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Want an IT Job? Add 'Cloud' To Your Buzzword List
jfruhlinger writes "There was a predicted uptick in IT hiring for late this year, but it's mid-November and it hasn't happened yet. Kevin Fogarty does see growth in one area, though: cloud and virtualization experts are being fought over, lured away from in-house jobs to cloud consultancies popping up everywhere."
sounds like rather clouded judgement to me
they purdy.
I think it's important to define the word "Cloud" as no one else seems to, yet the definition itself lends great insight to the concept.
The "Cloud", as referenced here, is nothing more than the delegation of responsibilities...specifically those of infrastructure. That's it. It's not some mystical cure all. In fact, it's nothing more than a glorified way to outsource applications.
Now there are specific technologies which lend themselves to this concept ( those of virtualization, certainly ), but the overall goal is the same; the business doesn't want to worry about the infrastructure behind their app. They simply want it to work.
Which is why internal "clouds" have always amused me to no end...
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Sorry to break it to you, but most computer related jobs are quite boring. The low-level jobs anyway, like in any industry.
Might be true innovation in the long term. Or might be just another trick to lock us into proprietary systems. Or a bit of both.
I'll start... XML
Sadly, the term means nothing if we're to believe MicroSoft.
If using a remote desktop application to watch pre-recorded video is considered cloud computing, then they must also classify single molecules of water vapor as "clouds" (or single droplets clouds, if you count routers).
Dilution of important terms like these into meaningless buzz-words is a shame.
Depends on what you mean by "low level"
I'd rather work on some obscure network and infrastructure issue than solve some end user problem. End users ARE boring. Their problems are always stupid or caused by some misconception a bout computing they have(for example being convinced that computers are able to really perform human like reasoning and wanting to offload to a computer their managerial and intellectual work)
Is that, like, some kind of connection machine or something?
I bet experience is the key here. Only candidates with at least 8 years experience in managing cloud computing in a virtualised environment will be considered.
And don't forget to list your four years experience with administering Windows 7.
Finally, these wound up IT types have found a way to chill out: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7b6hw_the-orb-little-fluffy-clouds_music
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
In my experience, there's plenty of choice. Not all of it great, of course, but there are some real gems passing along every now and then. They just get swamped in job offers for big Java enterprisey stuff. I try to scare them away by mentioning I don't want to work with Java, JSP or Struts, but since my CV contains the word "Java", they still contact me.
Interestingly, they also contact me when they need an Erlang or Python expert, despite the fact that I have no experience in those languages. But my CV says I want to learn them. Really, nobody ever reads CVs. They just do basic pattern matching and assume that's good enough.
My most interesting recent offer was from a company that wanted to switch to Scala. They had no Scala expertise yet, but needed some people wiling to learn and guide the transition. But it was almost an hour commute, partially by train, and I want to go to work by bike. But there's enough choice to be this picky, so the job market isn't exactly slow where I live.
Is that a bad thing not to want to worry about the infrastructure?
Yes, it's a VERY VERY bad thing if your business and it's reputation relies on said infrastructure.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
3 years of work experience isn't bad. If it's good experience, you should be way better off then a starter.
I get the impression that location may actually be the biggest issue. Maybe IT companies cluster together. My guess is that in particular cool, small, innovative start-ups probably prefer to be in hip cities with lots of students and startups.
Every time I hear people claim the job market is slow, I'm thinking: not in Amsterdam (where I live). There's lots of small companies here that care more about whether you know what you're talking about, than about exact responsibilities in your last job. I mean, sure, it matters, but for every job so far, I had to learn at least one new language, and that's been no problem for me so far. And I keep looking for jobs with languages I don't know yet (Scala, Erlang, Clojure), and I keep getting job offers for them. Or maybe my CV (that I really didn't put a lot of effort in) has something that makes it attract recruiters like flied, but I honestly have no idea why. Maybe because I list lots of new, interesting languages?
