July 23, 2007 at The most promising IT skills and professions
- Transfer
Continuing the theme of the endangered professions in the IT field , the journalist Mary Brandel, based on the results of the conversation with the specialists of recruitment agencies, made another list - these are the most demanded skills and IT specialties in the American labor market.
“What I see in Silicon Valley is completely contrary to the belief that the software profession in America is becoming extinct due to offshore programming,” said Kevin Scott, Google’s senior program manager and founder and member of several professional and educational Commissions of the Association of Computing Engineering (ACM). “From large corporations to startups, all companies recruit employees as aggressively as possible.”
Many recruiters admit that there are more open positions on the market than they can fill. According to Kate Keyser, an assistant professor at the IT department at Marquette University in Milwaukee, students sign up for jobs before they graduate. In January, Keyser interviewed 34 final year students in the group of systems analysis and design, where she teaches, and it turned out that 24 of them have already accepted “job offers” (as they call the preliminary offer of a job contract in America) from employers. This despite the fact that before graduation, almost six months remained. “I’m sure that the other ten, who didn’t have contracts then, have probably already got a job today,” says Kate.
The market for IT professionals is very “hot”, but only for those with the right skills. If you want to catch the wave, listen to what eight experts interviewed by us say about the most promising professions and skills of the future, including recruiters, programming teachers, computer science professors, and other experts.
1. Machine Learning
As more and more companies are developing programs for social filtering, spam filtering and fraud recognition in large volumes of data, some experts see a rapid increase in the demand for machine learning specialists who can develop algorithms and techniques to improve computer performance.
Kevin Scott says: “This is not just a case of Google. There are many applications that work with large, large, large amounts of data, which creates a fundamental problem: how to organize this data and present it to users. "
Demand for such applications requires skills in data mining, statistical modeling and data structuring, among others. “You can't just pick up and shrug off some of these problems,” Scott explains, “because the data structures or algorithms you choose determine whether you get a reasonable solution to the problem or not.”
You can learn machine learning either from work experience or through specialized higher education. No matter where you learn the profession, companies grab such specialists as fast as they can.
2. Mobilization of applications
The race to provide mobile access to content is reminiscent of the wild times of the Internet boom of the 90s. As devices like BlackBerry and Treo are increasingly used as business tools, companies will need specialists to port existing business applications such as ERP, supply systems and cost management to PDAs.
3. Wireless networks
WiFi, WiMax and Bluetooth standards are gaining real popularity, so many companies are looking for intelligent security professionals. Since a whole bunch of wireless technologies are currently used, you need to dock them together and make sure that such a hybrid solution is safe, since the risks here are much higher than in the case of wired networks.
However, no one will hire an employee exclusively as a “wireless technician”. Companies require network administrators with the appropriate specialization.
4. Human Machine Interfaces
Another area that will experience a boom in the near future is the design of interfaces and human-machine interaction systems for the web and desktop PCs. Over time, the industry realized that using crappy interfaces wasn’t normal, and thanks to companies like Apple, users are increasingly getting used to well-designed, high-quality interfaces, so they require the same quality from other software products.
5. Project management Project
managers have always been in great demand, but with increasing budget requirements and project success, managers who know what they are doing are very needed. In the job descriptions, the phrases “a real project manager is required” begin to appear, and not just a person with such a nominal status.
This is a big difference, even compared to last year, when anyone could easily take the position of project manager. Now the process of interviewing such candidates has become much stricter.
Some recruiters during interviews carefully check candidates, studying their experience in solving particular situations, including the distribution of responsibilities of conflicting units or problem solving. What interests me is the real experience of conflict management, and not the theory of conflict resolution obtained from textbooks.
6. General network administration skills
No matter what position you are in IT, you can no longer avoid working with networks, which is why this skill has become critically important for non-network professionals, including programmers. They must understand the basics of network technologies, at least the necessary minimum, that is, TCP / IP, Ethernet and fiber, and also have experience in distributed and network computing.
There is an acute shortage of specialists who can write applications for data centers. They need to know how to efficiently parallelize processes and create software designs adapted to the network structure. People who understand the basic principles of distributed systems are very much appreciated.
7. Network Convergence Techniques
As many companies deploy VoIP systems, there is an increasing need for network administrators who are versed in any type of network: LAN, WAN, voice, Internet, and how they can be combined together.
