Are we in demand?

Question

I was made redundant in the end of November. This wasn't because I lacked required skills (although I'm a youngster and in career levels a junior dev - though I knew a lot more than was called for in my job).

Anyway, I was laid off due to the whole recession/credit crunch thing going on. I worked for a small company and money got tight and I had to go. I haven't made a thread about this but I have seen threads about others being laid off and experiencing a similar fate.

This leads me to the question: What is the job market like for developers? Are we in demand? I ask this question on a global level, but I live in London UK (in case anyone comes across this thread from the same area).

I am a .NET dev but my secondary skillset is Flex (actionscript too) and Java, which my personal portfolio is made with. I hope to be strong enough in this to do this commercially, with a few more months of practise. Then I will have more jobs applicable to me. Unfortunately, I use agencies and sites like Jobserve/Monster.com but no new jobs are ever posted on there so when you apply to all the relevant jobs, then what? Whatsmore, a lot of companies are putting a freeze on recruitment.

Thanks

Answer 1

There's a similar question already here on SO, and the answers to that one add up to a simple answer: Yes.

Code still has to be written, systems have to be supported, databases have to be kept running. The economic downturn affects how businesses do their thing, so while there may be fewer opportunities for techies like ourselves (mainly due to our employers folding or cutting costs), the opportunities are still there.

I'll echo another post from a different thread and stress that the strongest tend to survive, so make your skills as top-notch as possible.

Answer 2

Yes, we're in demand. The economic crunch is caused by the (lack of) flow of money between companies, lenders, VCs, etc., not the skills of the workforce.

In fact, with computer science enrollments down since the Dot Com Bubble, there's likely to be even more demand for your skills as time goes on.

Answer 3

Well, just like you, I'm a .NET-oriented young developer living in London too so let me share with you my experiences.

The most important thing to understand is that a recession means bust for some industries but it is actually a really good opportunity for other ones. Recession is bad news for the average but it allows the really talented to shine because there is less crowd. Don't forget that much of Google's growth happened during the dotcom bust.

To be honest I doubt that there are many companies in London actively looking for Flex/Actionscript developers as the marketing industry is one of those industries that will struggle during a recession. So if I were you I would concentrate on my .NET skills for now and once you have a job you can try to convince your employer to do Flash/Flex projects.

That being said, I would be really surprized if a comptetent (.NET) developer (no matter how unexperienced) could not find a decent position in London in 1-2 months. Maybe you will have to polish your CV a little bit. You should probably seek advice from non-developers with extensive CV-writing or hiring skills since very often it's not the developers who do the initial CV screening. Contact the recruitment agencies. Call them back.

Also, the beginning of the new year is usually busy time in software development so there will be plenty of opportunities, don't give up.

Answer 4

There is definitely demand out there.

I worked on a VB.NET project in 2001 at a hosting provider that was using .NET 1.0 Beta 2/3. I was laid off on September 18th 2001. The next four months was the longest period of unemployment in my professional career, and that was when everyone thought the world was ending. Since then I have been gainfully employed without interruption (excepting a week to ten days searching a few times... yes, no more than ten days.)

You mention that you were "made redundant" and that you're a junior dev. Economic pressures do sometimes cause companies to let go the junior people and load up the senior people with more work and less support. I agree with DrJokepu- focus on your .NET skills for now so you can continue to grow that skillset. Keep at it and you won't be junior for long.

Answer 5

I was the victim of the same thing last year and unfortunately December is a poor time for recruitment. HR departments tend to be sorting out the Christmas party and .. making people redundant.

Traditionally things look better in the new year, recession or not.

And I totally agree the people who will struggle to find work are the average ones, not those bright enough to be using StackOverflow.

Answer 6

Talented developers will always be demand, no matter what the economic climate. There will always be a scarcity of strong, talented, 'rock star' quality developers, no matter how bad the economy.

In an economic downturn, often the bottom x% of developers are laid off first (judged either on experience or talent, depending on the company). If you're good, while this may make it harder to get filtered out of the noise to be picked for an interview, it should still make it easy to actually get an offer.

In regards to your particular skillset, I wouldn't necessarily say you have less opportunity in the economic downturn, as others have suggested. At Ooyala(based in Silicon Valley), we're hiring flex/flash front-end developers, and have been for a while, but it's tough for us to find really top notch candidates. However, we focus much more on core skills such as smart, gets things done, strong CS fundamentals, etc. than particular languages (though we do often filter on basic areas of expertise, such as web development).