In any case, my advice is: figure out what kind of company you want to work for, and make yourself attractive to that kind of company. Move to whether those kind of companies are located. Make sure your CV shows the stuff they want to see.
Also, I think it's easier to be a convincing generalist than a convincing specialist there's always someone with more experience than you). So don't do just SQL, or just .Net, or just Linux. Show them you know a bit of everything, and can learn new stuff quickly, and tell in your CV what specific kinds of things are still on your to-learn list.
If you are in the web hosting business, you have to have the word cloud on your website. Otherwise customers think you are living in the stone age. Whether you actually offer cloud services doesn't matter. But using the buzzwords matter a lot nowadays.
Sudheer Satyanarayana
www.techchorus.net
Depends on what you mean by "low level"
I'd rather work on some obscure network and infrastructure issue than solve some end user problem. End users ARE boring. Their problems are always stupid or caused by some misconception a bout computing they have(for example being convinced that computers are able to really perform human like reasoning and wanting to offload to a computer their managerial and intellectual work)
The first part of your statement after "End users ARE boring." made me think... now there is a true programmer. *My program is perfect, its the end user that is the problem*. But then you quantified your statement further. However, the end user is right. It just depends on how much money they want to spend to "automate" their desired outcome.
One very simple example: Do you have ever set up Google Apps for a domain, with email, contacts, calendar, Google sites and so on? Yeah, it's all in the cloud and all you have to do is clicking on buttons and filling out forms. Now go and look at some user trying to set this up. More likely than not he will get as far as configuring the MX-records and then he will cry for help.
All this cloud stuff seems to be so simple, but it very much isn't. And yes, this actually is nothing a real pro would like to bother with (you'll be fighting more with the UIs than anything else) but there is high demand for this, people think they can finally get away without someone who knows what he does, but they can't.
Most of this is in no way interesting or satisfying work but just fighting half-wit user interfaces. It's sometimes insulting, actually. Instead of really setting up things and controlling things you're hanging off someone else's setup and try to beat some sense out of it. It's often frustrating, you often will have to come to the conclusion that things you would like to do just can't be done because they're not offered and you can't do anything about that. But hey, it's just work.
Me? I'd rather setup a full server park from scratch with old PCs and Linux than fighting the "cloud", but guess what's in demand more. And yes, there's a whole army of trained monkeys out there, knowing every cloud service under the sun and with superhuman point-and-click abilities, but if you really know your job and also know about problems and limitations you can still easily make some money with this. Fun is this not, though. Fun is making things, not using things.
"Sorry to break it to you, but most computer related jobs are quite boring."
That really depends on the person. Some people could find them boring while others could find them quite fun.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
Also, I think it's easier to be a convincing generalist than a convincing specialist there's always someone with more experience than you). So don't do just SQL, or just .Net, or just Linux. Show them you know a bit of everything, and can learn new stuff quickly, and tell in your CV what specific kinds of things are still on your to-learn list.
Definitely this. When I'm hiring a contractor/freelancer for a one-off job, I want specialist knowledge. When I'm hiring someone permanent, experience is always great but really what I want to see is that they have some interest beyond just slotting into a specific role for the sake of job security. If nothing else, showing that you have a broader interest than just .NET gives the impression that you're not just in this for the 9-5 but actually have a genuine desire to learn. I would also add that, even while out of work, there are things you can involve yourself in to show potential employers that you weren't just bumming around. Try writing to local business and offer your services cheap or even free, try and get involved with local charities or community events. It might pay little or nothing short term but if it lands you the job you want long term then it's as good as money in the bank. Finally, depending on location, you might consider doing some contracting - the lack of experience is a bit of a draw back but I know plenty of successful contractors who started out with less (just be realistic about earning potential until you get more experience), even during a downturn there's usually plenty of contract work (often more so, because companies look to get people in for short term projects rather than hiring permanent developers).
IT is one of the fastest growing job sector in the economy. There better be jobs or we are all doomed!
