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Ask Slashdot: How to Avoid The Worst of a Tech Bubble?
An anonymous reader writes: I just reached a senior level in a tech career and I've been doing pretty much a bit of everything, e.g. software architecture, full stack dev, eng. related specific dev, consultancy, etc. So I'm at a point where I want to start focusing on something that has a good development path, i.e. I won't struggle finding a job, it'll be fairly paid and it'll allow me to move up in responsibility (bigger teams, more difficult projects) if I want to. It seems like we might be heading into a new tech bubble. Based on your experience of the .com collapse and your predictions for the current market, is there any path you wouldn't recommend (or strongly recommend) if this bubble goes pop? What were the roles most affected when the .com bubble burst back in 2000 and would it be any different this time? Is there anything you can do to be better prepared, such as focusing on broader techs rather than niche techs, etc.
Laugh all you like, but when the bubble collapsed and I lost my job, I fell back on plumbing and electrical and carpentry skills, ran my own handyman/construction business. People unable to sell their houses often renovate them, and that's where I came in. Honest day's work for an honest dollar. I'm sometimes sorry I closed up shop and went back to the paper pushing at the big defense contractor I had left.
Healthcare is big IS business because of the push for electronic medical records. But. There is going to be a huge cull in the next couple of years as the literally thousands of small companies that tried to get a toe hold just fail. Especially in the small hospital sector, most of the vendors are not going to make it. They will outright fail or get bought out.
Of course, there are zillions of man hours to be spent trying to reconcile the new acquisition into the legacy database ("But the sales guy PROMISED out data could be merged into the new system").
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
When fuckedcompany.com switches back on, you know it's over.
Table-ized A.I.