A lot is said about which IT skills are most needed by companies. There are quite a few surveys about the hottest tech skills. But are they accurate?
The Enterprisers project has talked with a few IT leaders about the talent skills they need the most. On the whole the trends are confirming. Mobile, security, network, cloud are among the most cited.
Mobiile, securty, cloud
The notion that most of these skills are still very hard to find, also stands. But there are some smaller interesting details. They give us a glimpse about the future trends. Chris Huff, who is VP, mobile & consumer app development for The Weather Channel, says the mobile is experiencing a shift in 2017. He says he need mobile app developers who know both Android and iOS, but also additional tools and languages like Swift. They go along with new techniques like Reactive which change the development process. The change is happening faster than the devs can work to improve their skills.
Stephen Gold, CIO of CVS Health, says his company is “laser-focused” on attracting and retaining top security talent. The company relies on its vast network of offices all over the world. This makes finding top talent a bit easier and has fostered a virtual setting in company culture which helps remote work easier. It’s also why security is even more important.
In 2017 the cloud is vastly bigger and different compared to a few years ago. Now it’s even more diverse and complex. Companies are now more confident to deploy multi-cloud strategies, says Pino de Candia, CTO of Midokura. Among the top skills he points to are cloud migration, data analytics, and of course, security.
Alternative ways
According to George Papayiannis, CTO of Vena Solutions the talent gap is very big and especially in security, it can never be fully closed. The cloud has created a new world which is ever-evolving and fluid. This is why he thinks that only one team in a company can’t be always on top of this. So, he recommends hiring third-party security firms to test and validate the infrastructure.
Miguel Blanco, CIO of Global Experience 360 doesn’t view the problem as big. He says he most often runs into individual shortages rather than IT skills gap. This is why he wants his IT management and HR teams to plan and define proper trainings for the individual workers. “I realize the downside is that ramp-up period, but the wait time, if properly managed, is worth its time in gold in terms of team cohesion, productivity, and future potential”, he says.