If nothing else, showing that you have a broader interest than just .NET gives the impression that you're not just in this for the 9-5 but actually have a genuine desire to learn.
Why this? I've been around in the development scene for over a decade now, more or less, I've done PHP, Python etc, I've done MySQL, Postgres, I've done Linux, AIX, the various BSDs.
You know what I do these days in my "9 to 5"? .Net.
You know what I do these days in my own time, for my own projects? .Net.
According to you, that shows I do not have a genuine desire to learn. Why is that? What about .Net doesn't allow someone to have a genuine desire to learn? Do I have to continue to learn "other" stuff? Why?
.Net is only a platform. Have you looked at F#? That's also something that can show you're looking beyond what you already know.
Cloud is a buzzword. And while it might be a good idea to add it to your resume, it will be gone in a few years. However, what will increase in the next decade or so are:
- Application services
- Platform services
- Virtual systems
All these services will be on demand. But this has different meanings in the different "cloud"-types. If you outsource your mail-service than this has to be available 24/7 the only thing which is variable is the system load. So the company providing email-services to you can do some load distribution if they have customers from different time zone (just for example).
However, outsourcing important information is always a problem. While you might outsource a shop system or a public relations website. You might not want to outsource accounting, engineering etc.
It can be interesting for private people. Because they want to use their data at home and when they are traveling. However, there is more a need in distributed computing and clever replication than storing all information in the net. Even though this might be a good idea for your email or music. It is still not such a good idea for your movies (that may change with more bandwidth).
If nothing else, showing that you have a broader interest than just .NET gives the impression that you're not just in this for the 9-5 but actually have a genuine desire to learn. I would also add that, even while out of work, there are things you can involve yourself in to show potential employers that you weren't just bumming around.
That reminds me of something I forgot to add:
Don't reserve programming just for work, do it also fr play. Especially when unemployed. Join open source projects, for example. Write a blog on programming. These make excellent references.
Also join local user groups for your favourite languages. I don't know how it is in your area, but in my (pretty small) country, there's a user group for Groovy and Grails, there's one for Scala, there's groups for pretty much every other language out there, I presume, and there's a young but really cool cross-language group. They meet roughly every month or every two months, and those are great opportunities to learn more about your language, learn about new frameworks, learn stuff you never even knew existed, and learn about the strengths of other languages. And also to meet people, including potential business contacts and employers.
In programming, there are excellent ways to make a name for yourself.
You are exactly right. To get a good IT job, one needs to have additional expertise, besides coding what he is told: mathematics, biology, physics, non-IT technologies, business. There are very few good jobs left for experts in only computer science. If you look at the successful famous programmers, they all have something extra to their coding skills, vast majority of them being quite shrewd in business.
The only pure CS successes (admittedly, rather dubious) I could think of are hackers, people who are able to discover various deficiencies in the software written by other people. A lot of them, actually, using some extra information (besides "mad zkillz") - insiders, etc.
Get a second major, college boys. Seriously.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
And why doesn't my C#, VB.Net, WPF, WCF, ASP.Net and other stuff already show that?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buzzword_bingo. one of the best games ever. went to some congress with a few guys and played it, it was legendary.
Wait a minute. I'm a manager, and I've been reading a lot of case studies and watching a lot of webcasts about The Cloud. Based on all of this glorious marketing literature, I, as a manager, have absolutely no reason to doubt the safety of any data put in The Cloud.
The case studies all use words like "secure", "MD5", "RSS feeds" and "encryption" to describe the security of The Cloud. I don't know about you, but that sounds damn secure to me! Some Clouds even use SSL and HTTP. That's rock solid in my book.
And don't forget that you have to use Web Services to access The Cloud. Nothing is more secure than SOA and Web Services, with the exception of perhaps SaaS. But I think that Cloud Services 2.0 will combine the tiers into an MVC-compliant stack that uses SaaS to increase the security and partitioning of the data.
