What Tech Skills are Hot for 2006 ?

Computerworld ^ | 12/27/2005 | Thomas Hoffman

[JNL]

I'm off today taking care of my little one (who ain't that little anymore) but being on this thread makes me feel like I'm still @ work. Don't know if that's a good thing.

[caver]

The favorite excuse we get from the "network guy" is operator error. That really makes you mad, especially when the darn thing is not working.

[tacticalogic]

I wish I had a niclel for every time I've had a "network guy" tell me that "its an application problem, not a network problem", and then be proven wrong -- by the app guy.

Are you a developer?

[Last Visible Dog]

I also work in the same field at a very large company and can tell you that there is a tremendous amount of time wasted by project mangagers sitting in meetings. I'm well aware of how things are supposed to work.

I have been both the one developing the software and the one managing the process. I go to those meetings - problem is they are not unnecessary - they are used to manage the customer's and company's ever changing expectations and needs - somebody has to do it and the magic is keeping the meeting people happy and the developers working - it is not easy - trust me.

[caver]

I know, some of those meetings are painful.

[Element187]

I might have some real question for you haha. I admit I rag on security guys a bit much but after having been burned once or twice you get bent out of shape. We had one Security Auditor come in to sniff the network. He got all excited and ran up to our PM screaming that there was ALOT of foreign traffic on our network. We had to calm the guy down and explain to him that he was looking outward at the Internet not internally at our network. He left shortly afterwards.



first off.. he was an auditor ;)

external security auditors are a hoot.. they come in with no knowledge of how your particular network works.. so you really cannot count on them for quality work.. when i say security professional, im talking about someone you hired on board to sit in with network engineering teams, database admin teams, systems administration teams to participate in the development of everything and making sure all the systems are not being developed insecure.. security is more of a mind set, your always looking for configuration errors, network design flaws and so fourth... we all know network engineers will punch thousands of holes into a firewall just to get traffic working.

people who make the best in security are the people who have experience in all of the IT fields and maybe some backround in tampering (is that a better word then 'hacking'?) with computers as kids.

[AppyPappy]

Many jobs are requiring security clearance. It seems people keep hiring foriegners for grunt code work and they can't pass a security clearance.

[RJS1950]

Long time developer with a good bit of network knowledge. I now teach C++, database and some network courses at a private university.

I have worked with good and bad project managers and the best ones came up from being developers. You have to have some knowledge of what you are attempting to manage or you are going to be worthless as a project manager.

Too many companies jumped on the PM bandwagon and hired a lot of worthless baggage. Worse than that, they gave them complete power over how the solutions would be developed, an iron fist over the project schedule and tied success only to how well the schedule was adhered to regardless of the quality of the software. There is no flexibility and little input from the developers with the knowledge to do the job.

PMs are great for overall management and tracking of projects, going to the meetings and managing the paperwork -- things that would take developers time away from the actual project. The big problem is when a PM is made "the boss" of the project and the developers are forced to adhere to the "bosses" way regardless of whether it makes sense. Too many of the PMs I've seen couldn't develop software if their lives depended on it and have no idea of what it takes to develop good software. They are another version of the military's REMFs.

[wbill]

I gotta get in on this one.

When I was working as the manager of a field tech team, people I'd interview would throw a bunch of acronyms at me...."MSCE" "CNE" etc etc. My response was always, "That's nice, but what have you 'really' accomplished?". Certs are good to bluff your way past HR, but people who really know what's going on won't get folled for a minute.

Contrary to a lot of posters on here, I *do* see a need for PM's. However, people that more often than not get assigned into a PM job are manager-types, not tech types. Neither understands the other, so there is always a lot of friction.

I've always said that a PM should have a solid technical background, or at least be able to speak the language coherently.

[tacticalogic]

I'm a long time "network guy". I've seen a lot more cases of product support telling me a particular problem was with the network, and not the application and have it turn out there was nothing wrong with the network. I usually don't even get to talk to a developer until I can prove that it's an application problem.

[SirLinksalot]

Folks,

Lets talk about Application Developers for the moment.

When they say that Application Developers will be hot in 2006, exactly what do they mean ?

There are many TYPES of application developers and in my experience, not every application development skill is in demand.

Take this site for instace : http://mshiltonj.com/sm/

This site, Keeps tab of the daily postings for in demand IT jobs at DICE.COM

I notice one thing --- the PEAK demand was in September 2000, where there were postings for 147,000 IT positions for any given day.

Today, with the so called "recovered" economy where we have an official unemployment rate of 5% or less and application developers are supposed to
be in demand, the daily stats show about 70,000 positions. Thats less than half of September 2000 !!!

And notice that the most in demand programmers are for those who can do JAVA (J2EE), C++ and SQL. You figure out whether such developer skills are easy or
difficult to find today (almost every college programming course now teach one or more of these technologies ).

