Warbling Willie Nelson, in a now classic country song, offers up a sage piece of career advice: "Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys."

OK, I know Willie never could be confused with an employment and demographics expert, but I would argue the craggy state of his countenance should be ample evidence of a hard life lived and, thus, count for something in the experience department. Besides, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize cowboy, as a profession, will offer diminishing opportunities as we shrink the amount of land on which they can ply their trade while the buffalo roam and the deer and the antelope play–if you know what I mean.

So why, you ask, am I bringing this up? It seems to me a similarly shrinking playing field is one of the problems we face today in the technology sector. Once a booming job market with higher-than-average salaries, the U.S. technology sector has fallen on leaner times as automation has replaced lower-level employees (isn't that ironic?), and higher-level workers–especially programmers–have seen their jobs exported to other countries where the hourly pay rate may be 25 percent of what it is here.