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posted by Fnord666 on Monday January 14 2019, @12:33PM   Printer-friendly
from the jerbs dept.

U.S. News Announces the 2019 Best Jobs:

U.S. News & World Report [...] today [January 8] unveiled the 2019 Best Jobs. The rankings offer a look at the best jobs across 15 categories – from best-paying jobs to sectors such as business and technology – to help job seekers at every level achieve their career goals. The rankings take into account the most important aspects of a job, including growth potential, work-life balance and salary.

For the second year in a row, software developer takes the No. 1 spot as the Best Job overall. Statistician ranks at No. 2, followed by physician assistant at No. 3 and dentist at No. 4. Occupations in health care continue to show promise due to a combination of high salaries and low unemployment rates, taking 44 of the 100 Best Jobs and the majority of the Best-Paying Jobs. With an average salary of $265,990, anesthesiologist tops the list, followed by surgeon, oral and maxillofacial surgeon and obstetrician and gynecologist, respectively.

"Health care occupations continue to dominate the U.S. News 2019 Best Jobs rankings, with demand in the field highest for workers to fill roles such as nurse practitioner, physician assistant and physical therapist," said Rebecca Koenig, careers reporter at U.S. News. "That's good news for students and career changers, because it takes less school time and tuition money to prepare for those positions than it does to become a physician or surgeon."

Nearly a decade after the end of the Great Recession, unemployment in the U.S. has reached historic lows. With an overwhelming need for labor, companies have started relaxing their standards and expediting their hiring processes, giving workers the upper hand in the job market.

How do these rankings match up with your experience?


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  • (Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Monday January 14 2019, @03:08PM (17 children)

    by PiMuNu (3823) on Monday January 14 2019, @03:08PM (#786445)

    I see folks on here complaining about software development being terrible, with long hours and tight deadlines. Is it really true? I mean, compare it with working in a kitchen; poor pay, often long and antisocial hours, generally poor safety record. AmIRight?

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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Monday January 14 2019, @03:37PM (4 children)

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Monday January 14 2019, @03:37PM (#786456)

    Happiness is a relative thing, wherever you are things could be better, or worse.

    If you are starting to think that your job sucks, has too much pressure, etc. take a look at the alternatives - if you're right and the alternatives are better: move. That's you actively improving average working conditions for everyone by improving them dramatically for yourself, instead of just being a participant in the status quo or worse.

    --
    🌻🌻 [google.com]
    • (Score: 2) by Gaaark on Monday January 14 2019, @10:32PM (2 children)

      by Gaaark (41) on Monday January 14 2019, @10:32PM (#786663) Journal

      I figure I could earn more if I changed jobs, but is the grass greener?
      My boss loves me (she calls me her work husband) and knows I've got her back: when the shit hits the fan or 200% is needed, I'm there. I do good work and can step in when she's gone.

      For me, when I need time off for my son (or, like for the last 6 months+, for my wife) I get it off, no questions asked.
      If I'm sick, which is rare, I'm not asked for a doctor's note.
      I need help, I get it; I need something or upgrade or ?, I get it. No questions asked.

      I scratch her back, she scratches mine.

      So, I COULD maybe earn more, but to start over possibly with a fuck who don't appreciate me? NOT WORTH it.

      --
      --- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
      • (Score: 2) by Gaaark on Monday January 14 2019, @10:34PM

        by Gaaark (41) on Monday January 14 2019, @10:34PM (#786665) Journal

        Wow...auto-correct changes 'dick' to 'fuck'!

        Methinks Android is HORNY!

        --
        --- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
      • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday January 14 2019, @11:24PM

        by JoeMerchant (3937) on Monday January 14 2019, @11:24PM (#786700)

        Definitely more to quality of life than the number of hours you work and what you get paid during those hours...

        I have been very fortunate to have good management and coworkers for the past several years, before that I was fortunate to have distance from the psychotic lunatic of a coworker - worked remote so only had to talk with him 30 minutes a week and meet face to face for one day every 6 weeks or so, psychotic lunatics toxins aren't too noxious from that kind of distance - I chose to engage on those terms with the psychotic lunatic as an "even level working partner" because the place I was leaving had a napoleon complex riddled CEO and I really didn't appreciate A) his taking bad news out on the hired help and B) his perpetual attitude that everybody was paid too much, I left him to a 10% increase in combined salary and benefits; however, I took the job with him because my previous 4 jobs were funded by a flaky combination of academic grants, startup investors, and foreign military contract income - and after 5 job changes in 8 years that crap was getting old.