Answer 7

Jeff and Joel talk about this question in this week's podcast.

They have also both written about this issue recently:

• Joel's response to forum comment: "Thinking of Leaving the Industry"
• Jeff's blog (which he admits was inspired by Joel's forum comment): "Programming: Love It or Leave It"

In summary, yes, as others have said, you're not redundant, and there are some jobs out there, but many companies are tightening their belts right now and cannot afford to employ as many people as they would like to.

It's good to keep watching the internet job advertisements, but keep in mind that most jobs are filled through personal networking, not cold-contacting job ads. So spend your time off by getting involved. Join local user's groups. Contribute to an open-source project. Do some volunteer work. Write in your blog.

Answer 8

I echo the general sentiment that devs will always be needed. What we produce won't go out of fashion for the foreseeable future.

So what to do in the "down times"? It's just like the stock market. When prices are low, it's the right time to invest.

There are new technologies out now that are critically low on qualified people. To name a few: Windows Azure & related technologies, Silverlight, Sharepoint.

I'm sure that there are other, non-Microsoft technologies, but since I work at Microsoft, I'll leave it to other folks to fill in the gaps.

Cheers!

Answer 9

Yes. Good developers are in demand and always will be. Junior developers are also always in demand but you need to be able to distinguish yourself from the huge crowd of people seeking junior dev jobs. .NET / Flex / Java are great skills to have though a bit unfocussed - choose one or two and go with them.

Right now you will find it difficult to get a FT position with the larger companies as many of them do have hiring freezes but that doesn't mean they don't need people - just more short-term contract work than normal.

To make yourself more noticable take part in community events - I was heavily involved in one of the larger MS Server User Groups in Canada and can tell you that they're great places to meet industry contacts while expanding your skills. Add a small bit of code to an open source project or two - it is a great way to learn and contribute.

Answer 10

Did you go to a college or university to complete a program before becoming a developer? If so, then there may be a career services division that may be able to offer positions that aren't going to be in the local newspapers, which is a common answer I'd give for where to go.

If you are going through placement agencies or recruiting firms, then calling or e-mailing them to follow up on an application is definitely worth doing as sometimes it can be that follow-up that gets the ball rolling. Another thought is if there are any career fairs coming up in your area, this may be another place to find opportunities.

I wonder if there are many companies in London with a mixed back-end that have both Java and .Net to support as this doesn't seem to be a common background around here from what I've found.

How did you get your last job? That may be a way to get another one.

Answer 11

I've found that over the last two years, I've had a lot of job opportunities, over the last 6 months the number of them has definetly diminished but that might also be due to me telling the recruiters that I am very happy where I am.

These were high paying senior level jobs as well, and I live in NE Ohio which economically isn't the strongest region. I think what you will find is that there will always be a need for developers, you just might not find your dream job.

Information Systems are so integrated into the business world that there will always be a need to maintain the existing systems. There might be less of a need for new development as companies cut back, but if you look other companies are going to take advantage of this environment.

Service Oriented companies which can reduce the personal needed at a company (Outsourced HR departments), will probally increase in demand as organizations try and trim the fat.

Answer 12

Its not you. Its everybody else!

I was thinking about moving to London around the time of the credit crunch/crisis. I too tried the Monster.com and JobServe route. Mostly I found the UK agencies to be very unresponsive to the automated and e-mail application routes. I didn't even get a response to referrals from Irish recruitment agents to their UK colleagues.

The recruitment agents I talked to by phone were much more helpful. One of them explained that they just couldn't get through volume of applications and CVs they were seeing at the time.

As for some practical advice.

• If you have a strong relationship with some recruitment agents I would concentrate on just dealing with them.
• Otherwise, I would recommend you short listing companies that you might consider working for and apply to them directly. When applying directly be sure to write a cover letter specific to each company. Send it with your CV by normal post as well as e-mail. And try find out the name of the hiring or HR managers.

I usually managed to find a role for good developers even if there was a head count freeze even if it was't for one of my own teams.

Answer 13

It's strange to read all this, since we have 3 open positions (www.52m.be - 2 dev and 1 system eng.) which we can't seem to fill... The next step that seems to be left is use an "expensive firm" and spend 10.000's of money to just find some kandidates... maybe I am looking at the wrong place?

