Are programming jobs still in demand? Let’s talk about that today.
Again, the question was, “Are programming jobs still in demand?” Well, the short answer is, absolutely they are, but today, things are getting a bit more competitive. Back when I started out it was quite common for a programmer to understand and know one programming language and that would be enough to get them through almost their entire career.
Back in the late 70s and early 80s, when I was starting, I know that sounds like a long time ago, COBOL and Fortran were the two programming languages. So if you knew either of those languages really well, you would have a solid career, and have lots of options available to you as a programmer.
These days in 2019, you need to be a little bit more multi skilled and have your eye on the future. You can’t really just close the closet door and just sit there, sit back and know just one programming language and never be prepared to learn something else. In other words, you need to keep your skills current to make sure that your ability to get jobs is going to be there for the future.
What I recommend you do is certainly learn the basics first, and if you know a programming language, a popular one like Java, Python, C++, Go, or something along those lines, then that’s a good start but I would recommend doing also multi skills. I’d learn some frameworks as well, and also try and learn more than one programming language. Now, that’s not to say you need to spend 24/7 on this. You don’t need to go nuts and spend 6 hours a night or anything of that nature, but it does, investing in yourself is really important for your long term career. The more time you invest in yourself, and investing in yourself is learning different programming languages, frameworks, and those sorts of things. So the more you do that, the greater the likelihood that you’re going to succeed and have options available to you if something changes because the thing to remember is moving forward, technology is advancing at a rapid pace. You really can’t just pigeonhole yourself and have just the skills in one programming language and not be prepared to change. You certainly can do that, but you got to limit your future career opportunities by doing that.
So I would learn a couple of programming languages, and have a look at the areas that you’re focused on. If you’re an existing programmer, maybe you’re writing mobile apps for the Android platform, as an example, and maybe you’re using Java, and that’s great, there’s nothing wrong with doing that, but could you learn Kotlin as well? Could you learn that as a second language? Or if you don’t want to learn any more about Android app development, maybe you can look at iOS and Swift and trying at those skills just to diversify a little bit, and knowing that that’s going to be more valuable to an employer when they’re looking through your resume. Or maybe you can start looking at other areas just to hone up your skills a little bit to make sure that you’re ready to go.
Basically, what I’m saying is that the more you can learn without going nuts, I’m not talking about learning 20 programming languages, but if you got two or three, that’s gonna really make you a more versatile, ultimately, make you a much more employable person, and that’s gonna really increase the likelihood of a long career and obviously also make sure that you get really well paid.
I hope that helped. If you’ve got any questions, feel free to leave a comment, and I’ll get back to you.
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