Skills Needed For a Future In IT 258
Lucas123 writes "An increase in the pace of change in IT has created new dynamics for jobs involving the Web, mobile computing and virtualization. For those looking to enter the marketplace in years to come, 30-somethings hoping to upgrade their skills, or those who'll be winding their careers down by 2020, skill sets are drastically changing. For example, graphics chips are doubling in capacity every six months. That translates into a thousandfold increase in capacity over a five-year period — the average shelf life of most game platforms. 'We've never seen anything like it in any industry.' Colleges are in continual catch-up mode and have only recently added project management and soft skills training to computer science programs. According to one expert, 'They're about five years behind where they need to be.'"
Mis-use of college, if you ask me (Score:5, Insightful)
These days, anyone that industry likes is an "expert."
College works best when it functions as (a) a qualification program and (b) a general, background, theoretical and broad study of the subject matter.
Qualification in this case means that you go to college to endure an extended test that ultimately shows how dedicated and intelligent you were. Made it through four years of Harvard? You're pretty good, usually.
A general background means that you study the theory and a broad survey of the topic, so that you understand the underlying issues and the basic methods of addressing them.
I don't think it makes sense to teach specifics in college, except vocational colleges like community colleges. That's the kind of stuff you learn on your first few jobs anyway, and it's so rapidly changing that trying to get college to teach it is a moving target no one will hit.
Five years behind? (Score:5, Insightful)
There is always this interesting push between what I like to term the Computer Science Vs. Software Engineering people, in which the former always wants to play with new interesting toys, write code, and generally act like an impulsive teenager, while the latter wants to be an old man, being safe, writing plans, timetables, and those middle management bits that drive CS people up the wall.
I think when we're young (mentally) we're CS, and as we age we gradually turn into Software Engineers.
Specialization is not the future (Score:5, Insightful)
I've been working in IT for some time now, and I think that that any specialized hard-skils are pointless. Most of my success has been able to adapt to new technologies, languages, ideas, etc. IT is constantly changing (which is what attracted me to it). What you need is a solid background in IT concepts (how to program in A language, how to understand the TCP/IP stack, what a protocol is, etc), a solid understanding of interpersonal communication, and a willingness to change and adapt.
In fact, look at 30-40+ (Score:1, Insightful)
Nonsense (Score:3, Insightful)
> Consider, he says, that graphics chips are doubling in capacity every six months. That translates into a thousandfold increase in capacity over a five-year period -- the average shelf life of most game platforms. "We've never seen anything like it in any industry," he says.
Yes. I definitely remember my XBox 360 being 3 orders of magnitude more powerful than the XBox. I hate to cite Wikipedia, but this appears to show a 5 times increase in 4 years: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Transistor_count&oldid=374101890#GPUs [wikipedia.org]
> At the same time, colleges can't adapt their curricula fast enough to prepare students for the complexities of cloud computing and virtualization, not to mention specific technologies such as Microsoft SharePoint, observers say. Recent graduates also seem naive when it comes to business basics and how computing foundations apply to the real world, says David Buzzell, CIO at The Sedona Group, a Moline, Ill.-based workforce management services provider.
That's not new. Most colleges/universities do theory-heavy courses designed to let you learn the next big technology. If you want a MS certificate to say you grok Sharepoint, you can get that for a LOT less than a college degree.
> Another didn't know what an invoice was.
If you advertise for a someone with 2-5 years experience of a software package with 2007 in the name... http://seeker.dice.com/jobsearch/servlet/JobSearch?op=101&dockey=xml/0/5/0598524509067860fbf7aef52a6ae982@endecaindex&c=1&source=20 [dice.com]
One essential skill that never changes (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Mis-use of college, if you ask me (Score:5, Insightful)
Not to mention that the amount of arrogance in calling academia some kind of industry training ground is ludicrous. Who is he to tell the universities where they "need to be?"
