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Which IT Careers Are Hot and Which are Not?
necromante asks: "I've been working on different IT positions through my career: support; some networking; DBA; web development; project management; even working on the client side for a little while. However, I don't feel like I am really a specialist on any of those subjects and I feel I need to focus on a particular field. So, I decided to ask for some feedback before making my decision. I understand that this depends everyones tastes, likes and dislikes. However, I would like to have a better idea of which are the available options, and I hope the results of this discussion can benefit other readers. Is there any IT career that I should consider more than the others? Which are the emerging fields? Is there any industry I should focus on in particular? Which careers on IT are actually more in demand and which ones not? Is it a better path to focus on moving into management?"
Somebody's bitter.
... or, rather, my car.
I was bitter once. I got laid off after 9/11, couldn't find a job to save my life
You have to bounce back -- if you don't, you shouldn't be in the field to begin with. Same thing applies if you can't find a job today -- you probably need a new profession. IT is booming, the Internet bubble was a temporary setback. Not all IT is INTERNET.
Not everything can be offshored -- I've seen successful offshoring, but I've also seen a large number of disappointed businesses who feel they were overcharged for sub-par return on investment in off-shored projects.
There is always a need for business analysis and system architecting. Someone thousands of miles away is going to have a very difficult time truly knowing a business, and understanding its needs. There is ALWAYS going to be a need for capable, creative people who know the technology AND the business to be local.
I am, therefore you think.
Amen to that. Far too many businesses promote someone to management because 1) they're been there for a long time and 2) they're good at their technical job functions. They don't, however, have a lick of personnel or project management skills. It also usually ends up taking someone from a job they do well and putting them in a job they do poorly, a double whammy. I'm at least smart enough to know that I shouldn't be given anything beyond a team lead position.
There is a difference between "insightful" and "inciteful" other than spelling.
One is a functional manager that has many people reporting to them (think Lumberg from Office Space). The other is a technical leader--one with degrees & experience implementing ideas.
There's also a third option in many larger companies: a cross-functional, multi-domain expert. While many people are familiar with the Java/Routing/InfoSec/DB2/etc. expert who has developed extensive expertise and attained mastery in the technical domain, the multi-domain expert is another option which can be quite professionally rewarding.
Both my brother and I had IT careers (he in client app development and me in infosec and internetworking), and both of us went back to school. He added a marketing undergraduate and a MBA with a marketing focus, while I added a finance undergraduate and a Master of Science in Economics. For both of us, it was an exceptional career move. He's a marketing information systems manager for a Fortune 500 company, handling most of the IT projects for the different product brands of the company and gets to work with developing them the way he wants for his clients - architecting the solution, developing cross-functional dev teams, etc.
The finance and economics addition to an infosec and networking background has helped me become a dual-domain expert in operational risk management (an area that needs many more experts who understand both IT operations and the whole quantitative aspect). I get to design and develop metrics that help us analyze, track and improve our operations, manage the development of the systems that collect and report these metrics and then evaluate them to assess the company's global risk.
The cool part is if you like to set yourself apart from the crowd, it's a great way to accomplish that. It certainly isn't easy committing time to develop that second domain, and takes very careful job selection to get into a place where you can start using both domains. However, because companies seem to have serious problems communicating between different functional areas (e.g. marketing can't speak IT, and IT can't talk marketing), people who span the gap get very nicely compensated, have significant creative authority and overall get to see their ideas implemented.
*scoove*
I disagree. I'm a "jack of all trades, master of none" and I'm well paid. That means I'm pretty much stuck in my job unless I want to take a huge paycut.
It started off as a specialty position (graphics), and I was well paid for it. But it turned into a position where I was responsible for a lot of other, varied things, like the intra-departmental website, and eventually my grasp of modern graphics technologies started slipping.
Now, because it started off paying so well, I'm still paid well... but now my raises are crap, not enough over cost of living to make any difference. I while I like the company I work for, I hate the location, and would take an equally paying job (adjusted for location) just about anywhere else.
The problem is that when I look at available jobs, the ones that pay even moderately close to what I'm getting now require a specialty.
This really kills me - because I'm sure I could get a great raise here if I threatened to leave, but I wouldn't threaten to leave unless I could follow through on it (I'm not good BSing with empty threats).
So, OK, I'm giving my annecdotal experience, but I find it's true elsewhere. I've had this conversation with my manager and he agrees, and he'd like to see me be able to get back into graphics 100% of the time, but the company won't budget for another programmer (I'm in a unique position here). I like all the things I'm doing, but I wouldn't mind dropping the variety and concentrating on being great at one or two things, I'd still be happy and I'd be able to demand more at a different place.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
A lot of people disagree with me, but if you want to stay technical, chasing the latest specialty is not always the best way to go. If you really want to build a technical career that will last you through outsourcing, technology shifts, etc., then you need to have a broad background.
:-)
Smart people will always find work. I've bounced all over the IT world...support, sysadmin, design and architecture, and it's really hard keeping your skills truly sharp. Someone who's truly valuable picks a few key areas to get really good at, and knows _something_ about the rest. If you're a network guru, learn a little about the machines you're connecting. If you're a systems genius, learn enough about databases to realize your DBA is BSing you.
Take the latest fads...SOA and security. You can learn everything about these two areas, but what happens to all that knowledge when it becomes a commodity? When the execs realize SOA is just a rehash of centralized computing with some XML and the web thrown in, where will you be? Keeping yourself open keeps you employed.
I learned through a really tough experience that management was not for me 2 years ago. Technical people generally don't make good people-managers. It's not lack of social skills, but management is a completely different job. You will never touch a machine again. You will be in meetings, answering e-mails, making phone calls, and "separating the kindergarteners" when they get into conflicts. If you burn out on technology, then it's an excellent career path. Otherwise, don't let people convince you it's a good move. Rememeber all the bad bosses you have/had? Just like some people aren't suited for IT, they're not suited for managing either.
One good overspecialization example I like to cite is OpenVMS system administrators. OpenVMS is still in active use, but it's really declining. Truth is, it's easier to write new applications to run on Linux/Windows Server than to pay for expert system administrators. One of the first IT jobs I had before moving on was VMS support. I don't know how DEC trained these guys, but they're some of the best, most vigilant admins I've ever seen. However, finding a paying job working with those systems is getting harder. I world love to have that kind of sysadmin in the Linux and Windows world I work in, but a lot of them are totally specialized and don't want to learn new systems.
One other thing...outsourcing is here to stay. If you're a developer, become a crack genius developer so you can get the contract jobs rewriting outsourced code that doesn't work. If you're a procedural system admin, become an operations wizard that designs systems that don't randomly blow up. In short, truly earn your money!