US News Software Developer Job Prospects

In US News' best jobs of 2024 report, Software Developer gets high marks, being awarded the #1 position among tech jobs, the #2 position in STEM jobs, and the #3 position among the top 100 overall jobs. As grounds for its high ranking, the US News report cites software developers' high salaries and areer mobility. To calculate the ranking, US News averages scores on the following criteria: Salary, Job Market, Future Growth, Stress, and Work-life balance. Here, software developer earns high marks in Future Growth and Salary, and substantially lower marks in Stree, Work-Life balance, and Job Market.

There are a number of reasons why the US News report might be misleading. Firstly, the report arrives at a single number for a job that varies greatly from industry to industry. Video Game Development, for example, routinely sees developers work 100-hour work weeks during so-called periods of crunch, whereas software development in other industries is less known for such working conditions. Morever, the report seems to contradict itself by giving software development middling marks for job market and high marks for job growth. This appraisal of software development is seemingly at odds with the situation on the ground. If job prospects for software devlopment and in general were really so rosy, why the heck did NYU throw everybody out of its job fair last year when 10,000 undergrads showed up to fight for 10 jobs?