JANUARY 5, 2011, 8:50 A.M. ET
By JOE LIGHT
Software engineer Jesse Severe says he can pretty much throw a dart on a map and find a job. The 41-year-old from San Diego says he's contacted by headhunters at least once a month, at times has been able to work from home for half his workweek and makes a comfortable living.
All those factors and others landed software engineer in the No. 1 spot on a newly-released study of the 200 best and worst jobs by CareerCast.com, a career website owned by Adicio Inc. (Until last year, Wall Street Journal owner News Corp. held a minority stake in Adicio.)
CareerCast rated 200 jobs based on income, working environment, stress, physical demands and job outlook, based on data from the Labor Dept. and U.S. Census and researchers' own expertise.
Software engineer overtook last year's top job, actuary, which fell to number 3, behind mathematician. The rise was mainly due to a robust hiring outlook, attributable in part to the rising popularity of social media and mobile applications, said Tony Lee, publisher of CareerCast and JobsRated.com. Last year, software engineer placed second.
Mr. Severe, who helps design flight-training software at ProFlight LLC, started out in the 1990s as a graphic designer, but moved into software design after seeing how much money his computer programming colleagues made.
"My job's flexible, pays well and gives [me] a lot of job satisfaction," he says.
Mr. Severe says his salary is in line with what most software engineers at his level earn. Most earn a typical mid-level income of about $87,000 and top out at $132,000, according to the study, putting them in the top 25 of all professions by income.
The highest-paid job was surgeon, with a typical midlevel income of $365,000 and a top-level salary of $440,000. The lowest paid were bartenders, waiters, cashiers and dishwashers, all of which make about $18,000 per year at mid-level.
In addition to the typical rewards of a high salary at a stable company, some software engineers dream of hitting it big with their own company. Del Stewart, 49, of Escondido, Calif. founded his own software company, OCI Retail Computer Sciences, in 1984 and is now starting a new company webCommuniti.com, a social networking website, that he's bringing online this month. Revenue at OCI, which helps video rental companies manage sales and inventory, topped out at about $2 million, per year in the mid-1990s, but has petered out with that industry, Mr. Stewart says.
Founding a new company "is a challenge, but that's why entrepreneurs do it. It's like asking a boxer if he's happy getting himself beat to death. It's stressful, but it's also fulfilling," he says.
Some software engineers say it can be difficult to stay current on all the computer languages companies want employees to know. "You can't think that you'll learn a skill now and that it will still be relevant in six months," says Mr. Severe.
The job can also be lonely. Many software engineers are able to work from home and have flexible hours, but that can mean they spend long hours without interacting with colleagues, he says. "The isolation and being chained to your desk can get to you a bit," he says.
Software engineer was the 15th-least stressful job in the study, based on factors such as deadlines, quotas and required precision.
The least stressful job, according to the study, was that of a bookbinder--though not all bookbinders would agree.
Jack Fitterer, 58, a bookbinder in Indian Lake, N.Y., says he's able to manage the challenges of his work by making sure he never embarks on a project he can't perform.
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Mr. Fitterer, who specializes in restoration, says his days typically involve rebuilding the deteriorated bindings of old books, some of which date back to the 15th century. That means if he makes a mistake, the work could be lost forever, he says."That is real stressful," says his wife, Taff, who also works in the business. "Every move you make is like 'Oh my God, I might destroy this.'" The Fitterers haven't made a mistake yet that they couldn't correct, they say.
The job won't make you rich. According to the study, the midlevel income of bookbinders is about $31,000. But Mr. Fitterer says he's never at a loss for work.
For the second year in a row, roustabout was CareerCast's lowest-rated job. Roustabouts typically do entry-level work on oil rigs and pipelines, performing tasks like general maintenance and loading and unloading trucks in an environment that can often be dangerous. On average, roustabouts make about $32,000 a year, performing one of the study's most physically demanding jobs with one of the worst career outlooks, according to CareerCast.
Still, it's not a job that most roustabouts plan to spend their whole career in, notes 23-year-old roustabout Charles Walters of Shreveport, La. After spending three years doing roustabout work, Mr. Walters plans to go back to college in the fall to complete a degree in geology. "I see it as a way to break into the oil field," he says.
And while Mr. Walters's last job was at an oil company in Louisiana, he says that if he's able to find work on an offshore oil rig, he can make three to four times the $2,000 per month he made at his last job. Mr. Walters said he's not discouraged from the job by the Deepwater Horizon explosion, but that before he accepts a new job he'll look up the company's safety record to make sure they're not getting poor reviews.
"When you go near oil, it's going to be dangerous, but we know what we're getting into," he says.
