Patrick.net

Are Many Science & Engineering Careers Obsolete?

By freak80   Follow   Wed, 25 Jul 2012, 1:40pm   7,517 views   117 comments
In Corning NY 14830   Watch (0)   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (1)   Dislike  

Here's the problem: any work reducible to equations and computer-aided-design can be automated or outsourced thanks to computers and the internet.

Unless you're doing original research or engineering something that is inherently "on site" (like bridge construction), the future of American science and engineering looks pretty bleak. I think the claimed "shortage" of scientists and engineers in America is propaganda.

Remember, a lot of the political emphasis on "math and science" came from the Cold War (the nuclear arms race and the space race). The Cold War is over.

I guess there are still good jobs developing predator drones.

When it comes to the private sector, how many companies are willing to take on the high-risk, high-reward task of R&D? Warren Buffett famously does not usually invest in technology companies for that very reason.

Most Liked Comments

1. Randy H Follow Befriend (5) 44 threads 4,602 comments Los Altos, CA Premium

   1   7:20am Thu 26 Jul 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (4)   Dislike   To the original topic: Science and Engineering careers are not obsolete, but they have continued to evolve significantly. I continue to be unable to hire for open engineer roles for a few reasons (listed below in no particular order): * Most applicants are over specialized and uninterested in generalizing their knowledge. What is valued more than anything now is flexibility; we source super-specialization when needed from contractors. * Anyone with more than 5 years experience wants to "be a manager", even though they have all the people skills of a feral labradoodle. * Many are offended at the notion that they have to act as Business Analyst as much as Genius Technologist in order to be successful. We can outsource/offshore/automate the purely deterministic part of your job, but the reason we need an actual person is for inductive, heuristic, and judgmental skills. Sadly, so many Engineers seem to think that those things are "someone else's job". * Testing. I can't tell you how many applicants (in software specifically) I've binned simply based upon their reaction when they realize that I consider testing skills to be among their first and foremost fundamental skills. Somewhere along the line something went very wrong in our collective approach to SW engineering and development whereby engineers and programers think they are "too valuable" to test. Any hint of that and I stamp the candidate as 'rejected'. * Most of the rest "want to be an architect" or any of the derivative "I don't want to code" (again in software in these cases; less of a problem in hw). I pretty much reject anyone claiming they are a "software architect" 95% of the time simply based on how they present themselves in that context. And "I don't want to code" is code itself for "someone else should do the work". There are many forms of coding, and being able to go all the way to the detailed solutions is essential to engineering, so these people are all disqualified. Our problem is not that there are a surplus of engineers. It's that there are a surplus of people educated and experienced in some form of engineering discipline who believe they are entitled to ignore the commercial realities of what pays their salaries.

2. Rin Follow Befriend 4 threads 524 comments

   2   6:37pm Wed 25 Jul 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (3)   Dislike   wthrfrk80 says Maybe, but everyone already knows this. Following the herd is rarely a good idea. Can always move back. This is America, after all, and trying a new city (unless it's Detroit) never hurts :-)

3. Peter P Follow Befriend (4) 117 threads 17,655 comments Premium

   3   2:18pm Wed 25 Jul 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (2)   Dislike   Why would anyone want a permanent role in anything?

4. Randy H Follow Befriend (5) 44 threads 4,602 comments Los Altos, CA Premium

   4   8:19pm Wed 25 Jul 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (2)   Dislike   Rin says wthrfrk80 says exas seems to be the last place left in America with any real industry I don't mean to sound like a broken record but if you're a tech worker, move to TX ASAP, and work your way to a VP, Director, or Senior/Top-level Engineering job. It may be the best career decision of your life. If you delay in this, other younger kids will take this path and then, you'll also be facing more competition down the road. Right now, I get recruiters (& friends) from Houston & Dallas calling me regularly. Sorry, forgot about Austin & San Antonio, as both of those towns are also huge for IT. I knew a couple, worked hard in Boston, never had enough money for a house ... moved to Austin, bought a house in cash, and now, have nothing but savings accruing. yes, please everyone move to Texas. Don't even consider the SF Bay Area -- it's terrible here. A veritable hell on earth. You'll be much better in Texas or Virginia or Atlanta or Sophia Antipoles. Run, don't walk...

5. futuresmc Follow Befriend (1) 1 threads 384 comments Buffalo, NY

   5   9:24pm Wed 25 Jul 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (2)   Dislike   Ruki says Being older can actually be an advantage because the kids these days are proving to be very unreliable. The sole exception is younger H1-B foreign imports. H1-B 'imports' are only popular because they don't come with the student loan debt and thus don't require a salary that would allow them to pay that off and eat. Employers in tech know they can't keep younger workers as the most dedicated want to start their own company and nobody wants to train tomorrow's competitor. Older workers with appropriate skills and experience have the advantage for this reason, not because of some libertarian think tank myth of the lazy American worker.

