CS Enrollment Dips

[Richardk]

Quote:You see them propping up the bottom line by selling of assets and reducing headcount. I always want to ask "What are you going to do next year/quarter?"

I saw this with my very first major client. We automated enough that they had several "free" people. I thought, Wow we can really bring in more business and kick it up a notch. Instead management let them go like excess baggage. That marked the beginning of the end. It wasn't look before they started looking attractive to some larger competitors.

[Richardk]

Indeed, very well stated unixwindmill.

But why is it employers want years and years of experience in a particular language (pick one in .Net) but don't value the many years of a deep understanding in the technology?

From a doctor's point of view that's like knowing what all the popular drugs do without ever taking a class in anatomy or physiology.

As for tooting your horn or having a job like the CEO, what if you're deep into the guts of your company and you can't directly point to a specific revenue or cost saving item? Kind of like the old BASF commercials - "We don't make the products, we make them better".

[TRexx]

Quote:As for tooting your horn or having a job like the CEO, what if you're deep into the guts of your company and you can't directly point to a specific revenue or cost saving item?

Then don't be surprised when you are measured not on the value you add, but on the costs you incur.  

[Richardk]

Quote:Then don't be surprised when you are measured not on the value you add, but on the costs you incur.

That's exactly my point. You're part of the machine, not a critical component that is studied and measured. So while you add value, there's no way to put a dollar amount on that value.

[Richardk]

The most important question - I think you're right.

I hear managers complain about day-to-day business projects that don't go well offshore. I can only imagine what happens when a critical packaged program goes offshore.

If these two flavors of programmers exist then there may very well be a "systems programmers" shortage since CS graduates see the market as a whole and know it's not good.

Why shoot for a niche, knowing that if you fail, your career will suck? It seems a better career choice would be one where even being average, you'll do OK with the opportunity to excel.

[David Randolph]

The story goes how the elevator operator at a Toyota plant could tell visitors what exactly he contributed to the proper functioning and profit of that plant. Toyota used to analyse each job to that point AND educate the worker doing that job how that job fit into the whole.

In other words, even down in the bowels of the machinery, people can learn how what they do benefits the company as a whole. Not educating the worker is part of the laziness of american management.