the required skills and gets fired in favor of a younger person, that older person could file a lawsuit.”</p>
<p>ONLY if that older person is 40 or older. If a company fires you at 39, your out of luck. Also, age discrimination is hard to prove. Even if everyone knows that you were canned because your old, without any strong evidence, you will lose. Unfoartunatrly, the majority of age discrimination victims simply do not have any credible evidence to support their claims.</p>
<p>But who is to say that age discrimination will still be such a big problem when we are advanced into our careers? I’m inclined to think that the difference “culturally” between the generation before us and our generation is far greater than the difference (again, “culturally”) between our generation and future generations.</p>
<p>From here onward, all generations will have been “raised in the techie world,” which is a phenomenon that started with our current generation. So I think that the divide between our current generation and our immediately preceding generation is atypically large.</p>