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.'"

Comments

The most important skill

[dada21]

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.

Re:The most important skill

[mtrupe]

Nevermind the fact that all your employees are probably frustrated that you are busy trying see how much work you can squeeze out of them for how little money. You don't sound like the kind of person I would work very hard for.

Re:The most important skill

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Interesting comment. I have two follow-ups:

1. Do you think general business awareness is a skill in itself? I agree with you that understanding your role as an IT guy (whether sysadmin or development) is vital to being as useful as you can be, but I suspect it's important enough to be considered a whole category in its own right rather than just another skill on the checklist next to configuring SAMBA or programming Perl. I also think it can be taught/learned in the same way as good management.
2. Do you really think the supply of good quality IT workers is going up? IME, it's the opposite: most of the guys coming in now are all hot on this certificate or that buzzword, but even those from an allegedly academic background often don't understand basic principles as much as everyone used to when the market was smaller and newer.

Re:The most important skill

[Agarax]

Ditto.

If you are wishing that you could pay your IT staff LESS than minimum wage, they pick up on that.

Hell I could work as a busboy instead and save me the trouble of working for such a demanding boss while making the same money.

If you treat your IT staff like crap you will get crap performance in return.

Re:The most important skill

[Maxo-Texas]

87 employees.
185 indian infosys contractors (130 of them in bangladore) that -would- have been employees 5 years ago.

Your probably right.

The only hope is for 18% wage inflation to continue.

Re:The most important skill

[sgt_doom]

I've been tracking IT jobs from 2000 to 2004, and the decline is far greater than the article's author (and this poster) believe it to be.

Remember, such numbers are only voluntarily given by corporations (and the federal and local governments which do the same thing), and in each and every study by the GAO, and various other agencies and organizations, very few corporations and companies actually responded.

Just doesn't track.....here in Seattle, I see nothing but inferior white Project Managers who oversee Punjabis and Paks, either brought in to this region, or overseas.......Also, this supply and demand stuff is getting mighty old to people who've been around awhile and seen no competitive hiring taking place whatsoever. Far too many submediocre people are being hired as a security measure to ensure the job security of the people who've hired them (they can't be replaced by them, etc.).

Re:The most important skill

[dada21]

Nevermind the fact that all your employees are probably frustrated that you are busy trying see how much work you can squeeze out of them for how little money. You don't sound like the kind of person I would work very hard for.

I wouldn't hire someone with that attitude anyway. My goal with each and every person I hire is to see them competing with me in 5-10 years. Not a single employee of mine better stay an employee for the rest of their lives. I have a few ex-employees (one guy in his 50s) who are now subcontractors for me and not only work with me on projects, but against me on some.

A boss/owner has to always review how much the input costs are compared to how much their customers are willing to pay. This is part of the free market: a constantly changing demand and a constantly changing supply. If you think you're worth more than you are worth, your job will likely disappear and not be replaceable. Some bosses are twits: they will lose everything they've built over years (or generations) in order to save some overpaid employees. These employees lose their jobs when the business goes under, and they wonder why they can't get another job earning the same amount, even though they should have been canned years earlier.

I know of one IT guy who is earning a very strong 6 figures (his title is CTO) who knows very little of what is going on in the market. The company doesn't want to "have the talk" and offer him some training to catch up, and I know that he's preventing them from becoming the force they could be.

Life is about constantly refining your value by becoming MORE valuable. If what you're good at is on the verge of becoming antiquated, GET OUT OF THAT BUSINESS. Gas lamp lighters are gone, horse shoers too. Some IT jobs are useless and belong in third world countries.

Re:The most important skill

[humphrm]

> To stay on the topic

Yeah, because the rest of your post was just a tirade about how little you respect and value your IT staff.

Re:The most important skill

[cryfreedomlove]

I agree that IT people should be business aware. I disagree that IT wages are under downward pressure. I see the exact opposite of that in Silicon Valley.

Re:The most important skill

[Yhippa]

You pay your employees $5.15/hr.? Could you give ma a general idea of how big your "large" bonus is?

Re:The most important skill

[drewzhrodague]

It is obvious from reading your post, and a quick look through your blog, that you have not worked in the IT field, and thus -- do not know what you're talking about. Me working for peanuts is not good for me, and I can't imagine how a low-wage earner of any career is good for the economy (except for banks). Also, I've noticed that when I reduce my rate, people not hire me, even if I'm starving. Crank the rate back up, and I find myself consistantly employed. I don't like being treated like a slave laborer, either.

Re:The most important skill

[dada21]

Do you think general business awareness is a skill in itself?

Absolutely. It is not learned in school, either. I am constantly amazed at how many massively profitable businesses bring on "business experts" who have huge paper backing without any real life experience. In the past 10 years, I've watched almost 5 big customers of mine go in the gutter over the advice of a guy with letters after his last name. America is quickly learning that MBA is not the key to running a good business: profitability, efficiency, and marketplace wanting your product/service is. It isn't so hard to understand.

I also think it can be taught/learned in the same way as good management.

I'm not sure. From my experience, the best managers are the people who understand both the needs of the employee from a human standpoint and the needs of the company from a profitability standpoint. For the majority of employees without management potential, this is a constant area of debate. For management, they see how effective it is to constantly balance the needs. In my experience, the best managers don't come out of college, and some of them barely finished high school. I did meet a fantastic manager with a Master's Degree, but he admitted that it was 'in his blood.'

Do you really think the supply of good quality IT workers is going up?

Absolutely not. In this country, the supply of quality workers is going down. My firm belief is that young men and women should get work experience as early as possible in life -- instead we focus on higher education in high school and college. I learned everything I needed to know about business between the ages of 13 to 15 by studying other businesses and trying things. I meet 20 year olds now who won't take a risk and start a business because "college experience is more important." I think there are far bigger risks to take when you are young, and this can lead to a higher quality work force.

The worst part of the workers in this country is the demands they make and our government backing those demands up. I don't want to get to that part of the debate because it always starts flame/troll wars, but let us just say that I feel the employee/employer trade shouldn't be regulated or restricted. :)

most of the guys coming in now are all hot on this certificate or that buzzword, but even those from an allegedly academic background often don't understand basic principles as much as everyone used to when the market was smaller and newer.

It isn't the market's oldness that is the problem, it is the fact that companies are losing ground VERY fast, and they're not sure what the problem is. People think it is the lack of "training" or being in the wrong business, but that is not the case. For the past 3 decades we've sown terrible policies (politically, educationally and in the workplace) and these policies are catching up with us. A very good friend has a son who is just starting out on his own business (the kid is 16) that I helped him start. He works cheaply, efficiently and in the first 3 months he has more opportunities than he could every handle. Why? Because he's willing to let the market set his price and his product instead of the other way around. Opening yourself to the realities of the marketplace is much more important since you'll be more willing to see where you are needed and for how much rather than say "This is how much I demand I get paid and this is how many hours I will work."

Re:The most important skill

[dada21]

It is obvious from reading your post, and a quick look through your blog, that you have not worked in the IT field, and thus -- do not know what you're talking about.

Really? I started my first IT business almost 17 years ago. It has been in business all that time, grown every year, and has performed work on some of the largest commercial ventures in the Chicagoland area. I'm tired and have no desire to stay in the business more than another 3 years. Blogging is a new direction for me (I wrote paper newsletters for years that were successes and failures). Considering my company refused to go dotcom and continued to grow duing the dotbomb, I think I do know what I am talking about.

Me working for peanuts is not good for me, and I can't imagine how a low-wage earner of any career is good for the economy (except for banks).

Really? My employees that earn peanuts for a salary make a ton of money in bonuses. Some projects bonus out over 66% of the profit of the project. One of my top employees only works about 15 hours a week and he owns his condo, car and all his assets without loans. He's not even close to 30 years old.

Also, I've noticed that when I reduce my rate, people not hire me, even if I'm starving. Crank the rate back up, and I find myself consistantly employed.

This is VERY true. When I said I lowered my rate, I didn't mean going from $160 per hour to $40, I meant going from $160 per hour to $145 or so. Consider it a discount for past contracts, but it helped 75% of the time I presented it.

I don't like being treated like a slave laborer, either.

Only someone not willing to increase their abilities and offer their customers profits would be a slave. If you have value, you'll never be a slave, except to the State.

Re:The most important skill

[dada21]

Do YOU work for minimum wage?

Yes. I pay myself minimum wage every month (I think I make about US$600 take home salary a month). I bonus myself a dividend at year's end and maybe at the half year as well. My employees all work exactly the same way, although I pay the bonuses at project end, not year's end.

You're right, you wouldn't hire me, because I wouldn't work for minimum wage.

So you'd rather say "I am worth US$80,000 per year" and be done with it. That's fine. My employees want more. They want to learn about business (all my accounting books are completely open to even the newest employee). They want to learn about collections and input costs. They want to learn how to manage crises. They want to get a piece of the action based on the profitability of their project (we're talking up to 66% profit sharing, not 3%). They want to work hard, knowing in a few years they could own their own business -- that I helped them finance.

I hate the term employees. I love the term future competition.

Re:The most important skill

[Dunbal]

I would pay less than minimum wage if I could ... because it forces workers to become more efficient

      So if I don't pay my workers ANYTHING, and promise to give them a huge bonus if they finish the job, they will be perfectly efficient?

      Tell me something, you don't happen to be a manager at EA do you?

Re:The most important skill

[dada21]

You pay your employees $5.15/hr.? Could you give ma a general idea of how big your "large" bonus is?

My books are open to my employees -- they can see what the company takes in, what it pays out and what it writes off.

Most projects pay between 50% and 66% of the profits out as bonuses. About 25-30% of the project goes to overhead (salary and bills). The rest goes into my pocket. I've made bonuses of more than 30% of some projects, and in other projects I'll make 2%.

I believe we pay $6.15 per hour but I could be wrong. Minimum wage restricts all my employees of better income, though. If we could nuke minimum wage altogether, I'd likely pay up to 75-80% of project profits out as bonuses, and I'd be able to hire much younger employees who are hungry to learn and hungry to earn.

Re:The most important skill

[Dunbal]

At the holiday party, do you bring in a single sandwich and let the workers fight it out to see who gets to eat?

      Yeah and he fired the "winner" to "encourage him to get out there and compete with me".

      This also sounds like the kind of guy who gloats when he beats a 2 year old at chess...

Re:The most important skill

[Neoprofin]

And I suppose the competing business model to your "underpaid revolving door" employee model would be the "properly paid, retention" plan where you build a good core of strong workers, properly compensated, and instead of having to constantly loose skilled workers to better jobs or have to replace ones that don't make the grade you could simply have a dedicated group of people who know what's expected of them and take pride not only in in the work that they do but the job that they have.

I've worked under both models, and I'd agree that theformer probably has a better profit margin, but there's not a day I go to the new job that I'm not infinitely greatful I'm out of there.

Now if I have to work late or come in extra I do it because I like my boss and I like my work, not becasue I need to pick up the 15 hours of overtime to compensate for low wages. Now when I come home and relax on the couch instead of wondering why my employer expects me to be loyal to them when they're taking every opportunity to sodomize me. I have to agree with my sibling posters that both as an employee and employer you'd probably be better off treating your workers well.

Re:The most important skill

[AnswerIs42]

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.

I take it the saying goes.. "You get what you pay for." Really works here.. I can't see HOW they could even survive on a deal like that... for that to work for me.. you would have to give me a bonus that comes out to about $28/hour and 40 hours a week .. at the LEAST. And if you have a slow time with no new projects?

I am sorry.. but that would NOT "because it forces workers to become more efficient" .. it causes them to do the "bare work needed to get the job done" nothing more, nothing less. They won't go out of their ways to make it better.

I am sure if I would show this to any of the IT recrutiers I know (and I know a lot) they would most like laugh and wonder how you could keep your turnover rate from lasting longer than a project.

Re:The most important skill

[rcamera]

crap performance from crap employees. i can't imagine any but the least knowledgeable it staff agreeing to a gig like this. the best in the field tend to go where they're paid the best - not where they _may_ get a bonus on occasion.

Re:The most important skill

[delete]

I hate the term employees. I love the term future competition.

Priceless. Your name isn't David Brent by any chance, is it?

Re:The most important skill

[jank1887]

while making the same money.

what sort of project-specific bonuses do busboys make these days?

Re:The most important skill

[koreaman]

Of course they're data. They're just not a statistically significant amount of it.

Re:The most important skill

[h4rm0ny]

I can tell you this - no matter how large the bonus is, I wouldn't work for this person's company under those terms. On a project, I will try to meet any deadline that isn't too far from reasonable, but only for a fixed wage that recognizes my worth. Why will I not take the equivalent or slightly higher in low wage + bonus, then? Because the bonus depends on things that are outside of my control. Should the project manager mess around with specifications, should other colleagues not pull their weight, should their be staff laid off, or any of a dozen more factors beyond my control, I'm left with... what's minimum wage in the USA... about $5.00 per hour? And this is all working on spec, aswell? (I.e. you get the money at the end in a lump, not as you go along which is more convenient)?

An employment model like this may be good at motivating staff, but it is also good for exploiting staff for the reasons stated above.

Re:The most important skill

[Control Group]

I don't suppose you're located in Madison, WI and looking to hire somebody who's spent the last four years in what turned out to be an IT career dead-end, are you?

Re:The most important skill

[daviddennis]

I don't think many of the people writing in this thread understand what Dada's doing.

He's underpaying workers until the project ends. Then he gives them a bonus based on profitability. This enables him to bid fixed-price contracts because buyers love them.

I'm going to throw out some numbers. I hope he's listening because he can confirm or deny that his pay scale works as I say.

He has a project which he bills out at $145 an hour. He pays his people $6 an hour. However, he doesn't really charge $145 an hour. Instead, he says the project is 100 hours @ $145 an hour, or $14,500. Let's say 20 of those hours are his supervision and he has one person working 80 hours. He pockets the $145 an hour x 20 and gives the worker $6 an hour x 80, or $480. This is a total of $3,380. He has a gross profit of $11,120 remaining. Then he gives the worker a bonus, splitting the remaining revenue 50/50, meaning he gets $2900 + $5560 and the worker gets $480 + $5560.

In the end, this means the worker got paid approximately $75 an hour. This is substantially more than he would normally get paid in a more typical work environment, maybe more like $60 an hour. So the worker loves this system.

But it gets better - if the project can be done in 80% of the time, the worker still makes $5560 but divided by fewer hours. In fact, he would make about $86 an hour.

The downside of this is that if the project is estimated poorly, the worker will get paid less. Let's say the project goves over by 50%. The worker's paid a bit more than $5560 because his minimum wage pay goes up. But his bonus goes down. I'm too lazy to do a detailed calculation, but he's down to about $46 an hour.

What this system does is align the incentives of the owner and worker. If the worker can get the work done more rapidly, his bonus is enormous and he's motivated to do even better. If he does dismally (say he takes four weeks to do this two week job), his pay is down enormously and he might even want to leave the company.

If you compare this with a typical contractor who might pay $60 an hour and bill at $175 an hour, you can see how the bonus formula I've described above is actually a better arrangement as long as you work diligently and at about the proper estimated time.

Personally, I would have loved to have worked as a contractor under that system. It's fair and transparent.

Hope that helps.

D

Re:The most important skill

[ConceptJunkie]

It seems to me that you really don't pay your employees peanuts, (which I applaud).

However, you are deluding yourself if you think that this isn't a real problem. Without paying a decent salary, you aren't going to get good help, which you personally can see because your good employees earn huge bonuses.

However, you get what you pay for, which is something that tends to be forgotten in the American corporate rush to commoditize employees (outsourcing, switching to temp workers and lowering salaries in general).

A further effect, something I doubt is a problem for you, is the lack of loyalty. Commoditized employees will have no loyalty, because none is shown to them. I think this is a much bigger effect than many people will realize or admit. If you treat people poorly, they will treat you in kind.

I'm sure you, dada21, don't experience this because you seem to understand how to treat an employee well and attract employees that are a good investment, but there are a lot of companies, particularly large ones, that see their workforce on a level somewhere near office furniture and the coffee machine.

These are the people that will lose out to companies in places like the Pacific Rim. Those smart enough to nurture their workforce and invest in them... and remember they are people and not mindless headcount... will continue the American tradition of world leadership. Of course, the employees have an equal responsibility as well, but if they are cared for, feel they matter, and have a stake in the outcome, responsibility will flourish.

(In fact, my personal loyalty towards an employee is earned in mostly those intangible ways. I've worked the hardest in the past 8 years or so for the company that actually paid me the lowest, for other reasons I described above. So while salary is important, it isn't the be-all/end-all for good employees. There are many more important things an employer must do as well.)

Re:The most important skill

[drewzhrodague]

I started my first IT business almost 17 years ago. Yup, I was right, you've never worked in IT before. Starting a business is vastly different than working in it: One requires skill, the other requires money. My employees that earn peanuts for a salary make a ton of money in bonuses. Some projects bonus out over 66% of the profit of the project. One of my top employees only works about 15 hours a week and he owns his condo, car and all his assets without loans. He's not even close to 30 years old. Sounds like bullshit to me. I was lured to several reputable and profitable businesses with similar lines, and took substandard salaries in the hopes of earning a piece of the pie. A couple months later, I'm on the street staring at the other employees scratching their heads. What's the difference between those companies and yours? You're still employed? Please...

Re:The most important skill

[dada21]

We should talk, drop me an e-mail.

Madison has a horrific economy. I see huge profits though, with the right drive.

I'd be happy to get you going, seriously.

Re:The most important skill

[Beek]

So what if one of your workers gets sick, pregnant, or life just gets in the way somehow? No bonus for them even if they did work hard while they could?

Re:The most important skill

[dwandy]

• You have indicated that you pay $6.15/hr
• You have indicated that paying $0/hr would have the net effect of increasing the bonus from 50%-66% to 75%-80%
• The existance or absence of minimum wage has absolutely no effect on your total billing (gross revenue)
• Therefore, the stated increase in bonus can only come from the stated decrease in salary.

So I read this to mean that $6.15/hr is worth somewhere between 9%-30%.
So this means that 1% bonus is worth $6.15/.3 = $0.205/hr to $6.15/.09 = $0.683/hr.
So unless all my math skills have left me (and that is possible), this means that you currently end up paying somewhere between 6.15+50*.205 = $16.40/hr to 6.15+66*.683 = $51.228/hr
The new model using the pure bonus salary ranges from $0+75*.205 = $15.375 to $0+80*.683 = $54.64/hr.
While the ceiling isn't too bad (about $100k+ annual) the lower end is a little more troublesome (about $30k+ annual).
Since a "bonus" is a very tricky business (oops, we didn't make the grade this time 'round, care to play again?) and since the high-end isn't exactly amazing, I think I'd be inclined to take a sure-thing 'round the $80k mark which is generally quite easily obtained...and if you're taking some risk, you can always consult (where the risk is temporary unemployment, but while employed the payrate is known) you can easily make $100k-$250k in IT.
So, a little more reward (maybe triple the upside?) and depending on how the bonus was calculated (i.e. guarantees) and you just might have something here...
Not for everyone to be sure, but still an interesting model.

Re:The most important skill

[Fulcrum of Evil]

I pay myself minimum wage every month (I think I make about US$600 take home salary a month).

Only problem for me is that minimum wage isn't enough to live on around here. I don't have a 6 month cushion and, going into a new place, I'd be wary of someone who offered a deal like yours.

Re:The most important skill

[nharmon]

What type of business are you in? Your employment compensation implies you do contractual development for other companies on a billable per-project basis. As I understand it, your employees receive bonus after the product is shipped to the customer. But what happens after that...Is the product supported by someone else who isn't making minimum wage? And what happens if the product is canceled early or the customer goes out of business and can't pay?

Re:The most important skill

[flosofl]

Because the bonus depends on things that are outside of my control.

Not really. If the contract is drawn up correctly (read: by a lawyer), then there will actually be very few things "outside of your control" when it comes to deliverables and payment.

On a project, I will try to meet any deadline that isn't too far from reasonable, but only for a fixed wage that recognizes my worth.

Then you obviously are willing to settle for much less money.

I used to work for a guy who ran a small/medium network consultancy similar to how dada runs his company. This was in the mid to late 90s. We were paid a base of $10/hr plus bonus on a project-by-project basis. Not only did we work harder and more efficiently, we made a TON of money. In the three years I worked for this guy, I had one year at about $100K(gross) and the other two were close. This was when I was in my 20s.

Unfortunately, he sold his business (for an insane amount of money). The money train was now over because the new owners paid a salary instead. All the best workers left. I think it has since gone bankrupt.

I am now entrenched in the salaried world, and it has taken me this long to get back to the level of income I enjoyed 8 years ago. I would much rather have the "low-base"/contigency based bonus than a "guaranteed" salary.

Re:The most important skill

[chris_mahan]

If you can't stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen.

Re:The most important skill

[dada21]

He's underpaying workers until the project ends. Then he gives them a bonus based on profitability. This enables him to bid fixed-price contracts because buyers love them.

Yes! Except I'm overpaying them minimum wage.

I hope he's listening because he can confirm or deny that his pay scale works as I say.

Always listening.

Then he gives the worker a bonus, splitting the remaining revenue 50/50,

Closer to 66% bonus, even to my outsource employees.

If the worker can get the work done more rapidly, his bonus is enormous and he's motivated to do even better.

And they always do!

If he does dismally (say he takes four weeks to do this two week job), his pay is down enormously and he might even want to leave the company.

Yes. I call these workers "friends and family" usually.

Personally, I would have loved to have worked as a contractor under that system. It's fair and transparent.

Looking for work?

Re:The most important skill

[nharmon]

> Personally, I would have loved to have worked as a contractor under that
  > system. It's fair and transparent.

It also attracts people who don't prejudge things on face value and take time to evaluate things. Because those who take making minimum wage and then earning bonuses on face value are not going to seek employment there.

Re:The most important skill

[zaajats]

what sort of project-specific bonuses do busboys make these days?

"Wohoo, you made it to the last stop" ???

Re:The most important skill

[Buelldozer]

My jaw literally dropped when I read your comment that said, to paraphrase, starting a business doesn't require skill.

I mean, just, wow.

Are you twelve or just naive?

I don't mean to flame you but that was one of the most ignorant comments I've read in quite some time.

Re:The most important skill

[Cramer]

Let's say 20 of those hours are his supervision ... He pockets the $145 an hour x 20 ...

So, the person who does almost zero actual work gets a huge salary, and the peon doing all the hard work gets shit. This, as you describe it, is bordering very closely on accounting and tax fraud. The employee's benefits and other employment factors are set by the base pay/hourly (minimum) wage. That "bonus" isn't taxed the same as his/her base pay. And absent any specifics in a contract, there's no certainty of the existance of any bonus much less what cut goes in which pockets.

There's a reason technology workers don't work on commision... the work is almost always non-deterministic. They aren't installing an electrical outlet or paving a driveway -- things that can be accurately estimated quickly and easily with one walk-through (how big is the drive? how far am I from the breaker box? etc.) Most IT jobs aren't as immediately simple... how long does it take to install/setup Exchange for a company? The answer involves hundreds of questions that won't necessarily lead you to an accurate timetable.

When you pin your company's profits on over estimating contracts and "finishing early", all you're doing is lying to your clients and screwing them out of their money.

Re:The most important skill

[Buelldozer]

If I was anywhere close to ChicagoLand I'd be knocking on your door. I'm amazed at the progressive thinking and business acumen you display.

Why don't more companies operate like this?

Re:The most important skill

[Orion Blastar]

I did all of that, yet I have been out of work since 2002 and nobody wants to hire me. I am a very good developer, and have over 20 years of programming experience. I hold a bachelor's degree, and I helped companies save millions of dollars that they wasted that my programs helped make them more productive. I gave the former employers I worked for all that I had and more, and for my efforts I got shat on and then taken outside and shot. Replaced with someone who can work my job in another location of the world for a fraction of my salary, but nowhere near as good as I worked. Managers want quantity not quality anymore. Quality control is dead.

Re:The most important skill

[typicallyterrific]

What do you do, exactly? It'd be interesting to know what to specialise in 3rd and 4th year.

