Coming boom in software development - big $$$

I hope your findings will become a reality, it sounds like a world I want to be a part of (as a software developer)

Wow, my head is already spinning with what's here,
and they want to add more,

Kingsley

This is an interesting chat. I just makes you wonder where we will be in these next few years as things seem to be forever developing faster and faster.

Exciting

I don't know maybe I had too much holiday cheer but the original Forrester report was from a year ago and sounds more like marketing hype. Far as I am concerned the next big quantum leap is when we change the human interface to the computer from monitor, keyboard and mouse to well... whatever is next. Otherwise its more of the same to me. Happy holidays all!

That would be great for us if it holds true. I would love to be in Odesk's shoes right now.

Sounds like opportunity knocking.

Everybody is desperate at the moment and these guys are gunna try sell the solution.

Boom and Bust

I also am aware of a hype factor but no the conditions are right - apart from the US debt but thats just it, as many companies and municipalities are "desperate" to become more cost effective. Desperate buyers !!!

HP is releasing the first memristor chips 2013 even if its 2015 combined with nanophotonics its revolutionary. If it pans out Leon Chua deserves a Nobel prize.

I'm bullish on it short of another major crash or terror attack.

"The leads are weak..."

This is a common misconception ... "IT" is *NOT* "software development".

People with backgrounds in Computer Science do not get hired into IT roles, and vice versa. They are totally different skill sets.

Here's the current reality:

* There are nearly 1 million unemployed software people in America today, many more when you add in the broader scope of "engineers" as opposed to just "computer science" people.

* The majority of these people are over 40.

* Current immigration laws allow for 65,000 H-1B visas to be issued to foreign nationals. These are usually gone less than a month after they become available, usually in October of each year.

* Large companies like Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, and others, have been HEAVILY lobbying Congress to RAISE H-1B quotas for years.

* Most software vendors are no longer hiring based on general talent. Rather, they're hiring based on a smorgasboard of specific tools and talents where they want you to have 3-years direct hands-on experience with a litany of things they list in the job description. Unfortunately, most job descriptions are written by HR people who have no clue what they mean. For the most part, over half the job reqs posted today are totally unrealistic.

* You cannot get an interview today unless you either, (1) know someone who knows the hiring manager; or (2) lie on your resume and job application. The trouble is, HR doesn't know that you're lying, but it usually comes across in the first phone screen with a technical person. It's a huge time-waster for organizations.

* Excellent candidates never get in the front door if they're honest on their resume and job apps.

* Tax laws prevent most corporations from hiring contractors directly; it's too risky. So they go through third-party job shops. Many of these job shops are in fact set up by foreigners as a means of bringing other foreigners into America under H-1B visas. They pay these people less than what American new college grads would be paid, usually $20-$25/hr. H-1B mandates require them to only show they couldn't hire Americans to fill the jobs; they aren't required to document the fact that they don't pay reasonable rates.

* Because there are so many unfilled jobs and so few "qualified" Americans to fill them, the third-party job shops are setting up facilities in their home countries, like India, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore, etc., and funneling jobs off-shore this way.

Issues that are complicating things, and that will lead to a steady increase in off-shore hiring trends, are:

* enrollment in Engineering and Computer Science programs in America is at the lowest levels in history. Kids over the past decade have seen that their parents cannot find work in these fields, so they are staying away in droves.

* something like 60% or more of students in American Graduate Schools working on Masters and PhDs in Engineering and Comp Sci are FOREIGNERS.

* the US DOD and their contractors are the largest single employer of American Engineers and Comp Sci graduates. They don't pay to send these people back to grad school, and they cannot hire foreign natioinals. When combined with the overall drop in enrollments, their hiring practices are virtually gutting American Grad Schools of American students.

* to make matters worse, virtually no American corporations are spending anything on helping their American employees get Masters and PhD degrees. Most spending is going towards MBAs.

* American software companies spend far more on lobbying Congress to get H-1B quotas raised then they spend on educational programs on "job retraining" for unemployed Americans.

* right-wing conservative politicians are only making things worse by proposing to eliminate tax incentives, job retraining programs, and meager subsidies that would serve to make more unemployed Americans "qualified" to be hired by American employers with unfilled job positions.

While I totally believe that IT jobs will expand over the next decade, I don't see any particular end to the job shortage in the programming world. Economic pressures and short-sightedness are driving them to become increasingly reliant on off-shore facilities for software development.

Interestingly, most IT jobs cannot be out-sourced. But programming jobs can be.

Anyway, Forrester's white papers are very self-serving, in that they are designed to collect information from industry and present it in ways that will encourage these same companies to hire them in a consulting capacity to deal with the very problems that they report in their publications.

-David

Hey David,

Good to see you back around here...

Software is going to be huge but I think the problem with American software engineers is going to be solved by a major entrepreneurial boom in software. Most of the software guys I know are "tweakers and testers" meaning they're always learning something to grow their skill base. Just seems like they have a bug up their ass in this regard (good thing).

The amount of super intelligence softwares is going to make current CRM systems look ancient. AI combined with computers that learn/evolve will make robotics practical and then it's going to be 100% entrepreneurial.

I'm 25 right now and by the time I'm 40, I expect most factories to be 100% automated in America so we can compete with Chinese manufacturing (they are moving up the value chain after all) and that people will go to special "entrepreneurial charter schools" that funnel kids out of "college" but rather into "hustle and move" business world.

Software people can make it...but most MBA education is utter garbage. It doesn't teach business. Getting in front of 100 clients and pitching them over and over does (amongst many other activities).

Evolution of the American business environment I guess.

Cheers,

Brad