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US Job Outlook for Software Developers, Quality Assurance Analysts, and Testers

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Re: US Job Outlook for Software Developers, Quality Assurance Analysts, and Testers

#41

Post by pirate787 »

fnordpiglet wrote: post #30
dc-programmer wrote: post #2

“Software developers, quality assurance analysts, and testers typically need a bachelor’s degree in computer and information technology or a related field. Some employers prefer to hire developers who have a master’s degree.“ Interesting that the government continues to peddle credentialism for software developers. I personally think a CS degree is still a strong positive signal but it’s hardly a requirement anymore

Anymore? In 1995 I worked full time at Netscape without a college degree and had a good career in the valley. I eventually went to UIUC in CS as an late student. It allowed me to get jobs I couldn’t, but not in the software area - I didn’t know advanced math, and I learned it at school, and worked at the intersection. There has been opportunities without degrees throughout my 30 years, but there are some opportunitie…

It is changing -- a CS degree is far more of a requirement today than the 1990s.

Re: US Job Outlook for Software Developers, Quality Assurance Analysts, and Testers

#42

Post by bergenty »

philipov wrote: post #29
tra3 wrote: post #23

I've been startled to find out that the global population is stabilizing or is actually reducing [0]. To me that means that any shortages that are apparent now (and Software Dev shortage has been trumpeted about for years) will continue into the future. If you look at the demographics of US [1], you see that dip below the age of 30, so there are fewer folks coming online to take the jobs of the people retiring. Of co…

If it's a global trend, immigration isn't going to fix that. At least, not in the long-term.

Not in the very long term but it will fix the issue atleast for the next 100.

Re: US Job Outlook for Software Developers, Quality Assurance Analysts, and Testers

#43

Post by minsc_and_boo »

aliasxneo wrote: post #26
dc-programmer wrote: post #2

“Software developers, quality assurance analysts, and testers typically need a bachelor’s degree in computer and information technology or a related field. Some employers prefer to hire developers who have a master’s degree.“ Interesting that the government continues to peddle credentialism for software developers. I personally think a CS degree is still a strong positive signal but it’s hardly a requirement anymore

I would say it's a soft requirement in most cases. One must be prepared for an extra uphill battle trying to secure a job without one. As someone who just broke into the industry this month (with no degree), my biggest assets were an existing portfolio of work and leveraging my ten years of professional experience working on complex/critical problems in various fields. I don't think this is strictly related to softwa…

Right. I would also say that this is more of a symptom of university degrees being a title system, rather than strongly signalling candidates' capabilities.

Re: US Job Outlook for Software Developers, Quality Assurance Analysts, and Testers

#44

Post by Test0129 »

aliasxneo wrote: post #26
dc-programmer wrote: post #2

“Software developers, quality assurance analysts, and testers typically need a bachelor’s degree in computer and information technology or a related field. Some employers prefer to hire developers who have a master’s degree.“ Interesting that the government continues to peddle credentialism for software developers. I personally think a CS degree is still a strong positive signal but it’s hardly a requirement anymore

I would say it's a soft requirement in most cases. One must be prepared for an extra uphill battle trying to secure a job without one. As someone who just broke into the industry this month (with no degree), my biggest assets were an existing portfolio of work and leveraging my ten years of professional experience working on complex/critical problems in various fields. I don't think this is strictly related to softwa…

I'm not convinced of the uphill battle of securing a job. Credentials seem to matter in that they modify the gradient you advance in ranks with. I have a degree. It has certainly helped the speed at which I advanced. But I don't believe it helped me actually get the job. My first job was 10 years ago and it still wasn't that big of a deal to not have one at most jobs.

However, government jobs almost always have a hard degree requirement. I'm not sure why this is. I wouldn't take government jobs as representative of the industry.

Re: US Job Outlook for Software Developers, Quality Assurance Analysts, and Testers

#45

Post by bushbaba »

dc-programmer wrote: post #2

“Software developers, quality assurance analysts, and testers typically need a bachelor’s degree in computer and information technology or a related field. Some employers prefer to hire developers who have a master’s degree.“ Interesting that the government continues to peddle credentialism for software developers. I personally think a CS degree is still a strong positive signal but it’s hardly a requirement anymore

When 99% of the workers in the space have a degree, it’s a fair statement.