Here are the following things I notice :

1) Even IN America, there is a tendency to "outsource" development to cheaper places. As an example, my company in New York ( America's main stocks and bonds
clearing and settlement corporation ) established a Southern Business Center in Tampa, Florida. They are planning to re-settle half of the people in NY to Tampa.
Under what condition ? THey have to agree to freeze their NY level salaries for a number of years until the average salary reaches the Tampa level. Bonuses are to be based on the Florida average. Of course relocation will be paid for.

What happens if they do not convince enough people in NY to move to Tampa even with the relocation package they offer ? Answer : LAYOFFS IN NY, HIRING IN TAMPA ( at
Tampa salaries ).


LOSER --- EXPENSIVE STATES LIKE NY, MASSACHUSETTS, CALIFORNIA.

WINNERS --- CHEAPER STATES WITH MORE ACCOMODATING AND BUSINESS-FRIENDLY POLICIES.


2) Application Development is not simply coding anymore.

The days where the super-C++ programmer is king is slowly coming to an end.

What the industries need are BUSINESS KNOWLEDGE *TOGETHER* with Systems Integration and Architecture knowledge to go with programming skills. They want a SOLUTIONS BASED hire.

This of course poses a big problem for many of our application developers.

Consider an Application Developer who knows the Telecom business and is an expert UNIX developer... because telecom went into hard times, he gets laid off.

Living close to NYC, he tries to sell his expert UNIX/C++ development skills to the Financial Industry.... ALAS, the KEY EXPERIENCE IS MISSING IN HIS RESUME --- NO
FINANCIAL EXPERIENCE !!! I see TOO MANY of my friends complain about this situation.

This creates a chicken and egg problem -- you don't get the business experience unless they hire you but they won't hire you unless you get the business experience.

With this thing going on in America, I cannot help but wonder where the industries get their next crop of experienced application developers... outsourcing ?
H1-B hires ?


The trend would be --- hiring cheaper developers who can learn the business on the job to the detrmiment
of experienced developers who unfortunately happen to have worked in a DOWN business sector. They are not going to pay
you your expert Telecom salary while you are being "trained" in the finance industry.

It seems to be that "going cheap" is the trend nowadays.


3) We also have the phenomenon of DEAD or DYING KNOWLEDGE.

Like it or not, many companies are NOT going to be installing OPENVMS ( no matter how good and secure the operating system is compared to Windows of LINUX ), TANDEM, STRATUS, MVS, and a whole heap of other once popular but getting to be expensive and dying operating systems where developers are getting to be scarce and
new installations are not coming at all.

I am not even sure how long programming languages like COBOL, FORTRAN, PASCAL and the like will live.

There are also companies whose products used to be very hot in the 1990's that are slowly dying (e.g., INFORMIX, POWERBUILDER, DELPHI ).

Application Developers who are experts in these technologies will have to RETRAIN themselves at great expense in order to catch up with IN-DEMAND technologies today which of course has NO GUARANTEE of being there 5 years from now. And even if they do get retrained, they will have to start with a novice salary ( because lets face
it, being a COBOL programmer for 20 years does not make you a J2EE expert in 6 months ).

IN SHORT --- Information technology is a long term career only for those who are :

A) Fortunate enough to work in a business sector that are more resistant to DOWNTURNS compared to others.

B) Fortunate enough to be working with programming languages and operating systems that continue to be used.

C) Prepared re-invent themselves and be prepared to be paid less than they are used to when
their skillset happens to NOT be the ones in demand on that day.

Information Technology Its a tough career to sustain. You have to look at yourself as something like an athlete who eventually has to give way to younger players.

Even great Karl Malone of the Utah Jazz took a big salary cut to play with the Lakers ( $17 M to $1 M).

The average Application Developers should expect the same
in his career. I see the average IT career to have a useful
lifespan of about 20 to 25 years.

[dakine]

My favorite fix action is: "FM"

[mikegi]

The average Application Developers should expect the same in his career. I see the average IT career to have a useful lifespan of about 20 to 25 years.

Only if you remain static. I've been writing commercial code for 20 years and recently started my own (microscopic) company. Here are the languages I've progressed through over the years:

1) Fortran and x86 asm (engineering apps)

2) Mostly x86 asm and some C (operating systems)

3) C++ (my applications)

4) C++ with plenty of Direct3D's HLSL (my new apps)

There are plenty of options out there if you're willing to learn new things. With #4, my new apps will blow the doors off my much larger competitors. I'm looking forward to the fun and games this year.

[Non-Sequitur]

A good PM can let the developers concentrate on code and forget the client exists apart from the requirements that come their way.

I always tell my developers that I eat sh*t so that they don't have to. A good PM runs interference, controls scope, makes sure that resources are there when the developers need them, handles the petty communications with users and yes, keeps the project on budget and on schedule. A PM will keep his eye on the big picture while the developer is concentrating on details.

[skinkinthegrass]

and I'm now working as a sundial at a nudist colony... rem: SP45, for the tender spots. :D