kcl 2014 "working in it: (my) past, (the) present and (your) future"
DESCRIPTION
This is a 'career advice' talk that was given at King's College London in February 2014, that was produced by request after an interesting 'cross-polination' meeting between the industry people from the London Java Community (LJC) and London academics. This presentation includes details about my career, some of the motivation for my choices, and then looks at the current state of the programming landscape. It concludes with my predictions for the future of a successful IT career, and recommends potential skills to learn for a productive (and fun) future.TRANSCRIPT
Working in IT:(My) past, (the) present and (your) future
Daniel Bryant (@taidevcouk)
IAT Ltd (@iatltd)
London Java Community (@ljcjug)
Me…
(My) past
My career on a single slide…
1990: Got my first computer (64k memory - booyah!)
2000: Undergrad Computing and IT
– Placement year working for UK Government
2004: MSc Internet Computing
2005: PhD Artificial Intelligence
2008: Freelance Software Development
– Worked for quite a few IT startups
2013: Chief Technology Officer at IAT Ltd
Personal career highlights
Playing with cool tech daily
– And getting paid for it!
Seeing my software used
Travelling the world
Visiting high-profile tech offices
Meeting amazing people!
– Tech legends
My “light bulb” moments…
Large organisations (government) vs startups
Contractors vs "permies"
Getting involved in Open Source Software
Joining London Java Community
– and other User Groups
My “match strike” moments…
Learning the fundamentals
Teaching / public speaking
Taking risks
Choosing to be “professional”
Leading a team
(The) present
Chief Technology Officer
Quite a varied job– Development
– Architecture
– Operations
– QA / Support
– Team Leading
– Presales
– Industry research
– Evangelism
www.fortuityconsulting.com/cto/web-chief-technology-officer-cto-job-description.html
The current state of programming…
Reference: bit.ly/1hCpwCO
Java is dead, long live Java!
(Your) future
What are the “cool cats” doing?
Strong foundations for the future…
Fundamentals– Craftsmanship
– Team work
– “Generalising specialists”
– DevOps (Cloud)
The rise of the “lean enterprise”– Business fundamentals
– “Lean” thinking
If I had to gamble…
IoT and M2M– The next disruptive tech
Big Data– Math, statistics
– Machine Learning
– Programming (Java + Python)
– DevOps (Cloud)
– Infographic design
– Storytelling
In Summary
A career is (maybe) for life… choose wisely
Learn from experience…
Have a serious think about what you want to do
Take action to gain experience
– Work experience
– Internships
– Open source projects
– Anything!!
Software Craftsmanship: leanpub.com/socra
…and learn from others
Engage with the community– Join User Groups
– Talk to like-minded people
– www.meetup.com/Londonjavacommunity
Take part in hackdays– Take advantage of free teaching
– The London tech scene is amazing
Find mentors
– www.meetup.com/grad-dc
Thanks for listening
Contact me:– @taidevcouk
– www.linkedin.com/in/danielbryantuk
”Chuck Norris Doesn’t Do DevOps…” (7pm 13/03/14)– www.meetup.com/Londonjavacommunity/events/168168722
Thanks to – LJC (www.meetup.com/Londonjavacommunity/)
– www.recworks.co.uk & www.epoints.com