<p>They are MS civil/structural engineering students, emphasize on they (as in friends, not friend.) They are smart, friendly, and to the best of my knowledge, they do not (and most likely, cannot afford any kind of drugs, so therefore do not nor would want to use drug I would imagine.) They are passing out applications from small local firms, to large well-know design firm with office in several countries, nothing exotic per se. They’ve turned down jobs they’ve been offered, thats funny.</p>
<p>Civil, huh? That’s really strange. Is this common with CivEs? I know BS students with CS, EE, and CmpE degrees making ~$65k out the door in Huntsville, where the cost of living is pretty low. I’ve heard that BS holders with AeroEs and MechEs do about as well, though a little less, up there. These offers are pretty recent… I don’t really know any CivE students’ outcomes personally… I assumed they were similar.</p>
<p>I honestly think that as long as there is a sizable difference in quality-of-life between the US and poorer countries, the threat of outsourcing will remain. The huge disparity in US vrs. other wages drives this, and as long as employers can find decent, cheaper substitutes, they will use them.</p>
<p>What can’t they outsource? Work that has to take place here; our immigration and H1B visa policies limit the number of immigrants that can come in and work for lower wages here. So if having a modicum of job security is important to you, then look at industries that do their work here, like construction, power engineering. Avoid manufacturing.</p>
<p>Regarding the security clearance as a ticket to secure employment, that’s true to an extent. Keep clean, stay away from illegal substances and activities if you want one. But don’t think that employers never lay off someone with a clearance. I know of one guy I worked with, a good engineer w/an MSEE from a good school, who got laid off despite his clearance, and I suspect it was because his salary got too high.</p>
<p>I wish I could somehow convey the mood I encountered as a new grad at a defense firm in the late 70’s. The few engineers that had weathered that long defense recession were anything but confident about their job security; they all had clearances, some high clearances.</p>
<p>As for commercial firms, I know of another MSEE engineer that got laid off; again I think her salary got too high, because I know she was a hard worker and very effective, intelligent engineer. The picture looks less secure for older engineers, unfortunately, even if their education and skills are good, and I suspect it’s all because of cost pressures. If managers think they can save a few bucks, they will do what they can to achieve that.</p>
<p>In my own lifetime I’ve seen the common wisdom about computer careers (to use the term loosely) go from ‘guaranteed job for life’ to ‘insecure’. It’s really been a shocking development. Looking forward, I wonder what jobs and industries will be best for engineers? We should make some predictions. I predict construction and power engineering, but there must be many more.</p>
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<p>Just to provide another data point, I was unemployed for almost two years before getting my current job, which I’ve held for two years. I have an MSCS from UCLA with a gpa of about 3.2. My background is certainly not ‘exotic’; I have worked on TCP/IP stacks, firewalls, routing daemons, congestion control algorithms, tools for analyzing web traffic, and other things during my career. I know plenty of other people in my position – people who went to good undergraduate and graduate schools, worked in projects of substance, etc. – who became unemployed when the company they worked for was acquired by another company, budget cuts led to downsizing, etc. Perhaps that I’m almost 49 and live in the SF bay area (arguably the most competitive location for getting and keeping software engineering work) constitutes “special circumstances”. (But I know people from many age ranges and locations, even outside the US, who face similar circumstances.)</p>
<p>I would never tell anyone not to go into software engineering, but I would advise that they base their financial decisions (incurring debt for school, a house, a car, etc.) on money they’ve already made, rather than money that “reports” forecast they will make. No one knows how future economic circumstances will affect the fortunes of individuals.</p>
<p>^ I find your lack of faith disturbing.</p>
<p>AuburnMathTutor,</p>
<p>Why do you find my lack of faith disturbing? Is it because I do not paint as rosy a picture for software engineering as the reports you tout? I have never said that people should not go into (software) engineering. I have just cautioned against risky financial expenditures, which includes things like going to an expensive private school instead of taking a full free ride at a state or city university.</p>
<p>The truth of the matter, especially in the SF bay area, where competition for software engineering jobs is fierce, is that anyone can be laid off, and it might be awhile before you get another job. You need to have financial reserves to fall back on in case of unemployment. You need to have a plan to get yourself employed again. Just relying on your degree, as prestigious as it might be, is not enough. There are thousands of unemployed people running around the SF bay are with impressive degrees.</p>
<p>“Is it because I do not paint as rosy a picture for software engineering as the reports you tout?”