My main concern isn't with the security of The Cloud, but rather with getting my Indian team to learn all about it so we can deploy some first-generation The Cloud applications and Web Services to provide the ultimate platform upon which we can layer our business intelligence and reporting, because there are still a few verticals that we need to leverage before we can move to The Cloud 2.0.
MCP : "What's the matter Sark? You look Nervous."
Sark: "It's just we've never had a user before."
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Say, "LatestBuzz".
when the employer sees this keyword in the resume, s/he should understand that whatever latest buzz is about at that time, the applicant, 'has it'.
that could save both the employer and the applicant a lot of time - the employer, from trying to determine expertise of the applicant in an area employer has no knowledge about, and the applicant from lying about it.
Read radical news here
How much you willing to pay?
The latest instance of management by magazine.
[...] the app must be written against a specific cloud api (in some .net language)[...]
That's PaaS (Platform as a service), that's what I would expect from MS, leading to vendor lock-in with specific API's, it could have been more open and portable to your own servers or other PaaS providers. This is the "here are my balls, can you please hold them for a while?" IT planning strategy. It's just not good for you, the party on the squeezing side of the deal however...
From a customers point of view, IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) would make much more sense: paying for VM domains, memory, bandwidth as needed. Probably costs a few percents more than if you did it yourself. Perhaps some more risks for unavailability and nobody you can threaten to fire in that case.
From a software vendor's point of view, you would go for SaaS (Software as a Service). Pricing, continuous revenue, less versions to maintain,...
I had no idea that just adding a word to your resume, without having any experience in what the word describes, actually qualifies you in that area! And silly me's been spending all this time actually working with the stuff on my resume... How foolish!
Marketing killed IT conferences years ago.
"We're an IT solutions provider. We help small to midsized companies leverage the same technology that larger companies have today by providing these technologies in a solutions package to scale."
"You sell small business servers."
"Yes."
Now people are lapping up "cloud."
"We're a Cloud Solutions provider. We enable small to midsized companies to leverage the power of cloud technology by moving data from dated technology into the more vast infrastructure of cloud computing."
"You're taking our servers away aren't you."
"Yes."
It isn't as much the job but the attitude of the person doing it. To some people Every Job is boring, mostly because they are slackers and are trying to find reasons not to work. For most of the population there are some jobs they like and jobs they don't and know that and willing to stick threw the parts they don't like as they can get back to the parts they like. Then you get the nuts who love EVERYTHING or they are just Ass Kissers.
Every Job has good and boring parts to it. They saying "If you find a job you love you will never work a day in your life." is false. There will be boring parts or parts that you will not enjoy for your job. However if you keep your mind open you will see there are often a lot of good parts too...
Even though I have been making applications over the network for decades, I still think it is cool when I make an initial connectivity test program where I type some stuff and I see it on on a different computer. Other people will be so what. While they are pointing out to me what I think is kinda dull and they think it is cool. You job is what you make of it. Try to find joy in your work vs. focusing on the negative. And perhaps IT people will be a bit less bitter... Unless they see it as a job perk.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
YMMV, but in my experience there are three types of "low level" jobs in IT (not programming per se, though there are definite corollaries here, but "support IT"):
1) Low level tech support grunt for a large company. You're going to be dealing with nothing but users. They are the entire focus of your life, if you get to deal with an "obscure network and infrastructure problem" it's purely by accident because your user happened to discover it. Even then, since you probably have minimal access to servers and network equipment, the best you'll probably be able to do is escalate it.
2) Systems/network admin for a small company or facility. You'll still have to deal with users. You're probably the entire IT department, or at best the junior member of a very small team (all of whom want to push user issues off to you for the same reason you don't want to do them). On the bright side you're far more likely to be directly involved in building, deploying, and supporting the infrastructure. On the down side, unless it's either a really odd company or in the infrastructure business, the stuff will be incredibly vanilla. Windows AD and file servers attached to a few workstations on one or two logical networks and getting to the Internet via some form of SDSL. Probably a firewall appliance sitting between you and the DSL modem, and, if the company actually hosts its own Internet facing presence (most small companies don't), a small DMZ with the web and mail server. Not much for obscure here.
