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There are plenty of jobs, but there's an enormous "tech gutter" that you can end up in if you aren't competitive enough to get hired as a real employee of a lucrative tech company like AMZN, GOOG, NFLX, MSFT, FB, etc.
If you do the following, then you can get hired at one of the lucrative tech companies:
Get a CS degree from a reputable program
Get a good GPA
Work 1 or 2 internships at one of the lucrative tech companies
Study the Crack the Coding Interview book and in general prepare to sell yourself as a young, bright, motivated individual who wants to do hands-on programming and knows how to throw around CS buzzwords like "Linked List" and "Hash Table" and knows how to throw around industry buzzwords/phrases like "Reinvent the wheel", "Quick and dirty solution", "Deploy", "Scale up", etc.
Apply at the lucrative companies during your senior year of college
It also helps if:
You're woman or racial minority
You're willing to work as a Program Manager
The tech gutter is when you don't have the qualifications necessary to get hired at one of those lucrative companies and so you take some 2nd-rate gig that then tarnishes your resume and burns you out. It's a self-perpetuating problem because the longer you don't work at a lucrative company, the less likely lucrative companies are to look at your resume in the future.
And yes, it's getting more competitive because there are over 1 billion people in India and almost all of them study IT-related fields and already have 10 years of experience when they come over here. Not just India, but also Russia and other Eastern European nations.
How does it help if you are a woman or a racial minority? Maybe helps means you can get paid less to do the same or more skilled work with more education and/qualifications?
OP if you are planning to become anything in IT, please know that this one of the fields where:
1. Employers are actively outsourcing and planning to outsource to reduce wages.
2. The government is encouraging tons of people to join (at the behest of companies, who claim there is a worker shortage) to reduce wages.
3. There is no union or professional organization to protect the rights of the workers in the field.
If you will be a programmer, then you will work hard and damage your eyes and wrists (esp if you do a lot of Windows-related work and use a mouse). It is also not too good for your health over time, as there is generally a lot of sitting involved. I can't really concentrate well when I'm standing for some reason. It is mentally challenging work, and if you will not have job security or a good work environment, I'd think twice about doing it as a career, unless you really love programming.
If I were you, I'd go into a field with a good professional association. For example, medicine or physical therapy. If you become a surgeon, you can make upwards of 600K per year. This is a lot even with malpractice insurance and other costs. The AMA also fights on behalf of the members to ensure there are lucrative jobs available and decent working conditions for members.
In my experience, some of the developers from India are good, and some are bad. As in very bad. But it doesn't matter because they are cheaper than American workers. At least for now.
Last edited by kinkytoes; 02-29-2016 at 06:29 PM..
While the article dates from 2013, the source is accurate and respectable - and things haven't improved that much since then, what with the basic blow-out of all the jobs gained in that short-lived energy bubble.
Long story short, any industry that graduates more people in its field per year than there are job openings in that field does NOT have a shortage. Of course, having all those extra grads lying around does help lower salaries and allow companies to be insanely picky about who they hire, so there's that advantage to promoting the "STEM shortage" myth if you're a big business.
That being said, when it comes to career advise, STEM - as bad as it is - is still one of the better options since too many other things are either vanishing entirely or heading to the realm of part-time, minimum wage work in our new, employment-free society. Good luck.
IT and programming are not the same, they may overlap here and there but they are two different professions.
Do you work in human resources?, you sound like one
Programming is just a skill. You can be a programmer in the field of IT. You can be a programmer in the field of engineering. You can be a programmer in the field of computer science.
If you're programming IT systems (business software, for example), you're an IT programmer.
Very few people are going to end up working for marquee names like Google, Apple, and Facebook. For the rest of us, there are plenty of companies doing routine business that need IT staff. A lot of those folks like their jobs. In fact, I wouldn't want to be at the prestigious companies because pressure is going to be that much greater.
Thanks! That's very reassuring.
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Maybe helps means you can get paid less to do the same or more skilled work with more education and/qualifications? 
