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Hot Tech Skills For 2006?
linumax writes "Computerworld is running a 3 page story on what tech skills will be in demand for the coming year. They suggest developers, security experts and project managers are in demand. It also comes up with some good news. FTA: 'Despite the notion that hordes of U.S. IT jobs are being sent offshore, in reality, less than 5% of the 10 million people who make up the U.S. IT job market had been displaced by foreign workers through 2004, says Scot Melland, president and CEO of Dice Inc., a New York-based online jobs service. The numbers of jobs posted on Dice.com from January through September for developers, project managers and help desk technicians rose 40%, 47% and 45%, respectively, compared with the same period in 2004, says Melland.'"
I think it's a myth that IT jobs are declining -- I have more need for quality workers than I have ever had in 15 years of business. I believe I will have a 200-300% growth in 10 years if I wasn't on the verge of retiring from this market.
The reality, though, is that I constantly have to re-evaluate if my top paid employees are worth the money they're getting paid. I don't have as much trouble as do MOST IT employers -- my employees make minimum wage plus a large per-project bonus. I would pay less than minimum wage if I could (and more of a bonus), because it forces workers to become more efficient, and we all benefit from this.
Here's the kicker: as I see more decent workers come into the workforce, I see less reason to pay as much as I have in the past. Every dollar I save in wages and bonuses is almost $1.50 I can save my customers. I sell my business to my customers by guaranteeing a profit for them on every dollar they pay me. If I can save them that $1.50, I can show them more of a profit, for less expense. It is a win-win situation for the customer and myself, but it causes IT employees to cry foul.
This is a very strong part of the free market -- supply and demand. As the supply of quality IT workers goes up, demand has to go up equally for the price to stay constant. The demand HAS gone up, but I believe the supply is heading upwards at a much higher rate, hence a lower base pay. The second part of the free market that angers the average worker is that as the base pay gets lower, salaried workers have more reason to go off on their own (to earn that $1.50 instead of the $1.00), which increases competition, lowering prices even more.
This is GOOD for the economy and good for the world -- the less that companies pay for IT, the more money they have for other costs and investments, such as R&D or more efficient machinery. I personally have made more money in the years that I lowered my billing rate, as I found more customers willing to extend projects they didn't want to in previous years.
To stay on the topic, the hottest tech skills are less important (to me and my customers) than the ability to understand what IT does for a business: it should raise efficiency, it should allow multiple tasks to be performed by the same person, and it shouldn't interfere with the employees' abilities without increasing their abilities in some other area. IT should be profitable for a company, not an expense without gain.
If you want to be a valuable IT employee or consultant, figure out how you can make your customer (or employer) more money, so that you truly have value for the work you perform. If you are just an expense, you're not doing your job. This is true of ANY employee in ANY business, but most people ignore the realities of business and the market.
VoIP will be huge this year. It already is a big deal, but as companies start upgrading/replacing their phone systems, they will want to go with a voip based system to "future" proof it.
This is from my experience this year. A lot of companies expressed interest in me setting up a voip system for them, and because I go with asterisk I can undercut most competition dramatically while offering more features.
Look for voip ( and asterisk especially ) to explode in 2006.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Using Dice.com (or Monster.com) as an example that IT jobs are more in demand, is plain rediculous. Have you SEEN any of said job postings? Nothing like a receptionist looking for "10 years experience in windows XP and Interweb Gooey experience a must".
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
IMO, just got to grok OO programming, know different protocols (SOAP, HTTP), know XML, have good self teaching skills, know how to google for answers.
Learning a language or tech trend is not hard if one understands the underlying concepts: operating systems, OO code, various design patterns, protocols, etc.
Thats still half a million, the population of a medium sized city. I'd say thats a lot of displaced workers.
Ground yourself in fundamentals rather than just one technology or language. Language wars are silly because a good engineer can learn a language easily.
Know yourself. Be honest with yourself first. Understand what you like to do and find a job where you can do that.
Be innovative. Keep your skills current and apply them to new problems.
Be respectful to your colleagues. They need you and you need them. Penis waving is not a firm foundation for a functional team.
Be a hero on a consistent basis.
I agree with another poster, that using DICE as evidence is absurd. I've pretty much given up on them - they're now among the most egregious sites that, regardless of what they *say*, update ads, so that an ad that was actually posted a month, or two months, or even three or more months ago shows up on a "search last seven days".
Then, of course, there is the too-frequent ridiculous requirement that the person they're looking for be more experienced in that company's systems than the person who just left. Just look at the laundry lists of "requirements"....
I wish companies would put a "date posted" *in* the ad, to prevent this abuse.
mark
Loyalty, man: loyalty.
We don't care if you can't manage two nuns in one minute of silent prayer.
You just have to be loyal about it.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
I agree that the IT job market is no where near dead. I work at a small internet company, and hiring competent IT employees is always a hassle. The problem is not that it is hard to find a job in the computer industry, it is that there arent enough competent people.
The only people that I know that are having trouble finding jobs are those without enough skill sets. Being a computer nerd, playing alot of video games, and running your MMORPG guild's website are not marketable skills. You need to actually be useful. Probably at least 95% of those 5% of jobs going overseas are just taking away jobs from the morons in the computer industry.
And colleges are turning out incompetent programmers at an alarming rate. Going to a college to find a competent IT worker is barely more fruitful than going to your local Walmart. I wish they would start teaching these kids something instead of just having TAs on hand to basically do the student's work for them every time they have a problem. I actually have a friend who complained that his boss wouldnt help him enough whenever my friend had a problem with his work. I couldnt believe what I was hearing.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
I would pay less than minimum wage if I could (and more of a bonus), because it forces workers to become more efficient, and we all benefit from this.
