General Discussion

What’s information technology have to do with anything?

People have seemingly substituted IT for tech jobs.

I am not surprised IT is seeing an uptick in unemployment when so many people entered the field after taking 16 week courses or getting a few certs. IT professionals span the full spectrum of skill level. From guys with masters and even PHDs who can program in several languages, to guys who got a network administrator certificate that allows them the knowledge to answer questions at the help desk and core load a computer, or keep servers running. And data centers have a lot of tasks that are being automated too. But the IT professionals with high skill and for the most part degrees are not getting laid off.

One of the most brilliant people I know is in IT and he’s smart enough to recognize what AI means to his career and is working to leverage it to his advantage. But even he knows he needs to keep adding skills.

And I have a ton of respect for IT, I deal with some extremely skilled and helpful IT folks who have to solve really difficult problems all us aerospace engineers are creating for them by tinkering with everything to do with technology all the time. “You did what to the what now? Why the hell would you do that?”

But I think the bigger point about AI is pretty valid. The “learn to code” meme has puzzled me for years now, as if learning a coding language alone was some guaranteed career success. It’s a start, but I think most tech workers know you have to be a lifetime learner to be successful is such a dynamic industry.