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Never thought I'd consider a career in programming but it didn't occur to me that this is something I could do and would be interested in. I work in a tech company doing something else and I was helping out a bit with building a website. I had actually been messing around with HTML a bit when I was 14, making websites for my interests, but I never saw it as programming. I saw programming as nerdy and too difficult. But I'm starting to think building things are cool. I'm almost 30 so if I do a career change I hope to keep that career for the next 20-30 years. Another reason I didn't want to go into programming is because I thought India was getting all the jobs. Hard to tell what the market will look like in 20-30 years especially if a lot of younger people these days know how to code from a very young age.
From my experience, the job outlook is great. Don't let headlines about H1-B workers displacing Americans deceive you. I've been in this business since 2001, and never had an issue finding a job. Same for my spouse who is also a programmer.
One thing I can't stress enough: you will be learning constantly. I'm on my 5th or 6th programming language (and I had to use multiple all the time - some scripting language with SQL, or C# and VB.Net at the same time (plus SQL), then moved on to proprietary languages), and I'm on my second ERP platform, after going into ERP 9 years ago.
My spouse is probably even more diverse. He recently got his dream job in robotics, but he was doing his side projects in this area for years, just as a hobby, while making a living as a web developer.
If you can dream and think in code and enjoy it, you will always be in high demand.
Not nearly over-saturated in Atlanta. The sooner we Americans can stop thinking of things as being "nerdy" the better we will be. I've talked to people across the globe and I swear the majority of folks who think of careers with those stereotypes are primarily Americans. In the US we all strive to be the next winner of American Idol or QB...
Not nearly over-saturated in Atlanta. The sooner we Americans can stop thinking of things as being "nerdy" the better we will be. I've talked to people across the globe and I swear the majority of folks who think of careers with those stereotypes are primarily Americans. In the US we all strive to be the next winner of American Idol or QB...
I don't think the nerdy aspect of it is the problem. It takes a special kind of person to want to stare at lines of code all day. You also need to have an above-average IQ which excludes a lot of the population.
And I'm happy many people aspire to be in the performing arts or athletes. How boring things would be if all of us were just drones who sit in front of screens all day.
Maybe it's my location but I'm struggling with a comp sci degree. Got maybe 2 interviews out of 100+ resumes. Some rejections stem from me not being a local which hurts my chances further. I want to move away from AZ yet I'm told to wait until a job is lined up. I'm pretty confident in my skills I can make it work though.
I don't think the nerdy aspect of it is the problem. It takes a special kind of person to want to stare at lines of code all day. You also need to have an above-average IQ which excludes a lot of the population.
And I'm happy many people aspire to be in the performing arts or athletes. How boring things would be if all of us were just drones who sit in front of screens all day.
Please. Most of the programmers at my office are not drones. Yes, they are smart but they spent the time to get what is needed (a degree in something that is useful). There are loads of jobs in the industry- well paying positions. Too many kids put their eggs in the basket of a make it rich schemes (American Idol). It's part of what's wrong in our culture.
I view coding as a secondary "as needed" skill, I could not imagine staring at code all day every day, I would probably become a mad hatter and walk into traffic or out into the woods. If there is some special need to write a macro I will do that but it is for a specific need and not done very often.
One of these days I will undertake writing my own CAM software and/or my own FEM software and that will probably take 100's of hours even piggy backing off of open source code.
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