The ‘best job in America’ pays over $120,000 a year, offers low stress, healthy work-life balance — and it’s also in high demand https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-best-job-in-america-pays-over-120-000-a-year-offers-low-stress-healthy-work-life-balance-and-its-workers-are-in-high-demand-11673327726?siteid=yhoof2 A new analysis rates jobs based on median salary, job satisfaction, work-life balance, stress level, unemployment rate and growth in that sector.
The low-stress job - software developer? The person who wrote that article has likely never written a line of code for pay, in their life. Certainly never to meet a deadline, at any rate.
Saylor exams are so bad you need to buy extra computer monitors because you will chuck your computer monitor out the window when you fail a Saylor exam. However, that's nothing compared to software development when you encounter a bug you don't know how to fix or a feature you can't feature out how to add. You literally take the code with you after you clock out of work. You dream code. And when you get everything figured out, they update the programming language, adding new rules and making old code not work.
Right. And immediately after that, they make new computers, chips and OS versions. - and even your new code won't work. Then it's a scramble to migrate from "Old new" to "New new." Low-stress? HA! Ask the boss - he's the one with the pitchfork and the horns, over there checking the temperature again... Talk about sweatshops!
Actuary used to be the "best" job in America, apparently it's slipped to #27: https://money.usnews.com/careers/best-jobs/rankings/the-100-best-jobs
Many businesses are moving their business applications in to the cloud, depends on type of services they purchase, some of the challenges related to constant need to update end of life apps etc are less painful and more affordable by using Cloud EaaS, AaaS etc . Also not all employers are the same. Many of my colleagues are software engineers, developers, programmers etc. I would say more then 50% enjoy lower stress and good work/home balance. But yes, some are burning the candle from both sides. Its their choice.
I'd have been a software engineer for many years at this point if it wasn't for my arthritis making it impossible to use a computer for an extended period of time. I may have been wrong. There are some technical innovations that have been making it better for me, and I have a relative who is a Senior Software Engineer who tells me he barely has to type anything. I've seen him "work". At this point in his career, he just reads stuff, does conference calls and tells everyone else what to do. That is, when he's actually doing anything at all. The rest of the time he's just passing the time playing online games. If I knew I could get a gig like that, making 40% more than I currently do, It wouldn't have given up on the idea 20 years ago. Maybe there's still hope!
Maybe you could get HIS gig... Um, you know - his boss could always "find out" how little he does....
Made me think of a headline in The Onion when Obama won his first term. "Black Man Gets Worst Job in America".