Answer 14

Some background on me:

I'm all self taught. Did a degree in business computing but that is about using IT in a business context and project management. Doesn't really cover programming. I love development. Proof is that my degree was for a business role and I could do that and it would be easier. Instead I have gone into something harder and which my degree wasn't the precursor to. As I am self taught, I have the dedication to get into open source projects etc. I am currently looking for a suitable open source project in C#. I have a lot of projects ticking over - studying for my exams (anything that makes a skilled job easier and gives me confidence is worth it, regardless of employer opinion - I'm paying for this too), working on my own commercial stuff, write algorithms and implementations of classic puzzles like the fibonacci sequence.

I have a list of things I want to learn to progress and be really talented and good at what I do (the programmer matrix webpage assists in this). So I'm never staying still or happy with where I am - even though I'm good enough to do what I do for a living - it gives me confidence that I taught myself a complex skill to a commercial level.

I have taken a lot from the community in terms of support and I want to give something back (by writing articles and small pieces of code too).

I'm not sure what a rock star developer is - whether it is a strong dedicated personality or awesome talent - but I am a certain I have the personality nailed.

I take networking a lot more seriously now, and work on growing it from the few excellent devs it stands at, to hundreds of devs/employers.

Sharepoint isn't a new skill, but the person who made that point is right, people skilled in Silverlight etc are needed.

Java/Flex are my secondary skillset and thus won't be my main stream of revenue/earnings. As a result, I study these technologies less often then .NET - this is where I put in all my effort - as this is what I'm best at and learnt first. Always good to know a bit about other techs though.

What makes things worse is that some dev shops here don't use recruitment agencies so you have to use google to find those companies which isn't very easy.

Answer 15

I managed to get myself hired during the recession by a company that wanted someone to examine their business processes and make sure they were operating profitably. They required someone with development experience because knowledge of how database-driven software works was required to figure out how A turns into C when you were expecting B.

The catch is that I don't do as much programming as I used to. My "development environment" is Microsoft Excel and Visual Basic for Applications. I recently finished a set of spreadsheets to calculate appropriate min/max levels for inventory items and project demand for 2009.

Answer 16

I am a senior dev (java and c#) working in London in the financial markets and from my experience the skills that are always in demand in London are:

• Network programming (sockets, tcp, udp multicast, msmq)
• Concurrent/multithreaded serverside programming
• Real-time GUI

Answer 17

One thing that doesn't get as much recognition as I think it should on SO is that programming is not a level playing field. There are jobs that demand bit twiddling and academic understanding of hardware architectures and algorithm optimisation. There are jobs that require in-depth knowledge of high level frameworks. Some people implement frameworks, some people just use them. And there's everything in between.

I think there will always be demand for programmers. The question is, what kind of programmer. There's millions of people out there who can hack out a Web site. As more tools become available, it seems likely that supply will outstrip demand. Fewer people can construct a maintainable, scalable, novel web application, so that skill is more worthwhile.

I think the secret to employability is to spot a niche, and specialise. There are millions of .Net programmers. If you're one of 20 .Net programmers specialising in Foo Serializer 2009 optimisation, then (assuming there's a market for FS2009) you'll be highly employable.

Answer 18

A List Apart interview/article - dating from dotcom bubble seems quite - relevant to this question. Some excerpts:

My job was supposed to end at the end of January though I’ve been given a stay of execution until at least the end of February. As it is, I’m pretty much the last one off the island. And how have I been dealing with it? I would have to say that the seven traditional stages of grief pretty much cover it: Acceptance (it’s happening to everyone else so it makes sense that it’s happening to me), anger (#$%&! why me?), denial (the market will pick up again soon and all this will go away), depression (I really liked the people that I worked with), fear (how will I find another job if everyone else is looking as well?), and shock (this can’t be happening to me). I’m endeavoring not to get stuck in any one stage for too long.

and Second One

Crisis? I think it is a “settling.” For those who have been in the business for over a decade – this is reality. You had to work hard to get jobs, keep them, charge reasonable rates, and provide outstanding work. People actually do care where and how their dollars are being spent. Now it’s back to the real world. Our office is intact – morale is high – we have an incredible team, based on respect and support. We will get through this time.