3.軟件工程師 Software engineers

What would all that planning and design by network and data analysts be worth without software? Not a whole lot, which explains why the BLS expects the cadre of software engineers and application developers to swell to 689,900 by 2018 (up from 514,800 in 2008). Whether they are building business software, constructing an operating system, developing games, or designing mobile apps, software engineers have a wide array of career avenues to consider.

如果沒有軟件，網絡規劃設計師和數據分析師又有什么用？這也就可以解釋為什么勞工統計局預計到2018年軟件工程師和應用程序開發人員將增長至68.99萬人（2008年這一數字為51.48萬人）。不管軟件工程師開發商用軟件、操作系統、游戲還是手機應用程序，他們的職業道路都很寬。（下圖：舊金山谷歌I/O開發商大會上參觀者嘗試新應用程序）

And it surely does not hurt that the worldwide smartphone market grew by 50% between the second quarter of 2009 and 2010, according to the market research firm IDC. The impressive growth of the smart mobile industry over the past few years will only add fuel to the fire of the impressive job prospects for application developers, as smartphone users have come to expect increasingly advanced software applications to justify the increased expense of their phones.

根據市場研究機構IDC（互聯網數據中心）的預測，2009年第二季度至2010年之間全球智能手機市場增幅達5成。過去幾年中智能手機行業這種迅雷不及掩耳的增長幅度將會給應用程序開發人員的職業前景添磚加瓦，因為智能手機用戶越來越希望能有高級的軟件應用來匹配其高端的手機。