Also: "In a 2018 paper, he and colleagues showed that only about 60 to 70% of US computing and engineering graduates land jobs in STEM, dropping to between 10 and 50% for those studying life sciences, physical sciences and maths."
I can't imagine that someone whose sole credential in software engineering is a three month course is going to be offered any amount that is too low for their current skill level. You are basically hiring someone to train on the job. That can work out well for both parties, but imagining that 3 months of training makes you worth $100k per year is delusional.
AND
only about 60 to 70% of US computing and engineering graduates land jobs in STEM
I don't know man?
The implication there is that there exist up to 30-40% of new computing and engineering grads who on the one hand are without jobs in STEM, and on the other are willing to leave the STEM jobs that offer lower wages on the table.
It's been decades since I was a new STEM grad, but I still remember being a new grad. Only my opinion, but I feel something else must be going on.
When I graduated with a CS degree in '07 (US) the first job offer I received was for $25k. I was so angry at that offer. I told the hiring manager that I couldn't possibly work for less than $35k they scoffed at that, I told them no thanks. I could make more money flipping burgers.
I kept looking for work.
Had another offer for $32k with one week of vacation a year, and no health care.
It took me over a year to land my first gig, only making $45k a year. No job since has paid me more.
I had phone interviews that last for less than two minutes because I didn't have industry experience when the posting clearly no experience needed/ will train.
I've had my time wasted by recruiters who send me to interviews that I'm not qualified for.
Interviewed with Amazon at one point, got invited to onsite interview, when my contact ghosted me while trying to arrange travel.
I've worked some programming jobs, all of them have been horrible in their own way. Alcoholics, cliques and fiefdoms, to being left to my own devices working alone often forgotten.
At this point my wife thinks its time for me to go back to school and get another degree, leave programming behind. I love computers. I'm a good programmer. I have no idea what I would do if I wasn't in technology.
What frustrates me the most, is the number of people I know in my personal life, that never got programming degrees that are now well paid programmers. All of them have degrees in non engineering fields, started non programming jobs that turned into programming jobs because they needed something coded up.
The second thing that frustrates me is the sheer number of people that I have interacted with that have pulled the ladder up behind them once they make it out.
It is frustrating knowing I am a good programmer and seeing bad programmers getting well paying jobs.
I guess where I'm trying to go with this, is that for some of us, we just can't seem to get ahead. Maybe we are just unlucky. Maybe we have been beaten down by the interview process or jobs and we don't want to deal with it anymore.
I know for a fact that had I just taken a regular 9-5 non-stem job I'd be ahead of where I am right now. And what scares me is the thought that if I keep trying, I might not ever do better in STEM.... I love STEM...
1) You've gotten unlucky i.e. each job you've applied to had a 5% acceptance rate, and you've just happened to roll 1-19 out of 20, n times in a row. If this is the case, keep your head down and apply to more places. .95^30 > 20% but .95^90 < 1%
2) You're not applying to the right places. There are literally thousands of startups that would kill to hire a good, remote software engineer for $45K. Take a look at workatastartup.com
3) You're not actually a good programmer. This may sound harsh, but some of us don't have the points of reference to accurately determine how our skillset stacks up against others.
4) You're not easy to get along with or manage. When hiring for junior positions, companies are less likely to put up with jerks than for senior positions.
I realize some of this may sound harsh. My intention is to help you.
My advice is to apply to startups and offer to work for free for a month. Do this 3 times, and there's almost no chance you will not get an offer if you're good programmer who's easy to get along with.
5) You might be a good programmer but your skillset in terms of technology stack(s) might not match up with what employers/recruiters are looking for.
We interviewed a junior dev a couple of years back who had exclusively RPM and mainframe experience. We're a .NET/C#/SQL Server/TypeScript/React shop, with a bit of R and Python thrown in outside of the core technology team.
I couldn't work out whether he couldn't get his head round our pair programming task (which isn't any kind of ridiculous invert a red/black tree type whiteboard problem) because he wasn't a good programmer or because the mental model was so different to what he was used to, and he really seemed to struggle with C#. I didn't give him a job because I thought the risk of having to let him go during probation was too high, which would have sucked given that he'd have been leaving a steady job to join us.
Contrast this with another interviewee who was a nurse, and a self-taught programmer, who really did seem to get it. He nailed our assessments, and we made him an offer. He joined us and has worked out really well.
It's not that I'm against hiring people with mismatched skills, or from an unusual professional background - far from it - but I need to see some glimmer of a good match during the selection process, particularly if somebody would be leaving stable employment to join us (not that we're unstable, but there's the probation period to successfully navigate) and/or - not really an issue now we're all WFH - they're planning to relocate to work with us.
Yes, welcome to the real world of employment where your ability to network, sell yourself well, make your boss happy, be likable and play the politics game is what will make you successful rather than your ability to 1337 code.
I know it's bitter, and most don't like to admit this, but tech is by no means a meritocracy even though the PR likes to make it one.
However, humans are social creatures, and we get things done by cooperating with eachother, so I think it's fair to argue that those social skills are also pretty important for building software.
Like any other social activity or grouping, that can work well, or it can be toxic, but the need for those social skills as a software engineer isn't inherently evil. Likewise, the fact that people with "better" social skills often "do better" isn't necessarily wrong either because those skills are incredibly important for any cooperative endeavour, and particularly for leadership.
