So start here: Darpa: U.S. Geek Shortage Is National Security Risk
Darpa’s worried that America’s “ability to compete in the increasingly internationalized stage will be hindered without college graduates with the ability to understand and innovate cutting edge technologies in the decades to come…. Finding the right people with increasingly specialized talent is becoming more difficult and will continue to add risk to a wide range of DoD [Department of Defense] systems that include software development.”
If a kid with the brains to be a hot shot software developer is going to take one look at the IT business and say “fuck no!”. If I was 18 right now and entering college I’d go in to a something besides computer science and engineering. I’d probably still learn to program some, but I’d focus elsewhere.
Why? When you sit in a meeting discussing projects with idiots that tell you they can take the project to India and get Indian developers to do the same work for $8/hr you think a few different things. First is: no, they can’t. Second: please do so I can come back in 6 months after the project fails and charge you $120/hr to recover the pile shit you just made. Third is: no fucking wonder everybody else is running for the exits. Most people aren't as obstinate as I am and won’t stand to fight for their ground. I could probably make more money by just giving in and moving up stream in to management and leave the program to people that don’t really do it very well. But I can’t. And I can absolutely see why other people (Americans) are choosing other professions.
I hope Darpa is able to find a way to get more American kids to study Math and Science seriously. I hope some of those kids become software engineers. But unless the Harvard MBAs wake up to the reality they are setting themselves up for in the future: forget it.