Shelf Life Of A Techie Is 15 Years!

The rate at which technology is changing, older engineers have to put it much more effort to do the same job that the newly trained engineers are able to do in jiffy.   


Monday, November 19, 2012:  Techies are much in demand these days, especially with technology advancements rolling out at a fast pace. But if you think that being a techie secures your future, well, it is time you think again. Unlike other professions, where your years of experience reflect on your increasing capability, sadly, it is not true for techies. 

Commenting on the issue, V R Ferose, MD of Germany-based SAP’s India R&D Labs said, "The shelf life of a software engineer today is no more than that of a cricketer - about 15 years. The 20-year-old guys provide me more value than the 35-year-olds do."

The rate at which technology is changing, older engineers have to put it much more effort to do the same job that the newly trained engineers are able to do in jiffy. And if they take this competition lightly, they are likely to become less relevant for the job. It is to be understood that skills are fast becoming redundant in this age.

There is no more local PC or local servers storing all information. Today, cloud computing has changed the dynamics by centralising IT infrastructure and applications and catering to multiple users over a network, usually the internet.

Things are changing in all fronts. Mukund Mohan, CEO of Microsoft's startup accelerator programme in India also feels that the shelf life of certain developers have gone down by an year. He told TOI, "My daughter developed an app for iPhone 4. Today, she is redeveloping the app to make it smarter for iPhone 5. Five years ago, developers were talking Symbian (the Nokia operating system). Today, it's not very relevant. You have to look at Android or iOS or may be even Windows 8 to stay relevant."  

Source: news.efytimes.com