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I've been wondering this for awhile. I personally work as a Production Support Engineer. It's a nice blend of development, system admin work, database skills, etc. Since Production Support is basically the support of large scale, distributed applications, you need a lot of tools to get the job done. However I've found while I enjoy stable employment, and have no issues getting work, I feel that software development to be more in demand. In my opinion these are the hottest skills in IT right now
1. Java Development
Java is the new COBOL. Every new large scale application is built on J2EE technology. However it hasn't seen as much saturation due to Java being so complex and hard to pick up. With that said, companies are always trying to develop new solutions and Java is at the center of it.
2. Database Development
Simply put, any company that wants to store important info is going to put it on a database. However databases are pretty hard to maintain, yet they are systems that never need to be down.
3. Unix/Linux admin
If Java is the software, then Unix is the platform. It has been proven that it can have high avaiability, has better support for enterprise solutions, and in general any enterprise system is typically going to run on POSIX systems. Plus with an emphasis on web based application, horizontal scaling gives Linux systems a long lifespan.
4. Solution/Application architect
Enterprise solutions have a lot of things that factor in. For example trying to make a system highly avaiabile, but also to integrate it with systems that may have a different design philosophy. This can be challenging in not making your design overly complex to the point of non supportability.
5. Data warehousing
Who the heck even knows what a data warehouse is? In either case, with some much compliance in the world today, there needs to be some sort of reporting. So OLAP based databases are the way to go for analytics and reporting.
6. Sustainment Engineering/Production Support Engineering/Application Support
Bottomline, if your system is down due to deployments, then something is the problem here. So you need things like load balancers, clustering solution, failover, and good ways to handle logging so that the system is supportable. You also need someone who can see a birds eye view of piecing together an application's work flow.
7. ERP Solutiuons/SAP/Back Office
What good is your enterprise when your own staff can't even do the payroll, manage the HR, manage legal issues, and other such critical functions? Things like HRIS, SAP (in it's many productions), or even JD World are critical for an enterprise. These systems are huge.
8. .NET/Windows development
Let's be real, Linux/Unix is expensive in the long term. Some people simply don't need the benefits that Linux/Unix offers. A lot of systems are great mid scale systems, and really don't need the heavy handed complexity associated with Java development. .NET Development still has it's place, as does Windows, and it will be this way for a long time.
9. Datacenter Operations
While not the most glamorous job, technical skills are needed here. Simply put, these guys get the grunt of the work, and that's perfectly fine. They can see everything, every server in multiple datacenter, the entire network, and anything that more than likely has company wide visibility. Datacenters can't run themselves, so they always will need to be staffed.
10. Network Engineer
This is probably more critical than any job mentioned here. If you have no network, you have no company. In an interview I had not long ago, the hiring manager was a former network engineer. He said he single handily caused a network outage. He had to go in front of a Federal Court as a result. This is how serious and critical some networks are. But the bottomline, networks always have problems, and people always need to fix them. And even in that, networks always constantly need to be upgraded and supported. So the bottomline, you will ALWAYS have a need for a good network engineer.
Do you guys agree with this list? Have any that you would like to add or share? Or do you think my opinion is uninformed and stupid? Let me know!
For my money, I'd take Data Center Operations off and put Information Security in there. DC Operations are trending towards being proceduralized - i.e., low pay - and with the advent of virtualization, the data center footprint is dwindling.
Information Security, on the other hand - the bad guys are always coming up with new tricks, and the users seem to have an endless supply of ways to cause data loss and security breaches.
I disagree with Java being the new COBOL. COBOL is so deeply embedded in business operations that it will likely outlive even Java. Businesses are already moving away form Java and have found it relatively easy to do.
I spend a lot of time in silicon valley. Most of the skills you listed are support skills and are not in demand at places like Microsoft, Google, Intel and other IT companies. But they might be in demand in support roles like you would find at finance and manufacturing companies.
I was told more than 20 years ago that COBOL was dead. And yet, its still around.
Who knows, it might outlive everything.