6. drew_eckhardt Follow Befriend (1) 2 threads 324 comments Sunnyvale, CA

   6   9:49pm Wed 25 Jul 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (2)   Dislike   wthrfrk80 says Rin says Because age discrimination kicks in between ages 45 and 55, esp in tech fields. I'm wondering if that's because technology changes so fast. Whereas the human body doesn't. A lot of technical positions are ultimately skill or aptitude based not knowledge based which leaves salary and dominance as real issues. For example, there's a lot of evidence suggesting that the abilities to understand indirection, parallelism, and recursion are inherent aptitudes for software people. Computer science departments attempts to teach them often fail and I wouldn't hire some one (even an intern) who didn't grasp them. While practitioners need to know certain technologies, they're generally similar enough to what you already know that you can pick them up very quickly. Microsoft hired me to write C# which I'd never done before and it wasn't a big deal. Demarco and Lister note in _Peopleware Productive Projects and Teams_ that in their coding war games People who had ten years of experience did not outperform those with two years of experience. There was no correlation between experience and performance except that those with less than six months' experience with the language used in the exercise did not do as well as the rest of the sample Compensation packages for fresh computer science graduates at the big Silicon Valley companies are somewhat north of $100K. A good engineer with 15+ years of experience can gross over double that at the same sort of company. The extra money can buy you experience that delivers higher quality products in less time with the savings more than covering the cost delta - some of it personal and some second hand via people the individual in question has worked with ( I picked up a few things on reliability from having RAID inventor Dave Patterson as a technical advisor ) although such an individual with leadership skills can also multiply the efforts of a dozen less experienced people producing very similar results to what you'd get from a dozen experienced people for half the money. Second rate managers and individual contributors don't want to look bad in comparison and prefer the malleability of younger subordinates with less worldly experience.

7. bob2356 Follow Befriend 2 threads 2,495 comments

   7   8:42am Fri 27 Jul 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (2)   Dislike   omgbacon says saving CPU cycles, reducing your IO needs, and shrinking your memory footprint is always a good thing, and it's not something that the kids these days think about because no one forces them to think about it. Peter P says Because they really need to think about other things like time to market and maintainability. Extra time spent writing tight efficient lean code that is easy as possible to understand will reduce your time to market by reducing the test/fix cycle dramatically and increase your maintainability in the process. Bloated sloppy techie geekie gee whiz this is cool code or slap it together any way you can to get it out the door code doesn't. That's what I've always found to be the hardest thing to teach not very experienced coders. You will spend a hell of a lot more time tweaking code than writing it in the first place. Going back and figuring out how sloppy code works time and time again takes forever.

8. Rin Follow Befriend 4 threads 524 comments

   8   2:25pm Wed 25 Jul 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (1)   Dislike   Peter P says want a permanent role in anything? Because age discrimination kicks in between ages 45 and 55, esp in tech fields. Many health care professionals, esp doctors, pharmacists, PAs, etc, do not suffer age discrimination in their career sectors.

9. New Renter Follow Befriend (3) 13 threads 2,184 comments San Jose, CA Premium

   9   3:50pm Wed 25 Jul 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (1)   Dislike   Rin says Yes, the NSF started that shortage myth in '88, where they predicted that come 2000, the nation would be 650K short of S&Es. That never materialized as either professors didn't retire or those positions were turned into postdocs or adjunct roles. In addition, key projects like the supercollidor were cancelled in '94. The only shortage of S&Es are in them becoming doctors or ancillary heath care professionals. If you want a semi-permanent role in S&E, you need to have security clearance and also, work in low tax states like Texas where much of the in-shoring is going on for defense contractors. That and our former cold war foes in the USSR suddenly became available to the US market. I don't fault the NSF from crying wolf then but I do think it has undermined their creditability to continue the alarm and encourage many thousands of hopeful young people to enter an area that cannot possibly support them . Thanks to the internet the truth has become more visible. It won't be long until the wolf shows up and who will listen to the NSF then?

10. Rin Follow Befriend 4 threads 524 comments

    10   5:38pm Wed 25 Jul 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (1)   Dislike   thomaswong.1986 says the cost benefit isnt swinging favorably for globalization.. From the other thread (Half of Recent College Grads Under/Un-employed)... The reason why that 1st round of IT offshoring failed (2001 to 2006) was that corporate America, like a herd of lemmings, did exactly the same thing w/o considering the risks. They all poured their collective capitals into turning Bangalore-India Inc, into the next South Korea or Taiwan, but for software instead of firmware. Well, that was a joke as India, being a former commodities player for the British Empire, was never an end-to-end solutions provider. Instead, it was a body shop and that aspect of their business culture hadn't changed since Queen Victoria's time. Naturally, software is a value added service, code by itself, is not a *silk or dye* business and thus, it was destined to fail, circa 2006-2009, just as quickly as it had taken off before then. Today, other Asian players have woken up and realized that in order to win the big global contracts, they need value-added services, not cheap labor. For instance, recent Filipino call centers have not only been taking calls but have been using bulletin boards and chat rooms to categorize problem tickets, gathering more data from alternate sources, and providing more complete follow-up solutions to customers, using text messages, etc, to add greater value to the customers' business concerns. So I don't exactly see this trend ending anytime soon as the former India Inc will be replaced by other nations which want to cross the digital divide.