3) Data center lackey for a large company. On the bright side, no users. On the downside you probably mostly haul boxes, rack system, replace parts, and make accounts. If you're both smart and lucky though you might be able to get yourself in good with the higher level guys and they'll trust simpler (for relative values of "simple") problems to you.
Three offer the best possibility for what you want, though you usually have to be patient. Two is how I came up, and frankly I thought it was the best overall situation. You'll have to deal with users, a lot, but I don't really mind users to be honest (I'm a fairly social person, IT geek or not). The thing is, you pretty much to get see every aspect of IT. It's all on a smaller scale of course, but you actually get to do the planning, executing, and maintenance of your very own setup. You don't get a lot of obscure problems, but frankly those sound a lot sexier when you're sitting in college looking for a challenge than when you have a guy breathing down your neck wanting to know when things will be back up while you're still trying to figure out what the Hell happened in the first place.
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
If you'd decided to write that in English I might have read it.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Or maybe people were put off by the fact that you talk like that; and decided the Geek Squad was a safer (if no more competent) bet?
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
In a tough economy, there will always be people with more experience, or willing to work for less money, around.
I'm guessing that the 3 years work experience weren't directly related to your CS degree? If so, one thing that might help would be "work" experience on local voluntary projects (something that sounds like actual work to an employer in a way that contributing code to an open source project from home might not - it's the perception that's important here, not the actuality).
I'm not convinced that there are entry level "cloud" positions but there certainly are entry level positions where knowledge of vitualisation is key. Unfortunately, you're not the only person applying for them.
I'm tempted to buy a fog machine for my next job interview and put my code samples in the cloud it creates.
~~ Behold the flying cow with a rail gun! ~~
No idea about WPF and WCF, but the others are pretty old, well-established technologies. They show you do exactly the same things that everybody else has been doing for quite some time now.
If I want to hire a good Java programmer, I'd rather hire someone who also knows a bit of Scala, than someone who knows just Java. The Scala guy is more likely to be someone interested in new technologies, and more likely to be aware of new ways of doing stuff.
"I'm experience with administering various cloud computing techniques." = "I setup a SQL Azure account a couple months ago and I know how to use Google Docs." ?
I RTFA'd and the word "Cloud" is not mentioned *once* except as a caption on the first article summary, not in any of the actual text. Aparently its gotten to the point where we just put the word "Cloud" on anything we want (to make it "kewl" ?) As for "Cloud Computing" being "boring" and a bunch of UI's ... I disagree. I've been working on Amazon EC2 and related services for several years now and find it everything but boring. Its challenging ! Fun, interesting. Having to work around its limits and discover what it is and isnt good at is a fresh experience after 30 of traditional computing. I can see why there are jobs openings, its *not easy* to do well.
You seem to have left out bandwidth.
Indeed. Doesn't matter what this guy might have on the back - 5 boxes or 20 boxes. No bandwidth (or expensive bandwidth) -> no scalability (or scalability that will drive his coffers to the ground.)
This guy's analysis doesn't take into account other factors that affect one's ability to scale - electric foot print, hardware leases, etc.
And why would I want to have my developer doing basic sysadmin work on a regular basis. Yes, I want my developer to be smart enough to do just that (vital for setting up dev sandboxes and working with the infrastructure guy.) But I want him to be focused on development. Beyond a certain size, a startup needs to have an infrastructure that facilitates development rather than depending on developers being swiss-army-knives.
Moreover, why would I want the same hardware to run for years. Hardware fail, specially cheap desktop boxes (the ones this person seems to get for 4-5 at $5,000.) Maybe I might want not one (as the AC suggests) but several boxes for development and testing - If you are a startup, you always want as many or if not more sandboxes than production boxes.
