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

[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

[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

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

[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.

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.

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..

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.?

[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.

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.

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.

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: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.

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.

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: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.

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.

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

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.

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