What Tech Skills are Hot for 2006 ?

Computerworld ^ | 12/27/2005 | Thomas Hoffman

[AppyPappy]

The consultant knew that "ease of use" sells better than security to a non-techie. Besides, he doesn't hang around to clean up the mess.

I loved it when I was told the most powerful person in the dept needed the ability to shut down her firewall in case she couldn't get to a website.

[Element187]

Question -- are these tech skills hot for Americans, or are they hot for techies in India and the Philippines ?


I cannot talk for any of the other IT skills mentioned except mine: Security. You just cannot have an effective security analyst or engineer doing full time VPN in from india.. tho people in IT security do work from home alot, but there is a huge requirement for being able to come in at a drop of the hat at anytime.

IT security is in high demand, but the jobs are no where near as vast as say the other skills, and the qualified security engineers are even more rare... most companies just end up settling for a network administrator and put him in a security role, which is ill-advised... it screams "hack me!"

[AlanSC]

so do I

[JNL]

We'd all be rich LOL

[Last Visible Dog]

But that makes no sense. I work in an industry that primarily revolves around storage / archival / uptime critical servers. Developers rarely if ever cross my path. My day to day stuff is trending, predictive, and proactive action on failure. You claim that developers make the money. Last time I checked without us grunts there wouldn't be any money to make.

This is getting a wee bit silly. A perfectly working network is of zero value - its a conduit for software to run. No software - no purpose for the network/storage. Of course if there is no network then there is no vehicle for the software so both sides are needed.

Network engineers are analogous to those the build highways and maintain traffic flow devices and developers are analogous to people that design and build the vehicles that use the roads - saying one is more important than the other is rather silly.

[Element187]

Security (most "security experts" can't secure their own PC's)


a properly trained security engineer will secure a company up nice and tight... but what happens that anyone who has done security work (like me) there is very few around ... so companys can only find regular system administrators or network administrators and force them into the role, and alas end up with some hacked systems.

[Revolting cat!]

iPod Operators

[Element187]

Why is there a need for project managers? It seems like all these people do is go to meetings. They produce nothing of value. An on the ball designer/engineer can handle the job themselves.


agreed... i never worked with a project manager who even had the slightest idea about how any technology works.. they just like to be the guys that say: do this, do that.

[R.W.Ratikal]

What tech skills are HOT for 2006? People who can count up to twenty withouot taking off their shoes.

[Osage Orange]

My advice is do as I did: learn to use a keypunch machine. You're set for life.

Is that like a hanging chad reader?

[Element187]

Um...what "security experts" are you hanging around? Sure, there are a lot of charlatans in the field, but that doesn't mean they're all pretenders. Personally, I put little stock in security wizardry claims. I instead look for papers, utilities, and presentations done by the party in question. Those speak more clearly to their skill set than any FUD-hyped media coverage or overinflated security claims.


look for signs for an ex-hacker turned security pro and you'll end up with talent... granted he doesnt hack you when you have to let him go because of budget cuts.

[Revolting cat!]

Loaders of 50'' TVs into customers' SUVs

[caver]

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.

[maxwell]

Security clearance is hot now as well.

How's that?

[nickcarraway]

MES, RFID, Storage (NAS/SAN)

[numberonepal]

A bad project manager will not only go to the meeting, but will bring the engineer along so everyone's time can be wasted.

I resemble that remark.

[JNL]

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.

[RJS1950]

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.

[numberonepal]

The best designers/engineers get promoted into project managers and they get caught up in attending meetings.

Where I work, the best designers/engineers are often passed over because of just this. The bad part is that the best designers/engineers are stuck in a title and cannot get the raise they deserve due to policy. This may not be so in a small shop, but in a large corporation it's par for the course.

[Last Visible Dog]

Managers don't like to send code overseas. Overseas coders aren't very happy about changes and managers love to change specs more than they love to eat. The giant sucking sound doesn't really exist in IT as much as everyone thinks.

As a manager that has overseen the off-shoring of a lot of work - I can tell that managers at my level do not like to send code overseas but it really does not matter - the people that send the code overseas are executive management - they are so far from where the rubber meets the road they could not see the developers and project managers if they had binoculars.

In some respects off-shoring works and in many it does not. While it might save money on a spreadsheet - projects take longer and often go off-track (costing more money). It is hard for executive management to see beyond the bottom line numbers but eventually they will see the light.

Based on off-shoring, my company went from occupying five floors to now occupying one.