Recently I received an email from a soon to graduate high school student and a college student both asking for technology career advice. While I miss the days that I contemplated being an architect, carpenter or CPA, I can honestly say picking up technology was the most rewarding choice I've ever made.
Here's the request from the high school student:
"I have to do a research paper on career choices and I would like to choose a career in computers. I like to do stuff with programing and also the actual making of computers. I also like messing around with software and websites with the HTML coding. I would like to know if there any careers that you think I may be interested in that also makes a pretty good salary."
I ended up giving both students the same response:
I can speak to mostly all of those topics but will focus on the trends for the next 5-10 years.
The focus is on or going to be completely on mobile, wireless and media. Companies like Apple, Google and Microsoft are setting the direction for the majority of these. From a programming standpoint you have to look at different levels of abstraction: desktop software, low level kernel or device development, mobile, rich media and web. The key focuses and really the easiest to jump in on are the last two, rich media and web. Phones like the Palm Pre are using web like features. Google is creating an operating system and already has Android phone software that can leverage rich media and web. Adobe has Air, Flash and several others. Microsoft has Silverlight and of course Apple has iPhone/iTouch.
The future will be rich with music, movies and media, apps for mobile devices. These are hot, as are gaming and game consoles.
Unless you are pursuing an engineering degree I would leave the hardware stuff as your side hobby (like me). There's not that much money in hardware, unless you're setting up secure networks, video conferencing, etc. but it's definitely good thing to have experience with.
I always recommend NOT specializing in one key area, unless that key area is incredibly awesome and rewarding. Basically don't just become an iPhone app creator. Try to learn multiple platforms, get a free copy of Linux, read the tech boards, play around with different phones. Google's Android system for cell phone is great and it's only going to get better and bigger, keep a balance of these so that you're always marketable. Also learning Windows, Mac and Linux will make you a valuable asset to any position.
Let me know if you're thinking of anything specific and I can send you some reading. Also you should check our my site
http://www.mrtech.com and follow my rantings on Twitter
@mrtechI hope that this helps someone out there, I can't wait to read this in a few years to see if my predictions were right.
« Last Edit: January 08, 2010, 08:19:21 PM by mrtech »
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January 08, 2010, 11:52:16 AM
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