Most of us who are in IT industry, thinking about our career that “what do we do next” to sustain in this competitive IT space. The question arises very often “What Next?”. In fact, being an IT professional, I have researched a lot, also had discussion with several experienced techies and came up with below suggestions according to the current market situations for senior technical people. The challenges are multi-fold. Those who don’t grow in ranks in accordance with their age, gets automatically knocked off. I also notice that its Masters who have edge over the Jacks. Those associated with Technology have at-least a road ahead but for support folks, it’s all but over day by day. The pastures are no greener outside and those thinking on entrepreneurship should either be from esteemed institutes of the country or else its extremely competitive outside. Immigration to all nations is becoming more and more difficult. Stock market has peaked and NOT a good time to enter. So let’s see what are the challenges and how to overcome them.

1. Frequent changes in technologies: Back in few years, Cloud, Big data, DevOps, IoT, AI, Mobile apps used to exist in our dreams but today it has become a reality and it is disrupting the IT industry. Infrastructure space is going to be changed upside down and most of the so-called Admins (Storage, Network, Compute, Database) will be things of the past.

2. Employers’ high expectation from employees: Employer expect bit of everything from senior employees. For example, team management experience, latest technology knowledge, expertise in given technology, presales experience, leadership skills, interpersonal skills, Industry level expertise and 100 other skills. Employer wants “Superman” and nothing less than that.

3. Less recruiters for 15+ years’ experience: Interestingly all the job offerings are for 3–10 years bracket and if you have 12 or more years of experience then you will find yourself in not so good situation. Possible reason of this could be billing pressure from customers, workforce aging, hyper automation, higher salary expectation, lack of right skills etc.

Maybe these are some triggering flags that show the present situation of IT. You must be thinking what is the next step for us going forward? How can I remain employable? Here are my suggestions according to the present situation.

1. Be Jack of all: It is very easy to become master of one and obviously it is so important for junior level employees. Techies under 10 years of experience should strive to become master in one technology area whereas for senior folks you need to be Jack of all. Master of one or few rarely helps after 15 years of experience. Database professionals like DBA should have expertise in 2–3 database technologies but after 15 years they should broaden their scope to cover Cloud, Big Data, Infrastructure, Solution design, Enterprise Architecture etc. Therefore, for the 15+ years’ experience people, you must be jack of all and master for most of the trending technologies at least.

2. Always stay relevant and hungry: Most of the senior people are making mistake by not staying relevant or updated. It is very important to make time and invest in yourself to learn new technologies. If you see the resources over web, it is not that much difficult to stay updated. On the other hand, we all are updated with latest jokes/news/rumors/useless forwards via various social media sharing apps/tools/sites. Why don’t you use it for your own career’s benefit? So stay hungry for technology information and dig the web sphere to learn your topic of interest.

3. Use social media to know the latest trend: Social media is the best and easiest way to receive the updates for latest trends in IT industry. Simply, email subscription to some top-notch journals, weekly news, blogs, magazines and newsletters may provide you latest technology trends. You may use Twitter for getting useful insights from bloggers, experts around the world. LinkedIn is helpful to stay connected with your professional network and stay updated with latest technology news, jobs and other shared articles on various industry trends. Try to attend industry events, conferences and technical webinars or join as participants in various global technical discussions over Crowd Chat/Twitter/Hangout or Facebook web events.

4. Come out of your comfort zone: If you are in same project, same team, same company for longer period, that gives you a false sense of importance. It is always advisable that, to know your worth and value in market, you must appear 1 interview in every 6 months. Here the objective is not to switch the job every 

6 months but just to see where do you stand from market demand perspective. Sometimes this might give you desired job break. In case, you find difficulties in appearing for interview then at least switch project, technology so that you get different exposure and learning opportunity.

5. Differentiation matters: Now find out the ways that can differentiate you from others at your experience level. Differentiation can come from top level certifications, Papers, Patents, Books, Knowledge of niche technology etc. Always remember one thing that course or certification alone isn’t sufficient, you need to have on job experience on that field.

6. Set long term goals and find alternative options: Always ask yourself that question usually asked by every employer?

Where do you see yourself in 5 years from now? This would certainly tell you and help you set your long term goals.

Have you ever imagined about a situation where you are asked to search for an alternative job? Do you have any alternative option? What do you do if you are getting pink slip for no reason? How long will it take to get another similar paying job? What other things can you do if you don’t get the job profile of your choice?

7. Take up mentorship opportunities to enable, inspire and empower youth: Doing mentor-ship will certainly help us grow as it connects best talents across individuals, institutes and industry by sharing our knowledge, leanings and experience.

Learning something new at the level of expert in very short time is quiet challenging task. Fundamentals of some area/topic doesn’t help. As mentioned in my article, You need to be superman. This can be accomplished if we do it systematically and give at least 1–2 years time to master it. Typically we expect job offer from Amazon or some top notch company after we clear AWS SA exam with two weeks of preparation or expecting a job from Microsoft after clearing Azure Architect Exam. This is very unrealistic and anyone can guess the outcome of interview. I must say that things aren’t too bad, it is just a passing phase and good time will come again. It is just the adaption to changing scenario which is need of the hour. Those who are still in denial mode on current disruption might have tough time.

“Disclaimer: The above thoughts, opinions and suggestions are my own (personal) and are not related to my employer or anyone else.”

source - https://medium.com/career-relaunch/what-next-after-15-years-in-it-industry-dd7ef47eebe8