Looking for a Job

I am pretty much convinced that looking for a job is a futile proposition, but like the old saw about the lottery goes, "if you don't play, you can't win", so I try to keep looking. My latest strategy is to look in California. Looking on Dice.com I find 15 times more "firmware" jobs in California as I find in Oregon. I think wow, but then I realize that California may have 15 times as many people as Oregon, so maybe that's not so great, so I do a little checking, and it looks like, yes, the odds are better in California.


Firmware is computer software that has been recorded in a chip that is installed in some kind of machine. It is used in everything from cell phones to microwaves ovens to your car. These programs are intimately tied to the hardware, so looking at the number of electrical engineers, which are the people who design the hardware, gives you a pretty good idea of the size of the field.

Computer programming is the more general classification, but that gets you mixed up with graphics designers working on web pages and office drones writing report generators. I could do that kind of thing, but I would have to make up an imaginary resume to appear qualified. People who are hiring these days are very leery of hiring anyone who does not have a list of qualifications as long as both arms and a leg.