Sometimes Second is the Best

According to the Wall Street Journal the second best job in America is a Software Engineer. Aside from being one of the higher paying tech jobs, the typical software engineer works an average 40 hour work week with 11% of them working more than 50 hours a week. Most of these jobs are salaried, eliminating the big overtime checks, but companies will often compensate for long hours and hard work to get a product out the door with additional benefits, bonuses, stock options, royalties (where some IP is produced) and even other less tangible benefits like extra paid time off at the end of a development cycle.

So what makes these jobs so great? Well, you’re not likely to get hurt on the job. Very few work related injuries are reported within the software engineering field; however numbers of reports are growing regarding eye-strain, carpal tunnel, and other Ergonomic related afflictions. So despite the needed bottom cushion, eye-drops, and comfort-gel mouse pad it seems tech careers are the way to go. I mean, what does a Software Engineer do? I always imagine some pasty guy with glasses in a dark cubicle looking at a bunch of ones and zeroes. Is that the draw back? Doomed to lonesome monotony?

Actually, these jobs cover a vast array of specialties. Software engineers can design and develop many types of products, including the expected business suite applications, operating systems, databases, web pages, and accounting products, but also video editing, search engines (Google is the Tech worker’s Shangri-La),

communications, social networking, mobile apps, and even video games. Even art has gone digital. Where the term “Starving Artist” was once commonplace, a good Flash, Illustrator, or other graphical artist in today’s marketplace can command a considerable salary, work from anywhere in the country including their pajamas in the comfort of their own home, and all the while getting paid to do what they love.

So, skeptical about the Wall Street Journal taking into consideration the perks of being an in-demand computer whiz either zipping around Google on roller skates or rolling out of bed and into the office on your couch? Why does “Software Engineer” rank so high on the desirable jobs list? Maybe, in this economical climate it’s because the stability and demand for this type of worker remains strong. As industrial and service jobs are shipped overseas, American’s will still need capabilities provided by software engineers. Someone has to track all that outgoing tasking and incoming profit with typical business suites and increasingly efficient communications. We’ll still need access to the internet to read our daily funnies, laugh at an internet video, and post it to our social sites. And above all we’ll need thousands of mobile apps that can be purchased from the bus stop, on the train, or waiting in the lobby most for under $2. It seems the competent software engineer can have their cake and eat it too.