This was done during the industrial revolution. Workers were paid not on a wage, but by how many units of whatever they could produce. This left workers tired, worn out, and considerbly less effective.
Then the workers rights movement emerged. Unions formed to protect workers as a whole. Required breaks, 40 hour work weeks, and wage all came about because of this. It's kinda sad to see that a lot of the tech industry is not learning from the past.
It doesn't make them more efficient. It makes them feel like they've constantly got to work at 100%. This isn't sustainable and in the long term the total output of work is equal or lower than someone on set wage.
There was an article on this idea a few months back that actually one some awards from what I understand. Studies during the industrial were cited.
If an officer ever threatens to taze you, say you have a pacemaker.
- Solid logic & critical thinking skills. Sounds silly to mention, but there are way too many people in the IT world who lack these basic qualities that are so important to troubleshooting and smart design. I still run into a lot of people who don't grasp the big picture and realize that fixing A could break B through Z if they're not careful.
- Willingness to solve tough problems. This was taken care of for the most part by the dotcom bust, but IMO no one belongs here who doesn't have a good work ethic and the desire to do difficult work. Especially now that IT is becoming more process-oriented and less "shoot-from-the-hip", being able to come up with an answer that does more than address the immediate problem will earn you huge points.
- Business and customer service skills. The outsourcing thing is going to be especially hard on those who don't interact with users, exclusively write code, or do "just" their IT job. It's becoming even more important to get out there and be seen among your customers. The days of the "computer guy" who doesn't play well with others are numbered, nufortunately for people like this. There will always be a set of hardcore geeks in the center of it all, but that center is getting smaller as platforms merge, standards develop, etc.
So basically, IT jobs at their core require the same skills as any knowledge worker, just more of them. Being technically capable is required, of course, but it's not the only requirement anymore.Much of the US government tech market was unaffected by the dot.com draw down. Nobody gets rich but it's a living.
And the benefits are ridiculous.
A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
When a CEO says he is "Desperate For Developers" it means that he want to hire developers who work more hours for less money.
Do not trust a CEO.
He deviates from the topic to carry on for five paragraphs justifying why he pays his workers so little. Posting that on /. is like jumping into a pit of lions covered in Worchestershire sauce - there is no explanation as to why somebody would do this except to elicit hateful responses. I recommend some self-help books on guilt or conseling, because he's clearly consumed with guilt.
Economics is more than just supply and demand. If it were that simple, then there would be no economists, no economics professors, and the only book necessary for an exhaustive understanding of the economy would be The Wealth of Nations. There's another side to business: you have to give in order to get. I've watched more than a few restaurants go under because the owner was an indifferent jerk. No matter how good the food is, if the company's ugly, you'll leave. Likewise, a well-treated worker is more efficient than one who gets treated like shit, because being paid well and being valued by your employer raise your self-esteem.
Why do you think Google is the envy of all of Silicon Valley? In order for Parent to have any semblance of sense, Google's HR policies would not only have to be incorrect, but totally fallacious. Judging by the fact that their stock is 423 bucks right now, there are at least a few people out there who believe Google is doing something right.
I have been one of those 5% of jobs which were shipped overseas. Being in the QA field now almost 8 years, the last 2 positions I held (not including the present one), were shipped over. 5% doesnt seem like a lot, but telling those people who are now laid off 5% isnt helpful. It still is a considerable amount of jobs, in which people may still be laid off, trying to support their family. It's like saying hey there's a disease with no cure, but it only is affecting 5% of the population, well that's no consolation for that 5% who are infected is it?
Even if you accept the dubious claim that there are jobs available for project managers & security experts, the typical career arc start at the bottom as a lowly programmer & work your way up to these lofty positions.
When you outsource the lowly programmer jobs to India, where are the sec experts & proj managers supposed to come from ? No university instantly graduates a security expert - you learn on the job & submit papers get peer reviewed & work your way up. If you outsource the training ramp, you can't expect to get to the top.
When I asked NYU economist Prof Easterly about this, he dismissed it as classic fallacy - "nobody works his way to a Professor by first serving at kindergarten, then middle school, then high school, then college, then univ..."
Well ok, but you don't get tenure straighaway either - you start as a freshly minted PhD, become a post-doctorate asspc, then asst Prof, then associate Prof, then tenured Prof.
There is always a training ground.
If there's a surplus of skilled labor that drives wages down, the alleged free market proponets say that's good, that's the free market at work. But if there's a shortage that drives wages up, they'll say that's bad and lobby for the goverment to intervene in the free market and raise the H1B visa quota. But if workers lobby to keep or lower the H1B visa quote then they're accused of being racist. There's a free trade card you can play if you want to complicate the argument further(i.e. no protection of labor but keep protection on trade goods). But it's the same strategy, i.e. pick and choose the arguments (free market, free trade, etc...) when they support your position and ignore them when they don't.
I am a real software developer. That I won't bother responding to a job posting like that is probably statistically insignificant, so please only take this as an opinion of one person.
So, here are my reasons for not applying for such a job:
Again, please don't read too much into this post. If it helps you understand what you can do to waste less time looking for a qualified developer, good. Otherwise, feel free to dismiss this as a random guy's opinion.
My only problem with Microsoft is the severity of bugs in their software.
So -- here's my question: How do you break in new programmers straight out of school? Do you immediately assign them to a critical position working with, say, a corporate accounting system? Do you assign them to write flight control/guidance software for fighter jets or the space shutle? Only if you are insane. Instead, you break them in on drudgework, or less critical maintenance work until their actual skills have caught up with their "book learning".
In my humble (well, not really) opinion, offshoring these types of jobs is the IT equivalent of eating your seed corn. In the long run you wind up starving due to your own stupidity and lack of foresight.
But that's just me...
The contest for ages has been to rescue liberty from the grasp of executive power. -- Daniel Webster