Re: Miller Compressing Opportunity - Programmer/Analyst

Mike writes:

I have been learning the web technologies, PHP, MySQL, HTML, JavaScript,
Flash etc., and the contracts and jobs I see there pay miniscule amounts.
Plus there are tons more programmers in the world who can do them so the
competition is incredible.

(rant)
And as someone else who works with PHP, MySQL, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, etc., I have found the same to be true. Other candidates may not have the experience in writing GOOD, RELIABLE code, but that doesn't seem to matter - only cost matters. It doesn't matter if their code works reliably or not, as long as the project comes in under budget. Then again, even the newly educated Computer Science majors don't seem to be getting great salaries in today's job market.

I've been doing a lot of photography, and in the process I've found that there are MANY people from the IT world who are either in front of or behind a camera. Perhaps "digital photography" is part of the reason. Being able to code your own solutions to work flow problems is certainly an advantage - too bad I can't seem to make money from it, but then that's because everyone expects "free code."

This past summer I photographed a model who is working on her graduate degree - a Masters in Computer Science. She worked all sorts of odd jobs while getting her undergraduate Computer Science degree from a well-respected university. Some of her jobs were bar tending, being a restaurant hostess, working as a receptionist at a doctors office, working at a copy/fax/express shipping store, and writing PHP or Cold Fusion code for faculty members web sites.

Then one day a photographer saw her at a shopping mall, told her she looked like a model, and gave her his business card. A month later she called him (broke), he took some pictures of her, and she started her modeling career. While the work was inconsistent in volume, it paid a lot better than any of her other jobs, and it gave her more study time, so she embraced modeling (mostly catalog and figure work).

Upon graduation she took a low-paying web commerce site developer job, where she was one of 12 software developers. The job paid poorly so she modeled some on weekends to make ends meet. Then the company she worked for outsourced the IS department, and she and all but two employees were let go - a 19 person shop became a 2 person shop.

Today she is finishing her masters in computer science, modeling, and working as an independent contractor developing web sites for small businesses, models, and art galleries. Modeling pays her bills. And while she is only months away from getting her masters in CS, she knows it won't get her a good job as she has too many unemployed friends who are CS majors. So she plans to continue modeling and go back to school and work towards a business degree with a specialty in marketing.

I've seen her web site work, and I'm quite impressed by it. It is fully-functional, bug-free (it has survived everything I've thrown at it), very artistic, very easy to navigate and use, secure, and fast. And she can put up a web site in no time. And yet she can't find a salaried job that pays a decent wage.

As Mike said, there tons of programmers out in the world today. Most live in places with a much lower cost of living than the US. Today's mature talent in the US and even young talent in the US just can't compete (cost-wise) with the 16 year old Russian (or Indian, or .....). If this trend continues, pretty soon programming will be a dying art in the US, as no US resident will be able to make a living as a programmer.

Is that a good thing?
(end rant)

John

At 2007-10-29 06:31 PM, serasoft wrote:
Well with the Indians (with a dot) flooding the market and the Russians and
Chinese and Uzbekistan's and the like offering programming services for $2
per day, is it any wonder? The programming world sucks. Whatever is once
was is no more, unless you have a nice little niche and are invisible to
upper management; then I give you a few more years.

I have been learning the web technologies, PHP, MySQL, HTML, JavaScript,
Flash etc., and the contracts and jobs I see there pay miniscule amounts.
Plus there are tons more programmers in the world who can do them so the
competition is incredible.

I don't know who to blame for all this, Republicans, Democrats, they are all
alike, they don't care. The only job I see as 100% safe is that of a US
senator: A lawyer making laws that affect everyone else, but not them. Even
beats a president because you can stay there forever.

Just my rant, please forgive me.

Mike


-----Original Message-----
From: HP-3000 Systems Discussion [mailto:HP3000-L@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf
Of Brian Donaldson
Sent: Monday, October 29, 2007 5:37 PM
To: HP3000-L@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [HP3000-L] Miller Compressing Opportunity - Programmer/Analyst

<<snip>>

How can you, along with several other programmers who've posted a recent
note asking for a job, be unemployed? I have seen over a dozen HP3K
programmer jobs out on monster and careerbuilder lately.

>>

Are you serious? These so-called HP3000 job "opportunities" are just a ruse.

I've been down the Monster.Com road. It's useless.

These companies may advertise for "HP3000 skills" but they are *not* wanting

HP3000 skills primarily -- they want VB, SQL, C#, whatever, whatever, so on
and so on. The HP3000 skill set is secondary to these PC oriented skills
which
is what they are really looking for.

You can have 3000 years of HP3000 experience but you are *not* getting the
job if you don't have these PC skills which they are really looking for.

My original posting was not a dig at this company up in WI, but at all of
these
companies in general.

Moreover, most of them are in snow, fog and ice environments and they are
not offering much/sufficient in salary or relocation costs as an incentive
to
make it worthwhile to relocate there.

I have also noticed that most of these "opportunities" are short term
contracts
and do not offer anything stable at all. Especially, the dinky little
companies
who will fire you for any reason at a moments notice and not even blink.

Been there, done that. Never again.

Gotta win that lottery......

Brian Donaldson.

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John
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