In the case when it is necessary to solve a specific problem, companies do not want to hear the phrase “oh, this is a problem of telephone lines” from the network administrator, but “call the network administrator” from the telephone technician. There is a huge demand for specialists from the world of telecoms, who also understand what a computer network is, or for those who administer computer networks, but understand voice networks and know how to perform convergence.
8. Open source programming
Employers are increasingly willing to hire a free software developer. Although some people may think that the time of open source programmers has already passed, in reality it is returning even on a large scale in various areas of programming: both at the operating system level and in application development. Employees with experience working with Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP, collectively called LAMP, are in great demand.
According to some experts, the reason for this phenomenon is users ’dissatisfaction with the level of proprietary software and security problems with it, especially at the OS and DBMS level.
9. Business intelligence systems
Business intelligence systems are also experiencing some momentum in their development, which is why there is a demand for specialists who can work with technologies such as Cognos, Business Objects and Hyperion.
Companies make significant investments in business analytics, but they don’t need the usual techniques that write scripts and queries. To become an advanced data mining specialist, you need a thorough functional knowledge of the business that you will be analyzing. People who are specialists in both industries (both business and technology) are by far the most sought-after specialists in the United States.
10. Built-in security systems
Security professionals have been in demand over the past few years, but today relevant skills and certifications are required in many professions, not only in the field of security. In almost every job that has been found recently, the word "security" is found. Employers require creating a safe environment in any case - whether a person administers a mail server or is developing a new software application. This becomes part of the standard employee requirements.
The trend is the end-to-end integration of security systems in the daily activities of the company. Of course, security specialists are still needed, but now their role is gradually distributed among all employees of the company.
11. Integration of digital home technology
The home of the average American is increasingly turning into a digital paradise, in the adjacent markets of digital audio and video equipment - a real boom, as well as in the markets of home security systems and automated lighting systems. But who installs all these systems and repairs them in the event of a breakdown?
To answer this question, the American computer association CompTIA initiated the certification of specialists in a new specialty: Digital Home Technology Integrator. It is one of the fastest growing markets in recent years.
12. .Net, C #, C ++ in Java environment
Recruiters and course teachers talk about the mass of orders for programmers in a variety of programming languages and environments, including ASP.Net, VB.net, XML, PHP, Java, C # and C ++, but employers need more than just an encoder that works independently. They need someone who knows Java, but is also able to work as a lead programmer or project coordinator.
“What I see in Silicon Valley is completely contrary to the belief that the software profession in America is becoming extinct due to offshore programming,” said Kevin Scott, Google’s senior program manager and founder and member of several professional and educational Commissions of the Association of Computing Engineering (ACM). “From large corporations to startups, all companies recruit employees as aggressively as possible.”
Many recruiters admit that there are more open positions on the market than they can fill. According to Kate Keyser, an assistant professor at the IT department at Marquette University in Milwaukee, students sign up for jobs before they graduate. In January, Keyser interviewed 34 final year students in the group of systems analysis and design, where she teaches, and it turned out that 24 of them have already accepted “job offers” (as they call the preliminary offer of a job contract in America) from employers. This despite the fact that before graduation, almost six months remained. “I’m sure that the other ten, who didn’t have contracts then, have probably already got a job today,” says Kate.
The market for IT professionals is very “hot”, but only for those with the right skills. If you want to catch the wave, listen to what eight experts interviewed by us say about the most promising professions and skills of the future, including recruiters, programming teachers, computer science professors, and other experts.
1. Machine Learning
As more and more companies are developing programs for social filtering, spam filtering and fraud recognition in large volumes of data, some experts see a rapid increase in the demand for machine learning specialists who can develop algorithms and techniques to improve computer performance.
Kevin Scott says: “This is not just a case of Google. There are many applications that work with large, large, large amounts of data, which creates a fundamental problem: how to organize this data and present it to users. "
Demand for such applications requires skills in data mining, statistical modeling and data structuring, among others. “You can't just pick up and shrug off some of these problems,” Scott explains, “because the data structures or algorithms you choose determine whether you get a reasonable solution to the problem or not.”
You can learn machine learning either from work experience or through specialized higher education. No matter where you learn the profession, companies grab such specialists as fast as they can.
2. Mobilization of applications
The race to provide mobile access to content is reminiscent of the wild times of the Internet boom of the 90s. As devices like BlackBerry and Treo are increasingly used as business tools, companies will need specialists to port existing business applications such as ERP, supply systems and cost management to PDAs.
