If you’re young and sharp, programming looks like paradise. It’s more or less a meritocracy, there’s a ton of personal freedom, and you get to spend your days doing creative, challenging work and getting paid fairly well. In case your situation it’s not like the picture I’m showing you, you can call yourself fortunate because as of today there’s a lot of demand and you can easily change your employer.
But, if you are an software developer (or a computer professional, for that matter), the danger of becoming technologically obsolete is an ever-growing risk. To be an engineer is to accept the fact that at some future time—always sooner than one expects—most of the technical knowledge you once worked hard to master will be obsolete.
Let’s imagine now that your technology knowledge is obsolete; could also be that you just finished you degree and are not proficient in any of the technologies used today by Startups (which are the businesses of tomorrow). How can you bring yourself up-to-date?
What technology should I learn today?
If you don’t have a specific interest in a technology but you want to get up to date, you might want to first know which are most in demand.
Here is a list of most used tecnology keywords (appearing in JobsBCN job-board) ordered by the number of offers containing them:
- JavaScript (201),
- HTML (191)
- CSS (165)
- PHP (144)
- Java (122)
- MySQL (119)
- JQuery (106)
- Python (106)
- AngularJS (68)
- iOS (61)
- Android (55)
- Ruby (47)
- Symfony (47)
- MongoDB (40)
- NoSQL (39)
- Ruby on Rails (39)
- Node.js (37)
- c++ (34)
- BackboneJS (32)
- Objective-C (32)
The list is much longer, ask us if you want the full list.
Join a Startup
The best way to learn a new technology is to join a company and learn stuff there. You can join a small team who doesn’t care if you are not proficient in a specific technology as long as you currently have a background in development, you learn fast and have a can-do attitude. Or you may also join as intern at a bigger company. In case you want to join as an intern/part-time, there’s a number of job openings in Startups in Barcelona that fit into this category. Just check them. Maybe you are not legally an intern but you can always offer yourself to help de company and learn in your way.
Take classes
Code your own project
I left this one for the last. It’s true that personal projects or collaborating in open-source projects are a good way to learn if you have spare time. But the truth is that you have to be very self-focused if you want to try this alternative. You may also learn for the vast amount of resources you can find online. The problem, at least for me, is having the attitude and perseverance to do learn when there are no external forces pushing you to do so.
Want to know which are the most developer Roles in most demand? Check it out in our previous post about the 9 technical profiles most wanted by startups.