As long as there are mainframes there will be COBOL. There is just no other language that organize data the way it needs to be for mainframe applications.
I actually started my career out as a mainframe operator. JES and COBOL based systems. It's amazing with all of these new "enterprising" technologies, like LPARS, virtualization, etc were being done on mainframes 20-25 years ago. These things are very mature on mainframe systems as well. I don't think regular client/server systems will ever really catch up honestly. But there have been some cleaver workarounds. Currently where I worked they're thinking about Exadata, which is an "in memory" database, allowing a database to scale horizontally. I also think Big Data/Hadoop/HBASE are cool solution too, but still pretty hard to support.
So you'll always see COBOL around. But honestly, I'm one of the rare people my age, who actually even understands COBOL (I can't code for crap in it, and I've always hated it). So as those old COBOL programmers retire, it'll be interesting to see who will be coding/supporting COBOL code in the future.
This list skews highly to corporate IT jobs, many of which IMO are slowly disappearing as virtualization, SAAS, automation requires fewer in-house support staff. This reads like a list of jobs that would be hot in tier-two tech Dallas or DC, not the big tech job hubs of Silicon Valley, NYC, Boston, Austin, Seattle etc.
The growth is in software engineering, SAAS, solutions, etc. Not supporting an in-house infrastructure for a non-mission critical IT department. Technology companies are focused on revenue-generating activities.
You only need a few network engineers and systems guys to support dozens of developers, many of whom are willing, able and expected to do ad-hoc DBA, SQA, DevOps and sysops work too.
IMO the hot roles are:
Software Engineer (any language or platform really, but especially low-level (firmware), front-end & mobile UI, and full-stack types who can build entire apps from top to bottom)
Solution Architect (especially customer-facing technical roles with good sales skills)
Database / Warehouse / BI / Big Data / Analytics roles of all flavors (very hot right now)
Product Management (Very hot and marketing-driven PM is replacing the PMO-type roles that used to run software projects)
This list skews highly to corporate IT jobs, many of which IMO are slowly disappearing as virtualization, SAAS, automation requires fewer in-house support staff. This reads like a list of jobs that would be hot in tier-two tech Dallas or DC, not the big tech job hubs of Silicon Valley, NYC, Boston, Austin, Seattle etc.
The growth is in software engineering, SAAS, solutions, etc. Not supporting an in-house infrastructure for a non-mission critical IT department. Technology companies are focused on revenue-generating activities.
You only need a few network engineers and systems guys to support dozens of developers, many of whom are willing, able and expected to do ad-hoc DBA, SQA, DevOps and sysops work too.
IMO the hot roles are:
Software Engineer (any language or platform really, but especially low-level (firmware), front-end & mobile UI, and full-stack types who can build entire apps from top to bottom)
Solution Architect (especially customer-facing technical roles with good sales skills)
Database / Warehouse / BI / Big Data / Analytics roles of all flavors (very hot right now)
Product Management (Very hot and marketing-driven PM is replacing the PMO-type roles that used to run software projects)
Pretty interesting how I currently WORK in Silicon Valley right now for a huge tech company. Won't give the name, but trust me it's one of the giants. I am a contractor there, so maybe that's the difference? Who knows. I also have worked in Seattle as well.
Dev Ops is pretty important. There more time developers spend on non-billable support, the less time they spend on actual billable projects. I know a lot of people REALLY want to get rid of Dev Ops, but Dev Ops require just too many skills, and it's just way too important. Especially if you want a true High Available system. I've supported nothing but 6 9s Applications. A developer themselves can't ensure that, no matter how you're thinking.
Yes companies like Apple, Google, Cisco, Yahoo, etc requires a support staff. Not everyone working in Silicon Valley is working on the next Google OS, iOS, or top 5% tech jobs. You have normal developers in Silicon Valley, and you have normal IT jobs. I know it's hard to comprehend. But since I LIVE in Silicon Valley, I thought perhaps I should at least share my experiences.
With that said, I am leaning more towards Hadoop Administration. Where I work now is a huge Hadoop shop, so I'm trying to pick up as much Hadoop as possible.
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