System iNetwork

I've been a programmer since 1990, knew I wanted to do this when I was in high school and it continues to be. Knowing first hand what offshoring is all about and having two daughters, I'm not sure what to tell them. My oldest daughter has expressed interest in game development, but I'm not sure it's an actual interest in developing them or just an interest in "gaming" in general. It's really a tough discussion because programming is what I love doing, but honestly I don't know of one college grad hired in the last few years doing programming where I work. The company either offshores all the work or they hire vendors that have been developing for us already.

Knowing how difficult it was trying to find an entry level programmer position in the early 90's being a college graduate, I can't imagine what it'll be like when she graduates in 10 years. If we continue on this pace, I honestly don't think they'll even be teaching computer science in anything but the largest colleges. It's funny how over the last 5 years I've heard more professionals talk about going to back to college to get a degree in something completely different from STEM degrees. Thanks to HGTV and the DIY network, I think construction contracting and horticulture are looking more hopeful... ;)

No, information technology is NOT a good field to get into.

The boom days are long gone.

Yes, I would recommend IT to any student who asked me. There are so many avenues in the field that if you are not happy with one aspect of it, try another. Being a "programmer" is not what it was 20 or 30 years ago. Go for the gusto and learn all the new stuff that is going on. . . . Businesses are looking for good rounded individuals who can do a variety of things. I have loved my 38 years of variety and look forward to several more with new things happening daily.

No, I wouldn't recommend a career in IT to my kids. (Who have no more interest in IT than they would in building toasters). I would recommend pursuing a degree in Accounting or Finance with the goal of becoming CFO. There is a lot more opportunity, and they'd end up running IT anyway. If anyone were interested in IT, I'd tell them to focus on a career of deploying IT as a business management tool, not being an application programmer. Or going into Computer Science/Engineering to build future system technology.

I would tell my kids to think about a career based on whether or not it could be outsourced. I would not necessarily point them to IT. But if they did want IT, I would steer them into project management. That seems to me to be the only area that doesn't get offshored [notice I am not saying CAN'T]. Programming can be offshored; systems admin can be offshored; PM can, but at that level, unless you are working with someone who has a very good grasp of English as well as how the company works internally, I think it would be difficult.

I would recommend something like teaching for instance, or maybe retail sales. I'd also steer them into the service sector, or a career that cannot be offshored easily, and certainly something that is not based on a commodity.

For example, I would not recommend getting into auto repair or auto body. There is no profit to be made there. My mechanic tells me that as cars get off lease, people trade them in. They don't break as often because people keep trading them in and so the cars on the road are newer and do not break down as often, which translates into less visits to the mechanic which are profitable. Oil changes are always needed, but how profitable is that?

I'm a female that started college in 1982 and learned RPGII on punch cards. I now work on an iSeries using RPG ILE with an all female programming department. We are a small company in Delaware, and only have 4 programmers. (No PC programmers, needed, yet).

But who would recommend this career to someone they knew least of all our daughters or neices? Long and odd solitary hours. Weekend hours because you just can't install stuff during peak user work hours. Calls in the middle of the night because some system crashed.

Add to that the PC wave that has made so many skills obsolete. iSeries programmers are going the way of BETA tapes. Quality was better, but something cheaper came along to blow it out of the water.

I've worked in IT for the last 25 years. The last thing I would tell my kid to get involved in is IT. As time has gone on the pressure to produce is higher the hours are longer and the wages are lower. I find that there is less job satisfaction as well. My daughter is seriously considering a trade. While the trades still tend to be male dominated they are opening up to women more and more. I am encouraging her to try a trade.

Computers vs Plumbing..



Recommend an IT career? No way!! I was in 3rd grade back in 1981. Back then everyone was saying that computers were the future. If you could learn computers, you would be in great demand and be rich rich rich!!



Hmmm, who would have known that plumbing would have been a better choice. I know that a plumber makes more per hour than I do. I have been continually learning new technologies for 20 years. It's either learn or die in this field. A plumber learns his trade and nothings changed too much over the last 1000 years of plumbing.



There is no threat of the govt offshoring plumbing jobs, saturating the market, and lowering their salaries to almost nothing. Plus, plumbers get overtime. IT/MIS workers are exempt. So we are always expected to work extra for free. (at least for no money)



And don't forget that we once saved the world by fixing the Y2K disaster. Nothing happened at the stroke of midnight because we all performed our jobs perfectly. Now it's a joke that it was overhyped and not a big deal. It WAS a big deal. We were all heroes...and we never even got a thank you for the world not screeching to a halt.



