Looking to change IT roles (what would you train yourself in)?

[javastu99]

Hi,

This is my situation:
- Management degree (couple classes short of a minor in CS).
- Worked for a family software company (ERP software) from a teenager until college graduation (so I had a lot of programming/software experience). It was a COBOL environment.
- Worked the last 20 years in IT in the Business Intelligence field at a Fortune 1000 company so I have a ton of SQL, database and front-end tool experience (Business Objects).
- Have worked with ASP, ColdFusion and VBA when necessary but not a lot.
- I would peg my technical skills at medium (I understand the bits, the bytes, the hex, UNICODE, little indian/big indian, etc). I'm good for developing business applications but I certainly won't ever be at the develop operating system level.
- I have read about OO programming and I've easily understood what I've read but I haven't done any OO programming.

I'm currently at a point where I would like to get up to speed in one of the modern programming languages (.NET or Java or something else). I’m thinking of changing to a web application development role (tired of the BI space) or possibly something completely different (networking or mobile phone app development). I see lots of job trend stats that say networking is hot over the next 10+ years. And the mobile phone app development is obviously hot.

So here are my two questions...

1)
If you were going to retrain yourself for a completely different role in the IT world would you go for web programming, networking or something else (if something else what)?

2)
If you selected web programming what language would you choose Java? .NET (if so which .Net language)? Or another language (if another language what)? And which language is the easiest language to get up to speed in (I want to become as much of a guru as possible as quick as possible)?

Quick Note: I'm interested in positioning myself for employment for the next 20 years. I'm not interested in input like this language is better than this language because this language has WYSIWYG development functionality in it's IDE and this language's IDE doesn't. I would like input/opinions on what's up and coming, what's going to be hot for the 20 years, etc.

Thanks in advance for any input!!!

 

[Noway2]

These are tough questions. For what it is worth, here is my $0.02. Ultimately you need to do two things. One you need to find a way to differentiate yourself from the competition. In other words, "why should I hire YOU? What do you offer that is unique?" Second, you need to find something that you will enjoy doing.

With you skills in SQL, you may want to consider web application design. There seems to be an increasing trend for applications to be hardware independent and also going more towards a client - server model, but to operate dynamically. By dynamically, I mean information is passed back and forth across multiple layers of a network application but it appears seamless from the users standpoint. In this regard, the classic 3 tiered architecture, that relies on a database back end is very powerful.

Mobile is also a growing field and will likely continue to be. For that matter, embedded systems in general, not just phones and ipads will continue to be a hot growing area. There has been talk of the internet ready toaster for 15 years but it has yet to materialize. Even much larger "embedded" systems are barely internet capable yet, so there is a lot of room to grow.

Programming wise, focus on the fundamentals. It seems like most of the languages these days are all based upon standard C, but with extensions. The extensions are one of two flavors: text and scripting or objects. If you learn the basics of C you will have learned most of java, php, .net, C, C++, perl, and so forth. At least to the point where you could pick any of them up very quickly.

You mentioned Microsoft specific platforms, e.g. .net. This may be worth wile and it may not. It depends on your goals. Are they poised to be the dominant player for the next 20 years? Will they innovate somehow or are they going to become a has been?

I would consider avoiding becoming an IT /networking support person. I have seen plenty of "certified" people with many years under their belt become glorified PC technicians.

 

[hinesward]

You might be able to change roles within your current company. The most important factor is whether or not the people in that particular department like you.

Outside of that, I don't see much hope in changing roles. It sounds like you are over 40. And your past experience is going to mean absolutely nothing to anybody. The same goes for any training you pursue.

I don't know where you are. If you are in the USA, programming is dead. Everything that can be sent offshore will be sent offshore.

What is it about your current situation that has you dissatisfied?

It's very easy to get stuck in the "glorified PC tech" job. I am stuck there and will get out of the entire IT profession when I have the chance.

 

[tcsbiz]

Little and big Indian? How about little and big Endian?

One thing you mentioned is mobile phone apps. They are a dime a dozen and not worth pursuing. At least that's the way I look at it.

Who knows how to position yourself for the next 20 years? It's tough enough to do it for the next 5. The pace of change is very fast. Web development may be good but there's lots of those folks. What would you have to offer over those already doing it?

Sorry I couldn't be more help.

 

[javastu99]

Noway2
Thank you for the input!

hinesward
Regarding whether I'm liked or not: I'm well liked at my current place of employment.

Regarding why I'm dissatisfied: I'm simply not challenged anymore. Everything is "I've been there and done that". I'm not willing to move into a more challenging professional services role because it would require 90% travel. When I'm not challenged and not learning anything I can get bored and that can start to test my self-discipline to do a superior job.

Thanks for the input!

tcsbiz
Regarding Indian: Typo I meant endian.

