is ruby killing your career?

I’m probably at the point with Ruby where I consider it my programming language of choice (I program in both Ruby and C++ in my day job).

Over the last few years I’ve kind of grown to love Ruby but I’m not really one to get passionate over someone else’s choice of programming language – apart from Java, which, I’m sorry, I hate. However, when it comes to employment, there is no doubt in my mind that being competent in a particular programming language can strongly influence A) getting an interview and B) getting the job.

This is why ruby developers, like me, are killing their career. Sure Ruby is cool and Rails is awesome but do a quick check on job boards and see how many people are looking for a ruby developer. Actually, let me save you the time I’ve done some of the work already.

I’m not claiming this to be scientific in anyway what-so-ever but it does warrant some thought. I only searched using the programming language as a keyword, which, I know, may not give the full story but should convince you there is some merit in the point that I’m trying to make. Additionally (and I suppose somewhat importantly) my search area was restricted to Scotland.

First up I carried out a search on s1jobs.com. The table below gives a summary of the results:

Language Number of jobs matching keyword
Ruby 3
Java 18
C# 26
C++ 9
PHP 7

I then tried a cwjobs.co.uk:

Language Number of jobs matching keyword
Ruby 2
Java 35
C# 45
C++ 45
PHP 4

As you can see, the job prospects for Ruby developers here in Scotland are somewhat dire. Sure, people don’t always look for a particular programming language when employing someone (which is a decent policy) but, as I said above, it helps a lot.

I decided to take my crude search a little further as I thought “Hell, there will be waaaaaaay more cool Ruby jobs in London”. Below we have the results, just cwjobs this time:

Language Number of jobs matching keyword
Ruby 57
Java 792
C# 838
C++ 611
PHP 196

That was kind of disappointing! Ruby still doesn’t do that great – even worse when you realise there were over 200 that mentioned Perl and 150 Python. By the looks of it if you want to maximise your chances of getting a job in the UK, and already doing Java or C# in your day job, you’d be better off learning C/C++ in your spare time.

Is all this going to stop me coding in Ruby? Probably not. Is it worth thinking about for a minute? Yes sure. If I was starting my own company and was hoping to get some developers in then I’m likely to be faced with a problem. Yes you can train people up, but that costs time and money. When they leave it may be worse, as the chances of finding replacements at the required skill level will be difficult. Finding a Java/C#/C++ programmer is bound to be far easier.

So is it all bad news for us Ruby developers? Well not if you plan to move to California – yeah yeah I know I’ve went on about it before. I’m not exactly sure of the popular job boards in the US so I went with the only one I knew off the top of my head, careers.stackoverflow.com. The results for the Bay Area are as follows:

Language Number of jobs matching keyword
Ruby 27
Java 33
C# 10
C++ 23
PHP 17

Maybe this was a skewed sample set but impressive all the same. So moral of the story is if you want to be a well paid Ruby hacker make sure you don’t stay in Scotland :-).

what’s it like in silicon valley?

As a computer geek Silicon Valley can almost be seen as the point around which our world spins. For those that haven’t been there I can’t recommend enough heading out to see what all the fuss is about. I mean forget that the climate is, well, pretty fucking special and that cycling to work (in any season) doesn’t mean making sure everything you buy is windproof and waterproof. What blew me away most of all was the staggering number of tech companies.

Within walking distance of my accommodation there was a Yahoo!, McAfee, Cisco, Intel (this place seemed to stretch for miles), not to mention hundreds of other smaller tech companies scattered around the area. If you can’t get a job as a developer in the Valley then you must really question your hygiene.

So is there any chance of this sort of thing happening in this country (the UK) or in particular Scotland? Ehhhh, no chance. Why?

Well I don’t claim to know exactly why, in fact, I admit it’s somewhat of a guess. One thing that I’m certain matters is the number of people who are studying computing at university. In recent years this number has plummeted. For me this is a key point. Until you have got talent, and lots of it, pouring out of universities there is no chance that the Google, the Microsofts and Facebooks of this world are going to even consider a small office, never mind a campus. It’s just not worth it.

There is also a different mindset amongst the graduates here than there is at, say, Standford. It’s just staggering how many undergraduates are considering coming straight out of collage and starting their own business (Startup School was just full of them). It’s ingrained into their psyche. I’d almost guarantee you that if I went to a lecture theatre full of final year students here in Glasgow tomorrow and asked how many are seriously considering starting their own business I’d be able to count them on the one hand and have four fingers left over.

Most students will be happy getting a job at JP Morgan or some other mundane banking establishment where you are simply a cost centre.

This is a vicious circle as the reason that Google, Yahoo!, Twitter, Facebook (to an extent) all have large campuses in Silicon Valley is because this is where they were born. So without this embryonic growth pattern it’s hard to see how places like Scotland can create and attract these large software companies. The fact is the talent is just not here in sufficient numbers. To get the gist of the situation, just ask yourself how many people in your current job are really really smart and productive, it will be low, now imagine how you get 500+ more of them.

