Software engineer Jesse Severe says he can pretty much throw a dart on a map and find a job. The 41-year-old from San Diego says he's contacted by headhunters at least once a month, at times has been able to work from home for half his workweek and makes a comfortable living.

All those factors and others landed software engineer in the No. 1 spot on a newly-released study of the 200 best and worst jobs by CareerCast.com, a career website owned by Adicio Inc. (Until last year, Wall Street Journal owner News Corp. held a minority stake in Adicio.)

Best and Worst Jobs of 2011

CareerCast rated 200 jobs based on income, working environment, stress, physical demands and job outlook, using data from the Labor Dept. and U.S. Census and researchers' own expertise. See which jobs were ranked highest and lowest, and their midlevel income.

• Visit CareerCast for full rankings and methodology
• Best and worst jobs 2010

CareerCast rated 200 jobs based on income, working environment, stress, physical demands and job outlook, based on data from the Labor Dept. and U.S. Census and researchers' own expertise.

Software engineer overtook last year's top job, actuary, which fell to No. 3, behind mathematician. The rise was mainly due to a robust hiring outlook, attributable in part to the rising popularity of social media and mobile applications, said Tony Lee, publisher of CareerCast and JobsRated.com. Last year, software engineer placed second.

Mr. Severe, who helps design flight-training software at ProFlight LLC, started out in the 1990s as a graphic designer, but moved into software design after seeing how much money his computer programming colleagues made.

"My job's flexible, pays well and gives [me] a lot of job satisfaction," he says.

Mr. Severe says his salary is in line with what most software engineers at his level earn.

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Joe Light