        --
        🌻🌻 [google.com]
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 14 2019, @10:44PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 14 2019, @10:44PM (#786671)

      I've had a number of stem jobs in a number of fields (physics, mathematics, engineering and software). Personally, I'm not that interested in software, but it did pay the best. I wouldn't say it's the best job. Physics and engineering are more interesting, but more difficult (and harder to get).

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by opinionated_science on Monday January 14 2019, @04:12PM (8 children)

    by opinionated_science (4031) on Monday January 14 2019, @04:12PM (#786468)

    the problem is "software development" is totally non-specific.

    I have written molecular simulations (a fun learning curve ;-) ) in my career, which involves many software challenges to add to the mathematics, physics and empirical experimental interpretation.

    So could we have a bit more detail? There is an enormous variety of software from "excel scripts" to "quantum objective functions".

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by SomeGuy on Monday January 14 2019, @05:32PM (7 children)

      by SomeGuy (5632) on Monday January 14 2019, @05:32PM (#786506)

      Don't forget "web developer", which is the rough equivalent of building sculptures out of raw sewage.

      • (Score: 4, Insightful) by fyngyrz on Monday January 14 2019, @06:35PM (4 children)

        by fyngyrz (6567) on Monday January 14 2019, @06:35PM (#786541) Journal

        Don't forget "web developer", which is the rough equivalent of building sculptures out of raw sewage.

        I would describe it as building sculptures out of water soluble sewage, in heavy rain, on a mud slope that is inexorably sliding downhill towards a settling pond where the deliquesced end results sink below the surface, never to be seen again. Along with the sculptor.

        Of course, as I am generally quite optimistic, this still may be a case of seeing things through rose-colored glasses.

        If you want to write software, IMHO, "the web" is just about the least best place to do it. It is unstable, generally not particularly performant, unreliable (not the same thing as unstable, yet compounded by it), subject to innumerable security and privacy concerns, and manifests to the end users through various only-somewhat-compatible web browsers. That's quite aside from the issue of often bludgeoning the users with ads, (un)intentional malware, for-evermore-be-damned low contrast text, poor user interfaces (like not-clicked-upon pop-up menus and windows) and so on and so forth.

        --
        If ignorance is bliss, why aren't more people happy?

        • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday January 14 2019, @06:51PM (3 children)

          by bob_super (1357) on Monday January 14 2019, @06:51PM (#786559)

          What does this tell you about TMB ?

          • (Score: 3, Insightful) by fyngyrz on Monday January 14 2019, @07:49PM (1 child)

            by fyngyrz (6567) on Monday January 14 2019, @07:49PM (#786592) Journal

            What does this tell you about TMB ?

            Not a thing. soylentnews.org is something else entirely — I would think you'd know that. But:

            • no ads
            • decent security
            • no malware
            • straight-up HTML and CGI instead of javascripted fucktardedness
            • things don't go running off to somewhere else or blocking content unless you actually click them
            • proper unicode support
            • continuing attention to details, bugs and upgrades

            Those things tell me quite a bit about soylentnews.org, and in so doing, about TMB.

            --
            I don't mean to brag, but I just put a puzzle
            together in one day. The box said 2-4 years!

            • (Score: 2) by Gaaark on Monday January 14 2019, @10:41PM

              by Gaaark (41) on Monday January 14 2019, @10:41PM (#786669) Journal

              "I don't mean to brag, but I just put a puzzle
              together in one day. The box said 2-4 years!"

              ;)

              My son will take 3x100 piece puzzles, dump them in a pile and then put them together at the same time. I have trouble with 50 piece puzzles, lol.
              I try to help him and he grabs the pieces from me because I'm taking too long.

              --
              --- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
          • (Score: 2) by Gaaark on Monday January 14 2019, @10:36PM

            by Gaaark (41) on Monday January 14 2019, @10:36PM (#786666) Journal

            That he likes being around water?