Also, I was under the impression that it's ridiculously hard to make accurate estimates in IT; how do you keep your estimates in check, so your employees don't pull mad overtime hours?

Re:The most important skill

[Anonymous Coward]

No we understand perfectly well, if he cannot bid a fixed price contract correctly then it is he / his business that is flawed not the basic tenants of a salary based position. It is fine if he and his employees enjoy that arrangement. But may of the posters are skeptical to these type of arrangements. It is very easy to get screwed as there is no written guarantee of a bonus and there is no set salary rather in which to base your finances on. Not to mention trying to get a loan on minimum wage (banks don't care about bonuses), the tax implications, benefits (what does he match on 401K). There are a lot of holes in this model and these are the questions an intelligent person would be asking.

Re:The most important skill

[Richard Steiner]

Of course, "IT specialist" is generalized enough that it doesn't really mean anything. :-)

Re:The most important skill

[errxn]

That's a pretty good incentive model, although I don't think that you should use terms such as 'overpaying', 'underpaying' or 'minimum wage' when describing it, because terms like that get perceived incorrectly in this instance.

What you are basically doing is paying a series of small recoupable advances against the end revenues. That sounds much more palatable than saying that you are paying your employees minimum wage.

This model will also obviously only work on smaller projects. You can't really expect workers to be able to live on the smaller advances for a long period of time, unless they have some pretty good savings built up.

Re:The most important skill

[WebCrapper]

I'm curious how this system works out for the developers on their paycheck and during tax season though. If you have W4 employees and you're paying them large bonuses, the taxes must eat up the bonuses.

The way the system is setup and talked about though, I have a feeling there are no actual W4 employees, just contractors and outsourcers.

Re:The most important skill

[baalz]

This is fine if your employees are commodities, but it seems like you're missing some fairly fundamental differences between IT workers and commodities. The biggest thing is we aren't swappable parts. Two 5 star developers are going to perform differently on virtually every task depending on their specific strengths and experiences. Your lowered pay just lost you your 5 star developer, but you can easily pick up a new one because of the increased supply. The only problem is it's gonna take this new guy over a year to come up to the same speed on your system as your old 5 star guy. What's that worth to you? Oops, now the new guy has been here awhile and wants a raise...

The other thing you fail to notice is that there is a large gradation of competence. If you want good people you have to attract them over the other jobs they could take. I'm sure I'm not alone in that I've got burned in the past by low-pay-with-big-future-reward compensation, through no fault of my own... and I won't willingly go into that situation again regardless of my high self esteem. Maybe you have trouble finding quality people because quality people don't have a problem landing a job more in line with their best interests. Why in the heck, working for a wage with no stake in the company, would I let my family's financial well being be contingent on managerial competence (a resource in such scarce supply)? Its bad enough I could get laid off at any time, but to also have my "real" wage held hostage is definitely not in my best interest, and fortunately as a valuable resource I've got a bit of negotiating leverage.

As you say, supply and demand. Competent IT workers ARE scarce, and not commodities. I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader as to what kind of IT employees one ends up with by trading them like commodities.

Re:The most important skill

[Old Grey Beard]

When you pin your company's profits on over estimating contracts and "finishing early", all you're doing is lying to your clients and screwing them out of their money.

In which case he won't be getting any repeat business from those clients. And in time he'll develop a negative reputation and won't get any business. Just a wild guess, but I bet that's not the case here...

Re:The most important skill

[h4rm0ny]

Loathe though I am to dispute someone who quotes the "Young Ones" in their sig... No!
If the contract is drawn up correctly (read: by a lawyer), then there will actually be very few things "outside of your control" when it comes to deliverables and payment.

Counter-examples that I can give you without thinking... poorly written specifications leading to unrealistic project timescales, co-workers not pulling their weight either through lack of effort or simply in over their head, management problems - e.g. personal problems interfering with the project leader's focus, disputes with the customer over sign-off.

How will your lawyer deal with each of the above? If you have to go to court to claim your bonus, try explaining that a small change in specification meant redesigning the database interface half-way through. I've written software used by London Stock Exchange, I still have nightmares about specification documents and I know that nothing stays the same through a development. So will your employer provide a blanket agreement that nothing will change through the life-cycle of the project? Of course not, but anything less takes you back to explaining to a court how something they don't understand is significant whilst your employer explains that it isn't. And you know (don'cha) how the non-technical always think anything they don't understand is easy!

What about the co-workers who don't pull their weight? If they're not turning up to work, then maybe your lawyer can do something... but the one that you keep having to debug their code? I say it slowed me down, my boss says there was no problem (and so does the co-worker). My options are to take the court through the CVS records [pause for insane laughter] or to have seperate schemes for each part of our perfectly modular code (that'll be fun). Ditto for problems with management.

And what about the other issues? Dispute with customer? We all sit around waiting for the lawsuit to resolve on minimum wage? We were probably burning through savings or a loan just to make it to the end of the project, you know. Get sacked? Project folds? Partner gets ill and you have to quit, early? Think any company will offer you a contract where you still get the bonus? Company goes under or has a crisis? Lawyers take money - they don't print it. Salary, I have some in the bag. Bonus - I've got nothing.

This sort of scheme will attract inexperienced people who don't need a steady income, can quit a job casually if they think the specifications for the latest project don't cut the mustard and above all, don't think anything bad can happen to them. I'm picturing school leavers and students. I.e. not me.

Re:The most important skill

[dada21]

I'm curious how this system works out for the developers on their paycheck and during tax season though. If you have W4 employees and you're paying them large bonuses, the taxes must eat up the bonuses.

It is really difficult, and one of the reasons I am anti-government. Taxes take a HUGE chunk out of bonuses, but it shows the employees the reality of our government taxing schemes. I don't believe in 401Ks or employer compensation of health care or any of that nonsense -- they were originally just ways to get around taxing mechanisms and are now considered mandatory (and part of the reason why prices in those areas have gone up, not down).

I can't divulge all of my secrets, though, as that is part of how I sell my business to future employees.

Re:The most important skill

[dada21]

That's a pretty good incentive model, although I don't think that you should use terms such as 'overpaying', 'underpaying' or 'minimum wage' when describing it, because terms like that get perceived incorrectly in this instance.

Yeah, I have that flamebait style, I guess :)

You're right, but my employees KNOW they're getting overpaid when they receive minimum wage. They know I could bonus them much more if they were paid less per hour!

What you are basically doing is paying a series of small recoupable advances against the end revenues. That sounds much more palatable than saying that you are paying your employees minimum wage

This is close to the truth, but not exactly there. I've spent a lot of money on (rapist thieving) tax accountants so it would be unreasonable to give away any exacting figures.

This model will also obviously only work on smaller projects. You can't really expect workers to be able to live on the smaller advances for a long period of time, unless they have some pretty good savings built up.

Not true. My company worked on some huge projects (we were part of some billion dollar hospital contracts recently, of course our portion was much smaller). You look over a contract and subdivide it into smaller milestones. No project pays at the end, they all pay over time, some paying weekly or monthly. This is part of the system and why it works -- I won't accept "pay at the end" contracts, even if some can seem really lucrative. In my 16+ years, I've learned which contracts are for suckers and which are for people wanting to make real money.

We also gain MANY time and material jobs -- in fact our T&M work outnumbers our contract work by almost 8 to 1. How? Quality employees who guarantee our customers a profit on every dollar we bill.

Re:The most important skill

[Cramer]

Only if his clients are aware of it. Even then, some larger companies may not care if the bills are "small enough". I've had a few contracts where the client didn't care about how much work it was (or wasn't); they had an amount they wanted to pay -- much more than the work could justify -- so that's what they were billed.

Re:The most important skill

[dada21]

So, the person who does almost zero actual work gets a huge salary, and the peon doing all the hard work gets shit. This, as you describe it, is bordering very closely on accounting and tax fraud. The employee's benefits and other employment factors are set by the base pay/hourly (minimum) wage.

Not really, we've spoken with numerous IRS agents about it and there are hundreds, if not thousands, of companies running this way in the U.S.

We don't call the bonuses a bonus, it is merely profit sharing.

Every contract that we get is competitive between our employees, too. They can group together and sell me on why they'll do it better, faster and keep the customer happier than another group. In the end, employees who are worthless get zero contracts and continue to earn minimum wage. I've never HAD someone work that way (other than friends and family, heh), but if I was dumb enough to hire a deadbeat, they'd quit before we'd have to fire them. Minimum wage laws would allow these deadbeats to work longer, as if I could pay someone $2 per hour, I would -- the hard workers would make $70 or $90 an hour in the end.

There's a reason technology workers don't work on commision... the work is almost always non-deterministic. They aren't installing an electrical outlet or paving a driveway -- things that can be accurately estimated quickly and easily with one walk-through (how big is the drive? how far am I from the breaker box? etc.) Most IT jobs aren't as immediately simple... how long does it take to install/setup Exchange for a company? The answer involves hundreds of questions that won't necessarily lead you to an accurate timetable.

If we sell an Exchange server (we sold a few recently), we sell them a box solution and do the turnkey part on time and material or on a seperate contract basis. Every Exchange installation we have performed has been very close to every other one. If we have to integrate with another contractor's work, we adjust for that. As far as I can see, I don't think we've ever lost money on a contract or a project -- except when customers went bankrupt and that was maybe twice in 15 years.

Most IT consulting companies sell themselves the wrong way -- we won't sell a customer software just because they want it, we'll show them how the software will return a profit for them and then work to make that the truth. It is also the best way to turn contract work into T&M work.

When you pin your company's profits on over estimating contracts and "finishing early", all you're doing is lying to your clients and screwing them out of their money.

Prove this. We've been fired twice in 5 years, and both times it was because of BIG mistakes that a subcontractor of ours made on the job. I don't use subs that I don't know, anymore.

If I tell my clients they'll save $100,000 in 2 years if they spend $50,000 today, I back it up. We get hired again. Why would I lie to my clients?

Recently we did a job that was a VERY VERY simple 2 week job, but we billed almost $20,000 for it (two people working only). The customer had received bids for half that, but we guaranteed a faster return on the work. They've already profited on it just 6 months later, and they continue to profit. I follow up with customers and ask them if they've seen a rise in efficiency, a drop in employee problems or a gain in time to do other things. Do you?

Re:The most important skill

[dada21]

I don't believe in 401K -- I think the 401K fraud is what has caused the stock market to go way up because of all the supply of money chasing a low supply of stocks. My pre-employees know I will never advocate a stock market investment to anyone.

I don't believe in loans -- if you can't afford it, don't buy it. I screwed myself on loans when I was younger and refuse to ever do it again. I bought my first condo for US$17,000, it was a craphole. It only took me 1 year of renting to save that money. I have two employees who bought a place together (they're barely 21) and when they have enough to get their own units, they will. Savings makes wealth, not debt burdens.

The holes in this model are filled when you realize that my goal is to make money, and while making money I want my employees to learn how to run their own businesses so that they can make MORE money. Why be a slave for 40 years when you can be a millionaire by 40?

Re:The most important skill

[Hast]

Because the bonus depends on things that are outside of my control.

Not really. If the contract is drawn up correctly (read: by a lawyer), then there will actually be very few things "outside of your control" when it comes to deliverables and payment.

I believe his point isn't that he contract is in error and thus no pay is received. The point is that unless I get to decide how much the project is sold for then I have no control of if the project is feasable at all.

Eg, you sell a project planning it will take 1 month to fishing. It's actually only feasable to finish in 2 months time and thus I have two options:
1) Work like hell to make it in 1 month. (If possible). This means I'd get a "normal" bonus and so would you. In this case you had done a big error and should reasonably not get any bonus while I should get it all since I got the project finished. (Note that this can be extremely important wrt good will to the customer.)
2) I can finish it in 2 months and not get a bonus either month.

Re:The most important skill

[WebCrapper]

Unfortunately, he's technically correct. STARTING a business requires almost no skill. You fill out some forms (or pay someone to do it later), money changes hands and *poof*, you're a business owner. And, for some reason, everyonce in awhile an Ask Slashdot story has a group of these types thinking they can make it with the "advice" of thousands that would rather argue with each other.

Now - to get were you where going, with businesses that are up and running requiring no skill, I have to agree with you - wow... There are business owners that get into something good, but they quickly get noticed as being a bad place to deal with.

On a more personal note, I've forgotten what the story was about after scrolling through an entire page of comments based on the first post...

Re:The most important skill

[dada21]

One of my employees is barely 25, works 20 hours a week and takes home 6 figures at year's end. Another one of my employees is in his 50s, works 20 hours a week and takes home very high 5 figures.

The thing that most people don't see is that they learn how to run their own business -- which can earn even a lazy bastard like me six figures for very little work, if you know how to make a profit for your customer, too.

I also teach my employees the futility of keeping up with the Joneses. I teach them which direction to go in when customers are slow to pay, and I teach them how to build wealth through savings, not debt.

You need no money to start a business (except to pay for government licensing and fees). You need no money to grow a business (except what you earn and save). If you know your market and your customer, you can make money. You just need to take the RISK.

Re:The most important skill

[villy]

Minimum wage & you don't believe in healthcare? So what happens when your "family & friends" have significant medical issues?

Re:The most important skill

[MrNovember]

The Madison-area is one big IT career dead end. I've been up here for a while and the only non dead-end was starting my own consulting business. We ran out of gas on that though and had to get "real" jobs.

I'd like to know what "huge profits" might be found here though.

Re:The most important skill

[ClosedSource]

They can get good tips if they work with a good honest waitress.

In any case, a guy who wants to pay less than minimum wage will probably give minimal bonuses or will structure the goals in such a way to con his workers into believing they will get a bonus but find some excuse not to pay it when the work is completed.

Re:The most important skill

[twiddlingbits]

Basically you are just a "body shop" for contractors that does good work. Nothing wrong with that, I've worked for them myself. You probably pay on a 1099 basis and everyone who works for you is really self-employed. That keeps your costs very low. If you can keep your rates low and do decent work you get rehired, thats the plan, long term repeat business pays better than 1 shot deals. He makes a salary for himself for managing the firm, plus he gets to keep 34% of the profit. That's sweet!

  If you do a lot of jobs that you understand well, scope accurately and manage the customer well you can make big $$$. However, one big mistake and you get hammered, no one gets a big check at the end so they all leave. This concept is very much like some Sales jobs I have seen where they have a "target" earnings of which 20% is paid as Salary and the rest paid as a type of commisssion or bonus for meeting certain objectives. The KEY to getting people to work in this way is to be 100% open with your books, your philosophy and your processes. People MUST trust he isn't going to screw them. If they have a couple good projects with this system the trust gets stronger and they develop loyalty. They really work as a "team" where each one wins when the team wins. I don't see anything illegal or unethical about the system, it's just different.

Re:The most important skill

[Hast]

Really? I started my first IT business almost 17 years ago.

Don't take it the wrong way but I can't understand what a 14 year old (assuming your age in the Blog is correct) could do in 1989 in the IT business. During the WWW craze I could see that, but before? But as others have said "IT" is a pretty vague term and thus me may just have the same idea of what you do.

Eg personally I work as a consultant developing (among other things) software for mobile phones. I'd say that's "IT" but the requirements I have on salary etc are vastly different that someone working tech-support at the same company as me.

I'd have to say that I'd be very wary of working for someone that payed me minimum wage and then promised bonuses. But again, that may depend vastly on what area of IT you are working in.

Re:The most important skill

[ClosedSource]

"The holes in this model are filled when you realize that my goal is to make money, and while making money I want my employees to learn how to run their own businesses so that they can make MORE money. Why be a slave for 40 years when you can be a millionaire by 40?"

Out of all your employees only two were able to buy property but only after they combined their resources. With an impressive track record like that, it's only a matter of time before they become millionaires like you aspire to be.

Re:The most important skill

[dada21]

Simple: I lied.

At 11/12 I started a BBS. Itn quickly grew to a popular multinode system.

By 14 I grew a little facial hair and started lying about my age. I picked up some business from my BBS, hooking up Novell networks for local companies.

I still work with 3 of my 4 first customers.

Re:The most important skill

[TheSpoom]

Dada, what technical skills are you looking for? What sort of work is it that you do? Most importantly, do you need a physical presence or are you oursourcing some of your contract work?

Just curious, I'm not actually looking at the moment, but it's nice to know some options.

Re:The most important skill

[Cramer]

When you pin your company's profits on over estimating contracts and "finishing early", all you're doing is lying to your clients and screwing them out of their money.

Prove this.

Buy a dictionary... if you tell a client a job will take 100 hours (and bill them), KNOWING your guys are going to do it in less time, that's lying. That has nothing to do with telling someone spending $50k today will save them $100k tomorrow. Obviously your clients have money to burn or they'd realize over time that your estimates are always high. The naive will conclude your "guys are good"; the savy will see though the BS, but might not care in light of quality work.

If I tell someone a job will take 10 hours and I'm done after only 2 hours, they get billed for 2 hours. If it takes more than 10 hours, they only get billed for 10 hours -- unless there are agreed upon reasons otherwise (changing specs, etc.)

Re:The most important skill

[__aaclcg7560]

A bit off topic... My Dad smoked for 30 years, gave up smoking for 25 years, and the only cancer his doctor is poking him for is skin cancer (so far negative). Go figure.

Re:The most important skill

[flosofl]

Yes, admittedly these can all be problems. I don't have an easy answer for you. I think part of why it worked for the company I was with was the relative size of the comapny. This company was pretty small - about 10 employees total working perhaps 4-5 projects a month - serving the small to medium business(which is a goldmine). We never seemed to have issues with the customers, getting the job done on time (and correctly), or getting paid in a timely manner. Reading your post, I realize we were very, very lucky.

This was the one and only experience I ever had with this type of pay scheme. Maybe it's more common with programming, but it's the only time I ever saw it as a network architect. I am more than willing to admit that perhaps my experience was an anomaly. I just had so much fun doing that job (and got a lot of money doing it!). I think my age had something to do with it, also. I was willing to take a lot more risks then. Now... not so much. I don't know if I'd do this today (but the money potential would be tempting), but if I were in my early/mid 20s... in a heartbeat.

Re:The most important skill

[h4rm0ny]

Well there's room enough for us both to be right. You're saying that it worked for you and was profitable and that's a fact. I'm saying that there are big risks that in my current situation, I'm not sure I could afford to lose. I actually hope to start my own company in the not too distant future, and a profit sharing bonus scheme is something I think would be good. I'd just prefer to keep it as the bonus I intend it to be, rather than the basis of people's earnings. As you say - you yourself probably wouldn't do it again at this point in your life. And I'd rather be employing the you you are now than the you you were when you were twenty.

(Probably ;).

Re:The most important skill

[vonahsen]

The downside of this is that if the project is estimated poorly, the worker will get paid less. Let's say the project goves over by 50%. The worker's paid a bit more than $5560 because his minimum wage pay goes up. But his bonus goes down. I'm too lazy to do a detailed calculation, but he's down to about $46 an hour.

my former employer would rant and rave that if a project went over hours, he lost money.

no he didn't - you still make however many thousand dollars, your profit may be down, but you still made all of the money

Re:The most important skill

[ocbwilg]

If this is what he's doing, then it makes decent sense. What he is basically doing is partnering with his employees "or future competition, if you will".

In most employee-employer relationships, the employer assumes the majority of the risk and reaps the majority of the reward. The employee gets a set, predictable, livable salary. In return he only has show up for work each day and do his job. In this case, unless there is an additional bonus structure the employee may not be especially motivated to do more than their job.

In the dada21 case, he has a more equalized structure of risk and reward. The employee accepts a lower wage, risking potential future earnings if the project goes south. But in turn they are rewarded with a larger portion of the reward if the project is successful. It's probably not a bad system, for those who are interested in it.

It's actually not that much different from pay arrangements that are used for salesmen. A lot of times they are paid a minimal wage/salary, but then earn large commissions on each sale. The risk is that they won't make the sale, but the reward can be a huge commission check. Of course, that tends to breed more aggressive sales people and more sales for the company. In dada21's model, it should breed more aggressive IT staff (meaning harder working and more likely to finish the project ahead of schedule). Probably some of them will eventually compete with him one day. Keep in mind, though, that there is such a thing as "too aggresive". We've all encountered the overly aggressive salesperson who promises an undeliverable fantasy in order to make the sale. If the IT worker in the dada21 model gets too aggressive, you could potentially end up with sloppy or slapdash work.

Of course, all of this only works if your customer base is external to your company (i.e., consulting). If you work in the IT department of a company (as a majority of IT people do), then it's pretty much irrelevant. I suspect that's why he's gotten such an adverse reaction to his "paying minimum wage" statement.

Re:The most important skill

[zorro6]

And why can't people pay for their own healthcare? That is his whole point. Healthcare and other personal expenses should be the responsibility of the employee not the employer. Pay people enough to pay for their own healthcare. The employee is paying for it anyway one way or another.

Re:The most important skill

[Karma Farmer]

What do you do, exactly?

He trolls message boards. He's extraordinarly good at it, too.

Re:The most important skill

[FriedTurkey]

If he does dismally (say he takes four weeks to do this two week job), his pay is down enormously and he might even want to leave the company.

This is assuming that if a project fails it is the fault of everyone on the project. I have been on many projects where it didn't do well because of one developer out of five or six. Should you lose your 5 good employees because of the failure of one? No, in that case you should fire yourself for letting the one bad employee ruin the project. Why would I work for you and not make my rent because you or another employee messed up the project? I can only imagine you have very small projects or else there is no way you would stay in business.

Re:The most important skill

[Bloke down the pub]

Basically you are just a "body shop" for contractors that does good work. Nothing wrong with that, I've worked for them myself.

Other than it combines the uncertainty & working conditions of being a genuine freelance with the remuneration of a permanent employee, you mean?

Re:The most important skill

[Karma Farmer]

I don't think many of the people writing in this thread understand what Dada's doing.

Dada is doing exactly the same thing he does in every Slashdot thread -- he's lying about his life experiences, and trolling for responses.

For what it's worth, I would have loved to work as a contractor under the system you've described, too...

Re:The most important skill

[dr_dank]

Why are you making your personal bad experience this other guy's problem?

  In the mid-90's, a guy from my ham radio club wanted to recruit me into this MLM telecom scheme (Excel). To make the attendees salivate at the prospect of making money, they have one rep show up in a late model Porsche bought with money earned selling long distance service to dupes.

Not to accuse the GP of running a scam like that, but it seems like the he was using an exaggerated or atypical story of success to motivate.

Re:The most important skill

[Branko]

This looks like a reasonable strategy from the view point of project deadlines. However, it invites cutting corners by your employees, in order to get the money more quickly, without caring much for the maintenance part of project's lifetime. Cutting corners in initial software construction inevitably raises cost (and frustration) both for developers and customers in later phases of software's life.

There is a great read from Fred Brooks - "The Mythical Man Month", that is still very relevant on this topic.

If your projects are small "fire and forget" endeavors, this might work well. However, if you projects are more long-term, requiring extensive maintenance period, you might be shooting yourself in the leg...

Re:The most important skill

[deaddrunk]

I bet you can't be bothered to train people in the skills you need since that is a risk and risk is a dirty word in corporate circles.

Re:The most important skill

[Bamafan77]

This model totally ignores the need for cash flow. This means that while that (possible) nice bonus at the end of the project would be nice in 3 or 4 months, you have rent that needs to be paid NOW. You have an unexpected car problem that needs to be paid NOW. And minimum wage isn't going to cover this. Additionally, if the project is underestimated (which everyone knows NEVER happens in contracting situations), then your bonus goes up in smoke. The minimum wage thing is too extreme and ignores these real world concerns. Setting up milestone payments provides for some of the advantages you refer to (bidding on fixed bid contracts), while still allowing for real-world cash flow needs. And most top employees aren't going to be working for minium wage months on end for the hopes of a bonus at the end. I believe anyone who thinks otherwise is living in a dream.

Re:The most important skill

[dada21]

Heh.

I just pulled this thread up on a customer's PC. He's the CEO of one of Chicago's biggest high-rise contractors. We both want to fly you out and take you to lunch.

Drop an e-mail if interested.

