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Technology Sectors that are Hot or Heating Up Now?
unemployedCoder-in-retraining asks: "As a recently "leisured" programmer, I'm very interested in trying to turn misfortune into opportunity. This means using this career discontinuity to bone up on the latest-n-greatest in the hot sectors of the industry, to offer a better chance of a finding another great job. Of course, then one asks: 'What's Hot?' The Telco/Switching sector seems to have flatlined (Nortel and Lucent as examples). Cable and DSL access device and service development seems to be struggling. Wireless 3G networks seem to be having a hard time in North America. And yet, we here that a recovery is underway and that the technology sector as a whole is picking up again. So I ask you: 'Where?' In what sectors? What are the most important new technologies to learn to enhance employability? Somewhere, somebody is hiring or will be soon. What do I and other victims of the slowdown have to know to 'get back in the saddle' in the near future?"
By the time you figure out what's hot and train for it, it won't be hot any more. Just do what you like to do, do it well, and put yourself in a position where somebody will recognize you for it. Chasing trends will only exhaust you.
We reserve the right to serve refuse to anyone. -management
Porn has always made money, and always will. So if your morals are OK with it, go be a gearhead for a porn site or publisher.
I don't remember who said it, but I once read a quote that was along the lines of "The whole of computer science is nothing more than methods for increasing the efficiency of generating, storing, transmitting, viewing, and enjoying pornography." Heh.
Or, to update the recurrent slashjoke:
Where I'm working (large financial institution) they're starting to look into AI as a means of predicting market movement and trends. One could see this as becoming key in other areas as well. Any field that tries to predict chaos or long-term trends could potentially be looking into this.
Of course, there's the danger you'll invent a supercomputer that takes of the world and sends killer robots back in time to kill the leader of the resistance. This naturally would lead to his psychotic mother trying to kill you and you ultimately sacrificing yourself to save the future. Something to think about.
- In hell, treason is the work of angels.
Good times or bad times, the adult industry is unaffected. And they are always the first ones to adopt new tech...
-- OMFG = Oh My Floatse Goatse
Short one: If we knew, we'd be doing it.
/. subjects seem to get most attention. I consider these subjects "hot". Do this with various other publications, and since we all have seen how satire foresees reality, start with the onion ;)
Longer one:
I can't tell you what...but you can start using your imagination trying to find something that people would use frequently.
And now for some brainstorming:
Whatever you do, a good marketing dpt. will make it look better. This is sad.
Not "one" thing there is. Ok, yoda speak, but what i want to get to is that people need to fill gaps in the business...some people do this...some people do that... coding is fun , ok, but if everone only coded, it'd be dull.
Look which
storm's out.
Looking for people to chat about multicopters, coding, music. skype: gtsiros
There are always open and varried opportunities in the ever strong field of technical support!
"Survival of the fittest Max, and we've got the fucking gun!" - Pi
Just look at the stock market. Biotech is the future, my friend. In the new annual ranking of the Nasdaq 100 index--made up of the 100 largest nonfinancial companies ranked by market capitalization--seven of the 13 companies added were in biotech. The new entrants include such familiar names as ImClone Systems (IMCL ), Cephalon (CEPH ), Sepracor (SEPR ), and Invitrogen (IVGN ); they replace 13 faltering tech, telecom, and Internet outfits, including onetime stars CMGI (CMGI ), 3Com (COMS ), and Palm (PALM ). All told, biotech companies now represent 12.7% of the market capitalization of all the companies in the index, nearly triple the share they held only two years ago.
Sounds an awful lot like the Internet bubble all over again, I know. And in one sense, it is: The high market capitalization of many of these stocks suggests that investors are paying a lot in anticipation of future earnings that may never materialize. It costs tens of millions of dollars and can take five to 15 years to get a drug from the test tube to the clinic--and many drugs simply don't make it.
In several ways, however, this boom is different. The industry is more mature than it was a decade ago, when it last rose and fell. New alliances, new products, and new financing should combine to produce lasting growth in this once-turbulent field. There are some 300 biotech products in Phase III testing, the final stage of human experimentation before seeking Food & Drug Administration approval. The FDA issued 32 approvals for biotech drugs in 2000, a 45% increase over 1999. Sales of biotech products rose from $16.1 billion in 1999 to $18.1 billion in 2000, an increase of 12%. And there were 22 profitable biotechs in 1999, up from 17 in 1997. In addition, there is a distinct lack of bearded linux hippies in biotech, making it a much more attractive market segment to the general public.