- I seem to be in good company, at least. I only ever have reported what is in the BLS. Is the BLS perfect? No. But it’s better for understanding the big picture than unverifiable anecdotes. Now I’m not disputing that the SF area is very competitive for SE, but that is in no way representative of the majority of the country - at least if the BLS report isn’t all lies - and people have a right to know that their tax dollars are going to fund reports like this. I have no reason to doubt the information in the BLS report, at least no good reason, and I don’t think telling people about the report and the fairly rosy picture it happens to paint for SE is such a bad thing.</p>
<p>“I have never said that people should not go into (software) engineering. I have just cautioned against risky financial expenditures, which includes things like going to an expensive private school instead of taking a full free ride at a state or city university.”
- But you see, it’s not what you said, but what you meant to say. What you meant to say was that it’s unwise to make risky financial decisions when it comes to software, but not for other - better? - fields. Maybe I’m reading between the lines to a fault, but was the implication not that software is risky business? I do take issue with that.</p>
<p>“The truth of the matter, especially in the SF bay area, where competition for software engineering jobs is fierce, is that anyone can be laid off, and it might be awhile before you get another job. You need to have financial reserves to fall back on in case of unemployment. You need to have a plan to get yourself employed again. Just relying on your degree, as prestigious as it might be, is not enough. There are thousands of unemployed people running around the SF bay are with impressive degrees.”
- Again, depending on the location, this could be true of any college degree anywhere. I just don’t see why SE is special in this sense; I don’t see why it bears mentioning that somewhere the SE job market is worse than others. The only reason that comes to mind for doing such a thing is to suggest that this is the way it is everywhere, or is the way it will be soon, which is simply not supported by any evidence of which I’m aware.</p>
<p>Let’s compare, say, mechanical engineering and computer science & software engineering. According to the BLS, we have the following employment 2008 - 2018:</p>
<p>SoftEng & programming: 1,336,300 - 1,619,300
Mechanical Engineering: 238,700 - 253,100</p>
<p>Now, it’s hard to find statistics that say how many people graduate with degrees relevant to these fields, but I think it should be fairly clear that most universities do not have six times the number of CS/SE majors as they do mechanical. Often this situation is reversed, if anything. If anybody has any numbers to put to this, feel free.</p>
<p>Does this mean MechE is risky? No. I don’t think it is. I think that a calculated risk to take out loans to pursue a degree in MechE is a sound and responsible decision. But is employment as good for them as for SEs? By the numbers, not really, or at least it seems that way.</p>
<p>I faintly remember possibly saying this before, but I’d like to restate (mostly because I don’t remember the outcome of the argument). It is much easier to get a programming and IT job than it is to get an engineering degree. Engineering degrees must come from accredited institutions, but a person doesn’t even need to go to college to become a programmer/software engineer. All you need to do is hit the books and ace the certification exams, and you’re in making almost 100 grand in less than ten years (if you’re good, anyway). You cannot do this sort of thing with engineering, so comparing the two is a bit unproductive because it really doesn’t compare very fairly; they are too dissimilar.</p>
<p>^ I’m not sure it makes a lot of sense to compare engineering degrees to programming and IT jobs, but if what you mean is to compare the training, I would tend to agree that the minimum requirements for entry in CS/SE are lower than they are for engineering.</p>
<p>The reason could be that there aren’t enough qualified people (read: people with formal education and training in) to take all the jobs in software and programming. Given the availability of jobs and what I guess are the enrollment statistics for the concerned majors, this seems to be plausible. When demand exceeds supply, utility is necessarily suboptimal; in other words, when there are more jobs for SEs and programmers than there are qualified people, it still makes sense to hire people who are less qualified, but not because you want to, but because they’re all that is left. Another way of saying that: while you don’t necessarily need a college degree to work in software, ceteris paribus, the guy with the degree is at an advantage, at least in theory.</p>
<p>I don’t think anybody would seriously suggest that software engineering (programming might be another story) is fundamentally any less challenging or important than any other kind of engineering. Current peculiarities of the job market should be seen for what they are: how it is now, not how it might be tomorrow, and definitely not how it would be in an ideal world.</p>
<p>Are there any numbers for people in SE/programming and the qualifications they have? I’d be curious to know just how many people are working in these fields without any training. I imagine an analysis of the trend over the last 40 years or so would show that more and more people working in SE/programming have formal training in CS/SE, and I expect that trend to continue. Then again, without numbers, we’re all just wildly speculating…</p>
