programmer//Easiest Most Secure Job in the World

What keeps you up at night?

Things that used to keep me up at night…

• What if my job goes to India?• What if I learn the wrong technologies?• What happens when I turn 40?• What happens when the next recession comes

around?

Is my job going to India?

Global Programmer Salaries

* data from payscale.com

Programmer Salary Inflation Trend

Other Relevant Factors

• Overseas = overhead• Successful distributed development requires a

commitment to distribute stakeholders• China, India, Brazil are starting to have internal

economies (i.e. Flipkart in India), driving “offshore” software developer inflation even more

“At some point, we run out of countries to offshore to… and we are getting very close to that point”

-me

What if I can’t keep up?

Which is harder to learn?

Compared to real languages, computer languages are trivial

What we really spend time learning…

• Domain• Local code convention (i.e. idioms used at one

place versus another)• UI frameworks (i.e. whatever flavor of the

month MS is selling us now…)• Corporate/delivery culture – who can I piss

off? How much can I push back against bad technical decisions? etc.

Will I be obsolete by 40?

Over 40 = End of Career is Way Overdone…

• If you were in your 40s in the 90s, it meant 20s in the 70s.

• How large was the software development industry in the 70s? (i.e. before PCs, Internet, Minecraft).

• Many either “call in rich”, get bored of coding, or donate brain and enter management.

• Not saying discrimination doesn’t exist...

What about the next recession?

We already had our worst recession

• 1995-1999: .com bubble + 2000 fear = programmers rule.• 2000-2001: oh crap, we hired way too many programmers. And we

are out of funding.• 2002-2004: conventional wisdom; programming is a dead end job –

avoid like plague.• 2005-2007: Tech becoming cool again (Google, Facebook, “Web

2.0”, etc.).• 2008-2009: Global financial crisis. Tech recession proves not near as

bad as 2000-2001.• 2010-now: Signing bonuses, beer @ office, massages @ desk, dogs

@ work make their return.• Now-future: ???

Demography is our friend (if you are a candidate…)

In 2010s, Baby Boomers are retiring

• Currently 48-68• Starting to retire

now… and will continue to do so en masse over next 20 years

• We are likely already feeling it…

After .com Bubble, Far Fewer CS Grads

Source: http://brucefwebster.com/2008/03/05/the-decline-in-computer-science-students/

Tech Unemployment Rate?

3.3%as of September 2012

What if I’m wrong?

Recession Proofing Your Career• Don’t be an asshole. Be a drama reducer, not a drama creator. It is

easy to lay off that guy who is always stirring up things for no good reason.

• Don’t be that guy who only networks when they need something. Network when you don’t need it. Help others get jobs.

• Understand the path from the customer to your paycheck. Be in that path.

• Differentiate yourself. Be the go-to person.• Learn strategically. Be an expert in a few very durable/ubiquitous

technologies, versus trying to be a generalist in everything (think T style skill set).

10 Technologies to Learn that will Guarantee You Success

• One IaaS Platform –OpenStack, AWS, Azure, etc.• One Functional Language – F#, Clojure, Scala• JavaScript• Pick 1 - git or mercurial• Pick 1 - HTML5 or iOS/Obj C• One MVC Framework (ASP.NET MVC, FubuMVC, whatever…)• Several NoSQL databases at surface level, one or two in more depth

(Mongo, Riak, Neo4J, etc.)• REST at a deeper level than “uh, using http with verbs and stuff”• Hadoop• Machine Learning – i.e. Stanford machine learning online course + all

the pre-requisites

Technologies I Actively Avoid Learning

• SharePoint.• Developer control tools – i.e. TFS.• Anything touted that promises “here is a tech that will help

you avoid those pesky programmers”.• Most languages sponsored by large software companies, with

a few notable exceptions (F# and C# mostly).• Flash, WPF, Silverlight, and other proprietary or native front

end technology not on a phone that has over 10% market share .

• “Enterprise Technology” – i.e. that tends to be purchased by large IT groups and forced on end users.

Reasons we should be proud of our occupation…

Things We Brought To Workplace

• Casual Friday (sometimes too casual…)• Foosball in the Office• Working from Home• Stock Options/Signing Bonuses for Non-

Executives• Beer as a Work Aid (not yet at all employers)

Things we really should be afraid of…

We should fear…

• Becoming overly “post-technical”• Chasing $$$ when we should optimize for time• Becoming boring people who only talk about tech and

don’t relate to other people• Forgetting to take care of ourselves, given we work in

very sedentary careers• Letting success get to our heads – we really have it

easier than many other occupations• Not using our capabilities to make the world a better

place

Thank You

@AaronEricksonaaron.c.erickson@gmail.com