If you ask me, it's academia that is important and significant, and industry is just something you have to do for food.
Re:Mis-use of college, if you ask me (Score:5, Insightful)
Quit thinking like an academic and start thinking like a business... "on-the-job training" is a cost sink hole, because they don't want to pay enough or provide good enough benefits to keep people around long enough to make any investment in training worth it. So they want schools to do it, but the schools have this funny notion about how they're supposed to teach people who to learn and think, not how to work with technology X, because they know technology X is going to be obsolete in a few years anyway.
The HR people who don't know what they're talking about, look at a check list and can't think about how a skill in one thing might translate (odd, because they're philosophy degrees prepared them to ask big, important questions right out of school... like "do you want fries with that?" before they "translated" their skill set in to HR... hrm...). Case in point, this hosting company I used to work at got real corporate about the time I left, and actually got some HR people and whatnot. A friend of mine applied there, got an interview, and then was told no because he didn't know PHP, despite having a few years of Perl. Cause, you know, the sheet said PHP, and programming can't possibly just be programming, right?
Tomorrow will be like yesterday (Score:5, Insightful)
6 years ago, I wrote a software requirement spec, and software design spec. In it I said the web application had to be able to run efficiently on a 300MHz processor over a 56K modem. I didn't realize that in 6 years, smart phones were going to be so predominant that people would still be using 300MHz processors over 56K connections.
Today, tomorrow, yesterday; it's all about understanding the fundamentals. The details may change, but the foundation is the same.
Future, past, whenever (Score:3, Insightful)
After my latest round of interviews for an open developer spot on my team, I decided the skills I'm looking for in IT can be identified by this test:
http://www.drunkmenworkhere.org/170 [drunkmenworkhere.org]
Notice there's no mention of code, development methodology, or any other IT concepts.
And that's fine by me, because all those things change. I don't need a Windows IIS guru, because we're likely to switch over to Apache Tomcat next year. I don't care how l33t your PHP skillz are, I want to know how useful you are going to be when we need to move all the code over to JAVA.
Basically, I want to know how well you can answer the questions I don't yet know to ask. New technologies, new challenges, new bugs. I need to know how well you can think.
There you are. That's the skill need in IT--past, present, and future. Can you think?
Tell that to HR and hiring managers... (Score:5, Insightful)
Until then, it's the hard skills that most companies use as the prime determinate for whether or not a given application gets a first-level interview.
IT is one of the absolutely worst industries for pigeonholing, and your last job is the one that gets tattooed on your forehead, not the stuff you know (or think you know) the best.
Welcome to reality ... for the past 20+ years, sadly. I don't see it changing soon, as that requires an actual level of understanding on the part of those that be hiring.
Re:Mundane Society (Score:3, Insightful)
The last thing we need is for mundane society to catch up with the trend...
Yes, what he said. Please, for the love of God, do not spread knowledge! Keep us elites strong, and let the masses rot! The last thing we want is an economy that can keep up. When the ship goes down, I want to be the rat sitting on the tallest mast.
College isn't free. The people who go to college who seek only knowledge are already elite enough to be able to pay for it. The people who educate themselves don't need to go to college to learn this stuff. So once again you assume all those college degrees have helped the economy or the internet ecosystem and they haven't. The only thing it has done was raise the barrier of entry. Now any kid who has talent and knowledge will be ignored in favor of the mediocre kid from mundane society with a degree or two.
Re:So what? (Score:4, Insightful)
and nowadays its more important that any knowledge of computing - once you know how to manage an outsourced team, you're golden. Who needs to know anything about actually doing anything after all.
Next week's lesson: how you never need to work again because your rising house price earns more than you do.
Re:Mis-use of college, if you ask me (Score:5, Insightful)
A friend of mine applied there, got an interview, and then was told no because he didn't know PHP, despite having a few years of Perl. Cause, you know, the sheet said PHP, and programming can't possibly just be programming, right?
