Software Notebook: State job market heats up

Microsoft helped sustain Washington's software sector during the dark days of the technology bust, continuing to add employees every year, albeit at a slower pace than before.

But now, the rest of the state's software industry is returning to growth mode, as well.

Statistics from the state Employment Security Department show a rebound in hiring among software makers during the past two years. In the state, software publishers other than Microsoft added more than 1,000 employees between June 2004 and June 2005. That's a significant turnaround from the more than 2,100 jobs shed by the same segment of the industry between June 2001 and June 2002.

"Those other software publishers are starting to come back," said Bret Bertolin, a senior economic forecaster with Washington's Economic and Revenue Forecast Council.

One example of the trend is RealNetworks Inc., maker of RealPlayer and other media-related software. The number of employees at the company's Seattle headquarters shot up from 280 at the end of 1997 to more than 900 at the end of 2000 -- before falling to 583 at the end of 2003.

Since then, however, RealNetworks has begun to expand again -- with 641 employees in Seattle at the end of 2004. (The company employs a total of 819 people worldwide.)

Total annual employment growth for the state's software publishing industry is still about half the annual increase achieved at the economy's 2000 peak. But the experience of computer-science students entering the work force offers further proof that the situation is improving.

"This year was much more like 1999 and the spring of 2000 than anything else in recent memory," said UW computer science professor Ed Lazowska. He said many students graduating from the program received multiple job offers or transferred directly from internships into permanent positions.

Matt Burkhart, a 21-year- old Shoreline native who graduated from the UW computer science program in June, starts his new job at Google next month. Burkhart said prospective employers "all seemed pretty eager" to recruit him and many of his classmates, quelling any fears they might have had about the job market.

"I though it was actually fairly easy," Burkhart said of the job search. He got the job with Google even before graduating.

The trend isn't isolated to Washington state. Data from the U.S. Department of Commerce show a similar rebound in information technology jobs nationally, starting in 2002.

In fact, finding the right people "is probably the single greatest problem" faced by a software company in expansion mode nowadays, said Brian Schlosser, chief executive of Seattle-based Attenex Corp., which sells software to law firms to aid in the legal process of discovery.

Attenex, which started the year at 28 employees, expects to reach 55 by the end of the year.

"The market is a little bit tight, but we are finding an ability to get good people," Schlosser said. "A lot of it is patience. We have to talk to a lot of people to find the right ones."

Other expanding companies include Seattle-based Qpass, which offers software to wireless companies for managing the delivery of ring tones, graphics and games to mobile phones. In addition to international growth through acquisitions, the company has added about 40 people at its Seattle headquarters during the past six months, bringing its total here to about 190 people. (Qpass employs about 300 worldwide.)

In addition, the company currently has about 15 to 20 open positions in the United States, most of them in Seattle, said Melanie Keisor, Qpass senior director of human resources. Keisor attributed the growth to factors including the company's customer wins and general strength in the economy.

"The digital media and services industry is really taking off," she said.

Meanwhile, Microsoft last week announced that it had hired a net total of about 4,400 people worldwide during its fiscal year ended June 30, a 68 percent increase in the hiring rate from the previous year. That included 1,388 in the Puget Sound region, down slightly from the company's regional growth the previous year.

Microsoft says it expects to grow at roughly the same overall rate in the coming year.

Earlier in the week, Bill Gates said he was concerned that waning interest in computer science among college students would create shortages of qualified employees in the United States. The UW's Lazowska is concerned about the same trend, and he hopes to counter the perception, encouraged by the tech bust, that there's a dearth of available jobs in computer science.

"It's a great field, it's incredibly creative," he said, "and there are jobs out the wazoo."

Software Notebook is a Monday feature by P-I reporter Todd Bishop. He can be reached at 206-448-8221 or toddbishop@seattlepi.com. P-I reporter John Cook contributed to this story.

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