Re:The most important skill

[Pig Hogger]

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.
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.

There is no such thing as a "frea mahkit", especially in the labour department.

The bourgeois make sure there is significant unemployment so they can threaten their employees with firing so they can squeeze the lemon to the hilt.

You're obviously one of those cheap-labour conservative libertarians who only want a State that will do nothing but protect you from your slaves.

Obviously for you, your employees should be "free" to choose to be enslaved to you.

You can thank hardasses like you for the very labour-protection and minimum-wage laws, because you unequivocally prove that the bourgeois do not give a flying fuck about others.

Re:The most important skill

[Pig Hogger]

instead we focus on higher education in high school and college. I learned everything I needed to know about business between the ages of 13 to 15 by studying other businesses and trying things. I meet 20 year olds now who won't take a risk and start a business because "college experience is more important."

This is precisely why the USA is a worldwide laughingstock when it comes to general culture; this is why americans are widely regarded as stupid, ignorant, uneducated and bigoted. This is also why religious nutcases want to have Darwin expelled from schools, and why Dubya got re-elected.

The bourgeois like you have no need for well-educated citizens; all they want is wage slaves who will know nothing more than what's needed to do their work, and will do exactly as told, without asking themselves any questions.

Oh, and for what it is worth, I only have a high-school education and many, many, many years of work experience.

Re:The most important skill

[try_anything]

When you pin your company's profits on over estimating contracts and "finishing early", all you're doing is lying to your clients and screwing them out of their money.

What's wrong with charging what the market can bear? If no one else can offer a lower estimate, then he is the best choice for the contract and the client is happy to do business with him. If I win an Ebay auction with a bid of $100, but I could have afforded to pay $150, have I stolen $50 from the seller?

Re:The most important skill

[Pig Hogger]

which can earn even a lazy bastard like me six figures for very little work

I suppose that those six figures include cents and the decimal point???

Re:The most important skill

[maxpublic]

Cash flow needs are the problem of the employee, not the employer. That's why you, the employee, need to put money into savings after every contractual bonus period (or profit-sharing, which is what this actually sounds like). You use your SAVINGS from the PREVIOUS BONUS to pay your bills.

Of course, only people who're actually capable of saving money are going to be able to handle this arrangement. The average person who has tens of thousands of dollars of credit card debt because they can't live within their means right now isn't going to be able to cut it. And good riddance, because what employer wants that sort of employee working for them anyway? If said employee is that irresponsible with their personal life, they're even more likely to be irresponsible on the job.

Max

Re:The most important skill

[maxpublic]

You're fighting a losing battle here. Despite the pseudo-libertarian blather spouted by many of the posters here on slashdot, the vast majority of them are just like any other American in that they're all talk and no action. When it comes to hard things like, say, taking a risk, or worse - facing reality - they go running like sheep to the welcoming arms of Daddy Government.

They don't want libertarianism. They don't want anything remotely close to a free market. What they want is to live in some socialist shit-hole where there's never any real risk OR reward - and not just for themselves, but also for people like you who've proven that they've got balls. The sheep can't tolerate the idea that some of their number might actually grow a spine and rise above them; it reminds of them or their own cowardice.

Max

Re:The most important skill

[maxpublic]

but only for a fixed wage that recognizes my worth.

The only worth you have is what other people are willing to pay for your work. You don't get to determine that figure; only the people who offer you jobs do. If you can't get a job for more than $5 an hour, then that's all that you're worth no matter what delusion you happen to be laboring under.

Max

Re:The most important skill

[maxpublic]

Yup, I was right, you've never worked in IT before.

That's probably a good thing. Most IT personnel suck donkey dicks when it comes to management skills, much less running an actual business.

I was lured to several reputable and profitable businesses with similar lines, and took substandard salaries in the hopes of earning a piece of the pie. A couple months later, I'm on the street staring at the other employees scratching their heads.

That's called a "learning experience". As in, you acted stupidly and got slapped around for it. So instead of whining on slashdot about how you were wronged, why don't you admit that you didn't do your homework properly, got reamed - and that you deserved it, and learned enough that you probably won't be that much of an idiot a second time around. Probably.

Although I'm not so sure about that, since it seems that you're intent on blaming your own failings on everyone else but you - even a slashdot poster you know nothing about.

Max

Re:The most important skill

[maxpublic]

The bourgeois

Jesus, a real '60's-style hippy commie, right here on Slashdot! I thought all of your sort had gone extinct. But please, keep us in chuckles with your rants on the evil "bourgeois" and how they're out to personally screw you!

Max

Re:The most important skill

[twiddlingbits]

No. At least in the USA there is no such thing as a permanent employee. It is exceedingly rare. Firms downsize at the hint of a bad quarter, so no one really has any job security, everyone is uncertain about thier job.

Working conditions vary. Last place I was a contractor there was NO difference in the way we were treated versus an employee.

As a freelance you can bid on work at a rate you can live at versus a corporation with lot's of overhead and the need to make profit at a rate the shareholders expect. This guy has basically formed a kind of "co-op" of contractors who are willing to take the risks for the rewards that may be earned.

Re:The most important skill

[saranagati]

yah, it's easy to say you don't believe in loans when you could buy a home for $17,000. However, when a simple 1 bedroom condo costs over $300,000, paying cash isn't very feasable.

Re:The most important skill

[rainer_d]

> The worst part of the workers in this country is the demands they make and our government backing those demands up.

Dude, you've never been to Germany then....

Re:The most important skill

[Pig Hogger]

Jesus, a real '60's-style hippy commie, right here on Slashdot! I thought all of your sort had gone extinct. But please, keep us in chuckles with your rants on the evil "bourgeois" and how they're out to personally screw you!

What's a bourgeois? It's just the old name for "entrepreneur". A bourgeois is someone who has something to sell you.

Please be more clueful in the future. It's not for nothing that you don't have any karma bonus.

Re:The most important skill

[vsprintf]

It is really difficult, and one of the reasons I am anti-government. Taxes take a HUGE chunk out of bonuses, but it shows the employees the reality of our government taxing schemes.

Taxes pay for the infrastructure you are using and the commitments the govermnent has made to the workers you are using. By underpaying them, you reduce your taxes and shift the burden to them while possibly reducing their eventual retirement income as well. The reason bonuses are taxed at a higher rate is because they are taxed based on the time period. If you paid your employees better, they wouldn't take the tax hit, but you would be required to pay more each quarter, so please don't claim it's some educational tax lesson for employees.

I don't believe in 401Ks or employer compensation of health care or any of that nonsense -- they were originally just ways to get around taxing mechanisms and are now considered mandatory

The health insurance deals were originally due to wage freezes during WWII. However, that resulted in a condition today where affordable health insurance can generally be found only through group (i.e. company) policies. 401k shouldn't affect you since you could base it on a discretionary percentage of profit and reduce the bonuses - unless you're just objecting to the minor accounting involved. I'm sorry, but after reading this thread, it sounds to me like you're ditching your responsibilities, biting the hand that feeds you, and taking your [friends|family|employees|whatever] for a ride.

I can't divulge all of my secrets, though, as that is part of how I sell my business to future employees.

I think Ebenezer Scrooge revealed all your business secrets long ago, and a belated Merry Christmas to you.

Re:The most important skill

[ocbwilg]

1. A developer will tend to be on one or a few projects at a time, but the employer will tend to have a basket of projects and so less exposed.

Not everyone in IT is a developer. In fact, it's probably pretty safe to say that the majority are not.

2. The relationship is not equal unless the developers also get to decide on which contracts are taken on. Otherwise the developers are taking on equal risk but without equal input.

Nobody said that the relationship was equal. What I said was that he had a more equalized structure of risk versus reward. The business takes on less risk (in the form of smaller initial wage outlays before the project is paid for) and the the employee takes on more risk (in the form of less money before the project is paid for). The business reaps less reward (in the form of reduced profit margin) and the employee gets more reward (in the form of larger bonuses).

Re:The most important skill

[vsprintf]

Of course, only people who're actually capable of saving money are going to be able to handle this arrangement. The average person who has tens of thousands of dollars of credit card debt because they can't live within their means right now isn't going to be able to cut it.

Um, I'm long out of the category, but I guess you aren't talking about the U.S. where new graduates have tens of thousands of dollars in debt for an education that is supposed to get them a job that pays more than minimum wage. And aside from New York, even more debt for a car to get to the job is usually required.

And good riddance, because what employer wants that sort of employee working for them anyway?

Yeah, right on. What kind of employer wants to employ the kind of person that they are so busy targeting as a sales demographic?. Do you see the irony by any chance?

Re:The most important skill

[vsprintf]

This is precisely why the USA is a worldwide laughingstock when it comes to general culture; this is why americans are widely regarded as stupid, ignorant, uneducated and bigoted.

So what made you think dada, with his collection of "family" was originally from the U.S.?

Re:The most important skill

[maxpublic]

Um, I'm long out of the category, but I guess you aren't talking about the U.S. where new graduates have tens of thousands of dollars in debt for an education that is supposed to get them a job that pays more than minimum wage.

No, that's why I specifically said "credit card debt". Which applies to people who lack even the basic self-control to save, then spend.

What kind of employer wants to employ the kind of person that they are so busy targeting as a sales demographic?

There are the people you sell to, and the people you employ. I want quality employees, but I could give a shit who buys my products so long as they have the cash. That's called "capitalism".

Max

Re:The most important skill

[vsprintf]

Despite the pseudo-libertarian blather spouted by many of the posters here on slashdot, the vast majority of them are just like any other American in that they're all talk and no action. When it comes to hard things like, say, taking a risk, or worse - facing reality - they go running like sheep to the welcoming arms of Daddy Government.

I'm no Libertarian (big or little "L") in any form. Your hero isn't taking any risk at all; he's transferring tax consequences to employees while paying minimum wage for IT workers. In short, he's a body shopper. Kathy Lee cried when she was caught doing the same with garment workers, so at least she had some guilt.

What they want is to live in some socialist shit-hole where there's never any real risk OR reward - and not just for themselves, but also for people like you who've proven that they've got balls.

Sorry, evading taxes doesn't take balls, just greed, and we have plenty of indicted CEOs to prove that. If you don't like the tax structure, work to change it - or do you just lack the, er, motivation?

Re:The most important skill

[maxpublic]

Please be more clueful in the future. It's not for nothing that you don't have any karma bonus.

Don't be an idiot. The reason I didn't use my karma bonus was that your comment wasn't worth applying it to. You could've verified this just by looking at any other post I'd made today, but apparently avoiding the appearance of stupidity just isn't high on your list of priorities.

Max

Re:The most important skill

[vsprintf]

No, that's why I specifically said "credit card debt". Which applies to people who lack even the basic self-control to save, then spend.

Debt is debt in a credit report, and people fresh out of college have had no chance to save anything. In this country, students go into debt to get the chance for a job that will help repay those debts.

There are the people you sell to, and the people you employ. I want quality employees, but I could give a shit who buys my products so long as they have the cash. That's called "capitalism".

You are what we ancients call "short-sighted". You don't have any idea what capitalism really is, and you don't understand how your greed and general unconcern will lead to your own destruction. There is no real capitalism in this country. We have a highly structured and regulated economy - if you believe anything else, you delude yourself. If you don't have an interest in the financial health of the people who buy your product(s), then you're even more wacky than you seem.

Re:The most important skill

[ErikZ]

very good friend has a son who is just starting out on his own business (the kid is 16) that I helped him start. He works cheaply, efficiently and in the first 3 months he has more opportunities than he could every handle. Why? Because he's willing to let the market set his price and his product instead of the other way around.

How come when people talk about a success that they, or someone they know have, they never mention what the business is?

Re:The most important skill

[crazyphilman]

By your line of reasoning, Dada is only able to employ people who are so awful they can't work for more than 5.15 an hour. Sounds about right...

I know I wouldn't work for him...

Re:The most important skill

[Julian Morrison]

Dude, I just have to say, having read this thread, I am in awe. If only you were hiring in England!

Re:The most important skill

[ph1ll]

"This enables him to bid fixed-price contracts because buyers love them."

Fixed-functionality contracts mean consultancies inflate their hours worked (therefore, increase their revenue).

Fixed-price contracts mean consultancies cut corners (therefore, reduce their costs).

What you have described is a system where the IT worker is incentivized to hack (the latter of these two eventualities).

What you have described is a system that is good for the body-shop owner, even good for the IT worker but totally sucks for the client.

Re:The most important skill

[GoofyBoy]

Thanks for providing insight to this business process.

The only thing I can think of is that;
1. Your employees/associates/co-workers need a HUGE amount of trust in you and your abilities for you not to screw them over.
2. As others said, the contractors are taking a risk of being paid less due to factors out of their control.(vs. get paid a predicatable and steady $/hr)
3. There may be quality control issues in the final product. Your only metric seems to be be speed/meeting deadlines. Quality of product seems to be something that would a far distant priority.

Re:The most important skill

[Taevin]

Out of all your employees only two were able to buy property but only after they combined their resources. With an impressive track record like that, it's only a matter of time before they become millionaires like you aspire to be.

Now you're being dishonest here. Nowhere did he say only two of his employees were able to buy property, he said that two young ("barely 21") employees (i.e. still in college) bought a place by combining resources. If that doesn't show the quality of worker he hires, I don't know what does. Think about that for a second; two college aged guys are homeowners. That means no rent and they can then save their apparently high earnings to buy their own places later on. In their off time, they can put some time and effort in to fixing up the place and probably make a profit by selling the place for more than they bought it for. It looks to me like those two are well on their ways to being millionaires.

Re:The most important skill

[ClosedSource]

"Now you're being dishonest here. Nowhere did he say only two of his employees were able to buy property, he said that two young ("barely 21") employees (i.e. still in college) bought a place by combining resources."

I made the assumption that he was presenting his best argument about his employees. If there were actually 10 employees that were able to buy property (of various ages) that would be a far more compelling argument than the fact that 2 of them were 21. Do you realize that it's illegal for a bank to discriminate against adults on the basis of age?

On the other hand, you're making the assumption that these two employees were able to buy property because of the wealth they acquired through their job although he didn't actually claim that. Perhaps they had considerable help from their parents.

The point is that we don't really know enough of the details to determine if his employees are well compensated or not. Since he is the one making the claims, however, it's his burden of proof.

Currently Seeking

[Anonymous Coward]

- 10 years AJAX/Web 2.0 development
  - 5 years Ruby on Rails development
  - Microsoft Windows IIS 6.0 security and administration certification

Re:Currently Seeking

[0kComputer]

-Assembly language a plus
-Lotus Notes Version 6.5.89.23 a big plus

Re:Currently Seeking

[MBGMorden]

You forgot the combos man. Experience with all the stuff seperately gets you nothing.

Also required:

17 years experience developing Java applications that interface with a high availability MySQL database that imports data from a Commodore 64 system, converts all the data to PNG image format and then OCR's it back into text to be stored into an Oracle 9.3.4.1a database running on a FreeBSD 4.11 system that has Postfix & Apache installed but is not running Bind.

5 years experience required on WeMadeThisProgramInhouse 2.0

Applicants without these requirements will not be considered.

Re:Currently Seeking

[Tibor the Hun]

Hmm, I like the sound of that. Do you pay extra peanuts on holidays or not?

Re:Currently Seeking

[Duncan3]

99% of job postings are custom written for the person they already plan to hire. They only post at all to comply with federal posting requirements. So even reading such things is a waste of your time, I've never gotten a job that way, and dont know anyone who has. I have had a few job postings composed from my resume tho :)

Thats just reality.

The most critical skill in 2006 is the same as it was in 2006BC - people skills. Or in the context of IT jobs, just more people skills then the next guy, which is probably next to zero.

Re:Currently Seeking

[Jerim]

At least I am not alone. As a mid-level programmer, I have been befuddled at job postings that want a VERY specific set of skills. I often wondered if these people were reasonable in their expactations. At least I am not the only one who finds it absurd. Really, how many programmers are there out there in the world that have the EXACT experience some of these companies are looking for? How is a person ever suppossed to get out in the marketplace and get the experience, when companies already want a tightly defined set of skills before they will even consider you? (Sorry, I don't know how to integrate your toaster with your TV using Python running on a PalmPilot.)

Re:Currently Seeking

[VAXcat]

Yah, those requirements in ads are a crock. As well as being written to target someone's pal, a lot of them are just plain impossible. I once interviewed at a place that wrote in their ad they wanted someone with 4 years of VAX/VMS experience...in 1977 (the VAX was introduced in 1975).

Re:Currently Seeking

[DrCode]

I once went to an employment seminar given by one of these companies. At the end, the speaker explained that to apply for one of their jobs, you had to print out the .pdf application from their web site, fill it in, and mail it to them. When asked by an audience member why we couldn't apply on-line, she explained that they had tried to provide that service, but couldn't get it to work right!

Made me wonder if they were hiring the right people:-)

Re:Currently Seeking

[edunbar93]

These sorts of ads aren't for anyone but the person they want to promote internally. It's just that they're required by some stupid law or beuraucratic bullshit to list it elsewhere.

Either that, or it's some headhunter collecting resumes to stuff their database with.

Re:Currently Seeking

[Tablizer]

Job Ad, curtesy C2.com (which barrowed stuff from past slashdot and craigslist also)

# Title: Junior Technician, Analyst, and Chief Scapegoat
# Must have PhD. No MA, MBA, any Master's Degree, BS, BA, or any Bachelor's degree or AA or AS, or any Associate's Degree accepted.
# Must speak all languages, human and computer.
# Must have 3 years of production experience in computer languages not yet released.
# Must have a 4.0 GPA from grade school on.
# Applicant must have perfect attendance and never been late once in your life.
# Must be in excellent health.
# Must pass a background check
# Must pass alcohol and drug tests.
# Must be able to drink like a fish if boss or client asks you out for a drink.
# Must pass the BAR exam, Perfect 1600 SAT score, Ace the GRE
# Must have a S.C.U.B.A. license
# Must have an IQ of at least 160.
# Must possess perfect spelling and grammar. You can not do anything wrong.
# Professional attitude and dress is a must.
# Must graduate from a top-tier school (Ivy League). No whimpy "state-U's".
# Must have 15 letters of excellent references with phone numbers.
# Write a 150 page pager on why do you want to work for us.
# Never quit a job, been terminated, or laid off before.
# Never a straight shooter attitude.
# Excellent interpersonal skills and ability to smile under gunfire.
# Must lack sweat glands of any kind.
# Pass personality tests.
# Never use any curse words.
# Must have a perfect credit history (No late payments ever!! Even on magazines that you didn't order.)
# Must live or move within 3-minutes of office. No moving reimbursement.
# Must be under 40, but have 41 years experience.
# You must attend 20 interviews, go to a panel interview, pay for parking, and buy everyone in the company lunch and snacks.
# Must have certificate in volume gourmet coffee production. Bring the supplies and equipment.
# Must have no family so can work full clock.
# No medical, dental, or life insurance.
# Must supply own desk, cubicle, chair, and computer that must fit company guidelines. {Based on a real situation.}
# Must lie to immigration and visa inspectors.
# If female, must have big tits.
# Pay: $16 per hour on a 1099 basis.
# Must pay own parking. Nearest lot is $17 per hour (more than your salary).
# Subject to termination on capricious whim of management.

Re:Currently Seeking

[jmertic]

When I applied for my current job, they were looking for 5 years Visual Foxpro experience. I had none ( had to look up what VFP was before going to the interview ). But they were really happy with my relational database skills; they gave me the basic "design a database for managing widgets" and I was the only applicant to actually get it 100% correct ( that includes hires since me ).

I picked up VFP in about 2 months very proficently, and built several large applications from the ground up using it. I've also reworked thier web site into a full-featured web application using PHP/MySQL. I'm also in the process of moving us completely to MySQL for all data storage ( and away from DBF files ). I've turned out to be one of the best IT hires the company has ever had.

From experience:

[grasshoppa]

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.

Re:From experience:

[cciRRus]

I share your sentiments on VoIP. Other than that, I think AJAX skills would be in great demand as well.

The hot languages for 2006

[Anonymous Coward]

Hindi
Bengali
Russian
Ukrainian
Hungarian
Mandarin
Czech

Re:The hot languages for 2006

[swordfish666]

If the above post is being read in a country other then the USA, the list should just be English.

To summarise then..

[onion2k]

"In 2006 we'll be wanting qualified people with relevant experience."

It take a certain kind of recruitment consultant to figure out these gems..

Re:To summarise then..

[Elvis Parsley]

Well, there will always be a demand for people who can do stuff with things.

Re:To summarise then..

[smittyoneeach]

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.

Re:To summarise then..

[BigCheese]

Loyalty? Gads that is so dead in the modern workplace. The appearance of loyalty, yes. In reality, no. Loyalty needs to work both ways and I haven't seen a company in years that has earned any.

huh.?

[TheRealMindChild]

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".

Re:huh.?

[elbenito69]

Seeking professional Linux developer. Applicant must posess 10 years of experience and be Linus Torvalds.

Re:huh.?

[C10H14N2]

Nothing like seeing 95% of the "250,000 jobs TODAY!" just cut-and-paste dupes of fifteen agencies selling the same job. I've had so many headhunters call me for Dice/Monster jobs in swarms, like ten calls on the same day, for the same job from people (using the term loosely) 10,000 miles apart. Then there are the duplicates of those duplicates that they post every week to bump their position up for "jobs" that arguably do not exist for any purpose but bait for resume banking.

I figure, any number touted by Dice or Monster can be made more accurate by moving the decimal one position to the left and dividing by two.

Re:huh.?

[roman_mir]

Must be able to prepare COBRA solutions, knows Sun's Cafe Latte, an expert in Microsoft J2EE with 15 years of experience minimum. Yep. Only experts work here.

Re:huh.?

[superpulpsicle]

Highend jobs - If they say they pay "up to" this amount, realistically you won't ever be offered this amount. Not to mention extremely bloated requirements. Jobs in this area are unpleasant, and too many of them require you to contract for 6 months first. Nothing like quiting your current fulltime job for a contract position.

Midrange jobs - Rare. This category is overseas right now.

Lowend jobs - Plenty of. However, try to find the lowend jobs without using a recruiter as they pocket a good portion from you.

Re:huh.?

[wk633]

"5+ years 'C' programming experience in any applicable language"

Re:huh.?

[drdewm]

"Not to mention extremely bloated requirements. Jobs in this area are unpleasant, and too many of them require you to contract for 6 months first. Nothing like quiting your current fulltime job for a contract position." I just finished 6 month contract at a place and got hired full time. I took the chance after leaving a 9 year gig for a new place 10 minutes from my house with a much better work environment. Working with respectful sincere people is worth taking the hit of a 6 month or year contract IMHO.

Re:huh.?

[geminidomino]

I figure, any number touted by Dice or Monster can be made more accurate by moving the decimal one position to the left and dividing by two.

Why not just divide by 20?

Re:huh.?

[C10H14N2]

Superfluous labor works for them, doesn't it?

Re:huh.?

[MKalus]

A guy I know who works in recuriting pointed something interesting out to me:

The Baby Boomers are going "out of business" (well, beginning) in the next two or three years, and a lot of companies are building "piplines" in order to get the right people on the job.

So, even though they may not have something right now, it looks like in a year or two those links will pay off.

Re:huh.?

[michaelebrown]

Warning: Blatant self-serving text ahead... (and humor) I have yet to talk to a recruiter who understands much of what they are looking for, nor do they understand the difference between number of years of experience and capability (the ability to learn things new). When I finally do get to talk to a technical manager in a company, I impress, I'm hired, and I am one of the most productive. The trick is to get through the "headhunter barrier". This is what it sounds like to me when talking to a headhunter (If applied to the construction industry): Headhunter: "Mr. Brown, we specialize in placement in the construction industry, and we have a current opportunity for a bricklayer. We found your resume on the internet, and it appears that you've had some experience laying bricks." Me: "Yes, quite a number of years laying bricks and many other related construction activities." Headhunter: "Do you have any experience laying brown bricks?" Me: "Brown bricks? No, but it's really quite similar." Headhunter: "I'm sorry, but we need someone who has at least 10 years laying brown bricks. Do you know of anyone else who might be qualified?" LOL P.S. If you are a headhunter that does understand capability, check out my resume at http://bytered.com/resume.html

US jobs that will never leave

[OffTheLip]

It's been mentioned before but the US government (not just the NSA) employs many IT/IS professionals and many of the positions require security clearance which can only be granted to US citizens. These jobs cover the gamut from weapons to environmental. Much of the US government tech market was unaffected by the dot.com draw down. Nobody gets rich but it's a living.

