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In-demand tech skills are the last thing to look for in IT hires

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Re: In-demand tech skills are the last thing to look for in IT hires

#31

Post by nonameiguess »

blueslurpee wrote: post #7

>Sure, in the ’80s, it might have been possible for one person to do it all: systems administration, database, coding, design. But in today’s world, database administrators, infrastructure engineers, coders, designers, project managers and others — whether on staff, on contract or with a vendor or service provider — must work together to execute projects quickly, securely and reliably. Tech today is a team sport. I f…

It specifically says in what you quoted "or with a vendor or service provider." If you're able to get away with only hiring people who don't understand the intricate details of filesystem drivers, overlay networks, and hardware virtualization because you just consume your infrastructure from a cloud provider, you're included in "team sport," where your team includes the cloud provider who hires a whole bunch of people with expertise totally different from your company. WhatsApp didn't stand up its own networks or build its own phones. It stood on the shoulders of giants who knew how to do that.

Re: In-demand tech skills are the last thing to look for in IT hires

#32

Post by softfalcon »

blueslurpee wrote: post #7

>Sure, in the ’80s, it might have been possible for one person to do it all: systems administration, database, coding, design. But in today’s world, database administrators, infrastructure engineers, coders, designers, project managers and others — whether on staff, on contract or with a vendor or service provider — must work together to execute projects quickly, securely and reliably. Tech today is a team sport. I f…

I want to preface my thoughts with that I wish the "team sport" mentality was more common in the dev world.

Unfortunately, I have to agree with blueslurpee here. I frequently join a team and find there are 1 or 2 devs who "know everything" and it is near impossible to pull the information out of their heads and into mine or someone else.

This might be isolated to the areas I work in, but I do find that the "10x engineer" myth seems to live on and prosper in far too many teams I've worked on. Despite how discouraging it is for the rest of us who want to play a "team sport".

Re: In-demand tech skills are the last thing to look for in IT hires

#33

Post by theshadowknows »

Oddskar wrote: post #23
pjmlp wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We had APIs since Sun RPC, they just keep being rebooted. The 2021 version is REST/gRPC for SaaS products.

REST? Didn't you get the memo? We've all moved on to GraphQL because Facebook use it and that means we all should use it. It also enables our UI components to easily fetch data themselves . Because that's a great architectural pattern that we've discovered.

I was on a call just yesterday about how we should consider moving from one solution to another simply because the new one 'uses graphql which is so much easier and so much more powerful'

Re: In-demand tech skills are the last thing to look for in IT hires

#34

Post by blueslurpee »

blueslurpee wrote: post #7

>Sure, in the ’80s, it might have been possible for one person to do it all: systems administration, database, coding, design. But in today’s world, database administrators, infrastructure engineers, coders, designers, project managers and others — whether on staff, on contract or with a vendor or service provider — must work together to execute projects quickly, securely and reliably. Tech today is a team sport. I f…

Some interesting & fruitful replies in here. There is definitely some nuance that deserves to be unpacked. Yes, a well-oiled team with competent leadership and an effective culture can do more than an individual alone.

However the premise of their statement is that it used to be more feasible for one person to "do it all", whereas now things have transitioned towards a more team-oriented environment.

I observe this trend patently in reverse.

Re: In-demand tech skills are the last thing to look for in IT hires

#36

Post by coding123 »

zerkten wrote: post #27
Oddskar wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We didn't have APIs 10 years ago? I agree with the article. As we build more complex products we need to be more specialized and work together. Maybe not the case if one is working at a startup trying to cobble something together that looks like a working product by customers and investors.

It's not that we didn't have APIs, but it's the reality that they have penetrated every sector beyond early-to-medium adopters. Even regulated companies are moving to the cloud and using public web services at this point. Ten years ago these companies would have been playing around with these things for sure, but not using them for their core business. This is creating demand for generalists within that huge section…

Yes, this is more accurate. 10 years ago most of the stuff was JSPs / JSFs and other UI+Backends that were fused by it's platform.

Re: In-demand tech skills are the last thing to look for in IT hires

#38

Post by blueslurpee »

nonameiguess wrote: post #31
blueslurpee wrote: post #7

>Sure, in the ’80s, it might have been possible for one person to do it all: systems administration, database, coding, design. But in today’s world, database administrators, infrastructure engineers, coders, designers, project managers and others — whether on staff, on contract or with a vendor or service provider — must work together to execute projects quickly, securely and reliably. Tech today is a team sport. I f…

It specifically says in what you quoted "or with a vendor or service provider." If you're able to get away with only hiring people who don't understand the intricate details of filesystem drivers, overlay networks, and hardware virtualization because you just consume your infrastructure from a cloud provider, you're included in "team sport," where your team includes the cloud provider who hires a whole bunch of peopl…

Well said, I agree with you.

Re: In-demand tech skills are the last thing to look for in IT hires

#39

Post by Jensson »

wvenable wrote: post #21
Jensson wrote: post #10

> A good technologist has grace. He will respectfully probe for intent in a way that doesn’t put the requester on the defensive. He will make it clear that this is a partnership, and that getting the job done is high on his list of priorities — it’s just that he needs some information in order to do a good job for you. Sounds like a very toxic environment. What would put the tech worker that much on their toes, what…

People are people and many don't understand or are actively afraid of technology. They have jobs to do and if they don't know you, they may be skeptical about what you can do for them. They might even have been burned in past by developers who promise but don't deliver. Knowing how to talk to people to get your project done is a great skill.

> Knowing how to talk to people to get your project done is a great skill.

Right, so why would your company hire people who are so bad at talking to people that the developer has to go to such lengths to save that persons project? I wouldn't want to work there.

Re: In-demand tech skills are the last thing to look for in IT hires

#40

Post by SamoyedFurFluff »

ryanmarsh wrote: post #35

I’ll hire the crazy yet brilliant people any day of the week. It’s a leadership challenge and the work output is worth the time investment.

Genuinely asking what do you mean by crazy, because I think there’s a level of toxic that no leadership should be tolerating. (I’m thinking HR violating stuff like “can’t resist assaulting co workers”)
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