Re: US Job Outlook for Software Developers, Quality Assurance Analysts, and Testers

#46

Post by kube-system »

dc-programmer wrote: post #2

“Software developers, quality assurance analysts, and testers typically need a bachelor’s degree in computer and information technology or a related field. Some employers prefer to hire developers who have a master’s degree.“ Interesting that the government continues to peddle credentialism for software developers. I personally think a CS degree is still a strong positive signal but it’s hardly a requirement anymore

That statement is 100% accurate. One does typically need a related bachelors to be considered for a typical software job.

There are absolutely places with more progressive hiring practices, but this is not the norm. If you apply to XYZ Corp in any random city or town, they will have “bachelors in computer science or related degree” in the requirements section of the job posting.

Re: US Job Outlook for Software Developers, Quality Assurance Analysts, and Testers

#47

Post by adra »

icedchai wrote: post #33

The last few companies I've worked for had zero testers or QA analysts. Testing was a side job for developers and product folks.

This is certainly a data point, but there are a bunch of companies that have qa. The one thing I'll say is that there seems to be an inversion between was and fast ci/cd. When you have people turning over production worthy code daily, the idea of having dedicated resources to "check your work" kinda falls over. Anyone with sufficiently critical systems and doing regular deployments needs to be able to verify their changes as streamlined as possible, and using QA a staff with their own sets of problems, managers, standards, etc. seems to contradict the "ship it fast(if we need to)" mentality in ci/cd shops.

That said, there's room to help devs in this world, and I'm not entirely sure if this is a lack of software, or a need for a human in the mix, but there's certainly gaps that can be filled to help the quality of releases that go out the door in these shops.

Re: US Job Outlook for Software Developers, Quality Assurance Analysts, and Testers

#48

Post by Test0129 »

minsc_and_boo wrote: post #43
aliasxneo wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say it's a soft requirement in most cases. One must be prepared for an extra uphill battle trying to secure a job without one. As someone who just broke into the industry this month (with no degree), my biggest assets were an existing portfolio of work and leveraging my ten years of professional experience working on complex/critical problems in various fields. I don't think this is strictly related to softwa…

Right. I would also say that this is more of a symptom of university degrees being a title system, rather than strongly signalling candidates' capabilities.

As an emphasis of your point consider the two statements

"Our engineering is backed by MIT graduates"

"Our engineering is backed by the best engineers"

One sounds a LOT better to a client. It's a lot easier to sell a product when you can lean on an actual credential than a vague superlative. Even if your vague superlative is absolutely true.

Re: US Job Outlook for Software Developers, Quality Assurance Analysts, and Testers

#49

Post by mywittyname »

aliasxneo wrote: post #26
dc-programmer wrote: post #2

“Software developers, quality assurance analysts, and testers typically need a bachelor’s degree in computer and information technology or a related field. Some employers prefer to hire developers who have a master’s degree.“ Interesting that the government continues to peddle credentialism for software developers. I personally think a CS degree is still a strong positive signal but it’s hardly a requirement anymore

I would say it's a soft requirement in most cases. One must be prepared for an extra uphill battle trying to secure a job without one. As someone who just broke into the industry this month (with no degree), my biggest assets were an existing portfolio of work and leveraging my ten years of professional experience working on complex/critical problems in various fields. I don't think this is strictly related to softwa…

I spent the first ten or so years of my career without a degree. And I can say with certainty that jobs are substantially easier to come by now that I have a CS degree.

I'm not sure if this is still the case for people, but I faced a lot of discrimination from management over my lack of degree. Especially managers who "inherited" me. Some of it was petty too, like all the other devs on my team were software "engineers" but since I lacked a degree, I was a software "developer". AFAIK, it wasn't a salary thing either.

It's not difficult to get a degree, especially if you have experience in the field. So I would say that it's worth it.

Re: US Job Outlook for Software Developers, Quality Assurance Analysts, and Testers

#50

Post by BlargMcLarg »

bergenty wrote: post #42
philipov wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's a global trend, immigration isn't going to fix that. At least, not in the long-term.

Not in the very long term but it will fix the issue atleast for the next 100.

Unfortunately, it also exacerbates the problem for other countries.

Unless remote anywhere becomes widespread. Then it is both other countries and US salaries.

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