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Linux Jobs on the Rise
Jan Stafford writes "Looking for a job at LinuxWorld and everywhere else? IT recruiting expert Scot Melland says you have more grounds for optimism than in recent years. In this Q&A, he describes where the jobs are and how much they're paying."
This is as it should be. Support is what's most important.
I'm a sysadmin, I build and maintain Linux systems for production use. Others where I work use the OS for various purposes, including software development and embedded systems. Some use it as their primary desktop, as I do. The results of the development, made more productive by a solid IT infrastructure foundation, make the money.
I suppose one could turn the question around and ask how one makes money using a non-free operating system, when they're not the one selling/developing it. If anything you would seemingly make less because the OS adds an additional cost, but that doesn't show the big picture. It's the results that really matter, the OS is just a means to the end.
GPL: Free as in will
And doing so for a Linux-run business is also time consuming. That's why companies hire and pay people to do it. Hence the jobs nerds like us work at.
If my answers frighten you, stop asking scary questions.
Where I work we are developing a few different boards that all use embedded linux on an Arm9. I think that Linux may develop to take over that market really well. After all, who needs a full blown Windows installation on an embedded device? And is Windows even capable of running on an MMU-less processor?
it's pretty difficult to make money developing Linux =P
As there is more money to be made overall and more positions to be had in carpentry than there is in designing hammers.
The primary point of tools being their use.
KFG
No I totally agree with you. I like Linux, and on servers I just love it. On the desktop, I try to like it but I always go back to my windows/mac land.
Microsoft's products are really getting a hell of a lot better aswell. They are also being much less 'ghey' towards the OS community overall. Most MS employees will freely admit of liking FireFox, Apache, PHP etc (I've chatted with quite a few). I'm actually quite sure the Billy Boy at the top loves OSS, but Balmer probably despises it. Ever notice how Balmer is always the one saying how OS kills jobs and flies to Munich (I know he's the CEO, but Gates has way more clout than him. IMO).
Also, some of their products just rock. Visual Studio for example - Whitby (2005) is just plain fantastic. C# is a very nice programming language also. Windows XP, if you like it or not, is a vast improvement over 98, and IMO over 2000.
Then again, GNOME 2.8 is going to be a really great release. It's starting to fall toghter, and Longhorn is not going to be able to catch up.
IntechHosting - Free domain, 2GB, PHP, £4.95/$8.95
The other issue is the lock-in that the GPL creates. Most corporations prefer the freedom of the BSD-style license.
The BSD license has some things going for it, but if we look at what corporations are backing Linux and what are backing *BSD, it seems that the GPL "lock-in" doesn't bother IBM, Novell, etc.. In fact, it might encourage them since after adding lots of code to Linux, a third party can't just take the code, add a bit to it and then sell it as proprietary software -- they must give back, just like people before them did, and I'd say that's pretty fair.
Treehugger? Treehugger... Treehugger!
How does a pilot make money flying through free air?
In the third world (between Kansas City and Denver),
I find if someone mentions linux in an ad, its something
like must know MS Active Directory, MS IIS, MS blah blah, and Linux.
Mostly, linux is used solely as a filter to weed out
paper MCSEs. As one who uses Solaris, BSD, and Linux
on a regular basis, I can't get an interview or
someone to talk with me. Apparently you don't use
windows, you're incapable of knowing how a computer
works (to the PHBs). Graduated from college a year
ago and can't get anything.
Linux jobs could be going through the roof for all I know, but the apparent "research" done for that article is absolute cr@p.
Counting the job postings on Dice? Please. This could be due to nothing more than Dice negotiating some special contracts with a few big companies.
Anybody every notice that big defense contractors, and a few other institutions absolutely flood those job boards lately? Often posting over 100 jobs in a day just for one city.
I live near Aurora Colorado, good sized Ratheon installation there. If the number of jobs posted just on hotjobs is any clue, then Ratheon must be hirering about 150 new people every day. On Dice, it Lockheed that floods the job boards.
I don't know what kind of games they're playing, or what of deals are made; but you'd have to an idiot to think all of those advertised jobs are for real.
Besides that, is Linux a *primary* qualification? Or is just one the many, many, qualifications that are typically thrown in along with everything else but the kitchen sink?
And, most importantly of all, what is the ratio of new positons vs the number of people flooding into the field?
