Day: February 13, 2018, 11:51 PM

Juniors

Chill Uncategorized

This article is about junior developers, but could equally well apply to my IT field, too.

In infrastructure and related, the job market for junior people basically does not exist any longer. It’s been cleaned out. Obliterated. Outsourcing to (mainly) India and automation has made it disappear. Every day, there are fewer and fewer paths up from the swamp of help desk and consulting to senior architect and designer type roles.

If I were starting out in IT today, unless I had a flashy degree from a well-known college, I probably would not make it.

This is actually good for me now. I am senior, competing with far fewer people than I otherwise would be in the market as it was 15 years ago, and my salary increases have by far surpassed inflation for the last 10 years. I have my choice of jobs, generally. But it also means that there is no one younger than 35 on my team, and there probably never will be. There’s simply no one to hire — very few junior people or even mid-level people are available who know even 1/10 as much as anyone on my team, and there is little demand for them.

I have no grand moral conclusions about this. Just reporting what is.

Systems

Chill Uncategorized

I’m trying to get better at this myself, but most people are incredibly bad at systems thinking.

In fact, most people don’t even truly understand that there are systems that interact in multifarious ways at all. Sure, they may make sounds that indicate they do, but in reality, they have no clue and furthermore have no idea they are missing so much.

This is because it’s hard. Which is why getting better at it will give me huge advantages when I need them.

Updoot

Chill Regular-ass Post

Updating software these days is really dangerous.

Chances are, the update will remove necessary functionality, not notify you about the change at all, or with evident disdain inform you that it’s “for your own good.” Or it will install spyware (like Pocket and embedded ads on Firefox) or actual malware that gets to data-thievin’.

There is almost no case where an upgrade improves anything these days.

Now, we’re back to around 1992 levels of usability of software. Peak usability was around 2007 or so. Then, OSes and applications didn’t restrict you overly much. There were only a few hurdles to jump to make things work as one wanted them to function. Customization was easy and possible. Developers wished to help users be productive, rather than restrict them to the One True WayTM (always the developer’s way, of course) of doing things.

If I could use Windows 7 or any major Linux distro from 2007 with Firefox before the 4.0 transition forever, with security updates and have them work with modern technologies, I would. It’s the only environment that cared about me as a user and allowed me to work without obstruction.