Regarding what I would have to offer: That's a good question although I’m not worried about that much. That question can be posed anytime. What do I have to offer right now with my current skills over any other Business Intelligence resource? I think that comes down to selling yourself which is an entirely different conversation. I'm really looking for input on the right technology to go after. You are very right about the pace of change and predicting out five years.

Thanks for the input!

 

[tcsbiz]

javastu99,

I know it was a typo. I thought it was funny. No disrespect intended.

How about cloud computing? It seems to be a growing trend.

 

[Noway2]

You might find this site to be of interest:

http://www.ganssle.com/salsurv2009-pg1.htm

I think if there is going to be any sort of hot tech area for the foreseable future it is going to be in embedded. The other thing I see happening is a growth in the demand for data processing infastructure, i.e. data center growth and with it growth in the communications and power infastructures which are already being pushed to capacity, not to mention are falling behind, at least in the US. The desire for reliable computing equipment and reliable power is going to become a bigger issue at lower levels. Along with that one of the biggest growth opportunities will be in the ability to service this equipment and better yet - provide diagnostics to save the customer's money and prevent down time.

As a populace we are addicted to our tech gagets and these gadgets are getting much more sophisticated and require real time connections with streams of data. Think media (movies, tv, radio, news) on demand anywhere at any time. Think instant global communications, not just phone calls, from anywhere at any time. I don't think this is going to change any time soon.

I also see the gaming market continuing to grow strong, at least for the next several years. Anything entertainment oriented generally has $$ associated with it. This can be hard market to get into though.

 

[MDXer]

Having been in the BI world for around 10 years now, and seeing the growth in the amount of BI jobs and the type of projects I can say BI is booming right now. Is it you are bored with BI or are you bored with your BI implementation. If you have gone beyond true development and enhancement and are in more of a maintenance mode I could see one being bored.

Also you mentioned you have a BO implementation and having some exposure to the BO suite of tools a few years ago I could also see that resulting in boredom.

Professionally I find nothing greater than taking a set of requirements and building a working analytical application. I have and can do most things in BI (DW, OLAP Cubes, Reporting and ETL). I find applications that try to do the hard stuff inefficient and boring. I use the tools to accomplish the easy stuff and for the hard stuff I build it myself.

Maybe what you need is a new fresh BI project that doesn't use BO and is in active development.

 

[kmcferrin]

I was going to say, one of the biggest growth areas that my consulting company works in is the BI space. It's huge, and getting bigger by the day.

I find it unlikely that by moving from BI to something else that you would be able to ensure more longevity in your chosen profession. You might well be cutting it.

________________________________________
CompTIA A+, Network+, Server+, Security+
MCTS:Windows 7
MCSE:Security 2003
MCITP:Server Administrator
MCITP:Enterprise Administrator
MCITP:Virtualization Administrator 2008 R2
Certified Quest vWorkspace Administrator

 

[Welshbird]

I work in BI, and to be honest I have found the most interesting (and finacially helpful!) thing has been to gain business knowledge rather than technical knowledge.

When the data begins to mean real things you end up in a position to be designing different ways to look at it and different sets to meld together, and that ways lies progress!

Fee

"The cure for anything is salt water – sweat, tears, or the sea." Isak Dinesen

 

[traingamer]

I have to agree with Fee: business knowledge will likely move you faster than tech knowledge at this point in your career.

That being said, your SQL knowledge will never be obsolete.

I'm not much of an OO guy myself, but I'd say just pick a language to learn - much of what you learn will be transferable to the others. (Concepts, moreso than actual constructs, in some cases). If you're going the web route, try vb.net, since you have some background there or make the leap to C# or Java. I realize that I'm being remarkably vague, but exposure to any of them will be a plus. (Ignore the naysayers who tell you that pursuit of training won't help you.)


Greg
People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use. Kierkegaard

 

[jshurst]

I'm an ASP.NET developer so I'm very biased on this. IMO Java is dead (flame on! ;-) ). Just go to any job site and see what they have. There are probably tons of .NET jobs out there. .NET is also becoming more cross platform (check out Mono - OSX, linux).

I also feel that .NET is the most advanced programming platform out there (look at WCF - which is really impressive). Visual Studio is BY FAR the best development IDE out there (ok, I haven't checked out Apple's development tools, so they might be better...). There are many awesome free tools out there. In fact I just built an enterprise web application using Visual Web Developer and SQL Express (75 web pages, 2 web services, 100's of classes, 100's of stored procs).

So, if I were doing it again, I would go exactly the same route...ASP.NET (probably C# - most jobs are looking for this), SQL Server, AJAX - which is really just JavaScript).

And get some certs! They go a long way!

Regards,

J

P.S. I'm not a MS fanboy or anything, in fact I'm running Linux right now (LinuxMint). And sorry about the Java jab ...he asked for opinions though!