I hate to be knocking us as a nation but something has to change and it has to be BIG for there to be any hope of being part of this technical revolution. Or maybe that boat has already well and truly sailed.

observations from academia

I’m going to sum up this post before I’ve barely started it: only pursue a career in academia if your goal in life is to fill out grant applications forms.

Academia, in the UK at least, is going further and further down the line of basing performance of academics on research grant filling stamina. Teaching, and student satisfaction are easily second and third in the list of contributing factors to the success of your academic career which I think is wrong. In actual fact these points are so insignificant in the sliding scale of your career at a university it’s almost worth not even stating they contribute to your career at all.

I’m lucky, I’m only a default academic in that I’m doing a post-doc but have no plans to pursue a career in this beyond the completion of this work, but looking on in from close up it certainly doesn’t look pretty for the future.

So what can we do about this? Honestly I think that the problem has maybe gone to far down the line for any form of redemption.  However, the only people that have any chance of halting this trend are the actual students.

Students hold the power at universities they just don’t use it effectively. Their power arises from the fact that their fees pay for the running of a university. Economics states that if less students apply for specific courses then that department has less money. Student numbers are *key* to an academic department. The fewer students, less money, and less lecturers, it’s as simple as that.

If a department can correlate a reduction of student numbers to bad teaching practices then maybe something can change. Maybe this is all a bit idealistic, I don’t know.

I’m not sure if their are any social networking tools out there at allow students to rate lecturers in such a way – I expect their is. However, looking out from the inside, there use is largely being ignored if they are. Maybe someone can change this. I’d like to think so.

it’s easy to live in perfect hell

Just the other night I was watching a video of a live music performance on YouTube of my favourite band of all time Manic Street Preachers. While watching I observed how young they looked in the video. It then struck me how I remember the era when the video was recorded as if it were yesterday. The only problem is that it was nearly 13 years ago!

I’m pretty sure that I had many more ambitions and hopes back then – I would have been around 18-19 at the time. Certainly over the years my hopes and ambitions have changed. For better or for worse? I’m not sure.

There are things that I knew I really wanted. One of them was to attended university, my parents never forced me into this, I simply wanted to go (I was the first person in my family to do so). During my 4 years at uni I became certain that I wanted to do a PhD. However, by the end of my 4th year, the only real post-graduate opportunity was at the University of Bath, and I wasn’t really interested in moving. As a result, I ended up taking a job at OKI. The week after accepting the job, I was contacted by someone at a local children’s hospital about an opportunity to undertake research for a PhD in 3D modelling of the eye for the early detection of certain diseases in children. I turned it down. I thought to accept it would be unfair on my new employer.

After working at OKI for a year I moved on to work with at Cisco Systems. Eventually after 3 years at Cisco (the last year being pretty miserable, but I was kind of holding out for a possible redundancy payment) I got made redundant. As it happens, just before I got made redundant, I had applied for a PhD position in the area of algorithms, and was fortunate enough to have been accepted (I ended up obtaining a really great supervisor and was glad I held off). So not only did I get a pay off as part of my redundancy, I also had been accepted for my PhD prior to being made officially redundant. Sweet. Persistence pays off.

So, why the life story I hear you all say. Well, it was basically to illustrate the point that if you want something, you really need to go and get it. During my time at OKI and Cisco I had become stale – you just settle in and accept what is coming to you. It was rare when I tried to force what I wanted in those jobs – and in actual fact when you did, you were usually met with resistance. When you meet this resistance to ideas it is probably the time to move on. In large companies you have too many people protecting their own jobs.

Now, what exactly is the relationship between what I’m saying and the music video? Well if the band in the music video has aged that much, then I have to – despite the fact that it doesn’t quite feel like I have! And I think the older you get the less likely you are to make bold moves in your life. But you shouldn’t let this happen. You should always have goals, if you don’t believe me, believe Seth Godin.

I often find myself writing/talking about poor management and poor working conditions. However, it’s not just me, with the increase in the number of blogs and social network sites, people are finding it easier than ever to express their opinion. It’s not too difficult to find people saying: “I need two monitors and a Herman Millar chair”, and “My manager doesn’t have a clue how to do his job”. The thing is, many will be like me, that is, they have never been a manager and never owned a company. Both myself and others have a total barefaced cheek to criticize something we have no experience of, but it also shouldn’t stop us.

So, this brings me round to my point. If we are going to complain about, our managers, our co-workers, or the company we work for, then maybe we should get off our arses and do something. Stop sitting about telling people how things should be done or moaning that nobody listens. The cost of doing something for yourself these days in minimal, so if we all really believe that we can do things better then do something about it. This is what moves society and technology forward.

Not everyone is going to read this and think “Yeah let’s do it”. You will have the folk who say “It’ll never work”. You just have to ensure that you don’t surround yourself with these people – I’m not saying ignore advice here, as you may genuinely be exploring something that is never going to work, but ignore advice from those who say a lot but do very little. It will be the same folk that say “He was just lucky with that business”, or “I could have done that”.  Their procrastine nature will only dampen your enthusiasm.

