For those who think that there is a skills shortage, let me tell you about my Google job interview

[jeff47]

68. Depends where you live and how willing you are to relocate

There's lots of cities with crappy software jobs. Mostly because you're doing in-house software development, say making an application for an insurance company to use internally. That's just viewed as a cost by management, and the goal is to make it as cheaply as possible. So management is going to do it's best to make the job suck. These jobs are especially vulnerable to H1B-style abuse.

If you happen to be in a city where people are making software to sell, then there's better jobs available - you're making the product instead of being a cost center. So that's your best bet for a "regular" job.

If you are willing to relocate, you can find someone truly desperate and make a lot of money. But your career will not be stable, you will not live in the same city for long, and you will end up living in some really crappy cities.