You want good hardware for production, specially if you expect scalability (and thus shitloads of 24/7 traffic). $5000 doesn't cut it. And you want similar hardware for unit/system/pre-production testing.
This guy is suggesting the most rudimentary and infantile of setups: one box for development and internal software. Who the hell can possibly suggest that????? What kind of novice approach would put developers to do development and test on the same box that runs internal production software?
A startup (at least the ones I've been) are not a garage shop nor a village's doctor's office. A start up that has legitimate worries about scalability needs more than that. And startup scratching scalability to stupid programmers or stupid managers is such a sophomore /. cliche devoid of reality and experience, it's not even funny.
A web-based startup can spend merely $3000, and for that they can get 4 to 5 servers. Using Linux, PostgreSQL, Python and other free and open source software means the only cost is in setting up the systems and maintaining them
4 or 5 desktop machines that you put a server OS on maybe. But if you want actual server-class hardware, that $3000 will get you one decent one.
Maybe he has never worked on an environment that actually requires server-class hardware or he thinks startups == home network at mom-n-pop's hardware store.
" To get a good IT job, one needs to have additional expertise, besides coding what he is told"
I disagree. There are lots of good coding jobs and ample time to get to know the various market areas as you go. Besides which, spending even more time in education is time you could be using to gain experience.
You still haven't answered the question - why would you consider someone who knows another seemingly random language to be more interested in new technologies? Why should the fact that I like to continue to program in my daytime language in the evenings and weekends have any negative bearing on whether I like new technologies or not?
.Net has undergone some significant changes fairly recently, 3.5 brought in Linq and the related language constructs, 4.0 brought in significant parallel processing capabilities, 5.0 has a lot of goodies and is just around the corner. The C#of today is different to the C# of yesterday. ASP.Net has had a lot of development over the past few years, with MVC (yeah I know, not new in the grand scheme but ASP.Net MVC certainly is and is very nice), WebForms 4.0 and other stuff.
So why do I have to drop my enjoyment of the platform and take up another to be considered a serious candidate by yourself? You make it sound as if there is no way to grow within an ecosystem, which is utter bollocks.
Somewhat offtopic, but I'm finding it kinda difficult to believe that in this job market in the US, there are people lucky enough to be employed as developers that don't understand basic RDBMS concepts like indexes or joins. I'm just an undergraduate, but even at this level competition for jobs is incredibly fierce--I can't imagine someone being considered for code-writing positions lacking knowledge of crossjoin, outer joins, indexes, B+ trees, kd trees, etc. That kind of stuff comes up in almost every interview I've had so far, and I've got nothing yet for a while. :(
Do you actually encounter on a regular basis this kind of clueless-ness? How do these people manage to get hired?
You still haven't answered the question - why would you consider someone who knows another seemingly random language to be more interested in new technologies? Why should the fact that I like to continue to program in my daytime language in the evenings and weekends have any negative bearing on whether I like new technologies or not?
I have answered that question. Having those new technologies actually listed on your CV shows a lot better that you like learning new technologies, than listing only the same technologies that everybody else has, does.
Of course it is great to keep your .Net knowledge up to date with the latest version. But simply listing ".Net" on your CV doesn't distinguish you in any way from someone who relies on 5 year old .Net experience. If ASP.Net MVC is any different from old fashioned ASP.Net, then you should definitely list that. But an employer who's less familiar with it might not recognise it as being something new.
And even then, it wouldn't hurt any programmer to look outside his favourite environment every once in a while. Some companies care about that, others don't.
It's really hard to say from your post (Where are you? Are you willing to move? What was your three years of experience in?) but my immediate reaction to your post is "you're talking to the wrong recruiters". When recruiters call me about jobs they want to get more specifics about which distros I've worked with, what daemons I've got specific experience with, or my level of experience with integration of *nix systems into Windows environments. There's lots of of *nix jobs out there, a technical recruiter that hasn't heard of Linux is either very highly specialized, an idiot, or a generalist recruiter trying to fill some odd tech job that landed on his desk.
