The Cacophony of the 2019 Tech Landscape

This is a guest post from Rishi Malik. Enjoy.

Hello New Developer!

Right now, it’s Q1 2019. And there’s a lot of advice you’ll find out here on the internet. Much of it is good, some of it is bad, but the important thing to note is that these are all points of view from people. From that person to be specific. This letter is no different, this is just my view on what matters. Take it or leave it. In fact, that’s the first point I want to make.

2019 tech is full of voices. Social media, popular blogs, and news sites amplify voices and feelings. This is an awesome thing, but remember that loud views aren’t necessarily right.

What I mean, is that you’ll find points of view on everything. Developers have always loved flame wars, and pointless battles (vi vs emacs, tabs vs spaces). Now it’s “Javascript developers aren’t real engineers”, or “If you can’t code a binary search, you’re a bad engineer.”

Find yourself in all these voices. It’s not easy, and it will take time. But work on what you value, and develop your skills to who you want to be. It’s ok if you want to work by yourself on speeding up a search by .01 milliseconds. It’s equally ok if you want to ship a single page app with a brilliant user experience. Listen to the voices when they help, and ignore them when they don’t.

To help find yourself, focus on finding customers that value what you do. Most of the time, these customers are the people in the company you’re working for. But if you want to do algorithms, find people who will value that work. If you want to work on networks, find companies who need that.

It sounds obvious, but it’s an easy thing to miss when you’re looking for a job, and when you’re evaluating comp, culture, benefits, and offices. It’s also really hard to gauge from the outside of a company.

On that note, remember that the 2019 tech industry isn’t how it will always be. Right now, the job market is stellar. I mean really stellar. In most big cities, you can find a job doing just about anything you want, most of the time within a few days.

This won’t always be the case. It wasn’t years ago, and everything comes in cycles. That’s the 2nd point. Be willing to do things you didn’t think you wanted to. I worked on embedded systems when I started my career. I got into web technology not because I cared about it, but because it helped me get a job in a city I wanted to live. Turned out to a prescient choice, and opened up tons of opportunities I wouldn’t have had otherwise.

The tech choices come in cycles, but so does demand. I said before that the job market is stellar. But some of us old timers have been through the downturns. When you’re unemployed for 6 months because literally no one is hiring. When your choice is between a 50% pay cut, or a 100% pay cut. Be wise, be smart. It’s a great time to be in tech, but plan ahead for the times that are tough.

Finally, my last point is to remember that there is a world outside of tech. It’s hard when you’re in it to see that. When tech was smaller, and more insular, it was easier to remember that this is a job.

But now, tech is everywhere. Apps are everywhere. The internet is everywhere. More people are writing code, building companies, and figuring things out. But, tech is not the entirety of life. Get outside of the tech zone, and connect with people who aren’t in it. It will change how you think, and how you develop code. And it provides a much needed break from the echo chamber that is tech.

Good luck, and have fun!

Rishi

Rishi Malik is the founder of Backstop.it, a company focused on making cybersecurity easy for companies to implement.