That's not completely invalid, unless your friend was the only candidate.
Learning a new programming language is usually trivial. Learning all of the libraries, design ideas, best practices, hidden pitfalls, etc. around that language usually isn't. Hell, at an enterprise level I'm not an especially qualified Java developer today despite having a good 8 or so years of professional Java dev on my resume because so much of the constructs and practices around the language are constantly changing and I haven't done enough of it lately.
Sometimes someone who has the background to eventually learn how to do a job well is good enough -- but if you're competing with people who are ready to do it on day one because they do have the specific experience, don't be surprised if you don't get the offer.
Re:Mis-use of college, if you ask me (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, Philosophy wouldn't be bad, as you could appeal to their logic. Philosophers are usually pretty decent at that.
The problem is that HR is frequently filled with arts, media and 'communication studies' graduates who fervently believe that as long as they keep talking and passing paper around, it'll all be alright.
They rarely have any idea of what the jobs they're advertising for are actually about, but hey, put a tick in the box, and what could possibly go wrong!
The biggest problem with HR is lots of power (they create the policies by which hirings and firings can be made), with very little accountability.
Re:It's college. (Score:4, Insightful)
More importantly, they come out of college knowing people they will need to know to get job referrals.
People Skills (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Specialization is not the future (Score:5, Insightful)
Being in IT, there are some concepts that just stand the test of time, regardless if it was the 90s and working with IRIX or today where one is using Nexus switches as SAN heads:
1: The concept of production equipment. This is a fact that a lot of people don't understand. Production machines don't get packages du jour installed on them. Any changes are well documented both to help other co-workers as well as for CYA reasons. This is a concept that a lot of people don't get until well-bloodied in the IT arenas. There is a reason why xroach and xbaby are likely not present on the production SAP cluster, and it is a good one.
2: The concept of the fact that sometimes a commercial product has a price tag, but it will more than pay for itself with time and effort saved. For example, I can cobble a backup solution together with rsync that all the machines on a network can dump to a device. Or I can use a chargeable backup product like Networker, NetBackup, TSM, or another utility that can do D2D2T, keep track of what media is where, generate recovery plans, ensure media is encrypted, and keep track of the rotation of media coming and going from Iron Maiden's offsite facility. For production critical stuff, the commercial program may cost a lot, but if deployed correctly, will be worth the price tag.
3: The concept of OS agnosticism. Yes, a person may like a certain platform, but in IT, various operating systems are best for different tasks.
4: Basic data center stuff. Don't store your beer in the CRAC ducts. Don't lift up the molly guard on the EPO switch as a joke because there is a chance of getting bumped and falling into it. Put the raised floor tiles back so the other people don't fall down. Don't use your tongue on the Ethernet cables to check for carrier because it corrodes contacts. Don't bring the 44 ounce Big Guzzles with lids that are not firmly in place. Same with uncovered coffee mugs. Don't stand on the racks to try to get something at the ceiling. Don't haul a 400 pound rack of Sun equipment with multiple disk arrays up the stairs because the elevator is slow. This is common sense stuff, but there are people who don't get this, and there is nothing worse than sitting in a server room as the room goes absolutely silent, since someone mashed the EPO button on a dare.
5: Common courtesy. Yes, someone may have root/Admin access, but if they are on systems they don't own trying to fix stuff, it causes big problems due to communication. If someone is on a system that isn't "theirs" and spots an issue, try communicating first.
6: Stuff changes. The days of remembering how easy and BSD-like SunOS 4.1.4 are long since past. Same with the days of SONET, dual-ring FDDI, ATM rings, and 4/16 mbps token ring networks. One has to adapt, remember the old stuff fondly, and realize that those technologies are history, replaced by Solaris, switched core/edge fabric, and cat 6a drops.