            --
            --- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
      • (Score: 3, Funny) by DannyB on Monday January 14 2019, @07:07PM (1 child)

        by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Monday January 14 2019, @07:07PM (#786570) Journal

        "web developer", which is the rough equivalent of building sculptures out of raw sewage.

        Not everyone is using Perl.

        --
        People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
        • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday January 14 2019, @11:09PM

          by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Monday January 14 2019, @11:09PM (#786693) Journal

          Yeah, node.js and related are solid pieces of shit. Each of the grain of sand size. You pull one, all the others come tumbling down on yea.

          --
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Nerdfest on Monday January 14 2019, @04:34PM

    by Nerdfest (80) on Monday January 14 2019, @04:34PM (#786475)

    When you can work on interesting, challenging, useful projects it's great. I used to do it for free, and probably will again. Take away from that being forced to use tools that were out of common use years ago, horrible processes for provisioning, new tool acquisition, training, co-workers who *really* should not be in the field, corruption involving purchasing, management empire building, corporate short-sightedness, using Windows and claiming security is important, and a complete disinterest of improving *any* of this, and it wears on you. Maybe the occasional development job isn't like this, but in my (limited) experience, most corporate gigs are full-on Dilbert most of the time. It does pay reasonably well, but since you're competing against people in India, etc in many cases, not nearly as well as it should. City bus drivers where I am make about the same money ... as they're unionized and will not be replaced with computers for a bit.

    I don't like unions much (in their current form), but some sort of engineering-like qualification for software development would help a lot, increasing the odds developers are capable, responsible, better listened to, and better paid. Unlikely though, as it would raise the cost of software significantly in the short term.

    Just some random opinions from a mostly burnt-out developer.

  • (Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Monday January 14 2019, @06:22PM

    by fyngyrz (6567) on Monday January 14 2019, @06:22PM (#786532) Journal

    I see folks on here complaining about software development being terrible, with long hours and tight deadlines. Is it really true?

    Like anything, there are good circumstances and poor circumstances.

    I did hardware engineering involving considerable support software and sales of the resulting systems for decades; the whole thing was a constant struggle, and while I admit to paying my employees well plus bennies, no one got rich at it, and there were some really scary (as in, will we even be able to get through this) moments. We always did, but I lost one heck of a lot of sleep and my hair turned white early.

    I completed a switch in tasking to entirely software in the mid 1990's. While I won't say the process wasn't uphill, it was far more reasonable, sustainable, and in the end, gainful than doing hardware was. The end result is I work at home, do whatever I want (or not), am still making money, am also writing free stuff in areas of considerable interest to me, and my job-related stress levels have reached near-zero. The employees who stuck with me are all in similar circumstances now; we keep in touch. Financially, I have zero problems.

    I credit this successful end result — one of the "good circumstances" by any reasonable metric — to just a few basic policies, few of which I see followed by many other software enterprises. They seem intuitively obvious to me, but don't lead to incredible levels of success in the immediately upcoming financial quarter, so perhaps that's part of why they're not in play everywhere. But frankly, if you can see further than a few months out down the balance sheet, I remain utterly convinced that these are the basic plays one should be making all along.

    I've talked about some of them previously in several different venues and contexts. Predictably, I suppose, I got some argument. But I have my results, which are really pretty hard to gainsay.

    In the end, I think the poor circumstances can typically be laid at the feet of very bad hiring and operating practices. If you can manage to avoid those, and you actually like writing software, doing so can be a decent job.

    I also think there are many lurking opportunities resulting from today's common practice of building stuff on slow, overweight frameworks and abusing the customers with things like subscriptions. If you can code well, you can make relatively lightweight products that are faster, cleaner, and consequently more useful than the call-home-infested crapware typically being pushed out the door by many of the major players. If you're looking for an opportunity, you might not have to look any further than pretty much any market segment that has moved to cloud and/or subscription and/or anything that requires "phoning home."

    --
    Surely not everybody was kung fu fighting?

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 14 2019, @07:32PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 14 2019, @07:32PM (#786583)

    "Antisocial hours" sounds good to me. The only way I can tolerate working in software development is by doing 100% of the work remotely.