The creeping IT apocalypse

#1

Post by forrestbrazeal » Thu, Jan 17, 2019, 2:01 PM UTC

The creeping IT apocalypse
forrestbrazeal.com

Re: The creeping IT apocalypse

#2

Post by forrestbrazeal » Thu, Jan 17, 2019, 2:12 PM UTC

Author here - I'm serious when I say that I'm happy to be a sounding board if you're at a career crossroads. Twitter DMs are open @forrestbrazeal.

Re: The creeping IT apocalypse

#3

Post by mark_l_watson » Thu, Jan 17, 2019, 2:14 PM UTC

Nice blog, keep writing.

I manage a machine learning team and I also think that at least partially automated data curation and modeling will reduce the number of people required in my field. It might take 5 or 10 years, but I think it will happen.

I think you are spot on that IT and devops will take a hit. I look more at Heroku’s model that AWS and GCP as the future. That said AWS and GCP will keep getting more ‘Heroku like’.

Re: The creeping IT apocalypse

#4

Post by NikolaNovak » Thu, Jan 17, 2019, 2:20 PM UTC

forrestbrazeal wrote: post #2

Author here - I'm serious when I say that I'm happy to be a sounding board if you're at a career crossroads. Twitter DMs are open @forrestbrazeal.

I've been in IT (mostly the "Legacy" kind - Oracle/PeopleSoft ERP) for about 20 years now, and I fully empathize with the article. I've subconsciously, then consciously, had to keep "moving up" on the value scale, partially due to outsourcing and partially due to automation. From sysadmin type to infra architect, but then made a curious curve that still catches me by surprise into tech lead and now find myself in basically management. I struggle to understand what will give me better skills and career for future: developing people and org knowledge and experience, as I do in my current role, which just feels generic and not particularly useful to somebody who used to gobble technical manuals for fun (but apparently market finds value in technically knowledgeable people who can manage and communicate); or go back to my love of technical and get back hands-on... understanding it's an uphill battle at my age and may be a losing one with the amount of automation and "AI being around the corner (forever;)".

Re: The creeping IT apocalypse

#5

Post by munin » Thu, Jan 17, 2019, 2:28 PM UTC

This kind of change has also impacted me. It shows up when I'm trying to give students advice about starting their careers, and I realize that the first jobs I had (system administrator, SOC worker) have been replaced by robots. Especially in the SOC, I was a "Tier 1" analyst that would do monitoring (watching a bank of green lights waiting for one to turn red) and first level triage and analysis. This has been replaced by ML driven data processing systems.

So I think the apocalypse is double-bladed: while automation kicks a bunch of current workers out by making them immediately redundant, it also freezes out the next generation by removing entry level jobs and not really replacing them with anything equivalent. Meanwhile, universities and vocational ed programs won't get this memo for another ten years so they will continue to happily propel waves of students onto a set of closed and locked doors.

Re: The creeping IT apocalypse

#6

Post by vinceguidry » Thu, Jan 17, 2019, 2:32 PM UTC

I'm waiting for it to happen to web dev so that companies can find something else to fixate on so I can go do that.

Companies are always going to follow the latest trends and it's always going to take smart people to follow them. I'm not worried about my ability to make a living. I just can't wait to see what comes.

Re: The creeping IT apocalypse

#7

Post by lunchables » Thu, Jan 17, 2019, 2:37 PM UTC

forrestbrazeal wrote: post #2

Author here - I'm serious when I say that I'm happy to be a sounding board if you're at a career crossroads. Twitter DMs are open @forrestbrazeal.

This is exceptional writing. It's concise, clear and engaging with a really clear call to action but not defeatist like so much writing regarding this issue.

Re: The creeping IT apocalypse

#8

Post by forrestbrazeal » Thu, Jan 17, 2019, 2:40 PM UTC

lunchables wrote: post #7

forrestbrazeal wrote: post #2

Author here - I'm serious when I say that I'm happy to be a sounding board if you're at a career crossroads. Twitter DMs are open @forrestbrazeal.

This is exceptional writing. It's concise, clear and engaging with a really clear call to action but not defeatist like so much writing regarding this issue.

Thank you, that's very kind!

Re: The creeping IT apocalypse

#9

Post by te_chris » Thu, Jan 17, 2019, 2:42 PM UTC

I'm advertising for 2 roles at the moment: a Senior Backend engineer and a Junior Frontend (in London, UK). Almost impossible to find someone for the backend role, but I've had to turn off the advertising as I've had 71 people apply for the junior frontend role. The mix is fascinating, a lot of ex-bootcampers, some CS grads, some self-taught people, but all of them are desperate for a shot to get into our industry. I've found this quite worrying as a signal for what's happening in the wider economy.

Re: The creeping IT apocalypse

#10

Post by tjr225 » Thu, Jan 17, 2019, 2:45 PM UTC

It would be interesting to know the growth of employees at the cloud providers relative to the number of IT employees at non-cloud-provider companies over time.

I wonder how much of this is simply a consolidation of talent and resources?