So yes children, if you want a thankless, stressful, job that is not secure and pays less every year even though you are always spending every moment of free time reading about a new technology so you can keep feeding your family for another 2 or 3 years... go into computers.



...or, if you want a high paying, secure, stress free job. Learn how to connect 2 pipes together.

I would not advise my daughter to consider an IT career - or my son, either, for that matter. As the previous post stated so eloquently, why would I want to steer my children into a career that requires unpaid night and weekend work, pressures them to do more with less, and could be outsourced to the other side of the world overnight? Granted, things aren't as bleak as that in every IT job in every location. But in my 31 years in the field, I have seen IT change from a highly desirable, respected field to the current situation. IT people see themselves as professionals, but many of our employers do not treat us that way. My son works in the health care field, and my daughter works for a nonprofit. They apparently learned something from all those nights, weekends, and special occasions when their father was at work instead of where he should have been: home with them.

I've been a programmer-analyst for 20+ years. I told both of my boys to stay away from technology and train for jobs that could not be easily offshored or H1b'd. Even project management is now being targeted for offshoring to India and China, which are working hard to meet that potential - so it won't end with just programming and engineering. This information is out there on the web.

My answer to this problem is to record a protest song about offshoring called Mad in America - you can get it at most download sites but it's free at http://www.madnamerica.com The website also has some of the latest information on offshoring and groups that are fighting it - that need your help. I've written many of these programming groups and unions about this issue and the song.

As more and more US jobs are taken by visa workers and offshoring consultants, frankly there won't be any incentive to stay in tech - either engineering or IT. Nothing that can be done with a telephone or computer is safe. This whole system of government making it cost effective to outsource needs to be changed so that its more cost effective for US companies to train and employ in the US. We are giving away our futures to make a fast buck. Bad enough we don't make things in the US anymore, soon we won't be designing them here either.

All of us need to get on board, and write congress because frankly NONE of the presidential candidates seem to be interested in a few programmers and engineers losing thier jobs. Maybe its time congress became worried about losing theirs. Get a copy of the song and send it to your congressman or woman with a note.

I gained an MIS degree from a state university in 2006, but have been in IT since 2004. I started in helpdesk for a mid-sized company and worked my way up to project management and earned a pretty penny in doing so.

In 2004, business intelligence was a new concept and a accurate and quickly-produced reporting application was worth its weight in gold to that company. I was simply in the right place at the right time and gained a tremendous amount of knowledge during the first three years of my career, the majority of which without as much as a college degree.

Now, I make a salary on par with the State average according to the census and I'm feeling a crunch. I've considered other IT jobs in the past year that have been in an iSeries shop, but even in 12 months I've seen programming salary offers decrease.

I've recently married, have no children...but I think if I did, I would encourage them to join a field that would allow them to be more human than working under flourescent lights 50 hours a week.

I see great value in the trade schools now, as the baby boomers (including iseries programmers) enjoy their retirement, they will always need plumbing work, a mechanic, a contractor to make their homes more 'senior friendly' etc etc.

I see programming and systems administration doing in the 2010's what Human resources has done in the past decade.

I've been an iSeries professional for 25 years, and absolutely not, I've discouraged my nephews and my daughters. 24/7/365 unpaid unrecognised house arrest, with a complaint if the phone isn't answered within three minutes. It's not just IT we do, we are the business helpdesk, and probably know more about how the business functions than any other person apart from the MD. The company want to buy the cheapest and expect the best, (not like in accounts, engineering, design, marketing, HR, Logistics). No career path, a dwindling work pool and rampant ageism. Forget IT.

IBM has done as much as possible to submarine the once-mighty AS/400. The money is gone from IT in general, at least for PAs in the USA, so I will tell my kids to become lawyers or Wall Street managers. America needs more people who don't really produce anything and make millions.

I've been working on IBM midrange systems as a consultant since 1979. And I still love what I do. So if you had asked me this question when my kids were younger, say early 90's, then I would've said yes. Since Y2k - the answer is now no. The threat of offshoring, demands of results w/fewer resources, ever-greater expectation levels, and reduced respect have made our chosen careers tougher than ever.

As a previous poster noted, I'd recommend a trade as well. I've told my son that. Just be good at what you do, be neat, return phone calls, and do what you say you'll do - and you'll have more work than you'll know what to do with. But if I could go back in time, I think I'd have a tough choice to make.

