Twenty years ago, people weren't really aspiring to corporate positions like "Senior Software Engineer" and "Site Reliability Engineer." After all, what are those? Well these days, they're the kinds of jobs that can easily net you $200,000 a year. When you work for the future, you reap a healthy reward.
Want To Be A High Roller? Work With Computers And Data
"When you work for the future, you reap a healthy reward."
Your parents might have told you to go to law or medical school if you wanted financial success. But in the world we live in, those aren't the only options anymore. And, in fact, they aren't even the most lucrative ones either. As far as enviable financial status goes, yesterday's investment bankers and surgeons are today's data scientists and software developers. After all, don't computers play the most central role in our lives?
Here's an illustrative example: There's a company headquartered in Seattle called Zillow. It was launched in 2005 as a tool to help people "find and share vital information about homes, real estate, mortgages and home improvement." Basically, you visit Zillow if you want to see how much your property is worth – or at least how much a highly analyzed set of data projects its worth to be. Like so many similar sites, Zillow is a service that focuses on consumer empowerment. No more relying on dubious "industry projections" from real estate "experts" – instead, as a homeowner or potential buyer, you can go right to Zillow and find an answer for yourself.
For the vast data-crunching service it offers, Zillow is backed by an equally extensive and well-paid network of data analysts and scientists who sift through troves of information to come up with home valuations. According to Glassdoor, the average salary of a Zillow software development engineer is more than $94,000. And by the way, that's $4,000 below the national average of $98,000 for the role. Let's compare that figure with the salary for some other jobs. According to Payscale, the average attorney in the U.S. makes around $76,000 per year. Insurance brokers make $59,000. But, at $141,000 annually, doctors have software development engineers squarely beat.
"College students who major in computer science have better employment prospects than their business-studying counterparts."
Still, it's significant that the median salary of a software developer would approach the six-figure range that doctors enjoy. After all, there aren't a lot of unemployed doctors out there. And by that same token, most computer science people out there will be able to find meaningful employment with a healthy salary. In 2012, for instance, college students who majored in computer science did better employment-wise than their business-studying counterparts, according to Bloomberg BusinessWeek.
So What's The Explanation Here?
Let's say you're 27, deep in the trenches of med school, and your 21-year-old computer science major sister scores a six-figure job at Zillow the day she graduates. The question you may likely ask yourself is, "Why?"
The most simple explanation is that data – and therefore the need for data experts – is everywhere. As many tech reporters have discussed, we're on the path toward the so-called "Internet of Things" – a future where most every object in our lives will be imbued with intelligent capabilities. Sure, now we have our smartphones, but it won't be long before we have our smartsocks and smarthomes as well. And when these technologies become commonplace, there will be an even greater need for people to make sense of all the data the devices are producing. So if your studying for the LSAT hasn't worked out, perhaps it's just time for a change of direction.