<p>I think we can still make a reasonable conclusion. I think the reason that a lot of potential programmers and software engineers are a bit edgy is because they’re going to be competing with people who are less qualified, but also less costly. We can say that there is a significant amount of people who are ‘less qualified’, because there definitely is not 4 or 5 times as many CS graduates as engineering graduates. This could make outsourcing a more plausible alternative for employers. It’s not the same for most other types of engineers, though.</p>
<p>I’d still like to note however that these conclusions are not backed by statistical evidence, but these are the only reasons I can see that people would be worried about outsourcing, simply because hiring foreign software engineers and programmers is very simple, much simpler than, say, hiring a mechanical engineer.</p>
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<p>One problem with the BLS report is that it has no way of knowing what the future will be – earlier reports did not take into account the possibility of our current recession, for example. Another is that people who actually work in the field, who are aware of emerging business practices, can provide more insight into what the labor market might be for people interested in entering that field.</p>
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<p>Yes, I think you are reading between the lines a bit too much. My conclusions are based on my experiences and those of associates, colleagues, and friends. I do happen to think that software engineering (in the SF bay area) is more risky than, say, healthcare, but I don’t mean to speak to the relative difficulty of finding work in other engineering disciplines (because I don’t work in those disciplines).</p>
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<p>You need to talk to people who actually employ software engineers to know what the actual criteria are that are used to determine qualifiedness and suitability. The BLS reports don’t cover that. (Again, this is primarily for private industry employment in the SF bay area and some other locations, such as where Microsoft has offices; it may be less pertinent for government jobs.)</p>
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<p>But this is a thread about computer jobs (at least in part), isn’t it? Therefore the actual criteria that are used to determine who is hired to do computer work need to be taken into account.</p>
<p>The best engineers in the world remain in the United States, France, Japan, Germany, and Russia. Yes, there is an extreme lack of engineering talent (quantity) in the US and thus jobs are destined to go overseas. I see India actually being a more serious player with regards to “competitive” engineers to the US than China. India has developed an incredibly intense technical university system (see IIT) although it has had some issues over the past years. (Namely, students being able to get away with failing though will not be dropped due to high degree of national investment in these individuals. I had a professor who spent a semester or year teaching at IIT and he told us all about it.)</p>
<p>“One problem with the BLS report is that it has no way of knowing what the future will be – earlier reports did not take into account the possibility of our current recession, for example.”
- Well, nobody knows what the future will be. The BLS tries to make predictions, and it uses a lot of information to do it. I tend to trust reports by government agencies more than the personal testimony of a few people.</p>
<p>“Another is that people who actually work in the field, who are aware of emerging business practices, can provide more insight into what the labor market might be for people interested in entering that field.”
- Again, I tend to trust reports by government agencies more than the personal testimony of a few people. Of course, I’m in no way suggesting that people don’t do independent, targeted research where they plan on working for jobs they may want to get; however, few people are willing and able to collect primary information on a scale comparable to that used by the BLS. If you want to talk about generalities, I maintain that the BLS - and reports like it - are probably the best you can hope for. If you want to go see if company X is hiring in location Y for position Z, the best way is probably to call them and ask. I never meant to dispute that.</p>
<p>“You need to talk to people who actually employ software engineers to know what the actual criteria are that are used to determine qualifiedness and suitability. The BLS reports don’t cover that. (Again, this is primarily for private industry employment in the SF bay area and some other locations, such as where Microsoft has offices; it may be less pertinent for government jobs.)”
- I don’t know how closely you looked at the report, but it does go into this to some degree. I’ll admit I haven’t checked to see into how much detail they may go, as I’ve only read the main page summary report for qualifications of SEs and Programmers, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they go into more detail. Again, this information should be used for an overview. If you want the Xs, Ys, and Zs, individual companies probably know better.</p>
<p>“But this is a thread about computer jobs (at least in part), isn’t it? Therefore the actual criteria that are used to determine who is hired to do computer work need to be taken into account.”
