IT Career
Posted : November 3, 2005 at 12:15 pm [America/Los_Angeles]
Where are you headed in your technology career? If Shakespeare is correct in his renowned soliloquy on the seven phases of life in As You Like It, you stand to lose your sense of taste, your eyesight, and your teeth. Life moves quickly for the technologist: one day, you’re a reticent rookie whose broken code generates core dumps; the next, you are the center of attention and the slickest talker in the design review session. But ultimately, you fade into old age and fall apart like some antiquated IT system: a curious relic with no value and in need of maintenance…The prospects aren’t good in the long run. Shakespeare’s comical, mocking tone is a wake-up call to stay young and vital, retain your position as soldier or justice, and keep your teeth. Granted, in every career, and in life itself, obsolescence is inevitable. But technology careers progress far too fast, and the eventual derailment needn’t happen so soon. Oblivion is avoidable (or, more realistically, can be deferred); if you are in the seventh phase, you got there because you lost your edge. The reason technologists fade so quickly is that they stop practicing their craft. They stop writing source code, they stop modeling systems in detail, they miss the paradigm shifts and use dated jargon, they brag about the old days, and (I have observed) they break their ties with the young development community. They fly at 30,000 feet, as you will hear them say often, alongside executive stakeholders.
- “Avoiding Oblivion in Your Tech Career”
An article that I will strongly encourage everyone in IT profession to read and learn from.
- Anand
Category: IT and Business Trends |
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