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What Cities Want Your IT Skills?

Posted by timothy on from the telecommuting-only-goes-so-far dept.

itwbennett writes "Are you a SQL expert? Check out apartments in Jacksonville, Florida. Oracle more your speed? Head down to Dallas, Texas. Looking for a job that uses your Windows skills? Send some resumes to Providence, R.I. Blogger Kevin Fogarty looks at the top skills in demand in the fastest-growing US IT job markets and finds that different cities want different kinds of techies." This reminds me of the recent book Who's Your City? Considering how many people of all stripes live in any large city, and how much migration goes on for work, school, or other reason (I'm thinking of a few I've lived in, like Austin, Seattle, and Philadelphia), it amazes me how strong are the differences in social atmosphere between cities.

12 of 123 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Fuck yeah by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    For some folks with families to feed... it is.

    Ask 1,000,000 Mexicans in the US illegally if you doubt this.

  2. Only skill needed in Washington D.C.... by gatkinso · · Score: 2

    ...your security clearance.

    Oh what's that? You've actually touched a keyboard in the past? That's nice, too.

    --
    I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
  3. So... by TheRealFixer · · Score: 3, Interesting

    What I learned from this list, is all anyone cares about is Project Managers. So, who's actually going to do all the real work?

    1. Re:So... by Aceticon · · Score: 2

      Actually that's a very good question. The ratio of PMs to Devs should be at least 1-to-5 at the lowest level (i.e. 1 team leader per 5 developers) and as one goes up the management chain the ratio between a level and the one below should remain similar.

      For a company to have as many devs as managers the ratio would need to be at least 1-to-2 .

      So, how come the top looked-for professionals in almost all cities are Project Managers?

      The only explanation I can think of is that Developers are listed in a more specific way (i.e. Oracle devs, C Devs, Java Devs, .NET Devs) while Project Managers are all under one category.
      So if you aggregate all Dev entries into a coarse "Developer" category, then it does add up to a PM-to-Dev ratio which is closer to 5-to-1.

  4. Re:Want to be cut off from tech companies complete by Hatta · · Score: 2

    There are a lot of rich people in Birmingham
    A lot of ghosts in a lot of houses
    Look over there!...A dry ice factory
    A good place to get some thinking done

    --
    Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
  5. Re:Want to be cut off from tech companies complete by DrgnDancer · · Score: 2

    Dude. Move an hour north. Huntsville is nothing but tech jobs. I have a great job, and get near weekly inquires from recruiters about whether I'd like a different one. In a pinch you could commute here, though it'd be a bit of a dozy.

    --
    I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
  6. Re:Fuck yeah by SanityInAnarchy · · Score: 2

    Or for people who are actually passionate about their careers.

    For example, right now, I care very little about where I live, other than that I have fast Internet, and either I get freedom to choose the tools I want, or I get tools I actually enjoy using. For example, suppose I was given the choice between web development jobs in Ruby on Rails, Node.js, ASP.NET, or Oracle ADF. I might try the ASP.NET job out of curiosity, but there is no fucking way I'm doing Oracle ADF 8 hours a day. In fact, pretty much anything related to Oracle is already a code smell.

    I mean, I don't care what the nightlife is (I don't drink), I don't much care about where I sleep (requirements are clean, safe, good Internet), and the other things I care about are likely to be just about anywhere -- a martial arts program, interesting women... Money is rarely a factor.

    But the work is what I'm actually doing with my life. (Or, at the moment, school, but I've worked before, and I take the same approach to internships.)

    --
    Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
  7. Re:Project Management by blair1q · · Score: 2

    Good luck. The only certified PMP I know has been unemployed since we fired him a year ago.

    Get some project management experience and then apply for the job.

  8. Uhh... "SQL" is a subset of "Oracle" by AtlantaSteve · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This summary reminds me of every dumb phone I've ever received from incompetent I.T. recruiters, as they mindlessly read off buzzwords...

    Recruiter: Do you have "JEE"?
    Me: Yeah.

    Recruiter: Do you have "Java"?
    Me: That's included in the previou... oh, nevermind. Yeah.

    Recruiter: Do you have "Oracle"?
    Me: Yeah.

    Recruiter: Do you have "SQL"?
    Me: That's part of...... yeah.

    Recruiter: Do you have "agile"?
    Me: Oh fuck my life...

    1. Re:Uhh... "SQL" is a subset of "Oracle" by etymxris · · Score: 2

      Yeah HR has no clue. Our company has an HR/IT person that's supposed to be up on these things, but she pronounces C# as "sea pound".

    2. Re:Uhh... "SQL" is a subset of "Oracle" by XManticore · · Score: 2

      Well, the musical sharp sign is actually different to the hash sign in like in C#. The vertical lines in the sharp sign have a 'negative' slope, from bottom right to top left, /pedantic.

      I refer to # as a hash, a pound is £ but YMMV if you are from the States. But C# is see sharp, doesn't matter what the symbol is, that's what the damn language is called. Calling it see pound out of ignorance is one thing, but insisting on being obtuse is a different thing entirely

    3. Re:Uhh... "SQL" is a subset of "Oracle" by syntap · · Score: 3, Insightful

      When I read SQL vs Oracle I take that to mean one has experience in Oracle setup, backup, maintenance, etc. as opposed to being a data miner or analyst. In my experience those are different skill sets that one can specialize in.

      But the recruiters are just going through key terms to check off, and the questions a non-technical recruiter gives to technical people are often quite amusing.