- Again, I don’t know how closely you were reading this thread, but the discussion is about computer <em>and</em> engineering jobs. So a comparison to ME doesn’t seem so inappropriate.</p>
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<p>Well, actually, I would argue the opposite: that the SF Bay Area may be the very best location for SE’s to be. Sure, I agree, the competition for jobs is fierce, but so is the competition for employees, due to not only the sheer proliferation of software firms, but also new firms that are founded and funded almost daily and their insatiable need for software talent. I can think of quite a few cases of people who were laid off in one morning and then were hired by another company that very same day…in a few cases, by a company located at the very same office park or street. Contrast that with software engineers in some small town in the middle of Kansas where there probably is only one major tech employer in town, and if they lay you odd, that’s the end of the game - you have to move because there are no other comparable jobs in the area. </p>
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<p>There are thousands of unemployed people with impressive degrees in any major metro area now. I have to agree with Auburnmathtutor - I don’t see why SE ought to be singled out in this regard. I would say that you always need financial reserves, and you always need a plan to allow yourself to be re-employed regardless of what you majored in. </p>
<p>I would argue that SE, for all its problems, is still probably one of the most promising careers you can choose, relative to most other careers. Is outsourcing a threat to SE jobs? Sure, but outsourcing is a threat to other careers as well, including health care via medical tourism and the offshoring of medical informatics services such as radiology analysis.</p>
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<p>This is true, but it does not negate my statement. It just means that there are some highly sought after software engineers who other companies are waiting to snatch up, and the SF bay area is a fertile ground for software company creation. I know several such people.</p>
<p>We could have a discussion about what makes these people sought after. I think it would be more productive than arguing about salary or employment trends.</p>
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<p>Since this in part a discussion about computer jobs, I was speaking to that subject. I agree that in general, it is a good idea to maintain financial reserves and have a plan for reemployment, regardless of what one’s career is.</p>
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<p>I agree. It remains to be seen how issues regarding health care in the US will play out. If it turns out that health care becomes more expensive, or of lower quality, here in the US than elsewhere, people may seek health care through these emerging technologies. There is no law that states people’s health care must come from a practicioner licensed under US laws, and some people may feel the risk of un- or less insured medicine is worth the lower cost or higher quality.</p>
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<p>FWIW, I read [Computer</a> Software Engineers and Computer Programmers](<a href=“http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos303.htm]Computer”>http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos303.htm). While there is a fair amount of material in this report I disagree with (there is out-of-date material, for example), it can be used as a basis for discussion about careers in the computer field. I think that discussions about how to get (and keep) employment in the computer field are more useful than discussions about salaries. After all, it’s presumptuous to talk about the salary one should make before actually landing a job.</p>
<p>“I think that discussions about how to get (and keep) employment in the computer field are more useful than discussions about salaries.”
- I wasn’t talking about salaries, but about employment statistics and projections. I would consider employment statistics and projections relevant to any discussion about getting and keeping employment in any field. There are other factors, but the number of jobs and growth of jobs in a field are some pretty basic data points.</p>
<p>“After all, it’s presumptuous to talk about the salary one should make before actually landing a job.”
- Like I said, I wasn’t really talking about salaries. I don’t really think it’s presumptuous to do so, though, any more than it is to research the price of a car before you go to the dealer to buy it, but that’s another story.</p>
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<p>I’m not sure that that’s viable, given the dynamic, entrepreneurial nature of the technology industry, and of the software industry in particular. I’ll put it to you this way: a mere 15 years ago, practically nobody outside of academia had ever heard of the Internet. Google wasn’t even founded until 12 years ago and didn’t even have an actual revenue-generating model until 10 years ago. Facebook wasn’t launched until 2004, Youtube not until 2005, and Twitter in 2006. I will boldly predict that many of the most important software companies in the world in the year 2025, 15 years into the future, will be companies that don’t even exist today. Heck, I would say that in merely 4 years time, when this year’s incoming college freshmen will be graduating, the software industry will have changed substantially. {For example social networking was not the major driving force on the Internet in 2006 as it is today.} </p>
<p>What that means is that you can’t ask anybody about hiring trends that don’t yet exist, regarding companies that haven’t yet been founded, within industries/technologies/trends that haven’t yet been invented. For example, if you had asked the existing established software engineering employers in 1995 about the appropriate qualification and suitability requirements, nary a single one of them would have mentioned a word about the incipient importance of the Internet and Web technologies.</p>
<p>What we can say - in fact, what is indisputable - is that computerization and Internet innovation will become ever more important for in the near future. Computerization and IT has been proposed to assume a greater share of the overall technology share: for example, it has been widely speculated that automobiles will be far more computer controlled and Internet-enabled than they are today. However, nobody seriously proposes that any Internet functionality of today be replaced by mechanical functionality. The future trend, while inherently unpredictable, does present clear trends.</p>
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<p>So then let’s have this discussion. It also bears mention - as hadsed has already stated - that many such software engineers don’t even need college degrees at all; I hardly find it a coincidence that many of the most seminal software entrepreneurs in world history such as Bill Gates, Paul Allen, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Mark Zuckerberg, never graduated from college. They are only the most spectacular examples; plenty of other software engineers may not have become billionaires, but have nevertheless done quite well for themselves, whether they earned college degrees or not. We should talk about the skillset that these guys have that others ought to develop. </p>
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<p>To be fair, I believe you should discuss those particular subjects that are specific to the SE profession (or engineering in general). Nobody is disputing that SE/engineering is vulnerable to the same economic trends that every other profession faces.</p>
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<p>Since you have mentioned entrepreneurs, we can have a discussion about what VCs and angel investors look for in terms of startups to invest in:</p>
<p>[Paul</a> Graham](<a href=“http://paulgraham.com/index.html]Paul”>Paul Graham) is one of the most widely read and quoted indviduals on this subject. Even if you don’t agree with everything he says (and I don’t), that other principal figures in the software industry do speaks to the influence his type of thinking has on who gets funded.</p>