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My sister, Josi, recently graduated from USC with a degree in biochemical engineering. She's crazy smart, has a great personality, is hard-working and is genuinely a fun person to be around. After interning with Solstice last year, she made the decision to forgo her biochemical career and go into IT. She starts at Accenture, my alma mater, in a few weeks.
A couple weeks ago, she asked me, what area of IT should she focus in? Where should she start? What entry level role should she try to target in her first project? Programmer? Business Analyst? Project Coordinator? What technology should she focus in? ERPs? Distributed Apps? Infrastructure? What industries should she target? Financial Services? Retail? Healthcare?
What an amazing and yet extremely difficult question. Here is a young mind, about to start her career, with all the potential anyone could ask for, and she's made the decision to jump into the increasingly complicated world of IT. I thought about her question and to be frank, I'm torn. With an aging IT workforce, should she jump into Project Coordination to start shoring up her management skills early? With the increasing trend of offshoring, should she focus on Business Analysis, since those jobs will most likely stay domestic? Should she jump into Programming like I did, so she gets first-hand exposure and understanding of the complexities of systems development?
It really is an interesting conundrum and I would like to hear your thoughts. If you were me, what would you tell my sister? And in the same vein, if you're in a hiring position, what are you looking for from kids coming out of college? What is the makeup of the 2010 IT Leader? Is it the hard core computer scientist or the marketing major with a passion for technology? What should/will the IT workforce look like in the US 10 years from now?
Please put your thoughts in the comments below, I'll consolidate the feedback and post a follow up message in a few weeks.
And to you and yours, Happy New Year!
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10 comments:
Hi J-
I hope all is well for you.
Thanks for including me on this.
With an engineering degree she is fit to move on into any career she wants to as she has proven she can push through a challenging curriculum.
I was given the advice that it is good to be a specialist in something. This person compared it to doctor’s practice. There was the General Practitioner and over time doctors became specialist in every area of the anatomy. So now I am passing it on to you.
The main drawback with programming is that I can see a lot of that going off-shore. From my perspective I have had much success (so far) with infrastructure. It seems to me that security specialist at every level would be in demand on the ground here and abroad. A CISSP might be a good beginning and if she wanted to really dive into the engineering side there is the Security CCIE, Unix Security and even an MCSE with a concentration in security.
My thinking is that infrastructure is part of every company and new threats are constantly emerging. SOPs have to be written and kept current (which means being constantly revisited). While the folks off-shore are as capable as the specialists here in the US companies might view an off-shore resource as a governance issue if they feel the information about their company is floating around China or India. It might be the case that when it comes to security they would feel more comfortable dealing with an American firm where laws and liabilities are a bit more defined.
In all truth I do not know what the laws are as far as dealing with overseas support and auditing but I am sure that many would feel more comfortable with teir sensitive security information staying CONUS (Continental US).
Technologies will come and go however; companies will always have to secure their technology and intellectual assets.
I hope this helps.
Have a happy new year.
Hey J,
Glad to hear things are going well for you. As for your sister, she is in a great spot right now. I am actually going back to school to study HCI (Human Computer Interaction) and feel very passionate about the possibilities and implications of user interfaces in the health industry for reporting super realtime life critical data. I think that with the advent of gesture interfaces and soon more pervasive display mechanisms (like flexible displays and projections) that the health industry will very quickly capitalize on these mechanisms. This coupled with the fact that like IBM Accenture create an entire practice around health and Accentures work on large gesture displays in their R&D means they are well suited to move into a high risk, high return area. If I were your sister with her biochem background this would be the area I would dive into ;) Visualization of data is everything. Read up on Edward Tufte and Garr Reynolds.
I hope this helps provide some perspective, I'm no expert but have always followed my passion and have not been wrong yet.
Take care
paul
I have a very positive outlook for the IT industry even with more jobs going offshore. A couple of points to think about.
1. Though at times it may seem to be maturing, the Internet is absolutely in its infancy. Web 2.0 has taken apps to the next level, but it certainly doesn't stop there. The semantic web is getting a lot of traction. I wouldn't even venture a guess what services on the Web will be like 5 to 10 years from now.
2. The software industry continues to grow. This is partially fueled by the Internet and also because more and more products have software in them. Look at the cellphone space and the craze the iPhone has created. There are now over 10,000 applications available for the iPhone. And the mobile market hasn't even taken off in IT yet. And it's not just phones. TVs are now computers - how will that space develop in the next few years.
3. Software development is still evolving at a fast pace. One approach to saving money is taking a project offshore. But at what cost in terms of creativity and innovation? New web development frameworks like Ruby on Rails take an entirely different slant -- give a smart, experienced developer the right tools and plugins, and achieve 10X productivity gains. But since agile techniques are promoted, creativity and innovation are enhanced, not stifled!
Our industry will continue to have a high demand for intelligent and passionate people. Whatever Josi decides to do, tell her to be exceptional at it!
Great question indeed!
