I have had reason to look at the job boards recently. I am struck by something: nearly all the jobs in the IT industry have a sameness to them: there is some list of acronyms that you are supposed to have had x years of experience with (sometimes x is longer than the technology has been available) and apply those acronyms to the job at hand.
There is very little room, it seems to me, for someone who has a deeper experience but who does not fit into the cookie mould.
There are several unfortunate consequences of this (apart from the obvious one): any business that seeks to differentiate themselves from the competition cannot do so effectively if they slavishly follow the deeply rutted road trod by those before them; and some of the hardest problems in the Industry have nothing to do with applying the latest technology to yesterday's problems.
One thing that I have learned in life (here he puts on his tri-cornered hat) is that there is always someone who will be faster than you, and there will also be people who are slower than you. Instead of trying to win the race, it might be better to think more carefully about what you really need.
It is also true that what you need may not be what is on offer at the local store.
But, it seems to me, the biggest problem in the IT industry is the relationship with its customers: the business community (shorthand for anyone who needs computers to do their work).
The gap between IT and business is famous; famously difficult and famously wide. Yet, you very rarely see 'able to cross the divide between IT and business' on a job listing; even on senior ones. That takes something other than acronym soup.
There is very little room, it seems to me, for someone who has a deeper experience but who does not fit into the cookie mould.
There are several unfortunate consequences of this (apart from the obvious one): any business that seeks to differentiate themselves from the competition cannot do so effectively if they slavishly follow the deeply rutted road trod by those before them; and some of the hardest problems in the Industry have nothing to do with applying the latest technology to yesterday's problems.
One thing that I have learned in life (here he puts on his tri-cornered hat) is that there is always someone who will be faster than you, and there will also be people who are slower than you. Instead of trying to win the race, it might be better to think more carefully about what you really need.
It is also true that what you need may not be what is on offer at the local store.
But, it seems to me, the biggest problem in the IT industry is the relationship with its customers: the business community (shorthand for anyone who needs computers to do their work).
The gap between IT and business is famous; famously difficult and famously wide. Yet, you very rarely see 'able to cross the divide between IT and business' on a job listing; even on senior ones. That takes something other than acronym soup.