Idaho technology firms cope with shortage of software engineers

Forty-eight computer science students will graduate from Boise State University in 2007. It will be the smallest class in years.

John Gifford, chair of the school’s computer science department, said enrollment in the program has dropped 20 percent since 2000.

It’s not because the trade is antiquated. When they finish their degrees, the students will enter an industry that still has a high demand for skilled workers.

Gifford knew of a student who applied for two jobs and got three offers.

But good fortune often feeds on the misfortune of others.

The tech companies looking to hire software engineers are having a rather hard time these days. There are not enough skilled workers on the market right now, according to people in Idaho’s tech sector, and high-paying jobs remain unfilled.

Gifford predicts employers won’t have any relief for a few more years.

But if tech employers can’t start filling some of their critical positions, it may not be long before the rest of Idaho starts to feel the effects.

Great career choice

Computer science has had a bad reputation in recent years — a reputation Griffin thinks is undeserved.

“Computer science is a great career choice for bright students,” he said. “I wish more people knew that.”

But enrollment in computer science is declining in part because students fear their jobs will be outsourced, he said.

Employers think it’s an unjustified fear.

“If you didn’t know any better you’d get the impression that only people in India and China are going into IT,” said Jefferson Jewell, managing director of Blackfin in Boise. “People need to stop accepting the doomsday all-IT-jobs-are-going-off-shore-the-world-is-flat mentality.”

Jason Crawforth, founder of Treetop Tech in Boise, agrees.

“There’s a precipitous drop in the number of people who have declared a computer science major,” he said. “But demand for computer-related services will continue to grow.”

The low-level, entry-level jobs will disappear overseas, he said. But there will still be plenty of opportunity for computer science students to pursue mid-level jobs that require a higher skill set.

The innovative work will still happen inside the United States, Jewell said.

But keeping it here will require the next generation of software engineers to master a wider range of skills.

“The requirements of a software graduate are no longer just someone who sits in a dark room and programs away,” Crawforth said. “They have to integrate business skills, communication skills, and programming skills all in one.”

Unprecedented

Jewell can’t remember the last time he saw ads for IT workers — it’s all recruiting. In fact, the current level of recruiting is unprecedented, he said.

Blackfin is a small company, so the rush to recruit new talent hasn’t affected them as much, he said.

“In the past you didn’t have all the big companies hiring at the same time,” Jewell said. “For us it’s not as bad —job satisfaction and retention is higher at small companies. We do a pretty good job of finding people.”

But it hasn’t been easy. Blackfin has several entry-level positions open right now, and a few more that are senior.

Jewell estimates that about 70 percent of the company’s new hires in the last year were from out of state. But it’s not just because they can’t fill the positions locally.

“We’re always looking for the best people available,” Jewell said. “It doesn’t matter where they’re from.”

Blackfin engineers work with many different computer languages and database architectures, and Jewell expects his employees to possess a skill set that is equally varied.

“We look for people who like technology,” he said. “People who go home and are still fiddling around with software. Those are the people we want to have around. We want technology experts who enjoy what they do.”

Programmers at Treetop Tech also use diverse languages and architectures. Crawforth said the company is “technologically agnostic.”

Crawforth said he spends more money advertising jobs nationally than he does locally, and he’s still had a hard time finding people.

“We’ve had positions we’ve been trying to fill for several months,” he said. “We obviously try to recruit locally. But even if we lowered our standards — which we won’t — we would still have a difficult time. I would rather be looking for someone than put an unqualified person with our clients.”

Bouncing back

Interest in computer science has begun to bounce back — freshmen enrollment has increased since 2005, Griffin said.

The new students are more qualified and more interested than they used to be, he said, because the students who just wanted to graduate into high paying jobs went elsewhere after the dot-com bust.

“Ironically, the jobs are coming back,” Griffin said.

It probably won’t make much difference to Crawforth, who isn’t looking to hire straight out of college.

“We’re looking for junior to senior level software developers,” he said. “When we did IT support we would have entry-level positions. But as salaries go up … we don’t compete for low-end work.”

Jewell expects applicants to be familiar with the tools they’ll actually be using, not just the ones they learned in school.

“Most companies don’t have time to take a new graduate and train them for a year or two,” he said.

And they have to love what they do.

“A graduate wrote his own compiler, something really low level — that’s a very important academic exercise,” Jewell said. “But if that’s the most significant thing under his belt, that tells me he doesn’t live and breathe programming. He just does what he’s told.”

Sucking sound

Jewell believes software development remains an attractive career path. There are still plenty of jobs, and will be for quite a while.

“It’s not like software engineers are the 21st century version of buggy horse drivers,” he said.

But it’s a tight market, which makes it difficult for employers to compete for talent.

“People don’t perceive Idaho as having a large technology base,” Crawforth said. “People need to know about us. We need to market to potential students who are looking at higher education. And we have to target employees.”

“If things don’t change Microsoft will be out of here by 2009,” Crawforth said. “Micron’s presence will be stagnant or reduced. I think you’ll hear a sucking sound as people leave our state — including the tax dollars they pay.”

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To contact the author of this story, e-mail eddie.kovsky@idahobusiness.net.