Looking at Web developer jobs in Austin, trying to figure out the dominant technologies in demand, I encountered the following listing:

.NET Entry Level Developer

Required Experience/Qualifications:

Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science (or related)
2 to 4 years experience as a Software Engineer using the .NET Framework
1 to 2 years experience doing development for the web using ASP.NET WebForms

Two to four years experience is "entry level" now?

Dang.

I had hopes of being able to bootstrap myself into a real job, but if this is entry level, it doesn't sound like much of a chance.

A List Apart publishes an annual survey of Web professionals. The 2010 edition, Findings From the Web Design Survey, 2010, came out a couple of weeks ago ("...admittedly a little late...").

A quick look at the survey findings shows that when I turn professional, I'll be definitely in the minority age-wise - people over 45 years old make up just 7.2% of survey respondents. As a white male living in North America, I'll be in the majority - Web professionals are overwhelmingly white and male, and 49.1% of us live in the United States of America, with another 6.3% in Canada.

My lack of a college degree puts me in the minority, but in plenty of company nonetheless (20.1% with "some college"). Fortunately, given that 84.2% of Web pros think their college experience was only "Some", "A little", or "Not at all" relevant, the lack of a college degree is surely a concern that can be overcome with hard work, experience, and good networking.

The article goes on for 13 pages, breaking out the results by all kinds of categories. If you're a Web professional and a statistics geek, you should definitely check this article out. That, or get a job doing Web sites for Major League Baseball teams.

This came up in Twitter (one of @philcoffman's Tweets, IIRC) a couple of days ago:

Front-end Web Developer

Development | Austin, TX, United States

The ideal applicant will be passionate about both technology and design, and extremely detail-oriented. This role involves being both a flawless executer and an advisor to the design team, constantly seeking out innovative solutions.
 
Required Skills:

• Ability to collaborate with creative and development team members.
• Ability to create pixel-perfect cross browser compliant front-end code that is clean and concise.
• Strong working knowledge of Photoshop; able to slice comps created by the design team.
• Strong XHTML skills and knowledge of HTML 5.
• Deep understanding of CSS and browser support for emerging features.
• Ability to work quickly and efficiently across multiple concurrent projects.
• Familiar with source control principles and comfortable with Subversion.
• In-depth knowledge of IE quirks and how to address them.
• Experience writing Javascript and using common libraries such as jQuery.

Posted on March 9th (but I just saw it today via joelonsoftware.com) -

Smith & Robot wants to meet Client-Side Developers in Austin for a 3 month contract-to-hire position.

You Have:
* 2+ years client-side development work experience
* Solid experience with any combination of current HTML, CSS, Javascript and Flash
* Intuition for object-oriented thinking
* Familiarity with software workflow concepts like version control and team-based development
* A good eye for motion design and user experience refinements
* Communication skills to support your ideas and understand direction

...

The Job:
* Write code for sites, banners, games, mobile apps and anything that goes on a screen
* Work independently on moderate sized projects
* Work in a supporting role on large projects