The villan is none other than:

http://www.bloggingstocks.com/2007/12/17/ibm-moves-more-jobs-to-india-and-china/

IBM moves more jobs to India and China

Posted Dec 17th 2007 9:10AM by Douglas McIntyre
Filed under: Competitive strategy, Google (GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT), Intel (INTC), India, China, International Business Machines (IBM)

The trend is not good if you are a tech worker at IBM (NYSE: IBM) in the US. By the end of this year, Big Blue will have 100,000 jobs in India, Russia, Brazil, and China. That number was closer to 85,000 just last year.

According to The Wall Street Journal, "this year, IBM's employment in India is likely to reach 73,000 people, up from 52,000 last year."

This is a cruel irony to the news. The US is still the world's center for hardware and software creation. Most innovations in these field still originate here. The world's largest chip-maker, Intel (NASDAQ: INTC), is an American company. The world largest software company, Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), was started in the US, as was the world's premier internet company, Google (NASDAQ: GOOG).

Yet, when it comes to economic benefits, many of the tech giants are moving jobs to India and China to get cheaper labor. While this may help their earnings, it hurts high-end employment in the US.

Created in America. Maintained and supported somewhere else. A bit of a tragedy.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

IT has become one of the most polarized and politicized jobs in the world. It's not for the faint of heart.

I'm a passive partner and shareholder in a small company that develops software for K-12 education. I recently withdrew from active partnership with the same company after struggling through nearly five years of internal debate over support for Java, RPG, J2EE, CGI, PHP, .Net, perl, 5250, Microsoft Access, off-shoring, and various other pet interests of the shareholders.

IT technology options and implementations are so broad and diverse, and new technologies are emerging at such an increasing rate, that it seems that most IT organizations struggle to maintain balance. We as an industry have overextended ourselves.

One of the most difficult and costly things for an IT organization is having to support, manage, and maintain disparate technologies, but that's what so many are doing. It puts extra strain on every level of the organization, but developers, help desk, technicians, and others in the trenches are the ones who take the brunt of it. Add something like off-shoring to the mix and the workplace goes from difficult to insulting and injurious.

Off-shoring is injurious on a number of levels. The part I hate about it the most are the hierarchical relationships established and fomented by it. Americans have a history of repulsing hierarchical classes in society, but the trend toward off-shoring is something that gives an upper-hand to the few who use, support, and promote it, over the many who are disadvantaged by it.

Open-source and free software are another political hot-potato. There's something basically wrong about wanting something of value for free on the one hand, and something equally wrong about using free bait to get your hooks into another person on the other. What ever happened to the notion of fair exchange with full disclosure up front?

The bottom line is that IT is a stressful occupation. On the other hand, IT is an interesting and dynamic one which a lot of people enjoy, including me. Intellectual pursuits are rarely boring.

I recently stepped away from the computer for a few months while I pursued a number of home improvement projects including plumbing, electrical, painting, heating and air conditioning. I built a computer room for my servers, an outdoor shed and a block wall (note: masonry is harder than you might think). I helped one neighbor put a shingled roof on his house, and helped another neighbor lay about 14,000 square feet of sod in his yard. While I enjoyed each of these projects, my background in IT hasn't prepare me for the demands of hard physical labor. I've been back at my desk for several weeks but there are parts of my body are still sore.

IT would be a great career if we all practiced the traditional golden rule along with the traditional admonition to love our neighbors as ourselves. IT becomes intolerable when people switch the traditional golden rule for the perverse opposite - He who owns the gold, rules!

Nathan.

My IT career for the last 31 years after receiving a computer science degree has been quite satisfying with experience in positions ranging from 3rd shift operator to IT director. From programming using punch cards on 390 to ILE RPG and COBOL on System i, debugging broken systems at 2am, managing network construction for a midsize company or implementing large-scale ERP projects. It was and still is fun. I would advise my children to pursue to learn whatever they desire to learn. My oldest is in 2nd grade and is interested in computer games, constructing Bionicles and doing math problems. When it comes to choosing college curriculm, I would suggest a STEM path sprinkled with business knowledge but stress learning other subjects outside the primary focus. I believe college is primarily a learning environment and secondary as career training. I would guess most of us chose IT as a career because we enjoyed it and not solely based on market, social or economic conditions. It surely was not because the prettiest coeds were in STEM classes, otherwise, I would have majored in business, psych or nursing. ;-)

I gave my advice to my nephew to go into the programming track instead of the electronics track at the technical school he was going to, and he ignored it.

Good thing, because programming jobs dried up and he had a job and I didn't.

So much for advice.

But jobs or not, you have to love computers to get into this stuff, and their hearts will already be set on it if that's what they love, the same as me and other posters above expressing similar sentiments.