7: The ability to spend time wisely. There may be some issue that comes up that may take a lot of time to solve. However, it might be that that has to be handed over to someone else, or *GASP* company tech support must be called. Time for an IT person is precious, so tinkering with a problem may be fun, but it may land one into hot water as other things are left unfinished.
None of this stuff is taught in a classroom.
Re:Mis-use of college, if you ask me (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Most companies (Score:1, Insightful)
That's the point, sadly. They list impossible jobs, and when no one fits they can then hire on a visa or outsource to India -- much cheaper than hiring and training homegrown talent.
Re:Mis-use of college, if you ask me (Score:3, Insightful)
I hope you are not serious.
1. Colleges spend millions of dollars to advertise themselves as a way to get the best careers and make a ton of money.
2. Indrusty still has a lot of areas of R&D.
3. Odly enough people actually have jobs they like to do and end up doing a lot of good and making money at it too.
4. Accedemia is no more moral then indrustry. They still want all your money and will do anything to get it. At least if you work for industry you can get real work experience and change jobs.
Re:Mundane Society (Score:1, Insightful)
If you love studying CS then go to University and do it because you love it. Universities are meant to be about learning and research, not getting a career. As someone who went to a British University, studied CS and now works in an interesting software dev job I have to say that it was the best thing I ever did. If I can ever find an excuse to ditch working and go back to study further I'll do it.
But just remember, if you get there and you hate your degree, think about what you might like to do more because it's not worth wasting your time hating what you have to learn. It might turn out that switching degree or just dropping out and doing something else is what makes you happy.
Re:Mis-use of college, if you ask me (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes of course the IT industry needs an army of relatively mindless workers who can configure network switches or whatever skill you consider useful. You can earn a good living doing it and there's not really any reason to go to college for it. But the real work that matters (where they can't just drop another IT guy in the slot if you die) has been done by people who actually developed the theory behind the technology.
There's a lot of vitriol in your comment directed at academia, and I could open the fire hose back at you but I won't. Just know that engineer types like you are something of a joke in math/CS circles. Like a dusty farmer in overalls driving his tractor around feeling proud that he's doing something productive for society and disdaining the far-off castle-tower academics who just drain resources, while unknown to him the genetically modified seeds he's planting are increasing yields more than even inhuman hard work ever could. It's really a ridiculous image.
So keep plugging your network cables or whatever you do from your 40th percentile income bracket, and leave the thinking to people who went to college.
Re:Mis-use of college, if you ask me (Score:2, Insightful)
If you seriously believe that farmers are just a bunch of ignorant rubes who drive tractors around, plant seeds, and say, "Golly gee, I shore do hope it rains today," then you are an asshat.
www.onthefarmradio.com/Only_a_farmer.htm
Re:Mis-use of college, if you ask me (Score:1, Insightful)
"Just know that engineer types like you are something of a joke in math/CS circles."
Grow the fuck up already.
Re:Mis-use of college, if you ask me (Score:3, Insightful)
To be fair, the current staff already has knowledge of the company's business domain, practices, personnel, legacy projects, etc. that gives them value over a new hire.
That's all well and good, but new hires have skills outside of specific technologies as well. Those applicants can be completely discounted because they have Java rather than C# or PHP vs Perl. Project management, industry knowledge, and end user skills are viewed as inconsequential during the hiring process. Which is a shame because IT has a horrible reputation when it comes to managing projects and getting along with the rest of the business. Not to mention a fresh perspective can expose institutional blinders or introduce new techniques.
We all like to joke about job listings with skill requirements longer than a technology has existed, but the IT market has gotten super specialized over the last decade or so. Employers don't mind when it keeps staff from leaving, but they complain loudly when they can't find new hires with the exact skill set they want.
On the silly job posting front, I recently saw a job posting looking for experience with MS SQL 2005, 2008, and 2010. HR is going to have fun with that, I don't know anyone that would put SQL 2010 on their resume since there's no such thing. It's just what a few tech writers have dubbed SQL 2008 R2.