Furthermore, unlike many Internet companies, the biotech companies are targeting clear and existing markets. Many Internet companies devised products without knowing whether there were markets for them. Others, such as Yahoo!, aimed for ad revenues that proved far smaller than hoped. Biotech companies don't have that problem: A drug for arthritis or cancer, say, has a huge market. If their drugs work, the biotechs will make money.
Excitement in biotech will likely get another boost when the climate for initial public offerings improves. There are 50-100 biotech companies waiting to go public, says Oronsky. That's where casual investors should be especially careful. Some of today's most promising biotechs will undoubtedly fall short of the hype. Unfortunately, that's one way this boom won't differ much from the last.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
Security, this is the big one now
Try Northrop Grumman / Lockeed Martin / Boeing, etc
as for the pure, pure computer area -- i think people are returning to the "core business". (chip wise)
LCD is another area;
wireless is picking up a little steam (look at how many DSL routers there are!), as well as other marginal stuff -- HDTV, PDA, etc...
cellphone and pda integration is considered to be inevitable by some -- so cellphones are not "flatlining", they are just not exploding as they were before.
at the same time digital imaging (cameras / miniDV camcorders) are sparking a huge thing within flash market -- look how the size have doubled time and again: imagine how much $$ of R&D / engineering went into that
home entertainment (xbox / ps2 / cube) is also kinda hot -- sony expect to sell a LOT of ps2s by christmas -- and ppl are gearing up for that too.
there are a couple more -- can't think of them off the top my head though
My life in the land of the rising sun.
One word: forensics. Between Enronesque corporate investigations, the kiddie porn scares, and the emphasis on "cyber security," there's lots of opportunity there. But don't do it unless you have the stomach to be the guy that helps put some teenager playing with a website in prison, because at the end of the day, that's what the computer crime "units" seem to enjoy most.
Call (206) 338-5780 COLLECT for information about a genuine BA, BS, MA, MS, MBA, or Ph.D.
I see lots of growth in Web services and entertainment. There are lots of companies transitioning to membership based models now, and that generates a lot of work to build those subscription systems and management tools.
I just hired four new developers at my company, so I will give you some pointers for actually getting in the door once you have found a company to interview for:
#1 - Accept the fact you'll most likely make less money than your last position. Times have changed in most markets. I hired for four positions and had 150 resumes (not counting the throw them in the trash right away kind). Lots of people I interviewed were looking for salaries that were gone with the 1999 dot com frenzy. Don't mentioned your MBA or Masters in CompSci fifty times, either.
#2 - Don't accept less money than you're worth. With #1 being said, don't short sell yourself either. Companies are getting away with murder when they hire right now because the market is so bad for those out of work. You want to come across as someone who is WORTH every penny you ask for. How to do this? Focus on things at your previous jobs that increased efficiency or saved your company money. As an example, someone I hired told me about how they cut their company's bandwidth costs by 30% by installing a proxy that used mod_gzip on everything going out. Companies will pay for people who will not only save them money, but FIND them ways to save even more money.
#3 - Be assertive, but not forceful. People who call me every two days to follow-up annoy the heck out of me. It sends a signal that you're desparate and don't have other options. Definately send an E-mail thanking the person for an interview with a couple BRIEF thoughts. If you call back more than once and don't hear back, don't waste your time chasing the job.
#4 - Focus on MY needs, not yours. I don't want to hear about how you are really heavily involved in open source, or have this web site you help maintain on the side that gets uber traffic. Things like that spell distraction to me. Review the Web site or product catalog of the company you are going to interview for. Do a Google search and read recent press on the company. Try to get an idea of what challenges the company is facing and apply your past project experience directly to that.
#5 - Dress and act appropriately. Don't show up in a suit unless it's an executive position and you're in an area of the country that requires it. Being overdressed makes you look out of place, and tells me you haven't been in circulation or interviewed much. Comb your hair, take out those nose rings (unless you're a graphics person, haha), and ask questions. If you don't understand something you're asked, say so. Nothing is worse than watching someone try to fake their way through an answer.
#6 - Base the business on the numbers and the market, not the Herman Miller chairs. Our office isn't super deluxe. It's pretty spartan, just a couple floors of cubes and Costco desks, tables, etc. But we're profitable for over a year, have over three million users, have positive growth, and have been in business on the net for over six years. You won't find a good job that will last if a company spends more on their office than their payroll.
#7 - Avoid the startup...This one is more of my personal experience, but most people I know are sick of hearing about startups. Hearing someone works at a startup in most cases sends up warning signs. You're better off working for a smaller, established company that is challenged by it's growth and needs quality people. You'll learn a lot more when you don't have to worry if your paycheck will be coming next month.
Just some thoughts from the front lines of a smallish Internet company in Seattle...Hope this helps!
