The New Road

Tech Jobs

The tech market is tough. I know you may not think so because it sounds super cushy to work sitting down all day pecking away at a computer, but it is a really competitive job market and work place.

I was thinking about it this morning and it looks a lot like a lilly pond that you have to get across. In the beginning the lilly pads were large and weren't moving very fast. Now the stream has a constant current and the lilly pads are small, unstable, and set wide apart.

First, the hiring market in tech is now all about the details. In a response to a flood of resumes employers have become increasingly picky. They use programs to sift through the resumes to look for just those that match very specific criteria.

Counterbalance that with the constant demand in the industry to change. Now, I am a huge fan of life-long learning. I read books and try new stuff constantly. But that isn't enough. You have to be an industry analyst because it's important to pick the right small experience niche. If EJB/BMP is going to be next years big thing you better find a way to get your employer to use that now because you will need experience in it next year.

It used to be that the computer industry was so small that employers were happy to train you in their niche. That way you could jump from pad to pad and learn lots of new skills. Now, they want you to have everything and more, specifically relevant to them, the moment you walk in the door. Which makes those pads really small and the risks of jumping a lot larger.

Plus there are the personal considerations. For example, I would like to retire by the time I'm sixty, and I don't want to jump each year, twenty-five more times. Plus there is the commute, moving and the kids to think about. So while you job may require pervasive change, your outside work life is probably change averse.

Which brings me to kids. We expect a love of change in our workforce, but yet we teach kids using constant repetition. And we consider a stable consistent environment important for proper development. These two goals seem at far distant odds. So where do we expect this love of change to come from? "Happy 18th birthday Johnny, here are the keys to your new car, and a love of change." "Thanks, Mom".

Again, I'm blessed with a hankering for knowledge, a passion for life long learning. But that appears not be enough. Or is it? I question the value of constant change in the workplace. If anything, the applications I have worked on could use more consistency and rigor, not more of the constant play of requirements. In fact, I can't think of a single market place that would find constant change desirable. Can you imagine if you went into your local bookshop and every day they had a different setup with the books all re-arranged in different ways? You would never go back.

But hey, your local bookstore isn't a startup, right? Well, I've worked at startups and what passes for constant change is really just the CEO reading the WSJ every morning and coming in with some hair brained scheme about how to capitalize on some market initiative. Which is silly because even tech companies can't move fast enough to change with daily trends. This constant change activity simply means that the person at the tiller of the boat is constantly being distracted and it's up to the grunts to steer the steady course. The end result is that if you want to ship products in your life time you need to embrace constant change for appearances sake, but in the end hold the course fast on your project so that you can actually get something done.

Anyway, I'm not sure how this went from a job rant to a who moved my cheese rant. But I hope you see the Lilly Pad metaphor, since it's a good one. The slow but steady pace of change in the industry, the outsourcing, the ageism, and the narrowing of job skills make for a treacherous environment. And one false step can put you in the water, where, if you stay there too long the pads will move on without you and you will never be able to get back up again.