I've talked to Brent Marinaccio of the recruiter HotLinuxJobs over the years and recently asked him (via email) what he thought about the job market. He had a few tips that you can certainly use. I noted that it seemed like most Linux and Open Source developers and sys admins were staying employed. He had this to say.
Absolutely. It is a rare occasion when I am working with someone that is unemployed. Most of the OSS developers that I know have remained in a job throughout the recession and into this slow recovery. The use of OSS software continues to expand, thus the need for more developers and admins. We continue to see a talent shortage in the OSS space.
Me: “Any suggestions or words of wisdom on a Linux/OSS oriented search?”
A fairly broad question, so it is hard to get into specifics. But, it is still very important to be active in the community if possible. I can not stress that enough. I have seen it do wonders for individuals careers. Therefore, I always encourage people to get active.”
“What areas are particularly hot... what are not?”
Not sure if there are any of the big OSS languages that are not hot. Of course, there are different levels of heat, but we see growth across the board. Some of the hotter areas include NoSQL related DB's (Cassandra, MongoDB, etc.), Ruby-on-Rails development, and Android related development. That is just to name a few. We have also seen an increase in the interest in languages such as Erlang, Scala and Clojure. These seem to be gaining more and more steam.
“Do you think things will improve/decline over the next few months and why?”
In the short term, I think things will remain relatively the same. I get the sense that companies are holding back a little with the upcoming election. Once some of these uncertainties are out of the way, I think things will improve. Ultimately, the future continues to look bright for OSS developers.
So there you have it. The Linux, Open Source and Android markets are all humming right along and look promising for the future.
