Job Responsibilities
System requirements, prototyping, application development,
integration, testing and analysis. I also trouble shoot
applications and work on database maintenance, as well as the
occassional database migration either from one version to the
next or from one system to another(ie. MS Access to Oracle). My
general day to day work includes a few minutes working on status
reports, hours of code modifications and hours of testing, just
to make sure that one fix does not cause another problem. From
time to time, I also produce user's guides and test plans. I
like to keep busy.
|
Job Requirements
Just about any degree will boost you into this career, but to
stay on top in this career, you have to have a very logical
brain and a thirst to learn new things. Information technogy is
changing and evolving every day. If you aren't willing to
change and evolve with it, you are going to end up out of work
very quickly. There is no longer a career niche in this
business. You have to be studying and learning new things
constantly. And you have to be willing to pay for it yourself
these days. Companies no longer seem to be willing to foot the
bill. It is cheaper for them to replace someone to get the
right skill set than it is for them to train their own people.
|
Uppers
There is a huge sense of accomplishment when you write code and it works. Once
you deliver a well done project and see all of the happy users of your product,
it feels like a million bucks. Even day to day achievements can be very
rewarding, especially if you develop a feeling of respect with the group that you
are working with.
|
Downers
When things go wrong, they can go very wrong. Generally, if a
network has a problem, the first person to blame is the
programmer. It can be pretty rough until you can 'prove' that
the problem came from the outside. In my experience, it is
usually the data at fault, but this just leaves you with
something else to have to write a fix for. So that when the data
problem, this unforeseen happenstance happens again, the code
will be prepared for it and the code will not go down again
because of it.
Then there is always the red tape and the office politics. The
paper work just as it is in other fields can be horrendous.
|
Lifestyle
The work hours can be 8 to 5 or any other combination of hours that your
employer needs. It can be a straight 40 hour week or many hours of overtime. It
is not predictable in this field. There may or may not be business travel.
Company social events used to be very good, but in recent years, it is been the
first thing companies have been cutting back on. Dress code is usually business
casual; no jeans or T-shirts. The diversity is wide and varied. It used to be a
man's field, but has opened up more and more over the years to include women in
droves. There are still more positions at the top being held by men. This is
just one more opportunity for future women to work harder for. I look at it as a
positive rather than a negative.
|
Compensation
Depending on your skill level of course, you can make anywhere
starting from 40k on up to 150k in this field. I am just about
in the middle of that range. In the past few years, I have
found contracts ranging from $32/hour to $48/hour, but I have
been unable to find a contract longer than 15 months or
permanent. And the work is not consistent.
I was heading up and up until the slow down in the field at the
start of this century; And the advent of outsourcing.
Outsourcing has hit this field hard. Eventually with code 'do-
overs', misinterpretations of specifications, lack of coding
standards, trips to overseas offices to straighten things out
and contract overruns, corporations are going to realize that
they are not saving money by outsourcing. Having things done
here more quickly, correctly and according to specs and
standards is going to finally, someday win out. Then the tide
will turn back around to using the locals. That may not be soon
enough for some of us though.
Again depending on you skill set, there can be huge bonuses and
stock options. Usually, unless you are an independent
contractor, this job comes with the standard benefits; health
care, life insurance, vision and dental.
|
Advice to Jobseekers
Frankly, unless you are set on being a developer, I would say
that getting a masters and aiming toward management is the best
goal in this field today. It may take years before the
outsourcing trend is broken. They are hiring managers right
now, but the field today is glutted with unemployed or
struggling developers.
|
|