Surely there can’t be a person who is happy to live in mediocrity? The only glowing benefit of Capitalism (and it’s the one that allows it to beat all other systems into the ground) is that it promotes the bettering of oneself and in turn society in general. It’s easy to mistake Capitalism for greed, but they are two different things.  So if you find yourself hit by the credit crunch and unable to find work, moaning about your job, or moaning about how everyone else appears to be making all the money, stop it and try to do something positive. I’m not the only one saying this. The legendary Paul Graham wrote and essay about it and many people who own their own software companies are saying sales are as strong as ever.

Just remember “Libraries gave us power, and then work came and made us free”.

nonsense job adverts

I’m not currently looking for employment, but last week I was browsing the job adverts on a certain web-based recruitment site. One of the first adverts that I looked at had a description that went something like this:

We are looking for a web developer whose skills include the following: Java, Perl, Ruby, Python, HTML, XHTML, CSS, JavaScript, and Flex.

Exactly what language is their product written in? Is it all of them? I mean for god’s sake what a ridiculous, unreasonable and unobtainable set of requirements to be looking for. This was not an isolated incident though, there were a few adverts that contained this kind of nonsense in them – they were usually looking for someone with 2-3 years experience into the bargain. So, who applies for these jobs?

It may be someone who thinks they know each of these things inside out. But, forgive me if I’m wrong, I’m willing to bet that no such person exists – especially in their target audience. Any candidate who says they are experts in all of these things would have me suspicious right away.

Next, we have the folks that think: “Screw it, I only have a few of those skills, but I’m going to go for it anyway”. For me, the alarm bells would be ringing about the type of company that creates such a poor job spec. However, the person applying may be desperate. Now, given that that are unlikely to obtain many people applying for the job with the complete array of required skills, and presuming they actually want to fill the position, they are going to have to accept someone who is less qualified.  So, is possessing only two of the required skills enough to get you an interview? Or is there one skill in particular, say Java, that they are really looking for? If this is the case then JUST SAY THAT ON THE JOB SPEC YOU MORONS. It’s not that difficult, here, let’s give it a go:

Knowledge of Java is essential and experience of dynamic languages and web technologies will be looked upon favourably.

The companies core product must be written in some specific language, does it not make sense to promote the need for this skill? I cannot imagine any organisation creating a product with this myriad of technology. It’s just absurd.

So what are these companies achieving with job specs containing such utter nonsense? I don’t know. If my previous observations are valid, then it’s stupid candidates that think they know everything or people who are desperate. Is that a good thing? I think not.

I have never applied for a job through an agency, or website like this, but I know many who have – often you have no idea who the employer is before you enquire and I hate that (for fear of it being a bank). It is my personal opinion that it’s better to look for a job on, say, a companies website rather than through an agency – it takes a bit of work to identify companies in your area, but it’s worth it in the end. If a company can’t be bothered updating their website to include their latest job advert, they they probably ain’t worth working for; it’s either laziness or bureaucracy preventing this them putting it up, either way, they are probably best avoided.

Enough of the company bashing though. There is one other thing that I would like to talk about in more detail, and that is the candidates. In the past year or so I have heard a few “interesting” stories about people who have showed up for interviews at various companies. I would like to share them with you.

The first is about some dude who turned up for an interview at a rather large web-based company that sells, well just about everything these days, in a pair of denims and a running shoes. I mean what in the face of this Earth would make you think that dressing in this manner was how you go about getting a job. I’m all for dressing casual, and I wouldn’t work for a company that made me wear a shirt and tie to sit at a desk writing code, but it’s an interview for the love of god, dress appropriately.

In another incident a young fellow turned up for an interview and when asked why he wanted the job he said that his Mum had forced him to go to the interview. I was astounded when I heard this – I did piss myself laughing though. Maybe he just didn’t fancy the job and was too nice to say this. I must admit, though, I have done something similar: basically, I was asked if I would go and “talk” to someone who was looking for a developer, and as it turned out, I didn’t want the job, but the guys were so nice, I found it difficult to tell them I wasn’t interested (the work they were doing was simply “not my thing”). I ended up stringing it out for several interviews, I even answered my mobile phone in the interview (I had a legitimate reason mind you), and they still invited me back. This nicely brings me onto my last, and most recent, story.

Only a few weeks ago a friend told me about a guy who had turned up for an interview and when they went down to greet him he was on his mobile. Not only did he not hang up, he put his hand up to their faces and said “I will be with you soon” and continued on with his phone conversation. As far as I’m aware this conversation was of no particular importance, and as he had applied for the job (in my case I hadn’t), so you have to assume that he wanted it. Hardly the way to go about getting it.

Anyway, I’m always interested in hearing about the stupidity of candidates and employers, so feel free to leave your stories in the comments.