As a "career", a decision from the head instead of the heart, a niece or daughter won't pursue it even if they take the advice of choosing Computer Science as a career once they get into their obligatory Java classes. They'll either love it or drop it like a hot potato.

On the other hand, I've seen many men and women come into RPG programming from a business background, and I think we will continue to offer opportunities for practical people who weren't enticed into software engineering curriculums in school.

On a completely different note, having an interest in writing games is entirely different from having an interest in playing them.

But there are lots of roles involved in all these endeavors, for example game layout design which has nothing to do with programming logic that people with an intense passion for games may be interested in pursuing, but in general, they will follow their passions, and if they don't have a passion for the programming tools which are widely and freely available, any advice along those lines are better not taken.

rd

YES of course I would recommend a IT career to anyone! My father was a terrible father, but the one thing he did tell me is that when I grew up I needed to do what I loved to do. That is why I work in the IT field. I LOVE DOING IT! Could I make more money outside of IT? Sure. Could I work a normal 9 to 5 job? Sure. But why would I want to do that when I can work on the best computing platform on this earth? Yes I know the field of IT can be hard, but you have to understand that I got into this field, and say in this field for the sole principal idea that I love it. If working the long hours, having no career path, or even anything else about IT bugs you then I would say get out of IT. I have worked for 4 System i shops over the last 8 years. Each of those have paid well, and have appreciated all the extra time I have put in to get the work done. This field is one where you WILL & I repeat WILL be putting in extra time. It is the nature of the beast. However keep in mind what I said before, I got into this field because it like it. I might do something else far down the road, but for now I am very happy in IT. As for recommending it to anyone I would say YES, if that is what THEY want to do. If you think plumbing is the answer I have met quite a few unhappy plumbers in my time. They do that job because it pays bills and not because they like it. You MUST & I repeat MUST do something you LOVE! Work should not just be a chore you have to go to to pay bills.

Jason

I've been strident in advising my children to avoid an IT career.

Spend a pile of money on a CS degree so you can be offshored and paying off college loans, while working 2 shifts at Walmart?

I've been in IT for 33 years. I have three adult children and none of them believed IT was the right career for them. The oldest started out in Comp Sci in college and then asked if it would disappoint me if the switched to a History major. I said of course not and he is now finishing his Doctorate in Education and running the international studies program for a major university.

Too many people focus on what they can do to make money rather than what will make them happy. I happen to enjoy what I do or I couldn't have kept at it for this long. I have told each of my kids to find what they love to do and make a career out of it. They are on the way to doing that.

Would I recommend IT to others? Yes, if they have an aptitude for it. But if the aptitude isn't there then go find something else. In my career I've run across too many people who hate their IT career and have become bitter and obstructive. That isn't good for the person or the IT organization.

No programmer I know has a high school or college age child going into IT. They resent what's happened to them in their careers and don't want their children to experience the same.

We can't use our skills because we have so much software that can't be changed. How many times have you heard, "Oh, we CAN'T change that"? Of course, you can always ADD LINES to a program but you can't CHANGE it.

Another reason we aren't allowed to solve problems: In many companies, managers want to manage problems, not solve them.* It makes them look more important if they have many issues before them.

[*Note from Chris: This point got a rueful chuckle out of me, Greg -- all-to-often too true. Sometimes the best job security comes to the people who work on the things that are always breaking.]

I have been in IT since 1986. The vast majority of the time was spent on the AS400 as a RPG Developer. I have worked both as a independant contractor and as a salaried employee. My duties have varied from being a programmer trainee to director level. Therefore, I have worked in all aspects of software development.

Just like every other career, ours has its short comings. I agree with the other postings here. We work far too many hours for the amount of compensation us salaried employees receive. I would advise anybody to pick a career in something they really love. Do not choose based on money. That's what I did. Yeah, the money was great in the 90's but the work hours were, and still are, long. If you are good at what you do and maintain relationships with others in the industry you will have no problem finding work. Also, if you are doing something you truly love the work hours are not a problem.

Reasons We Can't Change Our Code
We have met the enemy and he is us (the cartoon "Pogo", 1970)
We can't change our code because we don't know what it does. It is difficult to decipher because variable names are almost always meaningless or close to it. I don't know of a single RPG programmer who gives every field he defines an intelligible name.Our code is not modular enough. The recent poll on this site shows that after ten yrs of ILE, adoption is low. It is difficult to determine everything that hundreds or thousands of lines of code do. Procedures would help but most programmers can't think of a reason to write one. I'm always told either "Its better to do it inline" or "I don't want to mess with prototypes". Our code is highly coupled to the database so it cannot be changed. Innumerable times I've seen new tables created to hold a field that logically would go in an existing table. The articles in this magazine will tell a developer how to write a single program but not how to write a program so that after writing a thousand programs, the system can be easily modified. Basic software engineering principles are being ignored. Programmers recently complained to me that in the last year, a program doubled in size from 10K lines to 20K. I found the new code is monolithic RPG-3. What would you tell your daughter? A child just starting college could look forward to working on a 100K line RPG-3 program when she graduates.