What you need to do is find recruiters that know WTF they're doing in the tech industry. These guys aren't usually technologists themselves, but they know the lingo, the buzzwords, and most importantly for you, they know how it relates to what you've got on your resume. Normally they work for national firms that specialize in finding technology professionals for companies that need more than "MCP with three years of experience" or "Four years Java programming experience". I'm not saying this is going to solve your problem (these guys are subject to the same problems of wanting documented experience in every minuscule technology on a requirement document that any other recruiter can be), but at least you won't have to worry about whether the guy is going to laugh at you because he doesn't anything about the field.
On the experience front... have you considered volunteer work? Either maybe volunteering your services to a local charity to help them with their infrastructure (for IT/admin type experience), getting into an OSS project (for development type experience), or even offering your services (with specific terms and conditions) to a friend or family member's business to help them out and get you resume fodder? I don't know how much it'll help to be honest, but it sure can't hurt and at least you're not sitting around surrounded by tech books and bitterness.
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
Powerball jackpot winner!!
All I need is a few million dollars to invest...live off the dividends...and NEVER have to work again a day in my life.
I'd never be bored...I'd like to have the Charlie Harper lifestyle...
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
What I have found is that no one likes to deal with the database, so they regulate it to the worst programmer.
Pity, since most performance issues with applications are bad SQL queries/database design at the backend. Table walks, using read/write when you just need read access, excessive data retrieval (where they then write code at the app level to toss out the unneeded data, rather than use SQL to return what they actually need)
What they should do is get a production quality DBA in to do all that for them, and figure out how to leverage him into the design phase so that they write code with DB optimization in mind. In other words, get some who LIKES databases to run your database instead of shanghaiing a programmer to do it.
Those projects that have that foresight do very well when it comes time to go live...
Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
No you *haven't* answered the question, you just repeat the same stuff over again - which is why I keep repeating the same response as well.
.Net developer who is relying on 5 year old experience won't get past the first sift of the CV pile, and instead someone who says they used ".Net and C# up to and including 4.0 from 2007 to date, in the role of Web Developer with ASP.Net WebForms and ASP.Net MVC 1 & 2".
What about using a different technology in your spare time to the one you make money with makes you more likely to be considered? What does it show? Because it certainly does not show an automatic interest in "new technologies", it just shows that you may have divergent interests outside of work.
If you are just plonking shit down on a CV, you don't just put ".Net experience", you put where you have used it, when you have used it and at what level. That way the
What you are really trying to do is say that because I enjoy the same technologies as I use in my day job, I am at a disadvantage to someone who prefers to pursue something different, but you have yet to come up with a decent reason *why*.
Number two is how I came up also. I started at a small company (5 servers, about 50 users) in 1996. After a couple of years everything there was stable and I was out of things to do. That is one of the "problems" with a small company. They only have so much budget for IT. Once you get everything squared away, you have a lot of down time. That is great for relaxation but not so good for career advancement.
From there I went into consulting. As a consultant I learned more, but basically did what I did for the original company for lots of different companies in different sectors. Each company / sector has their own applications, but the underlying network OS and infrastructure is pretty consistent. Here I picked up all of the design, architecture and project management skills that look good on a resume.
After ten years of consulting I had enough experience to land a "management" level job. I still do a lot of hands on work with server and application provisioning, but networking and security is outsourced. I know enough to direct other people but do not have to get my hands dirty with the implementation. There are times when I wish we were handling the network in house though. Waiting 24 hours to get a port turned up, or to get a firewall ACL change made is stupid. Managing is a good gig but a dangerous position to be in. Managers are easier to replace than technicians. Competent technicians are rare, and that is the point of the original article. With "the cloud" (bah) getting bigger, those with experience in large scale virtualization projects are in demand.
I think path 2 is the best way if you can get it. You have enough autonomy to be your own master to a certain extent. For the first and third options, you are too beholden to others. Your only real bet for career advancement is to develop job experience and move into progressively more senior roles with other companies every 3-5 years. After two or three moves, a person should have enough practical experience to land somewhere stable.
