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Programming career guide for students — Des Moines, IA

Programming career guide by personality and purpose — for students

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Take the STEM Compass assessmentSee the STEM Farm tracks

What the assessment measures

280 items in five modules — what you love to do, how you work, fifteen STEM working traits, thirty real situations, and where you want your work to land — matched against forty careers in eight families. Then a sixth module drafts your mission, vision and values in your own words. Progress saves as you go; it is free and complete today.

Programming career guide for students. A guide grounded in measurement instead of opinion: forty careers with the traits each runs on, what the work is worth to the world, the education path, and a way to find out which are yours. Programming rewards the person who tries a sixth way after the fifth failed. It also rewards detail, procedure and comfort with a defined right answer. Students choose classes, majors and programs years before they meet the daily work of a career; this shows the ordinary day first.

Careers the Des Moines, IA economy leans on

8 counties across Iowa; 6 metro. Economies: 1 farming. Flags: 2 population loss and 1 a retirement destination.

Computer & Information Research Scientist+20%Software Developer+15%Computer Systems Analyst+9%Web Developer+7%Database Administrator+4%Database Architect+4%Computer Programmer-6%

Counties in this labor market

Adair County, IADallas County, IAGuthrie County, IAJasper County, IAMadison County, IAPolk County, IAPoweshiek County, IAWarren County, IA

Metros around Des Moines, IA

Omaha, NE–IA10 countiesDavenport, IA–IL7 countiesCedar Rapids, IA9 countiesWaterloo, IA8 countiesSioux City, IA–NE–SD6 countiesAmes, IA5 countiesDubuque, IA–IL5 countiesMason City, IA9 countiesOttumwa, IA9 countiesCreston, IA7 countiesBurlington, IA–IL6 countiesStorm Lake, IA5 counties

All forty careers in Des Moines, IA → · Programming career guide for students everywhere →

Questions people ask

How is a "programming career guide for students" different from a personality type test?

A type test gives you a label. STEM Compass gives you a profile on fifteen working traits and eight kinds of impact, then a directional match against each career — a number you can explain, not a letter code.

Does it cost anything?

No. The full assessment is open at tienesesto.org/stem-assessment, and every result links to a STEM Farm track that starts from zero.

Sources. Career traits, education paths and value lines are the STEM Compass assessment library. Employment growth is U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employment Projections 2024–2034. County economic types are USDA Economic Research Service County Typology Codes (2025); labor markets are Census commuting zones (2020). Salary is not shown anywhere in this campaign on purpose: the assessment measures fit and what the work is worth to the world.