Re:US jobs that will never leave

[darkmeridian]

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.

Re:US jobs that will never leave

[jcnnghm]

My question is this, how does one get a security clearance? I live right outside of DC, 15 minutes from the NSA, and I have yet to get a straight answer as to how to get one. It seems that the majority of the tech jobs in this area require people that already have an ACTIVE security clearance.

Re:US jobs that will never leave

[isaac]

Join the military. The government is, in my experience, the only employer that will pay you to get a security clearance, a process that can easily take 9-18 months.

-Isaac

Re:US jobs that will never leave

[jcnnghm]

I help run a consulting company, who do we have to pay to get security clearances. Can we get them even? I have been unable to find much information at all on the process.

Re:US jobs that will never leave

[discojohnson]

Like another poster put, the DoD is about the only place to get one done. I have TS (or more accurately an SCBI as a TS clearance doesn't exist) which took 3 years to complete, though I've seen as little as 5 months. From what I've heard, mine cost the AF about $200K to complete. But there are some caveats you must be aware of if you're considering being a consultant and dealing with security clearances: if you are an independant contractor you can use your security clearance after being certified with the DoD within the DoD, it has no value to anyone else other than it says you don't have any deep dark secrets that the government doesn't know about (which is open for debate) or connections with questionable people/organizations. if you are part of a firm, you can only do business with the DoD--if you do any with anyone else, the clearances are invalidated and you can no longer work for the DoD. that's why there aren't a ton of DoD contracting firms running around (relative to non-DoD firms).

Re:US jobs that will never leave

[Panaphonix]

And it literally takes an Act of Congress to get fired.

Re:US jobs that will never leave

[stuntpope]

I was unemployed and got a call from a big contractor looking for the skills I had in my Monster resume. I had no clearance, so I sat in an office with my Escort Required badge until they got my provisional clearance, which eventually turned into a real clearance. I guess I was lucky - after the dotbomb layoffs and then 9/11, it seemed like having a clearance was a job requirement for anything in the DC area. I imagine the smaller companies aren't going to shell out to get you cleared, but the larger ones might if your skills match the job they want to fill.

Re:US jobs that will never leave

[Doctor Memory]

Nobody gets rich but it's a living

Yeah, no kidding. I took a significant pay cut to work closer to home and landed a govt gig. After a month here (as a contractor) they offered to make me a permanent employee. I would have made $10/hr less, with virtually no chance to advance (I would have been a senior developer, and the manager I would have worked for was in her mid-50s and had been managing that group for over ten years). When I declined their offer, they said they weren't surprised.

It is an interesting group, though. Everybody seems to want to get training on the latest & greatest stuff, but they never want to use it. Lots of CICS/COBOL, and most of the web work is still done in Cold Fusion. My project's using Java, and there's a lot of head-scratching going on (as well as a lot of cutting & pasting). Oh well, it's just a gig, I won't have to stick around and maintain this stuff (although I have made the point several times that it will be nasty to rework when the legislation changes).

Re:US jobs that will never leave

[I_redwolf]

You can't unless

1. You work for a defense contractor who will then sponsor your investigation.
2. You were part of the DoD and already got one; pretty much if you were in the military at any given point working on an installation that required that sort of investigation. You're pretty much covered.
3. You are a retired army general and are starting your own defense contractor business. In which case you probably don't have to ask for one.

Disclaimer; I used to work on an intelligence battalion when I was in the army.

In most cases, you're not getting one. Even if you do work for a defense contractor they won't sponsor your investigation unless it's absolutely required and you are going to be working on the most important part of the project for a long amount of time. Which wont happen unless you've been with the contractor themselves for quite some time. Top Secret investigation can take about 6 months.

The only way to truly get one is to join a DoD, FBI, NSA branch and do military intel/comm/mp etc etc. Or, work directly on a project of some importance being one of the few knowledgable or with sufficient skill to get it done. It's a good ole boy network, defense. Probably one of the oldest and well known. Honestly, its probably for the best that it stay that way.

Re:US jobs that will never leave

[AuMatar]

Of course that means you will probably spend years making things to kill people. Some people have problems with that. (Yeah, Interior and other agencies that don't fall into that catagory have jobs open too, but far fewer of them).

Re:US jobs that will never leave

[dptalia]

Not just that, but they hire defense contracting companies that require people to be US citizens and get a security clearance. And the defense contrators do pay comparable wages. And there's some great growth potential, at least at my company (I've been on two projects and you can quickly move up if you want to).

Re:US jobs that will never leave

[frank_adrian314159]

It's a good ole boy network, defense. Honestly, its probably for the best that it stay that way.

Why? Do you not know the meaning of the phrase coup d'etat?

Re:US jobs that will never leave

[Karma Farmer]

Why? Do you not know the meaning of the phrase coup d'etat?

Apparently, you don't. Coup d'etat menas we're better off voluntarily giving lots of money and power to the good ol' boy defense network. Because if we don't, they're going to take all the money and all the power.

Re:US jobs that will never leave

[joedoc]

Ridiculous? Hmmm, let's see:

I currently have 21 years in with the DOD (which includes my 4 years military active duty).

I get 8 hours paid annual leave per two-week pay period (that's 30 days per year) and I can carry over 256 hours per leave year. (You start with 4 hours per PP, you move to 6 hours after a few years, then 8 hours at 14 years).

I get 4 hours paid sick leave per pay period. There's no "monetary" value in that (i.e., I can't sell it back if I quit or retire), but I can build up as much as I want. Luckily for me, I had almost a thousand hours of accumulated sick leave when I had my heart attack last January. I used over two hundred hours of that leave last year for surgery, recovery and rehab/doctor's visits.

I have a medical plan (BC/BS) that I partially pay for. It costs me about $236 per month to cover myself and my family. That money is deducted pre-tax. The DOD's cost is far higher. When I consider the costs of that same heart ailment (including a one-hour emergency room visit that totaled $19,000), it is worth every penny. Sure, free medical care would be nice, but I'm a realist. I could have had nothing, or a plan where I had to bear the entire cost.

I have pretty decent term life insurance. This is particularly ideal for me, since I can't get much now due to my recent illness.

The retirement plan is pretty good, including the Thrift Savings Plan, which is our 403(b)-type contributory supplement. The Fed drops something in there for you even if you don't contribute to it. They match much of what I do put in. This plan has been so popular they recently extended it to active-duty military, and they jumped all over it. Oh, yeah, the deductions for the TSP cntributions are also pre-tax, which lowers my annual nut a little more.

Those of us in the IT classification also get something else: higher salaries than other job skills at the same pay level. This was instituted around 1998 to stop the hemmoraging of IT people to dot-com jobs. The pay gap was wider for a few years, but it's closing a bit now. Nevertheless, a GS-11 Step 6 IT employee (like me) who gets no special area locality pay benefit earns $63,589 per year. Most other GS-11 Step 6 employees earn $60,636 per year. Not a big difference any more, but if you have a child in college and a mortgage and all that other middle-class baggage, every nickle helps.

I also know a large number of IT pros with whom I worked who bailed in the late '90s for dot-bomb jobs. I did some looking and interviewed with a couple of companies, but decided to hang in with the Fed. Lots of those people are now working for far less than they were earning in the government after their ventures when ass-up. Do you think I'm glad I stayed where I was?

I get a few other assignment-specific perks: my hours are flexible so I can work when I need to (i.e., after staff hours). The comp time and overtime bennies are there if I need them. The people I work for and with are terrific. I get my own parking space, which on a military installation can be like owning the Mona Lisa. They'll pay for training and certification related expenses, if I tie them to the job.

Now, there is a down side, and it's sort of a response to the comment below about "never getting fired". First of all, you can get fired: I saw it happen to a woman in an IT position in my organization last year. That was an ugly situation, but she eventually was forced out. So, you don't have to kill anyone to get the sack.

My organization is "restructuring" and my job is about to be eliminated. I'll be receiving my reduction-in-force (RIF) letter any day now, and will have 60 days on board after that before my position is eliminated. I'm not happy abut it, and I believe the thinking that led to this is flawed, but that's for another post. This is going to happen to a bunch of us (I'm the only IT person affected at my site), and that's just the way it is.

So, what benefits do I get now? Well,

No need to specialize in a tech trend.

[dc29A]

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.

Re:No need to specialize in a tech trend.

[Viol8]

Depends what area you want to go into. OO, SOAP, HTML, XML etc knowledge is worth buttons if you want to be employed as a device driver writer. Better to know about DMA, interrupt latencies, clocking and so forth. Even in the area I work in (financials programming) , I only use 2 of the above - OO and XML - and the XML is a cherry on the cake, I didn't get employed because of it plus any jackass can pick up XML in 30 minutes.

Re:No need to specialize in a tech trend.

[deander2]

Learning a language or tech trend is not hard if one understands the underlying concepts: operating systems, OO code, various design patterns, protocols, etc.

technically i agree with you. but that's a huge "if". many programmers (or those who call themselves programmers and are employed as such) do not understand the basic data structures, design patterns, algorithmic complexity, memory allocation, etc, etc, etc.

i can't tell you how many hiring applicants i've weeded out because they couldn't give even the most basic description of a hash table during an interview. and only to watch them get an offer from someone else a week later. it's quite sad.

Re:No need to specialize in a tech trend.

[SiggyTheViking]

>IMO, just got to grok OO programming

OOP IS trendy tech.

Re:No need to specialize in a tech trend.

[h4rm0ny]

Add to this finding an employer who understands that underlying principles matter more. I tried to get a job with a company as a VB developer and my background was pure C / C++ and Telecomms. At the interview they really didn't like being told that I'd just go and learn the VB language before I started. But what do you know? I did. Five weeks into it I was reviewing everyone elses code.

But that only happened because the company was desperate and couldn't find another candidate. They'd have taken any monkey with a nightschool qualification in VB over me if they could.

(Of course, I was only applying there because I was desperate for a job too, but that's another grimmer story).

Re:No need to specialize in a tech trend.

[michaelebrown]

Warning: Blatant self-serving text ahead... (and humor)

I have yet to talk to a recruiter who understands much of what they are looking for, nor do they understand the difference between number of years of experience and capability (the ability to learn things new).

When I finally do get to talk to a technical manager in a company, I impress, and I'm hired. The trick is to get through the "headhunter barrier". This is what it sounds like to me when talking to a headhunter (If applied to the construction industry):

Headhunter: "Mr. Brown, we specialize in placement in the construction industry, and we have a current opportunity for a bricklayer. We found your resume on the internet, and it appears that you've had some experience laying bricks."

Me: "Yes, quite a number of years laying bricks and many other related construction activities."

Headhunter: "Do you have any experience laying brown bricks?"

Me: "Brown bricks? No, but it's really quite similar."

Headhunter: "I'm sorry, but we need someone who has at least 10 years laying brown bricks. Do you know of anyone else who might be qualified?"

LOL

P.S. If you are a headhunter that does understand capability, check out my resume at http://bytered.com/resume.html

Only up to 5%?

[Viol8]

Thats still half a million, the population of a medium sized city. I'd say thats a lot of displaced workers.

Re:Only up to 5%?

[IainMH]

Thats still half a million, the population of a medium sized city. I'd say thats a lot of displaced workers.

Just make sure you don't live there!

Re:Only up to 5%?

[freeweed]

Yeah, and that's only 5% IN ONE YEAR. Talk about a meaningless reassurance.

I don't know anyone who actually thinks the entire IT industry will be outsourced next week. I do, however, know a lot of people who think the majority of it might be LONG BEFORE THEY RETIRE.

Outsourcing doesn't worry me much, though. Personally, I just go where the local money is. Currently, it's Alberta ($60 oil is a wonderful thing). 10 years ago it was the Valley. 10 years from now, who knows? It'll be a fun time finding out, though :)

Recommended skills

[cryfreedomlove]

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.

Re:Recommended skills

[DangerSteel]

"Penis waving is not a firm foundation for a functional team."

Ron Jeremy would disagree...

Re:Recommended skills

[fury88]

Ground yourself in fundamentals rather than just one technology or language. Language wars are silly because a good engineer can learn a language easily.

Try telling that to the recruiter or company that wants to hire you!

Re:Recommended skills

[Richard Steiner]

Ground yourself in fundamentals rather than just one technology or language. Language wars are silly because a good engineer can learn a language easily.

Most programmers know this to be true, at least in the general case.

Unfortunately, it seems that many employers do not. :-(

Re:Recommended skills

[cryfreedomlove]

Have you tried telling the employers your thoughts on this topic? You have more influence than you think. I've had good luck driving this exact point home at a few companies.

Re:Recommended skills

[Richard Steiner]

While I was looking for work a year ago, "telling the employers" was much easier said than done.

Most of the folks I was able to contact fell into the following general categories:

(1) Fellow unemployed IT workers who were also looking for work. They understood and mostly concurred with me, at least for the most part, but that was of little value in the short term.

(2) Friends, relatives, and aquaintences I knew who were still employed in IT. Most of them also understood, but were not in a postion to do much about it (either by being individual contributors with no hiring authority or by having no openings/hiring budget).

(3) Reps for contracting and headhunting firms of various types. Most of these folks made sympathetic noises and many appreciated the circumstances that so many unemployed IT folks were in, but their hands were typically tied by client or contract requirements.

(4) Actual HR people or hiring manage types. Most of the time I was able to talk to people like this was during some point in an ongoing interview process, and those were few and far between. If they hadn't already decided they wanted to talk to you, there was no (apparent) communications channel available.

Both the airline I worked for in the past and the company I'm currently working for seem to value people and general IT experience very highly, so that's a positive thing.

Re:Recommended skills

[miyako]

While I agree with your comments, there is one thing that just sort of popped into my head that I thought I would comment on regarding the "new languages are easy to learn" thing.
I certainly agree that, when one understand the theory behind how to create a program, picking up the syntax of a new language is easy. It's much easier if the language is in the same vein as one you are familiar with (it's laughably easy to go from one C derived language to another, perhaps less so to go from a C derived language to something like COBOL with really weird syntax.) That said though, in my experience, there are no programming jobs where you will just be working with the basic language- which brings up the most time consuming aspect of working with a new language which is familiarizing yourself with the libraries and APIs used with the language. Because of this, I would say that it may be beneficial to become familiar with things that can be used with multiple languages. .NET is a good example if you program in windows (as much as I hate microsoft I have to say the .NET framework really does make programming windows applications much easier) or something like Qt (which supports seemingly ever language known to man- and probably a few not). Regular Expressions are also a handy technology to learn, since they are supported in some form in most languages today.
Another thing is, when focusing on the concepts behind programming, I've seen a lot of people who think that means learning OO. I knew a guy who was a pretty decent programmer when it came to object oriented modern languages, but when he was forced to work with C he was woefully underprepared, having always worked with "modern" languages (specifically Java and PHP) he didn't understand things like memory management and pointers (the poor guy spent a week trying to figgure out how to create and use a string before he was let go because he couldn't understand char*).
Anyway, just my thoughts. I'm just a student at a crappy degree factory so take my suggestsions for whatever they're worth.

Re:Recommended skills

[AuMatar]

THe exact libraries used and APIs to them aren't really important. I can look at a doc page and figure out how to use your string library or your linked list in a few minutes. The important thing is to understand what the API represents. Do that and you can pick up an individual API quickly.

As for pointers- this is why C or C++ should be a first language taught. Pointers seem to be a big stumbling block for most people- I'd say we lost 1/3 of the CS dept in college when they couldn't understand pointers. And new languages without explicit pointers doesn't mean you can just ignore them- a Java reference is just a pointer you can't do math on. If you don't understand the idea of a pointer, you will not be able to fully understand your code, and are a liability.

Assembly should also be mandatory at some point- you don't really understand pointers until you've coded in assembly. You might think you do, and you might get it 90% right, but you need to see what happens in machine code to get that last little bit.

Re:Recommended skills

[miyako]

Reflecting on it, I think that's true in a lot of cases.
I think a lot of what I was saying (aside from having just woken up and not being able to think very coherently) comes from the fact that when you have a well documented and coherent API looking at the documentation and figuring out how to go about doing what you understand conceptually that you need to do using what's available is second nature to those who've been programming for a while.
I'm really not sure what I was thinking about that- but anyway, your right.
I started out with C++ as my first language, and that may be the reason I never had trouble with pointers, but I think a lot of it comes down to how you learn to think about your programs in the first place. A lot of people aren't tought about the way a program works at the lowest levels, and are instead instructed through abstractions- I was lucky enough to have my first CS teacher really make it a point early on to explain how memory allocation, addresses, variables, all that works at the machine level. It put me in a good position to understand things later on.
I'm not sure about the assembly comment though. I learned assembly because I figgured it was a good thing to know even if I never used it much. I tinkered around with it for a while and wrote a really basic OS and a few of the standard programs ones writes when learning assembly and never really looked at it much since then. I do think it helped me to write better code in higher level languages, but I also know some decent programmers who've never done assembly either.
You'd think I would be used to it, given the abysmal standard of the degree factory I go to and the abysmal knowledge of my fellow students there, but I always have a hard time realizing that just because I've spent a lot of time understanding programming on many levels, reading up on actual CS (I'm a CIS major), doing MIT open courseware, etc. there there are people out there who have taken a couple of java or VB classes and a class on SQL and call themselves programmers.

Re:Recommended skills

[DrCode]

There's one more which I think trumps all of yours:

Know someone at the company you wish to work for.

Fact is, you could be the greatest developer since Knuth; but if nobody in a position to hire knows you, your resume will end up in the same black hole as those of the people who would be challenged to write "hello world".

Re:Recommended skills

[Knara]

My undergrad was the same way. Even thought I eventually was an IST major (info systems and technology), when I started we had essentially the same first 2 years as the CS folks (granted, I did the first two years in the CS program, but it was fairly similar). We learned C/C++ in the general series as a way of learning and using data structures, algorthims, etc., learned assembly language (a fake one, but assembly nonetheless). I think it's sadly very rare for people to learn programming in this fashion anymore... or at least, rare amongst those who end up doing "business" programming.

DICE is the proof?

[whitroth]

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

Re:DICE is the proof?

[SageMusings]

Many jobs on sites like this are nothing more than attempts by headhunters to collect resumes. That is, there was never a job to begin with. This alone makes using job-site stats worthless.

Are IT jobs still in demand? Not where I work. Our development staff has been savaged over the last year. Many of our positions are now based in Bangalore. I see the handwriting on the wall and would like to take proactive steps but the situation is the same where ever I look.

The best tech skill for 2006 is an alternate vocation to fall back on. Say....a Walmart stockboy.

Re:DICE is the proof?

[nogginthenog]

What has Dillons Integrated C Environment got to do with it?

Missed an important need

[deadline]

The big void is going to be in parallel and distributed computing. By 1998 desktops will have 4 core processors, workstations with two sockets will have 8 cores. Beyond multitasking, existing software cannot use these processors.

Not that every program needs to use extra CPUs, but developers who have experienced continued speed "free lunch" improvements are going to hit a wall unless they start thinking in terms of threads, OpenMP, and MPI. You can check out Cluster Monkey for infromation on cluster computing which has been dealing with these issues for the last ten years.

Re:Missed an important need

[putko]

Warning -- clustermonkey is for Beowulf admirers.

If it is true that clusters are the future, won't it be Windows "Cluster Edition" that runs everything?

I'm just kidding. Clustermonkey looks like it has a lot of useful information. It is in the tradition of Linux -- lot's of info to make it easy-to-get-started. I'm looking forward to Windows Clusterfuck Edition bug reports.

Re:Missed an important need

[SolitaryMan]

By 1998 desktops will have 4 core processors

Trust me, they won't! And in 2000 Bush Jr. will be elected.

Re:Missed an important need

[ichigo 2.0]

John Titor, is that you?

Re:And then watch VoIP implode...

[grasshoppa]

Plus the voice quality on external lines is usually frankly appalling compared to normal phone lines.

If by external lines, you mean internet lines, then I agree. The sound quality is better than regular lines, but the reliability is subject to the internet, which is flaky. That's why I have copper to the asterisk boxes, with internet trunks backing that up.

VoIP IMO is the emporers latest clothing collection though I await to be proven wrong.

If you want to stick your head in the sand, by all means. More business for me.

VoIP is a proven technology. Don't believe me? How do you think the phone company delivers your lines to you? In most cases, it's VoIP over an ATM circuit, then broken out in to a t1, then finally into your lines via a channel bank. In many setups, it's only when the lines are finally in copper that it's a regular old analog line. It's VoIP up to that.

In replacing legacy Avaya systems and the like, what you are looking at is putting a VoIP backbone and VoIP phones, hooked directly to a POTS network. You not only get the feature set of VoIP, but you get the reliability of the POTS network.

IT Jobs Not Dead

[ranton]

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.

Re:IT Jobs Not Dead

[sgt_doom]

Dude, you obviously have a very limited awareness of your environment - and awareness of one's environment is a prerequisite to intelligence.

Five percent of the jobs is the lowest ballpark figure imaginable - it just ain't honest. And all those research centers opened overseas - employing foreign physicists, computer scientists, engineers, etc., aren't lowbrow jobs.

Re:IT Jobs Not Dead

[hostingreviews]

College != Preperation
Who here has honestly graduated from college, gotten a job in a related field, sat down at the new desk and actually known what to do? Not I.

Re:IT Jobs Not Dead

[dr_dank]

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.

Whenever the subject of tech jobs comes up around here, you can always count on a number of posts from people who know this language and that, years of experience, etc etc going for months or years without employment as if the jobs didn't exist. I too, thought that IT/tech jobs were extremely few and far between until I got the opportunity to interview for a programming gig that I was in no way qualified for.

It was then that I found out what the parent stated, truely qualified people are tough to find for these jobs.

Re:IT Jobs Not Dead

[Amouth]

I took it the other way.. i have been in the job market for around 8 years now.. love my job make decent money.. and i am now going to school for it..

and what i see is jsut sad.. i have had to dumb down some of my code to meet their specs.. it saddens me.

The way i see it i don't care if you have that little sheet of paper.. if you can do the job and do it well then it is yours..

by the way i am taking 1 class a semester and plan on graduateing in around 15 years..

Re:IT Jobs Not Dead

[ranton]

I agree that the way things are going now, "College != Preperation".

But I think that this is a tragedy, and a dis-service to our country's college students. College students are in post secondary schooling for 4-5 years, that is a hell of a lot of time. It does not take that much time to teach someone a field such as computer science. Someone should be able to self-teach themselves everything needed to not only be a programmer, but a true "computer scientist", in 4 years. And along the way they should also be able to pick up skill sets needed to be an effective worker. College should be making it even easier on the students in school because they are paying the university to help them learn.

If I hired someone and was willing to give them 4 years to learn how to do the job, I would expect them to be far more competent than even the top 10% of current college graduates. If I want them to know how to program in any language I ask them to, they better be able to do that after 4 years. If I want them to understand optimization and things like Big-O notation, they better be able to do that after 4 years. They better be a very efficient and useful employee after 4 years.

Kids pay these colleges for years and should be fully functional adults by the time they get out. There is no excuse for them to not be productive with very minimal on the job training. I still put most of the blame on the students themselves for never learning anything that isnt in their textbooks, but some of the blame is also on the schools.

Why shouldnt we expect college graduates to be useful employees?

Re:IT Jobs Not Dead

[Dunbal]

We obviously didn't go to the same med school...

Re:IT Jobs Not Dead

[ranton]

Dude, you obviously have a very limited awareness of your environment

Why is it that I have a limited awareness of my environment? Because you say I do?