Case
People are starving for inexpensive, easy to setup, wireless. Some day we'll be able to just slap a $20 antenna on any suburban rooftop and log onto a network. Until then, there are a lot of people looking for "solutions". Move fast if this excites you. Entrepreneurs are already moving on it.
If this doesn't turn you on, exploit fears of terrorism. That could include surveillance, security, privacy issues, encryption... anything spook-related.
Of course, you'll be lucky to get something you actually like in this economy.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
As someone working in Bioinformatics, here are a couple of quick opinions on your post:
Bioinformatics is *NOT* "just data-mining". Certainly, data-mining of genetic information is one aspect, but its far from being the whole field. There are lots of really interesting problems besides just "how do we deal with this huge genome..." Protien secondary structure prediction, tertiary structure prediction, computational pharmacokinetics (and biomolecule docking problems) etc... there is just *so* much more to the field than data mining.
The other thing is that this is only going to be "hot" for a limited amount of time. Bioinformatics is here to stay, but right now its on a huge trendy upswing. Drug companies are throwing millions of dollars at it in hopes of developing an 'in silico' drug testing lab... sooner or later they are going to realize that there is still a LOT of basic science that needs to be done before this happens. People working in bioinfo in industy are getting some pretty ludicrous salaries these days (yes I'm jealous... I'm in academia), but it ain't gonna last. Like any other flavour of the week there will be a huge bursting of the bubble, followed by a nice levelling off.
If bioinformatics *interests* you, then I would highly recommend pursuing it. Its a very rewarding area, and it offers you the opportunity to work with people from many different disciplines. But if you are on the "Bioinformatics == $$" bandwagon... you're going to end up dissapointed.
The reason is quite simple. You are not solving computer problems, you are solving science problems. The payoff is getting drugs to market faster. Every day a drug is on the market can be $1 million a DAY in revenue.
The science behind drug discovery is fairly invovled, and time consuming to learn. On the contrary, it is pretty easy to learn to make a short program that solves a math problem.
It is not easy to learn to write a GOOD program. Generally the code used in informatics departments is slow, hard to maintain, poorly documented, leaks resources, and is prone to dump core on a large number of inputs.
The bottom line is that infomratics people solve science problems. A scientist can quickly become a passable programmer. As soon as they do that, drug companies don't care if they have to spend millions of dollars on hardwarwe to get things to run quickly. Informatics problems can be solved by scientists, they just usually don't write very good code to do it.
It would be great to have people that are good scientist and good programmers. But it is hard to teach programmers even the basic vocabulary they need to be able to talk to a scientist about what the problem to be solved is. If you can only have one, you have to take the scientist over the programmer.
Basically, find a module on CPAN that is neglected, or look for some idea that hasn't been done elsewhere, work on it and post it to the web, and get your claim to fame!
Another great idea is to help out with the CJAN (sourceforge has the project) and bone up on your Java skills, converting ideas from CPAN into Java and posting them on some kind of CJAN site. You'll
Some other ideas:
- Don't be afraid to brag on the resume,
- practice answering the top 50 interview questions believably, with good and truthful answers,
- post your resume on lots of job boards,
- create a kickin' homepage,
- find old documents like howto's that you've written that are generally usefull to everyone and post them on your page,
- don't forget to wax your car! It's summer!
-- KevinUnitarian Church: Freethinkers Congregate!
Buzzzt! Guess again. Try counting up all the actual programming jobs using the "hot trends"; this number will be *far* lower than the "other" programming jobs out there (no... don't just look at Monster... I mean all potential programming jobs). There are many shops underserved with regards to the meat n' potatoes apps that a lot of "good" programmers snub their noses at, so these shops end up with money-grubbing consultants who swoop in and leave crap behind. Commit yourself to *high* quality and helping (yes, really HELPING) businesses thrive. Fix their existing systems and build quality new systems, and you'll go far. Sticking to the bleeding edge stuff (i.e., .NET) will drive you crazy and lead you off many "lemmings cliffs."
Steve Magruder, Metro Foodist
Also, I've heard it is a VERY difficult field to get into. You either have to know someone in the industry or proven yourself. I talked to one of the recruiters at EA Games and they actually scout the online community forums for people that have modded games and have been successful at doing so.
_______________________________
"I'm not Conceited...I'm just a realist..."
(* Now this is a good example of eXtreme Programming. *)
He he.
IMO, XP is a result of object oriented technology not living up to its promise of scalling and simplicity. OO has only created armies of overpaid consultants with 50 different OO methodologies that either don't work, or simply map the world into the author's mind (but nobody else's).
(I will probably get tagged a "troll" for this. Oh well, I have a few points to blow this week.)
oop.ismad.com
Table-ized A.I.