[*Note from Chris: Greg posted an expanded version of this post on his RPG Help blog: http://rpgilehelp.blogspot.com/2008/01/why-rpg-programmers-say-their-jobs-suck.html.]

I've been in the IBM Midrange arena for 28 years. I've made boatloads of money as a consultant in the 90's and I've worked salaried jobs for less. The field for me is not anywhere near what it used to be in terms of effort expended vs. reward.

My oldest is in Web Development. His first job brought him $42K with just 2+ years of freelance experience and no college degree. This seems to be an exception to the norm in his case.

At this point, if I did point them toward IT, I'd be real targeted about the area that I pointed them to. I'd probably direct them to a security related area or to another field altogether.

I have always felt the need to improve myself professionally in order to keep the salary I need to provide for my wife and kids. That self-improvement drive means some long hours and many times a lot of frustration.

The most important thing: Do something you love to do, and you'll never work a day in your life.

I've been in the industry going on 45 years and have run 2 IT companies for going on 25 years and have been retained in over 100 legal matters to testify.

My 3 daughters comprise 2 Doctors, 2 Masters, 4 Bachelors, with 4 Cume Laude degrees and none are related to IT.

The industry just isn't any fun anymore. It's very difficult to run an IT company and compete with foreign labor on temporary visas, outsourcing and low-priced foreign-made products.

I just don't see the current generation of IT folks having the drive, spirit and/or fun that I experienced for so many years. That's not to say that some are not fully dedicated, educated and happy; but I think that is a small percentage.

I have been a programmer, consultant, contractor all in the IT field since 1980. Started as a key punch or data entry and went up to my current position of consultant and company owner and president. I have college kids and NO I don't recommend them to pursue a career in Information Technology. Reason is because everything in IT will be outsourced.

What I do tell my college kids is they have to learn how computers work because they will use them everyday. No matter what career they choose.

Careers that I recomend to my college kids and to any other kids are HealthCare, Engineering, Architecture, Finance, Teaching (regardless of the pay), Automobile technology, even auto racing.

Last but not least, always choose something you love to do that way it will always be fun.

Neither of my now adult children were interested in IT.

The reasons are clear -

1) incredibly high expectations, on call support, having to fix problems at all hours of the day, working untold numbers of overtime, essentially having no social life due to the job demands

2) a consistent, long term record of employee abuse by my employer - living with the constant threat of layoffs, frozen pay, benefit cutbacks, pension cuts, high amounts of required unpaid overtime and a general lack of appreciation by all layers of management.

Net - IT is a sweatshop - extreme pain for marginal gain.

Excellent discussion!

I have been working with and studing IT professionals for several years now and would certainly recommend it to a young person as a positive career choice. Nate Viall and I have discussed this at length, and I have presented some of my findings and thoughts at COMMON Conferences the past few years, and at the 06 IT Execs Conference in LA.

IT is still a rich and expanding field for young people to consider, but in a much different way than their parents.

In my view, the real opportunities in IT going forward are for those who have both strong technical skills as well as leadership and management expertise. Those who have both, will have plenty of opportunities to advance and to achieve a good blend of professional accomplishment, financial reward, and quality of life - something that technical skills alone may not produce.

This will not only be true for those coming up, it is something that is available now if the IT professional has invested in the right personal and professional development.

Just my observations of the data.

Dr. Jim Chambers
Institute for Organizational Leadership
770-419-1716
www.iolglobal.com
jchambers@iolglobal.com

The MIS, CS, and Engineering fields have been trying to attract more female students into the disciplines for some time. IS/IT field has many career options and paths. Programming is an important but not the sole career option in the IS/IT field. We definitely do not want half the population of the world (i.e., female) to rule out IS/IT jobs as potential career options. With the diffusion of IT into areas such as accounting, finance, marketing, fashion, medical, journalism, nursing, etc., the options have actually substantially expanded. IT professionals who understand technology and business will have much potential in this service-oriented and globalized era, and flattened world. If a person (male or female) enjoys challenges and love to work with information technology, IS/IT was and still is an attractive field.