"Because I used Product X, my head is in a cloud."
Table-ized A.I.
I may have the best job right now. I've been working at a smallish research lab at a University. We get to do everything from AD to RHEL Linux Clusters, old VMS on VAX and Alpha, Mac laptops, building our first SAN with 10gb network interconnects. I get to pick out technologies, vendors to some extent, and whatever. We get to try out Hyper-V, KVM, Xen, RHEL Cluster technologies etc. I can use Open Source products or proprietary as makes sense in the budget. We're playing around with Likewise...
And because they're using custom scientific code and we run stuff like Zenoss which uses zope, mysql, we front end with Apache for SSL - we definitely can find obscure problems.
My days are almost never boring because like in your part 2, I get to do something in almost every part of support IT, but also have a team I work with, so I'm not the sole IT guy.
It's also pretty low pressure, management doesn't have too many hard deadlines and would prefer something was done right than rushed to be done fast (except for end user client PCs, never get enough notice on those, it's like they forget that new users might need a computer). I also get to read and comment on Slashdot, multiple other forums, and mailing lists as part of my job!
It's all on a smaller scale of course, but you actually get to do the planning, executing, and maintenance of your very own setup.
This. It's awesome in my opinion. At least if it all goes tits up, you only blame yourself, and you learn from it and do better next time.
Opera, Proxomitron-Grypen,GPG 0x0A1C6EE3
I dunno. Tell that to the guy that auditions new pr0n talent.
I'd think you'd never get tired of the 'screening' process for new chicks cuming in the office to get into the biz.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
My wife is in the same boat. She's currently enrolled in Innumeracy 201.
"All it takes is a dollar and a dream."
"Gotta be in it to win it."
Great ads and they work better than the truth of: Have no bloody clue what a probability is.
Post anonymously - For when your opinion embarrasses even you!
I know, I know.
I heard it put once that the best definition of the lottery was: " A voluntary tax for those that can't do math".
But when I buy $5 worth every once in awhile....it buys me about 2 days or so of daydreaming of what I'd do if I won all that money....
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
I think there is a difference between gambling for entertainment and gambling with the expectation you'll get rich. If it amuses you to play the lottery occasionally, go for it. I like a bet a few bucks when I'm in Vegas, it's fun. It's the people that spend some measurable fraction of their income in the real hope that it's a way to make it big... That's the problem.
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
The definition of "cloud" seems pretty nebulous to me.
"They saying "If you find a job you love you will never work a day in your life." is false. There will be boring parts or parts that you will not enjoy for your job."
I dunno. Tell that to the guy that auditions new pr0n talent. I'd think you'd never get tired of the 'screening' process for new chicks cuming in the office to get into the biz.
Except that the real-life version of that job (or its closest match) probably still includes some other tedious secondary aspects or tasks that ideally they'd rather not be doing. Doesn't mean that they don't like their job overall, simply that "there will be boring parts [however minor] or parts that they will not enjoy".
And even the fantasised-about "perfect" version of that job with an endless parade of porn star beauties would probably lose its lustre a bit for most people after a while. That's human beings for you.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
Yup. I call it the "luck tax". I buy the occasional lottery ticket not out of any expectation of winning, but out of the sure knowledge that someone, somewhere, will win, and I will have contributed to their fortune acquired completely without reference to an MBA.
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
I dunno. Tell that to the guy that auditions new pr0n talent.
Having had some experience in this area I can assure you that it is not a job all would automatically love. You might think that it's wonderful for a few weeks and people will always buy you drinks but it soon loses its gloss. Having plenty of hot wriggly beautiful woman around you seems great but if you have even a smidgeon of empathy in your soul you go home at the end of a shift feeling depressed and miserable. You end up not wanting to sleep with them you end up wanting to just hug some of them and cry.
The new right fascists are bilingual. They speak English and Bullshit.