Herouth Maoz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> I can use these 6 months to develop my skills in some other area of
> programming, and maybe even get some experience by participating in
> an open source project of some kind. What I'd like your advice on is
> - what directions are popular, have high demand, and can accommodate
> a programmer with lots of general experience, but not particular
> (other than the web)? Preferably ones that don't enslave people (no
> golden cages for the chance of becoming a millionaire).
Hi Herouth,
I don't have a direct answer to these questions, and what I'll write
may or may not sound practical. Here is an "heretical" thought: maybe
the best investment of effort over the next few months will not be
acquiring specific marketable skills. (Before I continue: it cannot
hurt!)
It may or may not sound surprising, but what you will do in your next
job may not be the most important thing. At least 2 other things look
much more important to me: who the people you will be working
with are, and whether the work will be interesting to you.
With normal qualifications with regards to the general job market
situation (which does not seem too bad at the moment) and your
personal financial circumstances, going to work for a company that
puts much emphasis on specific, ready-to-wear skills may not be the
best option. A company that will be ready to let you learn new skills
as you go, will look at you as a long term employee with potential in
many areas, will view *you*, rather than your present day skills and
knowledge, as the most important asset, will be worth joining. A
company that is more interested in your PHP (or whatever) skills than
your potential will be likely to see you as a disposable resource and,
assuming they will pay you well, will be more likely to be a "golden
cage" in the "we'll get so many KLOC/month of PHP from any number of
others who we can hire instead of you" sense. By the way, employers
who think like this often do so to their own detriment...
Where do you want to work? Where you will have many opportunities to
do and to learn new things? Or where you will be reusing what you
already know how to do? Where your colleagues and your managers keep
looking at new things all the time and when asked what they do do not
reply, "We write Java/PHP/Python/C code" but rather explain what
problem they are trying to solve and why it is important? Or where
they give candidates interview questions to check whether they know
operator precedence tables by heart, and the interview summary reads,
"The candidate is really smart, nice, has extensive general knowledge,
and has done many cool things, but she does not have 3 years of
experience in <insert a specific programming language, DB type,
whatever here> and thus is not suitable"?
How many companies are there who are looking for *people* rather than
*resources*? The percentage is definitely non-zero, and in the end you
don't need many, you need one at a time. It does not depend on the
size (3, 300, or 300,000 employees) or status (startup, public,
private) of the company - only on the people who run it and who work
there. How to find them? Tricky. But remember that the interview
process is not a one-way street. It's not the just the employer
grilling the candidate - the prospective employee should interview the
employer as well. If you do that and sense, in the process, that the
company representatives don't like the idea of being interviewed it is
probably not a good place to work at.
Anyway, to wrap it up, maybe the most important thing you can do in
the next 6 months is invest the time and the effort in trying to
identify potential employers who will hire you not for what you
already know but for what you can do for them in the future, medium to
long term. And in developing ways to sell yourself not as a simple
special purpose "resource" ("so many years of PHP experience plus I
have implemented all the kernel drivers from LDD3 with some
enhancements") but as a highly flexible, adaptible asset whose
"general experience" (I am quoting you) and knowledge will be valuable
in many different, and as yet unforeseen, situations. And in figuring
out what you *would like* to do (as opposed to what you know how to
do).
It is not about PHP, Python, or kernel programming. I do believe it
begins and ends with people. This may sound less practical than
developing specific skills to some, but - IMHO - that's only when you
think short term.
Best of luck,
--
Oleg Goldshmidt | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | http://www.goldshmidt.org
=================================================================
To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with
the word "unsubscribe" in the message body, e.g., run the command
echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