I admit that I have only been in the IT industry for about 8 years, so it isnt like I have been around since the industry began. But that is enough time to know alot of people who work with computers, in many different disciplines. I am a developer now, but I have worked in tech support and sys admin jobs in the past. I still have dozens of friends who work in these fields, and still have contacts with far more people than that.

The computer industry is very new, it isnt like doctors or lawyers who were around before the time of christ. When you get a job in the IT industry you most likely are not geting a job for life. Most skill sets that you learn in this business are going to become obselete. If you do not continue to learn new things and keep yourself employable, you WILL lose your job.

While I do know competent people who have lost jobs over the past few years, they have all found new ones with a minimal loss in pay if any. The only ones I know who took serious pay cuts or simply could not find another job are those that were simply unemployable. They should go back to school and get a teacher's certificate or something.

I dont care if the number is 5% or 50%, those jobs that are leaving the country are jobs that probably should be in the third world. I am sure that anyone could come up with a dozen exceptions of a random research center being opened overseas, but those are an exception. Jobs for qualified engineers and computer scientists are simply not going overseas in large numbers.

Re:IT Jobs Not Dead

[Mastoid]

Hear, hear.

We needed to hire someone for half time tech support, half time code maintenance for some VB work that a departing consultant had done. The levels of staggering incompetence in the interviewees was immense.

The only one who actually made it past the tech support portion of the interview was the one we hired. He worked out just great. The others...man.

One guy came in who painted houses for a living and fixed his friends' computers. This was the basis for his "four years professional technical support." I asked him how he'd handle a situation where someone called him, unable to get their email. His solution? Redirect them to me.

Another supposedly worked in tech support in a major computer chain, yet somehow couldn't list the names of two major motherboard manufacturers, nor properly diagnose a computer with a floppy cable inserted backwards. Incidentally, I ran into her at that store, where she was working the sales floor.

The guy we hired is a natural researcher and problem solver. If he comes to me with a problem, I know it's either esoteric or pretty serious and he's not wasting my time. This is the quality I look for in tech workers. Heck, the is the essential quality in any profession: the ability to take initiative, research problems, and find solutions in a methodical and efficient manner. Other skills fall in behind this one.

Re:IT Jobs Not Dead

[sgt_doom]

The term is mathematically-challenged - the numbers speak for themselves - regardless of what the corporate mcNews claims - hard data don't lie.

Re:IT Jobs Not Dead

[ranton]

hard data don't lie.

Where is this hard data? I am not saying that it doesnt exist, I have simply never seen it. I have never seen any hard data that shows how many jobs are being sent overseas in the IT business. And simply counting how many outsourced jobs there are in india/china doesnt count, because some of those jobs probably wouldnt exist if they had to pay American wages for them.

Re:IT Jobs Not Dead

[ocbwilg]

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.

Agreed. We recently posted a position for a helpdesk/PC tech (doing phone and hands-on support/troubleshooting) and got close to 100 resumes. Of those, there were about 6 that looked like they might have enough relevant skills/knowledge to warrant an interview. Of those, there were only two suitable candidates. And this if for an entry level position.

We hired another helpdesk/PC tech last spring. This person performed similar duties at another company, and came to us with a CIS degree from DeVry (I know that it's not Ivy League or anything), and they are pretty much useless. They can answer the phone, but it takes them at least twice as long to solve a problem as it would any other decent tech. Half the time they end up doing more damage while trying to "fix" the problem than there was to begin with, and I end up having to clean it up. And just to illustrate that stupid people don't actually realize that they're stupid, this person actually thinks that they're in line to take over my job someday (network admin, managing Windows/Linux/AIX boxes along with Cisco equipment).

I'm sure it's probably a little different with higher-skilled jobs, but most people come to those jobs by virtue of working their way up the ladder. The longer I work in IT, the more strongly I believe that IT certs and degrees are worth less and less.

Re:IT Jobs Not Dead

[poot_rootbeer]

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.

Consider why a boss is a boss.

Is it simply because they have been at the company longer? Because they have an old college friend in senior management? Because they're better at telling people what to do than actually doing work themselves?

Or is it because they have a greater wealth of understanding of the work?

Granted, all these scenarios do exist. But the last one, in my opinion, is the only valid reason to promote an employee over others; so that they may effectively share their expertise with the team, allowing everybody to work more effectively. An employee is SUPPOSED to rely on their boss for help when needed. That's what a boss is for.

Also granted, I don't know what kind of help your friend is asking for from his boss. If it's help understanding a complex set of business rules, that's one thing; if it's figuring out the difference between * and & when dealing with pointers in C, that's another.

Re:IT Jobs Not Dead

[ClosedSource]

"The problem is not that it is hard to find a job in the computer industry, it is that there arent enough competent people."

Clearly the difficulty in finding a job and the difficulty in finding people you want to hire are entirely different problems, so your sentence doesn't make much sense.

In my experience programmers believe that competent people can always find jobs and that they are (of course) competent themselves. Then they some day they get laid off and have difficulty finding work. Then they must either conclude that they aren't competent after all, or their basic assumptions are wrong.

Re:IT Jobs Not Dead

[Bloke down the pub]

couldn't list the names of two major motherboard manufacturers, nor properly diagnose a computer with a floppy cable inserted backwards. Incidentally, I ran into her at that store, where she was working the sales floor.

You hired someone else? I'm guessing she was like an ironing-board.

Re:IT Jobs Not Dead

[ocbwilg]

That is about the most succinct analysis I have seen of the real problem that plagues the IT industry.

There really are a lot of stupid people out there who honestly believe that they know what they are talking about.

Yes. There have actually been scientific studies that demonstrated that the less knowledgeable a person was about a particular topic, the more likely they were to overestimate there level of knowledge on that topic.

Re:IT Jobs Not Dead

[Daleks]

And colleges are turning out incompetent programmers at an alarming rate.

For the past two weeks all of the senior developers at my company, including me, have been on vacation, with the exception of one junior developer. I looked at the CVS history today and nearly cried.

2006 will be the year of coding guidelines.

Re:IT Jobs Not Dead

[sgt_doom]

All one need do is read the newspapers, both national and international, to realize that the number of jobs being offshored (both high tech and other categories) increases exponentially every year since 1999. This has been remarked upon numerous times by various well-known analysis firms. It has been remarked upon so frequently I have long stopped providing links for the mentally lazy and those who wallow in their self-sustained ignorance.

Re:IT Jobs Not Dead

[ranton]

Actually, I do read the news, both online and local newspapers. And I do not see these doomsday scenerios that you apparently see. You can claim that I am just ignorant, but I think that it is just because you like spouting off lies and then covering it up with derogitory talk.

I did a quick search on Google with the phrase "IT jobs outsourced overseas 2005", and almost all of the pages described how outsourcing is not a problem. Since I am not afraid to give links, here is one:

http://www.heritage.org/Research/TradeandForeignAi d/wm467.cfm/

I ask again, where is all of this hard data that shows how horrible offshoring jobs is?

Re:IT Jobs Not Dead

[sgt_doom]

Hey clown, in case you haven't heard, the Heritage Foundation is nothing more than a flim-flam mouthpiece for the Neocons - it is not, nor ever been truly a think tank. That is ignorance personified to use them as a reputable source - they represent the offshoring industry along with the Institute for International Economics - which has failed to provide me with any hard data supporting the claims of their paymasters (the various offshoring corps). Get a clue, dude, and google on "Offshoring backlash" and start reading actual sources of the numbers....

Re:IT Jobs Not Dead

[ranton]

the Heritage Foundation is nothing more than a flim-flam mouthpiece for the Neocons

Again, you throw out statements without backing them up. While the Heritage Foundation is cleary more conservative than liberal, why is that inherently a bad thing? You say that they represent the offshoring industry, so where is the data that backs this up?

I have been searching the Heritage Foundation and the Offshoring industry, and havent found any correlations. Where is your supposedly reputable source that makes this link? You talk about paymasters, but the Heritage Foundation recieves its money from many individual donors, none of which fund a large percentage of their annual donations.

You like to call people morons and clowns, but you dont have any valuable information to give in any of your posts. It is all just empty rhetoric. You claim that one source is better than another, but never give a reason why. You may be an intelligent person who simply doesnt have much time to spend posting on Slashdot, but you come off as someone who has no idea what he is talking about.

This was done

[porkThreeWays]

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.

Re:This was done

[algodon]

It's kinda sad to see that a lot of the tech industry is not learning from the past.

For some reason I don't think it's just the tech industry that doesn't learn from the past...
Actually, if it did, it would probably be the first collection of humans ever to do so.

Re:This was done

[the grace of R'hllor]

The trick is that, working at 80-90% average, you're still making a very healthy salary compared to others. Part of being efficient is knowing when to turn off the computer and take a week off. And knowing when to stop reading Slashdot and get back to work to meet time goals.

Re:This was done

[Politburo]

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 is commonly known as piecework, and is still in practice (in non-union shops, of course).

Re:This was done

[Anonymous Coward]

Piecework causes everyone to suffer. Especially the employer.
here is why.
I worked at a shop where this was done.
Everyone worked blanking presses, grinding, etc.
paid X per piece.
You can't imagine the ammount of defective pieces that were produced.
Why?
Because people were in such a hurry to get it done, that they just threw whatever they could out to make that extra X cents.

Not to mention morale sucked, and the managers hated the quality problems.
We eventually abandoned piecework.

Re:This was done

[gentlemen_loser]

Maybe if Dada spent more time with the higher education that he seems to loathe - he would know this. ;-)

We study our history to learn from past mistakes. Maybe for his niche this is working out great. However, if this were ever adopted on a wide scale people would be run into the ground to just trying to survive.

Re:This was done

[alder]

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.

Consciously or subconsciously dada21 knows that:

... I constantly have to re-evaluate if my top paid employees are worth the money they're getting paid.

He does have to replace those who burn out eventually...

Re:This was done

[Politburo]

Where I worked.. I was not on piecework.. but those who did were penalized if their products failed QC more than once. Workers could QC their own pieces (QC mainly consisted of a leak check) because going through the 'official' QC. It was a slightly different shop than your situation.. people were making tanks that took anywhere from a day to a week to assemble.

Re:This was done

[Mangelwulf]

Actually, it is still done at Lincoln Electric. They have never unionized. They still pay per peice, as do a number of other places and industries. I would love to work anywhere that paid me 66% of the rate they charge for my work. My bill rate is $250 an hour, I can assure you that my income is far less than $250 an hour, even if you throw in benefits. I agree with an early post, this aligns the worker, the manager and the clients interests.

Question

[TheSpoom]

As someone who's looking to go into a VoIP business with a few others, is there a certification or a good book you'd recommend on the subject?

Re:Question

[Hast]

Listen to this: Asterisk - Open-Source VoIP PBX.

Re:Question

[edunbar93]

http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/asterisk/index.html

most job postings are vapor anyhow

[Anonymous Coward]

And never mind that the majority of job postings don't actually exist anyhow.
Let's not forget the resume miners out there.

I would say more than 80% of job postings are for fictious jobs that don't exist, never existed, and never will.

Even when you do eventually get to the job interview, if you ever do, you find the job isn't really there anyhow.

And then, after years of searching, and months of struggling, you get to a "final phase" interview...
What a load of bullcrap!

The company turns around and says "oh, we hired someone internally" - translation: there was no job, thanks for wasting your time, and parking money (which we get a portion of the profits on).

I've seen this crap for 10 years. I've seen companies post a job, gone through the interview, told the job was filled, then a month later the job is reposted. same job same position, over and over again for years. hint- there never really was a job.

The only time its sorta been worth the hassle of the interview is when the person interviewing you is a hot babe, preferably showing lots of cleavage! but those are few and far between, and rare. Most of them have a broomstick up their ass anyhow... sigh...

I think it's just the headhunters trying to create the illusion of a market to give people false hope, while making more money off the companies. and companies are stupid enough to keep paying them because they think these headhunters can actually get them workers.

Oh, and to the first poster, the asshole who pays minimum wage and wants to pay less, please go F yourself. you're part of the problem! If workers cant afford to BUY the goods, what the hell do you expect?

Does no one realize if we dont get paid enough we're NOT going to buy your goods or services, and then you will have NO customers, and no business! Stop being so god- damned greedy!

Money is meant to be spread around, not horded. Hording is what causes the market to crash. get a clue!

Re:most job postings are vapor anyhow

[Pfhreakaz0id]

hmmm, first clue.. they won't pay for your parking.. This is a true story. I was unemployed at the time, so I was desperate, but I think it's important to show you're not THAT desperate. I interviewed at a place downtown in a bigish Midwest city. I couldn't find the company lot, figured they parked in one of the garages, so I double-parked, ran in and this was the conversation:

me: Hey, I have the interview at 10, where do I park?
receptionist: around the corner, in the garage.
me: I assume you validate?
receptionist: no, not for interviews.
me: Ok, then, be sure to tell XXXX, I'm sorry, but If you can't even validate my parking, I don't think I'll waste his or my time.

me, drives off, 30 seconds later, my cell rings:
xxxx: Hey, sorry about the mix up, we'll be happy to validate your parking.

Interview went well, and got an offer. XXXX said he was "impressed with my assertiveness about the parking situation" I ended up taking another job, though it was a tough choice.

Re:most job postings are vapor anyhow

[crabpeople]

"The company turns around and says "oh, we hired someone internally" - translation: there was no job"

having conducted several IT interviews, I can tell you that they were probably just trying to blow you off nicely. Probably they hired the guy that came in right after you and didnt want to hurt your feelings by telling you. Furthermore, if this happens to you as much as you claim (80% of the time) you are either applying for the wrong jobs or your interviewing skillz are bad. If you dont have a job for more than a month, while activly submitting resumes, you arent trying hard enough or aiming low enough. I would rather hire someone that already had a job than someone who was unemployed for 5 months. Even if their other job is delivering pizza's, they still prove that they arent so egotistical and eliteist as to let their job define them.

It can be your fault if you dont have a job you know.

Re:most job postings are vapor anyhow

[bladesjester]

Actually, most state universities (and some companies) have rules that they have to interview for open positions unless someone internally wants the position. Often times, the powers that be already have someone from outside in mind for the position but have to interview anyway even though they know they aren't going to hire any of the people.

I've falled afoul of that sort of thing a couple of times.

Re:most job postings are vapor anyhow

[FriedTurkey]

I would say more than 80% of job postings are for fictious jobs that don't exist, never existed, and never will.

Dude, I think that number is high. I have been interviewed by some shady guys looking for sales contacts. As a consultant, I should never be expected to give names of clients. If they ask, I never say the company names. One guy kept asking and finally ended the interview aruptly. I think he was just a sales guy looking for names. I wouldn't hire a guy who gave me the name of one of his clients.

Re:most job postings are vapor anyhow

[try_anything]

If you dont have a job for more than a month, while activly submitting resumes, you arent trying hard enough or aiming low enough.

Being unemployed for months isn't necessarily a sign that you're doing something wrong. I'm a software developer, and last time I was looking, I was unemployed for a little over a year. I did everything right. I sent out resumes for every job listing I could find that I was qualified for, customized for each listing, and in my spare time I picked up a couple of Java certs. I wasn't picky. After a few months I started applying all over the country, and I took the first job I was offered, at $15k less than my previous job. Also, I must be pretty decent at what I do, because I worked my way back up to the original salary in less than eighteen months.

In the year that I was unemployed, I started to develop some weird suspicions about whether I was really any good, or just a drone. When I started the job and realized that the work was well within my capability, I was a little bit surprised. That's what being unemployed will do to you.

Re:most job postings are vapor anyhow

[maxpublic]

having conducted several IT interviews, I can tell you that they were probably just trying to blow you off nicely.

It's obvious you haven't worked for government. Government agencies (including universities) are required, under most circumstances, to post job openings and interview qualified applicants from the general public. However in 99% of these cases the job has been earmarked for someone, either a person already in the organization or a friend/family member. It isn't legal, but that really doesn't mean shit so long as the formalities are observed.

The interviews are just for show so that if anyone makes a fuss, the management team has a paper trail backing up their actions and proving that they conducted the process properly. It also gives the suits a feeling of power to make applicants dance to their tune for an hour or two a day, knowing that none of those poor bastards has a chance in hell but came out to put on an impressive show anyway.

Max

Highly skilled slaves in high demand right now

[gelfling]

As always, someone willing to work for less than a receptionist, move halfway across the country for a job that's 80 hrs a week of unrelenting grind while requiring 7 years experience in a technology that's only 3 years old will be in high demand next year.

But in a serious vein - I'm in security and have been for years and I can't honestly see that demand for those jobs is increasing. I think what they're talking about is network admins who are familiar with the security aspects of the hardware they already are expected to run.

On the other hand auditors are in demand because it's a burnout job. Auditors are like low paid management consultants. They live out of a suitcase and travel 260 days a year. There are two kinds of auditor employees: early career types who want to 'see the world' and late career types who are already divorced. So this is why they are in demand and why their salaries tend to be slightly higher.

As far as govt work is concerned it's a catch 22. No one will hire you w/o clearance and the only way to get one is to be employed by a contractor. So the same community of SCI clearanced contractors rotates through the pool of jobs. It's almost impossible to find an employer who will keep you on for the 6-18 months it takes to get clearance depending on the level.

Re:Highly skilled slaves in high demand right now

[dptalia]

As far as govt work is concerned it's a catch 22. No one will hire you w/o clearance and the only way to get one is to be employed by a contractor. So the same community of SCI clearanced contractors rotates through the pool of jobs. It's almost impossible to find an employer who will keep you on for the 6-18 months it takes to get clearance depending on the level.

Depends on the company/project. Twice now I've been hired for government jobs without a security clearance and then had the company get me one (first job I left before the clearance came through, so I'm having to do it all over again.) The problem is it takes about 14 months to get a bloody clearance which means you need a paitent company or a project that is going secret but isn't there yet. Usually newly awarded contracts fit that bill.

More important than anything else...

[ErichTheRed]

Language and platform fads are fun to chase, but the core skills of an IT person won't change anytime soon.

• 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.

Re:More important than anything else...

[Amouth]

I couldn't agree with you more.. i work for a small company ~20 empolyees and 30 consultants, I am the only IT guy.. and i enojy my job .. i get to do the basic hardware.. the help the user with software. manage servers/network and write custom tools.. it takes someone willing to go the extra mile to get something done and done right to have a good job. I don't think i could ever work where i have no job security .. where i am just another worker.. given a task and get it done and move to the next. I love the fact that if i see the need for a custom tool that could help the other people here get their job done.. i do it and deploy it.. and they like it.. having a diverse skill set is a requirement to have a job that is worth while.. i see all the CSC majors and i just want to beat them sensless - they need to have more back ground than just school.. they need to get out there and work with people.. it is the only way they will be able to survive.....

Re:More important than anything else...

[MrNougat]

You are right on. I would also point out that the skills you list apply to any job in any industry, not just IT.

Re:More important than anything else...

[nervouscat]

That also seems to be the main points in a book I am currently reading called "My Job Went to India: 52 Ways to Save Your Job".

Book: http://www.pragmaticprogrammer.com/titles/mjwti/
Author's Blog: http://www.chadfowler.com/

Re:More important than anything else...

[Mean Variance]

Add to that:

• Writing and communication skills. Be able to describe through documentation (e.g. UML, Visio, Word, Javadocs) what you are actually doing in a way that is understandable to: QA engineers, other developers and managers, product managers, and sometimes external customers. In most cases, I would not want to hire someone who knows the latest bells and whistles to build something but leaves the company in a lurch when s/he quits because no one can make sense of how the hell product/module/feature XYZ was built.

Re:More important than anything else...

[Amouth]

I am 22.. and yes i do .. but i work for a small company and can only help a few people at a time.

I feel it is their job to activly seek work.. that is life.. no one will just give it to them

Re:More important than anything else...

[Amouth]

i havn't had it as bad as you have.. but i lost my job because of 9/11 i had just bought my house and had no money.. i was 2 hours away from being a city bus driver when i was offered the position i have now.. one thing i can say to all is that is is easier to find a job when you have one.. even if the one you have has nothing to do with what you know..

Mod the parent up.

[mmell]

And somebody metamod his "Offtopic" rating as 'unfair'.

Also depends on the geographic market

[greysky]

I know that there are pleanty of jobs if you're willing to move OUT of the larger metro areas. I work for a company in Chattanooga, and we're always looking for qualified applicants to fill tech positions. I used to live in Denver, and you couldn't buy a job there with all the laid off programmers, the influx of tech workers from California and Texas, plus the large quantity of new grads from several local universities.

Re:Also depends on the geographic market

[quizwedge]

yeah, we're having lots of trouble finding VB.NET web software programmers in the great Sacramento area. I know the party line is Linux and Perl/PHP but if there happens to be someone out there that knows VB.NET and has a grounding in web software, we'd love to hire you. Check out http://www.bizflex.com/about/careers/

Re:Also depends on the geographic market

[urbanRealist]

I believe that! I work for very little and would accept less if the work was fun enough, or included more leisure time. That's because I live in DC.

One thing I would never do, even if you paid me 7 figures, is live out the rest of my life in Chattanooga. I've lived in Tuscaloosa, AL and Columbus, MS before. You literally could not pay me enough to move back. The return on investment for companies willing to locate in urban areas is mindblowingly enormous.

For some context, I write and maintain enterprise-level (S&P, Deutsche Bank, WaMu, etc) cashflow projection software. I'm also part of a Windows to Gentoo/Red Hat migration.

Project managers are a 'technical' job?

[Caspian]

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.

I've had a few managers (project or otherwise) who know how to use a computer beyond playing Solitaire and using Outlook, but most haven't...

Re:Project managers are a 'technical' job?

[MKalus]

That's bad. A good PM at least has a grasp of the technology and knows when s/he's getting bullshitted.

Do not trust a CEO

[McPolu]

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.

Finding Jobs

[sheridan3003]

Some of the comments about DICE are right on, but what about some of the other sites?

I have actually found a couple good positions using monster and careerbuilder.

One of the new trends I am seeing is the use of LinkedIn

Currently I think there are more recruiters on LinkedIn than there are job seekers, but as it grows in popularity being able to directly find either skilled people or jobs could be a good thing. I think it has the potential to bybass the traditional Careerbuilder, Monster, Dice , etc...

mod parent -1, flamebait

[happyemoticon]

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.

Re:mod parent -1, flamebait

[NDPTAL85]

You really start to lose people when you let your libertarian flag fly. Most folks just flat out don't buy into libertarianism because it could only succeed, like communism, in an artificial world of perfect circumstances, not the very imperfect yet very real world we actually live in.

And no, the dotcom boom isn't responsible for Google's rise. The money could have gone into any stock, it went to Google because Google earned and deserves it.

Re:mod parent -1, flamebait

[Pig Hogger]

and the only book necessary for an exhaustive understanding of the economy would be The Wealth of Nations.

Ah! " The Wealth of Nations ". Proponents of the "frea mahkit" always fail to cite the portions where Adam Smith explains that the free market is nothing but an utopia, and that there is always a need for some sort of State intervention in the economy, most always to make sure that the market is truly free.

Re:mod parent -1, flamebait

[maxpublic]

the only book necessary for an exhaustive understanding of the economy would be The Wealth of Nations.

Given the abject failure of Keynesian economics and the fact that it's being disproven and repudiated at record speeds, it appears that Adam Smith still holds the record for having written the most comprehensive text on the fundamentals of supply and demand.

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.

Lines like this usually come from egomaniacs who expect their employers to spend inordinate amounts of time telling them just how valued they are. Really, get a fucking life already. You work for PAY, as in, I agree to give you X amount of dollars for Y amount of work. If you need your ego stroked, calling a phone sex hotline.

Why do you think Google is the envy of all of Silicon Valley?

Because it appears to be profitable, if only in trade. Investors don't give a flying fuck how Google treats its employees so long as the stocks remain overvalued and fluid. If you think otherwise you don't know shit about the market.

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.

Yep, you don't shit about the market. People trade in Google stocks because clueless idiots have driven the price up far beyond any realistic P/E appraisal. Which means those of us with brains are trading against those who don't have them, moving wealth from the hands of fools to the hands of the savvy. That's what always happens with badly overvalued stocks.

Google's stock value will eventually crash and burn. Even the dumbest investor eventually gets a clue or two.

