41–50 of 81 posts
Sadly I don't think software engineering is one of the skillsets that will keep you employable, I think it's gone forever
but until then: full stack ML for business intelligence.
Your question is wrong. Your goal should not to be employable, 'get gigs'. We live in a time where the job market is shrinking, jobs are fewer, more applicants, lower wages, etc. If you rely on employers for your livelihood you are buying a lottery ticket where the payout is smaller and less frequent. If you are a "follower" you have no choice. But if you can think your way out of a paper bag use that skill and start…
What's the failure rate of startups - 90%? This is less risky than a slightly crowded job market where there's still millions of jobs?
To ensure employment either be a specialist (so you can do something others can't), or choose an older technology that used to be popular but isn't now. Most developers will have moved on, and now you can do the thing others don't want to learn anymore. Is it glamorous? Does it pay top dollar? No and no, but it is a very secure income. I'm not suggesting you start doing COBOL. Think more along the line of Java, which…
All of the Eastern European IT diaspora folks in recent years are hardcore Java guys, I find. The Western world should have no shortage of Java experts for the foreseeable future.
Your question is wrong. Your goal should not to be employable, 'get gigs'. We live in a time where the job market is shrinking, jobs are fewer, more applicants, lower wages, etc. If you rely on employers for your livelihood you are buying a lottery ticket where the payout is smaller and less frequent. If you are a "follower" you have no choice. But if you can think your way out of a paper bag use that skill and start…
My advice is work for a big company and put in your 40 and no more if possible. Ride that to retirement.
Or grind your ass off for a decade with minimal returns and possible ruin.
Anyway. My current contracts are set to end dec 2024, so to start warming up I had a talk with a recruiter just yesterday, and basically asked the same as you “what is in high demand currently? Are there some specific skills that everybody is asking for?”
She said:
- Always a need for architects, esp with integrations focus. Public sector clients ask for TOGAF sigh
- Data infrastructure people is apparently in high demand. Not my thing so didn’t probe further into that
- Infosec and cybersec, clients take all they can find. For infosec she mentioned ISO27001 and NIS2 is highly requested. For cybersec “practical experience” was primarily requested, but I know the respected certs like OSCP sells.
I’m in EU which is probably some of the reason for the demand for *sec people atm. Infosec due to new regulations like NIS2 etc, and cybersec due to Ukraine war and elevated threat level from Russia (but also generally elevated activity).
What she said fits pretty well into what I hear from other contacts as well. She also confirmed what you are saying that many clients are reluctant to hire at the moment, and when they do it’s specialists not generalists.
So for 5-10 years I’d say architecture (more to the technical side, not the EA side). And security. I don’t think security is going away any time soon. Edit: to be more specific on security - it’s a very big field and my understanding is that most subfields are in high demand and will continue to be. This site [1] has a very good overview and shows what’s in the different subfields. Too much to write about here but it should enable you to find more specifics.
Where are you based just out of curiosity?
DBA has been reinvented as DBRE. It’s essentially still the same job, except you also have to know how to wrestle YAML, HA/DR, and create meaningful SLIs / SLOs. But if you like getting your hands dirty with the internals of DBs, hoo boy are there jobs. My last interview run, I had a 50% callback rate (n=10), plus some extras where the recruiter hit me up on LinkedIn.
The job can and should entail Linux ops knowledge, so if you aren’t great at that, learn it to a great detail. Somewhat obscure things like filesystem and kernel tuning are helpful.
I say can and should because yes, if all you deal with are managed DBs, you can pretend Linux doesn’t exist – but it does, and it’s enormously helpful to have a good handle on concepts like IOPS (including how latency affects it, and how ops requests can be batched by the kernel [and EBS FWIW], etc.).
Switch careers and take a job with outdoors recreation stuff. It'll last you at least 5 years and is at least partially resistant to AI and robots.
If I was still in my 30s or younger I'd probably look into becoming an electrician or a plumber - the pay is good, lots of demand as older generation is retiring now, and it's going to be difficult to automate those jobs at least for the next ~20 years especially for older construction where things are often not very standard. That would get you into your late 50s at least.
I think its a precarious time to be in tech. Generally in the labor market, you want to become as much of a specialist as humanly possible. But inevitably, most software jobs will be outsourced or replaced by AI over time.
I think the ideal is to be a specialist in some intersection of technology that requires human oversight.
Like front-end engineer with experience with FDA regulated x,y,z. UI/UX engineer for automotive interfaces.
If you want to jump on the next "AI" wave, I personally would love to jump onto robotics, but there are way more qualified folks in that domain :)