In my opinion, the article is a bit misleading. From my down to earth view (of having contact with literaly hundreds of IT folks) there are more jobs now than there were in the last few years...
The jobs are different though. Most are doing fairly boring things, and salaries are in the $30-40k range. (very few are in the $50k range). There are obviously exceptions (one of my friends makes $85k), but the average is still ~$35k.
Then again, that's better than being unemployed... And there are cently more jobs there now than there were a year or two ago. But they're crappy jobs.
"If anything can go wrong, it will." - Murphy
i liked it better the first time, when it was called java.
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
Why would he wish that certification carries a lot of clout? And who is it that expected it to?
Linux is certainly growing in market share, but it's still mostly in environments with management that values the thinking processes and figuring out the right ways to do things. When Linux finally reaches the level where it gets used by managers that don't value the thinking process, and just pick things because it might look good, or because someone wearing another tie said it was good, then we'll see certification in more demand. And they will get what they deserve, too, just like they got when they wanted an MCSE to run their Windows machines. The more the masses get certification, the less value that certification has. But that seems to be when managers want it most. How silly.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
They're mostly patched now, but there were several cases where vbscripting and the like would automatically execute in Outlook.
While you make a good point, I think the ease of use issue is mostly irrelevant.
Regardless of whether or not linux sucks, it will eventually become the defacto operating system because it's cheaper. Without all those monopoly profits flowing into one vendor, there will be more money circulating in the economy to be used for growth.
When you have the choice as a business user between those $300 licenses (BTW how can you possibly charge that much for something that literally sells billions? The R&D has long been paid for, Bill.) or spending that money on something else that will earn more profit in the end, all while putting up with a crappy linux desktop environment, the choice becomes clear. Even if you're just spending that money on extra support staff and the migration, at least it's going back directly into the marketplace instead of Microsoft deciding how best to spend it.
I also think that the quality of the desktop is not that huge of a motivating factor for people to begin with. The eMac and iBook are both only slightly more expensive than your average bargain Wintel box and support MS Office, Photoshop, and Macromedia stuff, which would probably cover most non-financial and non-gamer users, but Apple's market penetration is still extremely weak.
And the Windows desktop isn't the paragon of useability. Log on to any non-technical user's system and you'll see something like 15 icons in the tray all eating up memory, ads that pop-up even when no browser is open, hundreds of icons all over the place for programs they haven't used in years, many of them for readme files and expired shareware, and maybe a few viruses. Quite simply, the average user will put up with whatever shit you put in front of them as long as the price is right. They just don't care as much about the quality of their workspace as we do.
As more people adopt linux and shape it to their needs, its value rises, overcoming migration costs. But it doesn't really matter whether improvements in the OS relate to increasing its value in some unrelated way or reducing migration costs, either is fine. But really, it just doesn't make sense to pay an inflated price on top almost every computer sold when you don't have to. That money can be used to buy more machines, or more people, or whatever else will help make people more productive. Ultimately, things will improve for everyone but Microsoft.
That's just my armchair Micro-econ 101 analysis of the situation anyways.
Here in MA, that ususally means not only have you written a Linux device driver or TCP stack (everybody has done that, right?) but for a new protocol that hasn't even been finalized yet. That pretty much narrows the candidates down to the 3 or 4 companies participating in the standards process with a dozen or so people involved overall.
I constantly amazed by the lengths companies will go to avoid actually training anybody. It must be some kind of game of coporate chicken where they burn through their window of opportunity trying to get somebody who will hit the ground running, with built in feedback making it all the more so.
You see job ads indicating those kind of situations which keep getting reposted, which makes you wonder how insane someone would have to be to take the position that late in the cycle.
Windows puts power in the hands of management
That has been the perception and that is the point of the Microsoft ads.
It doesn't really, but that's another issue.
Considering the technical knowledge of management in most companies, these are exactly the hands that you do not want to have power.
Errrr, there's something backwards here. The fundamental nature of management is that it is management that has the power. IT is there to serve the priorities of management, not the other way around.
What is happening is that Windows is slowly taking over the joint, and to be perceived to be doing so by PHBs. The PHBs will not like that.
Something I read a long time ago put a value of 85% on the overlap of the skill set for good programmers and good managers. Both have to deal with conflicting priorities and limited resources.