jsync | Java Staffing Specialist

Top 7 Reasons To Be Thankful You Are A Java Professional

11/16/2005

by Dave Fecak

Thanksgiving is not about turkey, it’s about being thankful. In the spirit of the holidays, we gave the jsync Recruiter a break this month from the resume and interview tips in order to remind our network why we should be thankful. Here are our Top 7 reasons:

1. Community – With over 600 Java User Groups worldwide and over 150 registered in the U.S. (and the local group ranked in the TOP 25 worldwide!), Java developers are among the most passionate and loyal technologists. Sun is making incredible efforts to get the community involved with helping to create the future of Java by ‘open sourcing’ code and bringing people together with sites such as www.java.net. And today at noon Pacific time the Sun Developer Network Channel goes live. Sun claims the Java developer community is now 4.5 million strong!

2. Demand – In jsync mailer #7 from February of this year, we reported that the word ‘Java’ was ranked as the #20 search term on Monster.com. As of June 30, 2005, Java is now ranked #9 on that same list and it is still the first technology-related term on the list. SAP is a distant second and C# and .Net are #31 and #32. What does this mean? Recruiters and HR professionals are looking for Java pros. Be thankful that your skills are in demand!

3. Inexpensive – With open source on the rise and software vendors battling for market share, a Java pro can get most of the tools he/she needs for free! Sun (to name one) is giving away their IDEs, and anyone can certainly download application servers, modelling tools, frameworks, etc. for their development needs. What other programming language has all of the necessary tools of the trade available free of charge?

4. Get P-A-I-D! – It is no secret that salaries and hourly rates have bounced back since the market crashed a few years ago. We at jsync put our research into our salary survey of 2004 . There have been several surveys on a national level that show salary information for Java professionals in relation to other technologists, and in most of those Java comes out on top.

5. The Drama – Why waste your time watching pro wrestling or Jerry Springer for your daily dose of drama? Simply go to TheServerSide and check out any of the threads – “Will .Net take over Java EE?”, Sun vs. Microsoft, Sun vs. IBM, ad nauseam. They read like the tabloids! The most entertaining of these seem to be The App Server Wars (benchmarking studies are particularly interesting), especially when JBoss and BEA or IBM are involved. A recent classic example was a battle entitled ‘Is Ruby Replacing Java?’ (spoiler: probably not). Passionate followers will always fight battles – see European soccer fans – and luckily the Java wars are viewable online.

6. Underdogs – Everyone loves an underdog, especially in Philly (Rocky beat Mr. T!). In the IT world, the Java may be the ultimate underdog, up against the multi-zillionaires competing for your development dollars. Although Sun and Microsoft have been playing nicely as of late, there will be future points of contention. It’s much more fun being the underdog!

7. jsync – But of course! What could be better than a company that was created to help Java professionals reach their career goals?

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