A better title for this post would have been “The most in-demand development professionals 2018”, but I found this one more entertaining. Any manager or recruiter who has been looking for a bilingual Java developer recently will understand the irony. This position is pretty hard to fill, especially if you add that you are looking for an enterprise-level Java developer.
Back 20 years ago, hiring programmers was cheap, but you had to pay dearly for languages and application servers. Today you can use Java and Apache “for free”, but developers are expensive and hard to find.
Why are they so hard to find? There are several reasons, but the main one is that Java is the language for which most positions are open. The complete listing for 2018 is as follows:
- Java
- Python
- JavaScript
- C++
- C#
- PHP
- Perl
Now, Java is not only the language for which more jobs are available, that is to say, for which there is more demand from companies. When we put in the “enterprise” variable, things become more difficult because it is one thing to program a stand-alone application in Java and another the current complex enterprise architectures with multiple layers, frameworks, APIs, etc. You don’t learn this in college or at home (as might be the case with PHP or JavaScript); you do this in a large enterprise, which reduces the pool of developers who meet the requirement more and more.
To make things more challenging, let’s add English to the mix. Large companies tend to be transnational with global projects, and many companies place their development centers in Latin America to reduce costs.
So, as in set theory, the intersection of the sets “Knows Java”, “Knows English” and “Knows how to program business applications” is small, and there is a high demand for companies fighting for this select group.
Because of this, my recommendation to any software development manager building a team is not to try to fill all positions with senior Java profiles. Experience (not only mine) has shown that it is good to incorporate more junior profiles into the team. This way, you can incorporate professionals who can learn Java or how to program enterprise applications. This way, you leverage more effectively the knowledge of your senior profiles, inject energy and motivation into the team, decongest a bit the demand for senior Java profiles, and on top of that, you save a few dollars.
Now the search for Java profiles, although still leading the searches, has been dropping a bit, losing ground to Python. Python has succeeded in certain areas, such as big data, machine learning, and QA automation. So it is expected that this trend will continue (although Java developers should not worry, as they still have many years of the favorable market).
Así que si tu empresa tiene pensado en algún momento incursionar en análisis de datos o automatización de QA (en realidad, no van a tener otra opción) entonces no estaría mal empezar a reclutar o formar este talento antes que el mercado se ponga difícil.
Another interesting technique that I have seen in some companies, and that is worth imitating, is that they have independent study centers where they teach Java or other languages or technologies. Usually at low costs and no cost for people with scarce resources or high potential. The gain is twofold; they show themselves to the market as companies that give opportunities to the community (which is true), but also, guess where the best graduates will end up working? I guess I do not have to write the answer.
Finally, when evaluating any programmer profile, programming tests such as those offered by Evalart can help you find the right professional for the job.