Do you really want to be making this much money when you're 50?

New York state or New Jersey versus North Dakota right now might be a better analogy than Manhattan for a wildcatter. Sure, there are probably wells in NY and NJ, but the big money is in ND.

Execution: Generally no. There are sub-contractors, out-sourcing, COTS, etc. And there may be a program management team of companies.

Software only: The three I've worked on, no. Hardware, software, "mechanisms".

Outside of NASA: Yes, although the US government probably has the lock on the sheer number of such programs. Chip-makers, with fab plants, are one sector. Vehicle manufacturers (planes, trains and automobiles) are another. Construction--especially massive high-rises--is probably another.

http://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/c...

2010 Median Pay $71,380 per year $34.32 per hour

Number of Jobs, 2010 363,100

Job Outlook, 2010-20 12% (About as fast as average)

Computer systems design and related services 32%

Information 12

Finance and insurance 7

Administrative and support services 6

Government 5

Especially worth a look:

http://americawhatwentwrong.org/story/programming-jobs-fall/

"Over and over, Americans are told that education is the key to their job future. The more education you have, the better your shot at getting a job that pays middle-income wages to take care of your family. If we as a nation are better educated, the theory goes, we’ll be able to compete more effectively in the global economy, which in turn will generate more good jobs for everyone.

But some major flaws in this theory are playing out today in a field that was once thought to have the brightest future — information technology...

...In its 1990 Occupational Outlook Handbook, the U.S. Department of Labor was especially bullish: “The need for programmers will increase as businesses, government, schools and scientific organizations seek new applications for computers and improvements to the software already in use [and] further automation . . . will drive the growth of programmer employment.” The report predicted that the greatest demand would be for programmers with four years of college who would earn above-average salaries.

Computer programming jobs decline

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics Credits: Julie Snider, Investigative Reporting Workshop In 2000, the Labor Department predicted America would have 839,000 computer programming jobs by 2008. The department warned of competition from "programming businesses overseas where much routine work can be outsourced at a lower cost," but was nonetheless confident that "jobs for both systems and applications programmers should be plentiful." Things didn't quite work out that way. The number of programming jobs has fallen steadily, in part because of outsourcing.

When Labor made these projections in 1990, there were 565,000 computer programmers. With computer usage expanding, the department predicted that “employment of programmers is expected to grow much faster than the average for all occupations through the year 2005 . . .”

It didn’t. Employment fluctuated in the years following the report, then settled into a slow downward pattern after 2000. By 2002, the number of programmers had slipped to 499,000. That was down 12 percent–not up–from 1990. Nonetheless, the Labor Department was still optimistic that the field would create jobs–not at the robust rate the agency had predicted, but at least at the same rate as the economy as a whole.

Wrong again. By 2006, with the actual number of programming jobs continuing to decline, even that illusion couldn’t be maintained. With the number of jobs falling to 435,000, or 130,000 fewer than in 1990, Labor finally acknowledged that jobs in computer programming were “expected to decline slowly.” "