Max

Re:mod parent -1, flamebait

[happyemoticon]

Given the abject failure of Keynesian economics and the fact that it's being disproven and repudiated at record speeds, it appears that Adam Smith still holds the record for having written the most comprehensive text on the fundamentals of supply and demand.

Alright, jackass, I'll admit that I'm not an economics major. But I didn't undo my belt and start waving my cock around about which school of economics I prescribe to.

Let me tell you this: Comments like yours usually come from investment banker jackasses who are too busy getting pedicures and blowjobs from Southeast-Asian sex workers to actually see how Point of Sale actually operates. I'm not saying that neoclassical supply/demand economics are bad, I'm saying that there's more to it than that, and that's something that only somebody who's sold shit to other people would ever understand that.

I'll give it to you in brief, since you clearly were born with a silver spoon in your mouth and have never worked an honest day in your life: smiling works. I smile at the people at my favorite coffee shop and chat them up. They smile at me and ask me about my fianceé. They get a monopoly on my business and I get my drinks made perfectly. It worked exactly the same when I was the guy hocking lattes two years ago. When I sold fabric (my first job out of college), I displayed conversance and interest in the activities of SCA people, strippers, and goths, as well as a shocking level of memory retention about our inventory. That made sure that if those people were going to buy some fabric, they bought it from our store, and they bought it from me, which made me very, very hard to fire.

Conversely, I won't go to Good Vibrations because the service is utterly indifferent. If you think Apple Store employees are bad, you're in for a surprise. If we were to believe you, all they would have to do is lower the price of their sex toys enough and I'd come flocking to them. Nope. Now I go to Madame S, which charges more, but has lots of cheerful, helpful staff. Likewise, I left the fabric store and started selling lattes for a pay cut and worse hours because the staff was political and dour.

Lines like this usually come from egomaniacs who expect their employers to spend inordinate amounts of time telling them just how valued they are. Really, get a fucking life already. You work for PAY, as in, I agree to give you X amount of dollars for Y amount of work. If you need your ego stroked, calling a phone sex hotline.

Hey, I am an egomaniac, but you, Mr. Pot, are calling me, Mr. Kettle, black. But that's not the point. You go out of your way to launch a personal attack full of hollow rhetoric. However, in the midst of so much slime and vitriol, I am able pick out a kernel of wisdom in that people who need their egos massaged are difficult to work with. I wholeheartedly agree with this, but trust me, it doesn't apply to me. My fat christmas bonus was all the praise I needed.

Yep, you don't shit about the market.

I don't shit in, or around it either.

Re:mod parent -1, flamebait

[maxpublic]

Let me tell you this: Comments like yours usually come from investment banker jackasses who are too busy getting pedicures and blowjobs from Southeast-Asian sex workers

So, you have a great deal of experience in what? Giving pedicures, or blowjobs? Or both?

I'll give it to you in brief, since you clearly were born with a silver spoon in your mouth and have never worked an honest day in your life

I was born poor as dirt. Your character appraisal sucks about as bad as your understanding of the fundamentals of economics.

After that you blather on about how it's a good thing for people who sell to do it with a smile. Well, no shit, Sherlock! You discovered a fundamental principle of salesmanship!

Unfortunately you somehow failed to note that the conversation was about employers and employees, not businesses and customers. You cater to the customer because you want the customer to buy, then come back and buy again; you do NOT stroke the egos of self-important little shits who insist that their "worth" is far beyond what it actually is just because they think that's part of their employee 'rights'. Employees agree to do work X for wage Y, not work X for wage Y plus regular emotional handjobs from the boss. Those annoying little fucks can go work someplace else.

I don't shit in, or around it either.

Apparently not knowing dick about the stock market doesn't keep you from showing your ass to the world when making idiotic comments re Google's stock prices. I'm guessing that not knowing dick about *any* subject doesn't keep you from handing down comments from on-high. Damn glad to know you aren't working for me.

Max

Lots of Bad Workers

[Brushfireb]

For the last two months I have been searching for two people to fill two clearly defined (and very fillable) positions with my company. We have used MOnster.com (Which has outrageous pricing) as well as craiglist, and have really only received crap.

We have two IT Positions available, one for Web Developer -- PHP interfacing with PostGreSQL, and another for Software Engineer -- Designing Spec Docs and then Coding (and eventually managing other coders) that spec doc.

Our technology bases arent the newest around (PHP, PostGreSQL, Perl/C) but we consistently get the following types of resumes:
  1 - Foreigners who want to work in the US. Sorry, I cant and dont want to sponsor you. We are a small company.
  2 - Foreigners who want to consult with companies in the US, but not move or be an employee. Sorry, not happening with us.
  3 - Highly underqualified people applying for a position. For example -- We have recieved a number of applicants who have 1 year programming experience, and no specific experience in our tech's, and who attended less-then-ideal educational institutions (Ivy Tech anyone?).

I think that for every capable IT person, there are probably 15 cert jockies, and 25 idiots.

Moreover, we have had people apply for the position who then asked what our company did. They could have spend 30 seconds looking at our website before dropping off or emailing their resume and found out. This type of laziness is horrible.

B

Re:Lots of Bad Workers

[wurp]

If you're designing spec docs and then coding to them, you're doing the wrong things. I wouldn't apply for such a job.

Rational Unified Process really is the way to go. Waterfall development processes suck to work under and don't perform. Divide a project into clear "user stories", do the risky ones first, and use agile methods (planning poker, team velocity, etc) to estimate time to completion.

You can't know precisely what you want to do until you've tried some of it, all the way through down to coding an example. Trying to design complete spec docs and then coding to them only makes sense if you have built an example system first, and even then you should expect to have to make updates as you learn new things.

See http://projectbootstrap.pbwiki.com/

Re:Lots of Bad Workers

[DNS-and-BIND]

Could you possibly fit more catchphrases in your post, PHB?

Re:Lots of Bad Workers

[tenordave]

ah, but have you advertised on slashdot yet? ;)

Re:Lots of Bad Workers

[Brushfireb]

Thanks for your comments, they are helpful.

I would tend to agree with you. When I mentioned spec documents, I meant moreso sitting down with the founders and understanding what we want and then discussing possible solutions, and then laying out broad strokes.

I'll check out that link, thanks.

Re:Lots of Bad Workers

[TheOneAndOnlyOzzy]

Here here both to parent, and to others. I am mainly a contractor, and consultant, and I have never had difficulty finding a job. Last 3 have been back to back without even one day between leaving one location and moving onto the next. With a background and training in Project Management, Quality Control, Programming (PHP,.NET,C++,MySQL,Postrgres etc), Network Security (CheckPoint Firewalls, and secure web code concepts mainly), Controls (Rockwell/AB mainly), Support Centers, etc. It has enabled me into just about any IT oriented situation from working on a team projects to implementing project management and quality control systems to young computer companies. Every place I went to though had a large percentage of employees who simply didn't have a clue. The most basic of concepts are sometimes hard to get them to understand. I often find myself trying to figure out what their experience really is so I can communicate in a manner inwhich they understand. What have you programmed in before? VB, and how many years of experience with VB? 5 Well 5 years ago I made this little application to flash on the screen whenever it was lunch time. And? Well nothing till now. Or, I love this one I just heard last week from a new co-worker now ex-co-worker. Man the market is really a bear, it took me 6 months to find this job. Really, well their aren't a lot of CCNAs, MCSEs with Testing experience to boot in this area. It shouldn't have been that bad. Well, I don't have CCNA or MCSE yet, I am taking classes this summer. Oh, well, how long have you been in IT? Oh 2 years. Um, The job required those certs unless you had enough 2 years networking, and 5 years of microsoft support experience. Yeah, I lied. In combination, the market is simply flooded with morons, and now that businesses are actually starting to get tech-savvier, these morons are getting booted out.

Re:Lots of Bad Workers

[Brushfireb]

FYI

The jobs are still on monster @ http://jobsearch.monster.com/getjob.asp?JobID=3715 8798

Apply!

Re:Lots of Bad Workers

[halosfan]

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:

• I can, but won't do either PHP or Perl. Precisely because I have enough experience to be aware of better options.
• I won't consider seriously a job posting that requires PostgreSQL skills, but misspells it as PostGreSQL (using your reasoning, why not spend 30 seconds looking at their web site).
• I don't go to Monster or Craigslist to look for jobs. Jobs go to Dice to look for me.

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.

Re:Lots of Bad Workers

[wk633]

Rational Unified Process really is the way to go. There are other processes out there besides RUP and Waterfall. RUP is pretty heavy for a small shop. The principle that your initial design won't be perfect, great. RUP to the letter is an awful lot of overhead. I'm by no means suggesting you go XP and forget the design. That's worse. But find a middle road.

Re:Lots of Bad Workers

[wurp]

So are you against using the terms from Design Patterns, too?

The words I'm using there have well-defined meanings that can't be otherwise expressed without using a paragraph (or multiple pages) instead of one word. If you are a software developer, and what I wrote there looks like gibberish, it really would be worth your time to look them up. Doing those things helps.

I am a software developer, not a manager. I have no interest in doing management or in people who throw around terms like 'paradigm shift', 'actualizing', etc. I do low level work with bit twiddling, work mostly through a unix command line, and I can implement a udp packet processor, huffman encryption algorithm, device driver interface code or a J2EE web app. I'm not aiming for the maximum buzzword concentration; it's just that I've worked under waterfall development processes (do analysis, then design, then coding, then testing) and I've worked under agile processes, and there is just a huge difference in how well you stay on target, time to delivery, and your ability to track progress.

Re:Lots of Bad Workers

[Brushfireb]

I appreciate the comments. I have never used Dice, but I will look into it.

First, I wouldnt be against receiving a cover letter that mentioned what you did about PHP. Why are people afraid to be honest in a cover letter?

Second, Is the mis-capitalization of one letter really mis-spelling? And does this really impact whether you are interested in a job? That doesnt seem fair to me.

Anyways, thanks for your input.

B

Re:Lots of Bad Workers

[halosfan]

I appreciate the comments. I have never used Dice, but I will look into it.

I mentioned Dice because it has been around for a long time, and posting a resume there generates a stable flow of emails/calls from various employers and recruiters (less useful, but unavoidable) over the next couple years. When in a passive job search situation, this is very convenient.

That said, there may well be other job sites worth your attention.

Second, Is the mis-capitalization of one letter really mis-spelling? And does this really impact whether you are interested in a job? That doesnt seem fair to me.

It's probably not fair. However, when screening potential job postings, I do need to apply some filtering (just as you need to apply some filtering when screening resumes). To me, Postgres is an important word in the database world. If you miscapitalize it, I start suspecting that you may as well miscapitalize Ingres, and that would mean you haven't paid much attention to your college textbooks. I may further suspect that you are relatively new to Postgres as you didn't see this word enough times to remember the capitalization. I may well be wrong in my suspicions! There certainly is a chance that you are a respected PostgreSQL hacker who just hit the shift key at a wrong time. But, when looking at a magnitude of job postings, I need to think statistically.

To put it in perspective, if you see a poorly written resume, how much time do you spend thinking that the guy may really be a genius? Is it fair to the occasional genius with the crappy resume? No, it's not, but that's the reality of job hunting.

Re:Lots of Bad Workers

[xero314]

And somehow companies wonder why projects always end up late and over cost. If you are making estimates on unclear requirements you are asking to fail, or even "planning to fail" as Brooks put it. I'm not a fan of full waterfall process any more than they next guy, but not having a clear plan before coding is a disaster waiting to happen.

Having been on, and lead of, development teams I have seen first hand what the modern iterative processes can do. Last team I lead was the most succesfull project I have every been on for a couple simple reasons. I made sure that the buisness knew what the clients actual needs where before we even went to design. We also had clear Test Cases (not necessarily automated) before any development began. To often in todays development space tests are writen to match the code which certainly is not going to make clients happy. I beleive that most things can be tried on paper to see if they will fit the need.

The last of the big core changes I implemented on that team was building from the ground up. To often modern projects are built from the UI back. Sure you get a great LOOKING UI but then find out it doesn't meet the actual buisness process and that building the system infrastrucutre for the UI to build is too difficult. Good software should be able to work with or with out a User Interface (that is if your project is something more than a UI layer over an existing API). And yes this means avoid ideas like using a Rapid Prototype as the code base for the project.

RUP is to much over head for your typical dev enviroment. XP is the most effective way to produce vapor ware or other projects never expected to be completed.

Re:Lots of Bad Workers

[Brushfireb]

True enough. In my situation, I am not very technical when it comes to databases, but I am still the person hiring those people. This may seem like a contradiction, but this is a small business -- so its necessary. But I agree, appearances are everything at the start of the process..

B

Re:Lots of Bad Workers

[greg_barton]

Moreover, we have had people apply for the position who then asked what our company did. They could have spend 30 seconds looking at our website before dropping off or emailing their resume and found out. This type of laziness is horrible.

You had me until this comment. I always personally ask what a company does when I apply. That way I hopefully get the non-marketroid answer. The company's site is usually not under the control of the technical staff, so it's generally filled with the buzzword compliant description.

Methinks if you're being so snapishly judgemental about applicants, it's no wonder you haven't filled the positions...

Re:Lots of Bad Workers

[danharan]

From the job description:

"Candidates should be highly motivated, possess strong development skills, follow design trends, and keep updated and aware of ways to improve your skill set."

You want amazing, ridiculously overqualified programmers? Advertise you are hiring a Ruby/Rails programmer instead.

And yes, convert your shop. Get a great engineer with Rails experience, and transform your shop.

Or maybe you just want to be a PHB that asks their staff follow trends without actually letting them use all that new technology they learn about? That's how your ad reads to me.

Re:Lots of Bad Workers

[wurp]

Um, Huffman is an algorithm in which you assign each token you want to encode a place in a binary tree based on how often the token occurs in the data you want to encode. Items are placed in the tree so that, from the root, you navigate through n bits where 1/2^n is the approximate frequency with which the token occurs in the data. Thus, an item which occurs every other token in your data gets placed to require only one bit.

It is a very efficient compression mechanism if you choose the right tokens. You can get ~20% compression on normal english text using each byte as a token.

It is you who has no clue what you're talking about. I don't know if you're profoundly stupid (and apparently incapable of using google, to boot) and sincere, or just a moderately stupid troll.

Re:Lots of Bad Workers

[Brushfireb]

I think you misunderstand. They had no concept, at ALL of what we did. I am more than willing to provide additional info, but I think a little research on the candidates part is necessary. How else would you know what kind of company you were applying to?

These people didnt even know what industry our company operated in....

B

Re:Lots of Bad Workers

[Brushfireb]

Its my understanding that Ruby/Rails is for designing web-based apps, which ours are not.

Would you use Ruby/Rails for internal program, that isnt viewed on websites? Is ruby/rails even capable of running as a script. This is why we are using Perl, and perhaps C in the future.

But I do like Ruby a lot. I would use it for this if it made sense, what do you think?

Re:Lots of Bad Workers

[danharan]

Rails is a web framework. Ruby is a solid choice for scripting, with less of a wonky syntax than Perl.

I haven't done much desktop GUI work to say much of worth in that area, but Tk is included with the main Ruby distribution, and there are other bindings available. In any case, Ruby is bound to be far more productive than C.

So basically, in your position it would boil down to the engineers I could attract. How about you just try posting an ad on Craigslist for an engineer with Ruby (and GUI experience specifically), and see if you are more satisfied with the responses? Check out Paul Graham's essays The Python Paradox and Revenge of the Nerds. Do tell me how your experiment goes if you decide to try it :)

Re:Lots of Bad Workers

[drgonzo59]

How about someone that graduated from a 4 year (1 year co-op=5 year) US university with the Computer Science degree and a 3.94 GPA? Oh, and I am a foreigner -- I just happen to have a green card?

Re:Lots of Bad Workers

[Brushfireb]

If you dont need sponsorship, then it all sounds fine from me. Send your resume. :)

B

Re:And then watch VoIP implode...

[Viol8]

How many people need the "feature set" of a VoIP phone? What I want is something cheap and reliable. Basically a cheap analogue amp I plug into a
socket in the wall. What I *dont* want is some friggin PC-in-a-box that
has to have a full OS + network stack + associated unreliability and
hackability just to do what $2 worth of components from radio shack can do
just as well.

For backbone providers perhaps VoIP is a good idea as they can merge
data and voice. For me as a consumer is a problem looking for a solution
since I'm not interested in beeing "cool" or "bleeding edge". I just want
a phone that works, works well, cheaply, reliably and efficiently.

As much as the article tries to be reassuring...

[Thrymm]

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?

The training ground argument

[agslashdot]

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.

Re:The training ground argument

[LOTHAR, of the Hill]

That prof is useless. He fell for his own fallacy and then fell for another one. He as making an invalid comparison, as well as associating class hierarchy where one does not exist. Of course professors don't come from high schools and elementary schools, the skills are different. His statement only demonstrates his own hubris. By his statement, kindergarten teachers high school teachers professers. This is simply not true. Professors don't teach college because they are better teachers. Likewise, kindergarten teachers teach kindergarten because they choose to, not because they aren't good enough teachers to teach in high school. Professors come from Assistant Professors, Lecturers, and Lab Assistants.

Dice is a poor reference point

[tturow]

It has been my experience jobs posted on Dice and Monster don't even scratch the surface of what's out there. Doubtful companies that need a unique individual are going to waste their time looking for job board trolls... likely they will fill the post throught their own efforts or a specialized recruiter. Using Dice to measure market demand would be the last measurement I would accept. Job boards don't have a clue was it going on in the real world. And who would trust a proclamation of accuracy with a name like Dice.

Re:Dice is a poor reference point

[LeeMeador]

As for whether Dice is a good measure, I don't know.

What I do know is that Dice has helped me find 3 of my last 4 positions. The first in 2002 was when I sent a resume to a Dice posting. The next two this last year happened by me putting my resume on Dice which put me in touch with those recruiters you mentioned.

As a person looking for work, I like Dice and find it a good addition to all the other ways of finding a position.

I have seen the demand for developers increase considerably in the last year. It also shows up as a willingness of employers to pay more.

Is it just me...

[Stan Vassilev]

... or the rest also got pattern-trained to ignore forward looking statements in random articles that by definition almost never happen?

My surefire job-seeking strategy

[elrous0]

1. Advertise myself as an "Ajax Developer"
2. When questioned as to what exactly Ajax is, give an evasive but impressive-sounding answer (derived from an old 1998 DHTML fact sheet)
3. Get a job from a company with more venture funding than sense
4. Play Xbox all day
5. When questioned about work, extoll the "feature-rich Ajax environment" and promise vague results "as soon as we complete the development cycle"
6. Profit!

Re:My surefire job-seeking strategy

[photon317]

Shhhh! My boss might read that!

Re:My surefire job-seeking strategy

[VAXcat]

Yer laffin', but one of my pals at work swears he got hired at a big company to do a Powerbuilder application. He didn't know anything about it, but he figured he could fake it until he picked it up from his coworkers on the project. Turns out, that the other 7 people hired to do the project had done the same thing! Needless to say, this project was not on time, or written very well...

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:And then watch VoIP implode...

[grasshoppa]

How many people need the "feature set" of a VoIP phone? What I want is something cheap and reliable.

You'd be surprised. You know those partner phones on the desk? Yeah, those are about 100 bucks each.

For the record, a voip phone typically doesn't have a big feature set either. The pbx does.

What I *dont* want is some friggin PC-in-a-box that
has to have a full OS + network stack + associated unreliability and
hackability just to do what $2 worth of components from radio shack can do
just as well.

You are in the minority then. Most businesses want a phone that looks professional and does what they need it to do. Which is mainly transfering calls and putting people on hold.

For me as a consumer is a problem looking for a solution

Again, you are in the minority. Most businesses want the basics ( transfering calls and the like ). They also want stats to tweak on. They also come to depend on the fail over techniques I use to ensure they are never without their phone lines.

I'm not interested in beeing "cool" or "bleeding edge".

Neither am I. Not professionally. I just need something that fits the requirements and works without complaint.

Question...

[smagruder]

I've frequently recommended the complete destruction of the Bush regime. Can I still receive a federal security clearance?

VOIP - Astrisk Integration is where it is at

[IntelliAdmin]

In conversations with our customers we hear more and more of them looking towards VOIP to lower their phone costs - esp Asterisk. Right now I think anyone who can properly integrate Asterisk into business phone, and computer systems can find work anywhere. Joel

Think outside of the box

[stay bolt]

Many companies claim they want you to be able to "think outside of the box" as one of the qualities they value. What that usually translates to is that they only value solutions that come from inside of a box with the label "Microsoft" on it.

Free Market works both ways.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

That's easy

[sd_diamond]

1. Flying car repair & maintenance
2. Personal Spacecraft repair & maintenance
3. Portable Fusion Power Cell design & maintenance
4. Servant Android Programmer
5. Malfunctioning Servant Android Therapist
6. Soldiers to fight Servant Android Rebellion

Hey, I worked for your brother last year!

[mmell]

I went back to contracting and voted myself a 200% raise (plus bennies).

BTW, sorry 'bout all that data that got lost - whaddya expect from a low-level, wage-earning slob? Oh, well . . . at least I didn't mind getting fired. Did you mind the lost revenue? Incidentally, I noticed that my old job is still unfilled ;^D.

(at the risk of seeming like one of these AOL kiddies) -- ROTFLMAO.

Not everyone needs to be Ivy Tech

[Thrymm]

and im sure even some who graduated even from MIT, arent all that great at actually "working" either. It's an unfortunate slight against anyone in tech just because they didnt have the money to go to an Ivy School.

Besides most experience is gained on the job, not in the school.

But I do agree with most of your points.

Re:Not everyone needs to be Ivy Tech

[Brushfireb]

Sorry, I think you misunderstand me. My fault for not being clear. "Ivy Tech" is a specific technical school in the midwest which is known for being the lowest common denominator.

http://www.ivytech.edu/

I would be glad to have ANYONE apply from any normal state school, or even who had good experience.

BUt little experience + bad education is not the way into this college.

Brian

Re:Not everyone needs to be Ivy Tech

[Brushfireb]

substitute college for company... I was interrupted.

Re:Not everyone needs to be Ivy Tech

[MythMoth]

substitute college for company...

I thought you were being sardonic actually. You should have left it unamended :-)

Pay Attention - this is the straight shit.

[GuyFawkes]

Computers are ___useless__ without I/O

CNC is really starting to take off, a CNC robot is the modern equivalent of the black plantation slave, at the moment the CNC market is dominated by proprietary non standards compliant hardware and software attached to each machine, but this is changing.

If you want more (interesting) work than you can shake a stick at then get into CNC now, and this doesn't mean just learn G-code programming, it means learning things like "real time" linux extensions, feedback and closed loop systems from hardware, etc etc etc.

trust me on this, or don't, go get an MSCE and stay poor and unemployable...

But that's not what college comp sci degree is for

[smagruder]

Yes, students should know the basics: algorithms, optimizations, data structures, etc. And they should have several languages squarely under their belt upon graduation. And I posit that they should also come out with a well-rounded education, not just in computer science (after all, college is about becoming better citizens, not just perfect employees for the corporations).

But what a college cannot teach and will not ever be able to teach is how to apply these basic skills in a real job. That is because real jobs are all very different and very specific in their requirements. There's no way for a college to predict on-the-job requirements. And there's no way to teach advanced programming skills, as there multitudes of advanced techniques and technologies.

What a college must teach, somehow, is how a student can learned these advanced techniques and technologies on their own. In other words, teach the students how to learn more on their own.

And in that vein, I've found that this ability to learn on one's own depends a lot more on the specific student than what a college program can convey. Basically, it's the students that live/breathe programming that will end up as the best employees--the others are just hacks who need everything spoon-fed to them.

And sadly, no matter how college programs are enhanced, it will break down the same. There are really very few programmers who actually love programming and didn't get into it for other reasons, like money.

The bottom line is that the burden for completing the comp sci education process lies squarely on the hiring businesses. Don't like that? Well, suck it up, because it's REALITY.

I think...

[Run4yourlives]

he means the actual "school" was called Ivy Tech.

