

(Mostly) Good Times for Software Developers - nirvdrum
http://graysky.org/2011/09/software-developer-job-market/

======
bradfa
Interestingly, locally to me most software development jobs want Oracle, Java,
and Microsoft to be on your resume. There's an odd posting here and there for
embedded developers (bare metal, Linux, RTOS, etc), but by and large, if you
can't do Oracle, Java, and Microsoft (.NET, etc), you're going to have way
less jobs to apply for. Ruby, Python, Haskell, and other things discussed on
HN don't seem to be in demand based on my limited searching around.

I'd postulate that working in startups will net you skills that are valuable
to other startups. Working in established companies using "enterprise"
software systems will net you value to other "enterprise" software companies.

On a slightly sad but related note, there's not much on indeed.com for
mechanical engineers. They all seem to be leaving upstate NY even faster than
the software people.

Personally, I'd like to see more local jobs posted for up-and-coming tech. I
think OpenCL / CUDA has quite a future solving some rather hard problems quite
a bit faster.

~~~
pnathan
I've also noticed regional variation in tech. Generally the lowest common
denominator is Java/EE stuff, often with Spring/Hibernate.

Kind of annoying, since I'd really like to have more job location flexibility,
and I really don't like Java & the "Enterprise IT (tm)" approach.

------
wallflower
"My one true fear working in software is letting my skill-set become deeply
disjointed from what the market values."

Excellent truth, it is a market, with supply and demand. Be hungry to learn.

~~~
mtogo
You should be hungry to learn software development regardless of whether or
not you are working as one professionally.

~~~
sukuriant
Could you ... expound upon that? I don't think my grandmother has any want or
need to learn software development

~~~
mtogo
If your grandmother develops software she should be eager to learn more about
it regardless of salary. I don't like the attitude that one should only learn
and grow for the purpose of making more money.

If you don't want to learn and improve as a software developer, you shouldn't
be anywhere near developing software in my opinion.

------
hopeless
There's also the danger of being ahead of the market (at least your local
market): in '98, I wanted to take this great language (Java) I'd spent a year
working with but none of the companies in Ireland had adopted it yet. Now I'm
itching to ditch Java for Rails which I've been using in my spare time. Now
all the local companies only want Java :(

Matching your skills to market isn't just about learning the latest tech. And,
incidentally, most of these companies still discount any experience that isn't
"commercial"

~~~
Greenisus
I was doing the same thing and that's essentially how I ended up moving to
Silicon Valley.

------
tomjen3
Does anybody have a working link? I keep getting redirected to some onswipe
spam page which won't let me scroll down and which appear to have been
installed as some sort of hack on his blog (similar to to those hackers which
serve up million of spam links to google from some blog, but hijacking my
browser instead)

~~~
nirvdrum
Odd. I'm not the blog author, but I do know him pretty well. His whole blog is
pretty simple. It's just jekyll with disqus for comments. Obviously other
things could happen on the frontend, but maybe your DNS is whacked out?

------
dadkins
There is no shortage of software developers with the "right skills". Companies
just aren't willing to pay them enough. As an experiment, try offering a
salary of $1 million and see how many qualified applicants show up.

~~~
pakitan
Sure. There is no such thing as "unemployment" either. If you're willing to
work for $1/month that is.

It's about market reality, not about greedy CEOs who try to screw the hard
working developers.. If the best programmer you can hire is expected to
produce $X worth of value, you can't just offer a salary of 2 x $X. How many
programmers do you know who can produce something worth $1M+...every year?

~~~
dadkins
Even though the $1M figure was meant to be rhetorical:

[http://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ:GOOG&fstype=ii](http://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ:GOOG&fstype=ii)

Google had revenues of $31B with less than 30,000 full time employees over the
last year. Programmers there are bringing in over $1M on average. There must
be some there that are actually worth it.

~~~
pakitan
Let's say I own a building which I'm renting for $10M/year and I employ 10
people to service the building. Are these employees "bringing" me $1M on
average? Or maybe the main factor is that I own a building, worth millions?

Anyway, I know you were not serious about the $1M figure. That wasn't my point
either. All I'm saying is that the expected value of your work <= your salary.
And sky isn't the limit for that number so employers have to take this into
account.

------
wccrawford
When the term 'software developers' is used, I agree. When you pick a certain
language, I almost always disagree.

See, true software developers will work with whatever language they have to to
do the project correctly. They'll change with the times and constantly upgrade
their skillset. Single-language developers will almost always have a hard time
finding a job.

~~~
nirvdrum
Sure, but a language doesn't stop doing a particular job either. While there
are certainly better ways to be doing things discovered all the time, software
is susceptible to fads just like any other industry. Sticking with something
proven isn't always a bad strategy. Especially if it lets you focus on solving
a real problem rather than a growing pain.

~~~
wccrawford
Sticking with something proven is one thing. Refusing to use another language
is another.

Yes, there are fads... But that's how the industry improves as a whole right
now. As new fads come and go, we take the best pieces and it drives further
fads. Sometimes, we end up with a real gem of a language from it. Sometimes,
we just learn a lesson.

But as a developer, if you want to find work, you need to be willing to keep
up with at least some of the fads and increase your overall skills.

