The Web Development Skills Crisis

snydeq writes "Fatal Exception's Neil McAllister raises questions regarding Web development skills in an era of constant innovation. Sure, low barriers to entry give underdog technologies ample opportunity to thrive without the backing of name-brand vendors. But doesn't this fragmentation of the Web development market put undue pressure on developers to specialize? Choosing one tool to be your bread and butter from a field this broad is one thing, McAllister writes. Recruiting talent for a Web project when your technology requirements eliminate most of the applicants is another. The result is a crisis, McAllister concludes, one in which maintaining a marketable skill set gets more and more difficult as the so-called state of the art changes on an almost daily basis."

Comments

Re:Sillyness

[drinkypoo]

There's not too many GUI toolkits that need to be taken seriously any more. One for mac, one for windows, three for Unix :) And the Unix ones all work on mac and windows... Food for thought for those unused to such fare.

Re:Honest question

[encoderer]

Exactly.

I would add, the real problem isn't even the buzzwords. It's the incompetence in HR departments.

I see this in my own company when I try to hire developers.

I've learned how to navigate this bureacracy now, but it was tough at first. I had candidates with 10 years experience with JavaScript who were given phone screens. They explained they'd used hidden iFrames and tags to retreive server-side interaction since the late 90s, but their resumes were never handed off to me because they never specifically used the XMLHttpRequest object so it wasn't precicely "AJAX" as its currently defined.

This kind of madness just takes so much energy to overcome, for both candidates and hiring managers.

Now, when I create a Req for a new hire, I keep it simple. If we're hiring a web developer, I look for self-described proficiency in Java, ASP.Net, Python, Ruby or PHP. Any will do.

When I hire a windows developer, I look for the same with Java, C#, or C++.

I'm of the belief that if you're been developing web apps with C# for 3 years, you can be an expert in Python and PHP inside 6 months.

So far, this has worked great.

Re:change emphasis away from specifics

[hemp]

Those types of jobs ( especially if they include only a PO Box) are written in order to show that no US Citizens are interested/qualified for the job. The are called Labor Market Tests. The job can then be given to an employee that requires company based sponsorship (eg H1-B Visa).

To see an example of such a job ad (for a job at Cisco) click here: http://www.jobdestruction.info/ShameH1B/Library/Archives/FragomenCiscoJobAd.htm/