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Re: Perl Job Marketability Question - very important for me!

by sundialsvc4 (Abbot)
on Jun 20, 2014 at 14:57 UTC ( [id://1090642]=note: print w/replies, xml ) Need Help??


in reply to Perl Job Marketability Question - very important for me!

If you look at job-requests on Monster and so forth, you will see an unmistakable progression of languages as they come and go.   For example, Ruby-on-Rails is very hot right now.   People are very specifically asking for proficiency in that language; Perl need not apply.   Now, you can’t change the language that a mission-critical system is written in, and it is not necessarily a good thing to have many systems in one shop each written in a different way, but it does happen a lot.

One very-insidious thing that can happen is that someone will come along – someone with authority to spend money – and this person will simply decide that a system needs to be replaced with something that is “–er.”   For example, I watched a very well-known computer company working to replace a perfectly-functional Perl application with a Ruby application.   It wasn’t particularly that the Perl application did not do its job well, as it had been doing for years.   Well, to their credit, they did not throw away their babies, but I have consulted with a great many companies who just had.   “Out with the old, in with the new!” is a very attractive sentiment to some decision-makers, and they decide not only to discard the old application, but also “the old way of thinking.”   This means ... you.   Decision-maker gets a bonus; you get a box.   C’est la guerre.

So, I feel very strongly that you should demonstrate business value to your company, and a willingness to change.   Don’t structure your affairs in such a way that your salary can be tied as an expense to any particular project, especially not an older one, because ... well ... “your salary” is the only expense-item of any meaningful size.   If someone wants to cut $125,000.00 from a project budget double-quick, the fastest way to do so is to lay somebody off who has “older” skills.   If the accountants didn’t tag your project to the profit-making activities that it supports, and if they do not log your contribution to be something other than just “source-code writing,” you are at risk.   You are the million-pound elephant with a big red target painted on your backside.

You should “switch silos” each time you change jobs (or engagements).   Sure, health-care might have been real good to you, so let your next gig be in ... transportation, or carpet-making, or a company in the business of selling supplies to funeral homes.   All of which I’ve done.   (Yup, “chemicals, coffins, and really-creepy flower arrangements.”   And sh*tloads of profits.   People will drop $25,000.00 on a funeral for their dad.)   In each case, strive to be more than just the code-monkey.   If you’re just a programmer of-the-line, then even if you’re a good shot you’re gonna be shot at.   Be visibly involved in the bigger picture.   Take an instruction-manual home for a system you’ve never seen before, and read it.

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