I'm voting for Business Analyst since it's the one position which is nearly impossible to off-shore. The business analyst must have direct access to the clients and to the business.
There are quite a good number of specializations for a business analyst (some more and some less technical).
Here's a list of business analyst roles.
A couple of other hot areas seem to be:
- Business Process Management (BPM)
- Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) & Web Services
- Security
Best regards,
Adrian
Hi J,
Even with the current off-shoring trend, there is still a demand for talented IT professionals here in the US.
I think starting out with a programming background is the way to go. You will be a better BA or PM having been technical at some point. You can always move into those roles at a later time. Starting out technical opens up more opportunities and is sometimes more enjoyable and creative.
From a technology standpoint I would focus on any of the following:
-Web 2.0
-SOA and Data Integration
-Mobile development
Hope this helps!
I think that beyond the typical qualities that a leader must possess, they need to have content knowledge in their domain to demand respect, make decisions, and guide a team/organization in the right direction.
Managers in IT that don't have hands on experience developing the same products they are now trying to manage the development of become facilitators and not leaders. They become the people who can go through a checklist of best practices and deliverables and talk about how important those best practices and deliverables are, but have no ability to understand whether they are being followed well on their project. I don't want these type of people to lead my development projects.
Folks that have programmed, have stayed up at night trying to debug their code, that know the pain of a failed build, have run through every possible test condition in unit test, have worked with their clients on requirements, have executed a deployment, have experienced a user's pain in production support - those are the folks I want leading my development team. Over a few years, they will have technical experience and gain the experience necessary to run large projects and will be much more valuable to me as a result.
So, you can probably tell that I think your sister should get into programming. Getting into programming doesn't mean she stays in programming for the rest of her life. But if she doesn't, how is she going to lead a team of developers in the future?
As someone entry level into the industry, I don't think specialization at this point is important. A few years of experience in the basics will give her the foundation for specialization later on.
"Project Coordinator"? Please.
Hi J,
Thanks for thinking of me in regard to Josi's situation.
This is an excellent question - and not one with easy answers. As a 20 year veteran in the IT field, I truly believe that there are wonderful opportunities in IT in the United States for people like Josi.
In terms of what she "should do" - the best next step would be for her to identify a technical area that seems interesting to her and focus on that for the next few years. Programming is excellent as it will provide her with "street cred" with the developers in future if she decides to move into any kind of management. She'll be able also to better bridge the still present chasm between tech departments and the rest of the business.
Having said that, business analysis is also a great way to go. The key is to choose an area she can enjoy.
IT leaders now require flexibility, cultural sensitivity, extreme common sense and the ability to foster a learning, productive environment. They need to be able to constantly lead their teams to produce results that improve the bottom line.
The new people entering the field encourage me with their passion. Let's hope that we who have been here for a while can provide the mentoring for them to become as great as they can be.
Thanks!
Alec
Hi J,
Congrats to your sister. I would encourage her to leverage the portions of the engineering degree that were data oriented and go deep with data modeling/analysis. This is timeless knowledge with a good ROI for the start of a career. Avoid the market forces pushing to specialize in a technology. These mostly have terrible ROI's and make it extremely difficult in consulting to get out of the box once you're an 'expert'. Related to this, she should find a powerful mentor as soon as possible. I had a mentor running staffing interference for me early on who helped me avoid a death sentence in lotus notes specialization. Lastly, she should try to go as broad as possible in terms of industry experience. Her ability to innovate 5 years from now will come from recognizing patterns from other industries and applying them in the one she falls in love with.
J,
I do not have a reason for such a delayed response, so I apologize. First the disclaimer: I have been writing code since grammar school.
I think the best foundation for an IT career is software development using one of the more widely used languages (C++, C# or java). The industry is not important at the lower levels of development. My reasoning is that no matter what else you do, business analysis, project management or even product management, starting in software development gives you a solid base because you are working directly on the end product. Writing code professionally for even 18 months gives you a "feel" that allows you to ask the right questions and see missing elements as you take on non development roles.
What do I look for in kids coming out of college? Primarily evidence of three things 1) Verbal Communication skills. 2) Passion for technology. 3) Playing well with others.
Verbal communication skills are important because it does not matter how smart you are if you cannot effectively convey that intelligence and its results to other people. There will soon no longer be very many places in technology for the smart person that sits in the corner and does not talk to people.
If you are going to be in technology, you have to have a passion for it because aggressive, continuous learning is essential. Technology changes so frequently you have to study it outside of work just to stay average. If you want to be above average, it requires a level of work that would be hard to reach if you are not passionate about technology.
"Playing well with others" may sound like a line on a kindergarten report card, but technology roles are now requiring contact with more diverse departments (business development, finance, sales, etc.) than ever. This means it is necessary to know of and be comfortable with the languages and styles of departments other than technology. People in technology cannot speak in technical terms and acronyms and expect others to understand. Also it is necessary to very clearly understand the goals of business because often the best technological solution is not the best business solution.
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