11. freak80 Follow Befriend (4) 52 threads 4,416 comments Corning, NY Premium

    11   6:27pm Wed 25 Jul 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (1)   Dislike   Texas seems to be the last place left in America with any real industry (i.e. economic activity beyond just real-estate, finance, insurance, fast food, and sick-care).

12. Rin Follow Befriend 4 threads 524 comments

    12   6:56pm Wed 25 Jul 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (1)   Dislike   The thing about Texas is that normal houses there, go from under $200K to $350K. Compared to Boston, New York, Chicago, SF, LA, etc, that's a staggeringly low price but in comparing job positions, between Boston and Dallas, I've found salary differences of only 15% for the top tier categories. So a senior systems/performance consultant, earning ~$110K in Boston, he can find a similar position for Dallas at ~$90K. In Boston, however, that house would go for $600K whereas in Dallas, it would be $220K.

13. freak80 Follow Befriend (4) 52 threads 4,416 comments Corning, NY Premium

    13   7:33pm Wed 25 Jul 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (1)   Dislike   Rin says The thing about Texas is that normal houses there, go from under $200K to $350K. Compared to Boston, New York, Chicago, SF, LA, etc, that's a staggeringly low price but in comparing job positions, between Boston and Dallas, I've found salary differences of only 15% for the top tier categories. Absolutely. That's why I have considered moving to Houston because of the ratio of good-paying engineering jobs relative to house prices. But family is in the Pittsburgh, PA area. And the scenery is nicer here. Not having winter would be nice though. Decisions decisions.

14. Peter P Follow Befriend (4) 117 threads 17,655 comments Premium

    14   8:20pm Wed 25 Jul 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (1)   Dislike   I cannot stand the heat nor the humidity. Otherwise Texas would be a great place for me. My "ideal" temperature is 59F year round. The climate of the Bay Area is quite close to that. (It is 64F outside right now.)

15. Rin Follow Befriend 4 threads 524 comments

    15   8:29pm Wed 25 Jul 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (1)   Dislike   Randy H says Don't even consider the SF Bay Area -- it's terrible here. A veritable hell on earth. SF is even more expensive than Boston. Yes, that's CoL hell on earth & the view of the Bay isn't enough for one to get price gouged, as badly as that. Next, aside from the lack of wintery snowstorms, does SF really have more to offer than any municipality in the northeast corridor? I mean if you want liberals around here, we have our Amherst or Northampton MA. And much of the New York/New England region is quite green and pleasant, overall, and houses in upstate NY go for $100K (sometimes less) and that's within an hour from either Montreal Canada or Burlington VT.

16. Peter P Follow Befriend (4) 117 threads 17,655 comments Premium

    16   8:33pm Wed 25 Jul 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (1)   Dislike   Weather-wise, if you can only afford to live at one location, SFBA is really hard to beat.

17. freak80 Follow Befriend (4) 52 threads 4,416 comments Corning, NY Premium

    17   8:52pm Wed 25 Jul 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (1)   Dislike   Peter P says Weather-wise, if you can only afford to live at one location, SFBA is really hard to beat. It's good to have a giant thermal mass just to the west!

18. zzyzzx Follow Befriend (9) 410 threads 4,107 comments Baltimore, MD

    18   7:04am Thu 26 Jul 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (1)   Dislike   wthrfrk80 says I think the claimed "shortage" of scientists and engineers in America is propaganda. As an ex-engineer I can say that this is 100% true and has been the case for decades now.

19. zzyzzx Follow Befriend (9) 410 threads 4,107 comments Baltimore, MD

    19   7:04am Thu 26 Jul 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (1)   Dislike   Ruki says The boomers are retiring. They have enough money to retire???

20. Rin Follow Befriend 4 threads 524 comments

    20   7:10am Thu 26 Jul 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (1)   Dislike   Ruki says That is changing and will drastically change in as little as five years, when massive labor shortages kick in. The boomers are retiring. Given the current employment landscape with random layoffs at NASA, Motorola, and various other enterprises, on/off, I don't think enough boomers will have cash in the eggs nest to officially retire in mass. Instead, if there's a short term labor shortage, they'll be able to work as contractors, until the company is fully re-located to Vietnam, if it's not Texan bound.