Reasonable

[jcq5671]

I personally think that from a business standpoint this is a very good idea. Dada21 can guarantee that he gets the most out of his money. Honestly how many of yourselves are currently getting paid to not do you job? After all, you ARE reading through the numerous posts on /. His employees get paid for doing work. They get paid better if they work harder. His business model does not encourage lazy workers to apply/stay at his company. Just my own opinion.

Rocket Surgery

[C10H14N2]

Yes, if you paid everyone $0.01, you're profit margin would be higher than if you paid everyone $0.02. Did you figure this out yourself or take a class?

The problem with your model, which in certain forms is flatly illegal and I suspect you're skirting legality (not to mention credulity) already, is that in effect you base your employees pay on YOUR performance, not theirs. So, they bust their butts and you lose a client (for whatever reason), which conveniently gets you off the hook for paying them. No matter how well it seems to work when your numbers are up, what matters is if you can survive when your numbers are down--and the good times NEVER last--shifting your business risk to your employees is a formula for instantaneous flight at the first sign of bad times and that is distinctly NOT good for business or the economy no matter what any anarcho-capitalist libertarian extremist nutjob tells you.

Interesting idea. A question, though...

[Richard Steiner]

How do the workers survive on minimum wage between bonuses? Are the project small enough that monthly expenses can still be made?

rebut.

[Run4yourlives]

I'll counter that good PM's who were coders have brought very little from their coding life into their current roles. I should know, as this describes me. Most PM work is management through and through, so PM's would do better to have aptitude towards business operations, and not coding. Great coders are usually just that, great coders.

The skills required, although not completely counter intuitive, aren't the same.

As for security experts, your point may have more wieght.

perhaps,

[Run4yourlives]

You should let they company you interviewed with know exactly how effective their recruiting agency is.

At least it may help others avoid the same fate as you.

Skills Needed: C / C++

[jmagar.com]

We are finding it difficult to find good C programmers. The schools are teaching Java most of the way through and C is introduced late in the curriculum. This does not provide enough time for new grads to really come to terms with the low level intricacies when interfacing directly with the HW. Pointers, they seem to be a mystery to a majority of our applicants, that and bit wise operations. If you are poking registers in a device driver, you should be capable of toggling a bit in a control register... I was blogging about this frustration just a couple weeks ago. Here's the bulk of that item, aka: Shameless Job Posting

We are looking for 10 solid C / C++ programmers. These positions are excellent opportunities to break into the Avionics and Aerospace industries. We'll teach you our DO178B development practices and you get to work on the next generation of aircraft systems, designing industry leading hardware and software solutions.

Who should apply? Looking at the HR job descriptions it appears that you should have some graphics experience; but I'll tell you straight away that this is not important to us. We can teach you OpenGL, just as we can teach you DO178B. What we can't teach is how to develop using C. We can't teach you that refactoring is a good way to solve many design problems. We can't teach you that effort spent on design saves time when you write the code or the test plan. We can't teach you pointer math, or methods for optimizing your code. These are things that you either understand or you don't.

If you can reverse a singly linked list in place, or have ever implemented "Scatter Gather" DMA transfers, or if you can describe the benefits and drawbacks of function pointers, then you are ready for the interview. And knowing why these things are discouraged in safety critical avionics applications will win you a job very quickly. (We'll teach you why these are bad ideas too, if you don't already know it.)

Send your resumes to: resumes@altsoftware.com

In your cover letter, mention that you are applying to ALT Software after reading Mike Agar's (Vice President of Software Engineering) Blog. It will get a closer look.

Re:And then watch VoIP implode...

[cyberbob2010]

and even then not all lines are analog, trust me I deal with it every day.
I work for a major distributor of pharmaceuticals and our proprietary software uses a modem to dial out to our modem bank and place an order.
I would say that half of all of the communications issue calls that we get in from the 6,000+ customers using this software are due to people being switched over to digital lines without getting a filter for the modem. Only a quarter of those calls are from bad modems with the other quarter being actual software issues.

The age of dial up is coming to an end, if not because of how cheap broadband is then because the lines can no longer support it.

Re:Skills Needed: C / C++

[wk633]

It might help to mention that you are in Canada, and whether you are willing to sponsor visas.

Re:Interesting idea. A question, though...

[dada21]

How do the workers survive on minimum wage between bonuses? Are the project small enough that monthly expenses can still be made?

This is a VERY good question and one that is in direct conflict with the current American way.

Remember, my employees are more than employees, they are people who want to be their own boss, eventually. Part of the experience they'll get working "for me" (actually for themselves as any employee is) is that they'll learn that to be a success, one must give up many things and save. Monthly expenses while you are building your life, initially, should be at a VERY SMALL minimum. If you want to be a success, your first 10 years out of school should not be car loans, home loans and credit card debt. Many of you who are hitting the age of 30 right now are probably realizing the mistakes you made in your 20s.

I won't hire someone who I think will be a financial risk to myself and my other employees. Big spenders who are attracted to debt aren't my idea of a positive addition to the business. A few of my long term employees who didn't want to own their own business are now partners in the business, but that didn't come out of just seeing how well they worked but how well they managed their lives.

In the US, it is almost illegal to discriminate based on qualities outside of the work requirements. I find it callous that government should tell me to hire someone with $300,000 in debt, or a history or cocaine abuse or someone who doesn't agree with my morals and my business sense. This is why I don't interview, I invite. I don't want to be accused of discrimination.

Re:Skills Needed: C / C++

[jmagar.com]

Yes, of course! Ooops.

We currently have two offers outstanding that are hinging on the applicants obtaining visas. We will provide supporting documentation as required to assist in the process.

We have two locations in Ontario: Toronto and Waterloo, and have a preference for staffing into the Waterloo office right now. The Toronto building is nearing capacity, and the WL office has space to grow.

Cheers,
Mike

Agreed

[wurp]

Yeah, I should have been more careful... full RUP is way too much. However, I found that once I understood what Inception, Elaboration, Construction and Transition meant, following those broad steps, along with general agile practices, really made a difference in my project success rate.

Jobs

[rax262]

Yeah, the jobs are out there alright. Just the other day a guy emailed me one for a job writing Java code for $12 - $15 an hour.

Canadians aren't better.

[crovira]

I was on a contracting job for the Department of Supply & Services and I had a problem that needed management of four dimensional arrays, in COBOL which can only handle up to three dimensions. The answer was to use BLL cells. They has always done it by sorting and tallying.

What's the difference? The jobs ran a few hundred times faster and involved a one step JCL to go from input to output instead of three steps, including an intermediate, totally useless and computationally very expensive sort.

But the technique of using BLL cells was not an immediately evident one, so they ended up tossing out my code the next time it got revisited (okay it took a couple of YEARS,) and going back to the old 'cookie cutter' solution ands the old cookie cutter performance.

The job went from one pass, running flat out and making the maximum read/write time, to running into three passes with the middle pass running in n*log(n) time.

"Oh well, it's just a gig, I won't have to stick around and maintain this stuff" Damn straight. :-)

Re:Lies, damned lies, then...

[wtansill]

'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.

Well, here's the rub. Let's assume that the numbers are accurate -- that only a small prtion of jobs are being offshored, and that the ones that are are low-level jobs that don't require all that much skill (far-fetched, I know, but just for the sake of argument).

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...

5% is still 1 out of 20

[sl4shd0rk]

That means that for every 20 developers at US Megacorp, 1 of them was out of work. If that was you, this "notion" is still bad news. The reasons behind the downsizing exodus are also a bunch of crap - at least the ones we got from our PHBs.

Re:IT Jobs - Beware!

[AuMatar]

Here's the main problem- you go to a college where "advanced Java" is actually a class. A language like Java should be taught as an intro level class first semester, and then you move onto real classes like data structures, OS design, databases, networking, discrete math, etc. If you need an advanced language course, you're teaching the wrong things.

Re:Interesting idea. A question, though...

[Hiro Antagonist]

After reading through this little post war, I think you're the kind of person I'd like to work for, too; it's too bad I'm back-in-school (figured it was high time to get a degree to go with my work experience), and that you aren't hiring in Sacramento.

Here's why it's reality

[Medievalist]

I'm going to get flamed big time for this one! Ah well, I have six sock puppets in cold storage.

If you have the opinion that brown people in foreign lands are just as deserving of the American Dream as anyone else, you might want to hire some bright young Indian lad who is willing to start at a more reasonable wage than the local sulky teenagers.

When this fellow's visa runs out, you might have to prove that you can't hire a local talent so you can sponsor his citizenship and help him on his way to the fine home and Americanized family he is so willing to work towards.

So, you write the job description so that only one person can fill it - this is the usual reason for requiring experience in WeWroteItHere 2.0 and suchlike.

"Bring me your poor, your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free" might not be so applicable in the current political climate, but some employers still believe in it, and don't feel that being born here automagically entitles you to first pick of the tech jobs. Obviously, they can't admit this, given the social and legal realities of 21st century America.

Re:Here's why it's reality

[andyfaeglasgow]

If the market for products is global, then why not the market for labour?

Re:Here's why it's reality

[cybpunks3]

That's fine with me. Where is the list of international employers who want to employ americans?

Re:Here's why it's reality

[andyfaeglasgow]

Mate, if you are prepared to live and work abroad at the local going rate, you would be at no disadvantage as an American. This is especially true if you're prepared to learn a little of their language/culture and make some friends while you're there.

Work on the upsell.

[mshiltonj]

* Would like fries with that?
* Would you like that app converted to AJAX?
* Would you like cheese on that?
* Would you like some community-based features?
* Would you like to super-size that order?
* Would you like a web-based API with that app?

Re:And then watch VoIP implode...

[gnu-user]

I like Asterisk just fine, and I think VOIP has a bright future, but....

How do you think the phone company delivers your lines to you? In most cases, it's VoIP over an ATM circuit

Can you back this up?

I think not.

It does not pass a series of smell tests, two for example:

1. why would the phone company throw away their existing technology (5ESS)?
2. Why would you jump from TDM (ATM) to IP, and then back again, introducing more failure points, more complexity, and the weaknesses of both approaches in one package?

There are certain niche long distance companies who make heavy use of VOIP, but specific economics drive those decisions (international termination rates etc). No RBOC is using voip for local service (and T1 to channel bank is strictly for CLECS).

How do developers survive between bonuses?

[marct22]

This seems to unfairly punish your workers. Let's say you win a contract to deliver something in three months. Does that mean your developers are not only sweating to deliver the code on time, but also sweating to not only pay rent/mortgages/car payments/insurance/daycare/credit card (and electricity, gas, garbage, water, etc.) and also food/clothes/gas until they finally get their bonus (which will not only get eaten by taxes but also may come weeks after you deliver? After all, you may not get paid due to however the accounting systems for paying vendors for completed work, for signatures and time to cut the check, and if they have to verify that what you delivered is a good product, that can delay things too. And since it's up to the developer to set up and pay for health/retirement, that doesn't sound like a good working environment to me. It sounds pretty stressful to everyone but dada. It's not like the bill collectors' are going to say, okay, we'll wait till you get paid next month or the month after, we won't damage your credit rating with late payment reports, charge late payment fees, jack up your interest rates, repo your car, evict you from your home, etc.

Maybe dada doesn't believe in health care for his workers, or providing for a way for his workers to survive once they retire, but we all grow old. We all will need health care for ourselves and our families. His workers seem to be one step from financial destruction if something bad happens that may require an extended stay at a hospital, or expensive treatments. And if one of them happens to be unable to return to work (disability/death)? What happens to the family, who's stuck with bills and a huge chunk of income gone?

And when a company's done with them, a fate that will happen to us all, they are tossed out to fend for themselves. For his workers, when the bonus gravy train is gone, and they are too old to be employable developers anymore (why pay for an old developer when you can pay peanuts for a young one?), they'd have better saved up enough money to survive, cause he's not going to provide any retirement benefits.

This work environment sounds like it would work for a young single person who's looking out only for him/herself, and living only for today. But once you buy a house, get married, have kids, and start thinking about where you'll be 30 years down the road, then you might rethink about working for such a setup.

Re:How do developers survive between bonuses?

[zorro6]

You don't get the point. Why should an employer provide healthcare? In many cases the employer has no more purchasing power than the employee as far as healthcare is concerned. All they are doing is buying a group policy and I can get into a group policy myself (IEEE, ARRP, etc.) and in the end the employeee pays for it all anyway, in reduced pay. Why not pay everything directly to the employee and let them get their own damn healthcare. Same with 401(k). As an individual I can get access to ample retirement plans. Why does my employer need to get involved. Just give me the damn money and let me decide what to do with it. One of the things dada21 is espousing is that the employer should not be the parent, or the middleman, or the insurance broker or the retirement savings advisor. This country took a wrong turn when it started to look to businesses to be all things to their employees.

Re:How do developers survive between bonuses?

[lonesome phreak]

The major draw of a 401(k) is that an employer and the employee can both put money in it, and the money isn't taxed. Maybe you could have just given the employee the money, but by putting it into the pre-tax 401(k) you've saved both yourself and the employee money.

Re:How do developers survive between bonuses?

[zorro6]

I know what a 401(k) is. But I can get a similar tax advantaged program as an individual. I don't need my employer to pick a plan for me and then tell me I have to use it even if it doesn't meet my needs and goals. Self employed people actually have access to some retirement programs that are better than a 401(k). And as far as emplyer matching - just give me the money and let me decide what to do with it.

Re:How do developers survive between bonuses?

[FriedTurkey]

Why not pay everything directly to the employee and let them get their own damn healthcare.

Dude have you looked into getting your own health care insurance? I would suspect not. Without the group rates health insurance is insanely expensive. There are organizations starting these days you can join to get the group rates but in reality your not going to get the group rate of a major corporation.

Re:How do developers survive between bonuses?

[zorro6]

Yes I have looked at insurance rates. While it is true that a very large corporation may be able to get marginally better group rates most of us don't work for large corporations. The rates I am able to get for my employees are not really better than they could get with group plans available through any number of organizations. People too often don't look at the real economic issues. They just assume "empl0yer provided healthcare good", "employer who doesn't provide healthcare bad" without looking at the real economics. An employer who deosn't provide healthcare but who does provide compensation that more than makes up for that cost of healthcare may be a better deal.

Re:How do developers survive between bonuses?

[dwarfking]

As someone who has worked for a couple of very large corporations (DOW 30), most of them are actually self-insured. The insurance company merely handles the paperwork, but the company pays the insurance claims. And believe me, they can sometimes be worse to get payments out of than an independent insurance agency.

Re:How do developers survive between bonuses?

[FriedTurkey]

An employer who deosn't provide healthcare but who does provide compensation that more than makes up for that cost of healthcare may be a better deal.

Yeah it's a better deal for the employer not the employee. I wouldn't even consider a company that doesn't provide health care. Why should I get more money instead of health care coverage. So I can pay taxes on my money for health care coverage?? Why should I deal with the paperwork when HR experts at companies can handle all of that crap. No thanks.

Re:How do developers survive between bonuses?

[marct22]

THe problem is, enough people don't get their own damn healthcare/retirement. They gamble on things working out. And when they don't, guess who pays for it? Everyone. The gambler can't afford to make regular checkups, so they get treatment when their condition worsens to the point they end up in the emergency room, and that ain't cheap, and we all pay for that in the form if higher fees and higher insurance rates. Unless you want the hospitals to turn away folks who can't pay for treatment, which basically means disability/death for not only the person, but also negatively impacts the family. And it's not likely they'll quietly accept their fates, but will likely figure out ways to either get money to buy the drug or obtain the drug illegally, which jacks up our insurance.

Why should an employer provide healthcare? To help ensure that their employees continue to be productive employees. An employee in the hospital is a non-working one. If they aren't working (or working at a dimished capacity), you run the risk of missing your deadlines, force other workers to pick up the slack. And the rest of us pay for it anyway in the form of jackedup rates, higher charges, etc. As more people buy in, the risks/costs are spread. And it's easier to do it via employer, since all money paid to employees stems from the employers.

Ditto for retiree's with no money. There aren't enough Walmarts out there to employ old folks, unless you don't care about our elders facing decisions on heat vs. food vs. medicine vs. rent. And we all know you don't get rich working at Walmart!

THis is not an easy issue, which is why this keeps rearing it's ugly head around election time. But it's an issue that we can't wish away or assume everyone will behave like I do. Unless you want America to look like a third-world nation with respect to it's poor and elderly. You don't like that? Then figure out a solution other than "everyone should be just like me".

Re:How do developers survive between bonuses?

[saranagati]

the problem is that many people don't know about these programs and would have to spend a couple hundred dollars to hire a financial planner when the company could hire a financial planner for everyone at a fraction of the cost. The plan may not be suited as well for the individual, but it's better than nothing, if someone wants their own program, they don't have to participate in the company program.

Re:How do developers survive between bonuses?

[saranagati]

I actually work for a company that pays me similar to this. I get payed $20/hr for 20 hours a week (really not that much money for where i live) then I get a bonus for the projects (usually 50%). Of this 50% I usually give half to the sys admin since we're an ASP and I believe he deserves part of it. My job differs however from what the troll GP posted where the companies pay a retainer, and I recieve half of that retainer, then I get half of the payement on completion (along w/ any other resales of whatever I designed). The only problem with this is when the sales, support, and collections staff sucks and either the client doesn't pay the final payement, the support staff is always asking questions or promising alterations will be made, or the sales staff just can't sell or resell anything. As far as the stress goes, the environment is really relax, basically come in whenever I want as long as I make scheduled meetings, no real office politics, etc. If it wasn't so relaxed however, I would be totally stressed out all the time from the deadlines and dealing w/ retarded customers.

Re:How do developers survive between bonuses?

[zorro6]

Because you do pay for it! That is the whole point. And it seems to be a point that most people are missing in this discussion. The cost for healthcare is paid somewhere. Either you are paying for it directly or you are paying for it by getting lower direct compensation. You are being paid less so the company can pay that HR person and pay those premiums. It is all an issue of control. You can let your employer decide what plan to get and you can depend on HR to handle things (which they may or may not do well) or you could get the money and get the plan that is right for you and manage it yourself. Yes there are some tax consequences but you can always use a before tax medical savings account.

Re:How do developers survive between bonuses?

[zorro6]

Yes that is the justification for employer provided healthcare. The problem in my mind is not the idea of providing health insurance it is the idea that employers should provide it. As you point out a healthy populace is a concern of society as a whole not just employers. So as much as it pains me to say it the real answer is probably to have the government provide basic health insurance to everyone. That is the only thing that seems to really make sense. Yes in my pure libertarian heart I could say that people too stupid to take care of themselves should just die but that is a non-starter.

Re:How do developers survive between bonuses?

[marct22]

Yeah, I think we are too "civilized" to allow Darwinism to weed out the unlucky/stupid!!

Re:And then watch VoIP implode...

[grasshoppa]

I mispoke then: From the CO to my location is Voip ( or similar tech. Voice delivered over digital means ). What's beyond the CO is not something I've every really dug in to, so I wouldn't know. But I can tell you that delivering voice from the CO is often done via voip ( or again, with it's like ).

How your area does it, I don't know. The central valley in California, however, does it this way.

Re:Not really - Some anecdotal evidence

[AuMatar]

I've actually had good luck with Monster- my current job was lined up through them, and in my last search I had a lot of interviews from them (and a lot of other people who were interested but timing didn't work- I had to continue at my old employer for a few months due to a severance offer too lucrative to pass up).

I agree things look pretty rosey to me as a developer. Lots of jobs out there, especially in embedded development. I got a nice 15% raise when switching jobs, with bonuses and stock on top of that. People in more IT type jobs like managing servers may not be in as good shape.

Re:Interesting idea. A question, though...

[petralynn]

Several observations: 1. Your employees appear to be taking most if not all of the financial risks. What have you at risk? What is the average project length, start to bonus? Are you paying the bonus on project completion or when your client pays you? If so, what is the time lag between invoice and payment? 2. Are your employees W4's or 1099 contractors? My experience has been that bonuses paid to employees get taxed at the annualized rate of the bonus rather than averaged, unless this has changed. 3. I'm not certain that if your employees went out on their own the labor rate would drop all that much. Their overhead would be less than yours, so they'd only have to underbid you by a 1$ and earn a much more attractive bonus, that is, until they began building their own business. 4. One still earns more money having someone working for them than working for yourself.

We need new grads with 6 years experience in .NET

[ClosedSource]

Don't forget about the value of unfilled positions. Companies sometimes have the same job open for years (usually with a long list of requirements ending with "0-2 years experience" i.e. cheap). Then the corporations can claim that they must outsource or use H1B workers because of all the positions they can't fill.

What my employers have looked for:

[OneSeventeen]

The past few companies I have worked for looked for the same thing: Someone to come in with a specific set of skills that would solve a specific problem and potentially grow into a full time developer that avoids previous roadblocks.

For me, this meant converting Access databases that was readable/writable on a network drive, and their associated tools into a PHP driven web application that took the database off the desktop and onto the server. (meaning my script would automate 90% of what they needed to do, and wouldn't let them accidentally screw things up with a poorly written query.

Now I am working for a universiy picking up where a multi-million-dollar application has left off, so I'm taking those skills, and writing my own open-source application that would meet more needs than the closed-source alternative.

The key to being a good developer in 2006, IMO, is finding a specific target and hitting it. If that means writing Microsoft Access Database interfaces for common call-center statistics, or writing PHP applications that help the medical industry keep track of prescription refills, just do it and do it well.

This worked for me, but I'm sure it was a crap-shot and probably won't work for everyone. I've had offers from fortune 100 companies and even had an offer from a top technology firm that normally doesn't accept applications without at least a 4 year degree. Of course I work for the public sector now and get paid crap, but I have the freedom to explore open-source technologies in a stress-free environment, so I'm much happier than most of my formally-educated friends in high paying jobs. (and since I still have them as friends, I get cool christmas presents that make crap-pay worth it!)

Out of curiousity

[BitterAndDrunk]

Who is setting the hours required for the project?

Is this part of the negotiation process?

Seems to me this is a novel way of paying employees, and isn't inherently fair or unfair.
It does strike me as a higher risk-reward ratio. If you've got a crystal clear statement of work (SOW) it wouldn't be a horrible way to do business as the worker.

Having a crystal clear SOW, though. . . that's the rub.
I'll let you know when I see my first one without weasel words like "other duties" or worse.

Re:IT Jobs - Beware!

[__aaclcg7560]

What I noticed in a lot of my programming classes at the local community college is that most students have a willingness to learn the minimum basics of programming but don't have the curiousity to learn beyond the basics. When I took a Directed Study course, I did the standard library book database project in Java using XML as the file format instead of SQL database statements learned in the advance Java course. The instructor gave me an "A" for trying something "new" (implementing an XML parser) that haven't been done before.

Denver no tso bad now

[SuperKendall]

The Denver market is on the upswing - Colorado always trails a bit behind the rest of the country though so as the economy improves it takes a little while for us to feel it here.

And of course we have a lot of telecom which is improving at a slower pace than other industries (though it is improving also).

Re:Denver no tso bad now

[Knara]

Yeah, in the last 6 months or so the job market has been slowly but surely picking up in Denver. 'Bout time, too.

Is this article complete?

[SwedeGeek]

The writer starts out mentioning the 4 areas of tech work that are going to be big this coming year. He goes through the details of the first 3 skills, then abruptly cuts it off. We never see details on the fourth area (help desk) and there's no conclusion.

Does anyone know if there is a way to get to the whole article, or is this possibly just a publishing flub? I'm by no means a professional writer, but it seems a rather odd way to compose an article if that's really how it ends.

Threat of offshoring lowers wages

[sam_handelman]

I don't doubt that the number of jobs offshored is relatively small - in fact, I would have expected it to be less than 5%, which is quite a lot of jobs.

  The point - at least initially - is not to shut down operations and move them overseas (which is often not really cost effective.) The point is that you can threaten people with outsourcing/offshoring/whatever in order to lower their wages.