Rural Kansas dev might aspire to 45k but even then. I think they might just live in a small town and don’t want to look for work elsewhere. Which is fine, just know the salary comes with the territory. Half the reasons tech pays what it does is because a lot of the jobs are in expensive cities.
Current city has repressed wages across the board. It's a place with a "low cost of living" and several universities that pump out local students who want to stay here at any cost and a very healthy foreign worker scene.
Currently, I'm willing to move.
There were a ton of issues on my part and things I still don’t understand and can only ascribe to chronic poor luck, though I won’t go into it all in this particular comment. I make better money now, more than most people my age probably make on average, but probably significantly less than most developers with similar experience. I probably won’t be able to recover the rough start which is likely annoying seeming as for the amount of money I’m likely to cap out at I probably could have done something much more interesting.
You might be surprised. The salaries reported in this forum are higher than normal, because of the large membership from the west coast/FAANG.
Here in the DC suburbs, I'd expect a non-FAANG developer without a TS/poly to earn $100k-$150k (straight out of college, more like $85k-$100k). Add a TS/poly, working in a SCIF for a 3-letter agency or military, add $20k-$50k to the ends of that range. Yes, many earn more, either working for a FAANG in the area, or in niche areas, or in some sort of management/ownership/partnership arrangement (BAH consultants, etc).
I'd say unless you have really experienced it first hand, or know someone who has, it is hard explaining to others how having a short stent of misfortune can really snowball and keep you down. As much as we hear the great fortune of those that get lucky at the right time, we never hear about those that miss out at the wrong time.
So, I get it. I just don’t get the part where it seems like you’ve given up.
Could you expand on that?
I've seen this happen many times. Not just to friends, but co-workers and people that I have met along the way.
In one case I had a friend who was hired by a former classmate to a local firm. After a year there they started hiring more programmers company wide. This friend refused to interview people who had graduated from our department or pass along resumes. Instead they started hiring other people from non-engineering departments that they thought they could train to program. This guy is now a C-level and still refuses to hire people that graduated from our department.
I'd wager that it's just a feature of my particular network and people I've come across. As my partner is the opposite, and their network helps each other out.
I'm not doubting your story for an instant, but this is incredibly strange behaviour and not something I'd consider normal.
Companies I've worked at love hiring referrals because you generally get higher quality and skip all the hassle of dealing with external agencies, dozens or hundreds of applicants, etc. Something like half my team is made up of people I've worked with at other companies in the past - I was overjoyed when they applied for jobs with us - and I still keep a mental rolodex of people I was at university with 20 years ago who I'd be happy to work with.
Cambridge is a bit of an odd place, in that plenty of companies have a bias for Cambridge graduates. That's fine as far as it goes, but I'm generally happy to hear from anyone with a CS background from any university, and am absolutely open to other STEM graduates who demonstrate that they can do the work.
Employee from University X would make a referral for everyone from University X that would apply. And let me just say the signal to noise ratio from that institution was horrible to say the least.
With a real CS degree?
Obviously this isn't some top 40 program. Had I known then what I do now, I would have applied to some of those programs.
Back then, I wasn't aware of other programs or even names of universities known for computing (other than MIT). I came from a small town that didn't have many opportunities for kids interested in tech in the late 90's early 00's. So you pretty much went to one of the State Universities.
The large number of low salary jobs available doesn't mean there are any jobs for anyone not in the top quartile or many jobs someone in the top quartile should take.
If an engineering grad decides to become an actuary or management consultant or investment banker, that doesn't necessarily mean they couldn't find a STEM job.
- According to the 2011 NHS, only 29.7 per cent (67,045 out of 225,490) of employed individuals in Ontario with bachelor’s degrees or higher in engineering were working as engineers or engineering managers. A further 37 per cent (83,365 out of 225,490) worked in professional positions that normally require a university degree. In other words, only just over 65 per cent of employed Ontarians with engineering degrees were gainfully employed in professions that normally require or benefit from having a university degree.
- Those who were not working as engineers and were working in positions that don’t necessarily require a degree made up fully 33.3 per cent (75,090 out of 225,490) of the total.
So, as an engineering graduate, you are more likely to work in a job that does not require a degree, than in a job that requires an engineering degree.
https://www.ospe.on.ca/public/documents/advocacy/2015-crisis...
Engineering filters heavily for analytical skills and is math heavy.
I assumed it was professions that have a licensing requirement where you must have a specific degree (like having an MD to practice medicine) vs some areas of finances where you don't need a particular diploma to pass the required SEC exams or certifications.
https://noc.esdc.gc.ca/Structure/NocProfile/36841eebd34e457e...
https://noc.esdc.gc.ca/Structure/NocProfile/f9c47da9dd2644f3...
I'm sure there's a percentage of them enrolling in engineering with absolutely no intention of practicing it either.
Yes. And that percentage is 1%. Figure 1 in the linked report addresses this.
Intents of 2013 Ontario engineering students after graduation to work in engineering:
- 57% Yes, I definitely will
- 35% Yes, I probably will
- 7% No, I probably won’t
- 1% No, I definitely won’t
I've worked with incredible engineers from France... here in America. And yet the other day there was this poster whining he couldn't find great engineering talent in France.
He blamed it on French people being lazy, of course.