I'm a boarding software engineer, and so are a fair number of the other employees where I work. A few things suggest themselves:

- software engineers are often vaguely lefty, hippy types and the surfing culture carried over to boarding might well appeal to them (and this is based on observation, not a sweeping generalisation, honest!)
- the gadgety aspect of boarding (iPod jackets, new kit every year, long spec lists for boards, bindings and so on) is one of the things that attracts me like a moth to a flame, even though I try to resist it.
- I think sitting in an office all day, in a job that most of us would acknowledge is pedestrian in the extreme leads a lot of engineers to go in completely the other direction for their hobbies. We have MTBers, skiers, boarders and rock climbers at our work.

Just a few thoughts...

Hi,
I work in IT too (a small consultancy in London). I would say about two thirds of the company are into some kind of winter sport with the majority being snowboarders. I think a lot of it is the contrast between having a fairly stress laden but sedentry job and a high(ish) adrenaline very active hobby. I also love being in the mountains and I've been hooked since day 2 (it rained on day 1) some 7 years ago.

Hmm, another IT bod dropping by and yep I'm a boarder of 10years+, mountain biker and ex-extreme rock climber. Clearly we're all in the wrong job!

yeah another techie boarder here, although im in telecommunications now.

i skied on a dry slope when i was a kid at school, and it pretty much put me off for a long time. also im an ex-skateboarder and so snowboarding really appealed.

i had a mountain bike when i was in the uk, and did that regularly - so its definately something to do with the adrenaline. i never got into the whole football thing, so needed some other physical activities to get me out from in front of the computer.

You're going to get a skewed response here because, surprise surprise, most bloggers and blog-readers are techies too. I'm a non-techie but was introduced to snowboarding by my techie boyfriend, and although most of our group of boarders are non-techies, they were mostly converted to the sport by one IT bod or another...