  Large corporations - Caterpillar is a very famous case, type "caterpillar strike breaking" into google if you want detail on that - are very well served in having excess capacity overseas for this purpose. Technical workers do not generally form unions, let alone go on strike, but they still engage in negotiation for higher wages, and the *threat* of offshoring can be a powerful instrument in those negotiations, even if it is usually a bluff.

  This is especially important in that the thrust of the article remains true - demand for these skills is actually higher than it was at the peak of the .com boom, but salaries have been successfully contained.

Desperate For Developers

[truth_revealed]

When a CEO says he is "Desperate For Developers" it means that he want to hire developers who work more hours for less money.

What dipshit marked the parent post as a troll? This is an absolute fact. Supply and demand has taught us there is no such thing as a shortage if you are willing to pay for it. Reminds me of the whiners crying about Google "stealing" all the top talent. I hope another 20 Googles come along to create better competition. Here's a clue to the employers - just pay more to retain/acquire better talent. Either that or be willing to pay for the 5 years of training that it would take to get a green programmer to that level of skill.

Re:Interesting idea. A question, though...

[MCZapf]

This is why I don't interview, I invite. I don't want to be accused of discrimination.

Failure to advertise job openings is probably a violation of some EEO law. Not taking sides here, I'm just saying.

You forgot one

[dptalia]

Process. A lot of companies are going with some sort of process certification. If you have some sort of experience in process (even if it's just following the damn thing and not complaining too much), it'll help. Having dealt with too many people violently opposed to process, I've gotten in the habit of checking out a candidate's process experience before hiring them.

Re:GIS Integration

[dptalia]

Last project I was on we had a GIS guy - needed him badly too. So after 6 months when he wanted a 50% raise, he got it. The rest of us? After a year and a promotion it took pulling teeth to get 5%.

Re:Interesting idea. A question, though...

[MrBandersnatch]

Heheh. "VB.Net" and "programmers" in the same sentence. Hehehe. Funny.

Re:Interesting idea. A question, though...

[Politburo]

In the US, it is almost illegal to discriminate based on qualities outside of the work requirements. I find it callous that government should tell me to hire someone with $300,000 in debt, or a history or cocaine abuse or someone who doesn't agree with my morals and my business sense.

First off, almost illegal = legal. But in any case, we have differing interpretations of labor laws. It's not an area I'm well versed in, but my understanding is that outside of the protected classes (age, race, gender, religion, etc), you can discriminate as much as you want. My understanding is that many companies now look at credit reports and perform the exact kind of discrimination you insinuate is illegal.. and we all know that many employers use drug tests and background checks..

Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Norhthrup Gruman etc...

[Cutting_Crew]

these companies are always hiring it seems and just not in DC, for IT professionals, from programming to security. 100% of the time they will sponser you to get your clearance(secret or TS), that is, if the type of work you are doing will require you to have a clearance.. which mostly likely the work will be in this area.

Tips for someone starting out?

[Joe Tie.]

I'm a recent grad with a BS in CS and about three years experience doing the usual helpdesk thing to help pay my way through school. I wasn't exactly expecting offers to be flying in every direction when I got out. But I was expecting that willingness to relocate anywhere would do the trick in nabbing something, anything, fairly quickly. But after three weeks with yahoo, dice and cybercoders I've had zilch as far as interviews. Anyone have some tips for someone watching his bank account slowly dripping away while job searching?

Re:Tips for someone starting out?

[VIIseven7]

As another recent grad, here's the only tip I have:

Don't eat through your savings too fast while you're waiting for that interview.

Re:Tips for someone starting out?

[HermanAB]

Three weeks!? You'd be lucky to get an interview after 3 months and a maybe a job offer after 6 months to a year. You should go out and apply for something simpler: Security guard, grocery store clerk etc., to keep you going in the mean time.

All I can say is, you're doing it wrong

[wurp]

I have 11 years of experience, and I've been on projects with processes ranging anywhere from waterfall to no plan to XP to agile + some RUP. Agile + some RUP is by far the most consistent way I've seen to produce a quality product, keep focused on doing the right thing day to day, and end up somewhere that your users are happy.

I never said don't plan - gathering user stories is a process of documenting what your users want. Deciding which ones have the most risk and doing them first is planning the order of implementation and mitigating risk.

If you're planning an entire API before you write code, you're building a plan that can't succeed unless you're very lucky or the system is very, very simple. If you code according to user stories you have a clear plan of what you're doing at all steps, and what's more you have a usable product all the way along - at each step it must do all the things the user said they wanted in the users stories that you've done so far. By focusing on what the users want, you produce something as early as possible on which they can give feedback. By not designing details until you're doing the part that actually depends on those details (you still do design; you just design the part for the user stories you're working on in the current 2 week iteration), you ensure that you're not designing a screw when you need a nail.

Requirements on any significant project are never clear. Never. Ever. No one can write a document that eliminates all ambiguity in a 200,000 loc program and contains no logical inconsistencies. No one can read such a document and recognize all ambiguities and logical inconsistencies. So write an overview of all of the features, and then nail down details when you are ready to build a feature based on them, and not before.

Re:All I can say is, you're doing it wrong

[xero314]

We don't really differ all that much on this, it's all about how you look at it. User Stories, Use Cases and Test Cases before Technical Specifications is critical to a successful project (and if I recall even RUP supports that approach). This should be done for each stand alone component, not necessarilly for an entire enterprise application at once, but for each logical unit that can operat on it's own our using already defined/tested APIs. You should have most of your user feedback before implemenation begins, based on interogation of the stories and cases. In the end it comes down to how well you comparmentalize your system.

I support designing an API before implementation becuase it is the only way to allow other teams to begin their projects with out have problems with sequential development. If I can design an clear API then both sides (the user and the implementor) can go to work immediatly and with limited need for interaction between them (the number on resource waste in any large development project).

What you end up with, doing things this way, is a single unified document made up of many parts (much like your program). Getting overviews to determine what aspect to work on first is a great idea, but in the end you should be writing code based on more specific requirements

I beleive RUP is way to structured, which may seem odd after what I have already said, and that each dev team may have a different way of handling the document, design, implement process. RUP also forces you to have an association with Rational and I personally just don't like there stuff. XP on the other hand has some good ideas about iterative process and team development, but I feel it's to flakey and allows teams to push crapier code faster. The iterative process allows managers to say, it may have some bugs but it works, lets just release and then fix it later.

I stand by Brook's teachings in The Mythical Man Month(revised edition of course).

Re:All I can say is, you're doing it wrong

[wurp]

It does sound as if we're mostly saying the same things, but I never saw them used consistently before I started with inception, elaboration, construction, transition from RUP + test first, 2 week iterations, user stories, and scrum from agile.

Regarding defining APIs - I love it when you can define an API early, but in my experience that only happens with very simple APIs, and even then, you end up changing it as you go along. I haven't done this when trying to coordinate between groups, but it seems to me that defining the API for one feature at a time (that both teams work on at the same time) would lead to less churn in the API and fewer failed expectations as you move on through the project.

Re:All I can say is, you're doing it wrong

[xero314]

It comes down to how well you can compartmentalize the project. I don't beleive in building any enterprise size application from the ground up. You build the peices from the ground up. In architecture you don't start with raw iron and build a building from it. You create steal from the iron, create girders from the steal and then start to construct the buildings frame from the girders. If you can, you buy prefab parts as much as possible (if they truely fit the intended purpose). For application development it should be the same. If you know your appliation is going to use a certain set up algorithms, you get those writen, working and tested first. You do things like build the master loop first (which many modern development environments take care of for you already) and then plug completely tested peices into that. Too often projects are designed so that the peices can not be tested seperately, and this leads to alot of trouble. In the end, no mater how you look at it, you do things in the tried and true waterfall approach. You may go though many iterations of the waterfall, and you might have to do it for many components, but if you are not doing it at all you are probably bound to fail.
Even RUP is waterfall.

Re:Lies, damned lies, then...

[smagruder]

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.

Not only that, but the offshoring has caused a major migration of angry American (and other Western) programmers into the open source realm. And guess what is increasingly eating the lunch of corporate-written software?

Also consider all the programmers who are writing these all these politically-driven websites (many of them actual web applications) that are increasingly propelling citizen movements against various criminal politicians and corporatists. These programmers had to come from somewhere.

I call it the "idle hands" theory. :)

Finding and Keeping

[swordfish666]

Once a company finnaly hire someone they then have to let them in on the company secret like:

• "We just need to mock up a demo app so the customer will give us money. Then we'll go back and do it right."
• "If we don't get this already failing project out the door by the end of the next quarter the Board is going to cut us off."
• "Bob, the sales guy told the client that the app will not only wash the dishes but it can also clean the floor as well."
• "Yeha, about the spec. Well we've been so behind that we never got to writing a spec."

Once the new employee is let in on the secret 1 of 2 things will happen.
If you got the perfect guy with everything you could ever want, he will leave ASAP or once he finds the perfect company.
It you got the guy who could grow into the position then you've got youself a new scapgoat.

Ballmer had it right

[Thieflar]

They suggest developers, security experts and project managers are in demand.

http://www.ntk.net/media/developers.mpg

Looks like Ballmer had it right all along...

Following fancy dev processes r like method acting

[smagruder]

For those who don't have natural programming talent, you show them a rote way to approximate that talent (which usually doesn't work out, by the way). What goes for acting also goes for programming.

You've either got it, or you don't.

worthless advice

[walterbyrd]

Nobody is going to give you a clearance, you have to already have one.

It's like advising somebody: you need to get one those CEO jobs.

Yeah, right. Look at the job boards.

[walterbyrd]

Frankly, it seems like this was posted by somebody in academia. Somebody totally out of touch with the real world.

I have worked in IT for 25 years. When an employer posts an ad asking for experience in C#, nothing else matters. This "know yourself" and "know the fundamentals" won't even get past the receptionist who does the initial screening.

Re:Yeah, right. Look at the job boards.

[CharlesEGrant]

I have worked in IT for 25 years. When an employer posts an ad asking for experience in C#, nothing else matters. This "know yourself" and "know the fundamentals" won't even get past the receptionist who does the initial screening.

I've worked in IT for 20 years, and while I agree with you point about the difficulty of getting past the doorkeepers and their buzzword requirements, I still think the grandparent poster has the right strategy. If you have a solid education in the basics, and make some effort to keep up with technology trends, you can become buzzword compliant in very short order. Lay out a few hundred dollars for certification in the buzzword de jour. Skip the boot camps, just set up the technology on your home computers, read, practice, and take the tests. Keep a couple of hobby projects around and port them to whatever language the employer is looking for. This way you can honestly put the buzzwords on your resume, get past the gatekeepers, and talk to the folks who can really evaluate your qualifications.

Real ads: MySQL/PHP $6.50/hr, HTML $0.00/hr

[walterbyrd]

These are rates from actual ads that I seen recently. In the case of the HTML development, they were looking for somebody to work just to gain the experience.

Re:Real ads: MySQL/PHP $6.50/hr, HTML $0.00/hr

[Knara]

That's probably because learning HTML really isn't worth much anymore. I mean, you basically have to learn elementary HTML to post comments on slashdot.

Now granted, the M/P wage is a little low, but that depends on what they want for that pay. Is it 2 hours a week, appropriate for students looking to get exposure? Is it for a church or other non-profit that doesn't need/can't afford a full-time dev?

Students should learn what they want and can do

[Debiant]

It's a great error to think what is taugh in school is enough. There aren't superp teachers for everyone of us, so achieving what is required is no way to determine competence or that enough has been learned.
Also I think schools are bit too easy. I don't know whatkind of they were before(born in 70's), but what I've heard before teachers demanded lot of students. I don't live in US, but looking general population, graduated and number of degress achieved in Western world, I'd claim quality has gone down in education.

Before teachers didn't just let pupils past courses to make it easy for themselves and pupils. They made sure, some to point of absurdity, that people who got through damn well knew what they were doing. And I guess in a way kept up their authority that way too. Even if they themselves weren't really good, they demanded precision and achievements,

I'm not saying that concentration camps should be set up, not many things really need A levels in something. What I do say, is that when something is done people should either do it well, or move out to do something else. And if they don't want to do either, somebody should force them to choose. Nobody needs professional deadbeats and people who figure out in worklife they're in a wrong profession. Wrong for the persons in question and wrong for the communit and clients the community serves.

It's also waste of money and time.

Yez ...

[willtsmith]

Yez, one that have english speak good.

You just haven't lived until you've been cold by an unintelligable Indian named "Dave".

Just resume banking ???

[willtsmith]

What about the H1-B, LZ-1 placeholder job postings. Employers put these up for six months and turn every American down so they can demonstrate that "they couldn't hire an American".

Re:And then watch VoIP implode...

[edunbar93]

How do you think your phone at work works?

There's a box sitting in some closet somewhere that listens for calls on one phone number, then passes them on to whoever picks up the phone first. It makes sure that when someone types in an extension number, the call gets routed through to the person that the number belongs to. It lets you put people on hold where they can listen to the radio while they wait. It transfers calls between users, and lets you page someone.

As for using voip at home, generally you just need an adaptor that runs off a 5v wall wart, and ta-da, you've got long distance that's cheaper than dirt. It's really not complicated.

Not quite

[kalpol]

Auditors are in demand because of Sarbanes-Oxley going into effect in 2004 and many companies' IT departments turning out to be total train wrecks and occasionally hotbeds of fraud.

spelling

[gardyloo]

Gotta be it

Horrible Madison economy???

[willtsmith]

http://www.forbes.com/home/free_forbes/2004/0524/1 20.html

Maybe you should do some research first.

Re:Interesting idea. A question, though...

[quizwedge]

now, now. be nice. :) Although I've learned some C, C++, and Java, we were a ColdFusion shop when I came. We've since switched to VB.NET. We've talked about C#.NET, but haven't found a good reason to go to it as of yet. VB.NET does practically all that C#.NET does and has a quicker to market timeframe.

Re:Salaries ?

[HermanAB]

100,000 New Taiwan Dollars?

I have m4d 3l33t skillz.

[gijoel]

W0£Ð 7h47 g37 m3 4 j0b 1n wr171n9 Ð0(m3n74710n$?

Re:Interesting idea. A question, though...

[andcal]

outside of the protected classes (age, race, gender, religion, etc), you can discriminate as much as you want

When it comes to employment law, almost illegal can still be dangerous. If you mess up there, you don't just get a ticket, like speeding, you get a nice lawsuit, and bad publicity.
You can treat everyone you interview or hire exactly the same, but if that consistent treatment affects a protected class of people differently than it does others, you can still be in trouble, thanks to the doctrine of disparate impact.

I can't believe he lied...

[bergeron76]

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

I can't believe that our current government Spokesperson, Scott Mclellan would actually lie to the American public.

Re:Skills Needed: C / C++

[ErikZ]

What a great job posting, I wish you and your company good fortune!

If I had mod points...

[urbanRealist]

I'd mod you up since...

You're on some money right there. If only I had some extra free time to learn Asterisk, I'd be making serious bank. All the support companies I know of that Dell hires use Asterisk to lower cost.

Many, of course, suck. But they, too, will spend loot if it means being more cost effective.

Re:speaking indian perhaps

[Tablizer]

or in california, speaking spanish.

California == everything BUT English

Re:As much as the article tries to be reassuring..

[dohnut]

I will probably be one of those people in about a year. I'm a software developer for a large multinational engineering corporation and our division (actually, we're more like a division of a division of a division of a corporation) will be letting most of their engineers go and replacing them workers in eastern Europe. Both American and western European engineers will be losing jobs, but mainly American. Nothing personal, just basic economics.

And this will just beget more jobs leaving America as most of our direct competition is American and therefore to be able to under-bid us, they'll have to make similar changes or cease to be competitive.

If it can be done cheaper somewhere else, it will be. It's just a matter of time.

If I'm lucky (?) I'll end up getting a "Systems Engineer" position when my job disappears, which basically means I write design documents for the new developers. Oh joy, a job consisting of nothing but documentation. :P I plan on finding other employment before it comes to that however.

The tide is changing...

[milette]

I've always said that "globalization is the great equalizer", and we are now seeing the tide start to turn.

Anyone who's put jobs through rentacoder or other similar sites has probably already noticed that the rates for the best and most experienced people have probably close to doubled in just the past 1 to 2 years.

On the last two RAC projects I did, I used US developers because their price and experience fit into my budget.

Here in Russia, an offshore software development company I used to work for added 30 people this year to their staff of 120, and still has 15 positions that are simply impossible to fill with an affordable, experienced person. (These people are working for themselves and doing extremely well.)

Software developers here typically earn $800 to $1,200 per month -- which is a literal fortune compared to the $100 per month earned by the porter or doorman at a five-star foreign-owned hotel here.

Prices of offshoring services in India are no exception -- I was recently quoted $25 per hour for a very small .net job -- a dramatic increase from the $15 per hour last year and the $8 per hour I'd typically have paid the year before.

Many Americans think that Indians work from a grass hut for $.25 per hour, but the reality is nothing like that at all.

Honestly, even in America I can't feel too sorry for people who can't live on $25 per hour. Maybe it won't buy you a beach house on the coast, and a Ferrarri, but certainly it's enough to live comfortably and well. In fact, depending on where you live in the states, that could be considered a damn fine living.

The US has caused many of their own problems through greed and neglect. The educational system in the USA is -- shall we say -- less than adequate to satisfy the needs of the market. Unreasonable expectations by the graduates looking to start at $50K per year while offering absolutely NO real-world experience and only marginal skills also sets the tone of the market.

India was PROACTIVE -- they BUILT the infrastructure, GREW the workforce and now benefits from it. This didn't happen on its own -- it was the result of very hard work by the government, a ton of money and many years of forward-thinking. Where is that kind of forward thinking in the US? (Oh yes, "corporate responsibility" are also two words that are foreign to most CEOs -- it would be nice to see them sponsor at least SOME of the educational system that provides them with their human resources...)

In any case, my view is that if the USA were to get ACTIVE and put in the same kinds of improvements to the educational system as India did, and the same rate of investment into the infrastructure -- especially in the smaller rural communities and smaller cities where the costs of living are more reasonable -- there is nothing to stop the jobs from moving BACK to the US.

Even here in Russia, the educational system is nowhere near where it should be. Only the best and most expensive universities have decent equipment, but that doesn't stop them from cranking out students with exceptional skills. Maybe it also comes from the students who attend typically 6 days per week and more than 8 hours per day PLUS homework and projects.

It will be interesting to see how the pendulum swings -- and it will likely be sooner than anyone expects.

Not Re:Not quite

[gelfling]

I'm on the other side of the table and the reason that auditors are in hot demand is that SOX is making people insane to the point of performing CONTINUOUS audits. A typical company that outsources their operations is up to 2-3 audits per year which means that as soon as you wrap up one and start to fix things a new audit comes along. Audits have become our full time job to the detriment of our actual service delivery.

Re:Interesting idea. A question, though...

[Hiro Antagonist]

Heh, I actually have a job at the moment that pays really well, but might not in a month (the company I work for is in sink-or-swim thanks to the spend-happy management), and I'm also a mostly Unix guy when it comes to programming.

But, I'll ask my friends if they know of anyone, and send them your way if so.

Re:Interesting idea. A question, though...

[Richard Steiner]

I was thinking more along the lines of experienced but unemployed programmers in their 30's or 40's who are starting to hit their financial limits due to lack of elmpoyment and who currently have house payments and families.

Perhaps those people aren't your targetted demographic. These days, however, they make up a sizable percentage of the IT folks looking for work.

Re:Skills Needed: C / C++

[IamTheRealMike]

That list of requirements at the end interests me. I'd consider myself a reasonable C/C++ programmer and a good general programmer (my experience is fairly widespread across languages, tools and platforms right now), but I've never needed to reverse a linked list in-place, by which I assume you mean in an allocation-free manner. I've seen code that can do it using XOR swaps and such but I'd never choose such a method over a clearer, more verbose system unless reversing that list happened to be a huge performance hotspot.

Likewise, I have no idea what a "scatter gather DMA transfer" is, but to me DMA is something the operating system deals with and as I've never written driver code (read it, not written in) I'd be lost as to why such a thing is bad.

Perhaps it's more that most C/C++ programmers don't know the quirks of safety-critical avionics programming?

Re:Skills Needed: C / C++

[jmagar.com]

The quirks of safety critical programming are easy to understand. All functions must be deterministic. They must behave in a predictable manner and return in a predictable amount of time. Linked lists in the general sense have non-predictable computation times for insert, delete, sort etc. (get out your books on Big "O" notation) So we avoid using them.

Scatter Gather DMA is a more complicated DMA transfer where you program the DMA engine with a pointer to a data structure (often linked list) that points to discontiguous blocks of memory. The engine will gather the blocks of memory, and scatter them in the target memory, all according to the input data structure. It's a real pain in the ass to debug, when it goes wrong. In avionics applications the ARINC 653 standard requires all computation to be completed in the allocated time slice. Using DMA is bad since you give up control of the PCI Bus to the DMA controller and you have no way to ensure that you don't exceed your time slice; don't hog HW if you are expected to release at the end of your slice. If the DMA controller is transfering data in/out of system memory then the next application may not be the bus master, and thus will have to wait to read or write to system memory. You've backdoored into the next time slice, and few 653 systems are able to detect that violation. What ends up happening is the second app fails its time slice due to not having enough time to do what it normally does. Debugging that situation is nasty, since we'll start with the second app as it generated the error, all the while thinking that the first is fine. So we try to avoid it, or during system configuration ensure that there is only one app on the HW and its time slice is infinite. Think video capture and playback. If there is only one app using the bus, then it is free to consume all of the time...

Re:Interesting idea. A question, though...

[Golias]

You're probably having a hard time finding people because you are limiting your search to "if you know VB.NET."

If your entire company switched from another platform, so could a new hire. Any good C++ or Java guy could take a VB.NET and be fully ramped-up in the language in about the same time it would take to show a new the ropes of your particular company anyway.

Nothing annoys us older programmers more than HR people who don't realize just how portable code skills are between languages & environments, and think they can only hire people versed in the specific tools their company is using this week.

Re:Interesting idea. A question, though...

[quizwedge]

we're pretty much always recruiting so definitely send them our way. :)

About IT in general

[jskline]

Hmmm...

I just got through reading a predominant amount of the posts here and I must say, I think the culmination of all posts on here represents a good and fair demographic of the field as a whole, and why it's heading in the dumper. There is no solidity in any of these messages other than the money and the relative lack of it.

I also don't buy into the statements of what they're turning out of the schools either. A lot; not all, but a lot of these kids are smart and can adapt quite well in todays trendy workplace. Much like me; an "old guy" who's been at this a long time, and had to be very quick and adept at adjustment and adaptation because of the way the people filling positions were hiring.

I myself have no "formal" training in IT. My background was in electronics. Computers were ancillary back then, and somehow over time migrated into a fundamental part of my day to day job(s). I think many who have been at this IT field for a while now will side with me when I say that what we're seeing is the imminent degradation of IT much like the electronics field did back in the 80's and 90's. Pretty soon, we'll begin to see system admin jobs being only available to low wage migrant workers who come up from Mexico on green cards. The guy you call at the help desk speaks English as a third language!... And so forth. The average American won't do these jobs anymore because no one wants to pay a livable wage. Much like custodial work!

It may be a bit of sad thinking here, but from my perspective, I can't even find companies that hire "Full Time" employees!!!! All they want now are Temps and Contractors since they don't have to handle ANY benefits, vacation time, or holiday pay. And when they decide they don't like the way you look, or your just out-n-out too damned old, they can kick your sorry butt to the door and not pay you anything!! I know because it's happened to me!(Age discrimination is a big problem in todays economy). It's a pretty "sucky" marketplace and economy if you ask me, and this will be reflective in your IT sector as economically challenged workers, highly transitional workers ever persuing the almighty buck, and people who were absolutely the best fit for a given IT position, leave and change careers because they have a family to support.

Just me two cents all!

Cheers

Future mistakes

[sgt scrub]

When I was young my dad and I were standing under the shade tree working on the Transmaro. He told me that I should give up my dream of becoming a professional mechanic and get into computers. "They are the future". Well, I just paid a mechanic $80 hr to work on my car because my boss insisted I go out of town to rescue a client's network. I was paid $17 hr.