Eventually you have to pick something and stick with it

eSenpai

UnixGuy wrote: »

specialising in mainframe is no excuse not to have working knowledge of the storage, backup, disaster recovery, business continuity, security, and networking involved with Mainframe. There is always room to learn more while being specialised.

Specialisation != stagnation.

It is not supposed to but at the end of the day we are still talking about your average human here. Just because we are in tech doesn't mean that the average "fastest method to get finished. damn the consequences." mentality doesn't come into play inside of tech too.

Not to put too fine a point on it but at one point HP had to have one guy come out to put the part in for my big iron boxes and another guy come out to configure it. They BOTH were quick to tell you, "I don't do software."/"I don't do hardware."
If that is not specialization taken to stagnation then institutionalized then I don't know what is. I finally just learned how to do both myself and have never looked back on being stigmatized for being a jack of all trades.

It works for me and I encourage it wherever I can because it is VERY easy to fall into the specialization trap and not see your own end of days coming. It's happening now actually. I see a lot of Windows sysadmins failing to understand that their jobs are going away & that they might indeed need to learn to be a DevOP or at the very least learn Powershell inside and out since the days of their GUI are numbered as stated by Microsoft itself.

eSenpai

N2IT wrote: »

If you are a legacy developer, then you advertise yourself through agencies, social media, etc. While they jobs are scarce compared to newer technology there are less people who have those skills.

Play your cards right and you can walk into an environment where you make good coin and light responsibilities. AS400's are like a snakes, cut it's head off and it keeps moving along.

I think you kind of made the point of the mainframe argument though. You rightly pointed out that those jobs are scarce. They pay well but for every Cobalt job listed there probably 10 or 20 times the number of UI/UX development jobs waiting to be filled. Cobalt/Mainframes are indeed still used and it does pay well but it is no longer a job that's hiring a lot of people in a lot of places. It is a decidedly niche position where a few people do VERY well. The companies deploying these systems have nobody but themselves to blame though. They laid off or terminated a lot of those positions many years ago and then failed to take the next logical step to move wholly to a new platform.

eSenpai

N2IT wrote: »

I'm confused how is management = Joat

Like Paul mentioned first of all it's a skillset in itself. The best IT manager I worked for knew very little about IT. He was more of a relationship person along with finance and operations management.

Besides that I have met plenty of 1st - 2nd line managers who were specialist before they took on a managerial roles. A lot of times that's what they want a deep understanding of the technology their team is supporting / configuring / developing.

I've never met an application development manager who didn't understanding development, data etc. That doesn't mean they could pass the A+ or N+ exam.

As with all manager evaluations, everyone's perspective will be a little different based on what they feel is a good manager. This unique point is highly individual & could vary within a given department as wildly as it does across silos, organizations, gender and what's going on in Bob's life this month. My point was not about the specialist who went on to become a manager of their silo but about the managers with the responsibility for many silos at once. For my money, the JOAT / generalist is far better prepared for that leap than a specialist and that a manager who has never managed outside of their silo is not as well prepared as someone who has managed across silos. Everyone is different of course and I never said that a motivated person could not learn because they can.

I do completely disagree that people outside of IT should be favored as managers for IT. Again, that doesn't not mean that the great exception does not occur. It does mean that it is the exception and not the rule IMHO. There are a LOT of bad managers out here and many of them made doubly so because they can't even speak the language of IT much less actually assist when it hits the fan.

eSenpai

No, I did not mean that there would be less Windows servers.
I mean that the server to admin ratio is increasing...quickly. This in turn means that there will be fewer admin jobs available.
I also believe that the ability to outsource the admin job(especially at the jr. Windows admin level) is easier than ever and low hanging fruit when one needs to cut costs.

DevilWAH

While deep diving is a valid method to progress in IT, it means you will always be an engineer working on projects, rather than the person planning what projects to carry out. The IT management is not made up at the top level of highly hands on highly specific technical skills.

So if you want to deep dive you are looking at a system/network architecture, and technical team/departmental manager.

While a good jack of all trades may move up to say level 2/3 support and then go in to team management (help desk manager / infrastructure manager) and then from there move up the management side of IT. And we need good management in IT if the skilled engineers are going to best use there resources.

You wont get the highly focuses highly sort after technical roles if you are a jack of all trades, but there are other equally challenging and equally rewarding career paths in IT away from the deep technical side, and they can also begin on the helpdesk.

use the first few years in IT working out what bits you enjoy and what bits you hate. Look for the senior positions that have the bits you enjoy, because that is the stuff you will be good at. Then decided what you need to do, very carefully how much of your personal life you want to give up, what you need to study and how you need to approach your job to achieve it, while still enjoying it all.

paul78

Regarding the COBOL discussions - but according to Tiobe data, COBOL popularity is on the raise over the past few years.

UnixGuy

eSenpai wrote: »

....
It works for me and I encourage it wherever I can because it is VERY easy to fall into the specialization trap and not see your own end of days coming. It's happening now actually. I see a lot of Windows sysadmins failing to understand that their jobs are going away & that they might indeed need to learn to be a DevOP or at the very least learn Powershell inside and out since the days of their GUI are numbered as stated by Microsoft itself.

+1 absolutely!

I myself fell in that trap when I was working exclusively on Solaris...well sort of, I had to skill in Linux and whatever I got my hands on. It's all up to the individual, and it's within our control.

N2IT

Paul78 - Doesn't surprise me one bit. My mother and father (72) hahaha still get hit up by government agencies and large MSP's (Accenture, CSC, Cap Gemini, IBM for COBOL, CICS positions.

It's almost comical how many times they get pinged. I'm not saying there are ton of these jobs, but my mom (and any COBOL dev) can stay employed at a high wage for as long as they want current state.