3. Wireless networks
WiFi, WiMax and Bluetooth standards are gaining real popularity, so many companies are looking for intelligent security professionals. Since a whole bunch of wireless technologies are currently used, you need to dock them together and make sure that such a hybrid solution is safe, since the risks here are much higher than in the case of wired networks.
However, no one will hire an employee exclusively as a “wireless technician”. Companies require network administrators with the appropriate specialization.
4. Human Machine Interfaces
Another area that will experience a boom in the near future is the design of interfaces and human-machine interaction systems for the web and desktop PCs. Over time, the industry realized that using crappy interfaces wasn’t normal, and thanks to companies like Apple, users are increasingly getting used to well-designed, high-quality interfaces, so they require the same quality from other software products.
5. Project management Project
managers have always been in great demand, but with increasing budget requirements and project success, managers who know what they are doing are very needed. In the job descriptions, the phrases “a real project manager is required” begin to appear, and not just a person with such a nominal status.
This is a big difference, even compared to last year, when anyone could easily take the position of project manager. Now the process of interviewing such candidates has become much stricter.
Some recruiters during interviews carefully check candidates, studying their experience in solving particular situations, including the distribution of responsibilities of conflicting units or problem solving. What interests me is the real experience of conflict management, and not the theory of conflict resolution obtained from textbooks.
6. General network administration skills
No matter what position you are in IT, you can no longer avoid working with networks, which is why this skill has become critically important for non-network professionals, including programmers. They must understand the basics of network technologies, at least the necessary minimum, that is, TCP / IP, Ethernet and fiber, and also have experience in distributed and network computing.
There is an acute shortage of specialists who can write applications for data centers. They need to know how to efficiently parallelize processes and create software designs adapted to the network structure. People who understand the basic principles of distributed systems are very much appreciated.
7. Network Convergence Techniques
As many companies deploy VoIP systems, there is an increasing need for network administrators who are versed in any type of network: LAN, WAN, voice, Internet, and how they can be combined together.
In the case when it is necessary to solve a specific problem, companies do not want to hear the phrase “oh, this is a problem of telephone lines” from the network administrator, but “call the network administrator” from the telephone technician. There is a huge demand for specialists from the world of telecoms, who also understand what a computer network is, or for those who administer computer networks, but understand voice networks and know how to perform convergence.
8. Open source programming
Employers are increasingly willing to hire a free software developer. Although some people may think that the time of open source programmers has already passed, in reality it is returning even on a large scale in various areas of programming: both at the operating system level and in application development. Employees with experience working with Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP, collectively called LAMP, are in great demand.
According to some experts, the reason for this phenomenon is users ’dissatisfaction with the level of proprietary software and security problems with it, especially at the OS and DBMS level.
9. Business intelligence systems
Business intelligence systems are also experiencing some momentum in their development, which is why there is a demand for specialists who can work with technologies such as Cognos, Business Objects and Hyperion.
Companies make significant investments in business analytics, but they don’t need the usual techniques that write scripts and queries. To become an advanced data mining specialist, you need a thorough functional knowledge of the business that you will be analyzing. People who are specialists in both industries (both business and technology) are by far the most sought-after specialists in the United States.
10. Built-in security systems
Security professionals have been in demand over the past few years, but today relevant skills and certifications are required in many professions, not only in the field of security. In almost every job that has been found recently, the word "security" is found. Employers require creating a safe environment in any case - whether a person administers a mail server or is developing a new software application. This becomes part of the standard employee requirements.
The trend is the end-to-end integration of security systems in the daily activities of the company. Of course, security specialists are still needed, but now their role is gradually distributed among all employees of the company.
11. Integration of digital home technology
The home of the average American is increasingly turning into a digital paradise, in the adjacent markets of digital audio and video equipment - a real boom, as well as in the markets of home security systems and automated lighting systems. But who installs all these systems and repairs them in the event of a breakdown?
To answer this question, the American computer association CompTIA initiated the certification of specialists in a new specialty: Digital Home Technology Integrator. It is one of the fastest growing markets in recent years.
12. .Net, C #, C ++ in Java environment
Recruiters and course teachers talk about the mass of orders for programmers in a variety of programming languages and environments, including ASP.Net, VB.net, XML, PHP, Java, C # and C ++, but employers need more than just an encoder that works independently. They need someone who knows Java, but is also able to work as a lead programmer or project coordinator.