[Frustrating] Where have all the software jobs gone?

Where is my John Wayne
Where is my prairie son
Where is my happy ending
Where have all the cowboys gone

 

Move to India...

 

This is why smart people don't always make the most money. If you want to make a ton of money and always have a job, go into sales. Use your technical background as a starting point and sell the software rather than develop it.

My cousing worked for Texas Instruments out of college. She quickly figured out that even though she was very smart, she wasn't creative enough to design chips. However, she was very good at learning what other people created. She is very sociable, attractive, and knew the products inside and out so she went into marketing.

I work for one of the biggest financial firms in the country and at least half our wholesalers a.k.a "regional marketing directors", make over $200,000/year. Many of them only have a very superficial understanding of investments, taxes, and financial planning concepts. They aren't geniuses, but they have social intelligence.

They are attractive, likeable, and are very good communicators.

 

They're in Bangalore.

You might wanna consider moving there...

 

Translation: become an escort...

 

The going into sales/marketing post is very good advice.

However, if you don't want to go that route, here are some things to try:

Learn ASP.NET, if you already know C#/Java, you should be able to learn asp.net from a book in a month tops. Dont go to a class to learn a language. Then make a couple web apps in your spare time to put on your resume. Either do them for yourself, or go to like freelance or rentacoder and do some web app work for somebody.

If you want to be a career programmer, you can't really complain about having to learn a new language. Its a part of your life. Seen any good fortran job openings lately?

There are still a lot of C++/JAVA opening available. Defense contractors hire a ton of c++ guys, but defense contractors will only hire you if you have a security clearance ( kind of a catch22 ).

In general, big tech companies hire the vast majority of c++/java types. They usually dont advertise on craigslist or wherever else you are looking. Off the top of my head in Austin: IBM, Dell, Apple, Sun, Samsung, Motorola. Go to their websites and apply for jobs.

 

Yeah, that's what a career programmer needs to do. There's plenty of people in their 40's+ doing ASP.NET, and it's not because they used your time machine.

Really, if your doing C++/Java it's not too much trouble to crossover. You won't be doing complicated stuff immediately, but you'll definitely get in the door. I only worked on one VERY BASIC almost 'hello world' type thing in ASP.NET. Then I applied for a job requiring .NET and told them I had decent knowledge. Basically I jumped right into the fire w/ only a Java experience and picked it up after a few weeks. It was a little rough, especially since I didn't even read a single book before my first day, but I made it through and pretty quickly gained a reputation as the go-to guy for the high profile projects.

 

Hey DarkHorse,

You're right... you might not have enough experience to grab one of the many C# jobs available in Austin right now. Agile development, test driven development, scrum ... seems like folks want developers with years of experience.

I just had a meeting with 2 contract developers, only one with many years of C# and an expert at agile and test-driven dev... $125/hr. In other words... don't change to sales.

Take a look over at ADNUG (Austin .NET User Group). They're very active and have new job listings all the time. Have you checked Monster yet?

And don't don't don't lie about experience. Many developers do and it's quickly apparent to your new employer and if you get to keep your job they will never trust you and it will probably limit your upward mobility. You'll go nowhere.

I'll shoot you an e-mail later...

 

I haven't, but from my experience a LOT of people do. In my opinion, over half of the people who come in for interviews are full of crap, and don't work well either.

Naturally that's why some of them are out of work.

In your case, study up on it, work through the wizards, and you should be able to get through most interviews - they don't ask you too many questions about the details of the .NET interface.

You'll probably need to know how themes work, about object data sources, sql data sources (not the same as an odbc connection), partial classes, and generics, just to name a few off the top of my head.

Good luck. I think you should be able to get a good job in the long run because of your experience with deeper programming than what the majority of .NET developers do.

 

It's issues like this that caused me to get out of the software industry (well, actually never really get INTO). I graduated in '02, couldn't find much of anything (not long after the .com collapse) and basically did crap work and ****ty web design (I am NOT artistically inclined) until I could take no more. I saw an opportunity to jump into a different field, and took it. I'm glad I did. I miss the opportunity to program, and would likely have some real difficulty picking it back up again if I had to, but I like my new job. Sometimes, things just don't work out with the path you have chosen for your life. Changing direction a bit can be a good thing.

 

Haha! I would not recommend lying. DON'T DO IT. They were looking for entry level to senior level, so I figured I'd give it a shot. Actually it was my first interview for my first 'real' job (non-internship) and I was just trying to lineup a few since it didn't seem like my friends were getting job offers left and right. Honestly I figured I could use this interview as kind of a 'warmup/practice' but I ended up taking the job spur of the moment (girlfriend situation was part of the equation too). From what others said here, I guess I was fortunate I made it up the 'programming ladder' the way I did. I should also clarify I did comp sci undergrad but did a masters in mis/dis, so I wouldn't consider myself a career programmer, it didn't hold my interest enough. So basically don't take that part of the advice.

But reading and tutorials, plus your previous knowledge of similar object oriented objects will prepare you well. I know someone who got hired for ASP, even though the company knew he only had a Java background (and just ASP studying in his spare time). They gave him basic stuff to start but he made the transition smoothly and eventually did well.

 

One more thing...keep your head up, one month isn't much time for a job search. I'm sure you'll do fine.

If you're desperate, pimp your unix/linux skillz:

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LOL! That is EXACTLY what I thought when I saw this thread.

 

I really don't know but I think its all going asp because everything is going web. ASP will rule because the internet and Microsoft will rule. In the near future software and web will be one. So yeah you can find jobs outside of Austin but I think asp.net will dominate the world. Learn it ASaP. That's what I plan on doing.

 

I don't even know what you do now.

What do you do now?

 

Really.. a developer gets paid $125/hr. so that he can teach everyone how to say "Since the last scrum, I programmed this. For the next scrum, I will program this. There is nothing standing in my way."

 

If all you care about is money, IT is not the best career choice, sales is.

If you work in IT because you enjoy information technology, you have to get used to the fact that the market is ever changing and that you constantly have to learn new things to keep your skillset viable.

With me, I started specializing in a particular ERP package 10 years ago, and that's what I've been doing ever since. During that 10 years, however, I have constantly educated and re-educated myself on new technology that came with new versions of the software, making my skillset viable for the latest versions of the software.